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  The woman shook hands with Amelia as Sam studied her.

  “Pleased to meet you. I know you two are in the middle of a trial. Sorry to bother you.” She reached toward Amelia. “Hey, your necklace is slipping off.”

  Amelia blushed. “I’m a hot mess.”

  She grabbed hold of the necklace, which had somehow come unclasped and slipped down onto her suit jacket.

  “No prob, I got it.”

  The woman stepped behind Amelia, cleared Amelia’s hair from her neck with a gentle brush of her hand, and carefully clipped the choker necklace while Amelia held it in place, too flustered to object. The woman met Sam’s eyes while she stood behind Amelia, fastening the necklace. Once the necklace was clasped, her hands lingered on Amelia’s shoulders for an extra moment—longer than necessary, but not long enough to be too strange.

  Amelia stared at the ground, frozen, and seemingly afraid to move.

  “Thanks,” she said softly, as if to herself—as if she thought no one else in the conversation was listening to her. “I’m gonna go. I’ll see you, Sam.” She picked up her briefcase and walked out of the courtyard, leaving the two standing together, watching her as she left.

  “I heard you were here, and I wondered if I could have a moment of your time,” the woman said. “You’re kind of hard to catch up with. You know Father Andrada, right?”

  Father Andrada? A priest at Sam’s childhood church. A church that, like all other religious institutions, he had not visited since high school. Sam waited for the woman to fill the silence. She didn’t. And when he looked up after one second too many, her eyes were resting on his.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. Tired, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bum-rush you during a big trial.” She flashed a smart smile, one signifying that she meant for him to know that she was not a woman who often used phrases like bum-rush. “But I need your help. Father Andrada said I could drop his name. He was close to your mother. You could say it’s kind of an emergency, and you’re the only person who can help me. Help me to help him, that is. He told me he’s sorry he lost touch with you, which I guess was—”

  “Sixteen years ago,” Sam said. “But I was the one who lost touch with him. He’s got no reason to feel bad about it.”

  Sam’s mother had passed away when he was eighteen. She had indeed been a well-known activist at the Church of the Holy Angels. Nevertheless, it was odd, this woman popping up to mention his mother out of the blue. And Father Andrada? He remembered. Andrada had been his mother’s friend. He even remembered the last time he had seen the guy—the day of his mother’s memorial service. The woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners, conveying a question, perhaps to herself. Do I have the wrong guy?

  Even with all the thoughts of Scarfrowe’s case, his other clients, and his desire for an overdue drink, Sam knew one thing for sure: he did not want to be the wrong guy. He summoned his courtroom energy, leveled his eyes at the woman, and took a quiet but deep breath.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just a little out of it. Can we meet, let’s say, tomorrow maybe? Or I could call you later, Ms … ?”

  “Paradisi. Camille.”

  Sam accepted her business card. She touched his arm lightly as she turned away. “I know you’re busy, but I think you’ll be interested in this case. And time is, I guess you could say, of the essence. Can we definitely meet tomorrow?”

  Sam took a deep breath. The warm air felt a little stifling now. “Sure.”

  “I remember your mother, too, Sam. A really nice lady. Smart. That’s what Father Andrada always thought. He told me the other day that he actually learned from her about what it really meant to be a Catholic. I thought you might like to hear that.”

  Sam shrugged.

  Her hair blowing behind her, Camille Paradisi walked away with a remarkably straight posture, her long torso resting comfortably above her swaggering hips.

  “My cell is on the back.” She rounded the corner, leaving Sam alone in the courtyard.

  “Hey, Young!” Deputy Plosky, now in street clothes, approached from the side exit. He shuffled towards him, looking from one side to another as if to check for surveillance. Even when Plosky could wear whatever he wanted, he favored tight button-down shirts that accentuated his gut. His long sideburns, which blended into his 1950s country-cop persona, suggested more of an Elvis impersonator when Plosky wore street clothes. Sam steeled himself for the inevitable petty scolding he was about to receive. Don’t smoke in the courtyard. Can you clean off the counsel table at the end of the day in case the judge has an early hearing? Will you please stop giving Scarfrowe gum in the courtroom? But when Plosky got closer, Sam could see that he looked nervous, which was not the norm for Plosky. He reigned with well-practiced authority in his little fiefdom upstairs.

