Kristen stood in front of her boss’s desk, her pen poised over a notepad. District Attorney Boyd Relington hadn’t asked her to sit down, and the moment to sit anyway—because they were colleagues and she shouldn’t need an invitation—had passed. Now sitting felt like a statement.
“These are your case files for next week,” Relington said.
“Are these all the cases that came in?” Kristen asked.
“We got a stack of cases from the police. The new chief sends everything our way.”
Kristen was fairly sure she’d heard someone say that the “new” chief had been in his position for more than ten years.
“Back in the day,” Relington went on, “some people knew when to leave well enough alone, but I went through the paperwork from the police. I’ll be prosecuting the O’Rourke case. You’ll be doing Alioto, Esso, Scappa, De La Pedraja.” He rattled off a few more names.
“Can I see the rest of the files that came in from the police?” Kristen asked.
“Not every arrest warrants a prosecution.”
Everything Relington said was a counterargument. He was like all law students she had gone to school with and then taught in first-year legal writing, only older and untempered by the constant influx of more brilliant, young legal minds.
“I mean is there a selection process?” Kristen had rehearsed her speech. I trust your judgment, but I’d like to select my own cases.
“Do you really want to discuss this now?”
Relington checked his watch. It was Friday, four thirty. The afternoon sun cut through the sagging venetian blinds, illuminating the Tristess memorabilia that filled Relington’s office: football jersey behind glass, a set of old stirrups. It was like the Western-themed Silver Rush Bar in Portland…only not ironic.
“Yes,” Kristen said. “Now is fine.”
“Okay. What’s this about, really? Sit.”
“I’d like to select the cases I try.” Kristen lowered herself into a chair.
“These are good cases.” Relington leaned forward and tapped the stack of files on his desk. “I selected them.”
“I’m sure they’re good cases.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About a month.”
“And how long are you planning to stay?”
Kristen had lain awake for the past week, working on the equation. Leaving in less than a year would negate the benefit of having deputy DA on her résumé, but two years would be more than plenty.
“I don’t have any plans to leave,” she said.
Relington snorted. “Do you know why I hired you?”
Kristen could feel the insult coming.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that I’m here, and I want to do my job. I want to serve this community, and I want to help you.”
“This community.” Relington rose and walked over to one of the framed photographs on the wall. “That’s my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather. This man here—” He pointed. “That’s Ronald Holten.” He spoke the name reverently. The municipal building that housed the court, the elementary school, and the nearby penitentiary all bore the name Holten.
“Tristess is my family,” Relington went on. “Every case we try, I know them. I know what happened to them as children. I know their parents, their grandparents. Let me ask you, Ms. Brock, if you got in trouble and you had to go to court, would you want someone who’d been in town for a whole month deciding your fate, or would you want someone who knew your story? Some of these guys, if they go to jail for a week, they don’t get their herd in for the first round of auction. Their hay goes sour. They’re not there to call the vet for a breech. People don’t have money here, like they do in the city. Honestly, tell me what you’d want?”
Kristen felt her face flush. “I’d want the law to decide.”
“We are the law,” Relington said in a tone that said I not we. He pushed a slip of paper across the desk. “Speaking of Mr. Holten. He heard you were having trouble finding a place to rent. Meet him here at twelve thirty tomorrow.”
“Ronald Holten?” Kristen asked, but Relington’s expression told her the conversation was over.