Around noon the next day, the guard arrived
at Rose’s cell. "You have a visitor," he told her, escorting her
caller to her cell.
Wearily, Rose came to the door of her cell to
see who it was. Her cellmate had been removed earlier that morning, escorted
out by a slick-looking gentleman who had glowered at the woman as they walked
away. Rose suspected that the man was the woman’s pimp, and she pitied her
cellmate.
Will Hutchison stood in front of the bars of
Rose’s cell. Rose stared at him with a combination of surprise, relief, and
dismay. She hadn’t wanted too many people to know what had happened, but
somehow Will, and probably Deborah as well, had found out what had happened.
She wondered how they had found out. Maybe it was in the newspaper.
"Will...what are you doing here?"
she asked, wondering why he had seen fit to visit her here.
"Your director, Mr. Parsons, contacted
Deborah this morning about what had happened. She called me at work, so I came
down."
"Well, thank you. I’m...in a bit of
trouble."
"That’s an understatement. I just want
you to know that Deborah and I are on your side...we don’t believe that you did
it."
Rose’s heart sank at what she had to say.
"I thank you, but you put too much faith in me. I did exactly what they’re
accusing me of. I killed Marietta Scott."
Will paled. "My God...why?"
"It was an accident. I didn’t mean
to." Quickly, she told him what had happened.
Will shook his head. "I’ll find you a
lawyer."
"I can’t afford a lawyer."
"Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll take
care of it." He put up a hand as Rose started to object. "I can
afford it. Besides, Deborah would kill me if I didn’t. Don’t worry. We’ll get
you out of this."
Rose sighed resignedly. "All right.
Thank you. I appreciate it."
"I’ll get someone to see you this
afternoon. I know several lawyers, and I’m sure I can find someone who can help
you." He paused, pulling out his pocket watch. "I have a meeting in
twenty minutes, so I’ve got to leave." He turned to leave.
Rose called to him. "Will...thank you.
Thank Deborah for me, too."
He nodded before hurrying down the corridor.
Rose walked over to the bunks and sank down
on the lower one, exhausted. Worried about her future, she hadn’t slept all
night. Now, she lay back, ignoring the grimy condition of the sheets, and
closed her eyes.
*****
The guard awakened Rose around four o’clock.
A portly, balding man with a briefcase stood outside her cell. The guard let
him in and locked the door behind him, walking away.
"Miss Dawson? I’m Henry Binder, of the
Binder and Keel law firm, specializing in criminal law."
"Mr. Binder." Rose shook his hand.
"Sit down." She offered him a seat on the lower bunk.
Binder eyed it distastefully, preferring to
stand. Setting down his briefcase, he dug through it, extracting some papers.
"I understand that you’re being charged
with homicide."
Rose nodded. "Yes, but it was an
accident."
Binder didn’t say anything, but Rose could almost
read his thoughts. He’d heard too many guilty people defend themselves for
crimes they had committed.
"Suppose you tell me your side of the
story."
Rose told him what had happened, from Marietta’s
constant taunts and obnoxious behavior, to the fight the previous night, to her
accidental killing of her fellow actress.
Binder nodded, scribbling in a notebook the
whole time. Rose wondered what he was writing, but didn’t ask. When she finally
finished her story, he looked back over the notes that he had written and gave
her his assessment.
"You’ve already decided to plead
guilty," he commented, looking at his notebook. Rose nodded.
"I didn’t mean to kill her, but I did.
It was an accident." To her embarrassment, tears welled up in her eyes and
poured down her cheeks. The strain of the last twenty-four hours was
overwhelming her.
"I’m sorry," she told him, wiping
her eyes. Wordlessly, Binder handed her his handkerchief. She wasn’t the first
client to break down and cry.
"I think you can make a good case for
self-defense," he told her as Rose wiped her face with the handkerchief.
She shook her head.
"I didn’t have to kill her. It was—"
"—an accident. I know," he told
her, sighing. "But she attacked you first, and she had shown hostile
intent for several months."
"I could have walked away."
Binder sighed. "Yes, but you had no way
of knowing how the fight would end. You could easily have been killed in her
place."
Rose nodded slightly, conceding his point,
but she still didn’t feel that she had acted in self-defense.
"Look, I’m trying to find an argument
that will get you acquitted. If you are convicted, you may be facing ten to
fifteen years in prison. I don’t think that’s what you want to happen. I also
feel that a self-defense plea is your best hope."
Rose was silent for a moment, thinking. It
hadn’t been self-defense, and she knew it. But she didn’t want to spend years
in prison, either. One night had been more than enough for her. And it was true,
she hadn’t deliberately killed Marietta. She would bring her back if she could.
"All right. I’ll plead
self-defense," she told him, knowing that such a plea sounded feasible, if
only to someone who hadn’t been there.
He nodded, turning to a fresh page in his
notebook. "Let’s work out the details of your defense," he told her.
Rose nodded, and they began planning for her trial.