by Ed Gaffney
But when I exited the courthouse, my plans instantly changed.
Because I had not counted on the dozens of microphones, the wall of television cameras, and the countless reporters who started shouting questions at me as soon as I opened the doors.
So much for getting to dinner on time.
I have seen video footage of my first press conference, and although it might be difficult to believe, I was worse there than I was in court.
What makes everything so much more pathetic is that I didn’t have to stay on those steps and say anything to those people. I could have just walked around them, gotten into my truck, and driven home.
Instead, I stood there, as if anchored to the spot by my ever-burgeoning stupidity. How hard could answering a few questions be?
Apparently, pretty hard.
A good example of my efforts was the one endlessly replayed on untold millions of television screens and computer monitors during those early days of the trial. The question posed to me was, “After provoking the judge into assigning you to the case, what did you hope to accomplish next?”
Did I deny provoking the judge? Did I take issue with the implication that I was actually attempting to manipulate the judge into putting me on the case? Did I ignore the question as one that probably could not be answered without making myself look—incredible as it might seem—even less capable than I already did?
Astonishingly, I did none of those things. My choice? To blurt out the following: “Well, I wasn’t really trying to accomplish anything.”
What a masterstroke. I could have responded in a manner which established that I had no personal agenda when I spoke out in the courtroom against what I believed was a blatant and serious injustice. But instead, I managed to utter a single sentence which admitted to both indifference and incompetence in the most important criminal case in years.
Finally, after twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds of the most stupefying and inept performance in the annals of public relations, a voice from the back of the crowd shouted out what was to be the last question of the press conference. “Mr. Carpenter, do you have any comment on the opinion of KFXT legal expert Conrad Thurry that Mr. Gomez would have been better off representing himself than having you appointed as his lawyer?”
That one broke the spell.
Because even though I knew that Conrad Thurry was a pretty harmless blowhard, the tiny part of my brain that was still functioning realized that I needed to stop talking and leave. I wasn’t doing my client, or myself, any good here at all.
So I smiled, said, “Thank you,” and walked away.
Of course that didn’t stop the reporters. A dozen of them followed me all the way to the Second Street Garage, yelling things, trying to get some reaction from me. There were even a couple of guys in front of me, walking backward with cameras on their shoulders, filming footage right up until I reached my pickup truck.
But I was tired, and I was hungry, and I had an hour’s drive ahead of me. This time I kept my mouth shut. I got in my truck, and headed home.
Just as I reached the entrance ramp to the interstate, my cell phone rang. It was Cliff Redhorse. Thank God. Cliff wasn’t a litigator, but he was my best friend, and a very bright, excellent attorney. I really valued his thoughts on strategy. And even in those situations that looked darkest, he always had something upbeat to say.
That day he started the conversation with: “Dude, you’re going to get beat worse than Custer.”
FOUR
I’M A CRIMINAL appeals attorney. I’m used to losing.
In fact, I suppose you could argue that I should be happy when I lose. Because theoretically, every time one of my appeals fails, it simply confirms that the system has worked—a criminal defendant was convicted as a result of a constitutionally sound and fair trial.
I have always had a hard time maintaining that kind of perspective. My competitive streak made losing hard. And so even though I knew that Juan Gomez was a hopeless cause, I really didn’t need to hear my best friend tell me that I was going to get beat—
“—like a disco cowbell.”
“So you were watching? Great.”
“Watching? Dude. Everyone in the state saw you tear Judge Gila Monster a new one. Nice tie, by the way. And really nice opening statement.” I could hear the smile in Cliff’s voice. This wouldn’t be the last time I heard about that debacle.
“Yeah. Thanks. My finest hour. So what do you know about Judge Klay?”
