The Furthest City Light

• Prologue
  
• PART I: THE KIND OF CASE EVERY PUBLIC DEFENDER WAS BORN FOR
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• PART II: UNSENT LETTERS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• PART III: LEARNING TO KAYAK
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  

Copyright © 2012 by Jeanne Winer

Bella Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 10543

Tallahassee, FL 32302

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

First published 2012

Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

Cover Designer: Kiaro Creative

ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-325-7

Excerpt from “Acquainted with the Night” from the book THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1923, 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, copyright © 1951 by Robert Frost. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

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For Leslie,
el amor de mi vida loca

And for Public Defenders everywhere

Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Edith Piaf famously sang, “
Je ne regrette rien
.” Lucky her. Although it’s hard to believe anyone could sail into middle age without regretting something. Perhaps when she sang it was true, but later when she was alone again without an audience, without her makeup, it was only partly true and partly defiant wishful thinking. Which I applaud. Nothing wrong with defiant wishful thinking. Criminal defense lawyers, like myself, have won many difficult cases by engaging in exactly that kind of thinking. It’s what gives us confidence when the facts are lined up against us, drives our rhetoric across the finish line when, without it, we’d sputter to a stop halfway through the trial at the time an acquittal seems hopelessly far away, a moth-sized beacon in a raging storm. No, nothing wrong with defiant wishful thinking unless it begins to dominate more than just your career.

Now that I’ve landed here in Mexico where I intend to rest and recover, I’m alone again, without an audience, without my makeup. There’s no one to sing to here, except myself. I’m standing on a bright pink balcony overlooking the water. I’ve managed to find the same studio apartment that my partner Vickie and I rented a few years ago. Back when we were a stable twosome, the American dream, a doctor and a lawyer. At the time, though, just a pair of grateful snowbirds from Colorado looking to land on a warm sandy beach and take a couple of breaths before returning to our busy lives. Our friends, of course, thought we had it all. Actually, so did we. Had it all: what a ridiculous sounding cliché. Makes you want to grab a nice sharp pin, stick it in, and hear that satisfying pop. Which I suppose is what I did, in retrospect a terrible mistake. And not even the only one.

How could I have been so careless, stepping out like that without looking to see what was coming? A year ago, I was cohabiting with my partner and just about to meet a new client, someone who would become my friend, an innocent woman accused of murder. It’s a burden and a privilege to defend an innocent person. It’s every defense lawyer’s dream. Makes you go all out, and then it would make sense to stop and rest but you can’t remember how, and besides, where’s the thrill in that? Might as well keep on going until you finally run out of gas. So I headed south, bypassing Mexico, and went to Nicaragua, a small car accident of a country, mired in a bloody civil war. And, in a convoluted way, the perfect destination, the trip I may never stop paying for. Vickie warned me, but I didn’t listen. Vickie was always warning me.

Vickie Ferraro. Who told me love was the last refuge we have against the world and all its sorrows. Who I may have lost along the route, the only belonging that mattered.

But it’s late now. Time to go inside, unpack my duffel, turn on the ceiling fan, and make myself at home. Catch my breath. Sleep. As I start to turn away, though, the view begins to change. I can’t move. I’d forgotten the spectacular sunsets here, the beauty that is sometimes possible. I feel mesmerized. No, I feel awe. Suddenly, I realize there was no way I could have gotten here except the way I came. Maybe that’s what Edith meant. If so,
je ne regrette rien.

Boulder, Colorado ten months earlier

“
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light
.”

Those were the first words Emily Watkins said to me when I met her at the Boulder County Jail.

Not, “Are you my public defender?” Or, “Hey lady, you gotta get me off. I didn’t do it.” Not even, “What the hell took you so long?” I’d been in a two-day pre-trial motions hearing on a kidnapping case and Ray Martinelli, another lawyer in our office, had been holding her hand until I could get over there.

Ray, of course, had briefed me about the case. My new client had apparently stabbed her husband in the stomach and then barricaded herself in the bathroom. For more than an hour, according to her statement, she’d listened to him wandering around the apartment, slamming doors and turning on the television and radio.

The next morning, she’d ventured out and found his body lying in a pool of blood in front of the television set. Afterward, she’d sat down on the couch and watched a Jane Fonda wannabe in a silver leotard demonstrate to a group of middle-aged housewives how to firm up their thighs and buttocks. As soon as the show was over, she’d called the police and confessed to the murder. Her motive—if she had one—was unknown. The last woman I’d defended for killing someone had shot her pimp in the chest because he’d refused to share his bag of Cheetos with her.

