“You know, Mickey, I only bring her up because you don’t.”
“I don’t want to bring her up. It’s too painful, Legal. I get drunk every Friday night so I can sleep through most of Saturday. You know why?”
“No, I don’t know why you would get drunk. You did nothing wrong. You did your job with that guy Galloway or whatever his name was.”
“I drink Friday nights so I am out of it Saturdays because Saturdays were when I used to see my daughter. His name was Gallagher, Sean Gallagher, and it doesn’t matter if I was doing my job. People died and it’s on me, Legal. You can’t hide behind just doing your job when two people get creamed at an intersection by the guy you set free. Anyway, I gotta go.”
I stood up and showed him the phone as if it were the reason I needed to go.
“What, I don’t see you for a month and now you already have to go? I’m not finished with my sandwich here.”
“I saw you last Tuesday, Legal. And I’ll see you sometime next week. If not then, then the week after. You hang in and hold fast.”
“Hold fast? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means hold on to what you got. My half brother, the cop, told me that one. Finish that sandwich before they come in here and take it from you.”
I moved toward the door.
“Hey, Mickey Mouse.”
I turned back to him. It was the name he bestowed on me when I was a baby, born at four and a half pounds. Normally I’d tell him not to call me that anymore. But I let him have it so I could go.
“What?”
“Your father always called the jurors the ‘gods of guilt.’ You remember that?”
“Yep. Because they decide guilty or not guilty. What’s your point, Legal?”
“The point is that there are plenty of people out there judging us every day of our lives and for every move we make. The gods of guilt are many. You don’t need to add to them.”
I nodded but couldn’t resist a reply.
“Sandy Patterson and her daughter Katie.”
Legal looked confused by my response. He didn’t recognize the names. I, of course, would never forget them.
“The mother and daughter Gallagher killed. They’re my gods of guilt.”
I closed the door behind me and left the do not disturb sign on the knob. Maybe he’d get the sandwich down before the nurses checked on him and discovered our crime.
3
Back in the Lincoln I called Lorna Taylor and by way of greeting she said the words that always put the two-edged sword right through me. Words that excited and repelled me at the same time.
“Mickey, you’ve got a murder case if you want it.”
The thought of a murder case could put the spark in your blood for many reasons. First and foremost, it was the worst crime on the books and with it came the highest stakes in the profession. To defend a murder suspect you had to be at the very top of your game. To get a murder case you had to have a certain reputation that put you at the top of the game. And in addition to all that, there was the money. A murder defense—whether the case goes to trial or not—is expensive because it is so time-consuming. You get a murder case with a paying customer and you likely make your whole nut for the year.
The downside is your client. While I have zero doubt that innocent people are charged with murder, for the most part the police and prosecutors get it right and you are left to negotiate or ameliorate the length and terms of punishment. All the while you sit at the table next to a person who has taken a life. It’s never a pleasant experience.
“What are the details?” I asked.
I was in the back of the Town Car with a legal pad ready on the fold-down worktable. Earl was heading toward downtown on Third Street, a straight shot in from the Fairfax District.
“The call came in collect from Men’s Central. I accepted and it was a guy named Andre La Cosse. He said he was arrested for murder last night and he wants to hire you. And get this, when I asked him where the referral came from, he said the woman he is accused of killing had recommended you. He said she told him you were the best.”
“Who is it?”
“That’s the crazy thing. Her name, according to him, is Giselle Dallinger. I ran her through our conflict app and her name doesn’t come up. You never represented her, so I am not sure how she got your name and made this recommendation even before she was supposedly killed by this guy.”
The conflict app was a computer program that digitized all our case files and allowed us to determine in seconds whether a prospective client had ever come up in a previous case as a witness, a victim, or even a client. At twenty-plus years into this career, I could not remember every client’s name, let alone the ancillary characters involved in cases. The conflict app saved us enormous amounts of time. Previously, I would often dig into a case only to find out I had a conflict of interest in representing the new client because of an old client, witness, or victim.