The Drowning Man (24 page)

 

SATURDAY MORNING TRAFFIC
on Main was beginning to pick up, shops had come to life, people walking along the sidewalks, pushing baby strollers, pulling toddlers by the hand. It was already hot, and a dry, warm breeze brushed the sides of the Firebird. Vicky followed the traffic through an intersection. A couple more lights, and she was on the highway heading south, pressing down on the accelerator, open stretches of land whipping past the windows. There was no other traffic—just like yesterday—and she found herself checking the rearview mirror, almost expecting to see a brown truck coming up behind her.

She started to slow down, hunting for the white house. She spotted it ahead, set back in a clump of trees at the end of a dirt road, not much larger than a storage shed with a peaked roof and two oblong windows that looked black in the sun. There was a small porch that jutted from the front door.

Vicky swung right and drove down the dirt road to the porch. She grabbed her bag and notepad folder, went to the front door, and knocked. Even in the shade splashing the house, the air was hot. A gust of wind lifted little balls of dust in the air. Her throat felt as dry as the dust.

She knocked again. A couple of seconds passed before she heard the sound of footsteps shuffling on the other side of the door, then a woman's voice: “Who are you? What do you want?”

Vicky leaned toward the door. “Mr. Gruenwald's expecting me.”

“It's all right, Helen.” A man's voice, the voice on the phone.

The door swung open. Looming in the doorway was a large man with bulky shoulders and thick arms and chest, wearing a white shirt with a silver buffalo on his bolo tie and dark, pressed slacks, like a lawyer who still had an office to go to. His hair was gray and curly, his face almost square, with ruddy cheeks that drooped into his jaw. He stared at her through thick glasses that gave a startled look to his red-rimmed eyes. A small, gray-haired woman swayed in the shadows behind him.

“You'd better come in,” Harry Gruenwald said.

VICKY STEPPED INTO
the small living room. Drapes were pulled halfway across the front window, so that a vertical column of sunshine ran across the vinyl floor and folded around a sofa that sagged in the middle. Oblongs of light filtered past her through the door. She could see fragments of her own shadow splayed on the opposite wall. The air was close, the sharp smell of antiseptic cutting through the odors of stale food and burnt coffee and something else—something like the damp smell of a cave.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” she said. She realized that Harry Gruenwald was holding on to the edge of the door, waiting for her to move deeper inside. There was a faint trembling in his other hand, and little beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

Vicky stepped forward, and the door closed behind her. Her shadow melded into the dimness. A slight, elderly woman with matted gray hair and a loose-fitting dress was pacing between the corner of the sofa and a recliner that still bore the faint imprints of a body.

“We'll talk in the kitchen.” The lawyer started toward the rear of the house. “Go to your room, Helen,” he said, snapping his fingers toward the woman. She had stopped pacing and stood with arms dangling at her sides, like someone stranded on a street corner, uncertain of which direction to take.

“Hello,” Vicky said. The woman stared at her out of blank eyes, and Vicky had the sense that, inside the frail body swaying from side to side, there was no one there.

“In here.” Notes of irritation sounded in Gruenwald's voice. The man beckoned her toward the doorway across the room.

Vicky nodded at the woman as she walked past. My God, the old woman had once been there; she deserved respect. The lawyer was waiting in the center of the kitchen, little more than a hallway with cabinets, stove, and refrigerator across from a round table that had been cut in half and shoved under the small window.

“I'm sorry about your wife,” Vicky said, gesturing with her head toward the living room.

“We don't need your pity.” Gruenwald dropped onto a small chair at the table.

Vicky took the other chair. Salt and pepper shakers and a napkin holder had been shoved to the edge of the table. A trail of salt zigzagged across the surface. She kept her bag in her lap, opened the leather folder, and withdrew the ballpoint from the slot.

“How did you hear I was looking for you?” she asked.

“I still got friends in this community.” He gave a halfhearted shrug. “Figured it was about that Arapaho that killed his buddy. Another petroglyph's gone missing, so some hotshot lawyer was bound to start looking into the old case. Let me guess. Amos Walking Around…”

“Walking Bear.”

“Yeah, whatever. That old man's still trying to get his grandson out of prison, and now there's an Arapaho lawyer in town just itching to right all the old wrongs. Get to the purpose of your visit.”

“You could have filed an appeal immediately. Why didn't you?”

A door slammed somewhere in the house, as if a gust of wind had blown through. Dishes rattled next to the sink.

