The Last Alibi

19

Jason

“It was the right decision,” I say to Shauna after Judge Bialek calls a recess following Roger Ogren’s opening statement. Over the last two weeks, she has argued fiercely for delivering the defense’s opening statement at the start of the case, as is tradition-so much so that she actually wrote and presented her opening statement to me two nights ago in an effort to change my mind. It was a great opening, well couched and expertly delivered, but she was never going to change my mind about this. There’s no way we’re telling the jury what happened yet. I know this more than Shauna does.

Because I know things my lawyer doesn’t.

Shauna looks at me, poker-faced. The jury hasn’t filtered out yet, and she doesn’t want to betray any reactions, any emotions, in front of them. Plus there is the gallery behind us, a plentiful group of reporters and onlookers, all of whom would be more than happy to send tweets or post online stories about a perceived “disharmony among the defense team” or “surprised reactions” from a lawyer or from me. I’ve been surprised at the media’s interest in this case, which owes primarily to the fact that many people believe that I was the private attorney who played a central role in the scandal that embroiled our last governor, Carlton Snow. I was, and I did. But I’ve never acknowledged it publicly. Shauna wanted me to do so now in a blatant attempt to influence the jury pool, to trumpet the work that I did for the federal government, to display me to the public as a whistle-blower on corruption, a do-gooder who helped stop bad people from doing bad things. From whistle-blower to accused murderer was how one of the local papers blazed it in a feature story, even without my saying anything.

“You doing okay? I didn’t think Ogren was that good. You doing okay?” This from Bradley John, the lone associate at our law firm, a young guy with a lot of talent and a terrific work ethic. If I could get him to cut his hair so he didn’t look like the lead singer in some cheesy boy band, he might have a future in this profession.

“Ogren was good,” I say. “He was what he needed to be.”

“There’s water if you want it,” he says, nudging the bottle toward me.

“Okay, thanks, kid.” I stifle a snicker and catch eyes with Shauna. Among the other tasks she has delegated to young Bradley, Shauna presumably has given him the assignment of babysitting me, making sure I never get dry mouth, never come suddenly unglued in the middle of a long day of trial.

When it was bad for me, when I was scraping the bottom this past summer, I would use the dry mouth I was experiencing as an excuse to reach for my tin of Altoids. My mouth is feeling kind of sticky and dry, better pop a mint! I even used the excuse when I was alone, as if I were somehow fooling myself with the ruse. You know your life is going off the rails when you tell yourself the lie you’ve created for everyone else, and you believe it.

And the ruse was no casual thing. I did research. I bought a dozen different brands of breath mints, brought them home and opened each container, examining each mint individually to identify the one that bore the closest resemblance to a thirty-milligram tablet of OxyContin.

I ended up going with Altoids, even though they weren’t the best replica, because when I’ve eaten mints in the past, it was usually that brand. Every morning, I replenished my Altoids tin with a half dozen new Oxy pills, enough for one every two hours of a workday and a couple extra in case I went straight from work to dinner. It became my top priority, ensuring a proper supply of OxyContin before I left the house.

Of course, I also needed to have real Altoids, in case someone saw me partaking and asked me for one. Hey, could I bum one of those off you? I couldn’t very well drop a tablet of immediate-release oxycodone into their hands, which would have given them a lot more than minty breath. So I always carried around two of the mini-tins, the red peppermint tin for the painkillers and the blue tin of wintergreen mints for curiously strong breath freshening. I lived with the nagging fear of making a mistake and handing a friend or colleague the wrong tin.

More ridiculously still, I went through the same routine at home, sticking a sleeve of the Oxy tablets in a box of allergy medicine, even though I’ve never been allergic to anything in my entire life. But just in case, on the off chance that I might have a female visitor to my house, again I needed a ruse for my painkiller habit. I remember driving to the pharmacy, looking for a box of allergy medicine for my disguise, and not even knowing what to say to the pharmacist, finally settling on hay fever because my mother used to have that problem in the summer.

“I’m doing fine,” I say to Bradley, making sure Shauna hears it, too. I am fine. It’s been over four months now, and I feel separation from the drugs. And I sure as hell am not going to come apart in front of my jury, who will scan me throughout the trial for any hint of emotional instability, among other things.

But the harshest truth I’ve ever had to accept is the one I swallowed a few months back: I lost control once, and I can’t ever be one hundred percent sure I won’t lose control again. I’m now an addict, and I’ll be one for the rest of my life.

The judge reenters the room, and everyone rises. The jury filters back into their assigned seats. In response to Judge Bialek, Roger Ogren rises.

“The People call Officer Martin Garvin,” he says.