Based on past experience, I’d been expecting a teary, panic-stricken lady with furtive eyes, alternately defensive and apologetic. Someone who would collapse into hysterics as soon as I mentioned the possibility of prison. Instead, I met an intelligent, dignified woman in her mid-thirties, physically fit with an enviable tan. A gardener, perhaps, like my girlfriend Vickie. The woman looked solemn, but relieved to see me, as if she’d been waiting too long outside a restaurant or a movie theater and was beginning to wonder if she’d penciled the wrong date into her calendar. Oh good, you made it. I have so much to tell you. I stabbed my husband with a pair of scissors and the police have charged me with murder.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I’d always loved those lines. I hadn’t read the poem since college, but I still remembered it. “They’re from ‘Acquainted with the Night’ by Robert Frost,” I said.

“Oh my God.” She looked stunned, then smiled delightedly. “I’ve never met anyone who knew I was quoting Frost. A public defender who reads poetry! Oh my goodness, Hal must have killed me after all and I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“In which case, you wouldn’t need me,” I said, offering her my hand. “My name is Rachel Stein.”

“Emily Watkins. Pleased to meet you.”

We shook hands, and then sat down on a pair of green plastic chairs. The room was small and windowless, about three times the size of a telephone booth. Someone had recently doused the floor and walls with undiluted Pine-Sol. Ah, nothing like the smell of an extremely clean bathroom. I pulled out my legal pad and set it on my lap.

“So, would you like to talk about your case?”

Emily made a face. “Oh, do we have to? I’d much rather talk about poetry. Almost no one reads it nowadays. Your colleague—what’s his name?”

“Ray.”

“Ray,” she repeated. “He was very nice, but clueless. I mentioned ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and he just looked at me. Finally, he asked if it was a new play on Broadway.”

“A rock opera?”

She smiled and waited. I was being tested again: tell me you know this poem, too, and maybe then we’ll talk. I studied her face, which looked older now that I was paying close attention. Her eyes were sky-blue, but completely opaque; looking at them was like looking at someone wearing mirrored sunglasses. Silently, she was telling me, “Don’t bother trying to find me.” But I didn’t believe her, so I began reciting the famous opening lines of the poem by T.S. Eliot she was referring to.

“Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky.”

“Like a patient etherized upon a table,”
Emily continued.

“Is that how you feel?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “Are you my therapist or my lawyer?”

“Both,” I said. “We’re on a tight budget.”

Emily smiled at my joke. “Okay, then, yes.”

I nodded. “Well, given the circumstances, that seems like an appropriate reaction.”

She smiled again. “So, you’ve determined that I’m sane and competent to proceed. What else do you want to know?”

Rachel, I told myself, she’s as smart as you are. This one’s going to hurt if it doesn’t come out right. Of course the junkie in me—addicted from day one to the drama of my chosen career—was almost whimpering with joy. Damn the torpedoes, this was the kind of case every public defender was born for: the chance to help, to explain, to protect, to defend, to make right. Hell, the chance to change the course of another person’s life. Hubris? You bet.

I picked up my pen and wrote the date, October 15, 1985, on the top of the page. “Usually I start by asking my clients for a little background information, but if you want to tell me what happened, we can start there as well.”

She shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. He was coming toward me and I happened to have a pair of scissors in my hand, so I stuck them in his gut. Poor Hal, he looked so surprised. He looked as if I’d betrayed him, which I suppose I had.”

“How come you happened to have a pair of scissors in your hand?”

She looked blank for a moment. “Oh, because I was in the middle of sewing. I was making a pair of his pants a little longer.”

“I see.” I wrote down the answers, then waited for her to expound on them. Emily nodded, but remained silent. How odd. Most people, even if they were guilty, would at least try to explain their behavior.

I dropped the pen, signaling that for now our conversation would be more of a discussion than an interview, a chance to explore various possibilities before settling on any particular “truth.”

“Well, in cases like this, defendants generally rely on certain defenses such as denial, accident, heat of passion, or self-defense.”

“Or I could just plead guilty, right?”

“You could, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re facing a life sentence.”

She bit her lip. “I think I should just plead guilty. After all, I’m the one who stabbed him. I’m the one responsible for his death.” She paused. “He
is
dead, isn’t he?” Suddenly she looked nervous.