The Other Shoe

by Matt Pavelich

  “No phone, and about all we ever get in the mail is our book of the month. But, now that I’ve showed up, I sure hope you can fill me in a little bit, because nobody else has.”

  The lawyer, intending to smile, grimaced. “Let me turn the phone off, turn the ringer off so that’s not—you can’t have very much peace with it on. In fact, why don’t I just lock the door?” Ms. Meany turned a dead bolt and led Karen Brusett back to where clutter burst into profusion behind the dividers: law books and binders splayed everywhere on their backs, on make-do shelving. A computer breathed, its cursor blinking on a field of fine print.

  The lawyer, right down to business, folded her hands before her on her desk. “Where shall we start?”

  “He’s in jail, I guess? I know he hasn’t come home.”

  “Right.”

  “That’s not gonna work. I don’t think he can be in there very long.”

  “No, I don’t think so either, so I’ll be needing a legal description of the land. Your land.”

  “A what?” This and Karen Brusett’s few minutes with the county attorney were her whole experience of lawyers—they were strange and indirect.

  “It’s a way they describe property,” said Ms. Meany. “You’ll find it on a deed, a mortgage, something like that.”

  “But what about Henry, though?”

  “You’re using the land as collateral, you could say, to get him out.”

  “Oh. But I don’t even know what that is . . . oh, like for a loan?”

  “Yes. Security.”

  “Collateral? Well, there’s an ugly word if I ever heard one.” The room’s one window, a tall, narrow window in a deep casement, overlooked the playground across the street, a small plot all in the shade of a linden tree, and with a swing and a hobby horse mounted on a spring. Karen Brusett noticed these amenities every time she came to town. She’d never seen anyone use them.

  “I’m sorry,” said the lawyer, “I didn’t get your name. Your first name.”

  “It’s Karen.”

  “I’m Giselle.”

  “Okay. Look, you know I’ve been kinda stuck up in the woods, and this right here is one of the reasons why. When I do come to town anymore, seems like I can only understand about half of what people say. I never got very educated. Also, we don’t have a TV up there. So I’m what you’d call outta the loop, but it only really hits me when I come to town and people start tryin’ to talk to me. If you want me to understand you, you might have to break it down pretty simple. Sorry. But if you tell me what to do, I’ll do it. You’d never know it to hear Henry say, but he’s one of the better people there is. That I know of.”

  “I know he is. That’s my idea of him, too.”

  “Can you help him out, you think?”

  “I’ll try. I should be able to. First thing we need to do is get him out of jail.”

  “They won’t even let me in to see him.”

  “They have a policy about visiting.” The lawyer seemed to hold it in contempt. She had a very misshapen mouth, and should by all rights have had a lisp. “See, if they follow a certain policy, then they don’t have to exercise any independent judgment, give it any thought, and that’s always the popular option for cops. No thinking. They will let you visit, though, at the regular times. Just don’t expect anybody to bend one of their little rules, even if it’s reasonable to bend it. They won’t.”

  “Henry needs to take some prescriptions he has. I brought ’em down there, but I don’t know if he’s getting those like he should.”

  “I can see about that. As soon as we’re done here, in fact, I’ll go down and see about it. What are they? These prescriptions?”

  “Oh, it’s a whole shelf of ’em. It’s for his back. His back hurts a lot. And his hip, his legs, that bunged-up foot he’s got. His head hurts. Then he’s got this thing where he’s always afraid a little bit—and if he gets around people, except for me, I guess—it just does him in. He takes some stuff for that, too. Anxiety. If he doesn’t take it, it gets pretty rough for him. Real rough. He used to do without every so often, without the pills. But not anymore. He can’t for very long.”

  “He’s too sick for jail,” agreed the lawyer. “I may need you to testify to that next week. Would you do that for me? For Henry? We need to take a run at getting him out without paying any money for it, or tangling up your property, or waiting for a title search. But I think, just in case, we’d better keep on pushing to finish that title search.”

