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  “I’m in AA. I’m recovering from yet another setback, two, actually, that I experienced back in Los Angeles. So, I don’t drink anymore.”

  There goes my idea about tossing back shots in a bar and telling war stories. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “My mother had a drinking problem.” I threw that last part in there to let Harper know that I wasn’t necessarily a kindred soul, but that I understood. I didn’t want to tell her that my mother’s drinking problem was really the least of her problems, though. Prescription drugs – OxyContin, the “Hillbilly Heroin” was her main issue, and then, when her doctors refused to give her anymore prescriptions, actual street heroin. That was the main reason why she prostituted herself - she needed those drugs like she needed oxygen. She still prostituted herself, even after I came along, and I used to hear her with her johns while I played with my toys in my bedroom. I never quite knew what those sounds were until I got a little older, and I suddenly understood everything. And it made me literally vomit.

  “So,” Harper said, obviously wanting to change the subject. “Now you know that your boss is an incorrigible drunk, it’s your turn to tell me something that I don’t know. I mean, I know that you went to a top-rated law school, much better than the one that I went to, and that you were a late bloomer. You didn’t start college until you were 23. What did you do before you were 23? You left that part of your resume blank.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, suddenly shy about telling her the truth. I never knew what to say to people who asked me this question. It always seemed so convoluted to tell them that I was wrongfully imprisoned when I was 18 and that the Innocence Project saved my bacon. Harper would understand, of course. If anybody would understand about something like that, it would be Harper. Yet, I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her. “I went to Europe,” I said. “To find myself. Did the whole hostel thing. Rode bikes through the Alps. It was a freeing experience, one that I’m really glad to have had.”

  She nodded. “I’ve always wanted to do something like that myself. Just get a bike in Europe, go all around, look at castles, eat pastries and talk to all the locals. Learn a different language along the way. I’ve never done it, though. You’re very lucky to have had a chance for an experience like that. From what I understand, it’s a once in a lifetime thing, something that you never forget.”

  I nodded my head. I had actually been through Luxembourg and France, not on a bicycle, but as part of a tour. If Harper asked me about my experiences, I would be able relay them. But she didn’t ask me. She seemed preoccupied.

  “Well, okay, then,” Harper said. “I resent Erik being my client, but he is my client. In fact, he’s not only my client, but I must represent him and I must get an acquittal for him. If I don’t, suffice to say that I won’t be long for this world. So, we have to put our brains together on this thing and look at every angle. Where would you like to begin?”

  “Well, I want to begin with his dad and this other Vardan Dorian guy. They’re the most likely place to start, because they were the ones who essentially brought Shelly into the organization. Vardan literally found her and brought her in, and Sargis gave his blessing. Something is rotten in the State of Denmark right there if you ask me.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, but I can’t figure that one out. Why would Sargis want to throw his son under the bus, and why would he be so adamant that I was going to see that Erik is set free for this? Unless he’s playing some kind of elaborate game with me. I don’t discount that, but I don’t want to chance it, either. I mean, if he’s playing a game, then I need to call his bluff and see what Sargis does. Right? But if I’m wrong….” She sliced her hand across her neck. “There goes me and there go my girls. Me, I don’t really care all that much. I live, I die, what do I care? I mean, I like life, don’t get me wrong, but if I die, it’s not like I’m really going to know. But my girls, that’s a different story. I would go to the ends of the earth to protect them, which means that there’s no way in hell I’m going to test this theory.”

