Her Kind of Case: A Lee Isaacs, Esq. Novel

by Jeanne Winer

  “I think I know what it is. But sure, go ahead.”

  “Was Sam your first real boyfriend? Did the two of you make love?”

  Jeremy nodded, managing not to blush again.

  “Yeah. We had to go to parks because of our roommates. It was okay once it got warmer outside. I didn’t mind. My favorite was Cheesman Park because there were lots of other guys there.” He hesitated. “That’s where Sam made all his money. He was going to quit as soon as we had enough. He told me about this section of San Francisco called The Castro where thousands of homos lived and where we could, you know, be out in the open. I couldn’t wait to go.” He licked his lips, which were badly chapped. “Except I was worried about Mrs. Weissmann. Her family rarely came to see her.”

  Lee made a show of scratching her head.

  “Jeremy, I’m confused. Your roommates killed your boyfriend. Why do you still call them your brothers? Why don’t you hate them?”

  Jeremy tried to sit up, but he couldn’t use his arms.

  “Hold on,” Lee said. “There’s a button.” She pushed it until Jeremy signaled her to stop. He’d used the time to compose an answer.

  “I know it’s weird, but I don’t really hold them responsible. They were just being themselves, like … like a pack of coyotes killing a rabbit. I was the one who was different, the one who should have stopped them. But I just, I don’t know, stood there like you said. And then when Sam was gone, my-my brothers were all I had left.”

  “Okay, it’s weird, but I think I understand.” She made a face. “Sort of.”

  Jeremy almost smiled. For the first time ever, her client was actually talking to her. Revealing his deepest secrets. Would he stop if she asked about the night of the murder? He was obviously innocent; he’d loved the victim. But in order to craft a viable defense, she had to know how it all went down.

  “Jeremy, tell me about the night Sam died.”

  His face immediately darkened.

  “Why? I don’t want to fight this. I’ll take whatever deal my brothers take.”

  Lee sat very still. If they were climbing a mountain, this was the crux move, the one that would make all the difference. They would both either fall to their death or move even higher toward the summit.

  “Jeremy, remember the kid in the poster? The one who had to choose?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, today you’re the kid in the poster and you have a huge decision to make. It’s time to break your allegiance to your roommates. You’re not like them. When they go to prison, they’ll do okay because they’ll be with other coyotes. You, on the other hand, will die there. You didn’t kill your boyfriend. Your housemates did.” She thought for a moment. “You said they were all you had left.”

  “So?”

  “So it isn’t true. Not anymore. You have me and Carla and your Aunt Peggy. You have Mrs. Weissmann. You even have your mother if you can ever forgive her. We all know who you are and fully accept you. We want to help, but you have to say what happened. You have to say it out loud.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” Then she waited patiently, as if she had all the time in the world. Which, in a way, she did.

  A couple of minutes passed. And then for the second time in twenty-four hours, the God of Lost Boys intervened and her client spoke.

  “Okay, I’ll say it.”

  After four long months of waiting, they were finally at the starting line. The words came out haltingly at first and then quickly gathered steam.

  “So-so first we went to this liquor store, but then we didn’t know where to go. So we kind of drove around and then Rab remembered this place on Flagstaff Mountain that had a really nice view. We all said, ‘great.’ By the time we got there, it was getting dark, but the moon was almost full. Rab said, ‘Come on,’ and we followed him up a path to an open area. It was really pretty, like he said. So we sat on the rocks and passed around bottles of Southern Comfort. Sam was sitting next to me, but-but not too close. We were having a good time.

  “Suddenly, out of the blue, Casey jumps up and screams, ‘You’re a fucking cocksucker,’ and runs at Sam. So then, while Sam is facing Casey, Johnny gets up and kicks Sam in the back. Like a lot of skins, Johnny wears Doc Marten boots, which have steel toes and are really heavy. Sam almost falls, but then grabs hold of Casey. He’s obviously in a lot of pain. I’m not sure what to do. I’m just, you know, so shocked.

