Jury of One

23

“Jerod Romero, please,” Shelly said into the phone. She was in the law offices of Shaker, Riley amp; Flemming, in the office Paul Riley had generously donated to her. She had spread out her files, arranged her folders, set up a computer password, played with the Dictaphone on her desk, swiveled in her chair and looked out the window at the view of the elevated train and small glimpse of the river. It was an office for an associate, not a partner, but it was nicer than anything at the law school.

He came on the line a few moments later. “Jerod Romero.”

“Mr. Romero. Shelly Trotter.”

“I’m hearing interesting things, Shelly. A self-defense plea?”

“Just exercising our constitutional rights. Don’t worry, nary a word about drugs or dirty cops. So far.”

“Did you-”

“And by the way, Mr. Romero, I’m calling you from the law offices of Shaker, Riley and Flemming, where I’ll be working. You can call off your I.R.S. goons.”

Silence. She didn’t expect a response. “I’m not sure what you’re suggest-”

“I’m suggesting that if you think you can get me off this case, or coerce us into a plea, by going after CAP’s tax-exempt status, you are wrong. I’m not going anywhere and it’s time for put-up or shut-up.”

She detected an amused chuckle. “Sixty years is a great deal, Shelly.”

“Well, then, why don’t we get together and discuss it? You, me, and the county attorney’s office. Let’s all get in a room together and hammer this thing out.”

“We don’t work that way.”

“Let’s cut the crap,” she said. “The A.C.A., Dan Morphew? He offered life today.”

Romero cleared his throat.

“You haven’t said a single word to the county attorney,” she continued. “They don’t know anything about this sting. They don’t know about any deal for sixty years. So let’s do it this way. You have your reasons for not wanting to talk to them. I don’t care. Let’s just focus on the federal charges.”

Romero didn’t answer, which meant he was listening.

“Complete immunity,” she proposed. “Rip up the letter of cooperation. It’s meaningless now, anyway. You haven’t charged him yet. I want an agreement that you will not prosecute him at all, in exchange for his silence about the drug sting until this thing goes to trial. That gives you almost three months to wrap things up.”

“You’ve thought this through,” he said.

Paul Riley walked into the doorway and tapped lightly on the door. She nodded at him.

“That’s it, Mr. Romero. Take it or leave it. And nothing about cooperating or anything else. No conditions except that he doesn’t talk about the sting until trial.”

“Well, I can run this up-”

“Run it up your ass, for all I care,” she said. “You have until the end of the day tomorrow. I want a written agreement and all the discovery you have on Ray Miroballi by tomorrow. Or I hold a press conference.”

She hung up the phone and smiled at Paul.

He raised a finger to her, as if he had something important to say. “Middle-aged guy walks into a confessional,” he said. “He says, ‘Father, I have sinned.’ The priest says, ‘Tell me, my son.’ The guy says, ‘Father, I just spent the entire night with two gorgeous runway models I picked up at a bar. We did drugs all night and had the raunchiest sex I’ve ever had. We were doing things I’ve never even heard of.’ The priest tells him to do some Hail Marys and seek forgiveness from the Lord. The guy says, ‘Oh, Father, I’m not Catholic.’ The priest says, ‘Well, then why are you telling me all this?’ The guy says, ‘Are you kidding, Father? I’m telling everybody!’”

She smirked at him. “Very nice, Riley.”

“You looked like you could stand to smile.” He leaned against the door. “Putting the screws to the G, are you?”

“Something like that. Listen-thanks so much for this space.”

“You already thanked me.” He was wearing a charcoal suit with an expensive shirt, a light shade of red with a white collar and cuffs. If I were a client, she thought to herself, I’d feel at ease with this guy.

“You talk to Joel?” he asked.

“Put him to work right away.” Joel Lightner was an investigator whom Paul used, and whose services he’d offered gratis to Shelly. Paul had gone a long way to assuage his own guilt for not taking the case-or for trying to please Shelly. She didn’t know which one, but she could hardly say no under the circumstances. She had a client who needed a good investigator.

“Hm. Good.” He opened his arm. “We eat.”

Lunch was at a popular steakhouse, but Paul ordered fish and Shelly went with vegetables. It was more than she usually ate for lunch. She felt comfortable in the nice setting, the good company-yes, she was beginning to warm to this big-shot corporate lawyer-but somehow uneasy at the relaxed setting while something so urgent was at stake, while her son sat in a holding cell and watched his back in the jail yard. He was looking over his shoulder every moment of the day in a dreary, sunless hole, while she was ordering marinated vegetables at an upscale eatery.

“You’re going to miss the law school,” he said. “The children’s project.”

“I am.”

“It moves you. Your work.”

She nodded. “School is everything to a kid. Especially the ones I’m helping.”

“Knowledge is power, right?”

She rearranged the lettuce in her salad. “It’s more than knowing who the tenth president was,” she said. “It’s about socialization. It’s about skill-building. It’s about nutrition.”