  “Ah,” said Karen Brusett, “I don’t think it would even do any good if you said that a lot slower. I just want him out of jail. Sure, I’d testify to it. Whatever you said.”

  “This must be pretty hard for you.”

  “He’s a great guy, and I’m not too bad myself. Well, maybe I am. Bad. It’s me if it’s anybody.”

  “We need to lay some ground rules before we get into certain things.”

  “I thought that was in baseball or something. You call it a ground rule?”

  “You should understand a couple of things. Important things—I am Henry’s lawyer.”

  “I knew that. They already told me that at the courthouse.”

  “Yes. But what it means is, when I talk to Henry, what he says to me is confidential, and I can’t breathe a word of it to anybody. But you’re not my client. I don’t have that same relationship with you.”

  “I’m a young person, and I been just kind of a brush monkey, so . . . there is quite a bit of fairly usual stuff that I don’t understand, that you’d have to explain to me.”

  The lawyer pulled her glasses off, and there were two blue dents at the top of her nose; with her eyes no longer magnified, she was not as imposing. “It’s not my job to protect you. If you say something that hurts you and helps Henry, then that’s how I’ll use it. Understand?”

  “Sure. That’s all I wanted to hear. What if I said he didn’t do it? Would that get him out of there?”

  “Just that? His wife saying he didn’t do anything? What do you think, Karen?”

  “What if there was a . . . a misunderstanding?” Here was a good and useful term.

  The lawyer became ominous. “This is where you might want to be a little careful. You could hurt more than help if you’re not careful. Henry, I mean. Hurt his situation. As I told him, they don’t really have enough evidence—right now—to prove he did anything criminal.”

  “Then why’s he in there?”

  “Because he’s in there. Let’s put it that way. I agree, he shouldn’t be, but I don’t have the final say on that—the judge does. They think he did something. Which, which isn’t supposed to be enough—they are a long, long way from proving anything at all. I think they may be trying to squeeze one of you to talk.”

  “They?”

  “The county attorney, Flaherty, Utterback.”

  “Oh? What do you think of that guy? That Meyers?”

  “At the moment, I don’t know. He’s usually pretty good at his job. Or he’s very good at it, which can be kind of a problem when you’re facing charges here. But even a guy like that has to have some kind of case to work with.”

  “You trust him?”

  “I don’t know if that even enters into it. But I suppose I do; he’s fairly trustworthy, I think.”

  “You don’t think he might be a liar?”

  “Anyone might be,” said the lawyer. “About everyone is, eventually.”

  “Wow. That’s probably true, and I guess you’d know. But where’s that leave you? If that’s the way you believe?”

  “Leaves you with the law. But we’re getting off into generalities. What I’d like to talk about is this case. The point I’m trying to make is—what they know so far is enough to raise quite a few suspicions, sure, but not enough to prove anything, and it’s almost certainly best for Henry if we keep it that way.”

  “Then I gotta ask—again—why’s he in jail?”

  “Because he is. You started to tell me, though, that he didn’t hurt that young
man. Did I understand you correctly?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So, does that mean you know how he did get hurt? Killed, I mean—just for the sake of accuracy.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Can you see how that doesn’t work? That probably wouldn’t do him any good at all, if that’s your position.”

  “My position,” mused Karen Brusett. “I never had one of those before.”

  “Maybe you just found him? The two of you found him?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We just . . . that’s all, we just found him.”

  “Karen.”

  “All right. It was me.”

  “What was? You?”

  “I hit him. That guy. I was the one.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why’d I hit him? Oh, well, I was scared?”

  “Because?”

  “Do we have to get into all that? All I want is to get Henry out of that jail. Believe me, he doesn’t belong there.”

  “Henry was the one they found the blood on. You can see how that might complicate things—as far as what you’re saying? What you’re trying to tell me. You’d probably have to get real specific if you wanted anyone to believe you on that.”

  “Maybe. Yeah, I can see that. What should I say, then?”

  “Tell me, why were you scared?”

