Breach of Trust Read Free

find a way to refute it,” Lightner said.
    “Oh. Thanks, Joel.” Paul turned to me. “You get that, Jason? Lightner says we should find a way to refute it. You can’t put a price on those pearls of wisdom.”
    Paul and Lightner went back to the eighties, during a mass murder in the south suburbs, when Paul was the prosecutor and Joel the cop. Lightner left the job fifteen years ago and opened a private investigation agency that has benefited mightily from its association with this law firm.
    “Jason,” Lightner said to me, “you’re new, so you may not know—when Paul gets frustrated, he takes it out on poor underlings like me. What he really means is he appreciates my contribution to this case. Also, I don’t know if he told you yet, but as a condition of working on this case, you have to name your child after Paul.”
    “Jason’s child is going to be a girl, Lightner, which you would know if you didn’t start drinking before noon every day,” Paul replied.
    “Okay, Paulina, then. Paulina Kolarich.”
    This usually happened at the end of the workday, these two getting on each other before they went out for steaks and martinis that night. They were both bachelors, Paul once-divorced and Lightner twice. They could be pretty amusing when they got going. Their deliveries were so dry that it still took me an extra moment to separate sarcasm from sincerity.
    “And I don’t start drinking until three o’clock, at the earliest,” Lightner protested.
    I felt something pull at me, a clearing of some clouds in my head. Maybe . . .
    “What kind of a name is Kolarich, anyway?”
    Could that work? Was it that simple . . . ?
    “He’s in a state of shock,” Lightner went on. “He’s so mesmerized by your intelligence, Riley, that he can’t speak. You’re gonna have a long career at this place, Jason. Just repeat after me: Paul, you’re so brilliant. Paul, you’re so brilliant.”
    I looked at Lightner, then at Paul. Riley nodded at me out of curiosity.
    I cleared my throat and gave it one more thought.
    “Hang on,” Lightner said. “I think he’s about to say something.”
    “Yeah, I am,” I said. “I think I know how to defend this case.”

4
     
    AS THE SECOND CHAIR ON THE ALMUNDO DEFENSE team, I had to serve dual roles. I had to be prepared for my portion of the trial work, less than Paul’s but still significant. Then I had to oversee the other lawyers on Team Almundo—six lawyers, six paralegals, and four private investigators—ensuring that all operations were humming along in synch. We had meetings twice daily, first in the morning and then at five o’clock, confirming that the documents had been cross-referenced accurately in the database; that all motions in limine had been drafted; that drafts of direct and cross-examinations had been prepared. We were two weeks out from trial now, and all those assignments that looked like we had plenty of time to finish suddenly seemed desperately incapable of timely completion.
    My own personal to-do list was moving quite nicely. I had tasks scribbled on pieces of paper plastered haphazardly on my wall and most of them had been completed. But one prominent item remained: Ernesto Ramirez. Joel Lightner had once again labeled it a lost cause—“Either he doesn’t know anything or he does, but he won’t tell you; a dead end either way”—but that only motivated me more. I was sure I saw something in his face, and I let my imagination take me to places where his revelation was a game-changer at trial, a Perry Mason moment. If everyone else on Team Almundo doubted me, so much the better; the glory would belong only to me.
    “How we doing?” I spoke into my cell phone.
    “It’s going to be soon,” Talia said.
    “Wishful thinking.”
    “When are you coming home?”
    “One thing I gotta do first.”
    My one thing was Ernesto Ramirez. I’d made Lightner assign someone to give me a full workup on the guy in case I wanted to pursue him further.