“I didn’t do it.”
“Who asked you?”
Paula stared at Becky Baldwin. “Don’t you want to know I’m innocent?”
“They’re all innocent,” Becky said. “It’s a rule of law. You’re presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
“I’m not talking about rules of law. I’m telling you a fact. The fact is, I didn’t do it.”
“I want you to stop saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to say anything. You have the right to remain silent. Use it. If the police ask you a question, you say, ‘My lawyer told me not to talk to you,’ or ‘I refuse to answer on advice of counsel,’ or however you want to phrase it. Just don’t answer the damn question. You tell ’em you didn’t do it, you’ve answered a question for ’em, and it becomes that much easier for them to get you to answer another.”
“But—”
“And stop thinking. You don’t have to plan your defense. I do. You have to talk to me. Answer the questions I ask you. And only the questions I ask you. Because I don’t want to compromise your defense by having you swear to something I know isn’t true.”
“Fine. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to shut the hell up. I want you to not try to account for the fact you were found in the house with your dead husband holding a blood-stained carving knife.”
“I just picked it up—”
Becky put her hand over her mouth. “Are you dumb? Do you not hear what I say? I tell you to not account for the carving knife, you start accounting for the carving knife. I understand. You’re upset. You’ve had a traumatic experience. I’m going to have a doctor look at you and he’s going to declare you in no shape to answer questions.”
“How do you know he’ll do that?”
“Because he has to live in this town, and I can make his life a living hell. Don’t worry about things you can’t control. Because you can’t. You are not in charge. You are relieved of responsibility. You have placed yourself in my hands, and I am acting in your best interests. It is not necessary for you to control everything that I do. Nor is it desirable. Your best course of action right now is none. Sit down, shut up, do as you are told.”
“But—”
“Shut up and listen. You’ve been arrested for murder. Your husband is dead. A wife is always the most likely killer. When she’s clutching a bloody knife, the likelihood escalates. The police are not apt to be looking for anyone else. As if that weren’t bad enough, he didn’t come home last night, you were hysterical and reported to the police. He’s been missing for twenty-four hours. The next time he shows up he’s lying on your living room floor in a pool of blood, and you’re holding the knife. You better have a pretty good explanation.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to talk.”
“I don’t want you to talk to the police. Eventually, you’re going to have to talk to me. And you’re probably going to have to talk to a jury.”
“Jury?”
“What did you think they do with killers, slap them on the wrist? Short of someone confessing to this crime, you’re it. I’ll give you the best defense I can, but there’s some things I need to know. Chief Harper called you to say he’d located your husband. You didn’t answer the phone, which is why he went out there. Where were you when he called?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“It’s not a case of personal preference. You have to say.”
“Where I was has nothing to do with anything.”
“Are you kidding me? Your husband was out with another woman. He came home and you jumped all over him, demanded to know where he’d been. You didn’t like his answers and he didn’t like your questions. You wouldn’t let up, and he slapped you around.”
“You trying to get me off on self-defense?”
“I must say it crossed my mind.”
“Forget it. It’s one thing to want to run my defense. When you start pleading me out, you’re through.”
“You start trying to run your own defense, you’re through. Self-defense is not pleading you out. Self-defense is one of many strategies that may be employed in attempting to get a jury to bring back a verdict of not guilty. The operative words are ‘not guilty.’ Pleading you out means agreeing you are guilty of a lesser charge, like involuntary manslaughter or assault with a deadly kitchen implement.”
Paula scowled. “Are you trying to get me to fire you?”
“Yes!” Becky said. “I happen to desperately need the work, but the damage my reputation will take for mounting a ludicrous defense for a moronic murder client isn’t worth it. If you’re going to be that much of a jerk, hire someone else.”
Paula looked at her hard for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine, play it your way. I’m not going to tell you where I was, but I’m not going to tell the police, either. So leave it at that and move on.”
Becky took a deep breath, considered, reached a decision. “Okay. Have it your way. This afternoon after work your husband picked up the car. He didn’t go to work, but he picked it up the same time as if he had. He got in the car and drove home, which I assume would take between an hour and an hour and a half.”
“So?”
“That would put him at your house at six thirty. Assuming he left the garage at five o’clock. What happened when he got there?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Where were you?”
Paula said nothing, set her lips in a firm line.
“I’ve never been married to a man who stayed out all night,” Becky said. “But I can imagine. You’re waiting for the guy to get home. Suddenly, you up and leave. That’s a tough one to sell to a jury. Even if you say where you went. If you don’t, then it’s impossible. But have it your way. You weren’t there when he got home. What happened when you got home?”
“I walked into the living room. There he was on the rug. I couldn’t believe it. The rug is white. Pure white. I took such care with that rug. To keep it clean. It stood out. The red splatters.”
“What did you do?”
“I was stunned. I just stared at him. And then I saw his chest heave. A slight movement. Like he was breathing. I rushed to him. Knelt down. A knife was sticking out of his stomach. Not his chest. His stomach. I thought, Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why he’s still alive. It hadn’t hit a vital organ. Stabbed in the belly, not in the heart. I grabbed the knife, jerked it out. The blood oozed out. From where the knife had been. I realized that’s what I had seen. Not the chest heaving. It was the seeping blood.
“I heard a noise from the front door. I had no idea who it was. I didn’t even know what it was. I stood up, stumbled in that direction. I went out in the foyer and there was the police.”