A Criminal Defense

by William L. Myers Jr.

  “I guess I’m supposed to say congratulations,” Tommy says.

  I shrug. “Why don’t you just get us some beer?” I say, then I sit at the picnic table while he goes inside to fetch a couple of Buds.

  When he returns, Tommy sits across the table, hands me a bottle. “So,” he says, “Devlin rolled over. He quit the fight. Now he’s going around telling everyone he believes David is innocent. How’d you manage that?”

  I look at Tommy, throw back my beer. “Devlin was on the tape.”

  I tell Tommy how I confronted Devlin, strong-armed him into making our deal. Tommy works to keep his face neutral as I tell the story, but I see judgment in his eyes. He thinks I wronged Devlin Walker. I feel the urge to defend myself, but I didn’t come here to talk about Devlin Walker or David Hanson.

  “There’s something I need to say to you.”

  My brother puts down his beer, puts his hands on the table, and waits. I take a deep breath and continue.

  “You did the right thing,” I say. “For Dad. Ending his pain. It was the right thing to do,” I repeat. “Noble, and loving. And you paid a terrible price for it. A price you never should have had to pay, not by yourself. I should have been there with you. And not just to help Dad at the end, but for all the time leading up to it.” I pause, lock eyes with my brother, make sure he hears me. “Tommy, I’m sorry. For everything. For abandoning you and Dad. For not doing more to help you later.”

  “What could—?”

  “I should have come after you. Brought you home. Not let you wander the country drinking yourself to death, trying to get thrown into prison. If I had, you would have told me what you’d done, instead of carrying it around inside you all those years. I can’t imagine what it was like for you, living with that kind of secret.” I shake my head, look down.

  When again I look at Tommy, he has an odd look on his face. I can’t read it, but I find it unsettling.

  Tommy takes a breath, then says, “You can’t blame yourself for my taking off. There was nothing you could’ve done about that. But you’re right about keeping what I’d done inside. That was the worst part of it, after the guilt.” Here, he pauses, looks hard at me. “You keep a secret like that, it eats away at you. Some things, no matter how bad they are—because of how bad they are—just need to be talked about.”

  Tommy takes a swig of his beer, his eyes locked on me the whole time. I begin to feel a queasiness in my stomach. Tommy’s clearly fishing for something.

  “How’s Lawrence doing?” I ask, nodding toward Tommy’s trailer.

  “Not good. In and out. More out these past couple weeks. But he’s not in my trailer. He’s over there.” Tommy nods toward another trailer sitting across the gravel road from his own. “Guy who owns it is a friend of mine. He’s in Florida, so he’s letting me use it for Lawrence. I keep tabs on him with a baby monitor. Can you believe that?” He shakes his head. “You want to see him?”

  Tommy is out of his seat and walking toward the trailer before I can answer. I stand and follow.

  Lawrence Washington is lying in a bed in the back room of the trailer. The bed is just about the width of the room and is pushed up against the window that takes up most of the far wall. There are windows by the head and foot of the bed as well, so Lawrence lies awash in light. The trailer stinks—of sweat, urine, stale breath, and Lawrence’s dying.

  “Up until last week,” Tommy says, “I could get him to the toilet, most times. These past few days haven’t been so good.” He smiles wanly. “I never raised kids, but I bet I’ve seen more diapers than you.”

  “Jesus,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

  “Hey, Lawrence,” Tommy announces. “Look who’s here to visit you.”

  Lawrence slowly opens his eyes. It takes some time for it to register with him who I am. When it does, he smiles. “Hey,” Lawrence says weakly. He lifts his right hand a few inches off his stomach.

  I take it. “Sorry it took so long for me to come up again,” I say. “Better late than never, right?”

  Lawrence smiles. “Pretty soon,” he says, “I’ll be both. The late, and never.” Then he coughs, his face contorted in pain.

  “You want some morphine?” Tommy asks, but Lawrence waves him off.

  “You have morphine?”

  “A good buddy of mine is a hospice worker. I called him, told him about Lawrence. He drove me up some drugs on the sly, for when it gets bad.”

