ENOUGH OF THE mortification of Elena’s unexpected intrusion lingered the next morning that Julia didn’t even flinch at the sight of an email from her boss when she scrolled through her work email before leaving the house.
Drop by my office when you get in.
Typical Li’l Pecker—the office shorthand for chief public defender Bill Decker—who specialized in opacity. Probably wanted to give her the belated news about the intern. Well, she had a few things she wanted to let him know, too, starting with the fact that the last thing she needed was an intern.
What she needed was some sort of drug that would erase forever the memory of Elena’s wide and staring eyes, the way she’d stood frozen in the doorway as Julia scrambled from her perch and into her clothing.
Pipe burst at the refugee center, Dom had texted later by way of explaining his daughter’s earlier-than-expected return. Probably best to lie low for a while.
Julia was fine with that, especially if lying low meant a fissure that would open in the earth and swallow her whole. Elena was sixteen, and Julia assumed she knew Julia and her father were having sex.
But she and Dom had never spent so much as a night together, and she’d always been careful to leave his house long before Elena returned home from her volunteer work so as not to present the girl with the evidence of their sated expressions, their languid, relaxed gestures. Which, in retrospect, would have been infinitely preferable to the sight of a naked Julia bouncing around … God. Even now, safely alone, she blushed hot recalling the moment.
She went straight to Decker’s office, not even stopping by her own to drop off her coat. The quicker she got this over with, the better.
Decker didn’t stand when she came in. Of course not.
For her part, Julia waited a moment longer than necessary after he gestured for her to sit, trying to underscore his rudeness, a move almost certainly lost on him. But at least he didn’t invite her to take her coat off, meaning their meeting would probably be brief.
Decker leaned back in his chair and served up his most avuncular smile. Julia knew that expression well. It was, along with his reassuring appearance—the silvery mane, the trim frame, the dark suits and crisp white shirts—one of his most potent weapons. Julia revised her estimate of the meeting’s length and wished she’d ditched the coat.
“This matter that’s just dropped in your lap. You’ve never handled a homicide case, correct?”
Of course she hadn’t. Neither had anyone else in the office for the last few years. Duck Creek’s low crime rate ranked just a few steps below the ski hill north of town as one of its prime attractions.
“No. But I’m quite familiar with this defendant. His recent history has been impressive—rehab, meetings, counseling. I’m certain of my ability to handle another big case,” she said, a none-too-subtle reminder of her success the previous year in proving her client’s innocence.
“Your work was excellent.” Another Li’l Pecker special: the compliment designed to soften the blow that would inevitably follow. She braced herself.
“But our former colleague Claudette will go all out on this one. Now that she’s gotten a taste of that top job, she wants to hold on to it. We can’t afford to lose.”
Julia refrained from reminding him that Claudette went all out on every case. “The curse of being a Black woman,” Claudette often reminded her. “You’re always expected to be less than. Anything other than balls to the wall and people go full I told you so.”
Julia knew Decker’s response went beyond every attorney’s natural competitiveness. The man had his eye on a judgeship—his father, Big Pecker, had been a federal judge—and so took every high-profile case personally. Judges in their state were elected, and the voting public generally preferred tough-on-crime prosecutors. If an accused murderer went free because of a successful defense by Decker’s office, the defense needed to be airtight and the community proud of justice served.
Julia mentally ran through the other public defenders in the office, assessing which one might be Decker’s chosen replacement and marshaling arguments against each.
“I’ve asked Tim Saunders to come in on the case.”
“Tim Saunders?” Julia’s voice came out in a damnable squeak. This she hadn’t seen coming.
Saunders was an associate in Duck Creek’s most prominent law firm, an up-and-comer seen as the obvious successor to Dan Tibbits, the best—and by far the most expensive—defense attorney in the region. Julia had once hoped to work there until she’d gotten crosswise with Tibbits during her last big case. She’d seen Saunders around the courthouse. He was hard to miss. His nickname, Adonis, bestowed by the women and men alike, was richly deserved.
“But why?”
“As I just told you.” Decker switched to principal-talking-to-a-recalcitrant-student mode. “We need to handle this one just right. Given the circumstances, Mr. Belmar will likely plea to a reduced charge of negligent homicide, Tim Saunders will have done his pro bono work, and you’ll get to notch another success.” Not to mention the fact that the case would be out of the public eye.
“I wouldn’t view a negligent homicide plea as a success. Ray didn’t do it.”
Decker stood. Their meeting was over.
“Exactly why I’ve asked Saunders to come in. Geary, I’m surprised at you. Any other woman in the office would be beside herself.”
A remark so infuriating that Julia left without another word, only through superhuman effort stopping herself from slamming the door behind her and realizing too late she’d forgotten to object to her new intern.