The Night Shift(50)
Chris nods his thanks.
The door opens and Bea, the busybody receptionist, appears. “Chris, you have a guest.”
Behind Bea stands none other than Chris’s girlfriend—or perhaps ex-girlfriend, he’s not so sure—Clare.
Chris stands, surprised, confused. There’s been radio silence between them, not a single text, since this morning.
“I’ll give you the room,” Julia says, offering Clare an insincere smile. Chris catches Bea giving Julia the eye as they shuffle out.
“Hey. What are you doing all the way out here? Is everything—”
“Are you insane?” Clare says.
“What do you mean? I don’t under—”
Clare cuts him off with a hand in the air.
“You’re part of the defense team for the ice cream store murders?”
Chris doesn’t answer.
“A friend told me they saw you in one of the news stories.” It sounds accusatory, like she expects he’ll deny it.
“So what? It’s my job.”
“You wanna lose your bar ticket?” She stares at him intently. When he doesn’t reply, she says, “It’s a conflict of interest, Chris.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Oh, you don’t?”
He shakes his head.
“There’s a crime alarmingly similar to the one your brother—your fugitive brother—is accused of committing, and you don’t think your client might want to suggest that maybe he’s the perpetrator?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Chris says. But his mind leaps to Mr. Nirvana’s post. He’s in New York, only a short car ride away from the crime scene. If the vlogger is Vince, any defense lawyer worth their salt would have a field day with it.
“Have you told your client? Have you told your boss?” Clare was top of their class, works at one of the best law firms in the world. And even though he hasn’t wanted to admit it to himself, she’s right about the conflict: his client might be better off if the defense blamed Chris’s own brother for the crime.
“That’s what I thought,” Clare says to his silence.
“I won’t let my brother’s case interfere with giving Jesse Duvall the best defense possible.”
“That’s what everyone who has a conflict says. That’s why the rules exist. You’re not in a position to assess the situation objectively.”
“What do you want, Clare? Are you working for the New Jersey bar now? Why are you even here?”
“I’m here because I care about you. I don’t want you to throw away your—”
“I can take care of myself.” He always has.
“You’ve put me in an awkward spot.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As an officer of the court, I have a duty to report an ethics violation if I’m made aware of one.”
“Really? You can’t be serious.”
Her arms are folded now. She starts to speak, then stops. She turns back to the door and pushes it open. Before marching out, she looks at him again. Shaking her head, she says, “Nice suit.”
* * *
On the drive to his parents’ house, Clare’s voice runs through Chris’s head: “Nice suit.” What did she mean by that? Whatever. And who’s she to tell him how to practice law?
He pulls into the driveway of their modest home. Clint still hasn’t taken down the tire swing they’d hung together from the big tree in the front yard. He says it’s too much work, but Clint has never shied away from hard labor. Ms. May says he leaves it up because he likes it when the neighborhood kids sneak into their yard and play; it reminds him of Chris.
“Something smells great,” Chris says, stepping into the small kitchen. Ms. May is wearing an apron and removing baked ziti from the oven. On the lime-green refrigerator is a photo of Chris from his law school graduation. By outward appearances, that had been a good day. The sun shining. His parents beaming. An amazing girlfriend at his side. The world at his feet. But Chris mostly remembers the day for another reason: it’s when he finally decided to let his mother go.
He’d been so angry with her. She hadn’t only left without saying goodbye—she’d left Chris and Vince with Rusty. She of all people understood what that meant for them. Rusty said she’d run off with a no-good bastard who hung out at the bar; that if they ever spoke of her again it would be their last words. That she was a whore and they were better off without her. She’d abandoned them. Still, every birthday, Chris would check the mail for a card. On his high school, then college, graduation days, he’d stare out into the stands, searching. But nothing. He fantasized that Mom and Vince had reunited, that they’d appear when things were safe. But part of him always knew the truth: she’d escaped the prison known as Rusty Whitaker and never looked back. Thus, on that seemingly perfect day with his law school diploma tucked under his arm, Clint and Ms. May beaming with pride, he’d let Mary Whitaker go forever.
“I made your favorite,” Ms. May says.
“It won’t compete with the ramen I usually have, but it will do.” The smell brings him back to the first time he’d ever had a meal without the threat of violence. Clint and May lacing fingers, saying grace, a quiet calm making it clear that he was home. Vince had promised that their new life, nirvana, would smell different. Maybe this was the smell: Ms. May’s ziti.