It was dark when I finished.
6
Sunday afternoon meant a cookout at my mom and dad's place. They lived in the hills of Michigan on Glass Lake, about fifteen minutes northwest of Carrefour. My dad was a pathological fisherman and my mom was happiest when she was near the water and her grandkids. Their lake house brought them closer to both.
I have two brothers. My older brother Tom is the head football coach at Carrefour North High School. He’s married to Kate, who teaches there too, and they have four kids. Their three girls are named Reed, Taylor, and Page, and if you know that Tom was a fearsome strong safety back in the day and that he’s obsessed with crafting a fast, bruising defense, then his girl’s names will make sense to you. If you don’t know all that, it’s easier to say that he named his girls after Ed Reed, Lawrence Taylor, and Alan Page and that he might be slightly over-devoted to his job. His only son, the youngest, is named Charlie because naming a boy Woodson is obviously ridiculous.
My younger brother Mark is a tool and die maker for Ford. His wife Izzy is in human resources for Lounge King, and they’re one of those couples who keep track of their boys by starting all of their names with “J”: Justin, Joey, and James. My younger brother is a practical man.
I don’t have any kids. My parents don’t ask when I will anymore.
We all get together a couple of times a month during the winter and spring but once Memorial Day hits, my dad has a barbecue every Sunday that runs all the way through the Super Bowl. My family are suckers for football, the sun, and the water and, if I’m being honest with you—which I am most of the time—it’s the highlight of my week.
I’d missed last week because I was traveling for work so when I showed up that Sunday afternoon with beer, an inflatable paddleboard, and Mickey Mouse ice cream bars for my nieces and nephews, the first thing I got was a cluck and a hug from my mother.
“Look at you,” she said after giving me a hug. “How much weight have you lost?”
I’d lost about five pounds during a trial last month but there's really no future in telling your mom something like that, so I said, “I’ve actually gained a little bit.”
“Thirty-four years old and you still lie to your mother like a teenager. How do you live with yourself?”
I smiled. “With a clear conscience.”
“I doubt that. Ice cream bars?”
“You won't let me bring any chicken so…”
“If you can convince your father, you're more than welcome to.”
“Hence the ice cream bars,” I said and handed them to her.
She took them and waved. “They’re down by the water. The kids will be happy to see you.”
“Thanks.” I gave her another hug and wandered toward the backdoor. As I did, I heard a scream and the slapping of controllers. I peaked in the family room and saw two young boys sitting in front of the TV where they appeared to be orchestrating the destruction of an alien race.
“Hi, trolls!”
“Hi, Uncle Nate!” said my nephew, Joey.
I bumped the other one with my knee. “Looks like Joey’s getting you.”
“In his dreams,” said Justin. Then he elbowed me in the thigh and unleashed a flurry of laser fire which, if Joey’s screams were any indication, were effective.
I looked out the window. “Pops is letting you play video games?”
The boys never looked away. “He’s got James and the girls out on the boat.”
I chuckled. “Trolls are tricksy and false.”
“That’s hobbits. And yes.” Joey looked away from the screen for the first time. “Don’t tell him!”
“I won’t, but you better put it up when the boat docks.”
“Not our first campaign, Uncle Nate,” said Justin.
An alien pod blew up and the two crowed. “Apparently not.”
I went out the backdoor secure in the knowledge that humanity was safe for the next five minutes and headed toward the lake. My brother Mark was in a vicious game of cornhole with my niece, Reed. Mark’s wife Izzy was sitting next to Tom’s wife Kate, who was absently playing beach towel tug of war with three-year-old Charlie.
I know, that’s a lot of Shepherds at once. The first family barbeque can be overwhelming. It gets easier the more you come. For now, just remember that the boys who start with J belong to Mark and Izzy, and the three girls and baby Charlie belong to Tom and Kate.
And that my dad won’t let you bring chicken to his barbeque.
“Nate!” yelled Izzy. “Bring that tight little ass over here and fill this cooler up!” Izzy had frizzy blond hair and dark green eyes, and I was always amazed that she’d picked HR as a career field.
Kate turned without stopping her tug of war with baby Charlie. “The prodigal lawyer returns.” She had short, athletically cut brown hair and a placid calm that served her well as the mother of four and the wife of a football coach. She yanked on the towel, making Charlie squeal. “That cooler’s not going to fill itself, you know.”
“It’s good to be missed.” I dumped the beer into the cooler to the slosh of water and ice. I cracked two in succession before handing them over. “Lady Isabella. Lady Kate.”
“See Kate, I told you there was a reason we wanted him around.” Izzy’s eyes twinkled.
Kate nodded, smiling. “Still, last week was such a nice break.”
“Nice to be missed,” I said.
“Jesus, Nate,” said Izzy. “Crack a beer already, would you?”
“Sorry.” I smiled and did. “Been busy with other chores.”
Izzy flipped a hand. “Well, you have to make time for yourself or no one else will.” Her eyes homed in on me. “Speaking of which, my friend Jessica’s going to the Dierks Bentley concert with Mark and me next weekend. Want to come?”
“Izzy,” said Mark from the cornhole game.
