Authors: David Ellis
There were no pictures of Ray Miroballi’s brothers in the articles. She wouldn’t be able to provide identification anyway, given the ski masks they wore. Was that it? Had it been Ray’s brothers who had paid her a visit last night? She knew they were cops—they made a point of letting her know that—but they could have been other cops working with Ray Miroballi in their
drug scheme. The only thing she knew with certainty was that anyone smart enough to concoct that scheme to break into her apartment had brains enough to craft an alibi as well.
She read again about the life of Ray Miroballi and his children. The paper listed facts. The details, Shelly Trotter would never know. His sense of humor. The things he did with his kids. Was he tyrannical? Did he spoil the children? A devoted husband? Happily married? How would his kids grow up now, having lost their father?
This was why she didn’t relish being a criminal defense attorney. She believed in the system with all her heart but didn’t want to be part of it, couldn’t be a part of it. What was the saying? A liberal was a conservative who had never been a victim of a crime. Well, she was probably considered a flaming liberal by most conventional standards, but not when it came to the rights of the accused. Who had protected her when she needed it?
Maybe her views had softened over time, but she made a distinction in any event with children. For them, the presumption of innocence was a multilayered concept. Kids who had turned down a wrong path at a young age could not be fully blamed for their actions. At such a young age, could the connection between their upbringing, their influences, be so casually severed from their actions? They shared fault, of course, but so often only their share was addressed by the justice system. Defending them was not so much seeking absolution for their acts but giving them another chance at an age when they still had so many options. Locking kids away in a delinquency home was rarely the answer. Kicking them out of school was never the answer, yet it had become, increasingly, the chosen course for school systems. Burdened with shrinking budgets and depleted resources, a school board simply found it easier to say to hell with some problem kid. That was just not acceptable to Shelly. Every kid deserved a shot at a good life.
She found herself reading and rereading paragraphs, her eyes passing over words as her thoughts were consumed by Alex. Alex, her client. Alex, her son. How was she supposed to react to that news? Neither she nor Alex seemed to know. Maybe in a normal setting, they could slowly move toward a relationship
that was appropriate to the situation. But they were already friends, and now she was defending him from a capital murder charge and wondering what he wasn’t telling her. She had always loved her child, from the moment she gave him up, not even knowing it
was
a “him” as opposed to a “her.” But now, seeing this boy in the flesh, was she supposed to flip a switch and feel maternal love?
She shook her head harshly. If she couldn’t get Alex off these charges, there wouldn’t be much of a point to any of this talk of mother and son. She had to be his lawyer first. She looked up and saw Rena Schroeder standing in the threshold of her door. She had been there, Shelly sensed, for a lengthy moment. Shelly blinked out of her trance.
Rena was wearing an oversized sweater and a skirt. Her earrings hung down to her shoulders, below her cropped dark hair. Her arms were crossed; she leaned against the doorframe. Her eyebrows arched in concern. This was something to see with Rena. Fifteen years representing children in an enormous city, she had seen it all, wore a weathered, seasoned expression that, to an outside observer, resembled indifference. Shelly sensed it was a defense mechanism.
So why the frown?
“The dean got a call from the I.R.S.,” she told Shelly.
Shelly cocked her head.
“They want to investigate our 501(c) status,” she continued. The Children’s Advocacy Project, though affiliated with the school, was technically its own nonprofit entity. A nonprofit entity was allowed tax benefits so long as it maintained its mission, which in this case meant work for children in education, housing, and juvenile court proceedings.
“Shit,” Shelly said. She scolded herself for not thinking of it. Defending Alex Baniewicz for an adult crime fell outside CAP’s charter. A nonprofit had to be damn careful about exceeding the scope of its mission. The I.R.S. could pull the tax-exempt status in a heartbeat, with financially crippling results. The project would be shut down.
“Have you done anything from this office?” Rena asked. “Filed any motions?”
“Yeah. Nothing major.” She chewed on her lip. “But yes.” She softly pounded her desk and looked up at her boss. “Did they mention the case by name?”
“No.”
