Trouble in Paradise

Twenty-Six

“Very cute,” Abby said when they were alone. “How’d you know she’d be a jerk?”

“Given their kids, you had a pretty good shot that one of them was a jerk,” Jesse said.

“Even if she weren’t, we’d have found occasion to play the tapes,” Petrocelli said. “Once they heard them, they weren’t going to press the suit.”

“What do you think about the kids?” Abby said.

“Snapper maybe has a chance,” Jesse said. “Canton and Brown still thinking about a civil suit?”

“Yes, thanks for the business,” Abby said. “I referred them to a woman I know at Cone, Oakes.”

Petrocelli took his feet down and swiveled his chair around slowly with feet off the ground. He came to rest with his chair tilted back as far as it would go and his toes just touching, in nearly perfect balance.

“Think they’ll go forward?” Petrocelli said, looking straight down his nose at nothing.

“They were pretty mad,” Jesse said, “when I talked with them.”

“The tapes may get played after all,” Petrocelli said. “Who’d you send them to?”

“Woman named Rita Fiore,” Abby said.

“Used to be a prosecutor,” Petrocelli said. “South Shore?”

“Yes. Norfolk County. You know her?”

“She kicked my ass in a thing about two years ago,” Petrocelli said. “She’s tougher than Jesse.”

“No one’s that tough,” Abby said.

“You think they might admit the tapes in a civil case?” Jesse said.

“Rules of evidence are a little different,” Petrocelli said. “And if anyone can get them in, it’s Rita.”

They were quiet. No one wanted to leave yet. They lingered like players after a game. Jesse got up and walked to the water cooler and got three small plastic cups from the container. He came back and lined them up on his desk. Then he sat back down, took a bottle of Black Bush out of his drawer, and poured a shot into each cup. He handed one to Abby and one to Petrocelli. All three drank sparingly.

“I know you, Jesse,” Abby said.

“So I heard,” Petrocelli said.

Abby laughed, her face flushing, and continued.

“You must have known you were in danger of tainting the evidence.”

Jesse said, “We’re all off the record, I assume.”

“Right now we’re just three friends sitting around talking,” Abby said. “I’m surprised you had to ask.”

“I knew they did it, but the way I knew it wouldn’t stand up in court. I had to get them to confess.”

“And you tricked them into thinking each had tattled on the other,” Abby said.

“In school,” Petrocelli said, “it’s tattling. In police stations, it’s ratting.”

“It’s an old cop trick, and if the kids were older and smarter they wouldn’t have fallen for it. Snapper didn’t fall for it now. Next time the Hopkins kids won’t.”

“And there’ll be a next time?” Abby said.

“Unless this was the kind of wakeup call that can help them turn it around.”

“You think?” Abby said.

“No.”

“And you can’t help them,” Abby said.

“No.”

“He did what he could,” Petrocelli said.

“Yes,” Abby said. “That’s why you did it, isn’t it? You knew you probably couldn’t get them into court, but if you got a taped confession, you might be able to get the parents’ attention.”

“I didn’t want them to think they could burn down some guys’ house and walk away from it,” Jesse said.

“There needed to be consequences,” Petrocelli said. “He created some.”

They all thought about that while they sipped their whisky.

“You’re a little more than I thought you were,” Abby said. “I thought you were a tough guy with an ex-wife.”

Jesse nodded. “Still got the ex-wife,” he said.

“And when all that was going on with Jo Jo and the Horsemen last year...” She paused in mid-sentence and sipped from her second cup of whisky. “I was scared.”

Jesse nodded. The room was quiet. Petrocelli was examining the empty space three feet in front of him.

“There was a lot to be scared of,” Jesse said.

“For you, too.”

“That’s sort of supposed to be part of the job,” Jesse said.

Abby looked at Petrocelli. “You ever wonder if he can say more than one sentence at a time?” she said.

“I like brevity in a client,” Petrocelli said. “Are you trying to tell him you made a mistake last year?”

“I’m trying to apologize for misjudging him.”

Petrocelli smiled and swiveled slightly toward Jesse. “Learned counsel says...” Petrocelli began.

“I heard her,” Jesse said. He looked at Abby. “No apology required. I am a tough guy with an ex-wife.”

“Maybe,” Abby said.

And the three of them were quiet again for a while, sipping their whisky together in the bright room before they went home for the night.