The Whole Truth (28 page)

"About three weeks after your son was arrested, Mrs. Kepler, I received a phone call from a man who asked me if I would represent Ray Raintree."

"Who was it?" Kim asks.

"I'll get to that," the attorney says. "At the time, I said that I did have an opening, and I could take the case. I asked him what his connection was to Ray Raintree, and if he wished to come in to talk to me about my representation. He didn't answer the first question, and his answer to my second question was to say that he didn't want to come in, but he would send me a retainer."

She waves the check in her hand.

"This is it. The reason I have it, is that it bounced. I didn't know it bounced until I had already started preparing my case, and when I called this man to complain, he wasn't there. In fact, I haven't been able to locate him since then."

"Leanne," I say, "why did you continue with the case?"

She levels me with a hard stare, as if defying me in some way.

"Let me tell you the rest of the story." She's going to tell it her way, with no interruption from us. "When this man called that single time, he set certain conditions on my representation of Ray Raintree. I was never to tell anyone who was paying. I was never to mention his name to Ray, or to anyone else. I was to avoid publicity, if I could, and if it wouldn't get in the way of my defense. I didn't think it would, because the more publicity Ray got, the more people hated him, and I certainly didn't have this kind of story to tell them then."

She gazes at Katherine for a moment.

"I asked the man why he didn't want me to get Ray any pre-trial publicity, and he said that he didn't want Ray's mother to find out about her son."

Katherine gasps and looks as if she's been stabbed in the heart.

But Leanne holds up a hand, as if to halt that reaction.

"I don't think he meant to be cruel, Mrs. Kepler. What he said was, that it would break Ray's mother's heart if she ever found out that her son had killed a little girl. I gather he was wrong to withhold this information. But I think he meant well."

"How dare he!" Katherine exclaims, in a fury. "Who is this man?"

Leanne continues inexorably, as if Katherine hasn't asked.

"I was to bill him at the address on this check, as expenses mounted, and he would continue to pay me. He did not want to meet the man for whose defense he was paying, although he said he might ask me to take him to the prison sometime to get a look at Ray. I agreed to do that, if that's what he wanted. But I was never, under any circumstances, to reveal who was paying Ray's bills."

With a dramatic little flourish, she hands the check to Kim, who says, "Oh, my god!" and puts her hand to her heart, before passing it to her mother. Katherine's mouth drops open, and she looks as if she wants to say something, but can't get any words out.

She passes the check over to me.

I actually gasp when I see the signature, which must be gratifying to Leanne English.

It is very clearly signed, Frederick Kepler.

"I didn't know he was Ray's father," she tells us, "until Marie, here, called me to tell me about you people. Even then, I didn't know that was their relationship, only that this man had your surname. Now that you've told me your story, I realize who he is. The only thing is, I don't know where he is now."

"And the check bounced," I say. "Why did you continue, Leanne?"

She looks angrily at me, as if daring me to debate her reasons. "I continued because I'm a defense lawyer! That's who I am, that's what I do. I defend people that other people hate, and everybody hated Ray Raintree. Nobody wanted to stay with his case, he couldn't even keep the damned public defenders on his side. He needed a lawyer. I'd already done so much preparation, and I knew nobody could save him from a guilty verdict. I figured, it wouldn't take very long to try it..."

It's almost as if she's trying to make herself look bad by saying that, but the truth underlying her explanation is that hard-bitten little Leanne English is a woman of ideals and principles, and she was willing to work for Ray for free, if she had to, to provide a defense for an indefensible man.

Katherine stands up, goes to Leanne, and gently embraces her. While the attorney shrinks from the touch, and then stoically endures it, Katherine begins to cry, and to murmur, again and again, "Thank you." When she finally releases Leanne, the lawyer's face is as red as her hair, and she glares at me as if defying me ever to write this in my book.

Tough, Leanne.

You're just going to have to put up with looking like a hero.

Now I understand the antipathy the rest of her legal team expressed toward their client: He wasn't paying any bills! No wonder Manny Meade spoke of him dismissively, and Jaime Suarez was so open in his contempt. Law firms are money-making enterprises, after all. The whole firm must have fought Leanne on this one; if she weren't a full partner and a tough cookie, to boot, she'd surely have dropped the case to please them.