“Other than she’s a rule-breaking bee-yotch…Ouch!” Cliff’s wife, Iris, was a ferociously intelligent computer engineer. She was also very funny, and loved Cliff to death. But she was extremely politically correct, and spent hours on her weekend current events pod-cast, railing against the use of certain words. Iris was also a brutal arm-smacker. Cliff directed his next comments to her. “I can’t help it. She told my stupid pot-head cousin Benny that he would spare everyone a lot of trouble if he pleaded guilty to simple possession of the joint the cops found in his pocket, so he did. And then she gave him two years plus six years probation on and after.”
I had never heard of Benny before.
“I’m not kidding,” Cliff continued, clearly speaking for the benefit of both me and his wife. “Until last year, it was the largest sentence for a first-time-possession offense in the history of the state. The woman is nasty.”
That was bad news. Not that there was any doubt about the death sentence Juan Gomez would receive when he was convicted. Cliff’s story just backed up my impression of Rhonda Klay. She had no business leaning on a defendant to plead guilty—
Cliff interrupted my thoughts—he was speaking quickly now, directly to me. “Dude. I don’t have a cousin named Benny. I was just trying to make Iris feel guilty for—uh oh. She heard me. I am so busted.” And then, in a patently lame imitation of a television sitcom husband, he said, “Hi, sweetie.”
I hear something like this go back and forth between Cliff and Iris at least once or twice a month. Cliff constantly made up stuff—some of it really outrageous—just to see who would believe him. And he was a fantastic card player thanks to his ability to bluff. But away from the poker table, Iris was generally not amused.
“Seriously, I read this article,” he continued, “and Rhonda Klay is a bad one.” He cleared his throat, and spoke to me again, in an obviously stilted manner. “Apparently, Judge Klay is an extremely unpleasant woman about whom others have said many bad things using foul language.” He took a breath. “Like bee-yotch. Ouch. Shit! Ouch. Don’t do that.”
When Cliff and Iris finally got themselves straightened out, he volunteered to check online to see if there was anything about Judge Klay—anything real about Judge Klay—that might be useful. I didn’t have much hope, but at this point, I didn’t have much of anything else, either.
After I hung up, I called Amy to ask what she and Erica wanted for dinner. Even though Tuesday was technically my night to cook, I guess I should confess all that really meant was that I stopped on the way home and picked up a take-out meal from their choice of restaurant.
But instead of a normal greeting, the phone was answered by Amy and Erica in tandem. My niece and sister-in-law did a surprisingly good imitation of a very excited, extremely high-pitched, two-girl fan club. “Oooh, Attorney Tom Carpenter, you’re so cute!” And then they burst into shrieks of delighted laughter.
Yes, they had seen it too.
I waited for the hysteria to fade before I attempted to turn the conversation to more practical matters, but Amy spoke first. Her voice was clear, and clean, and always made me think of music. “Come straight home, Tom, okay? We’ve got a surprise for you.”
“But what about dinner? Making a spectacle of myself on national television always makes me hungry. What goes with humiliation?”
“You’re exaggerating. You were great. And we’ve got dinner all handled. Erica’s play was today, my birthday is next week, and when we saw you on TV this afternoon”—Erica squealed in
the background for punctuation—“we decided we needed to celebrate immediately. So we already ordered from Freddy’s. They’ll deliver, and it will be here soon.”
“What about Dad?”
“Henley’s having chicken soup.”
“Wait a minute. Freddy’s doesn’t deliver.”
“It does for famous television star lawyers,” Amy responded gleefully. “Freddy says nice tie, by the way.”
“Oh, my God. Is there anyone who wasn’t watching?”
“I don’t think so. Henley almost broke his chair hitting the bell.”
My father’s bell was one of the many brilliant attachments that Iris, Cliff’s wife, installed when she modified Henley’s wheelchair to include a computer keyboard with a monitor and a mirror so that what he typed we all could see, too. My father’s dominant right hand had curled into a permanent fist. He used his left to type messages, but it was a painstakingly slow process. So Iris hooked up a bell that Henley could trigger just by hitting it. One ring meant yes. Two or more meant whatever he wanted it to mean.
