$200 and a Cadillac - By Fingers Murphy Page 0,112

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, but he was beginning to show the creeping weight gain at his middle that would someday transform him into a pudgy, forty year old attorney.

“So they have this case. There’s a long shot that it might pay off. Who better to give it to than a summer associate, right? I mean, if you get lucky the firm gets all the glory, and if there’s nothing to it then the firm only loses your time, which it would have lost anyway.” Reilly looked at me and smiled as he went through the revolving door into the cavernous lobby of the K&C building. “Look man, this is a business. I mean you hope you can do some good along the way, but mostly it’s about money. Think of how big a payoff it would be to get this guy off. Why not take that gamble?”

“But meanwhile,” I said, “this guy — who may have a good case, who knows? — is sitting in jail and his future is tied to a law student who doesn’t know anything. I mean, I don’t even know where to start.”

When we stepped on the elevator, Reilly pushed our floors and leaned against the mirrored wall. “First of all, this guy doesn’t have a good case. He doesn’t have any case.” The elevator door opened at my floor and there was an awkward silence. I hesitated. Reilly filled it with, “Well, like Carver said, have a look through the file.”

When I got back to my office there were eight cardboard boxes piled along the side of my desk with the word “Steele” written across the side. I had no idea the “file” would consist of so much paper. I spread the boxes out across the floor so I could see into each of them. Some were just loose piles of paper. Others contained smaller files inside the boxes. There was no organization to them. Nothing was marked “beginning” or “start here,” so I just started rifling through them.

After a minute or two I came to a folder full of newspaper clippings and I sat at the desk and leafed through them. Steele had called 911 at 8:52 in the evening. The police arrived at 9:04. No signs of forced entry and the police dogs