She takes a deep breath. “At some level they do,” she says, “but they’d never admit it. They wouldn’t approve.”

“Meredith.” I stand still in the middle of the snowy driveway and she does too. “You’re under no obligation to tell me anything. But I’d really like to know if you’ve mentioned this to anyone else.”

She looks down at her boots. “The District Attorney,” she says. “Ms. Schilling.”

“Geraldine.”

She nods. “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to cause trouble for him—politically or personally. That’s the last thing Michelle would want me to do. But I couldn’t not mention it. What if it turned out to matter somehow and I had kept quiet?”

She’s not crying, but her eyes are filled to the brim. “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “And I appreciate your answering my question.”

She shakes my hand, then turns and heads back to her parents’ house.

It’s barely four o’clock when I pull out of the Forresters’ driveway, but the cold December sky is near dark already. I toy with the idea of calling Senator Kendrick from the car, to ask why he insists on keeping his own lawyer in the dark, to ask why he repeatedly enables the District Attorney to stay two steps ahead of me, to ask what other secrets he’s keeping. I decide against that call, though. Some conversations should be had face-to-face.

Chapter 8

Wednesday, December 15

Judge Richard Gould was elevated from the District Court bench to Superior Court just over a year ago. It was a well-deserved promotion. A highly intelligent, serious man, he runs an efficient, on-schedule courtroom. Even so, any lawyer who’s ever practiced before him knows that the procedural and substantive rights of litigants—particularly those of criminal defendants—are his foremost concern. Derrick Holliston is lucky to have ended up on Judge Gould’s docket. I told Holliston so before I left the House of Correction yesterday. He promised to send the Governor a thank you card.

The judge isn’t here yet. Neither is Harry. Geraldine Schilling is, though, already set up at the prosecutors’ table with her young assistant, Clarence Wexler. They’re reviewing exhibits, leaning toward each other from time to time to whisper. They both look relaxed, confident that Holliston’s conviction is already in the bag.

Two court officers bustle about behind us, seating sixty potential jurors in the old courtroom’s small but stately gallery. The men and women are silent as they file in, winter coats folded over their arms. Their eyes are alert, their faces somber. From them, Geraldine and Harry will select fourteen, twelve of whom will decide Derrick Holliston’s fate.

The side door opens and a prison guard enters, heavy holster low on his hips. Our client follows and a second guard—a near-clone of the first—brings up the rear, completing the Holliston sandwich. The accused is free of hardware, wearing black slacks, a dark gray suit coat, and a white dress shirt, neatly pressed. I’m taken aback.

All criminal defendants are permitted to “clean up” for trial—get a haircut, a shave, a set of decent street clothes—but this particular defendant cleans up exceptionally well. His once greasy brown hair has been recently introduced to shampoo. It’s trimmed short and parted precisely. The sketchy mustache is gone, as is every other trace of facial hair. His near-constant sneer has been erased. He looks like the guy next door—if the guy next door happens to be an Eagle Scout.

A low murmur emanates from the crowded gallery as Holliston approaches the defense table, his expression blank. He settles into the seat next to mine—the one farthest from the bench—without looking at me. “Get rid of the cat-licks,” he says matter-of-factly.

It takes a moment for me to get it. “We don’t know their religions,” I tell him. “The jury questionnaire doesn’t ask that.”

He snorts and the familiar sneer resurfaces. “What?” he says, his voice low. “You don’t know one when you see one?”

“I guess not.”

He shakes his head at my incompetence. “That lady there”—he twists in his chair toward the benches behind us and the sneer evaporates again—“on the end, front row. She look like a cat-lick to you?”

“She looks Italian,” I answer.

He faces front and plants both hands on the table, resting his case. “You ever knowed a guinea what ain’t a cat-lick?”

I lean back against the worn leather of the high-backed chair and close my eyes. Some conversations aren’t worth finishing.

Harry arrives, pulls out the chair on the other side of mine, and hoists his bulging schoolbag onto the defense table. He doesn’t sit, though. “What’s up?” he asks, snapping open the bag’s metal clasp.

“We were discussing the finer points of jury selection,” I tell him.

He glances sideways at me as he unpacks, then blinks twice when he takes in our client’s new persona.

“So what’s the plan here?” Holliston says from my other side. “You people got a plan or you just wingin’ it?”

Harry laughs and tosses the pleadings file, a blank legal pad, and a few pens on the table. He says nothing.

“Judge Gould likes to complete jury selection the first morning,” I tell our client. “And he usually does. It’ll be a late lunch break, though.”

Holliston purses his lips; he seems not to approve of late lunches.

“After that,” I continue, “the prosecuting attorney will deliver her opening statement. If there’s time, Harry will deliver his before we wrap up for the day.”

“And if there ain’t time?”

I shrug. “Then he’ll do it tomorrow morning. Either way, he’ll open. Don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m worried,” Holliston says, staring up at Harry. “I got good reason to worry.”

Harry doesn’t let on he hears. He walks away from us, delivers a short stack of documents to Geraldine, another to the courtroom clerk. Judge Gould emerges from chambers as Harry returns to our table. Billy “Big Red” O’Reilly tells us to rise.

“What the hell is that?” Holliston mutters, his eyes on Big Red.

“He’s the bailiff,” I whisper back. Holliston knows a fair number of the courthouse players, no doubt, but he’s probably never laid eyes on O’Reilly. Big Red is the seniormost bailiff in the county complex and, as he’s fond of reminding those with less seniority, he doesn’t work kiddie court. It’s dress rehearsal.

“We need a new one,” Holliston informs me as the judge sits and tells everyone in the room to do likewise.

“A new what?” The words escape before I can stop them. I’m a little slow on the uptake this morning, but I don’t really need an answer to that question.

I get one anyhow. “A new bailiff,” Holliston says. “I don’t want no mick hangin’ around my jury.”

I turn in my chair so I can look him in the eyes. “Funny thing. You don’t get to choose your bailiff. The Bill of Rights doesn’t stretch that far.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I beat him to the punch. “Shut up,” I tell him. “A trial’s about to start here.”

Oddly enough, he obeys.

Judge Gould has already welcomed the sixty citizens seated in the gallery. He thanks them for their willingness to serve, then gestures to those of us seated at the tables. All four lawyers stand and face the back of the courtroom. After a signal from me, Holliston does too. Sans sneer.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge says, “before we get started, I’d like all of you to look at the lawyers and the defendant involved in this case. If you even think you might know any of them—no matter how remotely—please raise your hand.”