Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories by Sharyn McCrumb Page B

dodged me in the hall outside your office a few times,” I admitted. “But I didn’t come over here to give you a hard time. Honest.”
    He let out a long sigh. “This is my first capital murder case,” he said in a weary voice. “It’s hard to know what to do.”
    “I’m sure you did your best.” He was very young and Iwasn’t sure how good his best was, but he seemed badly in need of solace.
    “Kenny Budrell isn’t a very nice person,” he mused.
    I was puzzled. I thought lawyers always spoke up for their clients. “You don’t think he’s innocent?”
    “He never claimed to be,” said Linden. “At one point he expressed surprise at all the fuss being made over a couple of broads, as he put it. No, he’s not a very nice person. But he was entitled to the best defense he could get. To every effort I could make.”
    I guess it’s inevitable for a lawyer to feel guilty if his client is about to die. He must wonder if there is something else he could have done. “I’m sure you did everything you could,” I said. “And if Varnee couldn’t get him a stay of execution, it must have been hopeless.”
    He grimaced at the sound of her name. “She’s not a very nice person, either, is she?”
    I hesitated. “How does Kenny Budrell feel about her?”
    “Very flattered.” Linden smiled. “Here is a minor celebrity making his case a prime-time issue. He has a huge scrapbook of her—he keeps her letters under his pillow. He said to me once: ‘She loves me, so I must be a hero. I’ve worried a lot about that.’ ”
    There was a stir in the crowd and the warden, flanked by two guards, came into the room. I stiffened, dreading the next deliberate hour.
    “It will be over soon,” I whispered.
    “I know. I hope I’ve done the right thing.”
    “Are you going to watch the execution?”
    Linden shut his eyes. “There isn’t going to be one. I found an irregularity in the police procedure and got the case overturned. I’ve just made Kenny Budrell a free man.”
    “But he’s guilty!” I protested.
    “But he’s still entitled to due process, same as anyone else, and it’s my job to take advantage of anything thatwill benefit my client.” He shook his head. “I can’t even take credit for it. It just fell into my lap.”
    “What happened?”
    “Remember when they captured Kenny at the roadblock?”
    “Yes. He was wounded in the shoot-out.”
    “Right. Well, in all the excitement nobody remembered to read him his rights. Later, in the hospital, when he was questioned, the police assumed it had already been done. One of the state troopers got to thinking about the case and came forward to tell me he thought there had been a slipup. I checked, and he was right: Kenny wasn’t Mirandized, so the law says there’s no case. The trooper told me he came forward because of all this business with Varnee. He said maybe the guy deserved a break, after all.”
    Tracer got a first-class series of pictures of the warden telling Varnee that her new husband was now a free man until death do them part, and of Varnee eventually starting to scream right there in front of the TV cameras. As far as I’m concerned, they deserve a Pulitzer.

A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE

    M ILTON P ALMERSTON TAPPED his pencil against his monogrammed coffee mug as if he were calling himself to order. Tacked to the wall in front of him was a sign he’d printed with his laundry marker: EXAM TOMORROW ! The fact that his floor was buried beneath piles of scribbled notes and political reference books should have been sufficient reminder of this, but Milton couldn’t be sure. Last February he had left his overcoat on the bus to Peterborough, and hadn’t noticed the loss until his advisor drew him aside a week later and offered to lend him the money for one. That had been during finals week, too.
    After that he had taken to jotting reminders on his hand. His left hand at the moment read: GLOVES! BREAKFAST! DIEFENBAKER/RECIPROCITY ! He stared