Chapter 70: Nineteen Minutes
I finished with the client's mother first.
She was posting a two-thousand-dollar bond on a property with a lien on it and it took four minutes and I did not rush her.
I want that noted, because I could have rushed her, and if I had, the rest of this would have started with me proving I am the kind of person who moves people out of the way.
He waited by the door. He did not sit until she had gone.
That is a thing about him I did not expect and have never mentioned to him.
Then he sat in the left vinyl chair, which is the one with the cigarette burn on the arm, and it was too small for him and he sat forward with his elbows on his knees.
He said, “Who is Sylvia Reyes.”
I got the folder.
I did not read from memory. I put the page on the counter and turned it around so it faced him, which is a thing I learned watching Marisol.
I said, “That's page two hundred and seven of my file. I'm not going to summarize it for you. Read it.”
He read it. It took him about ninety seconds and he read it twice.
Then he put his finger on the line and said, “Ruiz.”
I said, “Trooper. He wasn't the reporting officer. He was doing canvass.”
He said, “Where's the rest of it.”
I said, “That's all of it. Half a page. Supplemental narratives are short.”
He said, “Half a page.”
I said, “Yes.”
He sat back and the chair made a noise.
He said, “Have you talked to her.”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Why not.”
And here is where I could have made myself look better and did not.
I said, “Because I'm a convicted felon who intends to attack this conviction. If I go to a witness's house, then everything she says for the rest of her life gets asked one question first, which is whether I got to her.”
He said, “So you won't go because it's bad for you.”
I said, “Yes.”
I let that sit. I did not add anything to it. It was accurate.
A person who softens an answer like that is asking to be forgiven for it.
He looked at me for a while.
Then he said, “Can I go.”
I said, “Yes. Nobody can stop you and nobody would want to.”
Then I said the next part, and I had thought about it for nine days on the far side of a scanner.
I said, “I want you to know that if you go and she remembers, it helps me. Later. In a court. That is true and I'm telling you so you can weigh it.”
He said, “Why tell me.”
I said, “Because you've had six years of people not telling you what was in it for them.”
He did not say anything to that.
I wrote the address on a blank bond receipt. Twelve Ardmore Terrace. I wrote the road, the route number, and which side.
I printed it. My handwriting is bad and this was not the place for it.
I did not write her phone number, because I did not have it and had not looked for it.
I pushed it across the counter and I did not let go of it until he had his hand on it, because I did not want it to slide.
He looked at the clock over the filing cabinets.
He said, “I've got nineteen minutes” when he came in and I had not understood it as a rule, but it was one.
At 9:57 he stood up. Eighteen and a half minutes. He had been counting the whole time.
He put his hat on at the door and then he stopped with his hand on the push bar.
He said, “You said page two hundred and seven.”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Out of how many?”
I said, “Four hundred and twelve.”
He stood there with the door half open and the traffic noise coming in.
He said, “You've read all four hundred and twelve.”
I said, “Yes. Twice. The second time properly.”
He said, “How long did that take you.”
I said, “Two years.”
He said, “Why two years.”
And I gave him the true answer, which is uglier than the one I would have given anybody else.
I said, “Because for the first two years I was afraid of what was in it, and being afraid is not a reason, it is just what happened.”
He looked at the floor for a second.
Then he said, “Okay,” and went out, and the door took its four seconds.
He came back on the twenty-fifth, which was a Friday, at ten past six in the evening, and he had been to Ardmore Terrace, and he was carrying a laminated card in his shirt pocket.