Archives:
May 20-May 26, 2007
May 20, 2007
“So they put the wrong man in prison.”
Grandma nods, eyes still fixed on her cards. “They put the wrong man away, and didn't realize it until twenty years later. And what do you say to someone after you've taken away twenty years of his life?” She discards a three of spades.
I pull two cards from the deck, hoping for a seven to complete my Canasta. “Must have been harder to really investigate a crime then, without all of the technology they now.”
Grandma waves a hand. “It's pretty much the same. People always find a way to hide evidence, or get around the technology. In the end, it usually comes down to the person on trial, and whether people believe that person is guilty.” She looks at my discard with disdain, and reaches for the deck herself. “One thing that came from that trial, though, was it turned your father on to the law.”
“But he would have been just a kid then.”
“That's when you're most impressionable,” she says. “We got to talking about it one night, before he married your mother. He said at the age of 8 or 9—whatever it was—he got so caught up the case, was absolutely convinced Peter Jacobs was not guilty. And that was the first thing that made him want to be a lawyer.”
“He never told me about that.” I pick up the six of clubs my Grandma laid down, and put it into my first meld of the hand. “I guess in his mind, maybe this is his chance to set things right.”
“In your father's mind, every trial is a chance to set things right. Every case is about an innocent man, with his life on the line,” Grandma says, as I lay down my sevens. “That's why your mother hated times like this, when a big case would break.”
“Yeah, when Dad would disappear more than usual.”
She nods. “It hurt her more than she ever let on.” She scratches at her nose, before looking to the cards in her hand, then at the cards I'm laying on the table. “Are you done yet?”
I crack a smile, putting down a set of jacks. “I'm getting there.”May 21, 2007
Summer's starting to kick into gear today, and it's hot enough that my father leaves his blazer at home, settling on just a dress shirt when we leave the office to visit the jail.
The door opens and Darryl Goodman steps out, clad all in orange, walking ahead of a guard in full uniform. It's sort of surreal sitting here with my father and his secretary, Natalie, in this meeting room at the jail. After all, my most immediate memories of Darryl tend to revolve around images of him and my dad, side by side cooking at a barbecue, or him throwing underhanded softball pitches to the kids at family parties.
Dad stands to shake his hand, and I follow suit.
“Darryl, you remember my son, Preston .”
“Oh wow,” Darryl touches his hands to his head, looking at me with a smile. “I didn't even recognize you at first. You're all grown up.”
I meet his hand with mine, giving it a shake.
“Good firm handshake too,” he says.
“Good to see you, Mr. Goodman.”
“Call me Darryl,” he says, having a seat across the table from our chairs, still smiling. I feel kind of good that he seems so happy to see me. It makes me feel as though I'm helping him right now, and I almost wonder if that's why my father wanted me to come along today.
Looking across the table, it's hard to imagine that this man is a murderer.
“Well, thanks. It's good to see you, Mr. Goodman.” I scoot closer to the table, picking up my pen, and pulling my legal pad toward me to take notes, which is the official reason my father asked me to come.
“I'm sorry to be so hung up on this,” Darryl goes on, “but I just remember watching you and Valerie, my daughter, playing together.” He shakes his head. “It's amazing how time goes by.”
I remember Valerie well. We used to hang out at family functions, and a little bit at school. I vaguely remember getting one of my first crushes on her in early junior high, before she transferred over to a private school. “How is Valerie doing?” I say, my hand resting over the pad.
“She's doing well. She just finished her first year of college, and she did great. And she's grown into a beautiful woman. She looks so much like—” he trails, off looking down. After a brief respite, I guess we all remember why we're here.
“So Darryl, I wanted to go over some names with you,” Dad says, rolling up one of his sleeves. “These are people we think might have been able to get into the house, and people who might have wanted to hurt you and your family.”
Darryl nods. “What do you have, John?”May 22, 2007
“So it was Darryl's gun, his prints were all over it, and there were no signs that someone broke into the house,” Teri recaps over the phone. “And your father is still confident he didn't kill his wife?”
“You would have to know Mr. Goodman—he's just not someone who would do that,” I say, lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I've gotten in the habit of talking to Teri before I go to sleep at night. “And besides that, there are lots of rational explanations for the evidence.”
