“I should have told you. Nicole moved back in.”
Laurie puts on a look of feigned surprise. “She did? You're kidding! I just assumed her car broke down and she stopped here to phone for help.”
“Laurie …”
“Your wife is waiting for you. We can talk about Brownfield tomorrow.”
“No, let's talk about him now. So your friend called you and said what?”
The enthusiasm is now gone from Laurie's voice, but she says, “He said the picture is not Brownfield, on second thought looks nothing like Brownfield, and Brownfield knows nothing about it.”
“So?”
“So he didn't sound like himself, and he denied it so hard, you'd think the guy in the picture was naked in bed with a goat. And then, just before he gets off the phone, he asks where I got the picture.”
“What did you say?”
“That if it isn't Brownfield, what do you care?”
So now we have what seems to be a harmless picture of a bunch of guys, none of whom will admit to being in it. And we're no closer to finding out why.
Laurie leaves and I go upstairs. Nicole is in bed, waiting for me as promised. She's reading a book, but she looks up as I walk in.
“Break in that murder case?”
Nicole uses the word “that” as a distancing mechanism. “That” murder case. “That” friend of yours. It diminishes the importance of what she is talking about, and removes any connection to her.
“No. But the situation with the picture is getting stranger and stranger. Brownfield denies that it's him … vehemently.”
“Maybe they were a group of men who got together to cheat on their wives. It does happen, you know.”
“Except this time it may have ended with my father getting two million dollars.”
“Where are you going with this, Andy? What will you do if you find out what happened?”
I have no real answer to this. I can't predict how I will react until I know what it is I am reacting to.
By this time I'm already undressed. I shed clothes faster than basketball players tearing off their warm-up suits as they enter a game. I get into bed, and Nicole drops the bomb.
“You and Laurie have been involved.”
Uh, oh. “It's that obvious?”
She nods. “It's that obvious.”
“We started to … and then we stopped.”
“What happened?” she asks.
“You,” I answer.
FOUR WEEKSIS SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH TIME TO PREpare for a murder case. There are lawyers who take that long to pick out what suit they are going to wear for their opening statement. But it's all Hatchet has given us, so we have to deal with it.
Things are already starting to fall between the cracks. There are motions to be filed, evidence to be challenged, discovery to be gone over, witnesses to interview, media to be spun, and prayers to be prayed. I'm going to need help.
Ordinarily, I would discuss additions to our team with Laurie, but discussions with Laurie these days are less than comfortable. I grapple with this for a short while, but I decide that not to get the benefit of her input is to cause my client to suffer because of my personal situation. I can't let that happen.
Laurie completely agrees that we need help, and after thinking for a minute, she comes up with a name I've never heard before: Kevin Randall.
“He's as good as any attorney I've ever met,” she says. “And he can be trusted totally and completely.”
Laurie doesn't exactly throw around praise indiscriminately, so I'm intrigued.
“Where is he practicing?”
“He isn't,” she says. “He quit.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he has a conscience.”
As Laurie goes on to say, Kevin graduated Harvard Law about twenty years ago, but rather than join his classmates on their march to corporate law stardom, he went to work for the District Attorney in Essex County. He was a talented prosecutor, insightful and intense, but he had the misfortune to recognize his ability. Kevin would win cases with his skill and work ethic, which caused him to worry that perhaps innocent defendants were going to prison because their lawyers were outgunned.
To counter this situation, Kevin decided to become a defense attorney. It didn't work out quite the way he hoped. Now, when he won a case, he began to worry that he was responsible for dangerous felons roaming the streets. This was confirmed to him when one of his victories wound up killing two people in an armed robbery a month after Kevin got him off a convenience store holdup charge. Kevin blamed himself for the deaths.
That, Laurie says, was the final straw. Having been both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, Kevin had now run out of sides to take. His only other chance to stay in the legal system was to become a judge, so Kevin Randall made the obvious choice.
He opened a Laundromat.
Laurie and I drive out to East Brunswick to see Kevin at his current establishment, set in a tacky strip mall. There's a 7-Eleven, a takeout-only Chinese restaurant, a check-cashing business, and the “Law-dromat,” Kevin's place. The sign outside offers “Free Legal Advice While You Wash and Dry.”
I look at the place and then at Laurie, who has perfected the ability to read my thoughts. She can tell that I can't believe we've even come here.
“Open your mind,” she says. “Unclench your ass and open your mind.”
Laurie has mentioned that she knows Kevin quite well, but she hasn't provided any specifics. Actually, I think she knows him more than quite well, maybe much more than quite well. I've got a feeling she once may have known him in the biblical sense, and my suspicious mind concludes that is one of the reasons she recommended him. But I've agreed to give it a shot, so we go in.
The inside of the place looks like a Laundromat, which in itself is no major surprise, since that is what it is. There is only one patron in the place, a middle-aged woman who is talking to the proprietor, Kevin. He, to my immense relief, is five foot seven, thirty pounds overweight, and balding. He doesn't have a hunchback, and he doesn't drool when he talks, but his overall unattractiveness should be enough to keep my jealousy in check.
Kevin and the woman are having an animated discussion, which Laurie and I cannot hear from our vantage point, since the washers and dryers are making too much noise. The woman seems upset, and Kevin's gestures indicate he is trying to placate her. It doesn't seem to work, and she throws up her hands and leaves.
Kevin sees Laurie and waves us over. When we get there, he's still shaking his head over the encounter with the woman. Laurie gives him a big hug and kiss, causing me to briefly wonder if my initial jealous instincts had been right. Nah, she's three inches taller than he is. Can't be.
“Hey, Kev, meet Andy. Andy, Kevin.”
We shake hands and say how nice it is to meet each other. I ask him if the woman that just left is a tough client.