Page 130 of Hard to Kill

“So wedohave a deal, correct?”

“Sure.”

“That didn’t sound very convincing.”

“I try to save my convincing for court, sis.”

I don’t tell her that what she wants from me probably doesn’t matter in the end if Jimmy Cunniff isn’t going to stop pushing. And he’s made much more of a career pissing people off, good guys and bad guys, than I ever have.

It’s why we make a good team.

We both have always treated taking even one step back like it was some kind of felony.

I keep telling myself to do what Brigid wants me to do and focus on the trial. I know I’m ready for it. My two interns are at full throttle on the kind of trial prep I’ve always prided myself on doing but simply haven’t had the energy for this time, even when I’m not in the chemo chair. And I know what I’ve always known, anyway, that as much as you need all the information you can bring with you into a courtroom, everything changes when the bell rings. Jimmy Cunniff has always said I’m not oneof those people who looks like a million damn dollars in practice. He says I always save it for the game.

One of my law school kids, Estie, asked the other day if I’ve thought about hiring a jury consultant.

“Already did,” I told her.“Me.”

After I’ve spoken to Brigid, I sit at the kitchen table for a couple of hours, trying to work, Rip at my feet. But as hard as I try, even into the early evening, I can’t get out of my head the image of Nick Morelli pressing his gun against my sister’s face. She told me that when she opened the door and saw him pointing the gun at her she was wearing her Duke hat. He made her take it off. He wanted her to be bald and at her most vulnerable. As if walking her back into her own house at gunpoint hadn’t made her feel vulnerable enough.

Brigid kept telling me that if she was willing to let that go then I should be, too.

But I’m not her, never have been. She’s the one with the same gentle nature that our mother always had, to her dying day. Not me.

I’m more like my father.

Who is owed a posthumous favor, by persons unknown.

He was the one who taught me, from the first time I played hockey, not to let the other girl get the first punch in. He was the one who told me, when I beat up those mean kids, how proud of me he was.

“My girl,” he said that night, before going off to work at the bar.

Now somebody has threatened to shoot my sister and has done that with me in the room.

I put down my pen and turn over my yellow legal pad and put my notes back into their manila folder.

Jimmy Cunniff isn’t the only one who doesn’t let shit go.

I go and get the keys to the car.

And my gun.

ONE HUNDRED FOUR

I STOP BY THE Bell & Anchor first, since the menu scribbled with “Boom” and left in my car came from the restaurant.

If it wasn’t Eddie McKenzie or Eric Jacobson or both of them, I’m going to lose a bet with myself.

Jake the host tells me that neither McKenzie nor Eric have been back since the night I was there with Dr. Sam Wylie. I show Jake a picture of Nick Morelli and ask if he’s ever seen Morelli with either McKenzie or Eric Jacobson.

He takes a long look at Morelli’s face, hands it back.

“With Eric a few times, most definitely.”

“Recently?”

“Not sure the last time I saw them together,” he says. “But he’s been here.”

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