Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [88]
“Was he trying to catch you? Hurt you?”
“I didn’t let him catch me. By the time we got down we were completely wiped and had nothing to say to each other. We broke up for about three weeks after that.”
“When Andrew acted like this, what did you make of it?”
I frowned, trying to sort it out, holding on to our most private moments, the way a child hides a clear glass marble in her hand, believing that it is not glass but crystal, powerful and made of magic.
“Andrew had a short fuse when it came to anger. Like me, I guess. I thought it was a good thing we were so much alike.”
“If you were so much alike, what were you doing rolling over a coffee table, trying to kill each other?” Devon wanted to know. “Let’s go back. Tell me what happened in your apartment from the moment you opened the door.”
“I didn’t open the door. He got in. Somehow.”
“With a key?” suggested Devon.
“Didn’t have a key.”
“A duplicate he made without you knowing?”
The idea chilled me. “That would be upsetting.”
“Yes, it would.”
I told Devon that Andrew had been agitated when he arrived. The lawyer wanted to know what we fought about. It built, I said, small rocks skittering, the way arguments do: The money he owed me. The scene in the bar. Me going after him and Oberbeck. Me intruding into his life.
“What was the straw?”
“The straw was the bank robbery. We recovered a ski mask and were checking out the DNA. This was his case, that he could get major credit for, but when I told him I reopened it on my end, he went ballistic. That’s when he came over the table at me.”
Outside, the traffic glided silently by. The afternoon light had cooled since I’d first entered the office, and the hunched figure of my attorney against the softly glowing cityscape seemed muted as well. The firebrand inquiry had burned out, leaving one core question: why?
“My gut says the intensity of this was not about him being pissed because you didn’t like his girlfriend,” Devon said slowly. “There was a threat he perceived as so serious he was willing to kill you to wipe it out.”
“You keep saying that, but—”
“He kept coming after you, even when you showed him the gun. As a cop, that is nothing I would ever do. You wouldn’t normally throw yourself at the shooter, would you?”
I had to admit, “No.”
“No!” Devon put down the pen. “Unless you were unhinged.” He paused. “Or desperate.”
“Desperately what?”
“Scared.” Devon shrugged in his white shirtsleeves. “Andrew Berringer was trying to kill you, and you responded in the only way possible, which was self-defense. That is what we need to prove.”
I lay back in the chair, spent. “Go ahead,” I said, with an ironic wave of the hand.
“I’m planning to subpoena Juliana Meyer-Murphy.”
“What does Juliana have to do with this?”
“We might need her as a character witness.”
“She’s a fifteen-year-old victim of rape who is suffering from posttraumatic stress—she can’t even go out of the house!”
“She will help your case.”
“Drop it.”
“I will not.”
“You know what, Devon? I’m starting to lose my game face here.”
“I can see that.”
“What would it be like for her if someone she trusts, an FBI agent for God’s sake, turns out to be an accused criminal, like the guy who raped her, who she also trusted—”
“If this goes to trial,” he interrupted, “she will see it on TV. The whole fucking world will see it on TV.”
“I spoke to her!” I said triumphantly. “This morning! Six and a half minutes on the phone! They could claim witness tampering. You can’t go there!”
Devon shook his head dismissively.
“Look, I’m not pretending there are not other implications with having this young lady on the stand. We can’t call her as a character witness in a preliminary hearing where the purpose is for a judge to decide whether there is enough evidence to warrant a jury trial, but we can have her up there for an innocuous reason that goes to the prosecution’s burden of proof. And we can hope, because she’s young and emotional,