  Tommy pulls up a plastic chair for me to sit on next to Lawrence’s bed while Tommy fixes something for Lawrence to eat. I sit quietly with Lawrence for a few minutes. Then Lawrence looks over at me. “So, I hear you beat the pants off Devlin. He’s a wily one. But you were always clever, too. I liked working with you.” Lawrence coughs again.

  “You sure you don’t want some medicine?” I ask as Tommy comes back carrying a plastic tray with a plate of what appears to be baby food and a juice box.

  I stand to make room for Tommy, and Lawrence answers me. “No. I’m used to the pain by now, except when it gets real bad. Mostly, though, it’s just lotsa rockin’ and rollin’. I can take it.”

  My vision blurs, then clears as I stare at Lawrence Washington in disbelief. It feels as if someone’s just whacked me with a two-by-four. Lotsa rockin’ and rollin’. The same words the caller used when he phoned 911 to report the imaginary fight at 1792 Addison. I repeat the words out loud. “Lotsa rockin’ and rollin’.”

  I back away from the bed, and Tommy turns to look at me. He’s puzzled at first. But after a second, he gets it. “Mick.” I hear my brother behind me, but I’m already out the door.

  “Mick!” Tommy shouts after me as I make my way across the gravel road. I stop and turn toward him.

  “It was Lawrence who made that call,” I say. “And you who put him up to it.”

  “Let’s sit down,” Tommy says.

  “You knew David was in the house! You wanted the police to catch him!”

  “Mick! Please. Sit down.”

  I hesitate but follow my brother to the picnic table. It’s getting on to dusk now. The sun is behind the trees, and it’s starting to get colder. Tommy takes a deep breath. “They called me from the hotel. Piper and David. Piper told me everything, about the affair and about David finding Jennifer Yamura dead on the stairs. They were both in a panic.”

  “It was your idea,” I say. “To have David go back and clean up.” Tommy nods. “But you had to know there was no way he could clean all the . . .” My voice trails off as all the pieces click into place. From start to finish, Tommy had set David up.

  “Why?”

  “It was a betrayal!” Tommy practically shouts the words. “Piper with that prick.”

  I stare at my brother. It’s clear that Piper’s betrayal hit him hard. But her betrayal of whom?

  “So you told them that David needed to go back and clean up the place.”

  Tommy nods. “Lawrence was ready to make the call as soon as I signaled him. I waited for David to get deep into the cleanup job, then I rang Lawrence and he made the 911 call on a burner.”

  “After David’s arrest, I caught you and Piper fighting on our back patio. That’s what it was about, wasn’t it?”

  Tommy nods. “Piper figured out that I was the one who’d fingered David. It drove a wedge between us.”

  “Why did she decide to call you in the first place?”

  Tommy smiles, but there’s bitterness in his eyes. “When I got out of prison, Piper was my biggest fan. She’d been writing to me while I was inside, encouraging me, and she kept it up once I was released. She told me I was no worse than anyone else, that I’d just had some bad breaks. But when this thing with David happened and she needed advice on how to deal with a crime, I was the one she called. For all her talk, Piper still sees me as a criminal.”

  My mouth starts to open, but I close it. Piper’s call must have hurt Tommy.

  Tommy looks away, and we sit in silence for a long while. I chew on what Tommy has tol
d me. I get that he hated David Hanson because of his affair with Piper. But there has to be more. Tommy wouldn’t frame an innocent man just because he was pissed.

  “That day,” Tommy says, “when I was in your office and Jennifer called, I realized she was in a bad spot with the grand jury and was looking for a way out. I figured she might try to save herself by selling me out as her source. So I decided to go see her. I was mad and a little scared, and I didn’t want to show up half-cocked and say something stupid, make things worse. So I decided to stop for something to eat, to cool off and think things through. I went to a sandwich shop on Walnut Street for a while, then walked down Seventeenth, took a right, toward her house. When I got to Waverly, I looked down the alley.”

  Tommy’s words hit me like a sledgehammer. “You saw me leaving,” I say, almost a whisper.

