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down the steps, “but it wasn’t. I only saw them together a few times, but there was no denying they had genuine feelings for each other. The air between them was electric.”
    I study Meredith for a moment, wondering if she’s angry with the Senator for hurting her little sister. If she is, it doesn’t show. I decide not to ask. “Do your parents know?” I say instead.
    She takes a deep breath. “At some level they do,” she says, “but they’d never admit it. They wouldn’t approve.”
    “Meredith.” I stand still in the middle of the snowy driveway and she does too. “You’re under no obligation to tell me anything. But I’d really like to know if you’ve mentioned this to anyone else.”
    She looks down at her boots. “The District Attorney,” she says. “Ms. Schilling.”
    “Geraldine.”
    She nods. “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to cause trouble for him—politically or personally. That’s the last thing Michelle would want me to do. But I couldn’t not mention it. What if it turned out to matter somehow and I had kept quiet?”
    She’s not crying, but her eyes are filled to the brim. “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “And I appreciate your answering my question.”
    She shakes my hand, then turns and heads back to her parents’ house.
    It’s barely four o’clock when I pull out of the Forresters’ driveway, but the cold December sky is near dark already. I toy with the idea of calling Senator Kendrick from the car, to ask why he insists on keeping his own lawyer in the dark, to ask why he repeatedly enables the District Attorney to stay two steps ahead of me, to ask what other secrets he’s keeping. I decide against that call, though. Some conversations should be had face-to-face.

Chapter 8
    Wednesday, December 15
    Judge Richard Gould was elevated from the District Court bench to Superior Court just over a year ago. It was a well-deserved promotion. A highly intelligent, serious man, he runs an efficient, on-schedule courtroom. Even so, any lawyer who’s ever practiced before him knows that the procedural and substantive rights of litigants—particularly those of criminal defendants—are his foremost concern. Derrick Holliston is lucky to have ended up on Judge Gould’s docket. I told Holliston so before I left the House of Correction yesterday. He promised to send the Governor a thank you card.
    The judge isn’t here yet. Neither is Harry. Geraldine Schilling is, though, already set up at the prosecutors’ table with her young assistant, Clarence Wexler. They’re reviewing exhibits, leaning toward each other from time to time to whisper. They both look relaxed, confident that Holliston’s conviction is already in the bag.
    Two court officers bustle about behind us, seating sixty potential jurors in the old courtroom’s small but stately gallery. The men and women are silent as they file in, winter coats folded over their arms. Their eyes are alert, their faces somber. From them, Geraldine and Harry will select fourteen, twelve of whom will decide Derrick Holliston’s fate.
    The side door opens and a prison guard enters, heavy holster low on his hips. Our client follows and a second guard—a near-clone of the first—brings up the rear, completing the Holliston sandwich. The accused is free of hardware, wearing black slacks, a dark gray suit coat, and a white dress shirt, neatly pressed. I’m taken aback.
    All criminal defendants are permitted to “clean up” for trial—get a haircut, a shave, a set of decent street clothes—but this particular defendant cleans up exceptionally well. His once greasy brown hair has been recently introduced to shampoo. It’s trimmed short and parted precisely. The sketchy mustache is gone, as is every other trace of facial hair. His near-constant sneer has been erased. He looks like the guy next door—if the guy next door happens to be an Eagle Scout.
    A low murmur emanates from the crowded gallery as Holliston approaches the