School Days s-33 Page 3

  I nodded.

  "Know a lawyer named Alex Taglio," I said, "works for Batson and Doyle?"

  "Alex Taglio, yes. Used to be a prosecutor in Suffolk County before he decided to make money."

  "Not unlike others," I said.

  "I was a prosecutor in Norfolk County before I decided to make money. There's a huge difference."

  "I can see that," I said. "He any good?"

  "Yes. Alex is a good lawyer. Works hard. Who's he represent?"

  "The other kid," I said, "Wendell Grant."

  "He and Leeland get along?" Rita said.

  "Leeland indicated no," I said.

  "Perfect," Rita said. "They being tried separately?"

  "I don't know," I said.

  "Probably not. Same crime. What's Grant's defense?"

  "Don't know yet," I said.

  "What do you think of Grandma?"

  "Smart," I said. "Tough."

  "Not old and losing her grip?"

  "No. Leeland sort of implied that, but I don't believe him. She seemed right there when I talked with her."

  "Why would the parents want to discourage an attempt to find their son innocent of multiple murder charges?"

  "Don't know," I said.

  "You don't know shit," Rita said, "do you?"

  "No," I said. "But it's okay, I'm used to it."

  Chapter 8

  IT HAD BEEN a rainy summer, and it was raining again. It was a good late-summer rain, warm, no wind, but not so hard that it overcame your defenses. I wished I was walking in it, holding Susan's hand. Susan of course would rather face gunfire than walk in the rain and ruin her hair. But fantasy wouldn't be fantasy if it was simply factual. As we walked, I'd sing "Here's That Rainy Day" and sound great.

  But Susan was in Durham, and Pearl refused to go out in the rain, whether I sang or not. So I sat at my desk in my office, with the overhead light making the gray day look grayer out my window, and made a list of people I still needed to talk with about Jared Clark. I had some sense that it would be wise to talk with Jared last. I hadn't taken the time to figure out why I felt that. But I saw nothing wrong with it. So I put his name last on my list. Of the others, the closest was Alex Taglio, the other kid's lawyer.

  I put Pearl on her leash, and we went down the back stairs to the alley where I parked my car illegally. But I had drunk coffee with the meter maiden a couple of times and exposed her to my compelling smile, so she gave me a bye on the parking issue. At the door, Pearl spotted the rain and sat down suddenly.

  "You're a hunting dog," I said to her. "Born for the rugged outdoor life."

  She didn't move. I tugged gently. She continued to sit. I picked her up. She weighed seventy-five pounds, much of which was legs and feet. I had to sort of jimmy her through the door opening.

  Batson and Doyle had offices on Washington Street, near Court Street. On the walk up, Pearl often stopped and sat and looked at me with disbelief. Sometimes she jumped up instead and tried to get under my raincoat. She was greatly relieved when we got to the building and into the elevator and up to the law offices of Batson and Doyle.

  "Alex Taglio," I said. "He's expecting us."

  "You are?"

  "Spenser," I said.

  The receptionist looked at Pearl. "Poor thing," she said. "She's all wet."

  "She doesn't mind it at all," I said. "She's a hunting dog."

  The receptionist led us to a conference room and ushered us in.

  "Mr. Taglio will be right with you," she said.

  Pearl was ill at ease in strange places. She stayed close beside me while I took off my raincoat and hung it on a hat rack. She was sitting beside me with her ears a little flat when Taglio came in. She growled at him.

  "Christ," he said. "How's she know I'm a lawyer?"

  "Hunting dog," I said. "Keen nose."

  Taglio nodded and went around and sat across the conference table from me and Pearl.

  "She a pointer?"

  "Yeah. German shorthair."

  `Aren't they usually more white than she is?"

  "Yep."

  "What's she hunt?" Taglio said.

  "Couches mostly," I said. "Sometimes a gum wrapper."

  "You want to talk about Wendell Grant," he said.

  "Yes."

  "You're working for the Clark kid."

  "Actually, I'm working for his grandmother," I said.

  "She thinks he's innocent?"

  "I don't know," I said. "She might not care. She wants to beat the charge."