“God. I hope I didn’t embarrass him.”
“Stop. Focus on the pizza. And get home soon.”
Among the thousands of things that I love about Amy, one of them is her uncanny ability to know when I need a pizza from Freddy’s. For some reason—Amy thinks it’s got something to do with how the water affects the crust, but believe me, it goes way beyond that—most Arizona pizza is virtually inedible. It’s like a large, round, tasteless cracker, smeared over with tomato soup and flecked with tiny bits of nasty, unmelted cheese.
But against all odds, Freddy Sanchez, born and raised halfway between Silver City and Payson, Arizona, decided not to follow his three brothers into the family construction business. Instead, he taught himself how to make pizza. And not just any pizza. A pizza that would win awards if Freddy ever found the time or the inclination to enter a contest. The dough is soft at the edges, but firm at the center, the sauce is delicious, and the cheese is decadently gooey, rich, sweet, and plentiful.
The only reason I don’t eat it every day of my life is because Freddy’s place is out of the way for us, there’s always a long wait, and my father can’t have pizza anymore.
After explaining to Amy why she was the greatest sister-in-law ever, I spent the last twenty minutes of the drive home trying to focus on the pizza. But my thoughts kept getting hijacked by a mean-spirited judge who looked a lot like a reptile.
Back when I was in elementary school, my parents bought their place on Payson’s Ridge. Most of the money came from my mother’s inheritance—my grandfather had made a ton of money in the stock market. The house started as a secluded cabin on a mesquite-and-pine-covered mountaintop, far enough away from the city to make my mom—a country girl—comfortable, but close enough to the city for Henley to get to work in under an hour.
Over the years, my parents had remodeled the old cabin into the beautiful lodge I approached in my truck.
Henley was in his wheelchair when he greeted me at the door with a left-handed high five. He had already programmed his computer to play Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” his favorite celebration song. Erica launched herself into my arms as soon as I cleared Henley’s chair, and before I even had a chance to lower the towheaded bundle of energy to the floor, Freddy rang the doorbell with the pizzas.
Amy and Erica had decorated the dining room with brightly colored construction paper posters saying Happy Birthday Amy, Happy Television Trial Tom, and Happy “Our Earth Our Home” Erica. An hour ago I was being devoured publicly by media piranhas. Here, I was in much more tranquil waters.
Dinner was predictably fabulous. And Amy had made herself a chocolate birthday cake, so dessert was just as good.
It was later that I resumed my streak of doing and saying everything wrong.
Henley and Erica were playing a final game of checkers in the living room, while Amy and I put the plates in the dishwasher. A few minutes before we were done, I excused myself to retrieve a birthday present I had gotten for her the week before.
I did not share my mother’s knack for buying perfect gifts. In fact, whatever gene had been responsible for my mom’s talent must have mutated fairly severely before taking up residence in yours truly. Because no matter how much time I spent shopping, I always seemed to end up buying something at the last minute which was astonishingly lame. Or appallingly inappropriate. For years, my father proudly wore the ugliest sweaters and ties imaginable, solely because I gave them to him, believing, insanely, that they would look good when he wore them.
But I refused to quit trying. Especially when it came to Amy. Fate had been so cruel to her—leaving her a widow and a single mother before she was even thirty years old—there was no way I was ever going to let her think she was walking in this world without someone by her side.
And if that meant regularly buying her birthday and Christmas presents that she would never use, well, I had come to peace with that. Her closet might be full of junk, but darn it, she would know that she was loved.
That particular birthday, however, I somewhat outdid myself. For no concrete reason I could articulate, I had come to the stunningly inaccurate conclusion that it wouldn’t be long before Amy finally decided to move on with her romantic life, get beyond the loss of Dale, and start to see other men. And thus, my birthday strategy was formed. I was going to get Amy a present to help her find a new husband.
