Home Front(15)

“Who is your son?”

“Keith Keller. He was arrested for killing his wife.”

The case Judge Runyon had assigned to Bill. “Right, Mr. Keller. I was just getting up to speed on the facts of the case.” He rifled through the piles of papers and folders on his desk, looking for the Keller file. When he found it, he said, “Oh, right. In fact, I have an appointment with your son today at two.”

Two o’clock.

Shit.

The track meet.

“I’m worried about him, sir. He won’t talk to me. I’d like to come in and talk to you, if you don’t mind. You need to know what a good kid he is.”

Murder notwithstanding. “I’m sure I’ll need to talk to you soon, Mr. Keller,” Michael said. “But I need to speak with my client first. Did you give my secretary your number?”

“I did.”

“Good.”

“Mr. Zarkades? He is a good kid. I don’t know why he did it.”

Michael wished he hadn’t said that last sentence. “I’ll get back to you, Mr. Keller. Thanks.”

Michael hung up the phone and glanced at his watch. It was 12:27. He’d forgotten about this appointment with Keller—he should have cancelled it because of the track meet.

He still could. Or he could go early. It wasn’t like Keller had a full social calendar.

He looked at his watch again. If he left now, he could be at the jail by 12:45, interview his new client, and still make the 2:05 ferry.

*



The room in the King County jail was dank and dreary. There was no CSI two-way mirror on the wall; instead, there was a pair of green, banged-up light fixtures hanging above a desk that had been marked up through years of use and a small metal trash can in the corner. Nothing that could be used as a weapon. The table legs were bolted to the concrete floor.

Michael sat in the chair across the table from his new client, Keith Keller, who was young, with short blond hair and the kind of build that hinted at either steroids or obsessive weight lifting. His cheekbones were sharp and his lips looked like he’d been biting at them.

The wall clock kept a steady record of the minutes that passed in silence.

Well, not silence.

Keith sat as still as a stone, his gray eyes strangely—disturbingly—blank.

They’d been sitting here alone, the two of them, for over thirty-five minutes. Keith hadn’t said a word, but the kid breathed loudly, a rattling, phlegmy kind of breathing.

Michael glanced at the clock, again—1:21—and then down at the paperwork on the wooden table in front of him. All he had so far was the arrest report, and it wasn’t nearly enough upon which to base a defense. According to the police, Keith had gone on a rampage, shooting up everything until his neighbors called for help. When the police arrived, Keith barricaded himself in his house for hours. At some point in all of this, he’d—allegedly—shot his wife in the head. The report indicated that he’d threatened to kill himself before the SWAT team captured him.

It didn’t make sense. Keller was twenty-four and a half years old, with an unblemished record. Unlike most of Michael’s clients, Keller had never been arrested for anything before this, not even shoplifting as a teen. He’d graduated from high school, joined the Marines, and been honorably discharged. Then he’d gotten a job. He had no known gang affiliations, no history of drug abuse.

“I need to understand what happened, Keith.”

Keith stared at the same spot on the wall that had held his attention for three-quarters of the last hour.

And that awful, shuddering breathing.

Michael sighed and looked at his watch. If the kid didn’t want to help himself, that was his business. Michael had to leave right now or he’d miss the ferry—and the start of the track meet. “Fine, Keith. I’m going to ask the court for a psych eval on you. You won’t be competent to stand trial if you can’t participate in your own defense. Would you rather be in a psychiatric hospital than the jail? It’s your choice.”

Still, nothing.

He waited another moment, hoping for a response. Getting nothing from his client, he stood up and gathered his files. “I’m on your side, Keith. Remember that.”

Putting his papers in his briefcase, he closed it up, grabbed the handle, and went toward the door. He was just about to push the button for the guard when Keith spoke.

“Why bother? I’m guilty.”

Michael stopped. Of all the things the kid could have said, that was probably the least productive. A criminal defense attorney didn’t actually want to know that—it limited the defenses he could offer. He turned around slowly, expected to see Keith looking at him, but the kid was staring at his own fingers, as if the secret to immortality lay in the dirty nail beds. “When you say guilty…”

“I shot her in the head.” His voice broke on that. He looked up. Michael had grown used to grief, and he saw it in the young man’s eyes. “Why would you be on my side?”

Shit.

Now he had to explain the attorney-client relationship and the idea of American jurisprudence, the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing. He looked down at his watch. 1:37. There was no way he was going to make the start of the track meet, but he could be late, couldn’t he?

He went back to the desk and sat down, pulling a pad and paper out of his briefcase. “Let me explain how this works…”