Alice Cummings lived in a cheap garden apartment behind a strip mall and a car wash a few blocks from Portland’s worst commercial avenue. Daniel remembered how tired she had looked wheeling Patrick’s stroller into Aaron Flynn’s lobby on the day he delivered the boxes containing the discovery documents. She looked worse today. When Cummings visited Flynn she’d been wearing makeup and a dress. When she opened the door, she was in soiled jeans and a stained sweatshirt and there was no mascara or pancake makeup to hide the lines that the pressure of raising a handicapped baby had etched in her face. “Hi,”
Daniel said, flashing a pleasant smile. “You probably don’t remember me, but Aaron Flynn introduced us about a month ago.” Alice examined Daniel’s face. Her eyes lingered on the bandage that covered his head wound, but only for a moment. He hoped that she did not recognize him from one of the television news programs that had filmed him at the courthouse. “We met in the lobby of Mr. Flynn’s office. I was just leaving as you came in for your appointment.” Alice brightened. “Oh, yes. Now I remember. Did Mr. Flynn send you?” “Can I come in?” Daniel answered, finessing the question. Alice stepped aside and let Daniel into a small front room. “How’s Patrick?” he asked. “He had a bad night, but he’s sleeping now.” Daniel heard the resignation and exhaustion in Cummings’s voice. Kate had looked up Alice in the records at the courthouse. Daniel knew that her husband had filed for divorce soon after Patrick’s birth, which meant that she was raising her son alone. “When he has a bad night yours must be rough, too,” he said. “My nights are never as bad as my baby’s. Sometimes I wonder how he goes on, but he’s never known anything else.” Alice rubbed her hands on her jeans and surveyed her front room. There was laundry on the sofa. She took a toy off an armchair and motioned Daniel toward it. “Please, sit down. Can I get you some coffee?” “I’m fine,” Daniel said, waiting for Alice to push some of the laundry aside and take a seat before he sat down. “Has Mr. Flynn heard anything?” she asked anxiously. “We’re really counting on him.” “I’m not here about your case.” Alice looked confused and Daniel felt horrible about deceiving her. “It’s something Mr. Flynn wanted me to ask you about. Do you remember visiting his office in early March?” She nodded. “That was my first time. I… I read about the Moffitts. I wanted to see if he could help me, too.” “So you remember the consultation?” “Of course.”
“Because a matter came up in another case I need your help with. It has to do with a phone call that Mr. Flynn insists that he received while you were with him. Another lawyer is claiming that the call never took place. Mr. Flynn’s time sheets indicate that he was meeting with you when the call came in. Do you remember a call interrupting your meeting? Or the receptionist talking to Mr. Flynn over the intercom while you were with him?” Alice thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I do. There was a call. Mr. Flynn apologized when his receptionist interrupted the meeting. And… Of course! Now I remember. Mr. Flynn was upset when his secretary buzzed him. He told her that he didn’t want our meeting interrupted. She was speaking on an intercom and I heard her. She said the man was calling about a murder and was very insistent. That’s one of the reasons I remember the call. I don’t hear people discussing a murder very often.” “That’s the call I need to know about,” Daniel said, trying to sound businesslike. “Do you happen to remember the caller’s name? That would be very helpful.” “His last name was Arnold,” she said with a laugh.
“My father’s first name is Arnold, so I remember it perfectly.” Daniel laughed, too, even more enthusiastically than Mrs. Cummings. “Wow,” he said, “that was easy. Thanks.” “I’m glad I could help. Mr. Flynn has been so good to Patrick and me. I don’t know what we’d do without him.
He’s going to get us the money for Patrick’s operations. I don’t have health insurance and my husband walked out when Patrick was born.” She looked down. “He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t even look at Patrick,” she said softly. “If Mr. Flynn wasn’t fighting this case for us…”
Daniel felt sick inside, both for her plight and for deceiving her. He couldn’t imagine how she would feel when Flynn was arrested and she learned that her suit against Insufort was baseless. Daniel said good-bye, feeling like the worst kind of traitor. Partway down the block he looked back. Alice Cummings smiled and waved hopefully from her front door. Daniel couldn’t bring himself to wave back.