Hard Bitten

by M. K. York

  “You never been a godfather before?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, you have to wear a suit.”

  “Well, fuck. I’ll get my good suit cleaned. Boy or girl? Do you know yet?”

  “Yeah, should be a little girl.” Nick smiled self-consciously, puffing out his chest.

  “That’s so fucking great, man!” Lukas couldn’t help himself; he pounded vigorously on Nick’s back in congratulations. “She can play with Madison!”

  “Ah, come on, Madison’s going to think she’s too big and cool to play with our kid.”

  “Hey, Madison likes babies! They’ll get along great.”

  “I hope so. It would sure be convenient.”

  There were more backslaps, more congratulations. Finally, Nick reluctantly went back to his business, and Lukas was left to walk back to his car. He needed the downtown library, not the little neighborhood branch.

  He slid into his seat, buckling—stopped to text Mark, why are you working on a Saturday?

  I’m not but I know you are

  of course I am. relax, I’ll get it right

  I know

  There were a few beats of nothing. He started the engine.

  The phone buzzed one more time. Case is on my mind. High stakes.

  Yeah, he said, and couldn’t think of anything else to reply to that. Mark was right. High stakes for everyone—for the defendant, for the lawyers. Even for him.

  Didn’t matter, in the end, whether they won or lost the case, not to his prospects for employment. What would matter was whether he’d done his homework right: whether he’d gotten the information they asked for in a timely fashion, written up the reports, followed the rules. Been easy and pleasant to work with. God, he was trying so hard to be easy and pleasant to work with. The ongoing struggle.

  First had been college; he’d gotten his associate’s from the community college closest to where he’d been living at the time, and then tried to go four-year at the university. Failure hadn’t even crept up on him. He’d seen it coming from the very beginning. So much money, and so much pressure, and he hadn’t been able to afford the dorms so he’d been stuck in traffic on the bus every goddamn morning, and he hadn’t been working so he’d been living in his parents’ basement.

  And that was when he’d had his first real boyfriend too. Somebody with a single room on campus who thought the tall blond guy was interesting, would be interesting if he opened up more. It hadn’t lasted long. He wasn’t—covering up some kind of internal social butterfly. There was no butterfly. He was what he was.

  Which wasn’t enough, for most people. They wanted him to talk more. They wanted to hear what he was thinking, and then they wanted to blame him when what he was thinking wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

  He’d started the police academy thinking maybe, maybe there was someplace he could just get the job done without worrying so much about talking. That hadn’t lasted either.

  So he’d drifted into this, like so many private investigators did—drifted into an utterly unremarkable car with tinted windows, a nice video camera that came in handy at the holidays, and long nights and weekends of trying to scrape together enough to pay rent and cover gas.

  Finding parking downtown was a bitch, even on a Saturday afternoon. He finally managed to get a place in a lot not too far from the library.

  It was always the same when he walked in. That first rush of warm, slightly stale air when the doors opened, the high ceilings, the glass and windows everywhere. And once he got farther back into it, the wild colors slowly giving way to the organized chaos of the departments he needed.

  There were worse ways to spend an afternoon. Or a life.

  Chapter Six

  Mark answered his phone. “Hi, this is Mark.”

  It was Lukas. “No smoking gun in the business filings.”

  “Damn.”

  “But I don’t think it’s completely legit.”

  “Wait, what?” He swung his feet off the edge of the couch, sitting up. “Not legit how, exactly?”

  “Their profits look good. Really good. Like, didn’t take a hit in the recession.”

  “That seems weird.”

  “Right? You’d have to compare their performance to other shipping companies, and I just kind of glanced at some others, but it looks like they’re reporting really steady income, considering.”

  “So you think they might actually be, what, a front?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. But shipping? Transport? I can see a couple of ways that could be useful if you had some criminal interests.”

  “Christ. Drugs?”

  “And I’m saying, I don’t know, but it might be worth looking into. Like, getting a real expert.”

  “Aw, don’t say that. You’re a real expert!” Mark faked a brightly condescending voice and was gratified to hear Lukas snort.

  “Yeah, whatever. You need an accountant for this.”

  “I don’t know if we can get one. I’ll talk to Lena tomorrow. Normally this would be the kind of shit the cops would have looked at, but I’m guessing they’re a lot less interested in the company since they think our client did it.”

  “She makes a pretty easy target.”

  “Sure.” Mark huffed quietly. “A really easy target, don’t you think?”

  “What, you’re thinking somebody set her up?”

  “I mean, as her lawyer that’s definitely what I’m going to say. Either intentionally or unintentionally.”

  “But what do you think?” Lukas’s voice was grave, intense. “If you had to pick. Intentional or unintentional?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. It seems far-fetched that someone would frame her. But if they were looking for somebody to pin it on... She’s a basket case. She’s not going to do a great job of helping with her own defense.”

  “Out of everybody I’ve met at the company,” Lukas mused, “I’d pick her.”

  “To frame?”

  “To frame.”

  They were both quiet for a minute, considering the ramifications of that.

