“Hi Ella,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
Indeed it has. I last laid eyes on Paul Michelson ten years ago, when he was breaking up with me, a week after we graduated from college. I had had hopes of spending the summer together and then giving a long-distance relationship a chance, with him staying in New York to start a job on Wall Street while I went to law school at Stanford. He said that he wasn’t aware of any relationship that survived in different cities, much less on different coasts, and that it would save us both a lot of heartache if we just made a clean break.
I spent the summer in a fog of depression. Paul went backpacking in Europe. While there, he met up with Kelly Nelson, a fellow classmate of ours. I had been somewhat friendly with her during our junior year, when we sat next to each other in some poli-sci class. I didn’t think Paul even knew her, and it was never clear to me whether he had prearranged their supposedly coincidental rendezvous, which occurred in front of the Louvre.
“Oh my God,” I say. The moment the words come out of my mouth I realize I sound like I’m still the twenty-one-year-old he dumped a decade ago. In an effort to regain some professionalism, I add, “It has been a long time.”
It looks as if time has stood still for Paul. He hasn’t gained more than five pounds since college or lost a single strand of the jet-black hair that first made me notice him, although it’s now neatly cut, whereas back in the day he wore it shaggy and past his collar. The only other thing that’s different about him is that he now looks to be wearing a $5,000 suit, and the Paul I knew was strictly a sweatshirt-and-jeans kind of guy.
My eyes glance down to his hand. No wedding band.
All of which makes me more than a little self-conscious that I’m not looking my best. Not only is my face puffy—the way it always gets after I drink too much wine—but I’m also wearing an old suit, one of the last vestiges of my public-sector wardrobe.
The coffee and muffins are set out on the buffet along the back wall. I go there as if pulled by a magnetic force and quickly pour myself a cup of coffee. The aroma soothes me with the thought that I’ll be consuming it soon. I want to take a muffin too, but think better of eating in front of Paul.
Coffee cup in hand, I make my way to the chair beside my father, which requires walking around Paul. As I pass him, I can’t help but breathe in his scent. More intoxicating than the coffee. I would have recognized it if I’d been blind.
Once I’m seated, I take in a few strong sips of coffee. Then I reach across the table for a yellow legal pad, write the date on the top of the page, and wait for someone to fill me in.
My father does the honors.
“Your old friend Paul is now the head of the derivatives desk at Maeve Grant.”
Maeve Grant is one of the biggest financial houses on Wall Street. Running a desk there means that Paul’s done quite well for himself.
“As it happens, one of the newest employees on that desk is Jennifer Barnett,” my father continues. “Does that name ring a bell?”
I wonder if my father is being sarcastic. Every person in the English-speaking world has heard of Jennifer Barnett. Her pretty face, bright blue eyes, and blonde ponytail have been a ubiquitous presence on television, the tabloids, and social media since she vanished without a trace.
“Yes, the missing woman,” I say.
The fact that Paul is meeting with a lawyer of my father’s caliber only days after an attractive young woman who works for him went missing means that there’s only one place this is heading: a place no one wants to go.
My father is in full defense-lawyer mode. A happy-go-lucky expression fills his face—even as we sit in the presence of a potential murderer.
“So I’m sure you’re well aware that, at the moment, there’s no evidence of any foul play regarding her disappearance,” he says. “Nevertheless, Paul made the decision—the right one, in my opinion—to get out in front of things. The police made a visit to interview everyone on the desk. As luck would have it, Paul was traveling that day so he hasn’t yet spoken with them. He’s now wisely decided that he’d benefit from some top-shelf legal advice before deciding whether to sit down with law enforcement.”
I don’t react to my father’s assertion that the proper response to a routine police inquiry regarding a missing woman is to lawyer up. In my experience, that’s what guilty people do. Innocent people offer to help.
“I was just telling Paul that since you’ve come over from the dark side, we’ve been tag-teaming most matters, and that we would handle this matter in the same fashion. I’ve also just shared with him that I have a very busy trial schedule for the next two months, which means that you’ll be the point person. I’ve assured him that if something material were to happen with the investigation, I’d drop everything.”
I nod reassuringly, like a political spouse. My father has made this pitch to many a client since I’ve arrived—it’s a classic bait-and-switch. The clients hire him but they get me, with the promise that if they really need him, he’ll be there. What he always leaves unstated is that he’s the final arbiter of whether they do really need him, and he almost never decides they do.
“What my father so lovingly describes as my time on the dark side,” I say, “was actually six years as an Assistant District Attorney here in Manhattan, where I rose to become the deputy chief of the Special Victims Bureau. So although I’d be the first to admit that I don’t have my father’s standing in the courthouse—honestly, no one does—I’m intimately acquainted with the methods used in the DA’s office.”
Paul’s response to me touting my credentials is an ambiguous smile. It isn’t clear to me if it suggests that I have his complete confidence or that he is thinking solely about getting me back in bed. Truth be told, it’s the reaction I get from a lot of the male clients.
“Very good,” my father says. “So, let’s get down to it, shall we? I’m going to start by giving you some rules for the road. The gospel according to F. Clinton Broden, as it were.”
My colleagues in the DA’s office had always suspected that criminal-defense lawyers gave this speech. Call me naive, but I disagreed. Until, that is, I heard my father deliver it.
“I’m not about justice,” my father’s gospel always begins, and this time is no exception. “And you shouldn’t be either. It is my professional obligation—what we in the law business call a fiduciary duty—to do everything I can to make sure that nothing bad happens to you while you’re my client.”