Sheldon Siegel

Amazon Rating 4.3/5 (read reviews)
Goodreads Rating 4/5 (read reviews)

Without a doubt, this book by the author of last year’s equally entertaining Special Circumstances was the most fun to read… For those who love San Francisco, this is a dream of a novel that capitalizes on the city’s festive and festering neighborhoods of old-line money and struggling immigrants. Siegel is an astute observer of the city and takes wry and witty jabs at lawyers and politicians. That Siegel’s novel about a politician involved in a sex scandal hits bookstores at the same time a certain California congressman is squirming under similar scrutiny can only bode well for the book. (USA TODAY).

A great deal of the story takes place in the courtroom, with the trial unfolding from Daley’s perspective. Here, the author, as expected, does a good job of getting into the mind of his character. The trial procedure is fascinating and more believable than most, as Siegel concentrates on legal strategies instead of lawyer’s egos… An effective page-turner with a realistic, if somewhat cynical, climax that holds true to the powerhouse milieu in which Daley and his colleagues have been operating all along. . (Kirkus) 

The story is brilliantly plotted, the characters are sharp and believable, and the wit as dry and pointed as ever. This new series injects some much-needed life into a genre that had gone a little stale. –Perry M. Atterberry (Amazon Editor)

Mike Daley and friends are back in this intriguing sequel to Siegel’s highly praised debut, Special Circumstances. …As in Siegel’s previous book, the San Francisco setting and the courtroom scenes ring true. Readers will be anxiously awaiting this new Mike Daley novel. Recommended. (Library Journal) 

“I look around the table: my ex-wife, my ex-girlfriend and me. We aren’t a law firm–we’re a support group. Somebody will probably name a 12-step program after us.” That’s Mike Daley-ex-priest, ex-public defender, ex-partner in one of San Francisco’s fanciest law firms-describing his new team of criminal defense specialists. It also sums up the considerable charm and strength of Siegel’s second Daley vehicle, following on the heels of the well-received Special Circumstances. (Publisher’s Weekly)

Daley, a former priest and a former public defender, is singularly unimpressed with the distinguished social circle he needs to investigate, all the while displaying his refreshingly down-to-earth attitude and ironic, low-key humor. … the novel displays real feeling for the San Francisco locale and boasts a very likable protagonist. (Booklist) 

Chapter 1
“WE HAVE A SITUATION”

“The attorney general is a law enforcement officer, not a social worker.”

— Prentice Marshall Gates III, San Francisco District Attorney and Candidate for California Attorney General. Monday, September 6.

Being a partner in a small criminal defense firm isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Oh, it’s nice to see your name at the top of the letterhead, and there is a certain amount of ego gratification that goes along with having your own firm. Then again, you have to co-sign the line of credit and guarantee the lease. You also get a lot of calls from collection agencies when cash flow is slow. In this business, founder’s privilege extends only so far.

Unlike our well-heeled brethren in the high-rises that surround us, the attorneys in my firm, Fernandez and Daley, occupy cramped quarters around the corner from the Transbay bus terminal and next door to the Lucky Corner Number 2 Chinese restaurant. Our office is located on the second floor of a 1920s walk-up building at 553 Mission Street, on the only block of San Francisco’s South of Market area that has not yet been gentrified by the sprawl of downtown. Although we haven’t started remodeling yet, we recently took over the space from a defunct martial arts studio and moved upstairs from the basement. Our files sit in what used to be the men’s locker room. Our firm has grown by a whopping fifty percent in the last two years. We’re up to three lawyers.

“Rosie, I’m back,” I sing out to my law partner and ex-wife as I stand in the doorway to her musty, sparsely furnished office at eight-thirty in the morning on the Tuesday after Labor Day.

Somewhere behind four mountains of paper and three smiling photos of our eight-year-old daughter, Grace, Rosita Fernandez is already working on her second Diet Coke and cradling the phone against her right ear. She gestures at me to come in and mouths the words, “How was your trip?”

I just got back from Cabo, where I was searching for the perfect vacation and, if the stars lined up right, the perfect woman. Well, my tan is good. When you’re forty-seven and divorced, your expectations tend to be pretty realistic.

Rosie runs her hand through her thick, dark hair. She’s only forty-three, and the gray flecks annoy her. She holds a finger to her full lips and motions me to sit down. She gives me a conspiratorial wink and whispers the name Skipper as she points to the phone. “No, no,” she says to him. “I expect him any minute. I’ll have him call you as soon as he gets in.”

