Quinn decided to put the existential questions aside and got back to the issue at hand. Self-defense was all very well if you had an intruder in your own home, but Jack Cameron had been in the middle of a forest, and the requirement to evade or the duty to retreat played no part.
He was deep into a Supreme Court opinion from 1989 when a gentle knock on the library door startled him out of it.
“I thought I just imagined you sitting there,” the man said. “I honestly thought it was my imagination playing tricks after all these weeks.”
“Conrad,” Quinn said, and he stood up.
Conrad Locke.
“Nathan.” Locke grabbed him in a quick hug. “It’s good to see you—it’s so good to see you.”
“Thank you for your note when I was in the hospital, for your support. For your kind words.”
“Please, don’t mention it. We respected your wishes not to have visitors, and writing was the very least we could do.”
Locke was nearly seventy years old and carried his age easily and with grace. His hair was now completely white, and his eyes had more lines around them than they once had, but he was the same man who had known Quinn since he was a boy, who had stood by him without giving platitudes on the day of David’s memorial service.
“Let me look at you,” Locke said, his hands on the taller man’s shoulders. Quinn didn’t look away; the older man’s eyes sparkled with affection.
“Now you’re hitting the books for Jack,” Locke said. “What’s the latest news?”
“The hearing with Judge Martin is tomorrow morning. The whole thing has been expedited because of Salinger’s insanity, the guilty plea, and the bleach attack in KCJC.”
“How strong is our case?”
“Difficult to say.”
“If there’s a man on this planet who can get him out of there, it’s you.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m assuming that’s what will happen. What then?” Locke had been a phenomenal litigator; he could turn water into wine in front of a jury and convince them that it had been wine in the first place.
“Jack will stay with me until things have sorted themselves out,” Quinn replied.
“Good. That’s good. I have never given you any advice in all these years, Nathan, and I’m not going to start now. All I can say with regard to the Honorable Claire Martin, whom you have had the pleasure to argue before many a time, is: keep it simple. Find the core strength of your case, and hammer it home. Make it so it’s an inescapable truth. Scott Newton is a solid attorney, but he cannot prove what happened on that riverbank.”
If anyone sees the photographs, he will not need to prove much, Quinn thought, but he nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind. Judge Martin is somewhat unpredictable—I don’t want to under-prepare.”
“Nonsense,” Locke said, and he moved to leave.
“How come you’re here so late?” Quinn asked.
“I left some theater tickets on my desk. I’ll spend the day out at the tomorrow, and I didn’t want to have to come back for them.”
At the ranch. Quinn smiled. “Give Grace my regards.”
“I will.”
Quinn heard Conrad Locke’s steps recede down the hallway and the elevator that carried him downstairs. He thought about simplicity and about the times he’d heard Locke argue a case in court. Then he picked up each book and put it back on the shelf. At this point he knew what he knew. The case would not be resolved with something as prosaic as a precedent.
Nathan Quinn drove home and poured himself a measure of bourbon. Tomorrow night he’d be drinking one with Jack.
Chapter 50
Madison arrived home with three bags from Trader Joe’s. Her phone rang as she was walking in the door.
“Hey,” Rachel said.
“Hey.” Madison smiled.
“Do you want to know something funny?”
“Always.”
“Neal and Tommy are asleep, and I was surfing the ’net—you know, reading about the recent developments in the world of psychology.”
“Sure, which is code for cats doing yoga.”
“Right. Did you know . . .”
Madison twisted the cap off a beer and started unpacking while listening to Rachel’s soothing tones. Later she couldn’t have been sure what they’d talked about except that it had taken the edge off a hard day. Rachel always did that. And Madison missed Tommy, missed being part of a six-year-old’s life. Soon enough he would be seven, and she ought to be there when they brought out the cake and sang to him. Madison had sung to him; she had sung “Blackbird” to him in the forest that night she thought he’d die. She wasn’t sure she could sing to him again.