Page 41 of The Right to Remain

“You’re willing to take the risk here because your case is weak. You need something from my client. Am I right?”

More silence. Jack didn’t wait for a response.

“I’m actually doing you a favor by offering to accompany my client into the grand jury room.”

“A favor?” said Beckham.

Jack dropped back, figuratively speaking, and launched the Hail Mary pass.

“What better way is there to assure a court that my client voluntarily waived his Fifth Amendment rights than to have his lawyer sitting in the room with him when he testifies?”

This time, the silence felt different. Jack could almost see the wheels turning inside their heads.

“Jack, would you mind stepping out into the hall for a minute?” the state attorney said. “We’d like a moment to confer.”

Jack rose, went to the door, and closed it on his way out. There was a window at the end of the hallway. Jack could see all the way across the river. Farther to the south, somewhere beneath the green canopy of century-old oak trees, was his office where, hours earlier, he’d talked until he was blue in the face, trying to convince Elliott to take the Fifth. This meeting was a desperation strategy. It would work only if, by being in the grand jury room, Jack could somehow convey the message that it was never too late to take the Fifth—especially if Elliott was getting himself into trouble.

The door opened. The state attorney stepped out.

“You make a convincing case, Jack.”

“You’re going to let me in the room?”

“Just this once on a nonprecedential basis.”

The prosecutor extended his hand. They shook on it.

Helena spent the lunch hour in her veterinarian’s waiting room, keeping her dog Boo a safe distance from two ferrets, a parrot, and a frightened rabbit at the other end of the bench. Not that Boo would have harmed any of them. He was more likely to herd them into a tight circle and expect a treat for it. Boo was a three-year-old Old English sheepdog, seventy-five pounds of energy, playfulness, and (mostly) hair. His very name—Boo—came from the way Austen liked to lift his hair from his eyes in endless games of peekaboo.

Finally, a veterinary assistant entered the waiting room and uttered the magic words.

“Dr. Swan will see Boo now.”

Helena chuckled to herself. The one animal she’d never seen in Dr. Swan’s office was a swan.

Boo led, and Helena held on for dear life to what, in theory, wasthe control end of the leash. Making a family pet behave like a show dog had been one of Owen’s talents, and her husband had trained Boo well, but Boo had been running the house since his master’s passing. Somehow Boo managed to sniff out the examination room at the end of the hallway while dragging Helena behind him. The veterinarian was standing behind the stainless-steel examination table, waiting for them.

“Boo!” he said with a smile. “How you doin’, buddy?”

Dr. Swan was a big man, neither fat nor particularly muscular—just large in a Paul Bunyan sort of way. He had no trouble lifting Boo and putting him up on the table. As the two old friends got reacquainted, it was plain to see that Boo was one of the doctor’s favorites. But in the middle of the lovefest, the doctor seemed to catch himself and realize he’d neglected to offer his condolences.

“How rude of me, Mrs. Pollard. I’m so sorry about Owen.”

“Thank you. We all miss him. Maybe Boo more than any of us.”

He seemed to take her meaning, even though there was a wife and son in the picture.

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked. “Does Boo seem depressed?”

“At times,” said Helena. “But the reason I brought him is—”

She stopped herself. Boo was chewing at his right hind leg again.

“Because ofthat,” she said, indicating. “He’s constantly chewing himself.”

“How long has he been doing this?”

Helena sighed. “So much has happened. I have no sense of time.”