“Sure,” I said. “What’s the ETA?”
“Oh, end of the week. ’Scuse me.” He leaned out the door and said, “Laura, can you pull Blue Seas’ current liability policies and give them to Leland? Thanks.” He leaned back in and explained, “I’d do it, but I got a client waiting to beat me over on Kiawah Island, so I got to run.”
I nodded. He headed off to his golf date. There were half a dozen courses on Kiawah Island, and he was so skilled at the game that he could dial back his performance just enough to make every client believe he’d played his best and just barely lost. It was, he’d told me several times, what all clients want: a lawyer good enough to challenge them, but not be better than them.
That silky ability to make every client feel how they wanted to feel was not something I’d ever learned. It just wasn’t relevant as a prosecutor. Without it, I questioned how I was ever going to get my practice off the ground.
I checked my email on the off chance someone had sent an inquiry through my new website. They hadn’t. Instead I had notices that made my gut twist up in knots. Back when keeping on top of finances was just an item on my to-do list instead of the double-barreled hell it had become, I’d opted in to automatic emails from our health insurance every time a new medical bill came in. This morning there were three of them, all for Noah’s recent care. Together they added up to more than $6,200.
Two years earlier I could not have imagined being in this hole. I had everything on autopay and enough coming in every month to cover it. Things were going so well that I was bored and considering a switch into politics. My son was getting high on stolen Vicodin with his friends, but I didn’t know that. My wife was an alcoholic, and that I did know.
The way I was trying to help her deal with that was called enabling, and it didn’t help anyone. But I didn’t face that fact until after she passed away. Her accident, Noah’s care, and the lawsuit from the other guy she hurt took everything we had.
That, and some mistakes I’d made in trying to look out for her. There was an investigation. It was suggested I should resign in order to avoid being fired.
Getting out of town was my idea. When Noah was out of rehab and down to two PT visits a week, putting some distance between us and our old life became possible. But I’d been overly optimistic about the career options for suddenly retired former prosecutors. The normal path would have been criminal defense, but the life of a small-town criminal defender, helping good ole boys get away with DUIs and domestic violence, wasn’t something I could stomach. I was shooting for business law, for better money and less-unsavory clients.
So I was starting from scratch.
I logged into my accounts to see where things stood. The savings account that was supposed to carry us through building my new practice would barely cover two more months’ worth of expenses—or less, if I counted Noah’s medical bills. The only account that wasn’t running on fumes was his college fund. If I tapped that, he might not be able to afford college. If I didn’t, he might have to stop PT and accept his diminished state as just how things were.
Work was the only solution. I got going on the papers for Roy.
The phone rang, startling me out of my work trance. The sunlight was coming in the other side of the office; hours must’ve passed.
I looked at the number. Local, but I didn’t recognize it. I felt a blast of hope: an opportunity, maybe? A new client? I let it ring twice, not wanting to seem desperate, and then said, “Hello?”
“Leland! Please help me. Oh my God, I don’t know what to do!” It was Mazie. I’d never heard her so upset.
“What’s wrong?”
“Karl’s dead! He’s dead, and the police came by, and Jackson’s run off!”
“Now, whatever’s wrong,” I said, “I got you, Mazie. I got you.” My crisis voice kicked in, the one I’d developed over years of dealing with crime victims and their families. A little deeper than my normal voice, and slow enough to soothe. I was damned if I was going to let a friend of mine go over the edge. “Just tell me where you are.”
“The police took me down to the station.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
I said, “I’ll be right there.”
4
Tuesday, June 11, Evening
As I drove over, I kicked myself for getting so deep in Roy’s work that I’d forgotten to keep an ear out for news. I should’ve found a way to tell Mazie about Karl’s death myself. Hearing it from the local cops, who weren’t exactly friendly toward her kin, had to be about the worst way to find out. And to have Jackson run when the cops came did not look good. I could’ve spared the two of them a lot of trouble today if I hadn’t fallen into my old tunnel vision, seeing nothing in the world beyond the work on my desk.
The police station’s tiny lobby was more crowded than I’d ever seen it. Back in Charleston we counted murders per year, but Basking Rock was so small you could count the years between murders. Karl’s death was big news. I recognized some faces—a detective I knew, and a couple local losers trading gossip about the condition of the corpse—but didn’t see Mazie. The sullen cop at the desk stopped chawing his tobacco long enough to tell
