I made sure to give him my best paragon-of-innocence look. “He stole from your mother.”
The implication was clear enough that I let it hang. It was a technique used by counselors as well as lawyers, so I knew Leonard would recognize it for what it was. He’d also have to respond to it, though. If he didn’t, it’d point a spotlight at that area of questioning just as much as when I avoided leading statements in my therapy sessions.
“Gordon took money from our mother, but not because he’s a thief.”
Everything this man said was so carefully phrased it made me want to scream.
Mrs. Albright crossed her arms on the table in front of her, creating a bit of a blockade between us. Interesting. Maybe I was aiming my questions at the wrong person. She’d learned from years spent married to a counselor, but she likely didn’t have the same professional training he did. I might be able to crack her if I couldn’t crack him.
I shifted slightly so that my next statement could appear to be directed at either of them.
“He took something that didn’t belong to him. That’s what it means to be a thief.”
I looked at her as I finished.
Her chair creaked slightly underneath her, as if she’d wrapped her feet around the legs. “I don’t understand why Gordon’s on trial here. Nothing he did should matter now.”
This had to be one of the most confusing interviews I’d ever done. Now I couldn’t be sure whether they were trying to hide something that would implicate them in Gordon’s death or whether they were trying to hide Gordon’s sins. Many people did think that, when a person died, all their flaws and failings should be erased from memory.
As a criminal lawyer, that was the opposite of what I needed to do. The roots for motive came both from the guilty party and from what the victim might have done while alive.
The tricky part of that when speaking to the victim’s family was that you couldn’t make it seem like you were blaming the victim at all. Not only would it make them defensive, but it would compound their grief.
“Gordon’s not on trial. In fact, the Dodds had nothing but praise for him. Which is what makes this so confusing. If the police are right, we have to believe that Clement Dodd killed his best friend for no reason. I want to be sure that there wasn’t some other reason Gordon was killed.”
I made sure to avoid saying someone else who might have killed him.
Her head twitched in the direction of Leonard as if she wanted to look at him but caught herself. “Gordon was a good man.”
Another sidestep. We might as well be dancing.
I slid the paper on the table closer to her. “You two felt wronged enough about the situation with your mother-in-law to bring this suit against him. It speaks to Gordon perhaps being involved in other things as well. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good man. It doesn’t mean he deserved to die. All we’re trying to do is figure out why he died.”
Leonard planted a hand on the paper and drew it back toward him. “I brought this suit over a misunderstanding. Nothing more. It had nothing to do with Gordon’s death.”
His soft spot is his wife, the little voice in my head whispered.
I filed the knowledge away for future reference. “If you could explain it to me, that would really help. Right now, I’m wondering if Gordon stole from the museum and Clement found out.”
Anderson sat like a rock beside me, quietly dunking a cookie in his coffee and acting as if I hadn’t just pulled that out of thin air.
“Why did you drop the suit against your brother, Mr. Albright?” I infused enough of a lawyer’s tone into my voice that I hoped he’d feel compelled to give me a clear answer this time.
He folded his hands over top of the paper. “I found out why he took the money.”
It was the first non-equivocal statement he’d made since we walked in.
“And why did he take the money?” Anderson asked.
I held back a smile. That couldn’t have been more perfectly played if we’d planned it. Had I asked the question, it could have started to feel too much like an attack. With Anderson switching it up, it should feel more like a conversation.
“Drugs,” Leonard said.
The table rocked, and Mrs. Albright cringed as if she’d hit her knee on the underside.
Leonard took a cookie from the plate in the center of the table as if nothing had happened. If banging her knee hadn’t been a reaction to what he just said, I would have expected him to ask if she were okay. By pretending like nothing had happened, he gave himself away.
Something about his story upset his wife.
“Gordon confessed what happened to me.” Leonard sat the cookie in front of himself without actually eating it. “He begged my forgiveness, and I gave it and dropped the suit. At that point, my concern was finding him help, but he told me he’d already been clean for a while and had a sponsor. He was even willing to make amends if that’s what it took.”
Mrs. Albright hadn’t reacted again, but she was staring at her cup. She’d been almost as hard to read as Leonard until now. That could mean a lot of things, but my instincts said it was because Leonard was lying to me. He’d also gone off whatever script they’d come up with together.
“Could you give me the name of Gordon’s sponsor? I want to make sure he really was clean. If he slipped, he might not have had the money to pay his dealer, and that could have gotten him killed.”
The holes in that story were big enough that Velma could have slept in them. A dealer wouldn’t have bothered dragging Gordon’s body into Clement’s home to frame him for the crime. A dealer would have shot Gordon and let him lie where he fell.
“The A in NA stands for anonymous.” Leonard rose to his feet. “Even though Gordon’s no longer with us, his sponsor’s privacy should be respected. I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything else we can tell you that would help. We wish Clement hadn’t done this, but it looks like he did. Not everything in life makes sense.”
Leonard saw us to the door.
I climbed back into the car, but didn’t let my posture or expression change until we were down the street and I was sure Leonard Albright couldn’t see me anymore.
I pulled a face. “I’m certain they’re lying about something.”
“I’d hate for the prosecution to call him as a witness in any of my cases. He was unshakeable until you went for his wife. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they were lying. It’s possible they just didn’t want to tell you about Gordon’s past drug history. If they think Clement did it, they had to know you would argue what you did and try to present that as reasonable doubt for getting Clement acquitted.”
I wanted to argue, but he was right. It was possible Mrs. Albright had reacted because she and her husband had decided they weren’t going to tell anyone about Gordon’s drug history. It was also possible she’d reacted because she hadn’t known about his drug problem.
