Act of God (9 page)

Still, Dana looked around the cubicle with a heavy heart. Special treatment or not, it was a place she did not want to be,
on a matter with which she did not want to deal.

“Do you believe that everyone in this country deserves a rigorous defense?” Paul Cotter had challenged her after the Sunday
meeting had concluded, the other partners had departed, and just the two of them remained in his office.

“Yes, of course I do,” she had replied. “But even a defense attorney has to have standards. There may not always be a mitigating
circumstance for a crime, but at least there has to be some level of rationale that I can build on. If I can’t believe in
my client, I at least need to believe in the case.”

“And you don’t believe in this one?”

“No, I don’t,” she had told him, the queasiness in her stomach stirring again. “Look, I’m not one of those radical feminists
who believe that a woman has the right to abdicate all responsibility for her actions. But that doesn’t mean I have any loyalty
to the control freaks, either, who don’t give a tinker’s damn about fetuses and are just in it for the power trip. This case—well,
I’m sorry, but I can’t find a whole lot of rationalization in some lunatic
going out and killing innocent people as a protest against killing innocent people.’

“And how exactly have you determined that he’s a lunatic?” Cotter inquired. “You haven’t even met him yet.”

“No, I haven’t,” she agreed. “But there must be someone else, someone with more sympathy for his cause, who might be able
to justify his actions, who would be better suited to represent him.”

“On the contrary,” Cotter declared. “I think you’re perfect for it.”

“Why?” she protested. “Aside from your idea about having a woman up front, this is a major case, certainly the most visible
case this firm has handled in the twelve years I’ve been here. You know as well as I do that I have no significant capital
crime experience. Aren’t you even a little bit concerned about that?”

“What I’m concerned about,” he said, “is providing the client with the very best we have to offer.”

“Well, in that case,” Dana responded, “does the client know that I’ve never sat first chair on a death penalty case before?”

“The client knows everything he needs to know,” Cotter responded. “Namely, that the full resources of this firm will be put
behind his defense.”

“Which means what, exactly?”

“It means that this will be a team effort, of course—all the way down the line. You won’t be operating in an isolation ward.
Nobody has any intention of abandoning you.”

It still felt like a case she knew she should be running, not walking, away from. “Why do I think you know something that
I don’t know?” she wondered aloud.

“Because you’re young and have a suspicious mind,” he replied with a smile.

Now, as she sat in one of the interview room’s metal chairs, and opened her briefcase to extract a pad and a pen, Dana knew
that it didn’t really matter what happened here this morning, because the managing partner had given her an out.

“Go talk to the kid,” he had said, handing her the file. “Get him through the arraignment. Then, if it really isn’t right
for you, just come and tell me, and I’ll assign someone else. I believe it’s a fit, but I won’t force it on you.”

It was the only reason she was here, she knew, so that she could go back to Cotter and tell him she had done what he asked,
and did not want this case.

Five minutes later, the door swung open, and twenty-five-year-old Corey Dean Latham, hands and feet shackled, and escorted
by two guards, entered the cubicle.

There were four types of uniforms worn by the inmates at the King County Jail: blue for those serving misdemeanor time, yellow
for worker inmates, red for accused felons awaiting trial, and white for those who were charged with a high-risk felony. Corey
Latham was dressed in white, with the damning words “ULTRA SECURITY” printed in big bold letters across his shirt and down
the legs of his pants.

Dana’s first reaction, as she watched him take the chair across from her, sitting ramrod straight with his manacled hands
resting tentatively on the table in front of him, was one of unhappy surprise. He was not at all what she had expected, or
wanted, to see. She had prepared herself for some religiously zealous martyr in the making, someone who was unkempt and unattractive,
perhaps, or wild-eyed and obviously deranged, or clearly cold and calculating. Any of the above would have suited her purpose,
and would have made things so much easier.

But the tall, slender, and undeniably attractive young man who sat so erect in front of her was clean-shaven, had neatly cropped
brown hair, clear blue eyes, and the demeanor of an altar boy. He looked totally incongruous in the sinister white uniform.