  I wrote that down. “Okay, we begin with the dad and Vardan Dorian. We find out more about Vardan Dorian especially. But I have to admit, I’m intrigued about Shelly’s background as a hacker. That seems like that could also bear some fruit. Find out who she knew who was a part of that world. Maybe there was somebody from her hacker days who wanted her dead. Somebody who knew that, because Shelly was embedded with the Gregorian clan, she would be a target to be killed by somebody in the clan. Maybe somebody saw her work with the Gregorian clan as a convenient excuse. A convenient cover. That’s what I’m thinking. That’s where I’d like to direct Garrett to begin his investigation. Do you have the same ideas about it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was actually thinking the same things. Of course, we also need to find out if she had any kind of romantic entanglements, somebody who might have wanted her dead for other reasons. And, of course, we always have to look at other angles, such as whether or not she had a life insurance policy, and who was the beneficiary for it. I still think that Erik did this. I think that he’s good for it. All day long. But, if we can find at least a few plausible alternatives, we can start working up a good strategy.”

  I nodded my head as I studied my notes. “Who’s on the other side of this?”

  “Nick Wright,” she said. “I know, I know. He’s a grandstander and a blowhard. I can’t stand him. But it’s the luck of the draw, I guess. And the judge is Judge Clarion. Division 40.”

  I smiled as I realized that Judge Clarion was the judge that we drew for this case. I always got along well with him, although I was always one of the only ones. He reminded me of an old-time justice, like you might see in the movies. White-haired, cantankerous, not one to take shit from anybody. I guessed that the reason why I liked Judge Clarion so much was because he reminded me of some of the guards I befriended in prison. They were gruff and menacing, but if you knew just how to talk to them, they became like pussycats, for the most part. They never gave me shit, namely because I knew just how to handle them. I was the same way with Judge Clarion. He and I got along because we understood one another. I understood that he had a job to do, and he did the same with me. He let me do my job, and I let him do his.

  “Well, okay, then. We know how to strategize around Judge Clarion and Nick Wright. It’s always helpful to know just what you’re up against and how much you’re going to be able to get away with. Which isn’t much with Judge Clarion, I have to say. But that’s okay. If you know it going in, it’s not so bad.”

  Harper smiled. “I think that I made the right choice in hiring you,” she said. “You really seem to know your stuff.”

  “I do. Not just because I worked at the Public Defender’s Office for the past five years. But also because I’m a student of human nature. I’ve known and seen every kind of person in my life, and I’ve got a handbook on how to handle all of them.”

  Harper narrowed her eyes at me when I said that, then she nodded her head. “Yeah, I’ve known all types of people myself. My father always said that there’s only 7 different types of people in the world. Everyone fits into one type of archetype or another. Do you believe that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess. I’ve heard that theory that there are seven types of personalities. The King, the Warrior, the Wise Man, the Priest, the Scholar, the Artist, the Server. But you read about the personalities, and none of them talk about the criminal type. About the type of person that is pathological in some way. The pathological personality is what we’re dealing with most of the time. And there’s very little that we can do to help them.”

  Harper seemed to be in a reflective mood. She seemed to absorb my words as she looked down at the conference room table. “I think that you’re right. I think that most of our clients have a pathology of some sort. Either a personality disorder or a true mental illness. Mostly I see people with personality disorders, though. But what does that say about us? If our clients have a pathology, and they’re
out there committing crimes, aren’t we enabling them just to keep on committing more crimes? Take this Erik kid, for instance. Let’s just say that we’re successful. We manage to convince the jury that Erik didn’t kill Shelly. The jury acquits. What are we doing except putting a known criminal back on the streets? Because you know that Erik is good for all kinds of other crimes. Maybe not murder. But he’s the leader of the clan that controls a good part of the city, and that clan is up to no good. They’re kidnapping innocent girls and selling them to the highest bidder. They’re stealing from people. They’re hacking into computer systems. They’re selling street drugs. They’re making a lot of money off the backs of hard-working people.” She shook her head. “The only thing that Erik is doing that I don’t have a problem with is the prostitution angle. The girls get compensated richly, and they’re going into it with open eyes. But with everything else that Erik is doing…”

  I knew what she was talking about. It was something that all defense attorneys felt in their core. We all like to think that we’re doing God’s work, representing the down-trodden and the defenseless. It’s an ethos that is drilled into every person working in the Public Defender’s Office. Every person deserves a good defense. It’s in the Constitution. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel. And it’s true. Every person does deserve a good defense. But, in reality, our roles weren’t all that lofty. In reality, we were trying to get acquittals for people who really don’t deserve them, because they’re bad for society.