  “You were walking down the alley, away from me. I started to call out after you, but something stopped me. I waited until you turned the corner on Eighteenth. Then I kept walking down Seventeenth and turned onto Addison. Jennifer said she made everyone—which I figured meant the men she was screwing behind Hanson’s back—come through the back door. But I told her no way. I wasn’t sneaking through anybody’s backyard. So I always came to the front, and I did that day, too. I rang the bell and I knocked. But there was no answer. So I opened the door; it was unlocked.”

  Tommy and I sit in silence until the full horror of what must have happened floods my head. I’d thought David Hanson was the only one who’d entered the house after I left. But he wasn’t. Tommy got there before David, but he didn’t appear on Anna Groszek’s video.

  “Oh, God, Tommy,” I say as my heart breaks one more time for my brother. For one more terrible thing that he’ll have to carry around inside him. “You went into the house and found Jennifer.” Tommy looks at me but says nothing. “But she wasn’t dead.”

  Tommy shivers. “She was lying on the steps. Her eyes were closed. Then she opened them and looked up at me. She was confused at first. Then it was like she figured out where she was and what had happened, and she got a scared look in her eyes. She kind of lifted her back, let herself slide down the steps. At the bottom, she rolled over and started to crawl away. Left a trail of blood. I stood there trying to wrap my head around the thought that you—you—had pushed her down the steps.”

  “I thought I’d killed her,” I whisper.

  Tommy considers this. “I went down and tried to help her up. But she didn’t want me near her. She was half out of it. More than half. She thought I was you. Started mumbling how she was going to nail you for attacking her. Going to get ‘your brother’—me—too. Tell the cops all about me and the drug ring.” Tommy stops talking, clearly struggling with the memory of what happened next.

  “She fought a little when I carried her back to the steps, laid her down. But then she became very still. After a bit, she talked some more—mumbled more than talked. Then she laughed. And then tears started flowing, like she was crying, but she didn’t make a sound. She was slipping away. I knelt next to her, held her hand. I told her it was going to be okay. Toward the end, she opened her eyes, looked up at me. But she wasn’t really seeing me. It was like when a baby looks up at you. Its eyes can’t focus. She mumbled something again. I think it was her brother’s name—Brian. Then her body went limp, like a balloon with the air drained out of it. I sat with her for a while more. Then I panicked. Started cleaning up the basement, as though I could wipe away all that blood. But I knew there was no way to make it look like an accident, make the police think she’d just fallen and stayed on the steps. I did my best to wipe my prints off everything in the basement, including her. I took off all my clothes so as not to track blood, went upstairs, got one of Hanson’s shirts, a pair of his pants, a pair of his sneakers. Put them on, put my own stuff and the rags I’d used to try to clean up the blood in a trash bag, wiped off everything I’d touched, and left.”

  Tears are streaming down Tommy’s face now. His lip is quivering.

  “You have to let it go,” I say.

  Tommy’s eyes snap to mine. “Just like that, huh?”

  I’m good at pushing down my emotions. I’d done exactly what I’d accused Devlin of. I’d locked this terrible thing in my private dungeon, hidden it from myself. I’m telling Tommy to do the same. But Tommy isn’t me. He can’t hide from his demons.

  “So, what then?” I ask. “You were going to keep this to yourself? Even though you just told me that keeping something like this hidden is the worst part?”

  “You were going to keep it to yourself,” Tommy says.

  And I realize, now, why, after so many years, Tommy suddenly chose to open up to me about what he’d done to our father. It wasn’t to unburden himself. Tommy was giving me an opening to clear my own conscience, to confess what I’d done to Jennifer Yamura.

  Tommy and I sit in silence for a long moment. “She would have bled out,” I say. “Whether you’d shown up or not.”

  “Her cell phone was in her shorts. If I hadn’t gone in, she might’ve remembered it, called for help. She might have, but I made sure that didn’t happen.”

  “She would have destroyed us both,” I say.

  “But I’m the one who killed her.”

  “No, Tommy. You didn’t kill Jennifer. We both did.”