“Nutrition. Really.”

“Oh, sure. Most of the city schools serve breakfast as well as lunch now. Sometimes it’s all these kids eat during a day.”

Paul took a second look at the breadstick he was about to break in half.

“You know what day of the school week has the highest student attendance?” she asked him. “Every week, every year?”

Paul shook his head.

“Monday,” she said. “Because a lot of the kids are hungry.”

Paul’s eyebrows raised. “I guess I didn’t know that.”

“I don’t expect everyone I keep in school to become doctors or lawyers, or go to college, or even graduate high school,” she said. “But they learn things in school-or at least, it’s the only chance they’ll have to learn things. History and science, fine. But I’m talking about things like-I know an English teacher who spends a few days each year on telephone skills. A lot of these kids don’t have phones at home at all. They don’t know basic conversational skills on the telephone. How are they going to hold any kind of a decent job?”

He raised his hands. “You’ve taught me something.”

She sighed. She could really get going when prompted. And it was preferable to revisiting the events of the last week. “I’m preaching,” she apologized.

“Not at all, no.” Paul wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Give me an update on the case.”

Well, my house was burglarized, my client and I were physically threatened, I got kicked out of my law school, they’re seeking the death penalty against my client, I have the distinct feeling that Alex and Ronnie are playing games with me.

“Just getting started,” she said.

Oh, and it turns out my client is the son I gave up for adoption.

“I think I’ve cleaned up the federal mess. I think they’ll let him walk if we keep quiet about the undercover operation until trial.”

“Good. Great. What else?”

She felt a bit like one of Paul’s associates reporting to the senior partner. “They gave their 311 notice today.”

“Not surprising.”

“We have a trial date in May.”

“That should work out well.” Paul picked at a roll on his plate. “Just as you’re about to pick a jury, the feds will have to round up the bad guys. There will be headlines about drug-dealing cops just before the trial starts, and you tell them about one particular drug-dealing cop.”

She nodded.

“I gather you already thought of that,” he added.

She smiled. “Hopefully, Morphew won’t know what hit him.”

“Danny’s a good guy.” Paul waved to someone across the room.

“He sure speaks highly of you.”

“He’s top brass now,” Paul said. “Third, fourth in command. They brought in a heavy hitter.”

“Wonderful.” She sighed. “My problem is, I’m having a reliability problem with my own client. And his brother.”

“How so?”

“They’re holding back, I think. They both seem to be protecting each other. I think the feds are, too.”

“Hate it when people hold back.” Paul held his stare on Shelly. “Hate that.”

She put a hand on her chest. “Am I being accused?”

He sat back against the cushion and gave her a playfully scolding look. “I remember a case I had a few years back. Had a real fireball on the other side. A tough, solid lawyer. Tells me her name is Michelle Trotter. I say, ‘Oh, any relation to our new governor?’ She says, ‘No.’”

Paul winked at her. No doubt he had read the papers, the stories of the governor’s daughter defending the accused cop killer.

“Did I do that?” She didn’t remember. But she didn’t doubt the veracity of the story; it was her standard routine. That case with Paul, she recalled, headed to trial just as Attorney General Langdon Trotter was being sworn in as governor.

“First time I met you. First court appearance on the school case.”

Her face colored. “Old habit.”

“Silly,” Paul said. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Why should I tell you that my dad is the governor?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” he answered. “I mean, you don’t have to wear a sign around your neck, but you lied when I asked.”

“Well, why did you ask?”

Paul shrugged. “Just making small talk.”

She shook her head. “It would have made a difference.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, Paul-really. If I had told you I was Lang Trotter’s daughter, it would have bought me something with you. Right?”

“Of course not. I still would have thought you were a whiny public-interest lawyer.”

“Funny,” she said. “That’s very amusing. Really, though-it makes me a commodity. I can help you. I can hurt you. At a minimum, I have a bit of celebrity. It would change how you interact with me. Maybe something subtle, maybe something overt. But it’s there.”

“Hm.” Paul pursed his lips. “Maybe.”

“I don’t need that. I don’t want that. I didn’t ask for that.”

“Okay, okay.” He raised his hands. “Tough, independent, get-there-without-using-the-name. I get it.” He grabbed his glass of water. “Want me to throw this in your face to show you it doesn’t matter to me who your dad is?”

“Enough abuse.”

He laughed. “You certainly are refreshing, Ms. Trotter.”

“I’m here for your amusement.” She was enjoying herself. The vegetables arrived at the table and were delicious, mixed with olive oil and garlic.

“So tell me why you think the U.S. Attorney’s holding out on you,” Paul said.

“Oh, in part I think it’s just their nature. They’re protecting their investigation. They don’t want me to know any more than I have to.”

“Sounds about right.”

“But with Miroballi-they don’t want to concede anything. To listen to them, you’d think Miroballi was clean.”

“Maybe he is.” Paul could be so matter-of-fact about topics of importance.

