Then Carver wiped his mouth with the thick cloth napkin, checked his huge, gleaming watch, and pushed his chair back. “I gotta go guys. But look, we need to push this ball forward as fast as we can. The two of you need to go see Steele and flesh this thing out. He’s going to try to convince you he’s innocent, but that doesn’t have a chance in hell. We’ve got to go with ineffective assistance.” Carver stood and looked at me. “Of course, that defense has a little problem too, but Reilly can fill you in on that. I had the file sent to your office. Have a look at it.”
Carver left us sitting there, staring at his back as he walked out of the restaurant, disappearing through the doorway and into a rectangle of brilliant sunlight. The waiter brought the bill and Reilly paid it. I sat there and waited for him to say something, but there wasn’t much to say. Carver was gone and Reilly and I were strangers.
On the way back to the office I finally spoke up. “So what’s the problem with the ineffective assistance of counsel claim?”
Reilly gave me a grim smile and shook his head. “His lawyer was a guy named Garrett Andersen. He’s one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the state. Maybe the country.”
“Do you really think a guy like that made a mistake?”
“Unlikely. That’s why this case was dead on arrival.”
I was confused. “So why are we doing it if it’s hopeless?”
Reilly laughed and shook his head. The new guy, he seemed to be thinking. “Well, hey, truth be told, no one thinks this thing can win. I mean, we’re not saying we can win. It sounds trite, but everyone’s entitled to representation, to a defense. Blah, blah, blah . . . I know it’s a cliché, but it’s the truth. And this is a complicated story Steele tells. There are a lot of places mistakes can be made. The devil’s in the details, y’know, so we might find something if we look hard enough.”
“But if he killed his wife—” I started to say.
Reilly cut me off with a grin. “We don’t know that. All we know is that he was convicted of killing his wife.”
I’d heard it before, and I usually believed it. The system had problems. There were dirty cops out there in the world. People got railroaded. But there were a lot of guilty people too, and this guy sounded guilty. I was about to make a joke about the difference between truth and confiction, but I stopped myself at the last second. Bad puns seemed dangerous. Instead, I shook my head. “Still, it seems pointless. Why bother? Doesn’t he see that?”
“The guy’s in jail, whether he sees it or not, all he’s got is time, y’know?”
“Sure, but why are we doing this? I mean, I guess that’s what doesn’t make sense to me.” We were stopped at the light. I could see that Reilly had no satisfying answer and I knew what he was going to say. I could feel it coming.
“Look,” Reilly began, “this guy was a senator. He was a powerful man and, on the outside chance that the firm can get him off, I mean, what a publicity boon for the firm. Look at it from their perspective. You’ve got this case, it’s a loser, maybe one in a hundred chance of winning — I doubt even that good, but a chance, you know. They’ve got summer associates coming in, tons of them, don’t know what to do with them all there are so many. What are you guys getting paid these days?”
“Three thousand a week.”
“No offense, but they don’t pay you guys that because you’re worth it. I mean, you’re a smart guy, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. The best and brightest or whatever they say. But you have no experience. I mean the firm tries to bill some of your time, but clients generally don’t want to pay for it. And in this economy, clients get what they want. So the firm just writes your time off as a recruiting expense.”
The light changed and we crossed toward the building. I watched him walk. Reilly looked like a guy who had finally let himself go after years of resistance, as though he’d realized that the trim, frat-boy body he’d had all through college and law school was gone for good. He was still young, fit enough,