I look at the beat-up bookcases filled with oatmeal-colored legal volumes with embossed gold lettering that says California Reporter. I glance out the open window at the tops of the Muni buses passing below us on Mission Street. When we were in the basement, we got to look at the bottoms of the very same buses.

On warm, sunny days like today, I’m glad we don’t work in a hermetically sealed building. On the other hand, by noon, the smell of bus fumes will make me wish we had an air conditioner. Our mismatched used furniture is standard stock for those of us who swim in the lower tide pools of the legal profession.

Rosie and I used to work together at the San Francisco public defender’s office. Then we made a serious tactical error and decided to get married. We are very good at being lawyers, but we were very bad at being married. We split up almost seven years ago, shortly after Grace’s first birthday. Around the same time, I went to work for the tony Simpson and Gates law firm, and Rosie went out on her own. Our professional lives were reunited about two years ago when I was fired by the Simpson firm because I didn’t bring in enough high-paying clients. I started subleasing space from Rosie. On my last night at Simpson and Gates, two attorneys were gunned down in the office. I ended up representing the lawyer who was charged with the murders. That’s when Rosie decided I was worthy of being her law partner.

I whisper, “Does Skipper want to talk to me?”

She nods. She scribbles a note that says “Do you want to talk to him?”

Prentice Marshall Gates III, known as Skipper, is the San Francisco district attorney. We used to be partners at Simpson and Gates. His father was Gates. He’s now running for California attorney general. His smiling mug appears on billboards all over town under the caption “Mr. Law and Order.” Two years ago, he won the DA’s race by spending three million dollars of his inheritance. I understand he’s prepared to ante up five million this time.

I whisper, “Tell him I just came in and I’ll call him back in a few minutes.” I’m going to need a cup of coffee for this.

Skipper is a complicated guy. To my former partners at Simpson and Gates, he was a self-righteous, condescending ass. To defense attorneys like me, he’s an opportunistic egomaniac who spends most of his time padding his conviction statistics and preening for the media. To the citizens of the City and County of San Francisco, however, he’s a charismatic local hero who vigorously prosecutes drug dealers and pimps. He takes full credit for the fact that violent crime in San Francisco has dropped by a third during his tenure. Even though he’s a law-and-order Republican and a card-carrying member of the NRA, he has led the charge for greater regulation of handguns, and he sits on the board of the Legal Community Against Violence, a local gun-control advocacy group. He’s an astute politician. It’s a foregone conclusion that he’ll win the AG race. The only question is whether he’ll be our next governor.

Rosie cups her hand over the mouthpiece. “He says it’s urgent.”

With Skipper, everything is urgent. “If it’s that important, it can wait.”

She smiles and tells him I’ll call as soon as I can. Then her grin disappears as she listens intently. She puts the chief law enforcement officer of the City and County of San Francisco on hold. “You might want to talk to him.”

“And why would I want to talk to Mr. Law and Order this fine morning?”

“Mr. Law and Order just got himself arrested.”

* * *

My new office isn’t much bigger than my old one downstairs. My window looks at a hole in the ground that will someday evolve into an office building across the alley. At least I don’t have to walk up a flight of stairs to the bathroom.

I stop in our closet-sized kitchen and pour coffee into a mug with Grace’s picture on it. I glance at the mirror over the sink. My full head of light brown hair is fighting a losing battle against the onslaught of the gray. The bags under my eyes are a little smaller than they were a week ago. I walk into my office, where my desk is littered with mail. I log on to my computer and start scrolling through e-mails. Finally I pick up the phone, punch the blinking red button, and say in my most authoritative tone, “Michael Daley speaking.”

“Skipper Gates,” says the familiar baritone. “I need your help ASAP. We have a situation.”

I haven’t heard the euphemism “We have a situation” since I left Simpson and Gates. We used to refer to this as Skipper speak. When somebody else screwed up, Skipper called it a fuck-up. When he screwed up, it was a situation.

“What is it, Skipper?”

“I need to see you right away.”

Nothing changes. I’m still going through my e-mails. We aren’t the best of pals. He led the charge to get me tossed out of the Simpson firm, and we’ve had our share of run-ins over the last couple of years. It comes with the territory when you make your living as a defense attorney. San Francisco is a small town. We have long memories and unlimited capacity for holding grudges. “Where are you?”

“The Hall of Justice.”

“In your office?”

“In the holding area. They’re treating me like a prisoner.”

“What happened?”

Silence.

“Skipper?”