  "Good for her," Taglio said.

  He was a little guy with a large nose and a lot of dark hair. His eyes were dark and close to each other and very shrewdlooking. He was clean-shaven, and if he was going out for an evening, he would probably have to shave twice. Pearl had relaxed a little and was looking around the room. She spotted a couch against the wall behind us and left me and got on it. She turned around eight times and lay down with her chin on her paws.

  "They going to be tried together?" I said.

  "Unless I can get it severed, which I doubt. Judge thinks why waste time with two trials when you can slam-dunk them both with one."

  "Why would you want to sever?" I said.

  "We off the record here?"

  "Sure."

  "Clark's lawyer is a moron," Taglio said. "He can't do criminal defense."

  "Anything else?" I said.

  Taglio studied me for a moment. Behind him, the rain fell pleasant and straight past the tenth-floor window.

  "Like what?" he said.

  "Like he doesn't want to get the kid off?"

  "Every lawyer owes the client the best defense he can have."

  "And Leeland?" I said.

  "His best won't be much," Taglio said.

  "You have an opinion on how much he wants to get the kid off?"

  "Nope."

  "What do you think of irresistible impulse?"

  "He going to plead that?"

  "He says not. Says the shrink won't support it."

  "So why you asking?"

  "Might find another shrink," I said.

  "Case doesn't look good to you, either," Taglio said.

  "Not too," I said. "What about irresistible impulse?"

  "Won't fly," Taglio said.

  "It sometimes does," I said.

  "Yeah, and he had an irresistible impulse to run and hide after he did it," Taglio said.

  "Knew it was wrong, couldn't help doing it," I said.

  Taglio grinned.

  "I know who the trial judge will be," Taglio said. "The Honorable C. A. Murphy thinks Freud is a fraud misspelled."

  "You're not going for insanity?" I said.

  "No."

  "What's your defense?" I said.

  "I'm trying to get him a deal," Taglio said.

  I nodded.

  "How about Clark's expert witness."

  "Beth Ann?"

  "Uh-huh." Taglio smiled. "I'm gonna let you talk to her," he said.

  "Any chance they didn't do it?" I said.

  "They caught my guy red-handed," Taglio said.

  "And mine?" I said.

  "He confessed, for crissake," Taglio said. "And my guy says he's the accomplice."

  "You're trying to make a deal," I said.

  "Sure, and that was part of it. But that's all he'll say. Cleary wants where they got the guns? Anyone else involved? Why, for crissake, they did it."

  "Cleary's the ADA on the case?"

  "Yeah. "

  "And he wants why?"

  "This happened out there in horse country," Taglio said.

  "Or at least the back half," I said.

  "You got that right. But these people think they live in fucking Eden out there. Things like this can't happen in Eden."

  "Except for the damn snake," I said.

  "Whatever," Taglio said. "They hate these kids for reminding them that it ain't quite Eden, you know? They want to lynch them."

  "They segregated in jail?" I said.

  "
Of course," Taglio said. "They wouldn't last ten minutes in the yard. Hell, they wouldn't last a full day free in Dowling."

  "Death threats?" I said.

  "Sure."

  "Serious?" I said.

  "Maybe."

  "How about the families?"

  "They've had some threats," Taglio said. "Dowling cops are keeping an eye on them."

  "That's reassuring," I said.

  Taglio shrugged. Pearl resettled herself noisily on the couch. The rain came quietly down.

  "You really going to try and get this kid off?"

  "Not if he's guilty," I said.

  "He's guilty."

  "I don't know that yet."

  "You don't?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, I give you credit for optimism," Taglio said.

  "Glass always looks half full to me," I said.

  Pearl saw me stand and scrambled off the couch. I attached her leash, which was not easy because she was jumping around with her eagerness to go. Just like human life. You want something so bad you make it hard to get.

  "Besides," I said, "I like his grandmother."

  Chapter 9

  BETH ANN BLAIR was hot. She had long, honey-colored hair and a wide mouth with a petulant lower lip, and big blue eyes. She was not in any way fat, but she was big and well proportioned, and sumptuous and resilient. She almost trembled with energetic awareness of her body.