  Harper licked her lips and bit the bottom part of her mouth. “I was responsible one time for a murder,” she said quietly. “I had a client a few years back. He killed a man. Told me it was self-defense, and I never really believed him. I wanted to, though. I got him off on a technicality. He gave a polygraph that he flunked. Of course, the polygraph wasn’t admissible in court. But the prosecutor accidentally introduced it. Quite unexpectedly. I jumped on that, asked for a mistrial, and got it. Then I badgered the prosecutor to drop the charges against my client. They finally relented.” She shook her head. “I felt that I was giving him my best defense. And I was. Then he murdered his girlfriend in cold blood. Left two girls orphaned, the girls that I have in my care right now.”

  I nodded my head. I didn’t quite know how Harper felt, because I hadn’t experienced that. Yet. It was only a matter of time, however, before the same thing would happen to me. It was only a matter of time before a person that I get acquitted goes on and murders somebody else. That type of thing just came with this job. I knew that. But I truly did believe in the maxim that it’s better for 10 guilty men to go free than to see one innocent person get convicted. That one innocent person was the person that I worked for. He or she was the person that made this whole job worthwhile.

  Because that one innocent person was me.

  Chapter 6

  Damien

  I went to the hospital that night. The same thing that I did every night. Go to the hospital, take off my coat, wash my hands, put on rubber gloves and a mask, and go in and see my daughter. She was awaiting a bone marrow transplant and had been given powerful chemotherapy and radiation, so her immunity system was very low.

  Amelia was lying in the bed, looking pale – paler than I had ever seen her. She was pale, anyhow, because she took after her mother. Her brother Nate took after me – he had the olive skin, the green eyes, the wild curly hair. But Amelia was pale, thin and blonde, just like her mother. Anybody who saw Nate and Amelia together would never guess that they were siblings. People who saw me with Amelia probably thought that she was adopted. Likewise people who saw Sarah with Nate. Funny how genetics worked.

  She saw me come in and smiled. “Daddy,” she said, reaching out her arms. I sat down next to the bed and didn’t touch her. I was afraid to. I was always paranoid that I still had germs that she might catch and those germs would kill her. I wanted to touch her, though. I wanted to smooth the blonde hair that was covering her forehead and kiss her cheek. I wanted to hold her in my arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

  I wished that I knew that everything was going to be okay. At the moment, however, things didn’t look so good. Amelia had been battling her non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma for the last two years, since she was only four years old. We tried immunotherapy, chemotherapy, radiation and blood transfusions. I had witnessed her suffering from the past two years, and it was wearing on me, but I was determined to stay strong for her. Now she was in the hospital because she was going to undergo a bone marrow transplant.

  I sometimes wondered if I was doing all this for her or for myself. Was I being selfish, wanting to keep her, even though everything in the universe was trying to take her from me? If I was spiritual, which I really wasn’t, but if I were, I would just let her go. Let her suffering end. But I just couldn’t. I had to go through every experimental treatment, every conventional treatment, everything that the doctors said might help her. I had to because I needed her in my life.

  This had caused a rift between Sarah and me, one of many. At first, Sarah was on board with all the treatments we were trying with Amelia. But, eventually, Sarah had decided that we had put Amelia through too much. She had watched her brother die in much the same way – for two years, Sarah’s brother was put through the chemotherapy, radiation and surgery ringer. He died at the age of 14, and Sarah felt that it was unfair that he had to go through so much suffering, only to die anyhow. She feared that the same thing was happening with Amelia, that we were playing God. She was Catholic, and she had prayed on it, and she had come to the conclusion that it was God’s will that Amelia should be taken and that we were only prolonging the inevitable.