“No,” Shelly repeated to herself. “Of course not. God, it didn’t take them long.”
“What does that mean?”
It meant Jerod Romero, the federal prosecutor, looking for some leverage against Shelly and Alex in his bid to keep his snitch in line. A quick phone call to a sister federal agency.
“Shelly—”
“I know, Rena. God, I understand.” Defending Alex from the offices of CAP could wipe out the entire project.
“A lot of people could handle this case,” Rena offered. “You always said you didn’t like handling criminal stuff, anyway.”
Shelly nodded agreeably, but she had only one option here, and there was no point in delaying the inevitable. “I have to represent him, Rena.”
“Shelly, we don’t have a choice. It’s not like we can ask the I.R.S., ‘pretty please.’”
She looked at her desk. “I would never ask CAP to be a part of this. Not now.”
She looked up at her colleague, who was getting the picture. “No,” Rena said.
Shelly shrugged.
“Shelly, this is crazy. You’re going to—to quit? So you can be this kid’s lawyer?”
What could Shelly say? Certainly not the truth.
“Oh, God, you’re really considering this.” Rena came over to Shelly, sat on her desk. “We need you here. This is—this is what you were meant to do.”
“I feel like this is something I have to do.” Shelly reached for Rena’s arm. “I know it sounds crazy. But he trusts me. He needs me.”
Nine years working for the rights of children. Nine years working with law students helping disabled and emotionally disturbed kids, finding ways to keep troubled children in schools when no one else cared. Nine years and it was over.
Rena continued her protests, refusing to accept Shelly’s position. But the more Shelly thought about it, the more her conviction grew. Who else but Alex’s mother would be willing to go to the wall for him?
Passion,
Paul Riley had said, and he was never more right than now.
“I’ll be gone by the end of the day,” Shelly said.
S
HE APPROACHES THE
door of the study in much the same way she once did as a young girl, after her bedtime, eavesdropping on conversations not suitable for the ears of little Shelly. Politics mostly, gun control, the death penalty, taxes. She recalls several of them, one in particular where her father explained the evils of abortion to his two sons, Edgar and Thomas. That was back during Daddy’s second term as the chief prosecutor for the county. Shelly herself, at age nine then, had read the newspaper accounts. Rankin County Attorney Langdon Trotter had led the charge of protestors outside the Anthony Center for Women’s Health Care, which had brought the option of abortion to the downstate county for the first time since the Supreme Court had cleared the way. Her father hadn’t succeeded in stopping the clinic, not through protests and not through lawsuits.
Only three days ago, Lang Trotter’s only daughter, Shelly, had walked into that very health center, secure in the notion that her father would never know what had happened to her. But now he will have to know. There is no hiding it. She is pregnant and she is going to stay pregnant. She is going to have the child. She has few answers. She doesn’t know how she will manage her next year of school, much less the rest of her education. She doesn’t know if she will keep the baby. She doesn’t know the gender. She doesn’t even know if the baby is healthy. These things she will figure out with time. The first step comes now, telling her parents.
As she approaches the study, she hears bustling, drawers
opening and closing, her mother and father talking with animation. She walks in and sees files pulled off the bookshelves, piles of paper on the normally orderly desk. Her father is leafing through papers.
They turn and see Shelly. There is a glow to both of them. Her mother, Abigail, looking so youthful in a sweatshirt and her cropped blond hair, her light green eyes beaming with pride and excitement. Her father, in a T-shirt that exposes his large shoulders and arms, his hair slightly disordered.
It is a Saturday morning, just past nine. The phone rang thirty minutes ago. Now she knows who it was and what they said. The top brass in the state Republican Party has had several conversations with County Attorney Trotter over the last several months. The current officeholder, a Republican, has privately given notice that he would not seek re-election. Now is the time, in June 1986, to begin the process of building support. By early 1987, candidates will be creating something called “exploratory committees” to begin their runs for the February primaries in 1988. The statewide party is disciplined, Daddy has told her, and they want to get behind a candidate to avoid a messy primary.