  "I have a friend who's a shrink," I said, while I still had breath. "She's at Duke right now, giving a paper on the role of fantasy in romantic attachment."

  "Really?" Beth Ann Blair said. "What is her name."

  "Susan," I said. "Susan Silverman."

  "I believe I know of her," Beth Ann said. "She's a Freudian?"

  "I think she'd probably say she was eclectic."

  Beth Ann Blair, Ed.D., had a small office with her name on the door in Channing Hospital, which was the regional medical center for most of Bethel County.

  "I guess most of us are," she said. "You try everything and use whatever works."

  "Talk to me about Jared Clark," I said.

  "I prefer not to discuss my patients."

  "You're going to have to discuss him in court," I said.

  "Only up to a point," she said. "The law is quite specific on this."

  "Are you ready to testify that he was in the grip of an irresistible compulsion when he shot those people? If he shot those people?"

  "You question that he's guilty?"

  "Just a working skepticism," I said.

  "He has confessed, you know."

  "Tell me what you can about him," I said.

  "I saw him occasionally before the, ah, incident. I had office hours at the Dowling School several times a week. He came in a couple of times. He said he felt he was hurtling toward disaster and couldn't stop himself. He also said he felt as if a train were bearing down on him and he couldn't get off the tracks."

  "Two different conditions," I said.

  "Yes, in one he's propelled toward disaster; in the other it's propelled toward him."

  Beth Ann was sitting sideways, facing me, at the end of her desk. Her skirt was short. She wasn't wearing stockings.

  Her bare legs were crossed. She seemed to stretch a little in her chair, the way a cat does, and uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Susan always dressed down and wore understated makeup when she was working. She said the patient should not be distracted by her appearance. Beth Ann's appearance was distracting the hell out of me.

  "Did you pursue that?" I said.

  "He refused to come back. Said shrinks were all crazy anyway, and he wasn't."

  "Have you talked with him since the event?" I said.

  "After he was arrested, the police asked me to speak with him."

  "And?"

  "He said he did what he had to do and there was no turning back from it."

  "And on that you're going to try for an irresistible compulsion plea?"

  "We are hoping that he will talk with me more freely before we get to trial. If we went to trial today, I really couldn't argue the compulsion very well."

  "Prosecution send in a shrink?"

  "Yes. But Jared refused to speak with him."

  Outside the window of Beth Ann's office, the rain still fell. It was colder rain today and was pushed a little more by the wind. Inside the office, it was bright and warm.

  "Do you, in fact," I said, "regardless of what you can testify to, think Jared was in the grip of compulsion?"

  "I don't know."

  We sat for a time then. Beth Ann seemed comfortable enough with the silence. She rearranged her legs again. If she kept doing that, it was possible that I might begin to bugle like a stallion. Which would not be dignified. Beth Ann smiled at me and took a business card from her desk and wrote on the back.

  "Perhaps you will want time to digest what we've discussed," she said. "I've written my home phone number on the back, should you need to reach me. Call anytime. I live in Lexington."

  "Thank you," I said.

  My voice sounded hoarse to me. I put the card in my shirt pocket and stood up.

  "I'm sure we'll be in touch," I said. My voice was hoarse.

  "I do hope so," Beth Ann said.

  Chapter 10

  HEALY GOT ME an interview with Jared Clark at the Bethel County Jail. DiBella took me over and walked me to the interview room.

  The room was gray-walls, floor, and ceiling-with no windows. The gray door was metal and had a small window in it, covered with wire mesh, through which a guard could watch the proceedings. There was an oak table in the room, and four straight chairs. I sat at the table. DiBella waited outside.

  Jared Clark looked badly out of place in his jail coveralls when two guards brought him in. He wasn't very big, and I was pretty Sure he didn't shave yet.

  One of the guards said, "You're with Sergeant DiBella."

  I said I was.

  The guards put Jared in a chair opposite me.

  "Be outside," the guard said. "Bang on the door when you're through."

  I said I would.