  “You hate to talk bad about somebody who’s dead. Disrespect ’em. That seems wrong.”

  The lawyer stood and went to her window and looked out of it. She had a narrow back, thick calves encased in disastrous pantyhose, and she seemed sunk in permanent sorrow. “Have you ever heard that phrase, ‘The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’”

  “Truth, truth, truth. That’s another thing they hit you with when you come to town. ‘What’s the truth?’ But they always act like they already know.”

  “I’m just trying to tell you what you’d have to do if you want to be of any help to Henry. If you think you have something to say that would help him, that’s fine, but you’ll have to come out with everything. Are you willing to do that? And not leave anything out? If you’re willing to go that far—and if you’ve got something to say that you’re absolutely sure will help Henry—then great, I’m all for it. I’d say let’s get started on something right away, do an affidavit, maybe we’d even get the court reporter up here and do a deposition. But unless you’re ready to cough up the whole hair ball, then the less said, the better. Probably.” The lawyer kneaded the tip of her nose. “Except for the fact that he’s in jail, his position isn’t all that bad right now. I’d like it if nothing came along to mess that up.”

  “I never told ’em a thing,” Karen said.

  The lawyer warned her that the law would return to her in one form or another, that someone would be questioning her again, and that when they did, they might try to be a little threatening about it. “So you might be hearing terms like ‘obstructing justice’ and ‘perjury,’ things like that, but never mind all that. Just always remember—you don’t have to tell anyone anything. No one can force you to incriminate yourself, and it’s basically up to you to decide what might or might not be incriminating. So—do you see what I’m saying? You don’t have to say anything—to anyone—ever. It’s always your decision, of course, about what you’ll tell them. But it is entirely up to you.”

  “I’d kinda made up my mind about that already. Keep my mouth shut. Even if it was gonna backfire a little bit. I mean, I should actually be the one in trouble if anybody is.”

  “It’s up to you to protect yourself, Karen. I think you have a good idea how to do that.”

  “We been so far out of everybody’s way, it just, if I wasn’t . . . what? Sociable. But, isn’t there a thing about how you can’t testify against your husband? Or you don’t have to, if you don’t want? Isn’t there something like that?”

  “That’s not much of a privilege anymore. You can’t testify as to anything he might say to you in the course of your marriage. But that’s it. Big deal. Never mind that, though—as long as you keep your wits about you, and as long as it’s in your best interest to do so, you can just stay quiet. And that’s about the last legal advice you’ll get from me. It has to be.”

  Karen Brusett’s first impulse, and the counsel of every lawyer she’d heard on the subject, had left her perched on the tiny, loathsome platform of her rights, to which she might be confined for quite a long time. She felt the drain of this new silence, felt truth set running fugitive in her once again. Why was she forever being asked to describe something she’d never clearly seen? They only ever wanted the truth out of you. “So what’s he been tellin’ you?” she asked the lawyer. “What’s Henry been sayin’ about this?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him at any length.” Ms. Meany carefully returned her glasses to her face. She was ashamed. “No, in all honesty I, well, I wasn’t sure exactly how I wanted to approach him at first. He seemed to be very distressed in a way. Agitated. He was trying to say some things that would’ve made it harder to—technically harder—to defend him. Sorry, I’m, I know I’m rambling. I’ll be seeing him pretty soon. Maybe later today. It should be pretty soon, at least.”

  “I can see you maybe kinda figured out what he’s like. And I bet you’ll do what’s best for him, too.”

  “I’ll do the best I can,” the lawyer specified.

  “The main thing would be those pills. If he’s not been getting those pills, then it’s been, oh, more than fifty, sixty hours now, so he’d be in hard shape. He’s just a good guy, and I think you saw it in him, so I’m glad. Henry’s done less wrong stuff than you can even believe. And I will do anything for him, okay? You just say the word. Whatever you think might work, I’ll give it a go.”

  “Just get me your deed—or a copy of it. That’s about all I can think of for now. That, and stay in touch.” The lawyer kept glancing toward her computer screen. She had other problems.

