“I hear it’s your birthday, Chief,” said the crew chief, through the comm.
“Damn right it is,” Tami said, grinning. “Why do you think she has the controls?”
Jolene grinned at her best friend, loving this feeling, needing it like she needed air to breathe. She didn’t care about getting older or getting wrinkles or slowing down. “Forty-one. I can’t think of a better way to spend it.”
The small town of Poulsbo, Washington, sat like a pretty little girl along the shores of Liberty Bay. The original settlers had chosen this area because it reminded them of their Nordic homeland, with its cool blue waters, soaring mountains, and lush green hillsides. Years later, those same founding fathers had begun to build their shops along Front Street, embellishing them with Scandinavian touches. There were cutwork rooflines and scrolled decorations everywhere.
According to Zarkades family legend, the decorations had spoken to Michael’s mother instantly, who swore that once she walked down Front Street, she knew where she wanted to live. Dozens of quaint stores— including the one his mother owned— sold overpriced knickknacks to tourists.
It was less than ten miles from downtown Seattle, as a crow flew, although those few miles created a pain-in-the-ass commute. Sometime in the past few years, Michael had stopped seeing the Norwegian cuteness of the town and began to notice instead the long and winding drive from his house to the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island and the stop-and-go midweek traffic.
There were two routes from Poulsbo to Seattle— over land and over water. The drive took two hours. The ferry ride was a thirty-five-minute crossing from the shores of Bainbridge Island to the terminal on Seattle’s wharf.
The problem with the ferry was the wait time. To drive your car onboard, you had to be in line early. In the summer, he often rode his bike to work; on rainy days like today— which were so plentiful in the Northwest— he drove. And this had been an especially long winter and a wet spring. Day after gray day, he sat in his Lexus in the parking lot, watching daylight crawl up the sides of Mount Rainier and along the wavy surface of the Sound. Then he drove aboard, parked in the bowels of the boat, and went upstairs.
Today, Michael sat on the port side of the boat at a small formica table, with his work spread out in front of him; the Woerner deposition. Post-it notes ran like yellow piano keys along the edges, each one highlighting a statement of questionable veracity made by his client.
Lies. Michael sighed at the thought of undoing the damage. His idealism, once so shiny and bright, had been dulled by years of defending the guilty.
In the past, he would have talked to his dad about it, and his father would have put it all in perspective, reminding Michael that their job made a difference.
We are the last bastian, Michael, you know that— the champions of freedom. Don’t let the bad guys break you. We protect the innocent by protecting the guilty. That’s how it works.
I could use a few more innocents, Dad.
Couldn’t we all? We’re all waiting for it…that case, the one that matters. We know, more than most, how it feels to save someone’s life. To make a difference. That’s what we do, Michael. Don’t lose the faith.
He looked at the empty seat across from him.
It had been eleven months now that he’d ridden to work alone. One day his father had been beside him, hale and hearty and talking about the law he loved, and then he’d been sick. Dying.
He and his father had been partners for almost twenty years, working side by side, and losing him had shaken Michael deeply. He grieved for the time they’d lost; most of all, he felt alone in a way that was new. The loss made him look at his own life, too, and he didn’t like what he saw.
Until his father’s death, Michael had always felt lucky, happy; now, he didn’t.
He wanted to talk to someone about all this, share his loss. But with whom? He couldn’t talk to his wife about it. Not Jolene, who believed that happiness was a choice to be made and a smile was a frown turned upside down. Her turbulent, ugly childhood had left her impatient with people who couldn’t choose to be happy. Lately, it got on his nerves, all her buoyant it-will-get-better platitudes. Because she’d lost her parents, she thought she understood grief, but she had no idea how it felt to be drowning. How could she? She was Teflon strong.
He tapped his pen on the table and glanced out the window. The Sound was gunmetal gray today, desolate looking, mysterious. A seagull floated past on a current of invisible air, seemingly in suspended animation.
He shouldn’t have given in to Jolene, all those years ago, when she’d begged for the house on Liberty Bay. He’d told her he didn’t want to live so far from the city— or that close to his parents, but in the end he’d given in, swayed by her pretty pleas and the solid argument that they’d need his mother’s help in babysitting. But if he hadn’t given in, if he hadn’t lost the where-we-live argument, he wouldn’t be sitting here on the ferry every day, missing the man who used to meet him here…
As the ferry slowed, Michael got up and collected his papers, putting the deposition back in the black lambskin briefcase. He hadn’t even looked at it. Merging into the crowd, he made his way down the stairs to the car deck. In minutes, he was driving off the ferry and pulling up to the Smith Tower, once the tallest building west of New York and now an aging, gothic footnote to a city on the rise.
