I pause to pour myself a cup of coffee.
“Remember, you already have one strike against you. On the night of your arrest, you told Detectives Tredesco and Cook that you were at work all afternoon. By now, they’ve already spoken to your staff and found out that’s not the case. So you better have at least one witness who can place you far away from Addison Street between one and three o’clock.”
David stares at me for a long minute, then looks to Susan and Vaughn almost defiantly. “There must have been hundreds of people who saw me. I was on Kelly Drive. I went for a walk.”
Susan’s mouth opens. Vaughn rolls his eyes.
David continues, “I left the office about 1:15. It was beautiful outside, so I thought I’d get some air. I walked to the parkway and decided to take in the Chagall exhibit. But when I reached the museum, it was so nice out I decided to keep walking toward the boathouses. I guess my mind wandered, and I ended up walking the whole way to the Falls Bridge. That’s where I turned around. I walked back to Center City, made my way to Rittenhouse Square, and took in the art show. Then I walked back to my office, got in my car, and drove home. By then it was about six o’clock.”
I look down at my still-blank legal pad. “I run the river drives a lot. The round trip from Center City to the Falls Bridge and back is about ten miles.” I look up and give David a hard stare. “And another mile or so to Rittenhouse Square and back. All in your business suit?”
“Like I said, it was really nice out. There was no humidity. I didn’t even sweat.”
“And your work shoes . . . ,” I add.
“I wasn’t running, Mick. It’s not like my feet would have gotten hurt.”
“Did you run into anyone you know?” asks Susan.
David thinks. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”
“So lots of people saw you,” says Susan, “but none who would remember.”
“Why don’t we take a break?” I say. “I need to make a couple calls.”
Susan, Vaughn, and I file out of the conference room and go directly to my office. I sit behind my desk. Susan and Vaughn take the visitors’ chairs.
“Am I missing something,” asks Vaughn, “or is he trying to follow your advice by telling us he did it without actually saying the words?”
I look at Susan. “What do you think?”
“I’m with the Boy Wonder on this one, Batman.”
The door to my office opens, and Tommy walks in. “I didn’t get your messages until this morning. How you guys doing?” he says to Vaughn and Susan, who sense my irritation and leave.
“I left you five messages,” I say when Tommy and I are alone, my voice thick with anger.
“Hey, don’t jump all over me. I said I didn’t get them.”
“How can you not get my messages? I left them on your cell.”
“I went camping for a couple days.”
“Come on, man. I get through to you at your trailer all the time.”
“I wasn’t at my trailer. I just told you, I went camping. In my tent. Up at Hickory Run State Park.”
“Since when do you go tent camping?”
“I don’t have to tell you everything about me. You don’t tell me everything.”
I want to jump up out of my seat and scream at Tommy. I want to ask him what the hell he means by that. But I hold my tongue.
“Okay, forget it,” I say. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
Tommy interrupts. “You think he’s innocent?”
I take a breath. “I don’t know whether he is or not. Either way, I’m going to do everything I can to keep him out of prison.”
Tommy stares at me for a long moment. “What do you need from me?”
“Right now, I want you to sit in on the rest of our meeting.”
“He’s here? Now?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No problem. Let’s go.”
I buzz Angie, ask her to have Susan and Vaughn come back to the conference room.
David tenses up the minute he sees Tommy. Tommy’s own eyes launch daggers.
Susan moves right back into the questioning. “We were just about to get to the night of the murder. So, it’s Thursday night. What happens?”
David inhales, looks around the room—at everyone but Tommy. “I got home about seven. Took a shower. Watched some TV. Marcie and the boys were in California with her relatives, and I was alone. About 10:30, I decided I wanted to see Jennifer. So I drove into town. I parked on Seventeenth Street. I walked down Waverly Street, the alley behind Addison Street, knocked on the back door. Jennifer didn’t answer, and the lights were off. I figured she was out, so I thought I would go in and wait for her. I opened the door using my key.”