  Jared sat back in his chair with his arms folded and looked at me scornfully. I took out one of my business cards and put it in front of him. He looked down and read it without touching it. Then he looked at me, and snickered faintly and shrugged. I folded my arms across my chest and leaned back in my chair and shrugged back at him. Neither of us spoke. The Bethel County jail was a new facility. It was air-conditioned. I could hear the white sound of cool air moving through the vents. In the far background, I could hear the darker sounds of jail life.

  We did this for a while.

  Jared had light brown hair cut short. His nose was small and sharp. His mouth was thin and not very wide. He was short and seemed wiry. His hands were small. It was possible, of course, that Jared would outlast me. I knew he had noplace special to go, and that staring it out with me was as pleasant as his day was going to get. On the other hand, he was seventeen and alone in a scary place, whereas I was not seventeen, and I was tougher than Bill O'Reilly. I might mean something to him. He'd need to know what.

  And he did.

  "So, what are you," he said finally.

  "I've been hired to save your ass," I said.

  He snickered again. We went back to quiet again.

  "Who hired you to do that?" he said after a while.

  "Your grandmother," I said.

  He nodded.

  "She thinks you're innocent," I said.

  He nodded, and shrugged and smirked. I was tiring of the smirk.

  "Care to tell me what happened that day in the school?" I said.

  "Me'n Dell took out a lot of assholes," he said. "Needed taking out."

  "Dell being Wendell Grant?"

  "Sure."

  "Can you name them?" I said.

  "Who?"

  "The people you took out."

  For a moment, I thought he actually saw me. But it passed quickly.

  He shrugged.

&
nbsp; "How many did you take out?" I said.

  He shrugged.

  "Why did they need it?" "They were assholes."

  "And you could tell that how?" I said.

  "Whole school was assholes," he said. And smirked.

  "Lot of that happening," I said.

  He didn't say anything.

  I didn't say anything. We were back at it.

  After a while he said, "How much she pay you?"

  "Your grandmother?"

  "Yeah. How much she paying?"

  I told him.

  "She can afford it," he said.

  "Your lawyer wants to plead you crazy," I said.

  Jared shrugged.

  "You okay with that?" I said.

  Shrug.

  "You crazy?" I said.

  "You ever kill anybody?" he said.

  "Yes. "

  "You crazy?"

  "No."

  He smirked.

  "Are you comfortable spending the rest of your life in the jug?" I said.

  He shrugged.

  "Have you thought about it? Sixty, seventy years?"

  Shrug.

  "Can't do the time," he said, "don't do the crime."

  I was quiet for a moment.

  "You don't think it'll happen," I said.

  He shrugged.

  "You don't think you're going away forever."

  He shrugged again and smirked. What range.

  "Even though you confessed," I said.

  Shrug, smirk.

  "You know something I don't know?" I said.

  He snickered. And shrugged. And closed with a smirk. Three for three. I had really broken through.

  We sat for a while longer. I stood up.

  "This has been great," I said.

  He stayed seated, looking at the middle of my chest. "Next time, you might want to extend your emotional range."

  "Huh?"

  "Work on sneering," I said.

  I went and knocked on the door to get out. Behind me, I heard Jared snicker.

  Chapter 11

  IT WAS DARK by the time Pearl and I got home. The rain had stopped, but the air was still heavy with its threat. The first thing I did when we got into my apartment was feed Pearl. It prevented her from crying and following me around, bumping my leg with her head. Then I made myself a tall scotch and soda and took it with me and stood in the front window and looked down at Marlboro Street. It was wet from the day's rain, and the streetlights made it gleam. Up the street, a white Explorer pulled up, and a well-dressed woman got out and headed into one of the town houses on the city side of the street. Even in the dim light, I admired her backside as she walked up the front steps. She rang the bell. I studied her backside. After a moment, someone opened the front door and a runtish Jack Russell terrier came out and barked at her, and then ran back in and she followed. The door closed. The white Explorer pulled away. I drank some scotch and looked at my watch. It was 8:35. Here and in North Carolina. We usually talked before she went to bed. I drank some more scotch. Pearl came and looked out the window with me for a moment and didn't see anything to engage her. She turned away and went into the living room and got up on the couch.