He clears his throat. “We had a campaign rally at the Fairmont last night.” He always refers to himself in the royal we. “It ended late, so I decided to stay at the hotel. When I woke up this morning, there was a dead body in my room.”

These things happen. “How do you suppose it got there?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. It wasn’t there when I went to sleep last night.”

With Skipper, the line between reality and dreamland is often pretty fluid. He isn’t exactly lying. Well, not on purpose, anyway. He spends a substantial part of his waking hours in a parallel reality. This is a very useful skill if you’re a lawyer or a politician.

“Do you know who it was?”

“Uh, no.”

“Did you call security?”

“Of course. They called the cops.”

“What did they say?”

“They arrested me.” He may as well have added the words “you idiot.”

I stop to regroup. “Skipper, why did you call me?”

“We need to deal with this right away. We have to start damage control. This isn’t going to help me in the polls.”

I’ll say. A dead body is serious. “You know how the system works. You should hire somebody you trust. There are plenty of defense attorneys in town. I may not be the right guy for you.”

“You are the right guy. Notwithstanding our history, I called you for a reason. You’re a fighter. You have guts. You’ll tell me what you really think.” He pauses. “And unlike most of your contemporaries in the defense bar, you won’t try to cut a fast deal or turn this case into a self-serving infomercial.”

I’ll be damned. A compliment from Skipper Gates. “All right. I’ll be over right away.”

Rosie walks in. “So, did you get lucky?”

“Maybe. Looks like we may have a new case.”

“No, dummy. Mexico. Did you get lucky in Mexico?”

Rosie. Ever the pragmatist. First things first. “No, I didn’t get lucky.” I’m probably the only guy at Club Med who didn’t get lucky. “I’m still all yours.”

She’s pleased. “Well, then you did get lucky.” She glances at my notes. “What’s Skipper’s story?”

I take a sip of bitter coffee. “Nothing out of the ordinary. A dead body wandered into his room in the middle of the night. The cops think he had something to do with it becoming dead.”

“Have they identified the victim?”

“Not yet. The cops think it might have been a hooker.”

“How did she die?”

“They think it was suffocation.” I arch an eyebrow. “By the way, it wasn’t a she.”

Chapter 2
THE ASSHOLE PREMIUM

“The Hall of Justice isn’t a big tourist attraction.”

— San Francisco Police Chief. San Francisco Chronicle. Tuesday, September 7.

In San Francisco, the wheels of justice grind at a snail’s pace in the Hall of Justice, a monolithic six-story structure that rises above the 101 Freeway at the corner of Seventh and Bryant. The criminal courts, DA’s office, medical examiner and county jail jockey for space in this overcrowded testimonial to industrial-strength urban architecture. A modern new jail wing that opened in the nineties adds little to the overall ambiance of the original gray building, which dates to the fifties, and looks as if it could withstand a nuclear attack. I park my eleven-year-old Corolla in the pay lot next to the McDonald’s and walk quickly through the throng of reporters on the front steps of the Hall. The news is out.

I glare into the nearest camera and invoke Skipper speak. “We have a situation. This misunderstanding will be resolved shortly, and Mr. Gates will return to his duties at the DA’s office.” I push through the heavy doors, nod to the guard as I pass through the metal detector and walk up the stairs to the sixth floor of the new jail, known as County Jail Number 9.

I present my state bar card and driver’s license to Sergeant Phil Dito, a mustached, olive-skinned sheriff’s deputy who administers the intake center. “‘Mr. Law and Order’ is in booking. He’ll be up in a few minutes.”

I take a seat next to a man who is trying to persuade his parole officer that Jesus is talking to him. The parade of humanity resembles a flea market where police, prosecutors, public defenders and criminals barter in the hallway. Instead of selling trinkets, the prosecutors sell trips to jail and probation terms. If you sit here long enough, it almost sounds as if you’re listening to a dozen simultaneous time-share pitches for condos in Acapulco. When I was a PD, I used to make some of my best deals in this corridor.

Whenever I’m in the Hall, I think of my dad, who was a San Francisco cop. He died a few weeks after Grace’s first birthday. He detested lawyers— even the prosecutors. He was appalled when I became a PD. Somehow, I still expect to see him walking down the corridor, chest out, cigarette in his hand.

Sergeant Dito nods and a deputy leads me to an airless room behind the intake desk, where Skipper is pacing like a caged lion. Even unshaven and in an orange jumpsuit, he’s impressively handsome, all trim six feet six of him. His charismatic public persona remains intact. Until now, I have never seen him dressed in anything other than a top-of-the-line Brioni suit.