Then she does another courageous thing, by offering an opinion that none of us wants to hear.

"Look, I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Kepler, but I don't think Ray will come in just to meet you. He may not remember you. Even if he does, he's one strange young man, Mrs. Kepler. I'm sorry, but he is. And if he comes in at all, it means he's going to prison, and then we've got a damned hard fight to keep him out of the electric chair."

Katherine meets that courage, like a bet, and raises it.

"What should we do?" she asks, firmly.

"I don't know what to do about bringing him in. But if they get him alive, I'll try to get the prosecutor to give us a break," Leanne says. "He's got to take the circumstances of Ray's life into account, and agree not to press for a death penalty."

Franklin won't do it, I'm thinking, and even if he did, Ray won't allow himself to be locked up for life. He has already proved that he would rather die first. I recall his "survival instructions," which he probably got from his captor, Donor Miller: Do whatever you have to do to keep from getting caught. Ray has already wounded people, and probably killed someone, to stay free.

But Katherine and Kim look hopeful now.

"We'll pay your bills," Kim tells the lawyer. "All of them, won't we Mom?"

Her mother is nodding vigorously, while I am trying to catch Leanne's eye to get across the message: They can't. This will ruin them financially, just as Katherine's other son has predicted it will. They're not rich people, they—

"Forget that," Leanne says, harshly. "I'll find Fred."

I feel honored to shake her hand when we leave her office.

Next, with only a little more time to kill, we stop by the Bahia P.D. Robyn Anschutz and Paul Flanck look completely nonplused to be meeting Ray Raintree's mother and sister. They say "ma'am," a lot to Katherine, and keep glancing at me, as if I have produced rabbits out of my magic hat.

"You're sure it's Mr. Miller who's dead?" Katherine wants to know.

"Pretty sure," they tell her, and go on to explain about the scorpion necklace and the wallet with the driver's license and credit cards. "The only thing left of the body is the torso, ma'am, so there's no fingerprints." They apologize for being gruesome, but they say that there wasn't a head, so they can't identify him that way.

"I remember that necklace," she tells them.

I feel a little shocked to hear her say it. It reaches so far back into a painful history for her. Can she really remember it, or is this just the power of suggestion at work?

"It's not something you're likely to forget," Robyn agrees, with a shudder. It reassures me that Katherine really might be able to recall a detail like that. "I couldn't imagine wearing that against my skin all the time."

"Where was the necklace?" I ask Paul.

"It came up with some other junk in a fisherman's net."

"Along with the wallet," Robyn adds.

"Look, Mrs. Kepler," Paul says, bluntly, "we all feel really bad for you, but we've still got a killer loose out there, even if he is your son. You see what I'm saying? I've got to tell you that Ray is dangerous, and we can't be taking any chances that he's going to harm you, or police, or innocent people. We can hope he comes in alive, on his own, but I'm not going to guarantee that I think that's the way it's going to happen. I think you need to be prepared for bad news, ma'am."

Katherine looks at him squarely. "I have prepared myself for bad news for twenty-two years, Detective."

On our way out, I say privately to Paul and Robyn, "Could you guys check up on the whereabouts of a man named Frederick James Kepler? He may be living around here someplace, but I don't know for sure. He's Katherine's ex-husband, and Ray's father."

The detectives promise to look into it.

And then begin the media interviews. They go like clockwork, one after the other, with me chauffeuring the mother and daughter from one to another until we take a dinner break about eight at night. By ten o'clock, they start again, and as I have predicted, the journalists are kind and helpful, and the Keplers are extraordinarily effective on the air. Both of them cry, when interviewed. Both of them look straight into cameras and plead for mercy for their Johnnie, and they plead for the man called Ray to surrender himself.

And the more they do, the more discouraged I feel.

This is not going to work, I am thinking but not saying to them.

Ray can't read, so the print interviews are pointless. And there's no reason to assume he is anywhere near a television set, or a radio. And even if he sees and hears these women, will he care? Will he even believe they are who they say they are?

By ten-thirty, it is finished.

