Dead Certain: A Novel

by Adam Mitzner

  So when Jeffrey left me with a monthly rent I couldn’t afford on an ADA’s salary and my father reiterated for the millionth time that it would be the perfect moment for me to come aboard and practice “real” law—by which he meant for clients who pay—my resolve finally cracked and I accepted.

  I’ve wished I hadn’t every day since.

  Tonight that regret is hitting me hard. I can feel the pull toward Lava, but that will have to wait one more evening. More and more, I’ve begun to feel that my secret life is becoming as addictive as a drug habit—and perhaps just as dangerous to my long-term well-being. I know that Charlotte’s news is the reason I feel like I need just a little hit, and I’m also self-aware enough to appreciate that it will be an increasing problem as my sister becomes more successful by following her passion and I’m left with the harsh truth that my life is, for lack of a better word, passionless.

  I open a bottle of white wine and take it, a glass, and Charlotte’s manuscript over to my sofa. My plan is to start Charlotte’s book after I unwind a bit, but half a bottle later, in the middle of some ridiculous pay-for-view rom-com that I have no idea why I selected, I pass out on my sofa.

  If I hadn’t been wallowing in my own self-pity, I might have paid more attention to the fact that I hadn’t heard from Charlotte that evening. It’s not unprecedented for us to go twenty-four hours without any type of contact, but it’s much more the exception than the rule. Usually I’ll get a text of her toes or something before bed, or I’ll see that she’s posted something on Facebook or Instagram or tweeted something that I’ll “like,” or vice versa.

  But on that night, I don’t hear a peep.

  DAY TWO

  WEDNESDAY

  4.

  I’m still feeling a little hungover the next morning. As I walk through the glass double doors leading to the Law Offices of F. Clinton Broden, all I can think about is getting some coffee in my bloodstream.

  Unfortunately, before I can get my fix, Ashleigh says, “Your father’s in the conference room with a client. New business. He wants you to join them.”

  New business is the siren song that no lawyer can resist. Even the receptionist knows it’s the lifeblood of any law firm.

  “For the love of God, please tell me that there’s coffee in there?”

  “Yes.” Ashleigh laughs. “Freshly brewed, in fact. And muffins. I ordered them from Angelina’s.”

  I take a deep breath and push open the conference-room door. My father is sitting with his back to the window, allowing the client to enjoy the helicopter views.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, Ella,” my father says.

  The client turns around. For the second time, I suck in a mouthful of oxygen.

  “Hi Ella,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”

  Indeed it has. I last laid eyes on Paul Michelson ten years ago, when he was breaking up with me, a week after we graduated from college. I had had hopes of spending the summer together and then giving a long-distance relationship a chance, with him staying in New York to start a job on Wall Street while I went to law school at Stanford. He said that he wasn’t aware of any relationship that survived in different cities, much less on different coasts, and that it would save us both a lot of heartache if we just made a clean break.

  I spent the summer in a fog of depression. Paul went backpacking in Europe. While there, he met up with Kelly Nelson, a fellow classmate of ours. I had been somewhat friendly with her during our junior year, when we sat next to each other in some poli-sci class. I didn’t think Paul even knew her, and it was never clear to me whether he had prearranged their supposedly coincidental rendezvous, which occurred in front of the Louvre.

  “Oh my God,” I say. The moment the words come out of my mouth I realize I sound like I’m still the twenty-one-year-old he dumped a decade ago. In an effort to regain some professionalism, I add, “It has been a long time.”

  It looks as if time has stood still for Paul. He hasn’t gained more than five pounds since college or lost a single strand of the jet-black hair that first made me notice him, although it’s now neatly cut, whereas back in the day he wore it shaggy and past his collar. The only other thing that’s different about him is that he now looks to be wearing a $5,000 suit, and the Paul I knew was strictly a sweatshirt-and-jeans kind of guy.

  My eyes glance down to his hand. No wedding band.

  All of which makes me more than a little self-conscious that I’m not looking my best. Not only is my face puffy—the way it always gets after I drink too much wine—but I’m also wearing an old suit, one of the last vestiges of my public-sector wardrobe.

  The coffee and muffins are set out on the buffet along the back wall. I go there as if pulled by a magnetic force and quickly pour myself a cup of coffee. The aroma soothes me with the thought that I’ll be consuming it soon. I want to take a muffin too, but think better of eating in front of Paul.

  Coffee cup in hand, I make my way to the chair beside my father, which requires walking around Paul. As I pass him, I can’t help but breathe in his scent. More intoxicating than the coffee. I would have recognized it if I’d been blind.

  Once I’m seated, I take in a few strong sips of coffee. Then I reach across the table for a yellow legal pad, write the date on the top of the page, and wait for someone to fill me in.

  My father does the honors.

  “Your old friend Paul is now the head of the derivatives desk at Maeve Grant.”

  Maeve Grant is one of the biggest financial houses on Wall Street. Running a desk there means that Paul’s done quite well for himself.

  “As it happens, one of the newest employees on that desk is Jennifer Barnett,” my father continues. “Does that name ring a bell?”

