Using Harry & Harry’s paperwork, I file the proper notice telling the court that we will be relying on an insanity defense. Mr. Ace Prosecutor, Max Mancini, howls in response, as always. Max is fully in control of the Zapate matter, primarily because of the overwhelming proof of guilt, as well as the publicity. He’s still offering fifteen years for second-degree murder. I’m stuck on ten, though I’m not sure my client would plead to that. As the weeks have passed and Tadeo has become the beneficiary of hours of free jailhouse legal advice, he has become even more rigid in his belief that I can somehow pull the right strings and walk him out. He wants one of those technicalities all of his cell mates know about.
Dr. Taslman comes to town and we have lunch. He’s a retired psychiatrist who never liked to teach or listen to patients. Legal insanity has always fascinated him—the crime of passion, the irresistible impulse, the moment when the mind is so filled with emotion and hate that it commands the body to act violently and in a way never contemplated. He prefers to do all the talking. It’s his way of convincing me how brilliant he is. I listen to his bullshit as I try to analyze how a jury will react to him. He’s likeable, intense, smart, and a good conversationalist. Plus, he’s from California, two thousand miles away. All trial lawyers know that the greater the distance an expert travels, the more credibility he has with the jury.
I write him a check for half of his fee. The other half will be due at trial.
He spends two hours evaluating Tadeo, and, surprise, surprise, he is now certain the kid blacked out, went crazy, and does not remember pummeling the referee.
So we now have a defense, shaky as it is. I’m not that encouraged because the State will haul in two or three experts, all at least as credible as Taslman, and they will overwhelm us with their brilliance. Tadeo will testify and do a credible job on direct, perhaps even manage some tears, then he’ll get chewed up by Mancini on cross-examination.
But the video doesn’t lie. I’m still convinced the jurors will watch it over and over and see the truth. They will silently scoff at Taslman and laugh at Tadeo, and they will return a verdict of guilty. Guilty means twenty to thirty years. On the day of the trial, I’ll probably get the prosecutor down to twelve to fifteen years.
How can I convince a headstrong twenty-two-year-old to plead guilty to fifteen years? Scare him with thirty? I doubt it. The great Tadeo Zapate has never scared easily.
Today is Starcher’s eighth birthday. The battered and abused court order that dictates the time I spend with my son clearly says that I get two hours with him on each of his birthdays.
Two hours is too much, according to his mother. She thinks one hour is plenty; actually, no time would be her preference. Shoving me out of his life completely is her goal, but I won’t let that happen. I may be a pathetic father, but I am trying. And, there might come a day when the kid wants to spend time with me in order to get away from his quarreling mothers.
So I’m sitting at a McDonald’s, waiting to begin my two hours. Judith eventually pulls up in her Jaguar, her lawyer car, and gets out with Starcher. She marches him inside, sees me, scowls as if she’d rather be anywhere else, and hands him over. “I’ll be back at five o’clock,” she hisses at me.
“It’s already four-fifteen,” I say, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. She huffs away, and he takes a seat opposite me. I smile and say, “How’s it going, bud?”
“Okay,” he mumbles, almost afraid to speak to his father. I cannot imagine the strict orders she hit him with during the drive over. Do not eat the food. Do not drink the drinks. Do not play on the playground. Wash your hands. Do not answer questions if “he” quizzes you about me or Ava or anything to do with our home. Do not have a good time.
It usually takes him a few minutes to shake off this drubbing before he can relax around me.
“Happy birthday,” I say.
“Thanks.”
“Mom tells me you’re having a big party on Saturday. Lots of kids and cake and stuff like that. Should be fun.”
“I guess,” he says.
I wasn’t invited to the party, of course. It’s at his home, the place where he lives half his life with Judith and Ava. A place I’ve never seen.
“Are you hungry?”
He looks around. It’s a McDonald’s, a kid’s paradise, where everything is carefully designed to make people crave the food that looks far more delicious on the walls than on the tables. He zeroes in on a large poster hawking a new ice cream float called the McGlacier. Looks pretty good. I say, “I think I’ll try one of those. You?”
“Mom says I shouldn’t eat anything here. Says it’s all bad for me.”
This is my time, not Judith’s. I smile and lean forward as if we’re now conspirators. “But Mom’s not here, right? I won’t tell, you won’t tell. Just us boys, okay?”
He grins and says, “Okay.”