  “Before I can think of anything, Rab punches Sam in the face and I’m pretty sure breaks his nose. Sam cries out and falls. As he’s falling, Johnny kicks him in the ribs. They’re saying he’s a faggot who deserves to die. They’re in a circle now, taking turns kicking him. Everyone’s wearing boots. There’s blood coming out of Sam’s nose and mouth. I’m screaming but no one notices. They’re all just laughing and yelling, ‘Boot party! Boot party!’ Finally, I reach down and grab his arm. One of his eyes is swollen shut. I try to pull him up, but he can barely move. ‘Come on, you have to get up,’ I tell him. He shakes his head and whispers, ‘leave me.’ I’m crying and then someone grabs the back of my sweatshirt and pulls me away from him.

  “And then, I don’t know, I think I just start to run. I have no idea where the path is. I’m crying and I can’t see and at some point I trip and fall. And then I’m throwing up. Pretty soon, Rab finds me and tells me to quit crying and be a man. Then he drags me up the hill and I can hear Casey and Johnny yelling. They sound really drunk. Rab orders me to stay put and then goes back to them. Casey’s saying I’m a yellow belly deserter, but Rab says, ‘No, he’s cool. He’s acting as the lookout.’ I’m totally numb by now. I’m guessing Sam is dead and I wonder how I’ll go on living without him.

  “So I start like thinking of ways to kill myself. Finally, Rab shows up and leads me to where Sam is lying on the ground. His face is so swollen I can hardly tell it’s him. There’s blood leaking out of his ears. All his teeth are broken. ‘Kick him,’ Rab orders, ‘so they’ll know you’re down with it.’ I shake my head no, but Sam is dead and my brothers are all I have. So I kick him twice and when I do, I feel nothing. I might as well be on the ground beside him. When they finally leave, I follow them to the car. There’s nowhere else to go, so I get in and close the door. We drive to Denver and a few days later we get arrested.”

  He stopped and stared at her.

  “So that’s it. He’s gone and I’ll never see him again.” A single tear rolled down his face.

  For a moment, Lee considered telling him everything she knew about grief—how it comes and stays and threatens to last forever, but then one morning you wake up and realize you no longer feel invaded, that somehow over time it’s been incorporated into your deepest self, bridging the gap between who you were before the loss and who you’ve now become. And so then the last thing you want is to get rid of it, because along with your photographs and memories, your precious grief is all you have left of your beloved.

  But she knew it would sound like gibberish. Long-term grief was a private experience, not a communal one.

  Time passed.

  “So now what?” Jeremy finally asked.

  “It depends,” she said. “What would Sam want you to do?”

  “He’d-he’d want me to go to trial.”

  Suddenly, the room felt bigger. There was a huge influx of oxygen. Lee felt almost giddy with relief.

  “Well, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “I could end up with a life sentence.”

  “You could.”

  “Will my brothers testify against me?”

  “If they get the chance.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s what coyotes do.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sunday afternoon. Lee was lying on the couch with Charlie on her stomach. Ballads, one of her favorite old jazz records, was playing in the background. John Coltrane on the saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano. Her father bought the album in 1963 when Lee was eleven. She loved it from the very beginning and her father fi
nally gave it to her as a present when she headed off to law school in Boulder. It was a major sacrifice because Aaron loved the record as much as his daughter. When her mother died, Lee flew back to Boston with the album wrapped carefully in her suitcase. But the music reminded Aaron too much of his wife and he couldn’t bring himself to play it. And so, after a year or two, Aaron gave it back.

  Lee listened with her eyes closed, remembering the five-room shotgun style apartment in Mattapan where they lived until Lee went to college. There was a box-shaped hi-fi in the living room, and a large murky tank that her father kept filling with exotic fish, though none of them lasted long. “I know you mean well, Aaron,” her mother used to say, “but fish aren’t meant to swim in circles. You’re basically torturing them. Get rid of it.” Her father refused until one evening when her mother demanded a vote. It was a democratic household where all votes counted equally. Her father voted to keep the tank and her mother voted to give it away. So it was up to Lee, who sat down cross-legged in front of the tank, studying its inhabitants. Finally, she sided with her mother. “They never smile,” she explained. Her mother burst out laughing. Lee was nine. Her father groused but eventually got rid of the tank.