  “Can I talk to you for a second? A personal thing.”

  “Sure, Plosky.”

  “Irwin,” he said, acknowledging that Sam did not know, after years of acquaintance, Plosky’s first name. “It’s about my son. He’s a knucklehead. Goes to the community college out in Fairfax. Anyway, a cop out there stopped him and his friends, and Irwin got charged with possession of ecstasy—the dipshit. I raised him better than that, but, well, I know you’re only supposed to do cases appointed to the public defender’s office, but I guess I kinda heard that you sometimes—”

  “I got it, Irwin.” Sam wrote his cell phone number on a business card and handed it to Plosky. “Tell Irwin Jr. to call me. I’ll take care of him. I promise.”

  Plosky grinned. “Thanks, Sam. You know how it is. We’re not supposed to hire local attorneys for personal stuff. That’s what some of the bosses say. You know, it could lead to—”

  “I know.” Plosky was taking a risk by allowing a defense attorney who regularly appeared in the courthouse he guarded to learn personal things about his family.

  “It’ll come out fine.”

  And Sam knew it would. Sometimes he just felt, at the beginning of a case, that he knew what was going to happen. He had that feeling about Irwin Plosky Jr.

  “Thanks,” Plosky said. “You know, it’s funny. I was all worried about this, and now I can tell it’ll be fine. You know what my wife said? ‘Fuck the bosses.’” Plosky chuckled a heartening, old man’s guffaw.

  “Smart lady.” Sam shook hands with Plosky, who walked towards his car with an extra bounce in his step. Sam, still holding the woman’s card, flipped it over and read it.

  Sister Camille Paradisi

  Director of Religious Education

  Church of the Holy Angels Parish

  Bennet, VA

  Sam had felt it the second Paradisi touched his arm. He had noticed such things before when certain people touched him—small bursts of energy, like connective electric jolts, almost always with women. Maybe he was just in a strange mood, but if he were not mistaken, Paradisi’s touch had conveyed something important, like warmth that dissipated when she removed her hand and left completely when she rounded the corner out of his presence. Or maybe it was nothing but his mother’s connection to Andrada that made him feel that way. Or it could simply be that he always felt strange during trials, as if his senses were on high alert, possibly susceptible to the fallacy of over perception. Like thinking he could read a lie from a witness, and turning out to be wrong. Sam lit another cigarette and walked out of the courtyard towards the bar. Jonathon Scarfrowe, Father Andrada, and a hot nun. All in one day. Strange days, indeed.

  CHAPTER 2

  SAM’S EYES OPENED, AND he was afraid to look at the clock. He gently massaged his head, took a deep breath and glanced at his cell phone on the bedside table: 9:49 July 29, 2015.

  Not too bad. He thought back over the night. When had he quit remembering? Ten? Twelve? Hangovers weren’t unusual, but a complete memory blackout on a weeknight? He groaned, and then looked for his phone. Sometimes he was able to piece together a night by looking at his calls, texts, and e-mails.
He found his iPhone on the floor face down between his bed and the bathroom. When he picked it up, his right knee throbbed. He must have bumped something. No calls in or out after ten. That was good.

  His back ached. He took a deep breath and felt like puking. Instead, he lit a cigarette, which made him feel worse. He turned on his computer. At least he could e-mail the office and tell Amelia he would be late.

  His homepage listed Breaking News. As usual, it contained uninformative updates about the Rosslyn Ripper investigation, including an anecdotal puff piece about how so many women in Bennet were buying firearms at a local sporting goods store that the background checks were taking an extra day. The news was not breaking at all, just the same old noise about the scariest case in town. Actual breaking news would be if they caught the guy or if another murder happened.

