Sean shook his head.
“What? You think it’s okay that she just walked?”
“I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m just saying that I understand it.”
Camila shook her head. “Wel , I don’t. What’s the rush? She made a commitment to the Project. She made a commitment to us, for that matter. It’s bul shit.”
“What happened?” Hannah asked. She should show interest.
Surely sitting there in silence would seem odd? “Why did she go?”
“She got an interview,” Camila said. “Like, literal y this morning.
Nine A.M. this morning she gets a phone cal from a New York firm tel ing her they want to see her next week, and by ten she’s in the office tel ing Parekh she’s out.”
“Come on, Camila,” Sean said. “You would have gone too. You wouldn’t hesitate.”
Camila had just taken a swig of beer. She widened her eyes at Sean, and swal owed. “I would not. Take it back.”
“Of course you would. So would I, if I didn’t already have a job lined up. So would anyone. We al need to work when this is over.
Right? We’re al going to have bil s to pay. So Hazel had to miss a few days next week. And the timing is bad. But Rob could have given her a break, right? He didn’t have to throw his toys out of the strol er and kick her off the project.”
“She knew before she even went to talk to him that that would happen. She knows what he’s like. We al do.”
“Sure,” said Sean. “She knew. That doesn’t make it her fault.”
“Hazel didn’t have to take the interview, Sean. She’s not like you and me. She has a rich daddy, so she doesn’t have to worry about paying her bil s, does she?”
Sean put his head to one side, looking at Camila and smiling as if to say We both know you’re talking shit, but keep going if it makes you feel better. “So you’re saying that because she could live off her father that she should?”
Camila was quiet for a moment. Then she picked up a beer mat and threw it at him. “Whatever.”
He laughed at her. He turned to Hannah. “Okay, Hannah, spil .
What’s your story?”
“My story?” Hannah said.
“Your story,” Sean nodded. He drank from his beer, swal owed, and gestured with his right hand. “I mean, where you came from, how you managed to get on the team. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone getting into the Project without jumping through al of the hoops. Camila and I applied midway through our first year and we had to sit for an interview and al of the rest of it.”
“Right,” Hannah said. “Wel , I’m only here for a semester. My mother is getting medical treatment in Richmond for the next few months. Cancer. She’s in a clinical trial at the hospital. We’l both be going back to Maine when the trial is over. I just wanted to be as close as possible to her while she’s in Virginia.”
Sean’s interested expression turned to one of quick sympathy.
“Oh, I’m real y sorry,” he said. “Is your mother going to be okay? How is she doing?”
Hannah looked at Sean with al the frankness she could muster up. “For now,” she said. She cleared her throat. Sean’s expression had changed completely, his dark blue eyes were regarding her with real empathy. She needed to change the subject.
“Can you tel me more about the case?” she asked. “The Dandridge case, I mean. I know next to nothing about it. I didn’t expect to be working on it, so I feel like I’m coming from behind.”
Hannah winced inwardly. That had been an unnecessary lie. She could have said she’d read some of the reporting about the case; there would have been nothing unusual about that. She put her beer down on the table, pushed it away a little. She needed to be more careful.
Sean ran his hand through his hair. “I feel like I’m just getting up to speed myself. I mean, I read al the public stuff over the break, because I knew the case was one of ours, but I didn’t work on it last year. None of the students did, so I haven’t seen the case file or anything.”
“I read through some of it today,” Camila said. “I started a good facts/bad facts list.”
Hannah’s confusion must have shown on her face because Camila started to explain.
“It’s something Parekh likes to do when we work on a case. He has one of us start a good fact/bad fact list on a white board. You know, we list the facts in the case that would help our client with a jury, and the facts that would hurt us.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “That’s interesting.”
“So what did you come up with?” Sean asked.
“Wel , okay. Here’s an obvious bad fact—the eyewitness. Sam Fitzhugh. He was a little boy. His mom was murdered. He’s always going to be an incredibly sympathetic figure to a jury, right? If he’s convincing on the stand that could be the whole case, right there.”
“True,” Sean said, nodding. “Okay, some good facts. Dandridge didn’t know the victim. He’d never been to her apartment. There’s no DNA placing him there.”
“Yes,” said Camila. “And he had a job. That’s a good fact. But he also played around with drugs, smoked a lot of weed. That’s a bad fact. He was estranged from his family at least partial y because of his drug use. And here’s something that didn’t come up in the briefing today—Dandridge claimed to have an alibi but the guy disappeared. I don’t know if that’s a good fact or a bad fact. How do you categorize that one?”
“What do you mean, disappeared?” Hannah asked.
Camila leaned forward. She had abandoned her earlier standoffishness. Her face was alive now with interest. “Dandridge says in his statement that he spent the night of the murder hanging out with a guy cal ed Neil Prosper. They were drinking, smoking, listening to music. Earlier in the night they ordered takeout, which was confirmed by the pizza company, although because the pizza had been ordered and delivered hours before the murder, this wasn’t much help.”
“But you said . . . he disappeared? Neil Prosper?”
Camila shrugged. “He was never cal ed in the original trial. The original defense attorney couldn’t find him. There’s no public record of his death, and his family claim not to have heard from him for years—not since shortly after Dandridge’s arrest, in fact.”
“That’s strange,” Hannah said. To her it only made Dandridge look more guilty. Why would his only alibi disappear shortly after his arrest? Didn’t it seem likely that this Prosper guy didn’t want to be found? Which suggested an obvious conclusion—that he had been involved in some way in the murder and didn’t want to be caught.
Sean looked at his watch. “Shit,” he said. “I have to go. I’m sorry, guys. I have a paper due tomorrow, and it’s getting late.” He stood, zipped up his backpack. “Can I give either of you a ride?” he asked.
Camila shrugged. “I’m good,” she said. “I think I’l stay and finish my beer. Catch up with Hannah here, if she’s not in a rush.”