  On Sunday mornings, her family listened to music. Mostly jazz, but occasionally opera (which put both Lee and Aaron to sleep). When the music started, her father dropped into his leather chair, her mother reclined on the couch, and Lee lay down in the middle of the carpet. “Now close your eyes,” her mother always said. “So you can really hear it.” Afterward, they would watch movies on television. They all loved Twelve Angry Men, The Bridge over the River Kwai, Ben Hur, and anything directed by Hitchcock. When the movies ended, they drove to the nearest Howard Johnson’s for an early supper. Later, when she described these days to Paul, he was astounded. Hadn’t she gotten bored, the same things over and over? But no, she never did.

  When Lee was six or seven, she asked her parents if they wished they had more children. Both shook their heads. “We scored big with you,” her father said. It wasn’t until Lee was in college that her mother admitted she’d had a hysterectomy when Lee was three. “Early stage endometrial cancer. Nothing to worry about.” And so of course Lee didn’t. But a few years later, when her mother was fifty-five, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer and was dead within six months. After that, it was just Lee and Aaron, two instead of three. And for years, although they never acknowledged it, Sunday was the hardest day. It wasn’t until Lee met Paul that the very last traces of Sunday sadness were vanquished. But then Paul died too.

  These days, Lee hiked, skied, or snow-shoed on Sundays and then she worked. Early this morning, she’d driven up Flagstaff, past the lookout where Sam died, and skied the seven-mile Walker Ranch loop twice. After a shower and lunch, she’d sifted through her stack of records and decided on this album. But now it was time to call Dan and tell him their deal for thirty years was off. She doubted he’d be surprised. In the decades they’d worked together, had she ever truly surprised him? Maybe not, she thought, reaching for her cell phone.

  “I was wondering when you’d call,” Dan answered.

  “I was waiting until everything stabilized.” It had only been three days since Jeremy tried to kill himself. Despite Lee’s request to keep him for another week, he would be transferred back to the detention center on Tuesday.

  “Well, it sounds like he’s going to be fine.”

  “At least physically,” she admitted.

  “So you’re going to renege on our deal.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Because you’ve always been a sucker for the underdog. The moment I heard he’d cut himself, I knew you wouldn’t plead him.”

  “Well, as usual, you were right.”

  “You sound annoyed.”

  “Maybe a tad. I didn’t think I was so predictable.”

  “Well, you are,” he said. “And you’re making a terrible mistake. If you really cared about the kid, you’d plead him out. Instead, he’s going to end up with a life sentence. Is that Coltrane in the background? Sounds like Ballads.”

  “I didn’t know you liked jazz.”

  “I love jazz. Listen, just because he tried to kill himself doesn’t mean he’s innocent. It just means he has a conscience.” He was fishing.

  “That’s one possibility,” she agreed. “Who do you like besides Coltrane?”

  “I love Miles Davis. Kind of Blue is my all time favorite jazz album.”

  “I actually like A Tribute to Jack Johnson better.”

  “Well, it’s a close call.”

  Lee stood up and walked into the kitchen. Charlie, ever hopeful, raced to his empty food bowl and then looked up at her. She shook her head no, but as usual relented.

  As she was opening the refrigerator, she asked, “Have you already started talking to the co-defendants?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because you guessed I was going to renege. What did you offer them?”

  “Second-degree murder, stip to forty-eight, and of course testify against your client.”

  “Will they take it?” Of course they’d take it.

  “They’re not ecstatic about testifying.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. They have scruples.” She was searching in the kitchen drawer for a fork and then stopped. “You’re actually miffed about this, aren’t you?”

  “Well, maybe a tad. I’d much rather deal with you and convict the grown-ups of first-degree murder.”

  “Then don’t deal with them,” she said, closing the drawer. “Convict them instead. You’ll be a hero.”