  “I like that you can pick somebody,” said Mark finally, just to break the tension. “Like, you’ve thought about this, you’ve got your scapegoat selected.”

  “Don’t you?” Lukas sounded darkly amused.

  “Sure, but it’s my job. For the case, I’m going to suggest the widow did it. Unless the evidence on her alibi changes, it’s just her friend’s word that they were shopping. We filed discovery on the credit card charges the cops pulled, so we’ll know pretty soon whether that’s a thing or not.”

  “And she has at least as much reason to want him dead as the girlfriend.”

  “Right?” Mark leaned back against the couch cushion. “Maybe more, even. I’ll see what we can put together for a little deeper digging on the company financials. Ooh, I got to say ‘financials.’”

  “You don’t usually?”

  “Usually if I do it’s in the context of my client not having any.”

  Lukas chuckled. “Sure.”

  Mark stretched, groaning softly. “Anyway, I’ll call you about it. Hoping we can get an accountant. God knows I don’t want to have to try to understand this shit myself without somebody holding my hand and explaining it to me in really small words.”

  “Put that big brain to use. I hear being a lawyer is hard.”

  “Oh, nice. Real nice.”

  Lukas laughed again. “Okay, look, I better go. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too. Whatever you do with it. Work? I bet it’s work.”

  “Not tonight, it’s not. I ordered a pizza. I’m going to meet it at my place.”

  “Ooh, sounds like fun.”

  “You bet. Good night.”

  “Yeah, yeah, good night.” Mark hung up.

  When he talked to her the next day, Lena liked the idea.

  “Shady as hell.” She was already flipping through her actual, honest-to-God Rolodex. “If they didn’t tank in the recession there’s somet
hing fucked-up there.”

  “Are you going to talk to the DA about it?”

  “First I want enough in hand that John sees I’m right. He’s a reasonable man. Once we have something to show, he’ll get the cops to dig harder.”

  “This is all very exciting.”

  Lena grinned, manicured fingernails pausing on a card. “You might get to take credit for creating an alternate hypothesis that’s not just a wad of chewing gum and fairy spit.”

  “I—what?”

  “Now get out of my office. I have to call these guys. Don’t forget we’re doing the motion to suppress tomorrow!”

  He called Lukas to tell him, but Lukas didn’t pick up, so he just left a short message. He felt like he probably sounded too excited for a murder case. He didn’t care. This was interesting. For once in his godforsaken career, something more than a driver’s license was at stake.

  *

  The motion to suppress went ahead quickly. It was easy to file. Weirdly enough, Kline decided to hear it in chambers; these kinds of motions usually went in open court, but Kline insisted.

  Lena had waffled before deciding that she’d present the oral argument. “I want to give it to you,” she told Mark, “especially since you’ve got the DUI case, but this is critical. If we can get the search findings suppressed, it makes our case on the arson look about a million times better.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he’d said. “Makes sense.” And it wasn’t like he loved presenting oral arguments either. Sure, it was necessary, it was the kind of skill he needed to get comfortable with, but maybe on the biggest case they’d seen all year was not the time.

  So once they were invited in, it was Lena who started, delivering the argument with her usual cool, calm precision. No one had ever accused Lena of getting emotional—at least, not where Mark could hear them. There wasn’t a chair for Mark, so he stood awkwardly behind the senior attorneys.

  Kline sat behind his mammoth desk in his robes, giving her the gimlet eye. A drop of condensation was running slowly down the outside of the glass pitcher of ice water next to him. There was a golf magazine sitting off to one side, and a picture of him posing with Newt Gingrich on the wall. His degrees (bachelor’s from Columbia, JD from Harvard) were elaborately framed.

  When she finished, John Dauer sat forward in his chair, obviously ready to start, but Kline said to Lena, “Your motion is not granted.”

  “What?” she asked, blankly.

  “I don’t find your argument persuasive, Counselor. My understanding is that the officers involved dispute the timeline.”

  Lena stared at him. “The case law is clear—”

  “I wasn’t asking for debate.” He reached for the pitcher and poured himself a glass of water. “Motion is denied.”

  In the hall afterward, Dauer gave them a bemused shrug before walking off. Lena was frowning ferociously into the middle distance. Mark started to herd her back in the direction of their offices.

  “That’s such bullshit,” she said at length.

  “It seemed pretty bullshitty, yeah.”

  “He didn’t even have Dauer speak. He had his mind made up before we walked in there.”

  “Sure seemed that way.”

  “Fuck.” Lena shook her head vigorously. “Well. Guess we’d better hope the widow’s alibi keeps looking shitty. Looks like we’re going to trial.”

  *

  It was rapidly approaching Halloween; the office started to accrue small seasonal touches, like pumpkins and hanging rubber bats. They didn’t do much for the general atmosphere of the office, but you couldn’t fault people for trying.

  Katie Deacon threw an annual Halloween party. Mark was, abstractly, aware of this, because there were pictures. Terrible, terrible pictures that had made their way to social media and been preserved for all time, despite the attempts of various attorneys to scrub them from the internet. Pictures with triple chins, spilled glasses of wine, and attorneys he knew as upstanding members of the community wearing kitty-cat ears. But as this was his first Halloween with the office, it was also his first year being invited.