  “Hey, kitten,” I said, sitting down next to Amelia. “How’s it shaking in here?”

  She shrugged, her blue eyes dimming. “It sucks,” she said. “When can I get out of here? And where’s Sarah?”

  We went through this every time. Sarah had long since decided that she wasn’t going to participate in Amelia’s treatment, because she was against it on principle. That meant that, for this current hospitalization, she hadn’t yet seen Amelia. Amelia had been in the hospital for two weeks at this point, and Sarah hadn’t darkened the doorstep of the hospital yet. “She’s battling a cold,” I told Amelia. “She’s a kindergarten teacher, she’s exposed to germs all the time. I know that I told you that nobody can visit you if they’ve been exposed to a virus.”

  Amelia nodded her head, but she looked skeptical. “She doesn’t want me to be treated, does she?”

  I had to admit that children knew more than what we gave them credit for. “It’s not that,”I lied. “Mom can’t be around you because she might infect you with a bug, and that could kill you. We need to make sure that we get this bone marrow transplant without a hitch.”

  “Okay,” Amelia said. “It’s really boring in here. They won’t let me play with my iPad because they can’t assure me that the iPad doesn’t have germs. They won’t let me have books. I can only watch TV. Apparently the TV doesn’t have germs. I’m going crazy in here, dad.”

  “I know, kitten, I know. But it’s only for a few more days. You’re going to get your transplant on Saturday, and then, hopefully, you can come home.”

  Amelia looked skeptical. “What if it doesn’t work? The transplant. What if it doesn’t work?” Her eyes got big. “What happens, dad, if it doesn’t work?”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to tell her that the bone marrow transplant was the last resort. We had gone through all the clinical trials, and all the conventional treatment. I didn’t want to tell her that this was the end of the road. “Let’s not talk about that,” I said. “Let’s just be positive. Think positive.” I tried to ignore the lump in my throat, tried to keep my tears from flowing. I wished, more than anything, that Sarah was here next to me, holding my hand. But she wasn’t. It was true that she wasn’t feeling well, but she was apparently feeling well enough to get a massage and get her nails done. She made excuses for not coming, and she felt that
her excuses were good. After all, the doctors did tell us that we couldn’t be in Amelia’s room if we were suffering from any kind of a virus or infection. Sarah, as a kindergarten teacher, was always exposed to just about everything.

  She probably couldn’t visit Amelia directly, but she certainly could come to the hospital and stand outside the room. That might not do Amelia any good, but it would certainly do me some good. She could stand shoulder to shoulder with me and fight the good fight. She could bring Nate here, which would certainly do Amelia some good. Nate usually came with me when I visited, but lately, I’ve been coming straight from the office, as Children’s Mercy was in mid-town Kansas City, and my office was on The Plaza, which meant that it was only about a ten minute drive in traffic from my office to Amelia’s hospital. My home was in Leawood, Kansas, which was in the opposite direction, so I didn’t go home and get Nate before I visited Amelia in the evenings.

  Sarah got off work at 4, so she certainly could bring Nate to the hospital. He was going to have to wait for the weekend to see his sister, and that wasn’t fair.

  I stayed in Amelia’s room for about an hour. By then, it was 8 o’clock and she was getting tired. The time had just changed, which meant that the sky was pitch black outside by the time I left her in the hospital room.

  I went home and found that Sarah was still somewhere. The babysitter, Heather, who was a sixteen year old who lived next door to us, was sitting in the living room, surfing the net on her phone. “Nate’s in his room,” she said. “Sarah heated up a frozen pizza for dinner. There’s some in the oven if you want it.”

  “Have you heard from Sarah?” I asked Heather.

  “Yeah,” she said. “She called to say that she was getting a drink with an old friend tonight at this place called the Brick House. She said not to expect her in until at least midnight.”