“How long would it take you to get warm?”
I shrug. “I should be ready about the time of the next eclipse. What’s on your mind?”
What’s on his mind of course is Kenny Schilling. The Giants are in the uncomfortable position of having given him a huge contract, one befitting a star, two weeks before he is arrested for murder. Not exactly a PR man’s dream.
But Simmons says that the Giants are standing behind him, financially and otherwise, and are in fact paying his salary while he deals with the accusations. “He’s a terrific person and has never given us a day of trouble since we drafted him.”
“And he can run the forty in 4.35,” I point out.
He nods at the truthfulness of that statement. “Of course. We’re a football team. If he was built like me or threw the ball like you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I’m still not sure why we are having it,” I say.
“Because we can be helpful to you,” he says. “The league and the Giants have substantial security operations. We might possibly have better access to certain people than you would. We are prepared to do whatever we can, within reason, of course.”
“And in return?” I ask.
“We would like a heads-up if things are going to break in such a way that the organization will be embarrassed.”
“While respecting lawyer-client confidentiality.” He’s a lawyer; he knows I’m not going to reveal more than is proper.
“Of course.”
We shake hands on the deal, which I am willing to do since I’ve given up absolutely nothing and gotten something in return. I decide to test him right away. “Can you get me a list of the players Kenny was closest to?”
“I’ll have our people get started on it. We’ll also put out the word that they should talk to you, but of course, we can’t force them.”
I push it a little further. “Actually, you do a lot of personal research on players before you draft them, right?”
“You’d be amazed how much.”
“Then I’d like everything you have on Kenny.”
“No problem,” he says.
I’m starting to like this feeling of power. “Any chance you can get the information the Jets have on Troy Preston?”
“I’ll try. I think that information might be helpful. I don’t know the specifics, but I believe Preston was a problem.”
I press him for more information, but he professes not to have any. I thank him for his time, then turn with a flourish and trot to the sidelines, imagining the crowd roaring in appreciation of my spectacular touchdown pass.
I’ve got a really strong imagination.
When I get back to the office, Tanya Schilling, Kenny’s wife, is waiting for me. I had asked Edna to set up an appointment with her, but I characteristically forgot about it.
Tanya is a strikingly beautiful young woman and one who radiates a strength that belies her diminutive size. “Mr. Carpenter, I know you hear this from every client you’ve ever had, but I’m going to say it anyway. Kenny is innocent. He simply could not have done this.”
I know that she is telling me the truth as she sees it, but that doesn’t make it the truth. “He’s got an uphill struggle,” I say.
She nods. “Let me tell you a story about Kenny. When he was eight years old, he woke up one morning in his apartment and found the police there. His mother had reached under her bed and was bitten during the night by a neighbor’s pet snake. It had gotten loose and somehow made it into the Schillings’ apartment. The police asked her why she didn’t call them during the night when it happened, and she said it was because in the dark she assumed she had been bitten by a rat. That’s the kind of neighborhood Kenny grew up in. So uphill struggles don’t scare him; they’re the story of his life.”
“That is indescribably awful,” I say, “but this may be tougher.”
She nods. “But he’ll come out on top. Usually, he does it on his own; sometimes we do it together. This time we need you to help us.”
I ask her some questions about Kenny and his relationship with Troy Preston but get basically the same answers that Kenny gave me. By the time Tanya leaves, I’m very impressed by her, and by extension impressed that Kenny was able to get her to marry him.
Laurie arrives a few minutes later, and once again I get a mini-electric jolt of remembrance that she may be leaving. We’ve agreed not to discuss it for a while, but rather to sit with it and let our feelings settle. Patient introspection is not my strong point, so my approach is to let work push everything else in my head out of the way. Seeing Laurie makes that very difficult.
Laurie is here to discuss the case and find out what I want her investigation to cover. In these early stages I’m interested in three basic things. The first is Troy Preston, especially after Simmons’s comment at Giants Stadium. The second is Kenny Schilling; it is absolutely imperative to know who the client is, warts and all, before he can be properly defended. The third is the relationship between the two men, and whether or not there is anything there that Dylan can claim to be a motive for murder.