The last television crew has left my house, and the Keplers and I are working our way through a bottle of wine out on my patio overlooking the bridge. The canal looks very beautiful tonight, and they are enchanted with my view of it. We are all exhausted, but they seem hyper, encouraged, optimistic, though I doubt that will last. I suspect it's just a reaction to the lights and cameras, the sense of action that breeds hope. I stay up with them for another hour, rehashing every interview, reviewing all the possibilities for what might happen next, and listening again to their memories of Johnnie.

It is spooky to think of him out there somewhere, and his mother and sister, in here with me. With the help of the wine, after a while they seem almost relaxed for the first time since I've met them. I get the impression neither of them drinks very much, so this may sedate them into a good night's sleep. God knows they can use it. The wine is having an opposite effect on me, however: I'm feeling increasingly, irrationally jumpy. I fight an urge to look over my shoulder, turn on all the lights in my house, take a flashlight, and check the shadows under my cypress trees.

Franklin calls, just as I am dropping off to sleep upstairs.

He knows I often work late into the night, and that I welcome his interruptions, especially when he's calling to say that he could come over, if I want him to. Tonight, he knows I have house-guests, so he only wants to talk.

"Nice people," he says.

"Urn," I agree, and roll over to turn on the light again.

"So are the McCullens," he adds, pointedly.

"I couldn't agree more."

"But you don't want me to go for the death penalty."

"I don't know anymore, Franklin. All I know is that his mother's sleeping in my house, and for the past three days, all I've heard is tragedy. It kills me, to think of her watching him die."

"I thought you wanted him to die."

"Yeah, I thought I did, too. When I think about Natalie, I just want Ray wiped from the face of the earth. But now I've met his mom, and I've heard his story, and I'm confused."

"I'm not. I don't care if his mother was the Virgin Mary. He deserves to die, and if I get another chance, I'm going to make sure he fries."

"I think you may be wrong about this."

"No I'm not. You are." Suddenly, he laughs. "This is how lawyers have foreplay."

"Don't call me a lawyer," I retort, and then I have to laugh, too.

"So." His voice softens. "Tomorrow night?"

"I'll still have guests."

"Marie?" The softening has turned to suspicion. He has heard some quality in my voice that lets him know I am putting him off again. The man is accustomed to cross-examining expert witnesses, and I'm a cream puff by comparison. Getting to the truth is what he does for a living, every bit as much as what I do. "You wouldn't stop seeing me, just because we disagree about the death penalty?"

"Just?" I say, in quotes, avoiding his question. "Wouldn't that be more honorable than breaking up with somebody because he ... snores, for instance?"

"Are you saying I snore?"

"No, Franklin, I'm saying some differences are important."

"Snoring doesn't seem trivial if you're the one it's keeping awake."

I can't tell if he's trying to tease me out of my mood, or if he, too, is avoiding his own question. "All right! Snoring is important, we'll stipulate to that, all right?"

"It would make a hell of a lot more sense to stop seeing me because I snore, than because we disagree about some philosophy."

"Ray is not a philosophy, he's a person."

"Ray is a monster, not a person."

We sound like a couple of schoolyard kids trading taunts.

There's a silence, before I say, "Look, I understand that if anybody seems to deserve it, it's Ray. I get that. But I feel really uncomfortable about this, about flirting with you one minute, and sympathizing with Katherine the next."

"What are you saying?"

"Let me sort this out."

"You want me to stay away for a while?"

Dammit. "I guess I do, at least until this is over."

"One way or another."

"Yes," I say, feeling sad, "until it's over one way or another."

"All right, but this is entirely your choice."

His anger and hurt crackle through the phone lines.

"I know. I'm sorry. Good night, Franklin."

"'Good night, Marie."

I am left staring at my own phone, and thinking in dismay, How did that happen? And also, What have I done? Maybe the right thing, maybe not. Maybe I'm a woman of principle, and maybe I'm just an impulsive, pigheaded fool. One thing for sure, I have definitely proved it is not wise to date any of the principals in my books before they're published. I already knew that, but Franklin DeWeese could charm the freckles off a tomboy's face. If Ray is recaptured, will Franklin charm a jury into sentencing him to die? If he does, I don't know if I can go on feeling the same about him as before. Maybe I can, but maybe not. I know he's put other people to death, but that seemed far removed from me. I could almost overlook it, as terrible as that sounds. But this hits close to home—as close as down my stairs, where Ray's mom is sleeping.