In Zarkades, Antham, and Zarkades, on the ninth floor, everything was old— floors, windows in need of repair, too many layers of paint— but, like the building itself, there was history here, and beauty. A wall of windows overlooked Elliott Bay and the great orange cranes that loaded containers onto tankers. Some of the biggest and most important criminal trials in the past twenty years had been defended by Theo Zarkades, from these very offices. At gatherings of the bar association, other lawyers still spoke of his father’s ability to persuade a jury with something close to awe.
“Hey, Michael,” Helen, the receptionist said, smiling up at him.
He waved and kept walking, past the earnest paralegals, tired legal secretaries, and ambitious young associates. Everyone smiled at him, and he smiled back. At the corner office— previously his father’s and now his— he stopped to talk to his secretary. “Good morning, Ann.”
“Good morning, Michael. Bill Antham wanted to see you.”
“Okay. Tell him I’m in.”
“You want some coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
He went into his office, the largest one in the firm. A huge window looked out over Elliott Bay; that was really the star of the room, the view. Other than that, the office was ordinary— bookcases filled with law books, a wooden floor scarred by decades of wear, a pair of overstuffed chairs, a black suede sofa. A single family photo sat next to his computer, the only personal touch in the space.
He tossed his briefcase onto the desk and went to the window, staring out at the city his father had loved. In the glass, he saw a ghostly image of himself— wavy black hair, strong, squared jaw, dark eyes. The image of his father as a younger man. But had his father ever felt so tired and drained?
Behind him, there was a knock, and then the door opened. In walked Bill Antham, the only other partner in the firm, once his father’s best friend. In the months since Dad’s death, Bill had aged, too. Maybe they all had.
“Hey, Michael,” he said, limping forward, reminding Michael with each step that he was well past retirement age. In the last year, he’d gotten two new knees.
“Have a seat, Bill,” Michael said, indicating the chair closest to the desk.
“Thanks.” He sat down. “I need a favor.”
Michael returned to his desk. “Sure, Bill. What can I do for you?”
“I was in court yesterday, and I got tapped by Judge Runyon.”
Michael sighed and sat down. It was common for criminal defense attorneys to be assigned cases by the court— it was the old, if you require an attorney and cannot afford one bit. Judges often assigned a case to whatev
“A man killed his wife. Allegedly. He barricaded himself in his house and shot her in the head. SWAT team dragged him out before he could kill himself. TV filmed a bunch of it.”
A guilty client who had been caught on TV. Perfect. “And you want me to handle the case for you.”
“I wouldn’t ask…but Nancy and I are leaving for Mexico in two weeks.”
“Of course,” Michael said. “No problem.”
Bill’s gaze moved around the room. “I still expect to find him in here,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” Michael said.
They looked at each other for a moment, both remembering the man who had made such an impact on their lives. Then Bill stood, thanked Michael again, and left.
After that, Michael dove into his work, letting it consume him. He spent hours buried in depositions and police reports and briefs. He had always had a strong work ethic and an even stronger sense of duty. In the rising tide of grief, work had become his life ring.
At three o’clock, Ann buzzed him on the intercom. “Michael? Jolene is on line one.”
“Thanks, Ann.”
“You did remember that it’s her 40th birthday today, right?”
Shit.
He pushed back from his desk and grabbed the phone. “Hey, Jo. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
She didn’t scold him for forgetting, although she knew he had. Jolene had the tightest grip on her emotions of anyone he’d ever seen, and she never ever let herself get mad. He sometimes wondered if a good fight would help their marriage, but it took two to fight. “I’ll make it up to you. How about dinner at that place above the marina? The new place?”
Before she could offer some resistance (which she always did if something wasn’t her idea), he said, “Betsy is old enough to watch Lulu for two hours. We’ll only be a mile away from home.”
It was an argument that had been going on for almost a year now. Michael thought a twelve-year-old could babysit; Jolene disagreed. As with everything in their life, Jolene’s vote was the one that counted. He was used to it…and sick of it.
“I know how busy you are with the Woerner case,” she said. “How about if I feed the girls early and settle them upstairs with a movie and then make us a nice dinner? Or I could pick up takeout from the bistro; we love their food.”
“Are you sure?”
“What matters is that we’re together,” she said easily.
“Okay,” Michael said. “I’ll be home by eight.”
Before he hung up the phone, he was thinking of something else.
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