Falls The Shadow

3

Outside Graterford Prison, as we walked to my car in the parking lot, I asked Beth what her little outburst in the interview room was all about.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something just came over me. He seemed so lost, so helpless. He misses his daughter, and she misses him.”

“Does she?”

“Of course she does.”

“You talk to her lately?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking of her waiting for her daddy to come home. We couldn’t just do nothing.”

“Yes we could.”

“We had to do something.”

“No we didn’t.”

“He needs our help. Isn’t that enough?”

“See, that’s the problem with you, Beth. You view the law as a helping profession. Me, if I want to help, I help myself. That is the capitalist way, and I am a freedom-loving capitalist of the first rank: All I lack is capital.”

“Sometimes you’re a creep.”

“That may be true,” I said, “but I’m never as creepy as that creep in there.”

“Who? François?”

“Yes, François. I didn’t like him from the get-go. Frankly, I have no great belief in his innocence, and I have no burning desire to reunite this convicted murderer with his young and innocent daughter.”

“Then why did you take the case?”

“You’re my partner, you wanted the job, and there was the promise of ten thousand dollars. The combination was enough for me. If lawyers only defended those they liked and admired, the species would be endangered. I figure we’ll cash the check and spend the retainer preparing the motion for a new trial. Then we’ll stand stoically in court as the judge denies it. We did what we could, we’ll tell François. We’re sorry it didn’t work out. Easy money.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“This,” I said.

“You don’t think we have a chance?”

“There is no way, no how a judge will give that guy a new trial. He’s got nothing, nothing but the money he’s going to pay us, and pretty soon he won’t have that either.”

“I’ll go to the clerk’s office tomorrow and get the file. I assume reviewing the record will be my job.”

“Right you are. Last thing I want to do is bury myself for a month in his paperwork.”

“In exchange, then, you can handle this pro bono case I was assigned by Judge Sistine.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve told you before, I’m not one for causes.”

“It’s not a cause, it’s a kid. We’re representing a young boy whose mother has been neglecting him.”

“Pro bono, Latin for ‘empty bank account.’ Couldn’t you have just said, ‘Sorry, but we’re too busy’?”

“No, and neither would you have.”

“I think the reason we’ve stayed together so long, Beth, is that you still have no idea who I really am.”

“So let’s keep it that way,” she said. And then she added, “I thought he was cute.”

“Who?”

“François.”

“Everyone looks cute in prison maroon.”

“You didn’t think he was insanely handsome?”

“In a Charlie Manson sort of way.”

“There was something in his eyes.”

“The mark of Satan?”

“You know, Victor, when he said he didn’t do it, I almost believed him.”

I stopped, stared at her for a moment until she stopped, too. She turned to face me, and there was that same little-girl look in her eyes. She had said something came over her, and I could see that maybe it had, but what it was, I had yet not a clue. Part of it was the romanticism of a client she believed in, of a cause worth fighting for, sure, but there was something else, too, something that involved this man in jail and his daughter, whom he hadn’t hugged in three years. I didn’t understand yet what it was, the something, though I would discover it later, yes, I would, discover it from Bob, as a matter of fact.

“He’s a convicted murderer,” I said.

“He’s a human being, too.”

I pulled out my phone. “Let’s find out.”

“Who are you calling?”

I held up a finger, said into the earpiece, “A Chestnut Hill address. The name is Robinson, Whitney Robinson.” Then I looked at Beth. “You want to glimpse the rotting cesspools in the soul of a man, just ask his lawyer.”