One Shot

Rosemary Barr didn’t have to tell Helen Rodin about the case because the whole thing had happened right outside Helen Rodin’s new office window. Helen had seen some of it for herself, and she had followed the rest on the news afterward. She had caught all of Ann Yanni’s TV appearances. She recognized her from the building’s lobby, and the elevator.

"Will you help my brother?" Rosemary Barr asked.

Helen Rodin paused. The smart answer would be No way. She knew that. Like No way, forget about it, are you out of your mind? Two reasons. One, she knew a major clash with her father was inevitable at some point, but did she need it now? And two, she knew that a new lawyer’s early cases defined her. Paths were taken that led down fixed routes. To end up as a when-all-else-fails criminal-defense attorney would be OK, she guessed, all things considered. But to start out by taking a case that had offended the whole city would be a marketing disaster. The shootings weren’t being seen as a crime. They were being seen as an atrocity. Against humanity, against the whole community, against the rejuvenation efforts downtown, against the whole idea of being from Indiana. It was like LA or New York or Baltimore had come to the heartland, and to be the person who tried to excuse it or explain it away would be a fatal mistake. Like a mark of Cain. It would follow her the rest of her life.

"Can we sue the jail?" Rosemary Barr asked. "For letting him get hurt?"

Helen Rodin paused again. Another good reason to say no. An unrealistic client.

"Maybe later," she said. "Right now he wouldn’t generate much sympathy as a plaintiff. And it’s hard to prove damages, if he’s heading for death row anyway."

"Then I can’t pay you much," Rosemary Barr said. "I don’t have money."

Helen Rodin paused for a third time. Another good reason to say no. It was a little early in her career to be contemplating pro bono work.

But. But. But.

The accused deserved representation. The Bill of Rights said so. And he was innocent until proven guilty. And if the evidence was as bad as her father said it was, then the whole thing would be little more than a supervisory process. She would verify the case against him independently. Then she would advise him to plead guilty. Then she would watch his back as her father fed him through the machine. That was all. It could be seen as honest dues-paying. A constitutional chore. She hoped.

"OK," she said.

"He’s innocent," Rosemary Barr said. "I’m sure of it."

They always are, Helen Rodin thought.

"OK," she said again. Then she told her new client to meet her in her office at seven the next morning. It was like a test. A sister who really believed in her brother’s innocence would show up for an early appointment.

Rosemary Barr showed up right on time, at seven o’clock on Monday morning. Franklin was there, too. He believed in Helen Rodin and was prepared to defer his bills until he saw which way the wind was blowing. Helen Rodin herself had already been at her desk for an hour. She had informed David Chapman of the change in representation on Sunday afternoon and had obtained the audiotape of his initial interview with James Barr. Chapman had been happy to hand it over and wash his hands. She had played the tape to herself a dozen times Sunday night and a dozen more that morning. It was all anyone had of James Barr. Maybe all anyone was ever going to get. So she had listened to it carefully, and she had drawn some early conclusions from it.

"Listen," she said.

She had the tape cued up and ready in an old-fashioned machine the size of a shoe box. She pressed Play and they all heard a hiss and breathing and room sounds and then David Chapman’s voice: I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself. There was a long pause, full of more hiss, and then James Barr spoke: They got the wrong guy… They got the wrong guy, he said again. Then Helen watched the tape counter numbers and spooled forward to Chapman saying: Denying it is not an option. Then Barr’s voice came through: Get Jack Reacher for me. Helen spooled onward to Chapman’s question: Is he a doctor? Then there was nothing on the tape except the sound of Barr beating on the interview room door.

"OK," Helen said. "I think he really believes he didn’t do it. He claims as much, and then he gets frustrated and terminates the interview when Chapman doesn’t take him seriously. That’s clear, isn’t it?"

"He didn’t do it," Rosemary Barr said.

"I spoke with my father yesterday," Helen Rodin said. "The evidence is all there, Ms. Barr. He did it, I’m afraid. You need to accept that a sister maybe can’t know her brother as well as she’d like. Or if she once did, that he changed for some reason."

There was a long silence.

"Is your father telling you the truth about the evidence?" Rosemary asked.

"He has to," Helen said. "We’re going to see it all anyway. There’s the discovery process. We’re going to take depositions. There would be no sense in him bluffing at this point."

Nobody spoke.

"But we can still help your brother," Helen said in the silence. "He believes he didn’t do it. I’m sure of that, after listening to the tape. Therefore he’s delusional now. Or at least he was on Saturday. Therefore perhaps he was delusional on Friday, too."

"How does that help him?" Rosemary Barr asked. "It’s still admitting he did it."

"The consequences will be different. If he recovers. Time and treatment in an institution will be a lot better than time and no treatment in a maximum security prison."

"You want to have James declared insane?"

Helen nodded. "A medical defense is our best shot. And if we establish it right now, it might improve the way they handle him before the trial."

"He might die. That’s what the doctors said. I don’t want him to die a criminal. I want to clear his name."

"He hasn’t been tried yet. He hasn’t been convicted. He’s still an innocent man in the eyes of the law."

"That’s not the same."

"No," Helen said. "I guess it isn’t."

There was another long silence.

"Let’s meet back here at ten-thirty," Helen said. "We’ll thrash out a strategy. If we’re aiming for a change of hospitals, we should try for it sooner rather than later."

"We need to find this Jack Reacher person," Rosemary Barr said.

Helen nodded. "I gave his name to Emerson and my father."

"Why?"

"Because Emerson’s people cleared your brother’s house out. They might have found an address or a phone number. And my father needed to know because we want this guy on our witness list, not the prosecution’s. Because he might be able to help us."

"He might be an alibi."

"Maybe an old army buddy, at best."

"I don’t see how," Franklin said. "They were different ranks and different branches."

"We need to find him," Rosemary Barr said. "James asked for him, didn’t he? That has to mean something."

Helen nodded again. "I’d certainly like to find him. He might have something for us. Some exculpatory information, possibly. Or at least he might be a link to something we can use."

"He’s out of circulation," Franklin said.

He was two hours away, in the back of a bus out of Indianapolis. The trip had been slow, but pleasant enough. He had spent Saturday night in New Orleans, in a motel near the bus depot. He had spent Sunday night in Indianapolis. So he had slept and fed himself and showered. But mostly he had rocked and swayed and dozed on buses, watching the passing scenes, observing the chaos of America, and surfing along on the memory of the Norwegian. His life was like that. It was a mosaic of fragments. Details and contexts would fade and be inaccurately recalled, but the feelings and the experiences would weave over time into a tapestry equally full of good times and bad. He didn’t know yet exactly where the Norwegian would fall. At that point he thought of her as a missed opportunity. But she would have sailed away soon anyway. Or he would have. CNN’s intervention had shortened things, but maybe only by a fraction.