  After e-mailing the office, Sam’s eyes fell on the pile of junk he must have dumped out of his pockets and onto his desk the night before. Two lighters, a crumpled cigarette pack, random change, and a business card. Camille Paradisi. Cell on the back.

  He said her name aloud, “Paradisi.” His phone rang.

  “Sam, this is Sister Camille. Any chance we could meet today? Father Andrada is with me now. I’m at the church.”

  Sam studied her name on the card while she spoke. He ran through excuses in his head. Have to prep with Amelia for Scarfrowe’s closing argument. Client meetings all day. Not allowed to take cases not appointed to the public defender’s office. He turned the card over in his hand.

  “Well?” Camille said.

  •••

  Sam sat in his car in the parking lot of the Church of the Holy Angels. He steadied his breath. This was his childhood parish, though he’d never returned to it after his mother had died. Marcela Young, a PhD in Religion from American University, had practiced her own brand of Catholicism. She had been pretty close to Andrada. “At least he has an education,” she would say of him—meaning to contrast him with the average priest.

  Sam’s father had died before Sam was born. His mother’s death when he was only eighteen had left Sam with no family—no siblings, no grandparents, no cousins, no uncles, no aunts, and, at least for now, no religion. Although he had not thought about his mother’s connection to the church in a very long time, he thought about her a good bit. Often when he became stressed out during a frantic day, he would think of her words of advice. “Relax. The simple things are the most beautiful.”

  But he could remember her at a desk late at night, still there with the light on when he would get up in the middle of the night and walk past her room on the way to the bathroom. She would be leaning over her desk, flipping pages, always reading and jotting notes. She did not seem very relaxed during her late-night study sessions, or very simple. Sam’s mother was loving and as close to him as anyone else’s parents he had known. But she had always been an enigma of sorts to him, what with her quirky religious studies and eclectic friends from the university who drank wine and danced in the living room while Sam was supposed to be asleep. In the three years before she died, she had traveled abroad constantly on various relief efforts. Africa. Central America. India. During those years, Sam had attended a boarding school in New Jersey, yet somehow they had remained as close as ever.

  “Your mom thinks she has to save the world,” one of his teachers at Ambrose Academy had said to him.

  Sam thought back to the day he sat in an estate lawyer’s office and learned that his mother had left him a trust—enough to pay for college and then some.

  “From where?” he asked.

  The lawyer shrugged. “Who cares? Obviously she was planning for you.”

  Sam’s phone buzzed. “This is Young.”

  “Sam, thank God!” Sam knew the voice right away. It was the mother of Sherita Owings, a regular client and a crack addict who just could not stop using.

  “Sherita got pinched last night. She’s locked up. I’ve had it, I’m telling you. If she really did this shit again, I’m done with her.”

  “Joyce, relax.” He counted a few seconds until he spoke again to make sure Joyce ended her rant. “Take a deep breath. I’ll see her today and call you later.”

  “Thanks, Sam.”

  Sam entered the church through the main doors and made his way through the gallery into the administrative offices.

  “Camille Paradisi, please,” Sam said to the receptionist, an elderly woman sporting a beehive hairdo.

  Before the woman could respond, Camille appeared from behind him and extended a hand.

  “Sam, thank you so much for coming.”

  Today, she was dressed like a stylish corporate lawyer. A button-up, loose-fitting skirt suit showed off her legs but made no effort to draw attention to her waist or torso. For the first time, Sam noticed an ever-so-slight accent. From where? Don’t forget she’s a nun. He shook her hand. “No problem. Intrigued.”

  Indeed, he was intrigued. He had no legitimate reason to meet with this woman, especially since he was supposed to be at the office helping Amelia prepare for her closing argument for Scarfrowe. Camille turned sharply on her heels, and he followed her down a corridor to her private office.

  It was decorated simply: a framed undergraduate degree from American University; a framed commendation from a local hospice; a bold, metal crucifix hanging dead center behind her desk. No photos. A clean desk. Plain. A servant’s office. Sam pointed at the diploma.