  Dan laughed appreciatively.

  “And what about your case?”

  “You can beat me without their testimony. Make it a fairer fight.”

  “I don’t like fair fights,” he told her.

  “So you’re going to deal with the grown-ups just to make sure you don’t get defeated by a suicidal, seventeen-year old boy.”

  “Exactly. Do you like Chet Baker?”

  “I love Chet Baker.” She bent down and put a few dollops of food into Charlie’s dish.

  “Me too. Sometimes, when he plays ‘Almost Blue,’ I get tears in my eyes. I’ll tell you what: I’ll go down to twenty-eight years if you take it before the co-defendants plead.”

  “Wow, that’s very generous.” She stood up. “When are they pleading?”

  “Tomorrow at one.”

  “I guess you didn’t think I’d take it.” Christ, he always seemed to be one step ahead of her.

  “You know, I actually do feel sorry for your client.”

  “Then offer him probation and convict the bad guys.”

  “You’ve got a great sense of humor, Lee. I hope it’s still intact after I’ve beaten you twice in a row.”

  God forbid, she thought.

  “Well, tally-ho,” he said brightly and then severed the connection.

  “Ouch! What’s that?” Carla asked.

  Lee reached down into the grass and found a lime green plastic disk.

  “A Frisbee. Chill out.”

  “Chill out? I almost broke my ankle.”

  They were walking across a vast expanse of grass in Denver’s Cheesman Park headed for the white marble pavilion. Both women carried small yellow flashlights. It was the last Friday night in February. It hadn’t snowed for a week, but the grass was cold, wet, and spongy. They wore hiking boots, hats, gloves, scarves, and their heaviest coats.

  “I’m freezing and I’m hungry,” Carla said.

  Lee was too, but of course she wouldn’t admit it.

  “We can get something to eat after we leave.”

  “I vote pizza!”

  It was like dealing with a four-year old.

  “How about something healthier with vegetables?” Lee asked.

  “Oh, don’t be such a killjoy.”

  A four-year old who just happened to be the finest investigator Lee had ever worked with.

  “Okay, I give up.
Next week, I’ll bring a sandwich.”

  “Good.” Carla checked her watch under the flashlight. “It’s almost eleven-thirty. How much longer?”

  They’d arrived at ten—the time when, according to Jeremy, he and Sam used to visit the park—and had questioned over twenty men. No one recognized either Sam or Jeremy’s picture. Each time they approached someone, Lee explained that she and Carla represented a boy who’d been falsely accused of murder. “Would you be willing to look at some photographs?” The men were initially reluctant, but out of curiosity they all agreed to look.

  “It could save our client,” Carla told them, “if you’ve ever seen the two of them together. You know, like romantically.”

  Everyone looked incredulous. Two gay skinheads? Lee merely shrugged. “Hey, love can be mysterious.” Most of the men laughed knowingly.

  Still, the night was a bust.

  When they reached the pavilion, it was empty. Then, something low and fast, a cat or a fox, rushed past their feet, disappearing into the darkness. Carla yelped and then turned to Lee, who was smiling.

  “Oh, fuck off,” Carla muttered.

  They wandered past the pavilion trying to decide which path to follow.

  “There’s a bench over there,” Lee said, pointing west in the direction of the State Capitol Building. “Do you want to sit down for a while?”

  “Actually,” Carla replied, “I’d like to keep going until I drop dead from exhaustion.”

  Lee nodded guiltily. During the week, Carla spent most nights combing the bars along Colfax Avenue, but she’d refused to come to the park alone. Lee could hardly blame her.

  “Do want to call it quits?” Lee asked. “It’s okay if you do.”

  “No, I was just being a sourpuss. We can stay till midnight. And if we don’t find a witness tonight, we’ll just keep coming back till we do.”

  “You’re the best, Carla.”

  “I know. So are you. Are we really going to pull this case out?”

  “We have to. There’s no Plan B.”

  They reached the bench, which was lit by a nearby street lamp. A piece of newspaper cartwheeled by in the breeze.