Small Great Things Read online

  Micah laughs. "Rain check."

  "I'm trying really hard not to vomit on you."

  "I can't tell you how much I appreciate that," he says gravely, and he crosses his arms. "Would you like to have a fight now about how you're not going into the office? Or do you want to finish your ginger ale first?"

  "You're using my tactics against me. That's the kind of either-or I offer Violet--"

  "See, and you think I never listen."

  "I'm going to work," I say, and I try to get on my feet, but I black out. When I blink a moment later, Micah's face is inches from mine. "I'm not going to work," I whisper.

  "Good answer. I already called Ava. She's going to come over and play nurse."

  I groan. "Can't you just kill me instead? I don't think I can handle my mother. She thinks a shot of bourbon cures everything."

  "I'll lock the liquor cabinet. You need anything else?"

  "My briefcase?" I beg.

  Micah knows better than to say no to that. As he goes downstairs to retrieve it, I prop myself up on pillows. I have too much to do to not be working, but my body doesn't seem to be cooperating.

  I drift off in the few minutes it takes Micah to come back into the bedroom. He's trying to gently put the briefcase on the floor so he doesn't disturb me, but I reach for it, overestimating my strength. The contents of the leather folio spill all over the bed and onto the floor, and Micah crouches to pick them up. "Huh," he says, holding up a piece of paper. "What are you doing with a lab report?"

  It's wrinkled, having slipped between files to get wedged at the bottom of my bag. I have to squint, and then a run of graphs comes into focus. It's the newborn screening results that I subpoenaed from the Mercy-West Haven Hospital, the ones that had been missing from Davis Bauer's file. They came in this week, and given my lack of understanding of chemistry, I barely glanced at the charts, figuring I'd show them to Ruth sometime after her mother's funeral. "It's just some routine test," I say.

  "Apparently not," Micah replies. "There's abnormality in the blood work."

  I grab it out of his hand. "How do you know that?"

  "Because," Micah says, pointing to the cover letter I didn't bother to read, "it says here there's abnormality in the blood work."

  I scour the letter, addressed to Dr. Marlise Atkins. "Could it be fatal?"

  "I have no idea."

  "You're a doctor."

  "I study eyes, not enzymes."

  I look up at him. "What did you get me for our anniversary?"

  "I was going to take you out to dinner," Micah admits.

  "Well," I suggest, "take me to see a neonatologist instead."

  --

  WHEN WE SAY, in America, that you have a right to be tried by a jury of your peers, we're not exactly telling the truth. The pool of jurors is not as random as you'd think, thanks to careful scrutiny by the defense and the prosecution to eliminate both ends of the bell curve--the people most likely to vote against our clients' best interests. We weed out the folks who believe that people are guilty until proven innocent, or who tell us they see dead people, or who hold grudges against the legal system because they were once arrested. But we also prune on a case-by-case basis. If my client is a draft dodger, I try to limit jurors who have proudly served. If my client is a drug addict, I don't want a juror who lost a family member to an overdose. Everyone has prejudices. It's my job to make sure that they work in favor of the person I'm representing.

  So although I would never play the race card once the trial starts--as I've spent months explaining to Ruth--I'm damn well going to stack the odds before it begins.

  Which is why, before we begin voir dire to choose jurors, I march into my boss's office and tell him I was wrong. "I'm feeling a little overwhelmed after all," I say to Harry. "I was thinking I might need a cochair."

  He takes a lollipop out of a jar he keeps on his desk. "Ed's got a shaken-baby trial starting this week--"

  "I wasn't talking about Ed. I was thinking of Howard."

  "Howard." He looks at me, baffled. "The kid who still brings his meals in a lunchbox?"

  It's true that Howard is fresh out of law school and that so far, in the few months he's been at the office, has only done misdemeanors--domestics and a few disorderlies. I offer my smoothest grin. "Yeah. You know, he'll just be an extra pair of hands for me. A runner. And in the meantime, it would be good for him to get trial experience."

  Harry unwraps the lollipop and sticks it in his mouth. "Whatever," he says, his teeth gripped on the stem.

  With his blessing, or the closest I'm going to get to one, I head back to my cubicle and poke my head over the divider that separates me from Howard. "Guess what," I tell him. "You're going to second-chair the Jefferson case. Voir dire's this week."

  He glances up. "Wait. What? Really?"

  It's a big deal for a rookie who is still doing scut work in the office. "We're leaving," I announce, and I grab my coat, knowing he will follow.

  I do need an extra pair of hands.

  I also need them to be black.

  --

  HOWARD SCRAMBLES AT my side as we walk through the halls of the courthouse. "You don't speak to the judge unless I've told you to," I instruct. "Don't show any emotions, no matter what theatrical display Odette Lawton puts on--prosecutors do that to make themselves feel like they're Gregory Peck in Mockingbird."

  "Who?"

  "God. Never mind." I glance at him. "How old are you, anyway?"

  "Twenty-four."

  "I have sweaters older than you," I mutter. "I'll give you the discovery to read over tonight. This afternoon I'm going to need you to do some fieldwork."

  "Fieldwork?"

  "Yeah, you have a car, right?"

  He nods.

  "And then, once we actually get the jurors inside, you're going to be my human video camera. You're going to record every tic and twitch and comment that each potential juror makes in response to my questions, so that we can go over it and figure out which candidates are going to fuck us over. It's not about who's on the jury...it's about who's not on it. Do you have any questions?"

  Howard hesitates. "Is it true that you once offered Judge Thunder a blow job?"

  I stop walking and face him, my hands on my hips. "You don't even know how to clean out the coffee machine yet, but you know that?"

  Howard pushes his glasses up his nose. "I plead the Fifth."

  "Well, whatever you heard, it was taken out of context and it was prednisone-induced. Now shut up and look older than twelve, for God's sake." I push open the door to Judge Thunder's chambers to find him sitting behind his desk, with the prosecutor already in the room. "Your Honor. Hello."

  He glances at Howard. "Who's this?"

  "My co-counsel," I reply.

  Odette folds her arms. "As of when?"

  "About a half hour ago."

  We all stare at Howard, waiting for him to introduce himself. He looks at me, his lips pressed firmly together. You don't speak to the judge unless I've told you to. "Speak," I mutter.

  He holds out a hand. "Howard Moore. It's an honor, Your...um...Honor."

  I roll my eyes.

  Judge Thunder produces a huge stack of completed questionnaires, which are sent out to people who are called for jury duty. They are full of practical information, like where the recipient lives and where he or she works. But they also include pointed questions: Do you have any problems with the presumption of innocence? If a defendant doesn't testify, do you assume he is hiding something? Do you understand that the Constitution gives the defendant the right to not say anything? If the State proves this case beyond reasonable doubt, would you have any moral qualms about convicting the defendant?

  He splits the pile in half. "Ms. Lawton, you take this bunch for four hours; and Ms. McQuarrie, you take these. We'll reconvene at one P.M., switch piles, and then voir dire begins in two days."

  As I drive Howard back to our office, I explain what we are looking for. "A solid defense juror is an olde