“Such as?”
“Say somebody forgot to lock the door—then the murderer walks right in, finds the gun, wears gloves, and boom—it's over.”
“And this other person knows exactly where to find the gun? Wouldn't he have kept it locked up or something?”
“I don't know.” I rub my eyes. “Anyway, enough talk about work. When are you coming to play?”
“Is that what you want?”
“We were talking about next weekend,” I say. I really am anxious to see her.
“Not next weekend, but the one after that. I already cleared it, and I can get out of work a little early Friday afternoon. I'll hit the road and I should be there by eight or nine.”
“And you're sure you'd rather come here than have me go there?”
“I could use a weekend away from the sibs. Besides, I want to see where you live.”
“It's not that great.”
“Well, like it or not I'm coming.”
“Oh, I like it,” I say, stretching. “And I'll show you how much I do when you get here.”May 23, 2007
I'm left manning the office alone again this morning, when the door swings open. A beautiful girl walks in with really fair skin, and shoulder length jet black hair.
I sit up straight from where I had slouched in the desk chair, feeding old documents through the little shredder over a wastebasket. “Hi there, can I help you?”
“Um, I was here to see John Burns,” she says in a high voice, sounding a touch nervous. “I'm the daughter of one of his clients.”
All at once, it hits me who this girl is. “Valerie?”
She smiles, and sort of squints for a second. “Yes. Have we met?”
“I'm Preston Burns—John's son.”
“Oh.” She laughs. “Wow, it's been years since I've seen you. How are you doing?”
“Good, good,” I say kind of quickly. I shift in my chair again. “I just finished my second year at college, so I'm back here for the summer to help out around the office, and all that jazz. So how about you—how are you doing?”
She takes an end of her hair, and moves it behind her ear. “Well, things haven't been great, obviously.”
“Right.” I look down.
“But outside of the recent stuff, I'm doing well,” she says. “Just finished my first year at Harvard.”
“Harvard?”
She blushes a little. “Yeah. It's really not that big of a deal.”
“Right.” I nod. “So listen, I'm really sorry about your folks. I can't even imagine what you're going—”
“It's fine,” she cuts me off. “I mean, it's not fine, but, it's a thing that happened—I just don't really like talking about it.”
“That's understandable.”
“Yeah,” she says, fidgeting with a silver ring on her index finger. “Of course, it's kind of ironic that that's why I'm here—to talk to your dad about everything.”
The phone rings, startling us. I have yet to deduce why Natalie keeps it as loud as she does.
“John Burns's office, this is Preston speaking.”
Valerie gives me a half smile as I answer in official-speak.
“ Preston , this is your father.”
“Hi Dad, what's up?”
“Listen, I asked Valerie to come to my office to talk about the case.”
“Yeah,” I look up to meet Valerie's eyes again, “she's actually here now.”
“All right, well I hate to do this, but I'm tied up right now. Could you ask her if she's free to come in tomorrow at the same time? You can tell her I'll treat her to lunch.”
I smile. “Valerie, he'd like to know if you would be free at this time tomorrow. He said he would buy you lunch to make up for it.”
She smiles back. “Well, you can tell him that should be fine. And I'll look forward to it.”
“She says that works.”
“ Preston , make sure you apologize for me.”
I turn back to her. “He says he's sorry.”
“Well you can tell him the apology is accepted,” she says, smiling widely enough to show off her teeth, even whiter than her skin.May 24, 2007
“I'll have the swordfish steak,” Valerie says, “and I'll have that with the rice pilaf.”
“Very good ma'am,” our waiter says, with a nod, before collecting the menus from us. He's a diminutive man, short and thin, with a perfectly groomed moustache.
I feel a little out of my element in this restaurant, with Valerie ordering swordfish steaks, and my father ordering Mediterranean pasta. I ordered first and just asked for a burger, then stumbled over deciding that I wanted it cooked medium well.
We're eating at Fadiman's, a nice restaurant where my father often goes for business meetings. I didn't expect to be a part of his lunch meeting with Valerie today, but when he invited me, I didn't hesitate to take him up on it. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued with spending some more time with Valerie—not to mention the idea of a free lunch.