The man threw a glance toward the living room, then set both hands on the table. The trembling in his left hand seemed more pronounced. He covered it with the other hand, but the trembling only ran through both. A faint vibration started through the table.

“What good would it have done? Appellate courts grant one out of ten appeals. I got that Indian off on a manslaughter conviction. He was damned lucky. There wasn't the need for any appeal. Appeals cost money.”

“Was that the reason? Money?”

Gruenwald looked at the window a moment. Finally he said, “We talked it over.”

“Who?” At the top of the notepad paper, Vicky wrote Harry Gruenwald and the date.

“Travis and me. His grandfather had hired me, but Travis said the old man didn't have any more money. So he wanted me to handle the appeal. On contingency, he called it.” Gruenwald shook his head and gave a forced laugh that sounded as if some hard object were stuck in his throat.

Vicky jotted down what the man was saying.

“Contingency. Like we'd be going for a big settlement and I'd get a share of the pot. Only that's not the way it works in a criminal appeal. There isn't any pot at the end of the rainbow. Travis kept saying he'd pay me soon's he got out of prison. I said no thanks. I had enough going on. I didn't have time for any appeal; I didn't want any more cases. I wanted out. Helen and me had plans. We moved up to Montana and worked on her brother's ranch. It was good, what I needed.”

“To get sober?” Vicky heard herself say. It was the courtroom tone, the no-holds-barred tone she reserved for hostile witnesses.

“I'm not proud of it.”

“I read the trial transcript.”

“What do you want?”

“There's a lot I don't understand. Why didn't you call witnesses to rebut the prosecutor's witnesses?”

“I called his grandfather. Who else was gonna get up on the stand and say that Travis didn't shoot that guy?”

“Travis's other family. Friends. Teachers. They would have vouched for him. He'd never been in any kind of trouble. You could have brought out the fact that Travis had reached the barn ahead of Andy Lyle, that's all. You could have given the jury reasonable doubt. If Lyle had gotten there first, maybe he would have been charged.” She paused, then pushed on. “We both know a white man would have received every benefit of doubt.”

The man slumped against his chair. The table was shaking under his hands, and he pulled them into his lap. He ran his tongue over his lower lip before he said, “I could've put a whole lot of folks on the stand. What good would it have done? They weren't there; they didn't see it happen. I ran the defense the way I saw it.”

“You assured Travis that he would be acquitted.”

The lawyer licked at his lips again. He was clenching and unclenching his fist over his belly. “Lots of folks thought he'd be acquitted. Mrs. Taylor herself was on his side. Came to see him in jail. Besides, what was I gonna tell him? They're gonna slap his sorry ass in prison?”

“Marjorie Taylor visited him?” Vicky heard the surprise ringing in her voice. Travis hadn't said anything about his employer coming to the jail.

“Two or three times, I know of. I ran the defense the way I saw fit. You gonna file for a new trial? Good luck.”

Vicky took a moment and scribbled a few more notes. She'd nearly filled up the page. She was getting nowhere—an incompetent attorney who'd convinced himself that he was competent. She wrote the word
incompetent
and drew a line underneath that nearly sliced through the paper. A client who hadn't leveled with her.

She locked eyes with the man at the opposite curve of the table. “I think you were inebriated during the trial,” she said.

“That's a lie, a slanderous accusation, counselor.” Gruenwald dropped his clasped hands on the table, which shuddered beneath the blow. “You utter that outside this room, and I'll sue you from here to kingdom come.”

“I'm giving you an excuse, Mr. Gruenwald,” Vicky said. “What else would explain the ineffective assistance of counsel? Just so you know, that's one of the points I intend to bring before the judge.”

The man pulled back again, lifted his chin, and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Ropes of blue veins pulsed beneath the folds of his neck. Finally, he brought his eyes back to hers. “I ran a respectable law practice in this area for years. I had a good reputation, and you're gonna blow that away, as if it was nothing. It's my life. Maybe I took a drink now and then during the trial. I don't remember. There was a lot more on my mind than keeping some murderer out of prison. Practice was going to hell, with a bunch of smart, new lawyers putting out their shingles all over the area. Helen there”—He nodded toward the living room—“I could tell she wasn't the same, something was happening to her. We needed to get out of here, get away from all the stress. I wanted to be finished with Travis Birdsong so we could pack the pickup and head for Montana where she'd be okay again. That's all I was thinking.”