“She gave you a key?” Susan interrupts.
“Well, yeah. Is that bad?”
“Just surprising, since you weren’t really in a relationship and only saw each other a handful of times,” she answers, somewhat snidely.
David considers this, then continues. “When I got inside, I turned on the kitchen light, then started to walk to the living room. When I was in the hallway, I saw that the basement light was on, so I pushed back the bead curtain she has hanging in the doorway to the basement. I looked down and saw Jennifer. She was . . . on the steps. Flat on her back. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving. So I went down to her, shook her a little, said her name. Her eyes stayed open, but she didn’t answer and she didn’t move. And there was blood everywhere. I knew she was dead.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Vaughn asks.
“I panicked. I thought about Marcie. With all she’d gone through, it would just kill her if it came out about me and Jennifer. So I thought, ‘Hey, nobody knows about us.’ I never told anyone and Jennifer promised she wouldn’t, either. That was part of the deal.”
“Deal?” Susan raises her eyebrows.
David pauses. “Our understanding! Our—For chrissakes, Susan, it’s just a word.”
“Let’s all take it down a notch,” I say. “Keep going. What did you do next?”
David exhales. “I know it was stupid, but I decided to clean the place. Get rid of anything that could point to me. I mean, it was probably hopeless, but I had to try. At least get rid of the spare clothes I kept there. But then I figured I needed to really clean the place. My hair and fingerprints. DNA. So I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, then started vacuuming and wiping everything I could think to wipe. Then I heard the knock at the door and the guy saying ‘Police.’ I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Then they knocked again and started ringing the bell, too. Finally I responded, said to hold on a minute, like I was going to let them in. And you know the rest. They got me in the alley. Took me down. Cuffed me. Walked me to the squad car and stuffed me inside. Next thing I know the whole street was jammed with cop cars.” David closes his eyes. “Christ, what a nightmare. What a fucking . . .”
Vaughn pours a glass of water for David, who drinks it empty, then acknowledges Tommy for the first time since Tommy and I sat down. Something passes between them, but I can’t tell what it is.
“When I came to the station to meet with you the next morning, one of the cops told me that the patrolmen showed up at the house because a 911 caller said he heard shouting and loud noises coming from inside. But you’re saying you were alone with Yamura’s body.”
“I was alone. There was no yelling, no loud noises. The caller was lying.” David reaches for the pitcher and pours another glass of water. His hands are shaking.
We all sit quietly for a moment to allow David to compose himself. Then I broach the issue of the fee. “For a case of this seriousness, the firm is going to do a lot of work,” I say. “Tommy will investigate the case to the hilt—talk to all the neighbors, Jennifer’s coworkers, everyone who knew her, try to find holes in the prosecution’s case, try to find someone else with a motive to kill her. Susan and Vaughn and I will put our heads together and map out a legal strategy. Lots of work, lots of h
ours. Even before trial. We’re going to require a substantial retainer. Let’s start with seventy-five thousand dollars. As we get closer to trial, we’ll revisit the rate.”
David stiffens. “Seventy-five thousand dollars seems like a lot up front, Mick.”
Susan and I glance at each other. “We’re talking about your freedom, David.”
David looks at me coolly. “I’d like to start with fifty thousand. If that runs out before trial, we can talk.”
I shake my head. “All right . . . ,” I say slowly. “We’ll start with fifty thousand. But I’m not going to hold back on doing things I think may help just to save a dime. That’s not how I work, even when I’m not representing an old friend.”
David considers this, then shifts gears. “First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence, doesn’t it?”
I nod.
David closes his eyes, lowers his head. “Jesus.”
“All right. I think we’ve done enough for now,” I say. “Why don’t you go home and keep working on things with Marcie.”
I ask Susan, Vaughn, and Tommy to remain in the conference room while I escort David out of the office. At the door to our suite, David absently shakes my hand, glances at me only briefly before turning and walking down the hall. When I get back to the conference room, the others wait for me to sit.
