well as he had indicated.
“What about the other car?” Buck persisted. “What kind of attempt did you make to find it?”
“The usual. Repair shops, emergency rooms. But it was a bad winter and there were a lot of fender benders, if I recall. With no one willing to come forward about a hit and run, it was a dead end.”
“Any description of the driver?”
“My notes say the defendant claimed a woman was driving with a man in the car, but that’s about it. He didn’t get a good look at the driver but swore up and down he’d recognize the passenger if he saw him again. He gave us a description of the man, but it was pretty general. There’s no denying he was under the influence at the time. He would’ve hung himself on the stand, and if you ask me, the judge did him a favor.”
“What do you mean, by letting him plead to second?”
Don Jr. took a final sip of his coffee, blotted his lips neatly, and shook his head. “He did more than that. The judge was the one who came up with the deal. He called Gill–Gilly Rogers, he’s the one who prosecuted the case, may he rest in peace—Gill and me into his chambers and told us he wasn’t allowing the arresting officer to testify about the truck and that I’d have to build my case on the testimony of the defendant, which, as we all knew, would be a waste of taxpayer’s money. So he strongly suggested we reach an agreement and came up with one he’d approve. I guess you never got to work with the judge, but he used to do things like that, informally, always working to be fair to everybody. It sure did make the practice of law a lot easier back then, I’ll tell you that.” And he smiled mirthlessly. “Of course, our billable hours weren’t nearly as high as they are now, either.”
Buck sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “You said you didn’t have Berman’s truck for evidence. What happened to it?”
A look that was part rueful, part puzzled crossed Don Jr.’s face, and he gave a small shake of his head. “Talk about your crazy snafus. Somebody screwed up and forgot to tag it as evidence. It went up for auction before the trial, can you believe that?”
Buck raised an eyebrow. “I’m no lawyer, but that sounds like grounds for a mistrial to me.”
“If we had gone to trial,” agreed Don Jr., “I would’ve argued that being able to examine the truck was essential to our defense and I would’ve moved for a mistrial. But we never got that far. In fact, I didn’t get the notice that the truck had been mistagged until a month or so after we’d struck the deal. You know how it is, trying to deal with those Georgia boys.”
Buck gave a noncommittal shrug.
“I told the kid we wouldn’t have a chance if we went to a jury, and that was the truth. Still, it took me right up to the wire to convince him to the take the plea. The ungrateful little punk kept going on about being framed, about the judge being out to get him, the cops stealing his truck…”
“Framed?” Buck said. “By who?”
Don Jr. shrugged. “He never got that specific. You know how it goes. I suspect the drugs had made him paranoid by then, among other things. Like I said, he was a cocky son of a gun, the kind that will spend his life blaming everyone but himself for his problems.”
“So he took the deal, but he didn’t like it, even though the judge was going out of his way to cut him some slack.”
“He didn’t see it that way. He said he was innocent.” Don Jr. finished his coffee. “They all say they’re innocent.”
Buck asked, “Did he ever make any threats? Against you or anybody else involved with the case?”
The attorney seemed surprised. “Defendants rarely threaten their attorneys, Sheriff. It tends to weaken their chances in court.” He thought for a moment. “No, I don’t recall him threatening anyone in particular. Just the usual—he was being framed and somebody was going to pay, that kind of thing.” He hesitated. “There was one thing. He asked to see me a couple of years after he was sent up. He said he had new evidence and wanted to reopen the case, but he wouldn’t even tell me what it was unless I could make sure to move the