Dana shook her head slightly as though to clear her mind, or her vision. Latham was an officer in the United States Navy,
she exhorted herself to remember. Of course he would know how best to present himself in any kind of situation… or in any
kind of uniform. The fact that he looked normal, she knew, did not automatically exempt him from having committed cold-blooded
murder. After all, his dossier indicated that he was an assistant weapons officer on his submarine. Didn’t that mean that
killing was what the government had trained him for?

There, she thought with a small surge of triumph, she was back on solid ground now, which was where she would stay. She was
certainly not about to let herself get suckered into believing he might be innocent.

Still, the blue eyes did not equivocate. They looked directly at her with an expression she could only interpret as sincerity
mixed with enough confusion and naivete to totally belie his circumstance.

“Mr. Latham, my name is Dana McAuliffe,” she began by rote. “I’m a partner with the law firm of Cotter Boland and Grace. As
I assume you already know we’ve been retained to represent you, and I’ve been asked to come here and talk with you.”

“I’ve heard of your firm,” he said politely. “But I don’t know why you’re representing me.”

“You’re entitled to representation,” she explained. “It’s the law.”

“I know that,” he replied. “What I don’t know is why your firm would want to do that. I can’t afford to pay you. I don’t have
that kind of money. Neither do my folks. My pastor here in Seattle told me the church would take care of it, but I know they
don’t have the money, either.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that right now,” Dana responded, because she didn’t actually know who was footing the
bill. “Let’s talk instead about how we’re going to help you.”

There was a pause. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,’ he said.

“You can say anything you like,” she told him. “Nothing we discuss here ever leaves this room.” He didn’t respond. For some
reason, she wasn’t sure he had even heard her. “It’s called attorney-client privilege, or client confidentiality,” she added.

“I know what that is,” he said, and fell silent.

“Maybe we should begin by getting to know a little about each other,” she suggested after a while.

He sighed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Well then, why don’t I start by telling you something about myself?” she offered.

When he gave no reaction, she took it to mean assent. “On the personal side, I’m thirty-nine years old,” she began. “I’m married
to the first violinist with the Seattle Symphony. And I have a nine-year-old daughter named Molly. On the professional side,
I’ve been an attorney for fourteen years. I’ve worked at Cotter Boland and Grace for twelve of those years, and I’ve been
a partner there for the past four. I think my firm is very good at what it does, but you don’t have to take my word for it,
if you don’t want to. We have a long list of very satisfied clients who, I’m sure, would be more than willing to back up that
statement.”

“I believe you,” he said. “But you don’t understand—I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Dana frowned. “You’ve been informed of the charges against you, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I know what they told me, but I don’t know why they think I could have done such a horrible thing. Just because
I’m in the Navy, that’s supposed to mean I’m the kind of person who goes around killing people? I don’t see how that follows,
but that’s what they said.”

“The police?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve been trained to defend my country,
sure, but that’s a lot different than being trained to kill. I’m not a violent man. I’m a man of peace. That’s why I’m in
the Navy, to protect the peace. In any case, I know I’m a man of conscience. I could never go out and just kill a whole bunch
of people like that. It goes against everything I believe in.”

“What
do
you believe in, Mr. Latham?” Dana inquired, taking advantage of the opening.

“Well, for one thing, I believe that life is sacred and precious,” he replied.

“All life?”

He looked at her as though perplexed by the question. “Yes, of course,” he said. “All life. How can you separate one kind
from another?”

A small stab of appreciation darted down Dana’s back. Without any prompting, he had given exactly the kind of answer that
would play well with a jury—simple and forthright, and reeking of honesty. She felt tempted to believe him herself, and abruptly
straightened up in her chair.

“It seems to me the state is prepared to do just that, separate one kind from another,” she suggested. “As far as they’re
concerned, abortion is legal—murder is not.”

“I didn’t kill those people,” he said softly.

