70
SO HOW’D it go?” Candace asked.
Duncan smiled ruefully. “Rafael told me to f*ck off,” he said, handing a beer to her before sitting down in the chair across from her.
His apartment had somehow become their default meeting place. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Duncan rarely had people over unless he was sleeping with them; most New York socializing took place in restaurants and bars. But Candace didn’t want to meet him in public, given that she was being followed, and in light of recent events Duncan certainly saw her point. But there was an intimacy to having her here, once again drinking beer on his couch.
It was a little after eight o’clock, Candace having come over after work. She was still dressed for the office, while Duncan was in jeans. He’d put on a suit to go see Rafael at Rikers, but otherwise hadn’t bothered to look anything close to presentable since getting the ax.
“Nazario’s still pissed that you quit on him?”
“I don’t blame him for being pissed. But it’s also that he seems resigned to taking the plea. I think he’s so beaten down by the whole thing that he’s made peace with the idea of spending years in jail for something he didn’t do.”
“I can’t blame the guy for thinking a fair shake’s not in the cards,” Candace replied. “It can’t just be a coincidence that they chose Rafael to be the fall guy. So which came first, you representing Rafael or his being set up?”
Duncan looked away, peeling off the beer label and then rolling it up in his hand. Candace, well versed in waiting people out, sat still. “We’re off the record, right?”
“I told you before, I’m blacklisted from writing about any of this. We’re just two guys talking.”
Duncan fixed her with a look. “Is that what we are?” he said, Candace seeming a little caught off guard. When it became clear she wasn’t going to say anything Duncan continued. “I obviously can’t prove it,” he said. “But I’m pretty much certain they picked him because I was already his lawyer.”
Candace nodded. “Like I said before, I figured your guilty conscience had a role in all this.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Duncan protested.
“Really? Because my assumption that you did was part of why I was starting to like you.”
Now it was Duncan’s turn to be caught off guard. “I do feel responsible,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
“To a lawyer, maybe,” Candace said with a slight smile. “Anyway, so now what? If you can’t represent Nazario, isn’t that game-over?”
“Not necessarily,” Duncan said. “I’ve got a potential angle to at least maybe get into the courtroom without actually representing Rafael. But that won’t do me any good without a way to exonerate him once I get there.”
“Which you don’t have.”
“I don’t have that, no,” Duncan said. “I need to talk to the person who came forward to you about Jeremy.”
“You know I can’t just hand over a source.”
“Look, I play by the rules too. How’s that working out for either of us?”
“I’ll see if I can get her to agree to talk to you,” Candace said. “I don’t think she knows enough to help you, anyway. She doesn’t have the slightest idea who Sean Fowler is.”
Duncan took a long swig of his beer, trying to fight down the feeling that he’d already failed, and that all he was doing now was banging his head against an unmoving wall. “If you have a better idea,” he said, “now wouldn’t be a bad time to tell me.”
“You either need somebody on the inside to give it up or you need some sort of physical evidence, right?”
“Actually it’s a little worse than that. Evidence of Rafael’s innocence isn’t enough at this point, since I’m not his lawyer and there’s not going to be a trial. I need to be able to show that he was framed, and by whom. But I don’t actually know who killed Fowler, and I don’t have any evidence that the Roths gave the order.”
Candace gave Duncan an appraising look. “So have you entertained the possibility that you’ve just lost here?” she said. “You don’t have a client; you don’t have evidence. Aren’t those pretty essential things for a lawyer looking to win a case?”
She’d read his mind, but Duncan resisted conceding it. “What can I do but keep fighting?” he said. “This is the only thing I have left to do. If I don’t try, it’s game-over just the same as it is if I try and fail.”
Candace offered Duncan a warm smile in response, Duncan finding himself smiling back, though it had nothing to do with what he’d just said. “Can I tell you something weird?” Candace said. “I got divorced today.”
Duncan was a little thrown by the transition. Was this her way of telling him she was officially single? Of acknowledging the attraction in the smile they’d just exchanged? “I don’t know whether to say congratulations or sorry.”
Candace looked uncomfortable, like she might be regretting telling him. “Both. Neither. Shit, beats me.”
“You were in court today?”
Candace shook her head. “We weren’t contesting it, just a yearlong separation before I could claim abandonment. I got it in the mail. So anticlimactic, I suppose, in that sense.”
“That must be strange. Though if you’ve been apart for a full year, I guess you’ve had time to get used to the idea.”
“It’s not like it’s a surprise, except in the way that such things are when they actually happen,” Candace said, looking like she was trying to fight off a sudden bout of sadness. “So how about you? How come you’re not married?”
Duncan suspected Candace was feeling vulnerable and trying to turn the tables. “I’ve got nothing against the idea,” he said. “It just hasn’t happened. I’ve been working at least sixty hours a week for the past seven years, so that hasn’t helped. And most of the people I meet are lawyers, and you know what they’re like. Plus I don’t come across a lot of great advertisements for the institution. How long were you even married?”
“About six years, not counting this past one, and we were together for about three before that. So as failed relationships go, we didn’t do that terrible.”
Duncan decided to probe further. “What ended it?”
“I guess I did. There wasn’t a big scandal or anything. We got to the point where having a kid was the next thing, and suddenly the idea that I was in this for the next twenty years or whatever became something scary to me. Maybe we were a little too young—nobody in New York gets married in their twenties anymore. But really it was just that we had different approaches to life. Ben was such an academic—the world as it actually is just isn’t that interesting to him. To me, it’s the only thing.”
Duncan finished his beer and put the bottle down on his coffee table before looking back over at Candace. “So why’d you just tell me?” he asked, no challenge in it, but no banter either.
“About the divorce?” Candace asked, looking taken aback. “No reason. I hadn’t told anyone, and it seemed like something I shouldn’t go the whole day without saying out loud.”
“I think you just wanted me to know you were on the market,” Duncan said, just playfully enough to leave himself some plausible deniability.
“Please,” Candace said. “You don’t even have a job. I do look for a certain amount of respectability.”