Kevin comes in just as the first discovery documents arrive. They’re mostly police reports, detailing the actions of the officers on the scene when Kenny turned Upper Saddle River into the O.K. Corral. The reports are devastating but not surprising; we already knew how Kenny acted under that pressure.
Just as bad are the reports concerning the disappearance of Troy Preston. Preston was seen leaving the bar with Kenny, which we knew. What we didn’t know is that Kenny’s car was found abandoned in the woods just across the Jersey border in New York State, not far from Upper Saddle River. Worse yet, there were no fingerprints in the car other than Kenny’s and Preston’s, and Preston left behind another calling card: specks of his blood.
To complete the trifecta, Kenny’s blood tested positive for the stimulant Rohypnol, and Preston’s did as well. Dylan and the police obviously believe that the drugs are tied into the motive for the killing, but that belief is not, and does not have to be, detailed in these reports. I make a note to myself to find out everything I can about the drug and to confront my client with the evidence that he lied to me about taking it.
It’s strange that I’ve begun to think of Kenny as my client on a more permanent basis. Catching him in this lie about the drugs might have disqualified him at this stage, and I would have helped him secure other counsel. But I seem to want to continue, be it because of the diversion from my worries about Laurie or because of my competitive nature vis-à-vis Dylan.
This analysis of my decision to keep Kenny as a client is typical of my version of introspection, which consists of thinking about myself in the third person. It’s as if I’m saying, “I wonder why he’s thinking like that” or “I wonder why he did that.” The “he” in these sentences is me.
I generally don’t do even this pathetic introspection for very long. If it becomes too painful, if I discover too much about myself, I shrug and say, “That’s his problem,” and move on.
* * * * *
SOMEHOW during the night, I come up with a brilliant theory. And unlike most ideas that come in dreams, this one holds up in the light of morning.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the theory has nothing to do with the Schilling case. It has to do with football.
My fantasy on the Giants Stadium field yesterday centered on my making the team as a running back or wide receiver, and even my delusional mind knows that is impossible.
I’m going to make it as a placekicker.
Think about this. There are at least two dozen behemoths on every pro roster, weighing in excess of three hundred pounds and able to bench-press Argentina. Yet the kicker is always a little guy, about the size of a late night snack for a defensive lineman.
This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that strength is not a significant factor in placekicking. If it were, then the strongest guys, and not the weakest, would be doing it. What must be necessary to succeed is technique, which the little guys have taken the time to master. There must be a trick to the leg swing, or the body-lean into the ball, or something.
Now, as far as I can tell, there is no reason a thirty-nine-year-old lawyer can’t learn the technique. I’m a smart guy; I’ll get somebody to teach me, and I’ll practice until I’ve got it down pat. I don’t know if the Gramatica brothers can learn torts, but I sure as hell can master a leg sweep.
So now I’ve got a plan. I get Kenny acquitted, and the very grateful Giants offer me a tryout before next season, which gives me months to learn the technique. I become a football hero, and Laurie stays and becomes head cheerleader. The only flaw in that plan is the “Kenny acquitted” part, since I have no idea how the hell to do that.
I get to the office at nine o’clock, a little late for me, but a little early for the shock I receive. Edna is already in and brewing coffee. Eclipses happen with considerably greater frequency than Edna getting in before ten, and I didn’t know she knew where the coffeemaker was.
A casually dressed man of about twenty-five sits across from Edna, and they have a New York Times open on the table between them. She seems to be lecturing him on the intricacies of crossword puzzle solving, a speech she is uniquely qualified to give. Edna is to crossword puzzles what Gretzky was to hockey, alone on a level above all possible competition.
Edna finally notices that I’ve come in, and she reluctantly pauses in her tutorial to introduce the stranger as Adam Strickland. He’s the writer the studio sent to get to know us and see how we operate so that he can write the screenplay more effectively and accurately. I had forgotten he was even coming, and now very sorry that he did. One thing I don’t need now is a distraction from the case.