Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction (23 page)

“Great,” I say.

“Can I go on back?”

“I better take you,” he says, standing up and extending a hand.

“I’m Harvey,” he says. He, too, is dressed like a McDonald’s manager. We look as if we each work a different shift, but otherwise we could be father and son.

“I like your tie,” he says.

Target’s,” I admit.

“I have four or five almost just like this,” I say, shaking his hand which, like mine, is small for his size. I glance down at his tie. It is striped like my own. No flower jobs for me and Harvey. We’re from the old school and proud of it.

The fact that we are dressed almost identically must be reassuring to Harvey, for without another word, he leads me back through a kennel where there must be fifteen dogs in small cages. I get claustrophobic just looking at them. Every time I have had to board Woogie, he loses weight. I might get a little depressed myself. No table scraps here. Harvey yells over the din, “You interested in a class?”

I am captivated by a toy collie in the corner. He looks so friendly I want to take him home, but another dog would break Woogie’s heart. A man might as well bring a mistress home to live alongside his wife. For an instant, I think Harvey means for myself.

“Sort of,” I say ambiguously.

“How often do they have them?”

Harvey leads me through a back door into an area that has several empty pens.

“It depends on the interest.

Jason will have a class with as many as five. But fewer students than three, and there’s not much interaction.”

I smile and get a sinking feeling. As I have feared, this is for real. The music, which has been so loud I can barely hear, ceases, and I respond, too loudly, not believing I’m having this conversation, “We learn best from each other all right.” Actually, there are not a lot of role models for Woogie in our neighborhood. My law-abiding neighbors keep their dogs penned and don’t let them outside except on leashes. When I take Woogie for a walk after work, he gets a free shot at all the flower beds, hydrants, and trees he wants. My hometown of Bear Creek in eastern Arkansas had no animal control law (or if it did, it was unenforceable), and I can’t bring myself to accept the notion that central Arkansas insists upon such trappings of big-city life. However, the first time I have to bail Woogie out of the pound I suspect I will be convinced.

We exit the building, and I look to my left and see a man about my age squatting down in the dirt, talking seriously to a cocker spaniel. Jason, I presume. I strain to hear what he says, and catch the words, “… having too many negative thoughts. Clay.”

Clay, a buff-colored fatty with wet, friendly eyes, wags his tail at the mention of his name. He looks pretty happy to me. Negative thoughts have a way of energizing me, too. Some of us in the animal kingdom may not be educable.

“Jason, this man would like a word with you,” Harvey announces, not particularly loath to interrupt work in progress.

Jason looks up and gives me a glance that makes me glad I am not Clay’s owner.

“There are no bad dogs,” he says.

“Only bad owners.”

I am not quite so optimistic about four-footed creatures, but I hold my tongue, figuring this conversation will be difficult enough. I introduce myself: “I’m Gideon Page.” I look around, since Jason does not rise to shake hands. I notice I am standing in an enclosed yard that actually is quite pleasant. Three large elm trees provide shade over half the area. Even in midsummer it would be possible to survive out here if one were of the canine persuasion.

“I need to get back up front,” Harvey announces cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the lack of communication rapidly settling in between his boss and his boss’s visitor.

He walks back into the kennel, while Jason scratches Clay behind the ear. At least the man seems to like his pupils, which is more than I can say for a lot of teachers

“I know who you are. Giddy Page!” Jason suddenly hisses, still squatting on his heels like some Eastern mystic.

“I’d swap every lawyer in this country for one of these,” he says, stroking Clay’s back like a lover.

“Who have you lawyers ever made smile except criminals and greedy corporate thugs? You’d scrape the paint off your mother’s toes before she’d been dead an hour if you thought you could sell it. Why, this lovely creature,” he said, looking soulfully into Clay’s eyes, “brings more pleasure to people in five minutes than your profession has brought throughout the entire existence of its long, depraved history.”

How does he know I hate to be called Giddy?

“Mrs.

Chestnut wants her five hundred bucks back,” I say, deciding that Jason is one of those people who plays defense as little as possible.

“She isn’t at all satisfied with the work you did on Bernard Junior.”