  A scrim of cloud had gathered and sunk low upon the valley while Karen Brusett had been in with the lawyer, and it was unseasonably cool in the town, and the town smelled of the river, and the river smelled of fish. She had wanted to do, or even to identify, the noble thing. It would be nice for once to set things right, but all she’d been given to do was the easy job of finding a paper, and she knew just where it was—in Henry’s fireproof box, under the foot of his bed. She would get the paper, and then there’d be the waiting, and she’d wait as long as necessary, and she wasn’t sure when or how the waiting would end, but she knew there’d be no atonement in it, only boredom and fear, and she did not expect to feel any better during the foreseeable future.

  There were rose gold pastries in the baker’s window, new there, and Karen believed these might well be warm. She’d promised herself, hadn’t she? She turned in, and the door tipped a bell; she crossed a checkerboard floor, large squares of clean and modern linoleum, and the shop smelled of butter, powdered sugar, and coffee. It was good to be the girl who yielded to temptation. A young man in a long green apron came out from the kitchen and pretended to flinch at seeing her there, startled by the big, pleasant revelation. “I know you,” he proclaimed. “You were a freshman. I was a senior. You had your own style back then. Quite the style, I remember. Look at this. You, you are . . . okay, just give me one second.”

  “Karen,” she said. “It’s Karen. That’s all right. I didn’t know your name, either. I didn’t know anybody’s name, hardly. It was just high school.”

  “Long time no see. I’ll bet you didn’t have the slightest idea who I was, did you? Bet you thought you’d never seen me before.”

  “Sure I did. I mean, you changed, but. What’s that on that tray?”

  “That,” he crooned, “is baklava. Honey, and phyllo, and butter, and walnuts is how I do it. It’s addictive. I’ve made myself sick on it sometimes.”

  “Ooh, give me one of those. Yeah, I will say, it took me a second. It wasn’t the best idea you ever had, to dye your hair that
way, hack it all up like you got it. That’s sort of a disgrace.”

  There’d been some breathtaking moments in that year he’d mentioned, their common year of high school—she’d managed to walk close behind him nearly every day between second and third periods, walk behind him the full length of the school’s longest hall, and he’d been thick-shouldered, and blond ringlets lay round his bull neck, and he was sometimes a long while making the trek from English to industrial arts. “Greg,” she said. “I guess I actually do remember it. You were Greg. Still are, I guess.”

  The postered wall featured bicyclists in a Bavarian setting, a fly fisherman. There was an open invitation to join the Valley Scrapbookers Club. She tried to make it clear that there was a great deal in this room, apart from the boy in the green apron, for her to look at. “Could I get a mug of that house blend, too? That smells so great.”

  She sat in a wrought-iron chair, before a glass table, and Greg served her. “Isn’t that about the best thing you ever tasted? You should come back Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoons I do spanakopita. Or Wednesday for my strawberry blintzes.” He said he’d been gone, gone to the Tri-Cities area, but now his mother wasn’t doing very well. So he was back for a while, and he was trying to do something at least a little creative while he was here, and business was building little by little because he made damned good bread. Greg was not so manly and fine a boy as he’d been before he’d made a statement of himself, but he seemed very glad to see her.

  “Me,” said Karen, “I never did get around to goin’ anywhere. I’ll bet that was pretty nice, wasn’t it? To get outta here?”

  DO

  OR

  DO NOT

  SAY

  ▪ 17 ▪

  HE WAS A long while bringing his cousin into focus as a human being, much less a relative, much less a helping hand. It was Tubby. Tubby, pestering, pestering, “Come on, you’re scarin’ me, Henry. Come on and come to, would you? Come on and sit up. I got those pills you wanted. Should’ve heard the hell your lawyer raised. It was human-rights this and human-rights that—sorry, I just forgot about it. Here, sit up. I have to watch you take these. Here’s some water. You actually don’t look very good, do you? How you feel?”