by Jay Brandon
"So you thought it was cash, not a weapon." "Possibly."
"And a black man with a lot of money just has to be a drug dealer, doesn’t he, Officer?”
Stennett wanted to say it. You could see the words in his mouth. Becky was tense on the edge of her chair, willing her witness to keep quiet, but the cop wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Raymond, at the taunting look in his eyes. And Stennett said it.
"Not necessarily. He could be a pimp.”
The silence was beautiful. Raymond held it, staying on his feet, not asking another question, the conductor of silence. Judge Marroquin was staring at the witness. It was the kind of joke the judge might have laughed at in another context, even have told himself, but in his courtroom, coming from a white cop, it was appalling. Judge Marroquin had been a well-respected member of the community for many years, but a Mexican-Ameri- can man in his fifties would remember prejudice, remember the personal effects of it. As a matter of fact, Raymond knew that as a teenager the judge had been arrested and held in jail for a day just because he happened to be the only Mexican in the vicinity of a grocery store robbery in an Anglo neighborhood. The judge always referred to the incident in talks to juries. He didn’t laugh about it. "Or a lawyer," Stennett said weakly.
"I pass the witness," Raymond said.
Some months later, Mike Stennett Is Identified as chief suspect In the murder of a black man. A surprised Raymond Boudro hears that Stennett wants to see him.
Raymond’s first impulse was to jump up and run out and see if it was true. Instead he kept his seat and told the intercom to send him in. And it was true. Mike Stennett walked into the office. Raymond still didn’t rise. Stennett looked around the room someone had turned into a large office twenty years ago by knocking out a wall between two bedrooms. The office now comprised most of the back of the old stone house.
The desk would have been too large for a smaller office. It was walnut, with a glass-covered top. If Stennett had taken his best leap and stretched full- length across the desk he might have been able to touch the lawyer’s chest with his outstretched hand. Behind Raymond were windows. To his left and right, against the far side walls, were floor-to- ceiling bookshelves. There were a couple of chairs in front of the desk and a large leather couch against the wall behind them. Raymond had taken the desk and the couch in lieu of a fee years ago. They weren’t quite to his taste but they were as sturdy as old trees. His son used that couch for a trampoline sometimes.
"Usually at this point I say 'How may I help you?’ In your case I’m really curious about the answer.”
Stennett didn't like standing like a supplicant in front of that ambassadorial desk, so he sat, which wasn’t an improvement. "You may have heard, I need a lawyer.”
"I’d like to take your money, but you know you have a lawyer. A good lawyer.” The Police Association, the cops' union, kept a defense lawyer on retainer to represent its members in criminal cases and disciplinary proceedings before the Civil Service Commission.
"Yeah, I know. A good lawyer very interested in staying in tight with the union. And I don't know what the union's position on me is gonna be. No thanks. I don’t plan to have to watch my back all through this thing.”
Raymond was intrigued. Why would Stennett think the cops might not support him? But that’s not what he said. What he said was, “And I was the first lawyer you thought of.”
"I’ve seen your work, remember? You’re good." "Very impartial of you. Let’s cut the crap, Stennett. You think hiring a black lawyer to defend you’ll make some jury think you’re not a racist after all?”
"Maybe." Stennett leaned forward earnestly. "You want me to deny it? I won’t. If that helps, swell. But you think that's my main consideration? You don't see me trying to hire Lawrence Preston, do you? I want you because you're as good as there is in this town. And you know the territory; I won’t have to lead you by the hand every step of the way. And if you being black helps me out the least little bit in front of a jury I want that too. Because I'm not taking the fall for this. I didn’t do it and I'm not going down for it.”
At least he wasn't going to admit he did it and expect Raymond to defend him anyway. The lawyer studied the cop. Stennett had cleaned up a little, at least he'd shaved this morning, but he'd need more work to be presentable. Sweat veiled his forehead.
" 'Fraid it’ll cost you business?” Stennett asked. "Or do you have a policy against white clients?” Raymond’s voice stayed cool, as if he were framing a hypothetical problem. "Tell me why I should try to get you off the hook for murdering a black man.”
Stennett came around the desk. Raymond swiveled to face him but didn’t rise, which finally gave the cop the chance to lean down over him. "I’ll tell you why. Because you can win this case. Because this is gonna be a big public trial and the publicity of winning it'll do you as much good as it does me. Because I didn’t do it, and you can prove I didn’t.” Raymond was intrigued again by the repeated denial. His face didn’t show it. "There’s nothing worse than a confident client,” he said.
"I'm no optimist. I know you can do it because I’ve seen you do it. Remember Abner Moses?” "Nah, Stennett, doesn’t ring a bell. Abner who?” The sarcastic tone was because Abner Moses had been Raymond’s biggest case, a capital murder trial that had generated a lot of publicity at the time. Abner had been a small-time thief elevated to the big time when he was charged with killing a cop during a flight from a bungled burglary. The State had had an eyewitness and Abner had had the kind of record that would make the jury’s choice on punishment between life and death easy. Death row was crowded with guys like Abner; everyone had expected him to fulfill his destiny by joining them.