Looking back, I realize how inane that sounds. But at the time, I truly believed it was a terrific idea.
I was well aware that Amy seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of light, and that when she smiled it was impossible to look at anything else. Yet I still managed to determine I could do something to increase her allure. My mission was fueled by the knowledge that Amy looked unbearably good wearing clothes that were the same color as her gorgeous blue-green eyes, and that she had the greatest neck and shoulders that any woman ever had in the history of the planet Earth.
So I bought her this turquoise-ish green blouse I’d seen displayed in a store window as I was walking to lunch one day. It was a light pullover with a kind of wide neck that I was sure would look absolutely devastating on her.
As I brought it into the kitchen, she saw that I was carrying a gift-wrapped box, straightened from the dishwasher, smiled her luminous smile, and said what she always said: “You didn’t have to get me a present, Tom. You know I don’t need anything.” But she opened the box anyway, and as she did, I explained about her neck and shoulders, and the color of her eyes, and how I thought that when the time was right, she’d find a guy who probably wouldn’t ever replace Dale, but instead someone who might keep her from being lonely. Someone she would want to share the rest of her life with. And I told her that when she found that guy, she should wear that shirt for him, because if she did, she would be completely irresistible, and it would totally seal the deal.
Naturally, I was wrong. The strange look on her face made it very clear that she totally hated it. Oh, she thanked me, and said that it was beautiful and all of the things you’re supposed to say when someone gives you a shirt that you’ll never wear for as long as you are choosing your own clothing. Happily, Erica came in at just the right moment to say that she had finished her game with Henley. Amy quietly put the shirt back in its package, and I knew that was the last time I’d ever see or hear about it. It was a little disappointing, but I was a seasoned veteran of bad gift-giving. Maybe next year I’d get it right.
After Amy and Erica went home, I helped Henley get ready for bed. His right side was so useless that dressing and undressing himself was no longer an option. Even using the toilet was occasionally an adventure.
When he was finally settled in with his latest audio book—a wildly popular romance novel by a best-selling author—I sat down at my computer, and started banging out motions for the next day at trial.
It was important work, but I was so tired that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get it
all done before I just dropped from exhaustion.
But then Cliff called. I picked up the phone, and everything changed.
“Dude,” he said. “I got something on Judge Klay.”
FIVE
I STAYED UP most of the night preparing motions and doing what research I could on the case, so I only got three uneasy hours of sleep. I was awakened before the alarm by a nightmare—I was standing on a stage before tens of thousands of people, dressed in a lobster costume, and I couldn’t remember the words to the national anthem.
I needed to be alert, despite the fact that my average hours of rest over the past couple of nights was now two. So as I drove in to the courthouse, I had a couple of extra coffees.
By the time I met Juan Gomez before that day’s proceedings began, I was not only alert—I had an unusually rapid pulse, sweaty feet, and a disquieting feeling that my entire body was vibrating.
Sarge led me to the small cell where Juan Gomez was being held. My client looked less agitated than he did yesterday. He was dressed, as he would be for the entire trial, in a green, prison-issue jumpsuit. Unlike the typical criminal defendant, his hands and ankles remained shackled, even when inside his cell.
Gomez seemed convinced that the only way he could be sure that I would truly fight for him was if he proved to me that he was innocent. To that end, he handed me three things through the bars of the courthouse holding cell confining him: a badly creased photo of himself standing next to a woman and a boy, a “Certificate of Merit” from Desert Furniture Warehouse, and a leaflet, on which was printed some general statements about Islam, including “Islam is a peaceful religion.”
“That’s my wife and son,” he said, pointing at the picture. “My ex-wife. She left when they took me away. She and Emilio are in Ecuador now. They were afraid…” He took a shaky breath. “Anyway, I didn’t do this thing, man. I don’t know how this happened. I always did my job—you see that certificate? They only give that to the best employees, man. And then one day…” His voice broke.