“That can’t be,” she said.

“Sure it could.”

“No, I mean, it can’t be.” Because that would mean she had no case.

“Right.” Paul put down his fork. His halibut was half-eaten. “Listen, if one of their snitches gets mixed up in a shoot-out with one of the bad guys, they have egg on their face. Right?”

“Right.”

“And they can’t deny that Alex was one of their snitches.”

“Right.”

“So they deny that Miroballi was one of the bad guys.”

“And given his untimely death, they don’t really care about him anymore. Which is why it’s so hard to cut the deal with them.”

“Oh, you’ll get your deal. He’ll give you a walk for your silence.” Paul brought a napkin to his mouth. “Alex doesn’t mean anything to them anymore, Shelly, except that he can expose them. They were looking at a cop who’s dead now, and even if Alex could connect them to other bad cops-”

“That’s a big if.”

“-but even if he could, he can’t now, not in jail. So what do they care about him? He had, what, seventy-four grams of coke, you said? We’re talking about maybe a year in prison if it’s a first offense.”

“Eight to fourteen months,” she said, having reviewed the federal sentencing guidelines. “Probably a Level Sixteen.”

Paul waved a hand. “Judge would probably give him three hundred sixty-six days so he could get good time off.” For any sentence that exceeded one year, federal prisoners could receive a percentage reduction for good behavior. Shelly had figured that Alex would probably get either eight months or a year-and-a-day for his crime, which ended up almost equivalent with good time.

“The point being, they’ll take it,” said Shelly.

Paul stared at her, in that thoughtful, discerning way he had. She wondered if he had even heard what she said. He took a moment to poke his food, as if he were debating, then looked back up at her.

“Do you like men?” he asked.

“Do I-like men?”

“Yeah. I mean, a lot of you public-interest lawyers are lesbians, right?”

Shelly laughed, threw her head back, clapped her hands together. It felt good, such a welcome release. “Oh, God.” She caught her breath, her body still trembling, tears forming in her eyes. “I should be really pissed off at you for saying that.”

“I have a problem with being direct.” Paul was enjoying her enjoyment. “Have you answered my question?”

Shelly took a deep breath and expelled one last burst of laughter. “I really couldn’t tell you if the majority of my colleagues are gay or straight.”

“No, not that question.” Paul held his smile but with some effort.

“Yes, Paul, I like men. How about you?”

He cleared his throat. “I’ve been divorced for years. Haven’t gotten around too much since then.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know that.”

“How about you? Ever married? Kids?”

“No,” she said quickly. “And no.” It felt like a needle was piercing her heart.

“Are you serious with anyone?”

“Are you asking me out, Paul?”

“Well-” His face colored. Paul Riley was blushing. “Why don’t you answer my question first?”

“Okay.” Shelly placed her hands together. “The best answer I can give you is that I’m not ready for a relationship right now.”

“I understand perfectly-”

“No, wait, Paul. Let me explain.” Wasn’t she ready for a relationship? Did she really intend to spend her life alone? And she couldn’t deny her attraction to this man. Paul Riley, tall and distinguished-handsome, yes, broad-shouldered, the first signs of thickening of the torso but still well-built, his thick, sandy hair flecked with gray, rough, lined skin and a strong jaw. A man who represented wealthy clients who lied and cheated and stole to make and keep their money, who provided every legal maneuver to protect the most powerful, provided that they could pay. A man she would stereotype as shallow, arrogant, materialistic. But a man who provided her counsel, an office, hope during a time of need. Oh, it didn’t make sense, but these kinds of things didn’t make sense, did they?

Stop. No. She couldn’t be foolish. It was no time for frivolous behavior. She was playing too many cards too close to her vest. Story of her life.

“Believe me, Paul-believe me when I tell you that there’s a long list of reasons why you wouldn’t want to get involved with me at this moment. Can I just say-no for now?”

“Absolutely. Of course.” Paul was being overly accommodating in his assurances. “It-probably wasn’t a good idea, anyway. You know, we’re working together, in a way. You probably shouldn’t mix work and-y’know, not love but, well, romance or-” He sighed, fell back against the cushion of the booth. “For God’s sake, I’m not very good at this, am I? I’m fifty-one years old and I feel like I’m fifteen.”

“Actually, you’re better than most,” she said. “You’re straightforward. That’s rare.”

“Rare,” he repeated. “Okay, I’ll take rare.”

“I would’ve guessed ten years younger, by the way.”

“Oh-” Paul brought a hand to his face. “Now she’s letting me down gently. Where’s a good bolt of lightning when you need it?”

“How about this, Paul.” She waited until his eyes peeked through his fingers. “You made my day by asking.”

“That, I like. You could smile a little more.” He seemed to calm down a bit. He had a self-assurance that was rare in men, in her opinion-the fact that he was able to move on from rejection without brooding or self-pity.

“By the way,” he added, “this whole thing was a ruse, just to cheer you up.”

She raised her glass. “It worked.”