AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The clerk was a woman of about sixty. A sign next to the window said, MRS. WILLARD. She wore a shirt dress with a small, flowered pattern. Over that, a pink cardigan. Her hair was grey and permed around the edges so that it curled away from her face. I was pretty sure it was a popular style when she was young. She found something she liked and stayed with it.
I could tell she was about to give me trouble over the lacking form, so I launched into a very honest explanation. “I work for The Freedom Agenda, and I went to see Larry Wilkes on Monday. He’s interested in our taking his case, and I thought it might be easier for us to decide if we looked at the transcript.”
She got a very sour look on her face, and said, “It’s public information. What kind of case is it?”
“Murder.”
“A case like that could run over a thousand pages. You’ll need to pay the copying costs. Twenty-five cents a page. It should be in the range of two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars.”
“Do you take credit cards?”
They did. Then she told me it would take about two hours and suggested I wait at the snack bar. The practiced way she said it made me wonder if she got a kickback for every customer she sent there.
Also on the first floor, I found the snack bar off to the right after you came in. It was a counter with half a dozen tables in front of it. I ordered coffee and a bear claw. The coffee was bitter and the bear claw stale. I ate them anyway.
I asked myself, what I was expecting to find? If the prosecutor was any good, he’d have the first officer on the stand taking the jury through the discovery of the crime and the investigation of the scene. Since they’d only ever considered Larry, it would be interesting to see what exactly led to that, if anything. I wondered what the officer would have to say about Larry’s demeanor. The police placed too much emphasis on this. If they didn’t think you were upset enough—or too upset—you were instantly moved up the suspect list.
Anne Whittemore. I was interested in reading her testimony. And the Showalter boy. But who else? Who else testified? Was there forensic testimony? Did Larry testify? I doubted that. He would have said so. And it was rarely a good idea. Did he have any character witnesses? Did he put up any defense at all?
I went back after an hour and a half. There were three people in front of me, but when the clerk saw me, she put three boxed reams of paper onto the counter. This was going to be pricey.
When it was my turn, I was presented with a bill for three hundred and twenty-five dollars. I handed over my credit card. I carried the boxes out to my jeep, already planning to take them to The Freedom Agenda, pull out three maybe four giant notebooks from the supply closet, a three-hole punch, and get organized.
I put the boxes on the floor on the passenger’s side. I couldn’t resist opening the top one. I flipped through. I knew exactly what I was looking for and found it on page 215. Andy Showalter’s testimony. I skipped through the basic who are you and where do you live questions, and started reading with:
“Can you tell the court how you know the defendant?”
“We go to high school together.”
“You’ve graduated high school.”
“Yes, yes, I have. We went to high school together.”
“You were friends?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think he’d ask you to get him a gun?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought it wouldn’t matter if I got caught.”
The defense attorney complained about that and there was some back and forth, including a conference which was not recorded. The judge said:
“Andy, try not to guess at things. Yes and no are the best answers. Keep your answers brief.”
“When did Larry ask you to get him a gun?”
“It was in the morning.”
“What was the date?”
“I don’t remember. At the beginning of that September. The September when Pete died. I’m sorry, I’m guessing—I don’t mean to.”
“This is different, Andy,” the judge said.
“Is it?”
I reached into the glove compartment and took out a pen. I made a note that Larry was not in Downey at the beginning of September. He was in Santa Barbara. Did his lawyer follow that up?