Thus, the phone call. Shelly looks at the documents her parents were gathering. Tax returns, financial documents. Vetting, something Shelly has known well as the daughter of a politician since she was a small child. Checking out a candidate’s background before endorsing him.
“We might as well tell her, Lang,” said her mother. Then to Shelly: “Honey, you’re looking at this state’s next attorney general.”
Her mother squeals and hugs Daddy, rubs his arm. Her father smiles and blushes but quickly fixes on Shelly. The steel-blue eyes narrow and focus on her.
“What’s wrong, pistol?” he asks.
R
ONNIE
M
ASTERS ANSWERED
the door on the first knock. He wore jeans with no socks or shoes, a purple sweatshirt with a towel over one shoulder. Didn’t appear to have visited a barbershop since Shelly last saw him, with thick strands of dark hair kicking out on all sides of a reversed baseball cap.
He was holding Alex’s eighteen-month-old daughter, Angela. He was the babysitter while Mary Ellen, Angela’s mother, was at work. “Hope you don’t mind,” he said, nodding to the toddler on his arm. “I thought you might wanna meet her.”
She did. She had thought about Angela—her granddaughter; she was thirty-four and she had a granddaughter—constantly since Alex had broken the news. This little creature, who stared at Shelly with gigantic amber eyes, a pacifier stuck in her mouth, was her blood.
Ronnie moved back to let her in. Shelly extended her arms and Ronnie handed her Angela. She took after her mother, Mary Ellen, whom Shelly hadn’t met but had seen in photos. A tiny, soft face with enlarged brown eyes, flyaway dark hair standing on end in some spots. She was wearing a tiny pair of beige overalls.
Shelly lowered her head and nudged her nose against Angela’s. The toddler was at the grabbing stage, and she took temporary hold of Shelly’s nose. “Hello, little Angela.” She looked at Ronnie.
Ronnie gave her some space. He had called her to discuss the
case, but he could see she wanted a good long look at the newest member of her family.
She held the baby close. Angela, with those faraway eyes, seemed content to be held by her. Shelly spent all of her time with children and teens, but little with infants. Still, it felt right. Better, certainly, than she had felt with Alex after he dropped the bomb on her. She’d been speechless. With an infant, there was little need for the intelligible word.
She sat on the couch with Angela and rocked her, made noises with her lips, tickled her. When she wanted down, Shelly watched her stumble around the living room like a drunken sailor, grabbing things at random, throwing them or handing them to Shelly. What an amazing thing a child was. It unleashed such an outpouring in Shelly that all of the emotions canceled each other out, and she was left with utter astonishment. This girl was her blood. This one, no matter what else happened, would have a future.
Ronnie wandered back into the living room after a while. He walked over to the table by the couch. For the first time, Shelly noticed the open scrapbook. Photographs of Ronnie and Alex at various times throughout their lives. Ronnie had been going through it. That was the sort of thing you did when you lost a loved one, cling to the memories. She felt a pang of remorse for both of the boys.
Ronnie slid the scrapbook under the couch and looked at Shelly. “I’m going nuts here,” he said. “I gotta do something. I gotta help. You need any help? Organizing or making phone calls or—something?”
Shelly bounced the baby on her lap. For starters, she could use a salary and an office. She’d said her abrupt goodbyes to the people at CAP only two hours ago. Two boxes of items from the office sat in her car.
“I’m sure I will need that kind of help,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to work this all out? With the feds and all?”
“That’s kind of complicated, Ron.”
“Too complicated for a kid.” He clenched his jaw. He seemed to share some of Alex’s attitude. She had certainly heard that
Ronnie was a smart one, academically accomplished. A scholarship, Alex had said, and Ronnie was only a junior.
“Well, all right,” she conceded. “I think the federal government is reluctant to discuss the matter with the county prosecutors. Why, I’m not entirely sure.”
“Probably think they’re in on it with the cops.”
She cocked her head. That was a rather astute observation, she had to concede. “In any event, they are very worried about this. I imagine I can secure something favorable with the federal government, on their end. But frankly, a few years in a federal penitentiary is small potatoes compared to murder.”