Izzy’s eyes were wide innocence. “What? He might not have plans.”
“I have plans,” I said.
She sipped her beer and said, “Liar.”
“I actually do.”
“You mean you didn’t before?” This was somewhere around the eleventh time she and Mark had been going somewhere with one of her girlfriends in the past six months. For some reason, she was the only one who did it and the only one who could get away with it.
I took a sip. “Who’s the lawyer here?”
“I can’t help it. I have an evasive witness.”
Kate stepped in. “Going out of town again?”
“No. New case going to keep me busy for a while.”
Izzy snorted and Kate’s eyebrow twitched. “You just finished one last month.”
I shrugged. “Another one came in. Emergency.”
Izzy shook her head. “There’s no greater emergency than you going to that concert with us and Jess.”
“Let it go, Iz,” said Mark.
“He’ll tell me when to stop. Won’t you, Nate?”
I smiled. “Stop.”
She pouted.
“Please.”
Izzy smiled. “Okay. So what’s so important that you’d deprive yourself of our company?”
“A new case.”
“Duh. What kind?”
“A murder case.”
“Ooohh. Juicy.” She leaned forward. “I didn't think anyone had been murdered in Carrefour.”
“Seems like we would've heard about it,” said Kate.
“Oh my God, Uncle Nate,” said my niece Reed from the cornhole boards. “Are you on the Lizzy Saint murder?”
I have a great relationship with my niece, Reed. She's smart, she's fun, and since she's my oldest niece, I've been playing with her for a long time. But she was fifteen that summer and I'd be willing to bet that she hadn't really paid attention to any serious conversation that I had been involved in for at least three years. But here she was now, mouth slightly open, holding two beanbags lax at her sides as if she knew exactly what case I was on and was shocked.
“You know about it
?” I said.
Reed’s eyes got bigger. “Oh my God, is that really the case that you're on?”
“Well, Lizzy Saint’s not really involved, Reed.”
“Holy crap, Mallory's not going to believe this!”
Kate looked from her daughter to me. “What’s she talking about, Nate?”
I glanced back and forth between my placid sister-in-law and my animated niece. “There was a murder after Lizzy Saint’s concert at the University a few months ago. They brought me in as local counsel. I don't know how Reed here knows about it.”
We all looked expectantly at Reed who didn't seem to notice the bemused scrutiny at all. “Are you kidding, Uncle Nate? It's not just some murder. Supposedly her sound engineer beat a guy to death protecting her from being attacked. It's been all over the place.”
It was uncomfortably close to the truth. “What do you mean all over?”
“Entertainment Buzz, YouTube, Twitter. Everywhere.”
“Have they been reporting that? That he was protecting her?”
“Sometimes. Mostly they just show pictures.” Reed shook her head. “It was amazing.”
“Reed, you should not be looking at those pictures.”
“I’m fifteen, Uncle Nate. I've seen way worse than that. Besides, it's everywhere. It's not like I can avoid it. So what happened?”
“I'm sorry, honey, I can't talk about it. Besides, I'm no big deal. I'm just the local guy. There's a lawyer coming in from Minneapolis that's going to handle most of the case.”
“Oh, right. The Silver Fox.”
There are times when keeping up with a teenage girl is exhausting. “You mean Christian Dane?”
“Is that his name? The sites just call him the Silver Fox. There's even a hashtag.”
Kate looked at me, looked at her daughter, and decided that she'd heard just about enough of murders and silver foxes. “Why don't you see if Grandma needs help with those pie crusts.”
Reed looked at her mother with daggers that the mother of any teenage girl would find familiar. “She won't let me.”
“Check anyway. She's in there all by herself.”
Reed stomped. Literally stomped. “That's because she won't let anyone help her!”
“Still. No reason for her to be lonely too.”
Reed slammed her beanbags onto the board. “Of course. Your stupid conversation was finally interesting.” She marched with a lamentation of injustice back up to the cottage.
Since she wasn’t his daughter, Mark looked bemused at the scene and his aborted cornhole match. “I thought you didn't do criminal cases?” he said.
“I don't usually but they just need a local guy and the price is right.”
“You just came off a trial you know,” said Kate.
“I know.”
“You can't just keep going from one case to the next. It'll catch up with you eventually.”
“I know.”
“You have to take care of yourself,” said Izzy. “It'll be a pain in the ass to find someone else to fill the cooler.”
“I imagine so.”
“Take Reed’s place?” said Mark, tossing a beanbag into the air.
“Yep.” I pulled two more beers out of the cooler, took one to my brother, and proceeded to lose two out of three before we started a doubles tournament. Reed, who eventually escaped from her cottage confinement, actually wanted to be my partner and we proceeded to whip butt, five matches in a row, until dinner.
Having a good partner makes all the difference.
7
On Monday morning when I arrived at the office, I found Danny already working. Actually, working was too strong a word. He was in front of his office door, fidgeting.
“What's up?” I said.
“They’re upstairs.”
I set my laptop on my desk. “That’s where their office is.”
“They were here when I got in. The Mercedes was already in the lot.”
“Trial lawyers work hard, Danny. You know that.”