“Tell me about David’s temper,” Susan says. “Is he a hothead?”
I think back to the time I first met David, on the first day of civil-procedure class. I was already seated, and David came in and sat beside me. He smiled, introduced himself, held out his hand. He did the same thing to the guy on the other side of him. While we waited for the professor to show up, David told some funny story that had us in stitches. In my mind’s eye, I see David over the next two years, laughing at the New Deck Tavern on Sansom Street, across from the law school, picking up undergrads, laughing as he drove Cheryl Cooley and me down to Atlantic City in his Mercedes convertible, laughing during a party he and I and our two roommates threw at our apartment in West Philadelphia.
“I don’t remember him that way,” I say to Susan. “At all.”
“People change,” Vaughn says. “And the guy was under a lot of stress because of his wife.”
I don’t say anything. I’ve heard a lot of guys say, But that’s not me. That’s not who I am. I was under a lot of stress. I don’t think stress makes a person “not me.” I think it brings out the “me” beneath the surface.
“Why not call?” Susan says, out of nowhere.
I look at her, not understanding.
“David says he decided he wanted to see Jennifer that night, so he just drove to her house,” she says. “Wouldn’t he have called first? To make sure she’d be there? And that she’d want to see him?”
Vaughn picks up on Susan’s line of thought. “He’d at least have called on the drive in, or when he got to the house and saw it was dark. But he didn’t say anything about trying to call Jennifer.”
Susan gives me a hard look. “He didn’t call before he left his house because he knew she wouldn’t answer. He didn’t call once he got to the house because he already knew what he was going to find.”
I look at Tommy to see what he thinks of this. But he doesn’t say anything. Just purses his lips and looks away.
After a minute, I stand up. “Susan, Vaughn, let’s each of us write a memo to the file. Put down everything we know, everything we think we know, and where we think it leads.” I turn to Tommy. “Come on,” I say. “We can talk about where you’re going to start.” I lead Tommy out of the conference room and down the hall to my office, where I close the door behind us.
“What was all that between you and David?” I ask as I sit behind my desk. “You looked like you wanted to tear each other’s throats out when we first walked in.”
“Just something I don’t like about him. I guess he feels the same way about me.”
“You think he did it?”
Tommy’s eyes grow dark. “What do you think?”
“What I think is that I don’t know whether David did it or not. Either way, we’re going to have a real fight on our hands. Devlin Walker’s handling the prosecution personally. Not just because it’s high profile, but because Jennifer Yamura had just blown open a big police-corruption investigation.”
“I don’t know why that investigation should have anything to do with the case against Hanson.” Tommy stands abruptly. “I’ll talk to the neighbors. See if anybody saw anything that could help us. Then I’ll put some feelers out through some badges I know. Maybe find out if the DA is planning on holding anything back from us.”
“Don’t forget about the call.”
Tommy looks at me.
“The 911 call that led the police to the house. The guy who called said he heard yelling and loud noises. Yamura would have already been dead for hours when he called. Someone wanted the police to show up and catch David. And that means the caller knew Yamura was dead and wanted David arrested for her murder. We have to find out who that caller was and why he is out to frame David.”
“I didn’t start this job yesterday,” Tommy says.
I watch Tommy leave the office. I think about his moodiness. His periodic disappearances. What he must be going through. I look down at the pictures on my desk. One is a picture of Piper on our wedding day. The second is of Gabrielle at five years old, dressed up for church on Easter.
The third picture is of Tommy and me and our parents. Tommy was eight and I was ten. The four of us are standing on the beach in Ocean City. Though I viewed our parents at the time as old, I see now how impossibly young John and Penny McFarland were. Young and attractive and optimistic.
In the picture, John and Penny tower over us. Tommy and I are both wearing swimsuits and flip-flops. I’m holding a plastic shovel. And Tommy is wearing the white cowboy hat he got for his birthday that year. He wore that hat everywhere.