Jason leans backward to look up at me, and I realize the man is terribly deformed. I thought he was squatting on his heels, but, in fact, he is standing as upright as he will ever be. He is a dwarf, as humpbacked as anyone I’ve ever seen. As vitriolic as his personality is, it’s impossible to feel sympathy for him (as if he gives a damn), but I do understand his attitude a little better. No lawyer has ever loved him. The canine population (if Clay is any example) would elect him president by acclamation if they could vote. I’m not sure the country would be worse off if a couple of million lawyers suddenly decided to emigrate.

“Bernard Junior was a rare jewel,” Jason says, glaring at me. Clay emits a low growl as he senses his teacher’s distaste for his visitor.

“Bernard Junior had the soul of an angel. He was all heart. Mrs. Chestnut is an old prude. Just because he liked to lick himself didn’t mean he wasn’t advancing metaphysically. Pit bulls are so full of life and vigor that it would be a crime to expect to curb habits that have been programmed genetically. You think we humans wouldn’t do the same if we were physically able? Jealousy. Pure jealousy. Mrs.

Chestnut was green with envy, and you can take that to the bank.”

I think of mrs. Chestnut’s delicate, sweet old face, and realize I have some doubts about Jason’s sanity.

“I

don’t think a judge would come to the same conclusion.”

“Of course not! Judges are lawyers! Talk about a conflict of interest, Mr. Giddy Page. I’ve never heard of one so brazen.” No longer growling. Clay rolls over on his back to let his teacher work on his stomach. His eyes seem to roll back in his head in pure ecstasy.

I feel uncomfortable looking down at Jason and squat down on my heels to get at eye level with him. He is wearing green swimming trunks over black tights, sandals, and a T-shirt with a picture of Lassie.

“Okay,” I sigh.

“What did you teach Bernard Junior?”

Jason drums his fingers on Clay’s midsection and Clay’s lips recede from his teeth. I could swear he is grinning.

“Acceptance of his lot in life,” Jason says without hesitation.

“Imagine having his physique and jaws and never once being allowed to rip off the head of a cat. He’s as bored as a lion in a zoo. He kept nodding off, but I understand that. If I had to live with Mrs.

Chestnut, I couldn’t stay awake either. How do I teach a class? Lectures, music therapy, lots of individual attention I know what you’re thinking. Giddy Page. They don’t understand. How naive of you! Do your muscles understand a back rub? Does your mind understand Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? Of course not! But even as coarse and self-absorbed as the mind of a lawyer is, you surely and without a doubt get the message. As Marsh McLuhan preached decades ago, ‘the medium is the message,” and I, Jason Von Jason, am the medium.”

Jason Von Jason? Why not? I look enviously at Clay, whose teeth are twice as white as my own. I concede I’ve never looked so happy. If Jason could get on TV and pitch Slim Whitman records, he probably would make a fortune. No judge will have the patience to listen to this case for more than thirty seconds. Besides, Jason is the type to counterclaim for a million dollars.

And win. I stand up.

“If mrs. Chestnut hasn’t gotten a Ben Franklin from you in three days,” I bluster, “she won’t have any recourse but to sue.”

Jason looks up at me and says scornfully, “Sue.

Betty. Jane. Martha. You lawyers are the least imaginative species on the planet. Go bore a cockroach to death, Giddy Page. What kind of dog are you torturing?” I think of how bored Woogie must get during the day. He seems as if he accepts himself though. I don’t dare answer Jason. He’d crucify me.

“Some kind of poor mutt,” he guesses, “who looks like a giraffe.”

A chill runs down my back. Considering Woogie’s legs, Jason isn’t far off. Maybe I ought to ask Jason if Leigh killed Art. As I leave through the front of the building, Harvey, smiling beatifically, says, “Bring your dog for a visit. I’m sure Jason would love to enroll him.”

I wave but keep silent. I’ve learned my lesson.

“Chet bracken’s waiting for you in your office,” Julia says in hushed tones as I come up to her desk from the outside door. Uncharacteristically, she is speaking as if someone had died.

“What have you been doing? You smell like a puppy farm.”