  I wonder if my father is being sarcastic. Every person in the English-speaking world has heard of Jennifer Barnett. Her pretty face, bright blue eyes, and blonde ponytail have been a ubiquitous presence on television, the tabloids, and social media since she vanished without a trace.

  “Yes, the missing woman,” I say.

  The fact that Paul is meeting with a lawyer of my father’s caliber only days after an attractive young woman who works for him went missing means that there’s only one place this is heading: a place no one wants to go.

  My father is in full defense-lawyer mode. A happy-go-lucky expression fills his face—even as we sit in the presence of a potential murderer.

  “So I’m sure you’re well aware that, at the moment, there’s no evidence of any foul play regarding her disappearance,” he says. “Nevertheless, Paul made the decision—the right one, in my opinion—to get out in front of things. The police made a visit to interview everyone on the desk. As luck would have it, Paul was traveling that day so he hasn’t yet spoken with them. He’s now wisely decided that he’d benefit from some top-shelf legal advice before deciding whether to sit down with law enforcement.”

  I don’t react to my father’s assertion that the proper response to a routine police inquiry regarding a missing woman is to lawyer up. In my experience, that’s what guilty people do. Innocent people offer to help.

  “I was just telling Paul that since you’ve come over from the dark side, we’ve been tag-teaming most matters, and that we would handle this matter in the same fashion. I’ve also just shared with him that I have a very busy trial schedule for the next two months, which means that you’ll be the point person. I’ve assured him that if something material were to happen with the investigation, I’d drop everything.”

  I nod reassuringly, like a political spouse. My father has made this pitch to many a client since I’ve arrived—it’s a classic bait-and-switch. The clients hire him but they get me, with the promise that if they really need him, he’ll be there. What he always leaves unstated is that he’s the final arbiter of whether they do really need him, and he almost never decides they do.

  “What my father so lovingly describes as my time on the dark side,” I say, “was actually six years as an A
ssistant District Attorney here in Manhattan, where I rose to become the deputy chief of the Special Victims Bureau. So although I’d be the first to admit that I don’t have my father’s standing in the courthouse—honestly, no one does—I’m intimately acquainted with the methods used in the DA’s office.”

  Paul’s response to me touting my credentials is an ambiguous smile. It isn’t clear to me if it suggests that I have his complete confidence or that he is thinking solely about getting me back in bed. Truth be told, it’s the reaction I get from a lot of the male clients.

  “Very good,” my father says. “So, let’s get down to it, shall we? I’m going to start by giving you some rules for the road. The gospel according to F. Clinton Broden, as it were.”

  My colleagues in the DA’s office had always suspected that criminal-defense lawyers gave this speech. Call me naive, but I disagreed. Until, that is, I heard my father deliver it.

  “I’m not about justice,” my father’s gospel always begins, and this time is no exception. “And you shouldn’t be either. It is my professional obligation—what we in the law business call a fiduciary duty—to do everything I can to make sure that nothing bad happens to you while you’re my client.”

  I’ve pointed out to my father on more than one occasion that a lawyer’s obligation to a client has limits. For starters, you’re not allowed to suborn perjury or destroy evidence. But my father firmly believes that any qualification of his sweeping assertion sends the wrong message. So in his telling, a lawyer’s duty to his client is boundless.

  “The best way to make sure that nothing bad happens to you is for you to hunker down and let the other side play their hand,” my father continues. “I’ve been doing this for a long time now, longer than you’ve been alive, so I know that clients hate the hunkering-down part. They want to go in there and tell their story. They want to prove their innocence. But under the laws of our great nation, the prosecution has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and you, Paul, don’t have to prove a goddamn thing. Don’t forget that. I’m emphasizing this point because, early in my career, I wasn’t so strident about it and I let a few clients try to prove their innocence to a prosecutor. And you know what? There’s not a single client I’ve had—not one—who talked a gung ho prosecutor out of filing charges. Of course we still beat them at trial all the time, but that’s before a jury. I hate to say it, but the sad truth is that prosecutors are in the business of prosecuting and if they don’t bring cases, they’re out of business. After all, nobody ever became famous not bringing a case. Bottom line is that there’s no way to convince a prosecutor that you’re innocent, and trying to do so always comes back to haunt you.”

  My father takes a break from his narrative and turns to me. As the ex-prosecutor in the room, he expects me to vouch for his description of the inner workings of the DA’s office—even though I’ve told him repeatedly that his version isn’t even remotely true. When I was an ADA, many a person of interest convinced me not to prosecute. If they had an alibi or lacked motive or provided evidence pointing to someone else, I’d go in a different direction.

  But now I play my role.

  “That’s right. The mind-set over at One Hogan Place is that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.” Then I smile. “But of course that does not apply to former ADAs.”

  Like every client to whom I’ve seen my father make his pitch, Paul takes it in hook, line, and sinker. “Clients are like children,” is one of my father’s many pithy expressions about the practice of law. “They just want to know that there’s a grown-up in the room who’s going to make sure they survive. And we’re that grown-up.”

  “It all sounds good,” Paul says. “What do we do next?”