Wearing a white hat makes you the good guy. That’s what Tommy thought. And being the good guy was a big thing to my brother. We occasionally got into fights when we played together because I wanted to be the good guy, too. But Tommy would have none of it. When we played, Tommy always had to be the cop, and I had to be the robber. He was the sheriff, and I had to be the outlaw. Only if I refused to play would Tommy relent and allow himself to be the bad guy. But then he would play halfheartedly.
My mind holds plenty of other snapshots of Tommy when we were kids. I see him as a toddler, in a playpen in the middle of our living room, throwing toys out and laughing as our mother scrambled to pick them up. I see Tommy at six riding his plastic Big Wheel down our driveway, a Band-Aid on one of his knees from an earlier mishap. I see him running down the stairs on Christmas morning, his arms out in front of him, ready to tear into the presents under the tree.
And I see Tommy on that fateful morning when he was ten and I was twelve, sitting at the breakfast table. Our mom, her blonde hair tied on top of her head with a rubber band, wearing a sleeveless white-collared shirt, khaki shorts, and low-cut sneakers, moving around in front of the stove. Dad sitting at the head of our small kitchen table, to Tommy’s left, reading his Saturday-morning newspaper, wearing jeans and a green T-shirt emblazoned with the logo of the company he worked for: Manheim Newbestos. I watch my mom serve my dad his breakfast—ham-and-cheese omelet, white toast, bacon—then turn back to the stove. After a moment, she turns toward the table again, with Tommy’s plate. Tommy’s face brightens at the stack of pancakes. Mom smiles back at him and keeps smiling as she sits suddenly on the floor and lies back until she’s flat on the linoleum. I see Tommy smiling down at her, about to laugh at the game she’s playing. I hear my dad call my mother’s name, first calmly, then not. I watch my dad shoot out of his chair and run around the table to my mother, who isn’t moving at all. Or smiling anymore, though her eyes are still open. I hear my dad repeating Mom’s name over and over. Then I hear Tommy begin to cry, and I look over at him and he’s weeping uncontrollably
, not really knowing what’s going on but seeing how upset our dad is. Finally, through my mind’s eye, I see myself sitting across the table from Tommy—not moving, not crying, just sitting there, frozen, taking everything in—until I look out the kitchen window, see a bright yellow bird, and my eyes follow it away from the house, across the field, and up and up and up.
Away.
I stayed away for a long time. I was still gone at the time of my mother’s funeral. I remember my body standing next to the casket as it hovered over the grave. But I wasn’t looking at the casket, wasn’t paying attention to whatever it was the priest was saying. I fixed my attention on the other side of the cemetery, where a hearse led a slow procession of cars to another grave site. I watched the long black limousine and the cars behind it come to a stop. I studied the people getting out of their cars, some grim-faced, others bored. After a while, a bird’s call pulled my attention to the sky, thick with gray clouds threatening to break open and shower the land with tears. But I would not cry that day. Only Tommy and our father wept, unable to escape the grief crushing their hearts like a vice.
5
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6
Wednesday afternoon finds me on the sixth floor of the Criminal Justice Center. I’m leaving Courtroom 603 following a victory at a hearing on a prosecution motion to revoke bail for one of the firm’s many repeat clients.
“Nice win, counselor.”
I turn to see two cops standing in the hallway behind me. Detectives Tredesco and Cook. Tredesco is tall and fiftyish with thinning black hair and a potbelly sticking over his cracked leather belt. Cook is pudgy and looks to be in his midtwenties. His crew cut is blond, his face is wide and round, just like his watery blue eyes.
“Got a minute?” asks Tredesco.
I look at my watch, shrug, glance at Tredesco’s partner.
“Ed Cook,” he says, extending his hand, something Tredesco hasn’t done.
A Criminal Defense Page 5