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profitable.
    As he waited, Cash’s thoughts returned to the events of last evening: the quiet dinner with family in his sprawling Victorian home in Moorestown, some reading, the late-night news, sleep, and then the phone call.
    “Hello?” he had whispered into the mouthpiece, glancing to his sleeping wife as she gently stirred beside him.
    “Mr. Cash?” a tentative voice had begun. “It’s Ken, sir, Ken Barrows.”
    Jesus Christ, Cash had thought, what could the most junior member of the firm possibly want at this hour? “What the hell, Barrows, it’s almost three-thirty in the morning.”
    “Yes sir, I realize that. It’s just that … well, I’m on call tonight. For the FOP, you know, the police union. It’s my week to be on call.”
    Cash frowned into the mouthpiece, again glancing to his wife. She seemed resettled, her nightly sleeping pill working its wonder.
    “And?” Cash asked harshly.
    Barrows paused for a moment, perhaps suddenly rethinking the wisdom of the call. “There’s been a shooting, sir. A fatal police shooting. One person is dead, but no police were injured. The union rep called me from the scene a few minutes ago. He wants me down there.”
    Cash’s frown turned to a scowl. “Of course he does, Barrows. That’s the purpose of having a lawyer on call twenty-four-seven. It’s mandatory when you represent the unions. But why in God’s name did you feel it necessary to—”
    “I thought you’d want to know, sir,” Barrows interrupted, a new confidence in his tone. “You see, the shooting was in Camden City. It was a white officer, the dead man is black. And the officer involved, the one who shot the perpetrator, was … it was that new officer.” He paused here for effect. Barrows, despite his youth, was a good lawyer. “It was Anthony Miles.” Another slight pause. “I thought it best you knew, sir. Of course, I can handle it if you’d like … but I thought you should know.”
    Now Cash sat upright, indifferent to whether or not the movement would further disturb his wife. “Oh,” he said, his mind shifting sharply from disgruntled employer to defensive lawyer. “Oh,” he repeated.
    After a brief silence, he spoke again. “Call the union rep at the scene. Tell him to put Miles into a radio car and get him over to Cooper a.s.a.p. I’ll call ahead and get hold of whoever is in charge of the emergency room. I want Miles sedated. Tell the union rep to convince the kid that he’s stressed out and needs to see a doctor. Once the doctors get a drug into him, the law says he can’t be interviewed. It’ll buy us some time. I can be at the hospital in less than thirty minutes.”
    “Yes sir, I’ll call the rep. Shall I meet you there?”
    Cash considered it. “No. Just make sure the rep gets Miles to the ER immediately. I’ll grease the wheels. I don’t want some intern refusing to sedate.”
    “Yes sir,” Barrows said, his confidence even stronger now.
    “You were right to call, Ken. It shows good presence of mind.”
    “Thank you, sir. I thought you should know.”
    Cash slipped out of bed, shaving and dressing quickly. He left a note for his wife and drove to Route 38, leaving the lush, manicured splendor of Moorestown for a twenty-minute drive to the desolate wasteland of Camden City. As the BMW cut rapidly through misty darkness, Cash thought about police officer Anthony Miles.
    Miles had gone directly to the Camden Police Department after graduating the County Police Academy. Like all rookies, he had been assigned to routine patrol duty with a senior training officer. In most such cases, no one in any remotely influential position would have cause to notice or care.
    But Miles was different. Miles was the son of Curtis Miles, United States Attorney to the State of New Jersey. The Republican United States Attorney.
    And Camden was ground zero for the Democratic machine that had maintained a strong and lucrative hold on New Jersey politics for more than two