Wilde Lake(62)

Twenty years is generous. He’s a time bomb, the kind of guy who could go crazy in the Columbia Mall, attacking kids on the carousel, running around the fountain with a machete.

Of course, twenty years is also tantamount to life in prison for him. Prison shortens a man’s life. She thinks of Eloise Schumann, realizes she never bothered to check the clerk’s office to see if she was legit married or just appropriated Ryan Schumann’s name. The woman never came back, never called again, so chances are she’s every inch the nutcase her father says she is, programmed to go off at staggered intervals.



“Murder two,” Fred says. It’s practically the first thing he says after arriving at her office. How odd it must be for him to sit on the other side of the desk, to see how quickly she has made this space hers. The walls have been painted white with the tiniest hint of teal—one has to look closely to realize they are not white-white. Lu painted them herself over the MLK long weekend, using a Farrow & Ball shade called “Borrowed Light.” (Her father’s newfound snobbery about decor must be contagious. He’s been adamant about using that pricey brand for all their remodeled rooms.) The three chairs in the office are strictly government issue; it seemed in bad taste to have chairs different from those her staff uses. But she has created a sitting area, with a small blue love seat and a low coffee table fashioned from an antique door. She found the latter piece in a store on Ellicott City’s Main Street; the seller claimed the door was from the original jail, which makes no sense, but it’s a good story. The overall vibe is of a serious room with subtle feminine touches. Of course, for a meeting such as this, she would never use the love seat, or ask Della to bring them coffee. Fred can sit in a wooden chair and get his own damn coffee.

“How do you make the case for second-degree? He broke into her apartment. He jacked off.” Using the vulgarity to establish dominance, to make him uncomfortable. “He beat himself off, then he beat her face off.”

“I can make the case for second-degree because nothing you have actually proves he killed her. A homeless guy sneaks into an empty apartment, spends the night, leaves. Just because you have his prints on the thermostat and the door doesn’t make him a killer. For all you know, she turned it down whenever she went out. His thumbprint doesn’t prove he set the temperature.”

“I hope you’ve pulled her utility bills and established that pattern, of her turning down her thermostat to save money. Oh, wait—utilities are paid by the apartment complex, so that makes no sense. Not her money, so why does she care?”

Lu doesn’t know if this is actually true. Then again, Fred probably doesn’t either.

“Okay, middle-aged lady having night sweats, so she turns her thermostat down every night as soon as she comes in. Rudy left the patio door open, another guy came in and is lying in wait. He kills her.”

Fred can’t possibly believe he can sell this story to a jury. Not with the DNA on a bedspread.

“What does your client want to do, Fred?”

Fred’s eyes slide to the right, toward the triptych of pen-and-ink drawings by Aaron Sopher, city scenes that Lu and Gabe once had in their dining room. They don’t really fit in her father’s house—our house, she reminds herself—and she likes having them in her workplace. There’s an energy in Sopher’s economical line drawings that gives her a lift. She’s a city person at heart, like her mother. Her life in the suburbs is an accident of birth. And death.

“My client wants to go to trial. Because he intends to walk.”

“I hope you’ve told him that changing to a plea of not criminally responsible doesn’t mean he won’t do serious time.”

“He understands that. And you know, for all his, uh, issues, he’s actually kind of brilliant. But between his learning disabilities and his claustrophobia—”

“Learning disabilities—please. He got into Bennington, Fred.”

“Which didn’t require standardized tests. And he dropped out freshman year because of depression. But no, he’s not crazy enough, cuckoo Froot Loops crazy. In fact, he’s looked at his case pretty rationally and he believes he has an excellent chance for an acquittal.”

“And what advice do you, as a lawyer, give your client, Fred? I have to think that your legal acumen is better than his, no matter how smart or rational he might be.”

Sitting opposite her former boss, in what was his office less than two months ago—it’s like a perverse job evaluation. Do you think you can beat me, Fred? On this case, with these facts? What would you have done, Fred? He offered murder two because that’s what he would have taken. Fred wouldn’t have gone to the scene. Fred wouldn’t have told the cops to make sure to grab the bedspread because it was mussed.

“I would be willing to tell him that murder two and ten years would be a pretty good deal.”

“No way.”

“Then we’ve got a trial.”

“Yes, we do. Still intent on invoking Hicks?”

“My client wants to get in there as soon as possible. Really, it’s almost inhuman to keep him confined.”

It’s inhuman to beat a woman to death for no crime greater than walking into her own bedroom.

“Let me ask you this, Fred—what makes Drysdale so confident that I can’t win this case?”