Jury of One

9

It started about four years ago and ended last year. Shelly had filed a sexual harassment claim against a school on the city’s north side. A teacher had engaged in sexual relations with Shelly’s client, a fifteen-year-old student. The teacher was an attractive, thirty-seven-year-old woman in the midst of a harsh divorce. She had seduced the boy, had met him on and off school grounds, had been foolish enough to write him love letters, things like, Do you think I’m sexy? I think you’re so hot. She had regressed to a high school mindset herself.

Shelly settled with the teacher, who had little more than a small liability policy through the teachers’ union, but went to trial against the school. The school was looking at damages in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, so they hired Paul Riley to defend them. Paul Riley of Shaker, Riley amp; Flemming. Paul Riley, who had been the top assistant prosecutor in the city, who had sent the infamous Terry Burgos, murderer of multiple college students, to the gas chamber. Paul Riley, who defended the murderer of a prominent doctor in Highland Woods in a crazy case a few years back and got an acquittal. Paul Riley, who had represented Jon Soliday, the top aide to the Democratic nominee for governor in 2000, in the latter stages of a murder trial that had much to do with the election of the Republican candidate, Attorney General Langdon Trotter, to the governor’s mansion to continue the G.O.P. domination of that office.

Paul Riley, who represented everything she disliked about the law, had beaten her butt in the sexual harassment case, a jury verdict for the defense. An arrogant man who had the jury eating out of his hand, who developed a folksy style, a humble-country-lawyer thing that made him look reasonable when he suggested that the school could not possibly have known that one of its teachers would undergo such a transformation from respected language arts teacher to sexually ravenous predator.

Your problem was the boy, Paul had informed Shelly after the verdict, in a phone call to congratulate her on a well-fought trial. Harder to accept that a woman can rape a boy, especially a big, strong kid like that.

He was being kind, in her estimation. The truth was that Paul Riley had simply whipped her butt. And now she needed the best. She needed to do whatever she could for Alex. She knew Alex had money, but not the kind of money Riley would command. On the other hand, this was a hot case, a cop killing, heavily covered in the press. That might be payment enough for someone like Riley.

“Michelle!” Paul said, as his assistant led Shelly into his office. The firm was located in a lakefront building, with a lobby spacious enough to land a plane, state-of-the-art architecture, a faux waterfall, modern furniture. Walking through it, Shelly momentarily paid respect to something she would never know: the billable hour.

His office fit the bill, in the corner facing north and east, capturing the lake and the developments along it in floor-to-ceiling windows. There was little in the way of cabinets-presumably the assistants and paralegals held on to the files. One long shelf ran along the east wall to hold Paul’s awards and memorabilia, some of it impressive, some of it morbid. A knife was laminated to a plaque with the inscription, People v. Burgos. Presumably the knife used to slit the throat of one of the many victims. Pictures on the walls featuring Riley with various officials, including one with the current governor, Langdon Trotter. Behind his desk, on the wall, was an artist’s sketch of Paul Riley questioning a witness in the prosecution of Terry Burgos, with the subtitle “The Alibi.” She remembered the issue in general terms. Burgos had apparently tried to create an alibi for the murders of the young women and used his boss, a university professor who owned a printing company, as corroboration. But Burgos’s plan was foiled when his alibi was exposed, when it was revealed that he had doctored the time sheets. The prosecution-Paul Riley, that is-had used the aborted alibi as proof of Burgos’s consciousness of guilt, which meant he did not fit the state’s legal definition of insanity.

Paul came from around his desk and showed her to the beautiful wine-colored couch against the south wall. This office was big enough for casual furniture. This office was, in fact, approximately half the size of Shelly’s studio apartment.

“Good to see you,” he said. “How’s my favorite public-interest lawyer?”

The question annoyed her about ten different ways, including the condescension she imagined, the fact that they hadn’t gotten along at all during the trial, and the fact that he was greeting her so casually when she’d scheduled an urgent appointment. He was showing her his cool even in an emergency.

“You’ve grown your hair out,” he observed. “It looks very nice.”

“I think I need your help, Paul,” she managed.

Paul, sitting next to her on the couch, nodded, pursed his lips, kept them from a smile. He was physically fit for an older man, looked comfortable in an expensive suit. His face was long and lined, well-proportioned, deep smile lines around his mouth and eyes. His hair was expensively coiffed and sprayed into place. “I imagine it must be important, if you’re asking me.”

Shelly did not conceal her reaction but kept silent.

