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“You’ll come?” I asked.
“He’s going to need a ride back anyway. Like I’d ever let you drive my car,” she said, opening the front door.
She acted annoyed, but I knew my sister well enough to recognize the look in her eyes. She was just as nervous as I was.
26
Manning
Forty minutes before my arraignment, a brown-haired man in his early forties entered the courthouse interview room and slapped a briefcase on the table between us. “Manning Sutter?”
“That’s me.”
I stood to shake his hand, but he stopped me. “No time for formalities. I’m Dexter Grimes, your public defender.” He pulled out a handful of manila file folders, put on his glasses, and rifled through them. “Richards, Rosenblatt, Stephenson,” he muttered, reading them off. “Here we are—Sutter.” He opened my file and frowned. “No, this is wrong.” Fanning them out on the table, he picked one labeled Sweeney and swapped the contents of our files. “There we go. Sweeney was in Sutter, and Sutter was in Sweeney. It happens.”
I’d had my personal effects taken, been fingerprinted, photographed and stood in a line-up, then held in a cell—all within seventy-two hours. All as an innocent man. I’d been told I’d meet my lawyer before my arraignment. This was the one I’d been assigned. Upon closer inspection, I decided he was mid-thirties with deep lines around his eyes. He looked as if he’d been through the grinder. There was a mayonnaise stain on his lapel, or at least I hoped that’s what it was.
I stared at him until he cleared his throat. “We’re a little overloaded,” he said.
“No shit.”
“But don’t worry.” His glasses slid down his nose. “I’ve done this a thousand times.”
In my experience, having done something a lot didn’t necessarily mean you were good at it. But he was all I had, and at least when he talked to me, he looked me in the eye. I placed my forearms on the table. “I’m innocent.”
“Of course.” He sat back in his seat, looking over my slim paperwork. “Do you know how arraignments work?”
“Not really.”
“It’s going to be fast. The judge’ll read the charges, you’ll plead ‘not guilty,’ and they’ll set bail. You have anyone to post your bail?”
I had nobody, period. Even if my mom had the money, I’d rather sit in jail than crawl back to her. My aunt and Henry, the officer who’d looked out for me as a teen, had done enough for me in one lifetime. “No.”
“We can go to a bondsman. Depending on the amount, they’ll front you the money and take a percentage.”
The money I’d saved over the years was a small sum by most standards, but it was all I had. I’d worked hard for it. “I’m not paying anyone anything for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“Okay.” He made a couple notes. “So Friday night, you were pulled over.”
“No. My truck stalled, so I pulled it over. The cop stopped to check on me.”
“Says here he suspected you were drinking.”
“No. I walked in a straight line for him and then we had a nice, friendly chat.”
Grimes looked up. “Did he administer a Breathalyzer test on you?”
“I wasn’t drinking.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Then that’s irrelevant. It’s your word against his.”
The officer and I had hit it off; there was no reason for him not to believe me. I opened my mouth to explain.
Grimes checked his watch. “Your charge is attempted robbery. A felony.”
“It doesn’t much matter what it is, because I didn’t do it.”
“It does matter.”
“I didn’t go in anyone’s house. I don’t even know which house it was. Look, all you need to do is tell whoever needs to know that there’s some kind of mix-up so I can go home. I work under contract. Every hour I’m in here is lost wages.”
“I understand, Mr. Sutter. I’m moving as quickly as possible.” He darted his eyes over the page in front of him. “This officer says he saw you just before one.”
“I guess.”
“Witnesses have you leaving Phil’s around ten-thirty. Neighbors spot you driving in the dark around eleven. What happened between eleven and one?”
“I went for a drive. Then when I got close to camp, my car stalled.”
“So for almost two hours, you sat on the side of the road, waiting for a jump?”
“Yeah, so fucking what? I drove around a while before that.”
Grimes closed the file with a sigh. “Look, Mr.—”
“Manning,” I said. “I’m not mister anything.”
“Manning, I’m on your side. Anything you tell me is confidential. I can’t win this if you don’t work with me.”
I ran my hands over my face and looked up at the ceiling. “There’s nothing to win. I didn’t do it.”
“I’ve got news for you, Manning, and you aren’t going to like it. Your case doesn’t look great. The residents of that ritzy suburb want someone to go down for this, so the prosecutor will try to wrap this up as soon as possible. You’re the strongest suspect, and far as I can tell, you move from job to job and don’t come from the best background.”
