back in the chair and looked around to ensure no one was paying attention to me. “Well, look,” I began. “I trust you’ve seen the news lately? The news about Steele?”
“Sure. It’s been interesting.”
I listened to his voice. Murdock seemed too cheerful, a bit too eager to sound like he didn’t have much to say. He was a twenty-five year lawyer with too much experience under his belt to sound so helpful and unsuspecting. I decided I had to come right out with it and see what he would say.
I said, “Well, look Mr. Murdock, I haven’t shared what I’m about to tell you with anyone. But I’ve come into some information that shows that Ms. Steele hired you only a few days before she was killed and that she spoke with you the day before she was killed. Now, it seems awfully strange that she was consulting a lawyer whose name has never come up once in the twelve-year history of the case only a few days before her death.” I stopped myself. I was afraid to finish my thought. Murdock said nothing.
“Frankly,” I continued, “I’m not sure Steele didn’t kill his wife.” There was silence on the other end, but I could hear him breathing. I went on. “I think you know something, something important.”
“Uh,” Murdock’s voice had changed, the pitch was lower, the tone more careful. “This is — I gotta tell you, I haven’t even thought about this case since it all happened. Well, until recently that is. Look, I don’t know a whole lot. She came to see me, but things were just barely getting started when this all happened. So I never actually did any work for her.”
“Well, what did she come to see you about?”
Murdock cleared his throat. “Look, Mr. Olson, I never wanted to be involved in any of this. I just took the stuff I had, the stuff she sent me, it was less than a box of stuff, and put it in storage. I washed my hands of this thing a long time ago.” He sounded like a man groping for sand to stick his head into.
“Look,” I lowered my voice, speaking just above a whisper. “No one wants to get involved here, but the fact of the matter is we’re all involved whether we like it or not.” I could feel my heart racing, skipping beats. “I understand your hesitancy to stick your nose into things and I’ll do whatever I can to keep your name out of it.”
There was silence again. I could hear Murdock rummaging through some papers. “Okay, look. I’m a little nervous talking about this over the phone. I think we should meet. Can you come by my office tomorrow, around noon? I’ll dig the box I’ve got out of storage and tell you what I can tell you. But remember, there are privilege issues here. I’ve got ethical obligations.”
I said, “I understand. We all do.”
22
I woke up an hour away from Murdock’s office and I could hear my mother making breakfast in the kitchen. There was the smell of coffee and the familiar odors of home. After hanging up with Murdock, I’d driven straight to Riverside without returning to my apartment. The urge to get away propelled me onto the freeway. It made sense at the time. Riverside was halfway to Palm Springs.
Everyone was surprised to see me. I told them I had a meeting in Palm Springs the next day, trying to act normal. But my mother noticed I hadn’t brought a bag. And I looked exhausted and upset, she’d said. We ate dinner, watched television, and chatted loosely about unimportant things; but there was a current of suspicion in my parents’ voices. I went to bed early to escape it, blaming the meeting for my need for sleep.
Later, I could hear them talking at the end of the hallway near their bedroom. Hushed but concerned voices drifted in under the door. “I’m just saying he seems a little strange,” my father said. My mother countered that I was under a lot of pressure and was worried about starting classes again. “Well, all I’m saying is that working at that place has changed him. Did you see that car?” My father replied as he walked down the hall to the kitchen and opened a cupboard.
Sleep came and went and did little to ease my concerns. I took my time getting up and straggled into the kitchen where my father sat at the table