He doesn’t hesitate. “No. You’re my lawyers until you tell me you can’t do the job.”
With that out of the way, I get down to it. “The police searched Jennifer’s apartment and found some fingerprints and DNA. My guess is that they reached out to you because you’re a match.”
“How’d they get a set of my prints and my DNA?”
His question tells me two things. First, he has definitely been in her apartment. He isn’t going to claim there must be some mistake. And second, he doesn’t have an innocent explanation as to why he’s been there.
“You have a series seven, right?” I say, referring to the license to sell securities to the public.
“Yes, and a sixty-three.”
“Well, that’s how they have your prints. It’s part of the background check for getting your securities license, if you recall. On the bright side, they probably don’t have your DNA on file—unless you’ve previously been arrested for a sex crime.”
Paul isn’t the kind of guy to panic. In college, he played on the tennis team and often told me that he was at his best when he was down a set. Met with the disclosure that the police are going to be able to place him at what is very likely a murder scene, he doesn’t display anything but cool-as-can-be confidence.
“Where does the fingerprint thing leave us?”
“Well, I think it’s a safe bet that the police have evidence that you’ve been in Jennifer Barnett’s home.”
We stare at each other for a few seconds. I wonder if Paul understands that I want him to confess. To tell me that he can’t take it anymore and blurt out that he killed her. To be a good person and do the right thing.
When the quiet passes long enough that I know he’s actually waiting for me to say something, I ask him, “So what do you want to do? About the police’s invitation to submit to an interview, I mean.”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” he says.
I think about how I want to answer, actually running the response through my head before committing to it. I can’t imagine my father offering the advice I’m about to give, but I convince myself that I’m providing it for Paul’s benefit and not to further my own sense of justice.
“The conventional wisdom is definitely what my father advised when we last met—hunker down. Talking to cops now will lock you into a story, and if new evidence subsequently refreshes your recollection about something down the road, it will look like you lied. Here’s just one example. If you’d talked to the police before we were retained, you might have denied ever being in her apartment. Now that we know your prints are likely there, I can ask you to search your memory as to why that would be. So, for the sake of argument, maybe now you remember being there for some perfectly innocent reason. Maybe you now remember that you’d visited once to drop something off or to attend a party. If you tell the police one thing and then your memory gets ‘refreshed,’ they view that as a lie when the reality is that you just forgot. Also, cooperation’s like being pregnant, as they say. There’s no halfway. If you agree to an interview then they’re going to ask you to take a polygraph. They’re not admissible in court, but if you decline—or worse, fail—then they’ll think they’ve got their man. Same thing with their requesting to search your place. Right now, they probably don’t have enough to get a warrant, so they’ll ask for your permission. If you say no, then they again think it’s because you’ve got something to hide.”
I can tell just from the way he looks at me that he isn’t going to cooperate. And not because of my bullshit refreshed-recollection scenario. He’s hiding something.
“You’ve more than convinced me, Ella. Tell them thanks but no thanks.”
I’ve done my job the way my father taught me. But I’m not willing to let Paul off the hook just yet. I need to know just how deep in the muck he is.
“There’s a second option. And it’s an important one for you to consider.”
I look at him with my most no-nonsense stare. I clearly have his attention.
“If you were involved in any way in Jennifer Barnett’s disappearance, you should tell me. Telling me doesn’t mean we’re going to change our approach, but it allows us to better evaluate the risks. That’s because if you were involved, there’s a pretty strong likelihood that the police will ultimately be able to prove that. By contrast, if you weren’t, then cooperating has far fewer downsides and much greater rewards.”
My proposal is met with a stony silence. I knew even while I was speaking that there was no way that Paul Michelson was going to confess, even just to me. He doesn’t seem to be built that way.
“I didn’t do it, Ella. Please believe that. I know we haven’t spoken in more than ten years, but . . . you’re not just my lawyer, you’re someone who knows me. You know I couldn’t have hurt this girl.”
His use of the phrase this girl doesn’t help his cause. I would have found Paul slightly more believable if he had referred to Jennifer Barnett by name, or at least recognized she was a woman, not a girl.
“But I also don’t see any reason why I should help them out,” he adds.
I let the words settle before responding. The echoes of Zach’s self-interested response are almost more than I can bear.
“In that case, we follow my father’s script. I’ll call Detective McCorry and tell him that we’re representing you and that, for the moment, you’re going to decline their offer to submit to an interview.”
In different circumstances, I might have waited for my father to return from court so I could run the decision by him to tell the police to pound sand with regard to Paul Michelson. But Paul was unequivocal, and this was my father’s standard operating procedure, so I figured I might as well just get it over with.
He answers on the first ring. A gruff sounding, “McCorry.”
“This is Ella Broden. We met earlier today, when I was with Gabriel Velasquez.”
“I remember. Do you need me to get Gabriel?”
“No. I was calling to speak to you. It’s about Paul Michelson. He’s a client of my law firm. I practice with my father, Clint Broden. Paul said that you reached out to him and expressed interest in an interview. I’m calling to inform you that he’s going to decline that offer at this time.”
“Really?”
The question throws me a bit. I was prepared for him to tell me the usual cop line—that my client was making a huge mistake by refusing to cooperate—but not to suggest that I might be joking.
“Yes, really,” I say. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve never had an innocent man turn down an invite to chat with the police. I don’t think my father has ever—and I mean ever—brought someone in for a voluntary interview.”
I surprise myself at how easily I flip into defense-lawyer mode. Paul might very well be a murderer and here I am, claiming the moral high ground for his refusal to cooperate with the police.