He wags a finger at me. “Somebody’s ass is going to fry for this.”

Hopefully, it won’t be yours.

He isn’t finished venting. “I’m going to kick the chief’s butt all the way back to Northern Station for promoting McBride.”

Inspector Elaine McBride made the arrest. She’s only the second woman to make homicide inspector on the SFPD. Her reputation is stellar.

Skipper takes a seat in a heavy wooden chair. “This is preposterous. It’s a publicity stunt.”

This sort of thing just isn’t supposed to happen to God-fearing Republicans. Getting arrested is society’s great equalizer. Even a well-connected, rich white guy like Skipper has been strip-searched, showered with disinfectant, given a medical interview and placed in a holding cell. There isn’t much dignity left after the process is completed.

I place a pad of white paper on the table. Nobody uses the yellow legal pads anymore. “You’re the DA. You know the drill. Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened.” He looks at the drab walls. On Friday, he was sitting in his opulent office on the third floor of the Hall. Now he’s sharing space with murderers, child molesters and pimps. “We had a kickoff rally for my campaign in the ballroom at the Fairmont last night. Fifteen hundred people showed up. It was terrific.”

Particularly if your idea of a good time is paying a thousand bucks a head to the Republican caucus to eat rubber chicken and kiss Skipper’s ass.

“The program broke up around eleven. Then we had a summit conference upstairs.”

Skipper never attends garden-variety meetings. Every gathering rises to the level of a “summit conference.” You would think they were talking about nuclear disarmament. Likewise, Skipper never serves on committees. Whenever he’s in the same room with another person, they become a “task force.” I play along. “Who was at the summit conference?”

“A couple of people from Sherman’s campaign. We were setting ground rules for our debates. They left around twelve-thirty.”

Leslie Sherman is Skipper’s worthy opponent. She’s a state senator from L.A. She’s a liberal Democrat. I’m planning to vote for her. Skipper can’t stand her. “Who showed up from her staff?”

His voice drips with contempt. “Dan Morris and one of his lackeys.”

Morris is Sherman’s campaign manager. He’s the most successful political consultant on the West Coast. He’s also the most vicious. Although he didn’t invent the negative campaign ad, he may have perfected it. He ran Skipper’s campaign for DA two years ago. Then they had a little falling out. Seems Dan wanted to double his fee this time around. Skipper thought the four hundred thousand dollars Dan charged for the DA’s race was exorbitant, and he balked. True to form, Dan switched sides. The Sherman camp is already running attack ads saying Skipper isn’t morally qualified to be the chief law enforcement officer of the State of California.

I ask, “Was anybody else with you?”

“Turner was there.”

Of course. Turner Stanford is Skipper’s confidant, campaign manager and former law partner. He lives around the corner from Skipper in Pacific Heights. They spend their time hobnobbing in the rarified air of San Francisco’s aristocracy.

He adds, “My daughter was there, too.”

Ann Huntington Gates is a one-woman wrecking crew in local government. A couple of years ago, Skipper convinced the mayor to appoint Ann to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors. It’s a decision the mayor has regretted ever since. She lobbies long and hard on behalf of the real estate developers and other big-business interests. The people from the neighborhoods hate her. When she isn’t terrorizing the Board of Supervisors, she’s a commercial litigator at Williams and Perry, a big downtown firm.

“What about Natalie?” I ask. Skipper’s long-suffering wife. Serious old-line money. Her great-grandfather was a Crocker. Her mother’s family used to own the Chronicle, where her name appears regularly in the society column.

“She went home early. She wasn’t feeling well. I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to her.”

I guess even self-centered guys like Skipper have to answer to somebody from time to time. “So you decided to stay at the hotel?”

“I do it all the time. I had a breakfast meeting this morning.” His eyes wander. “I didn’t want to go all the way out to the house.”

He lives ten minutes from the hotel. “May I assume, Skipper, that the dead man wasn’t there when everybody left?”

“That’s right.”

“And he wasn’t in your room when you went to bed?”

He looks a little too solemn. “I was by myself.”

Uh-huh. “And when you woke up this morning, the dead man was in bed with you?”

“He was in the bed. I fell asleep in the chair. I was watching TV. I woke up when the room service waiter knocked on the door. That’s when we found the body.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“Nope.”

“See anybody?”

“Nope.”

He’s a sound sleeper. “Did anyone else have a key to your room?”

“Just the hotel staff, I suppose.”

