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to his investigator, “I know you’ve got to run. Keep digging and call me this afternoon.”
    “No problem,” Ritchie said, exiting the room.
    “Rachel?” Malcolm said, thumbing through an agenda book the thickness of War and Peace.
    “Yes, Malcolm?” his assistant defense counsel said, smiling at me.
    “Let’s talk. What’s the latest with you?”
    “Well, I found a tick on the dog this morning. My son, Josh, is performing in a middle school concert tonight. And my husband, Joe, is on call tonight at the hospital.”
    I was the only person in the room to laugh. I glanced at the defendant, Bill Brannigan, who was immersed in the contents of a thick manila file folder. He didn’t look up.
    “Perhaps you’d be kind enough, Rachel, to include the Brannigan case in your comments.” Malcolm said it without any hint of annoyance. “Any headway on the Cape Cod front?”
    “I’ll know more by the end of the day,” she said.
    “Then I suggest you get to work on it right now and fill us in at lunch.”
    “I’d love to join you, Malcolm, but can’t,” she said. “I’ll have to work through lunch if I’m to get out of here tonight in time to attend Josh’s concert.”
    “Of course,” said Malcolm. “Tell that little fellow of yours that if he doesn’t sing good, he’ll answer to me.”
    Now, everyone laughed, with the exception of Brannigan. It was good to see that a pleasant relationship existed between Malcolm and his assistant counsel, between everyone on McLoon’s team for that matter.
    Malcolm’s personal assistant, Georgia Bobley, left the room as Linda arrived with tea, coffee, and a dozen jelly donuts in a box, which she placed on the small conference table. Once she was gone, it left McLoon, Billy Brannigan, and me in the office.
    “All right, now, Jessica, let us spend the few hours before lunch reviewing the case for your benefit, and to give you a chance to get to know the reason for our being here, the defendant, Mr. William Brannigan.”
    “Fine,” I said, feeling very much out of my element.
    “As I’ve told you, Willie, Mrs. Fletchah is a real people person, the best I’ve ever known. She creates believable characters in her bestselling novels because she knows what makes people tick, what causes them to do things, make decisions. I’ve coaxed her to help us make sure that everyone on the jury is a people person, too. Not a police person. Not a prosecutor person. But a people person.”
    He took a long, deep drag on his cigar before continuing. “With that understood, let us proceed. Billy Brannigan has been charged with having murdered his brother, Jack. The prosecution bases its case against our client (it felt strangely good to be included in “our client”) on William, here, having been threatened with being cut out of a family trust by the trust’s trustee, his older brother, Jack. Jack threatened that action based upon a ridiculous clause in the trust allowing William to be cut out if he was ever charged with a crime involving moral turpitude. Ever charged with! Not even convicted. An abominable perversion of everything precious about our system of justice. William Brannigan was falsely accused of attempting to rape a young woman on Cape Cod. Based upon that—and it was only her word that was taken—Jack was about to take from his younger brother the source of income that their father had wanted him to enjoy. William Brannigan is not a little bit innocent, Jessica. That is like being a little bit pregnant. You’re either pregnant or you’re not. You’re either innocent or you’re not. He is completely innocent, and the jury will not only come to realize this when I am through presenting our case, that same jury will actually feel sorry for this exemplary young man whose life is now in my hands. In our hands!”
    I wanted to applaud.
    He wasn’t finished. He came behind Brannigan, placed ham-hock hands on the young man’s shoulders, and intoned, “This is a