  “My mother went there.”

  “So we have something in common.”

  He waited for his client to describe the legal problem. The first explanation often conveyed more than they knew.

  “I’m not the potential client,” Camille said.

  “So what’s going on, Sister Camille?”

  “Just call me Camille.” Her eyes narrowed with intelligent scrutiny. Almost like an old police detective who has been calculating angles for so long he forgot how not to do it. But Camille’s quizzical look was a softer query, unassuming and comfortably nonthreatening.

  “It’s Father Andrada. He has a legal problem.”

  As Sam considered this, Camille’s eyes flickered away from his. He cleared his throat.

  “I remember him. From when I was a kid.”

  “He left Holy Angels in 1987. Served at two other churches since then, including one in Mexico City, and then returned here to become pastor again only three years ago. I’ve been with him, well, most of the way. He’s been a real mentor to me, both at school and in my career. So much so that I followed him to Mexico and then back here.”

  Sam’s memory of Andrada was of an athletic guy who joked around with his mother. He had lacked the intimidation factor that seemed the norm for priests when Sam was growing up. The memory, though, likely came not from himself but from stories relayed to him by his mother—especially if Andrada had left Holy Angels when Sam was seven.

  “Should I be speaking with him directly? And … privately?”

  “Not quite yet.”

  “So where do we go from here?” He wasn’t sure Sister Camille understood the whole lawyering thing … or maybe she did.

  “Sam, I know you aren’t particularly religious, but I also know you understand the faith. The rules. The oddities, even. How about I present you with a hypothetical question, and you present me with a real answer? A legal answer.”

  “Go for it.” Sam crossed his legs and put on his courtroom face. He had been told the face was angry. To him it always just felt alert and smart.

  “I’ve been here just two years, the first nun assigned to this parish in decades.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recall any nuns here when I was a kid. Frankly, I’ve never met a nun under seventy.”

  Camille smirked, but in the way of one sharing a joke.

  “Nuns aren’t normally assigned as full-time employees to a parish. Father Andrada kind of worked out a special situation for me here so we could keep working together. The younger priests, well, you know, I hate to sa
y it, but they’re usually a bit odd. Strange birds in one way or another. In Father Andrada’s day, in the Hispanic culture especially, things were different. Priests were regarded with more respect, more reverence. And, believe it or not, they were considered manlier. Father Andrada is old—old school. As a kid you most likely couldn’t have really gotten to know him, but maybe you’ve met a Jesuit priest? They think of their mission as a call to war. Soldiers. They’re willing to die to make the world a better place. These younger guys, most of them just don’t get it. They don’t understand that authority-pleasing priests have been a moral stain on the faith for the past two centuries. But Father Andrada and I have always understood each other. In any event, Father speaks fondly of your mother. He’s heard of you as a lawyer and said that any son of Marcela Young just might be the right fit for this—to say the least—unique set of circumstances. From what he has said about her, I agree.”

  Sam had endured many, many lead-up speeches from clients. Often, they were boring precursors to a wishy-washy acknowledgment of the real problem. Sam preferred the clients who just blurted it out all at once. “I sell coke.” “I shot the dude.” “I’m guilty.” “Can you get me off?” He had learned to perceive the look in a person’s eyes, the body language, and the subtle intensity that comes from a person right before he coughs up a disturbing truth. Here comes the kicker, it seemed to say. Sam waited for it.

  Camille’s voice carved and polished her words in a way that created a sweet melody. It made you want to listen intently, so as not to miss a single note.

  “So you see, this is the type of man who believes that breaking a clear-cut rule of the faith is unforgivably weak. He may do it, but not, as you would say, with premeditation and deliberation. His sins are accidents. And while all of us here live in an ivory tower of sorts, when reality steps in, the strong of heart must meet the challenge. Of course, that challenge most commonly occurs when a rule of the faith conflicts with moral duty. Or, as in this case, a legal one.”