Vicky flipped the page that was covered with black lines and stared at a blank page. How many people like Travis were in prison thanks to lawyers like Gruenwald? How many Arapahos?

Locking eyes with him again, she said, “Maybe you shouldn't have taken the case.”

He let out a guffaw. His sour breath floated across the table. “You got so much money, you can turn clients away? Well, congratulations.” He leaned toward her. “I needed the money so me and Helen could get the hell outta here. Only things didn't work out, did they? She started getting worse, her brother didn't want us around, so we came back here. She owns this place.” He let his eyes roam around the small kitchen, taking it all in. “Father left it to her. All we got left. This house and my reputation. Get my drift? You come here thinking I'm gonna start crying and confessing how I was a no-good alkie that got a killer sent to prison, that I'm gonna sign you an affidavit saying I was ineffective so, please, judge, give that bastard another chance. Well, forget it. Comes right down to it, that's all I got left of what used to be my life. Reputation.”

Vicky closed the folder and picked up her bag. “I've taken enough of your time.”

Gruenwald was on his feet before she could stand up. “I'll see you out,” he said, starting back through the house.

 

VICKY DROVE BACK
down the dirt road, fingers lightly touching the steering wheel that burned like a hot iron. She turned onto the highway behind a semi. The noise of tires humming against the hot asphalt and the faint odor of diesel fumes wafted through the air conditioning. What had she been hoping for? That Harry Gruenwald would feel remorse for having let down a client who had spent the last seven years in prison? Sign an affidavit to the effect that he'd been drunk during the trial, all that was necessary for the district judge to grant a new trial that would give Travis the chance to clear his name?

But that wasn't the way it was going to be. Gruenwald felt about as much remorse as a clump of sagebrush. He was congratulating himself on getting Travis convicted for manslaughter, instead of getting him acquitted for a murder he didn't commit. An old man with an old and sick wife, living in a shack, clinging to the only thing he had left, the memory of better times when he had been a reputable attorney.

And she was going to have to take that away from him.

She would set out the facts in the petition for post-conviction relief. Gruenwald hadn't brought out all the pertinent facts in the case. He hadn't had Travis testify that he'd heard the gunshot and gone to the barn, just as Lyle did moments later. Travis hadn't testified that he'd seen the foreman's truck near the house and that, earlier, he'd seen Ollie Goodman on the ranch. There were no ballistics tests done on Travis.

But there was something else nipping at her like a dog at her heels. What was it the lawyer had said? Travis had offered to pay him for the appeal
after
he'd been acquitted. Contingency fee, Gruenwald had called it. After the lawyer had won the case.

Which meant that, not only had Travis failed to mention Marjorie Taylor's visit, but he hadn't mentioned that he intended to pay for the appeal later.

Vicky pounded the wheel again and stared at the gray exhaust curling down the asphalt from the semi. How would Travis have paid Gruenwald, unless he had already collected a sum of money? Unless the prosecutor was right, and Travis and Raymond had both been involved in stealing the petroglyph?

And yet, if Travis had already collected the money, why had he let his grandfather pay Gruenwald's initial fees? He could have paid his own fees. It was only after Amos Walking Bear had run out of money that Travis had promised to pay Gruenwald for the appeal. And what did that mean? That Travis hadn't yet collected whatever payment he was expecting? That he had to get out of prison to collect?

Vicky made herself breathe slowly. One, two, three breaths. She had to stay focused. The smell of exhaust was working its way into the Firebird, and Vicky realized she was closing on the semi. She let up on the accelerator and started dropping back until the space of a couple of vehicles opened ahead.

It came down to Gruenwald. He should have made it clear that Travis and Lyle had heard the gunshot at the same time, but Travis had gotten to the barn first. He should have made it clear that there were other people at the ranch. Marjorie Taylor. Andy Lyle. Maybe Ollie Goodman. They should have been asked about where they were when Raymond was shot. There was reasonable doubt leaking from the case, but Gruenwald had failed to convey that to the jury.

She was gripping the wheel hard now, the rim still warm against her palms. She would ask for a new trial on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel. She would point out that Deaver had unfairly prejudiced the jury by suggesting there was evidence outside of the trial that proved Travis had a motive to kill Raymond. Gruenwald could have asked for a mistrial, but he hadn't. He hadn't been sober enough. It shouldn't be hard to convince the judge that Travis had been denied a fair trial.