One Shot

semi-independent point of view. She got him at home, ten o’clock in the morning on the Sunday.
    “I think I should hire different lawyers,” she said.
    Franklin said nothing.
    “David Chapman thinks he’s guilty,” Rosemary said. “Doesn’t he? So he’s already given up.”
    “I can’t comment,” Franklin said. “He’s one of my employers.”
    Now Rosemary Barr said nothing.
    “How was the hospital?” Franklin asked.
    “Awful. He’s in intensive care with a bunch of prison deadbeats. They’ve got him handcuffed to the bed. He’s in a
coma,
for God’s sake. How do they think he’s going to escape?”
    “What’s the legal position?”
    “He was arrested but not arraigned. He’s in a kind of limbo. They’re assuming he wouldn’t have gotten bail.”
    “They’re probably right.”
    “So they claim under the circumstances it’s like he actually
didn’t
get bail. So he’s
theirs.
He’s in the system. Like a twilight zone.”
    “What would you like to happen?”
    “He shouldn’t be in handcuffs. And he should be in a VA hospital at least. But that won’t happen until I find a lawyer who’s prepared to help him.”
    Franklin paused. “How do you explain all the evidence?”
    “I know my brother.”
    “You moved out, right?”
    “For other reasons. Not because he’s a homicidal maniac.”
    “He blocked off a parking space,” Franklin said. “He premeditated this thing.”
    “You think he’s guilty, too.”
    “I work with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got doesn’t look good.”
    Rosemary Barr said nothing.
    “I’m sorry,” Franklin said.
    “Can you recommend another lawyer?”
    “Can you make that decision? Do you have a power of attorney?”
    “I think it’s implied. He’s in a coma. I’m his next of kin.”
    “How much money have you got?”
    “Not much.”
    “How much has
he
got?”
    “There’s some equity in his house.”
    “It won’t look good. It’ll be like a kick in the teeth for the firm you work for.”
    “I can’t worry about that.”
    “You could lose everything, including your job.”
    “I’ll lose it anyway, unless I help James. If he’s convicted, they’ll let me go. I’ll be notorious. By association. An embarrassment.”
    “He had your sleeping pills,” Franklin said.
    “I gave them to him. He doesn’t have insurance.”
    “Why did he need them?”
    “He has trouble sleeping.”
    Franklin said nothing.
    “You think he’s guilty,” Rosemary said.
    “The evidence is overwhelming,” Franklin said.
    “David Chapman isn’t really trying, is he?”
    “You have to consider the possibility that David Chapman is right.”
    “Who should I call?”
    Franklin paused.
    “Try Helen Rodin,” he said.
    “Rodin?”
    “She’s the DA’s daughter.”
    “I don’t know her.”
    “She’s downtown. She just hung out her shingle. She’s new and she’s keen.”
    “Is it ethical?”
    “No law against it.”
    “It would be father against daughter.”
    “It was going to be Chapman, and Chapman knows Rodin a lot better than his daughter does, probably. She’s been away for a long time.”
    “Where?”
    “College, law school, clerking for a judge in D.C.”
    “Is she any good?”
    “I think she’s going to be.”

    Rosemary Barr called Helen Rodin on her office number. It was like a test. Someone new and keen should be at the office on a Sunday.
    Helen Rodin was at the office on a Sunday. She answered the call sitting at her desk. Her desk was secondhand and it sat proudly in a mostly empty two-room suite in the same black glass tower that had NBC as the second-floor tenant. The suite was rented cheap through one of the business subsidies that the city was throwing around like confetti. The idea was to kick-start the rejuvenated downtown area and clean up later with healthy tax revenues.
    Rosemary Barr didn’t have to tell Helen Rodin about the case because the whole thing had happened right outside Helen Rodin’s new office window. Helen had seen some of it for herself, and she had followed the rest on the news afterward. She had caught all of Ann Yanni’s TV appearances. She recognized her from the building’s lobby, and the elevator.
    “Will you help my brother?” Rosemary Barr asked.
    Helen Rodin paused. The smart answer would be
No way.
She knew that. Like
No way, forget about it, are you out of your mind?
Two reasons. One, she knew a major clash with her father was inevitable at some point, but did she need