He flicked a manila envelope onto my desk in front of me.
'Good shot.' I looked at the envelope but didn't open it.
'What can I say? Too much ultimate Frisbee in the Corps.'
'I wouldn't have guessed that about you, Frist. When I was in college,
the ultimate Frisbee guys were big dope smokers.'
'Right, but they probably never inhaled. Let's just agree that you
probably shouldn't extrapolate too much from your Harvard experience,
Kincaid.'
'Nor you from the Marine Corps.'
'Touche.'
'Now shut up, soldier, and tell me why you have my beloved chair.'
'Open the envelope,' he said.
Inside, I found two Polaroids of my chair and a series of ransom notes
written with letters cut from magazines.
'A couple of the guys heard about your unhealthy relationship with the
office furniture and thought it would be a funny way to welcome you to
the Unit. I put the kibosh on it after Duncan called you out on the
Easterbrook case. Seemed like it would be in poor taste.'
'Gee. You think?'
'Just take the chair, Kincaid. You have been spared the usual rites of
passage.'
'Spared, or is this simply a reprieve?'
'You're a smart woman.'
'Great. I'll keep my back up.'
'Like you wouldn't anyway?'
As he turned to leave, I said, 'Don't you want to know about the
Easterbrook case?'
'Of course I do. I was just waiting to see if you'd tell me on your
own.'
I was starting to like this guy. I filled him in on what I'd learned
so far from the investigation. 'I was just about to head over to
review the victim's files.' I left out the part where I hauled the
City Attorney into court to speed access. 'You want to come with?'
'The joys of document review. No thanks. If I liked scouring through
boxes of files on the off chance of finding a little nugget, I'd be
over at Dunn Simon making a shitload of money.'
It's helpful as a prosecutor to remind yourself occasionally of the
things (other than lots of money) that go along with civil practice at
the big prestigious firms. I was a summer associate at Dunn Simon
after my first year in law school. I got paid twice what I make in my
current position for what amounted to a two-month job interview. But I
knew I'd never want to work there after a young partner explained to me
why he loved the peculiar formatting that the firm insisted on for each
and every document: 'It's just the Dunn Simon way.' Yuck.
'I don't know, Russ. Might have to pull a Little Red Hen on your
ass.'
'I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your literary reference. I tend to
read material for adults.'
'Yeah, right. The kind with pictures that fold out in the middle. I
mean that you don't eat the bread unless you help plant the grain. I'm
picturing myself in the first and only chair in State v. Yet to Be
Determined for the murder of Clarissa Easterbrook.'
'You keep dreaming, Kincaid, because it's not gonna happen. Besides,
I've got a good excuse, not that I need to give you one. Judge Maurer
sent a case out for trial this afternoon that I was sure would settle,
so I need to get ready. Have fun with those administrative law files,
though. Sounds like a blast.'
I welcomed my chair back into its new home and scooted old blue crusty
into the hallway with a piece of paper pinned to its back that read
hazardous waste. Given the state of the budget around here, it still
might be a step up for someone.
Nelly Giacoma remembered me from the day before. She tried to sound
chipper when she welcomed me into the office, but I could tell from her
puffy eyes and congested voice that she'd been crying. I asked if I
could see Clarissa's files.
'Dennis Coakley told me you'd be coming by. I needed to keep busy, so
I helped make sure we had all the pending cases. He's got everything
in piles for you in the conference room at the end of the hall.'
