The Reversal

then realized her boss wanted her to go back into the courtroom. She went back through the doors and Royce turned his attention back to me. I spoke before he could.
    “I appreciate your courtesy and concern, Clive. But if your client wants a trial, he’ll get a trial. We’ll be ready and we’ll see who gets embarrassed and who goes back to prison.”
    “Brilliant, then. I look forward to the contest.”
    I followed him back inside. Court was in session and on my way down the aisle I saw Lorna Taylor, my office manager and second ex-wife, sitting at the end of one of the crowded rows. I leaned over to whisper.
    “Hey, what are you doing here?”
    “I had to come see the big moment.”
    “How did you even know? I just found out fifteen minutes ago.”
    “I guess so did KNX. I was already down here to look at office space and heard it on the radio that Jessup was going to appear in court. So I came.”
    “Well, thanks for being here, Lorna. How is the search going? I really need to get out of this building. Soon.”
    “I have three more showings after this. That’ll be enough. I’ll let you know my final choices tomorrow, okay?”
    “Yeah, that’s—”
    I heard Jessup’s name called by the clerk.
    “Look, I gotta get in there. We’ll talk later.”
    “Go get ’em, Mickey!”
    I found an empty seat waiting for me next to Maggie at the prosecution table. Rivas had moved to the row of seats against the gate. Royce had moved to the glass cage, where he was whispering to his client. Jessup was wearing an orange jumpsuit—the jail uniform—and looked calm and subdued. He was nodding to everything Royce whispered in his ear. He somehow seemed younger than I had thought he would. I guess I expected all of those years in prison to have taken their toll. I knew he was forty-eight but he looked no older than forty. He didn’t even have a jailhouse pallor. His skin was pale but it looked healthy, especially next to the overtanned Royce.
    “Where did you go?” Maggie whispered to me. “I thought I was going to have to handle this myself.”
    “I was just outside conferring with defense counsel. Do you have the charges handy? In case I have to read them into the record.”
    “You won’t have to enter the charges. All you have to do is stand up and say that you believe Jessup is a flight risk and a danger to the community. He—”
    “But I don’t believe he’s a flight risk. His lawyer just told me they’re ready to go and that they’re not interested in a disposition. He wants the money and the only way he’ll get it is to stick around and go to trial—and win.”
    “So?”
    She seemed astonished and looked down at the files stacked in front of her.
    “Mags, your philosophy is to argue everything and give no quarter. I don’t think that’s going to work here. I have a strategy and—”
    She turned and leaned in closer to me.
    “Then I’ll just leave you and your strategy and your bald buddy from the defense bar to it.”
    She pushed back her chair and got up, grabbing her briefcase from the floor.
    “Maggie…”
    She charged through the gate and headed toward the rear door of the courtroom. I watched her go, knowing that while I didn’t like the result, I had needed to set the lines of our prosecutorial relationship.
    Jessup’s name was called and Royce identified himself for the record. I then stood and said the words I never expected I would say.
    “Michael Haller for the People.”
    Even Judge Firestone looked up from his perch, peering at me over a pair of reading glasses. Probably for the first time in weeks something out of the ordinary had occurred in his courtroom. A dyed-in-the-wool defense attorney had stood for the People.
    “Well, gentlemen, this is an arraignment court and I have a note here saying you want to talk about bail.”
    Jessup was charged twenty-four years ago with murder and abduction. When the supreme court reversed his conviction it did not throw out the charges. That had been left to the DA’s Office. So he still stood accused of the crimes and his not-guilty plea of twenty-four years ago remained in place. The case now had to be assigned to a courtroom and a judge for trial. A motion to discuss bail would usually be delayed until that point, except that Jessup, through Royce, was pushing the issue forward by coming to Firestone.
    “Your Honor,” Royce said, “my client was already arraigned twenty-four years ago. What we would like to do today is