Wilde Lake(4)

Still, it had been hard, deciding to run against him. Lu did what she did with most tough questions, sought her father’s counsel.

“What would you do if he wasn’t your friend?” he asked.

“That’s easy. I’d run.”

“Then not running is the real hypocrisy, isn’t it? If you think Fred has done a lousy job, but decline to run against him out of loyalty, then you’re saying your friendship with him matters more than the day-to-day criminal issues that come before this county. It’s as I’ve always told you, Lu—the state’s attorney’s office represents the community. Your obligation should be to the people of Howard County. What’s best for them?”

Her father always made everything sound simple. And her brother had agreed with him. “I like Fred, too, Lu. He was good to you at a time when you really needed a friend. But he’s had a bad couple of years, with cases reversed on appeal because of mistakes made by his office. I’m just surprised that more people aren’t gunning for him. Must be some sort of gentlemen’s agreement among the players in the Republican Party.”

“Well, as you know, I’m no gentleman,” she told AJ, who laughed and said: “No, but you used to dress like one. Remember that outfit you picked out when—”

She doubled up her fists jokingly and he dropped the subject. Almost forty years out, the memory still brought blood to her face, the heat of humiliation.

Running against one’s boss is problematic. She had to quit her job for one thing. Can’t stay on as a deputy state’s attorney once you declare your intention to seek the top job. Lu camped out in her father’s sleepy in-name-only private practice for a year, doing a lot of pro bono work, biding her time. She had no competition in the Democratic primary, while Fred had to fight off a challenge from a charismatic plaintiff’s attorney. Still, bloodied and weakened as Fred had been by that ugly primary race, he had the summer to regain his standing as the incumbent and it was a good year to be a Republican in Maryland. He outraised her five to one, ran attack ads.

But all the money in the world couldn’t buy a name like Brant.

And now Luisa F. Brant is the first female state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland. Three hundred thousand people, give or take, two hundred fifty square miles, give or take, one of the most prosperous counties in the state, in the nation. She was born here, in Columbia, and is part of the first generation of Columbia kids coming into power. There had been criticism, during the campaign, that Lu leaned a little too hard on her first-family status, along with her “daughter of” prestige, but if that was the best the opposition had, she was golden. Then Fred had stooped lower, brought her kids into it, and that had backfired. Badly. In the end, her father was right: she wouldn’t have waffled about entering the race if Fred had not been a friend. The real hypocrisy would have been sitting by, letting him continue in his listless fashion.

“Got a minute before the staff meeting?” Andi Gleason, once her peer, now her deputy, pokes her head through the door, then sails in without waiting for an answer. Is Lu going to have to train people to knock, to remind her former colleagues that she’s the boss? Does it matter? Should they knock? Would a man worry about such things? Would he worry about the knock, or would he worry about telling people to knock?

“Sure.”

Andi sits down and stretches her legs out so they are propped up on the empty-for-now desk. She laughs when she sees the look on Lu’s face, plants her feet on the floor. Andi has long, perpetually tanned legs, and she has adopted the strange habit of never wearing hose, even on days as cold as this one. She read somewhere that’s what New York women do, go bare-legged no matter the weather. Lu, who prefers black tights and boots with heels as high as she can handle, almost shivers looking at Andi’s legs.

“Just testing you,” Andi says. Lu doesn’t need her closest friend at work to test her. She needs loyalty, support. True, Andi was the one person in the office not to disavow her when she went after Fred’s job, although Lu noticed that they met for drinks at Andi’s apartment more and more, not out in public. Andi is bold in court, careful in the office. Better than the other way around.

“What’s up?”

“This staff meeting at eleven—is there anything I should know?”

“No shake-ups. For now. There’s one or two assistant state’s attorneys I’ll be monitoring closely—”

“John and—who else?”

Lu glides past answering or even confirming Andi’s hunch. What was once acceptable gossip between two equals is now off-limits. No personnel discussions with Andi.

“—but your work has always been good and I don’t see any reason it would change.”

“In 2014, I did all the homicides that went to trial,” she says.

Just because Lu wasn’t in the office in 2014 doesn’t mean she doesn’t know the numbers. “All two of them.”

“Right. How many of the murders are you going to take for yourself? Do you have a quota in mind?”

“I was going to cover that at the staff meeting.”

“You mean, you’re going to try them all.” Her tone is one of fact-finding. Andi is probably resigned to giving up the homicides for now. But if she confirms this before the meeting, she can nod, unsurprised, saving face with her colleagues.