“Whether you did or didn’t isn’t the issue right now,” she told him. “You’re being charged with the crime, and unless you
enter a guilty plea and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, you’re going to stand trial. So, the question is, how do
you want to proceed?”

His eyes widened. “Are you recommending I plead guilty to something I didn’t do?”

“No,” she said. “I’m obligated to present you with your options. If you lose at trial, you’ll almost certainly be facing the
death penalty. If you plead now, I may be able to get the death penalty off the table.”

“I want to be completely exonerated.”

I’m not going to kid you, Mr. Latham,” Dana said. “This won’t be an easy case to win. At the very least, it’s got terrorist
overtones written all over it. And we’ll have to deal with the high body count, including all those children. Emotions are
running rampant. People want to taste blood.”

“My
blood?” he asked.

Dana chose her words as carefully as she could. “This town, who knows, maybe even the whole country by now, is looking for
a conviction here,
needs
a conviction here,” she told him. “The pressure that’s been mounting since this thing happened has been extraordinary. And
in a situation like this, sometimes what the people need becomes far more important than a little matter of guilt or innocence.
Given the tidal wave of media coverage that I guarantee you is building out there, we’ll be trying this case in—and out—of
the courtroom, under bright lights and a microscope. No one will be able to escape it. Not the victims and their families,
not the jury, not you.”

“Does that mean I’ll lose?”

Blue eyes met brown for a long moment, and the attorney was first to look away.

“Of course not,” Dana replied with more conviction than she actually felt. “It just means that the odds won’t exactly be running
in your favor.”

“Do you think I did what they say I did, Ms. McAuliffe?” he asked suddenly.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she replied.

“It does to me,” he countered.

Dana thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t know enough about you to form an opinion.”

He seemed to sag in his seat. “Well, I guess you could say I had a pretty good motive,” he said, looking down at his manacled
hands.

“And what was that?” she asked with a little sigh.

“My wife and I got engaged six weeks after we met, and we
were married only three months when I went out on my last cruise,” he told her. “I guess maybe we rushed things a bit, didn’t
know each other very well, didn’t take the time to cover all the bases, so to speak. But we sure were in love. Everyone told
us we should wait a year or two before we tied the knot. But what we felt, we knew it was the real thing, and we didn’t want
to wait.”

Dana didn’t want to hear this, certainly not now, when she was almost out the door and clear of it. “And?” she heard herself
ask.

He looked up. “Oh, we’re still very much in love, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. “But I guess you could say things
got a little stressed.”

“Stressed?”

“Well, just before I left on the cruise, Elise—that’s my wife—she said she thought maybe she was pregnant,” he explained.
“I mean, she just dropped it on me, real casual like, right in the middle of dinner. Well gosh, who cares about chili when
you’re going to have a baby, right? I was totally blown away. And Elise was excited, too. I know she was. That is, until she
realized that I still had to go away. I don’t know, I guess she figured the Navy would just let me stay home with her or something.
But of course, that’s not the v/ay it works. Lots of Navy wives go through pregnancy while their husbands are at sea. Sometimes,
guys don’t even get to be at the birth.”

“She was upset with you?”

“Well, I think maybe more with the Navy,” he replied. “But I was so juiced about being a father, I could hardly stand it.
Sure, I’d rather have been home with her, only there I was, out in the boat for three straight months, without even knowing
if she really was pregnant.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Navy doesn’t let you communicate about anything important when you’re on patrol. The submarine service
being so hush-hush, you know, nobody’s even supposed to know where we are. It’s a tough life out there, and it’s all about
maintaining morale, keeping up spirits. So they don’t allow any ’Dear John’ letters, or the dog died, or little Billy fell
off his bike and broke his neck, or anything like that. No birth, no death, just ’Hello, everything’s fine, and I miss you’
kind of stuff. So just in case, I spent my time thinking up names, and doing the numbers every which way I could think of,
to see whether we could afford to buy a little house somewhere, you know, where the schools are good.”