He kept fidgeting. “There's got to be a lot to do. We only have four weeks.”
“That's what the calendar says.”
“We should see if they need help.”
“We will. Let me get settled and check my email first.”
“Sure. Okay.” Danny kept standing there, shifting and twitching.
“You can go up there now if you want. I'll be up in a minute.”
“No, that's okay. I'll wait.”
He stood there as I sat down. He kept standing there. “Danny.”
“Are you ready?”
“I'll come get you.”
Denny realized what he was doing. “Oh, yeah, right, I'll be…” He pointed over his shoulder.
“I'm sure I'll find you.”
I waded through the emails that had piled up over the weekend as Danny clattered around in his own office. Finally, after he'd rattled the coffeepot, knocked over a file, and kicked his chair, I stood up. “Shall we?”
Danny tumbled out of his office with a couple of notepads and a pen. “Bring the tablet she gave you,” I said.
“Right.” He scrambled back into his office and, as he took the tablet off its docking station, knocked over his cup of coffee, sending it spilling across the desk.
I went to our makeshift break station and grabbed a few paper towels. Danny muttered something as he blotted up the coffee and tried to save what papers he could.
“What is with you?” I said.
“She makes me nervous.”
“I’m sure you have the same effect on her.”
He looked up. “Really?”
I smiled. “Absolutely not. Ready? Or did you want to tear a hole in your pants first?”
Danny looked down to check, just in case, and then the two of us made our way upstairs.
I pushed open the door with the Friedlander & Skald nameplate to find Christian and Cyn in their conference room. Christian was once again wearing an impeccably tailored suit with a shirt that appeared mortally afraid of wrinkling while Cyn was wearing a dark suit with a white silk shirt that somehow made her hair an even deeper red. The conference room table was covered with piles of papers and a whiteboard was filled with names and tasks. It was the familiar, organized chaos of beginning to prepare a case for trial.
Cyn looked up. “Good morning Nathan, Daniel.”
Danny stammered so I gave her the exceedingly eloquent greeting of, “Morning.”
Christian nodded without looking up.
“Just checking in,” I said. “Need anything?”
“Thank you, Nathan,” Christian said. “I think we have everything under control right now.”
I looked at the papers. “Need any help with briefing?
Christian moved a paper from one pile to another. “I have three associates back at the home office in Minneapolis typing their fingers to the nub as we speak.”
“How about researching Ohio law?”
“Computer database works just as well for Ohio as it does for Minnesota.”
“What about Ohio quirks?”
Christian finally looked up. “As I mentioned to the judge on Friday, I've tried murder cases in Ohio before. I have a good bank of briefs to draw from and what I don't have, my firm has the resources to create.”
I can't explain how but Christian gave the distinct impression that he was looking around at our rental office space as he said “resources” even though his eyes never moved.
“The home office will prepare briefs for your signature and mine. When they’re done, you can look at them and,” he wiggled his fingers, “Ohio them up.”
I sat down in front of his desk. Christian raised an eyebrow and straightened. Danny shifted his weight from foot to foot as he remained standing. “Maybe it's a good idea if we have a conversation about what you'd like us to do,” I said. “I'll play whatever role you want. I just don't want to have you relying on me to do something and not to know that you wanted it done.”
Chri
stian set down his paper and glanced at Cyn, who nodded. “That's actually a very good idea, Nathan. I will be lead trial counsel. I'm going to give the opening, question all the witnesses, and give the close. I’ll manage our firm's resources and direct where I want research done and create a defense strategy. I may consult you about how a certain argument will play with the local jury or the judge, but we’ll be researching that too so I might not. You’ve tried enough cases to know that there's no way to know when things will come up so I will want you available at all times in case there's an emergency and we need feet on the ground here in Ohio. You’ll be at trial every day as the local man, sitting with me at the counsel table. I want Daniel there in the courtroom but not at the table because I don't want it to seem like Mr. Braggi has too many resources. Although I'm deciding strategy, I want you conversant with the file so that I can ask you questions if I need to.” He looked at Cyn. “Did I miss anything?”
Cyn leveled her green eyes at me, which was fortunate because I didn’t much feel like cleaning Danny-jello off the floor. “Our firm has a well-known reputation, Nathan. Every court we appear before, every one, knows we can be trusted.”
I met Cyn’s gaze. “If I tell you something, Cyn, it’s true.”
“That’s how we operate. That's one of the reasons we retained you.”
I nodded.
“We also try to keep a low profile in these matters, as much as we can. A certain amount of publicity is to be expected, especially when a musician is involved, but we’ll try to keep a lid on it unless we’re controlling it.”
I nodded again. “So are you guys behind the Silver Fox thing?”
Cyn’s eyes became intent. “What are you talking about?”
“#SilverFox? Trending all weekend?”
In response to blank looks, I pulled out my phone, pulled up Twitter, and searched for #SilverFox, then handed it to Cyn and said, “Scroll through.”
Cyn did. After a moment of swiping, I saw her type something in and start swiping again. “How could this have so many views?”
“Who knows how the masses work? All I know is that I have a teenage niece who was all over the murder, the singer, and the Silver Fox.”
Lethal Defense Page 4
