School Days (4 page)

I
T 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 shrewd-looking. 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.”

B
ETH
A
NN
B
LAIR
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.