I look at my watch. It is just after four. Leigh didn’t waste any time calling him. My stomach begins to bubble with anxiety. He is going to be furious that I went out to see Leigh on my own. Last night, when I got in from San Francisco, I left a message on his answering machine that I would call him as soon as my custody trial was over. Now my plan to see Leigh and then confront him doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

“How long has he been here?” I ask, looking at my shoes, I might have stepped in something in the schoolyard.

“About ten minutes,” she says, now a little nervous.

“I took him on back. After the money he gave you, I kind of felt it was okay. He asked.”

Julia obviously is a graduate of the take-no-prisoners secretarial school and makes it a point of honor never to apologize. This is as close as she will come, and so I accept.

“No problem. How did he seem?”

Julia squints at me as if she is trying to understand something.

“A little hostile. Is he well?”

I wave her off and try to keep from running to my office. What all did Leigh tell him? Shit, this is as good a time as any to lay my cards on the table. He is sitting at my desk with the light off, his head resting against his arms on top of the desk-top calendar. The expression on his face when I hit the switch does not reassure me.

“Are you trying to blow this case?” he demands as I take a seat across from my desk like some scared client.

Pulpy, plum-colored circles under his eyes make him look as if he were in his fifties, but his voice rushes toward me like a freight train.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

All the frustration I have been feeling on this case finally boils over. I smack my desk with the palm of my right hand.

“As far as I’m concerned, the odds are at least even that Shane Norman is involved in this murder, and if he’s not, he sure as hell looks like it. Though she won’t admit it, Leigh suspects it herself. She told me that Art believed that Shane had him investigated before they got married and tried to persuade her to wait.”

Chet shakes his head and gets up to shut my door. I am practically yelling at him. Chet’s neck is swallowed by a pink Oxford shirt and a green tie with penguins on it. If he weren’t dying, I’d laugh. Julia sneers that he dresses worse than I do. He leans back heavily in my chair and says, “That doesn’t prove shit!”

I rest my elbows against the corner of the desk, realizing how utterly passive I’ve been in this case.

“Norman hated the man. Don’t you get it? Wallace was stealing his last daughter from him and turning her into an atheist who would make fun of him. Leigh had been Shane’s favorite since she was five years old. Art was a bastard, and nobody knew it better than Norman. For all we know, he may have even found out about the child porno deal.”

“None of this makes him a murderer!” Chet thunders.

“Look, I know this man. There is absolutely no way he killed Art Wallace. Do you hear me?”

I hear him all right, but his words ring with all the authority of a carnival barker. His curiously blank expression and outraged tone don’t match. I wonder if he may be concentrating on controlling the pain he may be feeling.

“All you know is that Shane Norman saved your soul, and that has blinded you to the fact that the man was, is, and shall remain until the day he dies a human being who had areal reason to want his son-in-law dead. Damn it, will you at least check his alibi?”

Chet stares at me as if he is seeing me for the first time. I think I am about to get fired. So much for inheriting his cases and being known as his heir apparent.

“That won’t satisfy you,” he says, his voice cold and mechanical.

“If he can prove he was at the church, next you’ll claim he hired somebody to kill Art.”

I seize the tiny opening he gives me.

“No, I won’t.

There’s no evidence to support it. If it had been a hit man. Art wouldn’t have been sitting behind his desk.

Like you’ve already said, it wouldn’t have been a twenty-two pistol. At least check it out,” I beg.

“Nor man told me himself that he thought Leigh would have left the state with Art in another six months. In the same conversation he admitted he could be thought of as Art’s enemy.”

Chet slumps in his chair. He says morosely, “Shane would think the cancer has gone to my brain once he got over being insulted.”

I can’t believe my ears.

“When have you ever worried about insulting anyone? Leigh is our client, not Norman. Let me check it out,” I insist.

“I’ll just pretend I’m trying to nail down Leigh’s story.”

Chet loosens his tie, a needless act if there ever was one.

“You’re not dealing with an idiot. He’ll know what you’re up to as soon as you start poking around.” He hesitates but promises, “I’ll handle this.”

I don’t believe him. Norman has become like a god to him.

“You’re going to have to,” I say firmly, “or I’m quitting the case. We have no business representing Leigh if we can’t give her our undivided loyalty. It’s a clear conflict of interest.”