Page 34 of The Happy Month

Lydia remained in her chair. I waited for her to look at me. When she did, I mouthed the word, ‘Deposition’? She smiled, a Cheshire cat.

Then, still in no hurry, she stood up. From her desk, she picked up two of four-inch three ring binders sitting there and handed them to me. For the first time, I noticed that she’d used Post-It Flags to mark the places she wanted to refer to. There were many. Very many.

She picked up the third binder and her pad, then led me out to the lobby where we found Raymond Harris. Bald with a messy fringe of hair hanging down to his collar, he was in his early sixties and looked—well, the expression ‘rode hard and put away wet’ came to mind. Under one arm, he held a thick manila envelope which had also seen better days.

Oddly, his suit was perfect. Simple, charcoal grey with a white shirt and a red and black ‘power’ tie. It had been recently dry-cleaned. I could smell the chemicals. Then I realized the suit was from the late sixties and older than my boyfriend.

“Raymond, it’s a pleasure to meet you in person,” Lydia said. “This is my investigator, Dom Reilly. And my office manager, Karen Addison.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure,” he said. He didn’t shake anyone’s hands. There were too many. And besides that, he’d noticed the notebooks Lydia and I were holding. His eyes narrowed.

“We’re back here,” Lydia said, turning to lead us to the unimproved space behind the offices. “Can we get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?”

“Water please.”

Karen had followed us and went to the college dorm-style refrigerator and got him a bottle of Evian.

“No video? I thought everyone was doing video these days,” he said.

“Video? Oh no, Raymond, this isn’t a deposition. Just a friendly chat.”

Though they seemed to make a liar out of her, she set the notebooks onto the table. I followed suit. Karen placed the Evian at the seat across from us.

“I’m sure you said it was a deposition,” Harris said, clearly grumpy. Well, he had dry-cleaned his suit after all. “I distinctly remember the word.”

“I’m sure—well, maybe I misspoke. I had a deposition earlier this week. I might have gotten confused. So many details.”

My God,I thought. She’s playing the dumb girl.

“I mean, we will be doing a deposition. After I’ve gone through the file you’ve brought. For today it’s just a few questions. Shouldn’t take long.”

Three notebooks with dozens of flags and a pad full of questions in tiny, cramped writing said otherwise.

He sat, obviously displeased, putting the manila envelope down next to him and cracked his bottle Evian. I reached across the table and pulled the envelope over to our side.

“I was only planning to be here an hour.”

“Oh goodness,” Lydia said. “It definitely won’t take that long. We should start, though, shouldn’t we?”

He didn’t respond.

“Prior to trial, was there a plea bargain offered?”

“Yes. It’s in the documents I brought.”

“What was it?”

“Voluntary Manslaughter.”

“That’s a pretty good deal.”

“Yes, I told him to take it. He’d have been out of prison ten years ago. Probably more.”

“Did that tell you anything?”

“That my client was an idiot?”

“That they offered him such a good deal.”