There you have it. He fell asleep in the chair in front of the TV. In the middle of the night, a body wandered into his room and plopped itself into his bed. Same thing happened to me in Cabo last week. “Skipper, did you know the guy?”

His eyes dart toward the door. “I’d never seen him before.”

“Do you know how he died?”

“It looked like he had suffocated. His face was covered with duct tape. He was handcuffed to the bedposts.”

I can confirm this from the police reports. “Did you touch the body?”

“Of course. I checked for a pulse. I pulled the tape off his face in case he could still breathe. I tried to release the handcuffs.”

“Then you called the police?”

“I called the hotel operator, who put me through to security. I told them to call the cops.”

“You realize your story sounds just a tiny bit odd.”

“I didn’t do it.”

It’s his story and he’s sticking to it. “For some reason, the police seem to think you did.”

His eyes narrow. “It isn’t a newsflash that I’m not going to win any popularity contests with the SFPD. I’m making the cops work harder than they have in a long time.”

They hate his guts. Although the public perceives Skipper as a champion of law and order, the police aren’t as easily impressed. They think he ducks the tough cases.

“I did the right thing,” he insists. “I called the cops. I gave them my statement. Next thing I know, McBride decides to be a big shot and arrests me.”

“What are you leaving out?”

“Nothing.” Even in an orange jumpsuit, he is capable of sounding condescending. “It’s a setup. I’m ahead in the polls. My political enemies want to embarrass me. That’s the only plausible explanation.”

Another plausible explanation is that he did it. On its face, that would seem pretty far-fetched. Politicians lie, cheat, call each other names and run attack ads. By and large, they don’t commit murders in hotel rooms. And it seems unlikely that a murderer would spend the night in the room with the body and hang around until the cops showed up.

I ask if he’s spoken to Natalie.

“I talked to her for a few minutes before I called you. She’s terribly upset. Ann went over to try to calm her down.”

“I’ll talk to McBride and the DA’s office. The arraignment will be later this week. I’ll need you to sign a client retention letter, and I’ll need a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“Sounds a little steep.”

If this case goes to trial, he’ll spend at least a quarter of a million dollars on legal fees and another hundred thousand for experts, jury consultants and investigators. He’s well aware of this. “Grace has to eat. If you’re out of here as soon as you think, your money will be cheerfully refunded.”

“We’re a little tight on cash. We’ve put a bunch of our liquid assets into the campaign war chest. You know how it is.”

Actually, I don’t. “If you want me to represent you, I’m going to need a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer. If that doesn’t work for you, you’ll have to find somebody else to handle your case.”

He waits a beat. “Fifty thousand it is. Bring along the letter this afternoon. I’ll sign whatever you want.”

It isn’t as if he’s going to read it.

“I want to be able to pick co-counsel,” he says. “I may want to bring in somebody else. And I’m not sure I want to use your ex-wife.”

Come again? “She’s my partner. More important, she’s one of the best criminal defense attorneys in San Francisco. If you hire me, you hire my firm. That includes Rosie.”

“You have to let me pick my own team. And you can’t expect me to use Carolyn.”

Carolyn O’Malley is the third attorney in our firm. She’s “of counsel,” which means she isn’t a partner, but she shares office space with us, and we pay her an hourly rate. She was a prosecutor in San Francisco for almost twenty years. She joined us about six months ago after she was unceremoniously purged from the DA’s office in one of Skipper’s moments of uninspired judgment. In a characteristic fit of pique, she switched sides. Most of her vitriol has been directed at Skipper.

“Rosie and Carolyn are essential members of my team. I won’t work without them. Maybe it would be better if you find somebody else to handle your case.” I stand and head toward the door.

As I reach for the handle, I hear Skipper’s voice behind me. “I’m in a tight spot. I need your help.”

I turn around and face him. “Rosie and Carolyn are part of the package. If you’re smart, you’ll hire the best defense attorneys your money can buy. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“If you still want me to represent you, I’ll be back this afternoon with a retention letter. I’ll let you pick co-counsel, but I’m going to make all the final decisions on strategy. Rosie sits at the defense table.”

“Understood.”

“And I’m going to need a check for a hundred thousand dollars.”

“I thought you said it was fifty.”

“It was. The price just went up.” Rosie and I refer to this as charging the Asshole Premium. We reserve such special treatment for our more difficult clients. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” he says through clenched teeth. “No problem.”

“Good.”

The deputy knocks on the door. “We need to finish your client’s paperwork.”

It’s my turn to point a finger at Skipper. “Don’t talk to anybody. I’ll see if I can get this cleared up before things get out of hand.”

