A Good Mother by Lara Bazelon (classic books to read .TXT) 📕

“We can use the money we saved on Dr. Cartwright,” Abby says. “Paul already allocated it.”

Not for a fishing expedition with a completely different expert on a completely different topic, Will thinks. Like Abby dissing the investigator staff, it is just another headache he’ll have to deal with when the trial is over.

Antoine says, “No harm in having the information. Not like we have to turn it over to the prosecutor if we don’t like it.”

Will shakes his head. Antoine is right—they would be committing malpractice if they gave Shauna damaging information on Luz. Still. He doesn’t know why he is resisting so strongly, but his gut is telling him this is a bad idea. But it’s obvious that the decision has been made and his opinion is irrelevant.

Antoine says, breaking an awkward silence, “Would be good if we could get Mike Ravel to talk to us.”

Ravel was Travis’s best friend in the military and the government is almost certain to call him. It’s Ravel’s signature as the witness on the life insurance policy—the one that removed Travis’s parents as the beneficiaries and replaced them with Luz several weeks before he died.

“It would,” Abby says. “What have you found out about him?”

“Dishonorably discharged a couple of months back. He’s in a sober living facility outside Tucson. Some kind of diversion program run by the state court after he was caught breaking into a pharmacy to steal oxy.”

“Drugs got him kicked out of the military?” Will asks.

“Yeah. First it was legally prescribed. He was wounded in Iraq, same tour as Travis. Back injury. But then he got addicted, started stealing.”

Will considers these facts, how they might play. If Ravel is hostile to Luz, and there is reason to think he might be, they can use his addiction and theft to undermine his credibility. Still, being an addict and a thief doesn’t necessarily make him a liar, especially not if his problems are combat-induced and likely to stir the jury’s sympathy. “What do you think he can tell us?”

Antoine shrugs. “Don’t know till we ask.”

The waitress arrives with their bowls. Antoine and Abby slide their chopsticks out of the paper wrapper and break them apart. Will calls the waitress back, and asks sheepishly for a knife and fork.

They eat in silence for a while, Abby ravenously, draining her water glass repeatedly and asking for refills.

Antoine says to Abby, “How’s Nic? He cool with you doing this trial?”

Will stops sawing at his chicken with the plastic utensils. Abby is looking steadily at Antoine. “No,” she says, “he’s not cool with it. But my doing this trial isn’t up to him.”

Antoine shakes his head. “Bumped into him the other day when he came by with the baby. Didn’t know the marshals got paternity leave.”

Abby reddens slightly. “He’s using his vacation time and sick leave.” When Antoine’s eyebrows go up, she adds quickly, “It’s just until after the trial and then I’ll be the one taking care of Cal.”

Antoine grins. “Sure you will.”

Abby drains her water glass. “If I were a man, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. It’s 2007, and you would think—” she looks pointedly at Will “—that I’m committing some kind of child abuse. I’m just doing my job. A job, by the way, that pays more than Nic’s. Having a baby is a partnership. Both parents have to sacrifice.”

“Well, Happy Valentine’s Day to you and your sacrificing partner.” Antoine is still grinning.

Will starts. “Damn, I forgot about that.”

“Can’t forget Valentine’s Day, man. Buy the lady some flowers on your way home.”

Abby rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you actually celebrate that fake buy-me-an-overpriced-dinner-and-I’ll-give-you-a-blow-job bullshit.”

Every Valentine’s Day, Meredith makes Will his favorite dinner: lasagna with lamb meat instead of regular hamburger. He buys her a bottle of wine that costs more than $6 and a dozen roses. It’s been a tradition for going on ten years. Will returns his attention to his chicken.

As Abby signals the waitress for the check, Antoine says, “First-degree murder seems like a stretch to me. Always has. The kind of women that get a verdict like that, they hire a hit man. Or they get a young kid to do it and they’re fucking him, like in that movie about the news anchor lady. But Luz, she’s basically still a kid herself, and you can argue she was protecting her baby.”

“My worry is that the jury will want to compromise,” Will says. “Not let her go, but not convict on the most extreme charge, either.”

“What then, second-degree murder?”

“Second-degree is almost as bad as first. Twenty years, give or take.”

“It’s not life,” Abby says. “Dars might have mercy, and even if he doesn’t, Luz could still get out before she’s forty.”

“It’s Cristina’s life,” Will says pointedly, and sees Abby flinch, then look past him, signaling to the waitress. “I worry,” he says, raising his voice slightly to regain her attention, “that the jury will compromise on manslaughter, the plea Shauna offered.”

Antoine nods. “She killed him in the heat of passion. Fits a stereotype—hot-blooded little Latina stabs her lying, cheating man in a fit of jealous rage. Through the heart no less.”

Abby looks at Antoine, the corners of her mouth tilting upward. “Could have been worse. She could have done it on Valentine’s Day.”

Antoine smiles. “Always best to focus on the positive.”

How could they possibly joke about something so effing serious? Gallows humor, Will understood, was a staple of their office—of any public defender’s office—but he finds it difficult to stomach and in particularly poor taste here. A manslaughter conviction, in Will’s mind, is what they have to fear the most. Shauna wouldn’t traffic in racist stereotypes—no doubt she’s been on the receiving end of plenty herself—but the jurors will take one look at Luz, then at the pictures of Travis’s ravaged body, and come to their own conclusions.

Antoine stirs the remaining rice around in his bowl. “We’ve got to show self-defense, meaning Luz stabbed him through