  “Nothing,” my father says. “I don’t want to know any facts. Let the District Attorney’s office do its digging. If they have something worth telling us about, we’ll consider at that time whether to respond. What we will do now is shadow their investigation so we know where they’re going before they get there. That’s where Ella’s connections become invaluable. They’ll give her the straight skinny.”

  I again nod to confirm the truth of my father’s assertion, even though, like his other pronouncements, it’s not true. My former colleagues will be courteous to me and they’ll listen to what I have to say, but they’re not going to give me any more information than they’d provide any other defense lawyer.

  “I already feel better,” Paul says.

  “Then this is a perfect time to discuss the terms of our engagement,” my father says with a smile.

  5.

  After the meeting ends, my father suggests that I walk Paul out. As we wait for the elevator, I resist the urge to assure him that everything is going to be fine, or even that I believe he’s innocent. I don’t know whether either is true.

  I half expect him to kiss me good-bye. But when the elevator doors open, he extends his hand instead.

  “Good seeing you again, Ella. You really look great.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry we’re not meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

  As the elevator doors close, blocking him from my sight, I consider whether Paul Michelson is the kind of man who could commit murder. The Paul I knew was a narcissistic womanizer to be sure, but most handsome, smart boys in college fell into that category. I don’t remember his having a temper—in fact, the few times I recall Paul even raising his voice, he did so to be heard over my screaming. But the one thing I know for certain is that the Paul Michelson from back then would do whatever was necessary to survive. I can’t rule out that it wouldn’t now include killing Jennifer Barnett if she threatened him in some way.

  I head back to my father’s office. I need to know exactly how my ex-boyfriend from college ended up a client of the firm.

  “Small world, isn’t it?” my father says even before I pose the question.

  “A little odd, don’t you think?”

  “No. Not really. He’s got a criminal issue—potential criminal issue, I should say—and he knows that your father is a criminal-defense lawyer. He claimed he didn’t even know you and I were working together until I told him.”

  I had been secretly hoping that it wasn’t my father who Paul sought out, but me. My father’s version of events made more sense, however.

  “He didn’t blink at the hundred-grand retainer,” my father says.

  This is another one of my father’s theories: the degree to which a client pushes back on the retainer is inversely proportional to their guilt. Clients with nothing to fear try to limit the amount they have to pay. The guilty ones write you a check for whatever amount you want.

  “So, what’s the story?” I ask.

  My father knows that I’m asking whether he thinks Paul is guilty. Rather than answer, he shakes his head to suggest that I should know better than to pose the question in the first place.

  “You heard me tell him. I really don’t want to know the story. I don’t. All I know is that he called me this morning and asked to meet. I told him to come right in. Like I said before, it’s not even certain that there’s been any crime committed here. For all anyone knows, Jennifer Barnett may just be on vacation.”

  My father is famous for downplaying the alleged crimes of his clients. He has been known to refer to a multi-million-dollar theft as “some type of bookkeeping issue.”

  “No one’s heard from her in four days,” I say. “And there’s no activity on her credit card or her cell phone. She’s not soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere.”

  “Fair enough, but it still doesn’t mean she was murdered. She could have . . . I don’t know, jumped off a bridge. Maybe that’s why her body hasn’t been found yet.”

  “They haven’t found a suicide note.”

  “Lots of suicides don’t have notes. Besides, even if—let’s say for the sake of argument—she was the victim of foul play, we’re still a long way from establishing that Paul Michelson is the foul player here. And at the risk of pointin
g out the obvious, we are criminal-defense lawyers, Ella. If it weren’t for criminals, we’d be out of work. Which, again, is why I truly don’t care if he did do anything to Jennifer Barnett.”

  I know my father’s attitude is the correct one—at least to survive in this business. And he’s thrived. But even after three months, I still hate the idea that I’m dedicating my life to the wrong side. And now it’s my professional obligation to turn a blind eye to the possibility that Paul Michelson might be a murderer.

  When I return to my office, my first instinct is to call Charlotte to tell her about how I reconnected with Paul. I have to resist it, however. Attorney–client privilege prohibits revealing our client’s name, at least until we make a public appearance on his behalf. Even though my father thinks that retaining a lawyer from day one and then hunkering down is the smart move, most people think it suggests guilt.

  Given that telling Charlotte about my old flame is a no-go, I decide to spend my free time finding out what my father claims he does not want to know—the facts about Jennifer Barnett’s disappearance.

  The firm subscribes to several very expensive and specialized legal databases, but I still start most of my research with a good, old-fashioned Google search. I type “Jennifer Barnett missing” into the search engine and, a second later, I have more than a million hits. I click the first one and begin to read.

  Other than the town in New Jersey from which she hailed, a tony place called Short Hills, everything else reported is something I already knew. She’s twenty-two, started at Maeve Grant only three months ago—coincidentally, the same day I joined my father’s firm—has been missing for four days, and the police are not revealing the names of any suspects or divulging any working theories concerning Jennifer Barnett’s whereabouts.

  I peruse another six articles, but none of them contain any different information. Next I plug Paul’s name into the search engine. Google returns some articles from the business press in which he’s quoted, but he otherwise lacks a cyber footprint. No Facebook profile. His name doesn’t even appear on the Maeve Grant website.