“I didn’t do it. Somebody’s going to pay for this.”

* * *

I’m walking past the intake desk when I hear my name called out by an unmistakable velvet voice. “Michael, do you have a moment to chat?”

Skipper’s close friend and my former partner at Simpson and Gates, Turner Hamilton Stanford IV, doesn’t speak to anyone. He chats.

I look into the eyes of the man I once dubbed the Silver Fox. Everything about him is in muted tones of gray. The impeccably tailored Italian suit. The neatly pressed kerchief in his breast pocket. The full head of hair and meticulously trimmed beard. At sixty-one, he carries his slender six-foot-two-inch frame with the erect bearing of an athlete. He and Skipper were teammates on the Stanford basketball team.

We shake hands. Turner’s polished, soft-spoken demeanor and elegant air mask a vicious greedy streak. In legal circles, he’s what’s called a “juice” lawyer, which means he charges his clients exorbitant sums to manipulate the San Francisco planning commission to obtain building permits and zoning variances. In his spare time, he dabbles in real estate development and political consulting. He also owns an obscenely expensive French restaurant near Union Square.

Turner’s earned millions from his law practice, but he made most of his money the old-fashioned way— he inherited it. Although I have never been able to trace his exact lineage, he claims to be a descendant of the family that founded the university in Palo Alto that bears his name. I’ve always had doubts.

“I got here as soon as I could,” he says. “I stopped to see Natalie for a few minutes. Skipper told her he was going to call you. This is a disaster.”

I’ve never been able to read him. Although Turner is running Skipper’s campaign and they’re close, he’s a registered Democrat. He manages to delude himself into believing the sixties never ended. It’s difficult for self-righteous liberals like me to deal with limousine liberals like him, especially when they run political campaigns for fascists like Skipper. While I’m busy casting stones, I should point out that the lawyers of Fernandez and Daley are willing to represent Republicans as well as Democrats, as long as they are prepared to pay our very reasonable fees.

I explain that I have already spoken to Skipper. “He said you were at the Fairmont last night.”

“I was.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. The police won’t tell me anything.” He glances at Sergeant Dito and lowers his voice. “We had a summit conference with Sherman’s people.”

Now he’s doing Skipper speak.

“I left around twelve-thirty. I got a phone call from Skipper at seven-thirty this morning. By the time I got there, they had arrested him.”

We decide the intake desk may not be the best place to talk about last night’s events. He says he’s going to see Skipper. Then he’s going to hold a press briefing.

* * *

I’m standing in the lobby of the Hall. Rosie’s tone is incredulous as I press my cell tightly against my right ear. “Did you really tell Skipper he was going to have to pay the Asshole Premium?”

“He is an asshole,” I deadpan.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Rosie has never appreciated my unique rainmaking skills. She’s also keenly aware of my rather lackadaisical attitude toward money. I assure her that I did not, in fact, use the term asshole when I told Skipper he was going to have to give us a larger retainer. I leave out any mention of the fact that Skipper isn’t wild about including her or Carolyn on the defense team.

“What did he tell you?” she asks.

“He’s adamant. He says he didn’t do it.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I find it hard to picture him killing someone. Besides, he’s very calculating. I can’t imagine he would do anything to jeopardize his political career.”

“Does that mean you believe him?”

“I’m not sure.” I glance at the guard sitting by the metal detectors. “One other thing. We need to talk about whether we want to take on Skipper as a client.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I don’t trust him. It’s too personal. There’s too much history.”

“I can think of a hundred thousand reasons. That may be enough to pay for a year at Stanford when Grace gets there.”

“She’s going to Cal.”

“Let’s take it from the top, Mike. What do we do at our firm?”

This ritual reminds me of when we were married— and why we got divorced. “Criminal defense law.”

“That means we represent criminals, right?”

“Right.” I hate this.

“And criminals do bad things, right? And they lie.”

“Yes, they do, Rosie.”

“And we don’t make moral judgments about our clients, do we?”

“No, we don’t.” Well, she doesn’t. I do.

“So the fact that Skipper may be a manipulative liar makes him about the same as all of our other clients, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yes, it is, except for one thing.”

I always lose these arguments. “Which is?”

“Skipper is loaded. I don’t like him any more than you do. But he needs a criminal defense attorney, and he can pay us. That’s good enough for me.”

I hate it when she’s right.

“Get the retainer and we’ll see what happens. One other thing. Natalie called. She wants to talk to you right away.”