“So back to what we were saying,” Dad says, “was there anything strange going on in your parents' lives before the incident?”
“Well, I did notice that, since I got home, they've been fighting a lot,” she says, before taking a sip from her water.
“Do you remember what they were fighting about?”
She shrugs. “Just a lot of little things—nothing too unusual. I just remember that they were fighting more than I remember them fighting before. And I thought it might have just been me not remembering things right. I never expected my father to do something—” she stops, taking another sip. “I mean, I don't think that he did do anything, but—”
“You can relax, Valerie,” Dad breaks in. “I'm not trying to get evidence against your father—it's the opposite, of course. What I would be more interested in hearing about are unusual things coming from the outside. Threats, or prank phone calls, or vandalism on the house, or one of the cars.”
Valerie shakes her head slowly. “No. I'm sorry, but I don't remember anything like that.”May 25, 2007
“So why wouldn't you call any witnesses?” I ask my father, as I sit behind the desk where I've been stationed the last two weeks, and he sits on a corner of it, opening an envelope from today's mail. “Like what about a character witness. If you can show the judge what a good guy Darryl is, maybe that could help sway his opinion.”
“A preliminary trial is just about determining whether it's worth having a trial. The only way the judge is throwing out is if it's clear there's no way Darryl could be guilty.”
“So you're not going to fight the charges at all?”
“Not much point to it. The evidence is stacked against us as is. I'll go through the motions on the pre-trial, but the real defense won't go up until we have a jury—assuming it goes that far.”
I lean back in my chair. “I thought you just said there's no way the judge is throwing it out.”
“He's not,” Dad says, putting aside one envelope, opening the next. “But if the prosecution offers the right plea bargain, I'll do everything I can to have him take it.”
“You don't think you'll win the trial?”
“It's not about whether I think we'll win. The stakes are too high. Darryl gets found guilty and he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison,” he says, setting all the mail aside. “Of course, from what he tells me, he wants to fight this all the way. He's offended people would even think he killed his own wife, and he doesn't want to be punished for it.”
“He didn't seem so upset when we were at the jail the other day.”
Dad nods, standing up. “He puts on a brave front. That, and he cares a lot about the people in his life. He likes seeing people, interacting, remembering.” He turns back to me. “He really was excited to see you again.”
I nod.
Dad runs a hand over his tie, flattening it out. “Anyway, I've got some odds and ends to take care of. You can head home whenever you're ready.”
“Sounds good,” I say, pushing the bottom desk drawer shut, as I prepare to head out. I think about what my father said, about how Darryl feels about the people in his life. I don't see how someone like that could be a murderer—even if Valerie was right, and he had been arguing with his wife before she died.
Heading out the door, I can't help feeling sorry for the whole family.May 26, 2007
“I see what you're saying,” Adam says, smoothing a bushy eyebrow back with his finger. “But I don't why you don't blow them out of the water now. Put your defense into play now so this thing doesn't have to go to trial.”
I recognize my argument from the day before in what Adam has to say now. The only difference is that my father has already explained what's going on to him twice, and he's still not getting it.
My father seems to stifle a sigh, going on to explain again.
Adam has been going out with Valerie for the better part of three years. He was there the night of the murder, bringing Valerie home from a date just a half hour after Darryl found his wife's body.
Darryl looks down at his hands as my father explains again. I get the feeling that he's holding back as well.
As Dad wraps up, Valerie puts a hand on one of Adam's. For an instant, I notice her nails, all perfectly even, perfectly manicured. “Let's just trust he knows best,” she says softly to Adam. “After all, he's the lawyer.”
Adam looks like he wants to say more, but raises his other hand and sits back in his chair, quiet.
Valerie turns to my father. “So what do you need us to do?”
“I just need for you to show up. Look nice, look concerned—show that, as the people closest to both your mother and father, you are shocked that this happened, and even more shocked that anyone would accuse your father of perpetrating this crime.”
Adam nods, giving Valerie's hand a squeeze. “We can do that.” He points out his other hand toward Dad. “This is a smart man. He's establishing who we are to anyone watching. Then we drive the point home when we testify in the real trial.”
Dad nods slowly. “Yeah, that's the idea.”