Dad turned up a palm, coolly. Could be any number of reasons. “A case with stakes this high requires a team. The witness list will be long. No chance one person could handle all those depositions, documents, transcripts. In short”—he grinned in his own hotshot way—“it’s a complex litigation.” He tucked his napkin into his collar. The oysters had arrived.
“What if Farmer is the one to depose me?” I worried. This was the thought that had been keeping me up at night, ever since I learned about this infamous addition to The Defendant’s legal team. It would be so easy to destroy my credibility, based on the scintilla of a second when I thought I’d seen Roger at the front door. It was the jugular I would go for if I were the one to depose me.
“You and I will prepare for that,” Dad said portentously, “together.”
“Hold on, though,” Brian said, his hand raised like a traffic cop’s. “What if he’s the attorney who deposes you?”
I had a flash, what I realize now was a premonition, of The Defendant sitting across from me in a spiffy oatmeal-colored suit. As quickly as I saw myself at that table, I dismissed it. That would be outlandish. The court would never allow it.
“I believe one must pass the bar before one can be called an attorney,” Dad intoned.
“Fine. What if he’s the law student who deposes you,” Brian amended.
Though that was an unearned rank as well. The Defendant had applied widely to a number of reputable programs, but his admission scores were so poor that the only place that would take him was a night school called Tacoma Narrows, located in a shared office building in downtown Tacoma. He fell behind almost immediately, stopped attending classes, and the next quarter scrubbed all mention of his time there on his application to the University of Utah, where he got one year under his belt before he was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and attempted murder of Anne Biers. That was three years ago. He’d been a convict for twice as long as he’d been a law student.
“I’d almost prefer if it was The Defendant who deposed you,” Dad said, not joking in the least. “I very much doubt Shorebird Law turns out the best and the brightest of the legal profession.”
I busied myself, squeezing lemon all over the oysters, giving Brian a moment to recover. He was flushed a girlish pink.
“No, Dad,” I said, passing the platter his way and gesturing for him to dig in first. “Shorebird is the name of the school Brian and I are attending in the fall. The Defendant was at a place called Tacoma Narrows.”
My father smeared an oyster with horseradish, seemingly oblivious to the offense he had just caused. But I knew he was not. My father took great pains to appear laid-back, but that was a tactic too, one that belied his meticulous diction. His comment had been a deliberate, targeted attack on Brian, meant to remind him—his daughter had gotten into Columbia Law, but his daughter’s boyfriend had not.
“It’s those aquatic-sounding names.” Dad brought the wide end of the shell to his lower lip, tipped, and chewed before swallowing. “Tough to keep straight.” He pushed the platter in Brian’s direction, a peace offering.
“Thank you, sir,” Brian said quietly.
My father waved the waiter over, ordered another round of drinks, then insisted we all have the filet, though I knew Brian preferred the strip.
“Dad,” I said when the waiter had gone, “I’d love to pick your brain about something.”
Dad brought a fork to the side of his head, pretending to twirl his thinning blond hair. Pick away. I gave him the half laugh he was after.
I’d taken a debate and rhetoric class my junior year; learned about something called process values. In a rule of law–based society, you could make a winnable argument based on these values. Even when a legal outcome might not appear obvious, fair, or logical, you could at least show that the process to get there was. I clasped my hands in my lap, made my voice sonorous. “Don’t you think,” I started, “that if the state is going to use citizens’ tax dollars to extradite somebody, charge them, and prosecute them, then that should happen? The person should not be allowed to escape. Our system recognizes that as a criminal offense in and of itself.”
“Not every country penalizes escape,” Dad pointed out.
I nodded eagerly. I liked when we did this. Built a case together. “But ours does. And part of that penalization involves increasing security around an escaped prisoner if and when he’s recaptured, usually by moving the inmate to a higher-security facility.”
“Sure,” Dad said. “If a higher-security system isn’t available, measures like round-the-clock surveillance can be implemented by the judge.”
Our entrees arrived, and I readied the rest of my argument while the waiter fanned out the identical plates. My father had been a civil attorney for fifteen years before making the move to in-house counsel. He would have only cursory knowledge of criminal law, so the fact that he had retained knowledge like this boded well. The clearest argument is always the one that relies on ordinary people’s latent understanding of our system.
“The Defendant was remanded—appropriately—to a level-three facility in Utah after he was convicted of kidnapping Anne Biers,” I continued once the waiter had gone. “The Colorado DA came in and extradited him to a level-one facility in Aspen, which is the least restrictive—”
“Can you pass the breadbasket, Pamela?”
I passed Brian the breadbasket and tried to remember what I was saying. “Level one is considered minimum security. Someone who’s been convicted of aggravated kidnapping and charged with first-degree murder really should be somewhere more restrictive. At the very least, he should not be permitted to roam free, unshackled and unsupervised. Which is how he escaped the first time. You would think Colorado would have learned from that, put tougher restrictions in place. Instead, they remanded him to yet another level-one facility and failed to follow the judge’s ruling that he should have round-the-clock—”
“And the butter?”
I passed Brian the butter. “Surveillance,” I finished. Then, “I think I have enough to make a claim.”
My father split his baked potato down the middle and let the steam pour out. “Which would be?”
“Negligent infliction of emotional distress against the Colorado Department of Corrections. Witnesses and bystanders can sue for emotional anguish if they witness something horrible. I’d say I qualify.”
My father raised his eyebrows.
“This all should have ended in Colorado. Two adults and a child are dead because of their negligence. When a girl in The House violates the organization’s standards, it’s my job to hold her accountable. Why would this be any different? Plus, a lawsuit gives me the opportunity to request the evidence that the prison guard told me about, anything that could connect The Defendant to crimes in other states. There are families who are desperate for answers about what happened to their loved ones. I could help give them some solace.” I stopped. Poked at the verdant pile of spinach on my plate. Waited to hear what my father thought.
“That’s a tough case to win,” he said at last. “A lot of steps to prove.”
Brian nodded in vehement agreement. He was eating only the charred perimeter of the meat, leaving behind a pink puck at the center. I knew he preferred his well-done. “That’s what I said too,” he said pompously.
I turned to him, my patience whittled down to something speared and dangerous. “Actually, that’s not what you said at all. You said to sit back and let the police do their job, because they’ve done such crack detective work up until now. Oh, and what else? That Tina had brainwashed me.”
“Someone managed to brainwash Pamela Schumacher?” My father forked a piece of steak into his mouth with a laugh. He’d believe that when he saw it.
Brian went from pink to a scalding red. “Just so you are aware, sir—”
“Bill.”
“Bill, sir. I’m just a little concerned about how much interest this woman has taken in your daughter. She was in a lesbian relationship with one of the victims. Supposed victims, that is.”
My father glanced between Brian and me, chewing. “Are you in a lesbian relationship with this woman, Pamela?”
“No, Dad,” I said. “I’m not.”