  “I don’t know, Katie.” He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he ruffled through the pages of the stack of cases the paralegal had left on his desk. “I might get trick-or-treaters.”

  “You’re planning on sitting in the dark until they all go away, and we both know it,” she replied crisply. “Look, I invite Lena every year and she says no, but there are a lot of lawyers from the community who do come. I’m inviting you new guys so you can network. Just stay reasonably sober, shake some hands, do your career some good.”

  “I—oh. Thanks?”

  “You’re welcome. The directions to my house are on the Facebook page. It’s not a costume party, so don’t do anything stupid.”

  “So you’re saying I shouldn’t go in a Playboy Bunny costume.”

  “Two reasons why not. A) Playboy is garbage and B) lots of people you may one day want to work for will be there.”

  “Why do you invite so many lawyers, anyway?”

  She snorted incredulously. “Did you seriously not know I’m married to one?”

  “I...did not know that, no.”

  “You can meet my husband at the party.”

  “Is he a criminal attorney?”

  “No, he was for a while but he got out of it. He’s one of the partners at Beichman, Beichman, Fournier, and Deacon.”

  “... I’m guessing he’s the Deacon.”

  “You guess right.”

  “All right. When you’re done mocking me I’ll confirm that I will show up, dressed like a mature adult.”

  “Oh, don’t be that formal about it. Wear a nice sweater or something. Or a turtleneck.”

  “It’s not 1994, and I am neither Martha Stewart nor Steve Jobs.”

  “I’d hope not. He’s dead and she’s a felon.”

  “I’m not wearing a turtleneck.”

  “It would look nice on you, but fine. Suit yourself. Wear something a little more festive than a suit but a little less festive than a bunny costume.”

  “What if I wear the bunny costume over the suit?”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Also, can you say ‘festive’ about Halloween? I feel like it’s too early. I think you can’t start calling things ‘festive’ until at least Thanksgiving. Maybe after.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “So polite! Most of the people around here don’t even warn me.”

  She burst into musical laughter. “So I’ll see you Saturday night.”

  “You will. With bells on.”

  “Good.”

  *

  “Lukas.” Katie’s voice sounded a little tinny over the phone. “Good news, they want you to do a couple more interviews on the Carville case.”

  “That’s great!” He sat straight up at his table. The café with the big windows was mostly deserted at two p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, and he liked to work there, watch the world go by. The expensive drinks were one of the few luxuries he let himself have on a regular basis. “Is this about the accounting?”

  “Yeah. The request is for you to reinterview the owner.”

  “Oh, great. He’s going to love that.”

  “Also, you have to come to my Halloween party.”

  “Katie...”

  “No. I know you’re going to say you’ve got a job, you’re tired, whatever, but it’s Halloween. Anybody screwing around on Halloween can do it on their own time. You have to come.”

  “I really am going to be tired, though. I’ve got an overnight surveillance job before that.”

  “So go home and take a nap. Look, all the attorneys from the Department of Public Defense are going to be there. You want them to get to know you, they’re where your jobs come from.”

  “All of them?” The hair on the back of his neck was standing up.

  “Well, Lena won’t come. And Travis might only come for a little while, since he’s got the kids, but he
usually tries to show. Bill comes every year, though, and the new kids are all coming.”

  “The new kids?”

  “The fresh crop. Jen and Gavin and Mark.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You can bring a date if you want to. I think Jen is.”

  “I...probably won’t.”

  “That’s fine. More wine for me.”

  “Take it easy on the good stuff.”

  “You know I will. Anyway, you’re coming?”

  “Yeah, I’ll come.”

  “Great!” She sounded very chipper about that. “We should have a fun group this year. Karl Waterhousen is coming, and he likes to sing, so if we can get him and Bill doing a duet, it’ll really make the night.”

  “Sure?”

  “You’ll see.”

  *

  Lukas got the official request for additional interviews the next day. He was dreading calling Ron Williams, but eventually he clenched his jaw, grabbed a notepad, and dialed. Williams’s assistant blandly penciled him in for a twenty-minute meeting that Friday.

  It could have been worse.

  Williams didn’t say much new in the interview. Just blustered around how of course his company was successful, they were a model for doing things right, he had a great team, etc. Lukas was bored after the first ten minutes, but stuck it out for the full twenty and then dutifully reported back to Mark.

  Mark texted, Thanks for trying, then a minute later, You going to Katie’s party?

  Saturday? yeah

  See you there

  Lukas didn’t respond to that. He wasn’t sure what to say.

  *

  Mark slept deeply the night before the party. It had been a long week, and visions of court were starting to dance in his head.

  His mother called the next day, halfway through a restless attempt at reading a book one of his friends had given to him.

  “Hey, sweetie!” she chirped. “How are you?”

  “Good, Mom. How’s Dad?”

  “Oh, he’s doing just fine. He went to see the doctor the other day,” which was, as always, the lead-in to an interminable sequence of descriptions that somehow always led back to his dad being perfectly fine.