“True believers are great.” Marianne turned around to face Hannah and leaned back against the window. “But they’re not always that effective. It’s easy to get disil usioned. Not al of our clients are easy to work with, and the system doesn’t reward a heroic charge.
Success here is more about hard work and the occasional dirty trick.” She smiled and it took the sting out of her words. “What I like to see around here are the pragmatists. Are you a pragmatist, Hannah?”
“I . . . yes. I think I am,” Hannah said. Her backpack was packed and zipped and she rested her hands on top of it. “I mean, I believe in getting results, if that’s what you’re asking.” This was not a lie. She was a pragmatist and a realist. She saw the world for what it real y was, which was more than could be said for most people. But it surprised her to hear Marianne talking of pragmatism, when Marianne worked for the Innocence Project, an organization that was so guilty of romanticized bul shit. But then . . . okay . . . maybe she shouldn’t be surprised at al . Just because the Innocence Project sold the tale of the perfect innocent, caught up in and crushed by the system, didn’t mean they actual y believed it. They must know that at least some of the time, the picture was a lot more complicated than that. They just chose to sel the fairy tale because it was good for public relations and their larger policy agenda. Hannah felt a wave of fury so sudden and unexpected that she swayed slightly on her feet.
“Not everyone who comes here knows how to get results,”
Marianne was saying. “I put that down to inexperience, in some cases, personality, in others. But every now and again a student comes along who has that special something. Some people are just born knowing how to operate in the world.” She looked at Hannah expectantly. Hannah swal owed her anger.
“I don’t know if I was born with any kind of special skil . I don’t think I was. But my mother was sick for a lot of my childhood, and there’s just the two of us. So I never had the luxury of sitting back and trusting someone else to look out for me. For us. I had to figure things out. To make the system work for us, not against us.”
“What does that mean, make the system work for you?”
Hannah’s mouth was dry. “I suppose I’m talking about getting the best out of people, from social workers to school principals. You have to understand how to approach people to get what you need. I think I understand how to do that. And I think maybe those skil s might be useful here.”
Marianne nodded, as if she was reserving judgment but wil ing, so far, to give Hannah the benefit of the doubt. “Wel , keep it up,” she said. “Today was a good start.”
HANNAH WALKED HOME IN THE DARK. SHE WAS SHAKY
FROM THE residue of her anger. Her legs felt weak, the world a little off balance. Along the way she stopped at the grocery store and picked up some basics for her kitchen. What would Camila, Sean, and Hazel be doing tonight? They’d seemed like they were friends.
Maybe they’d gone for a bite together, talked about the case. Or maybe to the library, to keep up with their class work. Or home to chil out with their roommates. Watch Netflix.
The streets were busy, but the apartment complex was quiet when Hannah got in. She let herself into the little studio and locked the door behind her, reaching automatical y for a dead bolt that wasn’t there. She paused, laying her hand flat against the door for a moment and waiting for the little spike of anxiety, the urge to double-check the door or cal the locksmith in the morning. It never came.
She felt only gratitude for the silence and privacy the apartment offered. How quickly this place had become a refuge. Hannah put away her groceries and made herself some toast, then sat down on her bed, took her laptop out of her backpack, and started a very different kind of research from what she had been absorbed in al day. She had no time to waste. She had to get on the Michael Dandridge defense team. And that meant not waiting around for her chances, but creating them, if she had to.
LAURA
DIARY ENTRY #2
Sunday, July 17, 1994, 9:00 a.m.
I went back to the house in the woods yesterday. Alone this time, which is actual y al Rosa’s fault. I like Rosa. She’s fun to be around because she’s so confident and because she so clearly doesn’t give a shit about rich people. She’s perfected this blank-faced stare that is beautiful y polite on the outside, like, she gives them nothing to object to . . . but at the same time there’s something in her eyes that is a perfect fuck-you. She can be a dragon though—that fuck-you look isn’t so much fun when she turns it on you.
Anyway, Marta told Rosa that there wasn’t much to do at the house, and Rosa decided one cleaner would be enough and then she put the squeeze on me to take the job. Marta had an excuse (period pain—she gets it bad, or at least she says she does), so she was out, and Rosa likes to send the same girls back to the same places. I guess the customers are happier if they don’t see new faces every week. I said okay. I didn’t want to, but I’m usual y first in line for every job (money money money) and Rosa was giving me a hard time about it and I didn’t want to bring up the gun or the coke or the argument (I was pretty sure she’d be more pissed at me than anything . . . plus it would have seemed strange that I hadn’t mentioned it for a ful week) so before I knew it, I was nodding yes and Rosa was dropping me off.
I was nervous when I climbed the steps to the front door and knocked. At the hotel, in the real world, it was a warm, sunny day. In the woods it was gloomy, chil y, and there were too many shadows.
But when Tom opened the door, he was wearing the same ratty shorts, a different Nirvana T-shirt, and he had a big grin on his face.
This time, it seemed like he’d been expecting me.
“Hi. Come in. Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
I told him I had to get my work done first and he said, “Sure sure, ”
and led the way to the kitchen. It was actual y pretty tidy. The surfaces were al clear, and the floor looked like it had just been vacuumed and mopped. Tom sat down at the kitchen table. He had obviously been eating breakfast and drinking coffee and reading a book before I showed up, and he seemed happy to get back to it while I worked. I started emptying the dishwasher. He talked with his mouth half ful .
“I didn’t hire you guys.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I guess it was my mom who arranged it. The cleaning, I mean.
That’s the kind of thing she does.”
I was standing there, feeling like an asshole, a glass in each hand. “Do you . . . do you want me to leave?”
He looked anxious, suddenly, and blurted out, “God, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I said okay and put the glasses away, feeling real y awkward.
“Sorry, I just didn’t want you to think I was like that. Like, the kind of guy who would ask someone to clean up after him.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I was absolutely sure that he’d had people cleaning up after him his entire life. Maybe in his parents’