“He’s always sucking up to
Bo.”
Rita’s hand slammed flat on the tabletop and her voice was like
a blade.
“Shut fucking up,” she said.
Everyone looked at her. The room was suddenly still except for Mrs. Marino’s crying. Joe Marino made a cool it gesture at his son.
Mrs. Drake squeezed Troy’s hand as hard as she could.
“You keep talking and you’ll talk
yourselves right into a mess I
can’t get you out of. Do you understand me?”
No one said anything. Bo and Troy looked suddenly scared.
“Good,” Rita said. “You will
talk to no one unless I’m present,
or Barry. You will say nothing unless I say to, or Barry.”
“Rita,” Marty Reagan said. “This
doesn’t look like one for all
and all for one.”
“I know,” Rita said.
She looked at her clients.
“What Mr. Reagan means is that I can’t represent clients in
circumstances where the best interest of one might collide with the best interests of the other.”
Both families looked a little blank. But she had frightened them
enough to make them docile.
“So,” she said. “Let them stay
here tonight. Tomorrow Barry or
I, it will probably be Barry, will get them out on bail, and then we’ll organize your legal representation.”
“You can’t pull out on us now,”
Joe Marino said.
“I can’t represent both of the
boys,” Rita said.
“So let him represent Troy,” Marino said.
“Same firm, Mr. Marino. I’ll see to it that you are both well
represented, but this is not the place, and now is not the time.”
She turned and nodded very slightly to Jesse.
“Okay, Molly,” Jesse said. “You
and Suit read the words and take
them down to a cell.”
Mrs. Marino’s crying rose to a wail. Both Bo and Troy looked as
if they had trouble swallowing. Joe Marino started to argue. Mrs.
Drake seemed frozen in place. Molly said the Miranda for both of them and she and Simpson took them from the room. Their parents went with them.
“Checking the accommodations,” Reagan said when they were
gone.
Rita Fiore said, “When are you going to arraign them,
Marty?”
“You should have them there at nine A.M.,”
Reagan
said.
“Salem?”
“Yep.”
“Can you take care of that, Barry?”
Feldman nodded and made a small entry in his notebook.