  37

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27

  I awake the next morning inside Tommy’s trailer; I’m curled up on the worn leather couch. My head is pounding from the bottle of bourbon Tommy and I polished off last night. The light is painfully bright to my eyes. I force myself to stand and walk outside. The late-November morning air is cold and thick and carries the smoky scent of burning wood. I inhale deeply.

  Tommy exits Lawrence Washington’s trailer, and we stand facing each other for a while.

  “I meant what I said last night. About Dad. You did the right thing.”

  Tommy stares at me. “And Jennifer? Was that the right thing?”

  “She would have wrecked our family, Tommy. Not just you and me, but Piper and Gabby, too.”

  Tommy looks away. My words aren’t enough, won’t ever be enough. And how could they be? Words are just words. I wasn’t there with Tommy, helping him to tend our father. Nor was I with him when he cleaned up the awful mess I’d made with Jennifer Yamura. Once again, I wasn’t there for Tommy when he needed me most.

  “Will you be able to come for Christmas?” I ask.

  Tommy shrugs, tilts his head toward Lawrence’s trailer.

  “Stupid question,” I say.

  Tommy and I shake hands, and I get into the car. He watches as I drive off. I wave, but he doesn’t wave back. I’m abandoning him again, and the chasm between us will widen with every mile I drive down the pike.

  I’m twenty minutes away when it finally dawns on me. “You idiot,” I say. “Neanderthal.”

  I call Piper on my cell phone and tell her what I’m going to do. There’s a long pause at the other end of the line, then, “Yes,” she says. “Yes. That’s exactly what you need to do.”

  “And then, for us, it’ll be Paris and London,” I say. “You and me and Gabby. We’ll stop in New York first so we can take Gabby to see The Lion King.” Piper and I talk for a few more minutes, then I hang up.

  At the next exit, I turn the car around and head north, back toward Jim Thorpe. That’s where I’ll stay until it’s over. Whether it takes a week or a month, I’ll help Tommy care for Lawrence Washington. I’ll hold Lawrence’s hand and talk to him. I’ll feed Lawrence, medicate him, turn him so he doesn’t get bedsores. I’ll be there until Lawrence passes in the trailer, or until the pain gets to be so bad that we have to take him to a hospital. I’ll stand beside my brother every step of the way, as I should have done once before. And in doing so, I will begin the process of mending the wound I opened so long ago.

  As for what Tommy and I did to Jennifer Yamura, there will never be peace for either of us. Her killing will be a burden we carry for the rest of our
lives. But we will carry it together.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is the result of the generous effort and contributions of many great people. First and foremost is my wife, Lisa, who believed in me and the book even when I had my doubts. Her reassurances kept me moving forward, and her editorial suggestions were inspired. I also want to thank my early readers, Kelly McFarland, Alan Sandman, and Jill and Neil Reiff.

  For teaching me how the industry works, and pointing me to Ed Stackler, I extend my special thanks to my fellow attorney and author Anderson Harp. Thanks, too, to Bill Lashner, whose own books I have thoroughly enjoyed over the years and who schooled me in the many benefits of publishing with Amazon.

  I extend huge thanks to Ed Stackler, my editor, who laboriously chiseled away until he found the statue inside the marble slab. Ed, your artistry was transformative.

  To Cynthia Manson, my agent, I give my heartfelt gratitude for your critical structural suggestions, for getting the book into the hands of Nancee Taylor-Adams, who did a really wonderful job of fine-tuning the book, and for getting the book to Gracie Doyle.

  And, finally, to Gracie Doyle herself. Your suggestions about the protagonist were exactly what the story needed. Thank you for that, and for taking a chance on an old trial dog like me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © Todd Rothstein

  William L. Myers, Jr. was born into a proud, working-class family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He attended college at Clarion University and law school at the University of Pennsylvania. For the past thirty years, he has fought for his clients in state and federal courtrooms up and down the East Coast and has had the honor of arguing before the United States Supreme Court. Bill lives with his wife, Lisa, in the western suburbs of Philadelphia.