The Night Shift(43)

“I’ll do it,” Chris says again, this time with conviction.

“I heard you, Ford.” Henry’s lips are tightened into a thin line. He waits for others to jump in. Hoping that his best lawyer I ever knew speech had meant something to them all.

But the room remains still.

Henry waits an uncomfortably long time for more experienced lawyers to jump in. But they’re the ones with kids and mortgages and college tuition who can’t risk being the next Bart Badcock.

Henry gives a disappointed look around the room.

Then, another voice: “I’m in.”

Chris turns to Julia, who’s making a point of not looking at him. He could’ve hugged her.

Henry’s shoulders sag. Then he says it. “Okay, Chris and Julia, my office. The rest of you, serve justice today.”





CHAPTER 36





Chris stares out the window from the backseat of Henry’s rust-blotched Subaru hatchback.

The courthouse is only a short walk from their office, but dark clouds loom, so perhaps that’s why they drove. Or maybe Henry wants to avoid any journalists staking out the place. Chris sees no reporters out front. The building has a wide staircase that leads up to the porticoed entrance. It’s a small, narrow structure, like an old schoolhouse struggling to look majestic with its columns too close together. Julia sits silently up front next to their boss.

Henry pulls around to the rear of the building. No portico there, just a blocky structure with windows that are too small for the concrete facade. The back contains the holding areas for defendants with windows built small to prevent ill-conceived bedsheet-tying escape calamities.

“Shoot,” Henry says, looking to a news van lingering across the street outside the lot. “The prosecutors haven’t even announced the arrest, but the vultures are already circling. Damn leaks.”

A pack of reporters will soon swarm all sides of the building. And probably the PD’s office too. The press has already established a campsite outside the prosecutors’ office complex, so the lawyers there will welcome the reprieve. Share the love.

After a checkpoint at the garage entry, Henry parks. Chris feels abnormally excited. It’s his first big case. But he’s also anxious. He hadn’t fully considered the media coverage. That the defense team will be featured in newspapers or on the six o’clock news. Chris is merely a supporting member of the cast, someone in the background. Still, if someone recognizes him, it could create problems: Vince Whitaker’s brother defending another accused mass killer.

Before getting out of the car, Henry pauses, as if collecting his thoughts. He twists around so he’s mostly facing Julia but can also see Chris in the backseat.

“A few ground rules,” he begins.

They nod, both wanting to know the rules of engagement. This isn’t one of their usual cattle-call drug prosecutions. It’s a major case, albeit an infamous B-file.

“From the moment you step out of this car, you exude confidence. Your facial expressions, the way you walk, the way you talk, it all needs to project that we’re not worried one spit about this case. Our client is not guilty. No laughing, no smiling. This is serious business and we don’t want it misperceived by anyone.”

They nod again. Henry’s instructions so far are familiar.

“We’ll hopefully avoid any reporters today, but you need to be on alert because they’re crafty. If they shout questions at you while filming, pretend like they don’t exist. Viewers can’t tell if you hear the questions, so don’t say ‘no comment’ or acknowledge them. They’re invisible.”

He looks to the pair for acknowledgment. They nod again.

“Last, with our client, it’s all about building trust and rapport right now. A seventeen-year-old is more likely to take a shine to a younger person rather than to me, so we’ll play it by ear on who takes the lead in the interview.”

The trio leaves the car. Henry cracks his neck, a boxer about to enter the ring, and leads them to a grimy elevator. They get out on the seventeenth floor. At the security checkpoint, they pass through metal detectors and are allowed into the inner sanctum of the courthouse. An officer stands guard outside a door near another checkpoint at the end of the long hallway.

“Dammit.” Henry points to a man outside the perimeter with a smartphone filming the defense team.

The guard turns and sees the guy and shoos him away.

Standing at the door to room 1754, Henry nods to the officer outside, who opens the door for them.

It’s time to meet their client.





CHAPTER 37


ELLA





It’s troubling how quickly Ella identifies the only teacher who hasn’t returned to Middlesex East high school from last year—less than fifteen minutes on Google. His name is Chad Parke. Until his quiet departure from Middlesex, he taught English and—another clue—he ran the school newspaper. Where a budding young Bob Woodward worked. No, wait … who was the journalist Jesse claimed was her role model? Ella can’t remember.

Now, how to locate him? She runs a search on his name, date-restricting it to the past year. Boom. Up pops a page for Chad Parke Landscaping in Rahway, New Jersey. A new business. An unusual career change for an English teacher. Unless teaching is no longer an option. But maybe it isn’t the same guy. She navigates the page. On the “About Us,” there’s a photo of the owner of the business and his crew standing in matching shirts on a landscaped yard. It takes only a few more searches to find a photo of Chad Parke from his days as a teacher. He’s tagged in a social media post about an after-school club—the Culture Club. He and a group of students stand in front of a Broadway marquee. It’s the landscaping guy. But it isn’t the photo of good-looking Mr. Parke that’s so jarring. It’s the young woman standing next to him amid the lights of Broadway. If you weren’t looking, you wouldn’t notice it—the adoring, some might say sultry, gaze at her teacher.