First Degree Read Online Free PDF Page A

question cost more than it takes to adopt a family of Guatemalan otters. He is probably in his mid-forties and seems to work hard to make himself look more sophisticated than he naturally is. Fonzie joins the country club.
    There’s no doubt Edna thinks he’s got something going for him. She has put down her crossword puzzle and has already gotten him a cup of coffee. For Edna that qualifies as undying devotion.
    “Andrew, this is Geoffrey Stynes. Mr. Stynes, Andrew Carpenter.” This brings to a total of one the number of occasions on which Edna has referred to me as “Andrew.” Clearly, she is trying to match Stynes’s sophistication.
    Stynes smiles and holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
    I take his hand and shake it. “Same here. What can I do for you?”
    “You can be my lawyer,” he says, the smile remaining intact.
    “Come on in,” I say, and move him toward my office. As he enters, I look back and see Edna giving me the thumbs-up, signifying her approval of him as a client. I close the door behind us, no doubt pissing Edna off, but that’s “Andrew” for you.
    Most people that come to see me take the chair across from my desk, but Stynes sits on the couch. I bring my chair over to be closer to him as we speak. He seems totally relaxed and at ease, not the demeanor that prospective clients usually display. People in need of a criminal attorney are by definition under pressure, but if Stynes is experiencing any stress at all, he is hiding it extraordinarily well.
    “How did you get my name?” I ask.
    “Come on, you’re famous since the Miller case. Anyway, I’ve been watching your career for a long time,” he says.
    I’m puzzled and vaguely disconcerted. “Why have you been following my career?”
    The confident smile returns. “For exactly the kind of situation I’m in today.”
    Before we discuss what situation he might be talking about, I explain some of the basics of hiring an attorney. Included in that is a standard retainer agreement, which Edna prepares and Stynes signs. Though it by no means guarantees that I will accept him as a client, the retainer establishes attorney-client privilege and allows Stynes to speak openly about his reasons for hiring me.
    All of this takes about ten minutes, at the end of which Stynes is technically my client, though only for the purposes of this conversation. I will decide whether to take on his case when I hear what that case is.
    “Now,” I say, “tell me why you need my services.”
    “There’s a slim but real chance I’ll be charged with a crime,” he says with absolutely no trace of concern.
    “A specific crime?”
    His smile comes back, now more condescending than before. “Yeah. Real specific.”
    “And what crime is that?”
    “The murder of Alex Dorsey.”
    Since I am far from the most inscrutable person in this room, I’m sure my face reflects my surprise.
    “Have the police contacted you?” I ask.
    “No.”
    “DO you have information which leads you to believe they are going to?”
    “No.”
    “Then why do you think you are currently a suspect?”
    Another smile, smaller this time. “Right now I don’t think I am. But when I killed him, I got some of his blood on my clothes. I threw them and the knife I used into some brush behind Hinchcliffe Stadium. I should have thrown them over the falls, but I was in a hurry, you understand.”
    Hinchcliffe Stadium is a large baseball field, a former minor league park, and it is right next to the Passaic Falls, one of the larger waterfalls in the country. Had Stynes thrown the material into the falls, that would have been the end of it.
    “Dorsey wasn’t killed behind Hinchcliffe Stadium,” I point out.
    He smiles. “Don’t confuse where he was found with where he was killed. He was
found
in a warehouse on McLean Boulevard.”
    I’ve already pretty much decided I’m not going to take this case, but for some reason, maybe morbid curiosity, I keep probing. “Why don’t you