Paul laughed, genuinely amused. “What I mean by that is, I wouldn’t expect to be on your referral list under ordinary circumstances. I assume that you must feel some compulsion if you’re calling me. You’re probably swallowing a lot right now.”

“Would you like me to tell you why I’m here, or not?” she asked.

He swept a hand. “The suspense is killing me.”

Shelly sighed. Paul quickly touched her arm. “I’m sorry, Michelle. I’m operating under the impression that you don’t care for me much, so I had to play with you a little. I apologize. This is important to you, obviously. Please, tell me how I can help.”

Okay, he had met her halfway. “Paul, I have a client who is charged with killing a police officer.”

“Recently,” Paul said. “Day or two ago.”

“Right.”

“Sure.” Paul’s tongue ran against his cheek. Calculating.

“His name is Alex Baniewicz. He’s a good kid-I mean, he has potential-” She swept back her hair, tucked it behind her ears. “He’s basically a good kid. He also sells drugs once in a while. Apparently, the officer was chasing him and Alex killed him in a shoot-out.”

Paul fingered a cuff. He wore a thick, heavily starched white shirt with gleaming silver cuff links, a gorgeous orange-and-blue tie. The guy had lawyer written all over him. Shelly was suddenly conscious of her blue jeans and sweater.

“You’ve talked to him?” Paul asked.

“Yeah.”

“What’s he say? Did he do it?”

“He didn’t tell me. But I think so, yeah.”

Paul nodded. “Has he talked to them?”

“No. And I’ve told him not to.”

“Great. Good. What do they have? Eyes? A weapon?”

Eyes. The same thing Detective Montes said. “Both of those,” she said. “They caught up with Alex about fifteen minutes later. They found the blood on his clothes. They have at least one eyewitness-another cop. I’m told they’re scouring the area for more witnesses. They have a weapon and drugs at the scene.”

Paul shook his head with a purpose. He seemed to do everything with a purpose, though Shelly had to concede that he made it look casual. “How old?”

“He’s sixteen,” she said. “So it’s death-eligible. In more ways than one.” Homicide of a police officer, by itself, made it a capital offense, not to mention that it was murder in the course of another felony, possession of narcotics. The United States Supreme Court had ruled that fifteen-year-olds were too young to be sentenced to death, but a child of sixteen could be executed. Which meant that Alex Baniewicz was eligible for the death penalty.

“And Elliot will seek death,” Paul agreed. “For shooting a cop? No question.”

Elliot Raycroft, he meant. The county attorney for the jurisdiction, which included the mammoth city and some of the surrounding suburbs.

Shelly nodded.

Paul touched her arm again. He was a very touchy sort. “Sorry, it sounds like you’re invested in this boy. But we need to know that going in.”

“I understand. I want you to be blunt.”

“Then I’ll be even more blunt, Michelle.”

“Shelly,” she said.

“Shelly?” He had spent the entire sexual harassment case calling her by her formal name.

“Shelly.”

Paul seemed to recognize that he’d been left out of the club. He could probably figure the criteria for admission. “Okay-Shelly. If your guy hasn’t told you whether he did it, do yourself a favor and don’t ask him again. Not yet. Find out what the police have first. You can even ask him what he thinks they have. But don’t ask him whether he did it.”

“Sure.” She inhaled. Advice she didn’t need. “Paul, I was hoping you’d take this case.”

He let out a small laugh, a chuckle, implying that this was a major hurdle. He grimaced, while his eyes hit the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “I’m pretty tight.” He looked at Shelly. “What is the financial situation?”

“About as tight as your schedule.”

Paul rubbed his hands together, studied them. “I make four hundred dollars an hour.”

Shelly drew back. “I make four hundred dollars a week.”

“Surely not.”

She waved. She was exaggerating but not by that much. “Obviously, Alex can’t pay that.”

“Find out what he has, Shelly.”

She held her look on him. She understood rationally, but could not accept emotionally, that his representation might actually depend on how much money he would make.

“This is a for-profit operation,” he added, the closest he would come to apologizing.

“I’ll find out,” she said, quickly shaking his hand and leaving.

“Shelly,” he called to her. “Take a little more advice from me?”

She dropped her arms, closed her eyes. “Sure.”

“Sometimes kids-people-go bad. You don’t understand why. It doesn’t make sense. You do what you can to help them. And when you’re done, when you’ve done your best, you go to bed at night, and you sleep. Because after you’ve done your best, there’s nothing else you can do.”

They have to let you help, she thought. She thanked him and headed for the elevator.