Page 6 of The Proving Ground

“As far as I know, she’s doing good.”

“Well, I wish she were doing good back here at home.”

“She’s just taking a gap year. She was very helpful during the campaign and earned the break, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Good, then you can pay her bills, since you’re the only one around here with a steady paycheck.”

Our daughter, Hayley, with a very expensive law degree from USC in her back pocket, had decided—after growing up with two lawyers for parents—that she was not sure she actually wanted to practice law. She was trying to find herself while riding waves in Hawaii with the help of a boyfriend who had no discernible income but an impressive tan and an even more impressive collection of surfboards.

“Hey, I’m not the one who taught her how to surf,” Maggie said. “That’s on you. I’m also not the one who decided to give up a lucrative criminal defense practice at the height of my career.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for the reminders,” I said. “Happy new year to you too.”

“And to you. I see you’ve got your briefcase. That tells me this might be more than a social visit.”

Maggie was always perceptive when it came to me. I couldn’t ever see her without lamenting the fact that we hadn’t gone the distance. She was wearing a conservative blue business suit with the blouse buttoned to the neck. Her dark curls had a few touches of gray in them. She had aged beautifully in the thirty years I had known her.

“Never could get anything by you,” I said. “Yes, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Have a seat,” she said. “I make no promises I won’t keep.”

She smiled. That was one of her campaign slogans.

I pulled out one of the chairs in front of her desk and sat down, putting my briefcase on the floor. The flags behind her were lined up so tightly, they looked like one curtain of silken colors.

“That’s a lot of flags,” I said.

“One for every country of origin of our constituency,” she said.

“You might have to get rid of a few of those if Trump deports everybody like he’s saying.” The new president had won the election the same night Maggie had. His campaign was built on a promise to eliminate illegal immigration. As Maggie was elected as a nonpartisan candidate, she did not take the political bait.

“So, what’s your ask, Mickey?”

“Is that all I am now, an ask?”

“Well, like I said, I assume it’s why you’re here.”

“I was also a platinum-level contributor to the campaign.”

“You were, and I very much appreciate that. So, just tell me, what’s going on?”

“I suppose you are reviewing cases and getting up to speed on things.”

“I am, and I haven’t seen any with your name attached as counselor for the defense.”

“And I hope it stays that way. Besides, the conflict of interest with you being DA would certainly cause your office and mine headaches we don’t need. But there is a case being handled by your office in juvie court that cuts across one of my cases in civil.”

She nodded.

“The Aaron Colton case,” she said. “I spent an hour with Will Owensby on it before the holiday break.”

That surprised me. She had taken office immediately after the election, but that was less than two months ago. There had been holiday breaks, staffing decisions to make, and a mountain of other cases to get current on, so I had hoped she wasn’t prepped on the case yet. It would have been easier to point her in the direction I wanted her to go if she hadn’t been knowledgeable about the inner workings of the case, and I realized my path to success was going to be steep.

“Owensby is a good lawyer,” I said. “But he’s a stickler, you know what I mean?”

“You mean he wants to stick to the rules of the game?” Maggie asked.

“What I’m saying is he’s focused on his case, which is fine. But he’s not looking at the bigger picture.”