The Ex(22)

That memory had earned Melissa a 3.84 GPA as a biochem major. Then a year into med school, she announced that her real dream was to open a restaurant.

I gave a quick nod to Melissa and then scanned the restaurant for Don. He was at his favorite table in the back corner, reading glasses helping him browse the New York Post.

“I see you’re keeping an eye out on the enemy,” I said. “You may as well have Fox News on replay in your bedroom.”

“That’s the problem with your generation,” he said. “You have too many options. Too much freedom to choose what you want to hear, what you want to read. It’s good for the brain to listen to opposing points of view. The jurors who decide our clients’ fates read the Post, if they read the news at all. You need to understand their world view.”

One of Melissa’s bar backs, in a white oxford shirt and blue jeans, dropped off a martini I hadn’t asked for. I raised it to Don’s pint glass and gave it a clink. “So, speaking of opposing world views—”

“I’m not stupid, Olivia. You avoided me all day, then had my niece call to make sure I’d be here tonight. Clearly there’s something you think we need to discuss, and I suspect it involves that case you had a feeling about. Go ahead and say it.”

When I first started working for Don, he tolerated me only as a favor to Melissa, who was basically like a daughter to him. In his eyes, I was an elitely educated, big-law drone, brainwashed to think that real lawyers worked for the corporate clients who could afford to pay the best and brightest to do the highest quality legal work imaginable. At Preston & Cartwright, I once spent ten hours to draft two paragraphs of a thirty-page summary judgment brief. I dreamed of being a partner at a top-tier firm. If I made partner, it would validate all the personal sacrifices I had made to get there.

But then I reached the eight-year associate mark, and I didn’t get the dream. I billed a gazillion hours. I approached the law in a “steady, workmanlike manner.” But I had failed to “develop meaningful relationships with mentors” or to “take on a leadership role with the younger associates.” I had not “demonstrated the potential for significant client development.” I was “too blunt in my interpersonal com munications.” I had memorized all of these words because I’d replayed them repeatedly in my head in the weeks and months that followed. In short, I could do the work, but no one liked me.

I should no longer consider myself on the partner track. That was code for take a year or two, but get out.

When Melissa told me that her uncle Don needed a junior lawyer, my first instinct was to think I was too good for the job. At one point, I had aspired to being a Supreme Court clerk or a law professor. I graduated from law school with one of the best résumés in the country. I was supposed to be a corner-office partner in charge of national litigation, not some errand girl for a solo practitioner catching criminal cases at the courthouse. But I was no longer straight out of school. I was a ninth-year associate. My résumé may as well have borne a giant stamp reading “couldn’t cut it.”

When I tried to make up excuses to decline Don’s offer, Melissa had told me she’d “punch me in the pepa” if I turned it down. I was no expert in Spanish slang, but she’d made her point. It wasn’t like Melissa to ask her family to help her with anything. But she hadn’t asked for herself. She’d asked for me. I had to accept.

To my surprise, Don had taught me more in my first year than I ever learned at Columbia or Preston & Cartwright. I owed it to him now to be direct.

“Here’s the situation.” I leaned forward. “Jack was booked. No eyewitnesses, but they can place him near the scene around that time. And one of the shooting victims was Malcolm Neeley.” Don continued to shake his head as I outlined what I knew about the evidence against Jack, not yet mentioning the GSR results.

“I can see why they made an arrest. It’s all coincidental, but then his cockamamie mystery woman story completes a circle for the investigation.”

“What do you mean by a circle?”

“They respond to a shooting with three victims. One of them turns out to be a high-profile guy. Every theory is up for grabs, but it’s only natural for the police to think, Hey, maybe this has something to do with the fact that Malcolm Neeley’s son killed all those people. So then when they’re watching surveillance video and just happen to spot a man carrying a basket who resembles one of the victims’ family members—arguably the most well known of them all—of course that becomes the center of their attention. But, still, maybe there’s some innocent explanation. Maybe it’s not Jack Harris on the video after all. Or if it was, maybe someone was with Jack at the waterfront and can vouch for his innocence. But instead of clearing matters up, Jack offers some cuckoo story about an anonymous woman, and that story further highlights the fact that Jack was near the scene of the shooting, alone, carrying a picnic basket before the shooting, and leaving the waterfront without it afterward. Prior to that story, this was one theory of an infinite number.”

I completed the thought for him. “But Jack’s statement closed the circle for them, bringing them right back to their initial suspicion.”

“Correct.” Don sat back in the brown leather booth and took another drink of his beer. “Of course, we defense attorneys prefer to call this ‘tunnel vision.’ The police placed Jack near the scene, and then interpreted everything else through that lens. Happens all the time. But if Jack’s lucky—or better yet, innocent—they won’t find enough to convince a prosecutor to charge him.”