"You weren’t a witness in that case.”
"I watched some of it,” Stennett said. "Of course there were a lot of cops in and out of the audience. Muttering things like he never should've got to the station after the arrest. I think I was the only one who wasn’t convinced. I could picture Abner going in an open window, but I couldn’t see him pulling the trigger on anybody.”
He hadn't. And the jury had reached the same conclusion. If Raymond closed his eyes he could still call up with textured clarity that moment of the foreman saying, “Not guilty”; Abner looking at Raymond puzzled, his life not having prepared him for those two words; Raymond’s palm indented with four tiny slashes where he’d dug his fingernails in so hard he cut himself; the prosecutor, that son of a bitch Frank Mendiola, turning to Raymond with that look of loathing that made the moment even sweeter.
He didn't close his eyes. “Yeah, luckily the jury saw it that way too," Raymond said casually.
"And nobody was even bitter about it, ’cause by the end of that trial they knew they’d had the wrong guy. You didn’t just poke holes m the State’s case, you proved he didn’t do it."
Stennett was looking at him appraisingly, wondering if Raymond still had what he’d had then. Raymond wanted to disabuse him of hope. "That was three years ago,” he said. "Damn few miracles since then. You can’t hope for them. Not too many innocent people get charged with capital murder. Or murder.”
Stennett was untouched. He stared flatly. “I have to be innocent? I haven’t noticed you require that in clients.”
Raymond tried to read him. Was this a murderer two feet in front of him? Stennett looked capable of it. Those hands could do it. Those eyes wouldn’t weep over it.
"This case'll do something for you Abner Moses' didn’t,” Stennett continued. "Where are you? You should be one of the busiest criminal lawyers in
San Antonio. Everybody saw what you can do, and what’d it get you?"
"I do all right.”
""You get your share of pushers and junkies, that's true. But where re the big cases? When some rich boy gets arrested, your phone don’t ring.” "Where do you live, Stennett, comic books? There aren’t that many big cases.”
"But there's some, and you don’t get any. Why didn't Abner put you
over the top? You know why. Because he was a nigger.”
Raymond came out of his chair. Stennett didn’t back up, so they ended up standing almost nose to nose, except that Stennett had to look up. He did so calmly, not watching Raymond’s hands. "Thought I’d go ahead and drop the big one so we didn’t have to live in suspense," he said. "Abner Moses didn’t make you a star ’cause he was black and he was a crook. He didn’t do that one, but that didn’t make him innocent. But you get a cop acquitted, put him back on the force working for truth and justice, that’s something people won’t forget."
Raymond pushed him away. Stennett wasn’t caught by surprise or off balance, so it took effort, but Raymond managed it. Their eye contact didn’t break. Raymond almost wished he’d taken a swing at him instead, when Stennett had dropped the word. But Raymond had been too slow to react, the occasion had passed. It’s the things you don’t do you come to regret.
"You’re not innocent either.”
Stennett looked surprised. "What do you mean?” "What happened to Claymore Johnson?” Stennett made a face as if Raymond had changed the subject to something trivial. "Claymore? Claymore’s in Atlanta.” Raymond, startled, made a
mental note to call Claymore’s mother. But Stennett was going on. "Or Kansas City. Vancouver, British Columbia. Wherever he ran into a big city or an ocean in whatever direction he took off in. He’s not dead, I’m pretty sure of that. The guys that had it in for Claymore, they’re not subtle. They’re not ones to do a Jimmy Hoffa with the body. They’d want it layin’ in the street. Object lesson, you know?”
Raymond looked unpersuaded. Stennett waved a hand at him. "I know. You mean me. I didn’t do nothin’ to Claymore. Except run a scheme on 'im that worked out damn better than I expected. That’s the truth."
He sounded sincere. Raymond pictured him using the same tone of voice in court. He could picture jurors nodding along.
"Sit down,” Raymond said. After a moment’s hesitation Stennett returned to the client chair. Raymond took the one next to it, leaning close. “Now in a minute, I’m going to tell you to tell me what happened. Before I do that you think about it. You know it’ll never go beyond me. You know how lawyer-client privilege works. But let me tell you how I work. I don’t work for somebody who lies to me. You can lie to everybody else on this planet, you can lie to God and your mama, but if you lie to me I’m gonna find it out. I’m gonna investigate the hell out of this thing, and I’ll know what happened. If I find out you lied to me I’ll get you for it. And I don’t just mean withdraw from the case. I mean I’ll ruin you. Y’understand? Now if that condition’s all right with you, you sit there and collect your thoughts for a minute and then start talking. But if it even crosses your mind to lie to me, you get up and walk out now. Now."
Stennett looked at him levelly. He nodded. "That your standard speech?”
“Mouthing off is not one of the choices I gave you. Talk or walk.”
"Jesus, don't go Jesse Jackson on me. All right. So you’re taking the case?”