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“You happy?” Ahearn snaps at him.
“About what? Sitting here minding my own business? Yeah, I’m thrilled.”
“Kevin,” I say. “You know you shouldn’t be in here.”
I move around the table with a pretty quick move of my own and situate myself between the district attorney and Jacobson, sensing that things will spiral out of control if my client says anything stupid.
“Kevin,” I say quietly, “you need to move away from him before you do or say something you’ll regret.”
Ahearn isn’t moving.
“Did you get to Palmer somehow while we were in chambers, you prick?” he asks.
“Can he talk to me like that?” Jacobson asks me.
“He just did.”
“Well, you might think you have to listen to him,” Jacobson says, “but I don’t.”
He starts to get up. I turn and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Sit.”
It occurs to me, the thought there and gone, that this is the tone of voice I use with Rip.
“What did you do,” Ahearn says, “offer him more money?”
“And how exactly am I supposed to have done that?” Jacobson says. “I was here the whole time. The first I heard that the punk was gone was when you just came in here and told us.”
“Punk,”I say softly. “Nice, Rob. No shit.”
“Sorry, Jane, but I had a deal with him. He was about to break that deal. That makes him a punk in my book.”
“You’ve been buying your way out of trouble your whole entitled life, so why wouldn’t I think you didn’t just do it again?” Ahearn says to Jacobson. “You think anybody’s forgotten how Nick Morelli conveniently disappeared when he was the one with bad shit on you?” Ahearn turns to me. “Wherever your sister is, I’d post a guard outside her door.”
“Is there anything else you want to accuse me of today, Mr. Ahearn?” Jacobson says. “Maybe causing COVID?”
I walk over so I’m standing next to Ahearn, a few feet from the door.
“Kevin,” I say, “you’ve gotten some things off your chest. But you really need to not be here now.”
I can see he doesn’t want to leave. Finally he does. I walk out into the hallway with him. He’s still clenching and unclenching his fists.
“What happened with Palmer?” I say softly.
“We had a bailiff posted at the door, just to keep him away from everybody,” Ahearn says. “And he says that all of a sudden the door bursts open and the kid’s staring at his phone like he’s seen a ghost.”
“And the bailiff didn’t stop him?”
“Like you stopped your sister?” He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “He had no authority to stop him,” Ahearn continues. “We couldn’t hold him here against his will. He came here today wanting to testify. I never even got the chance to tell him that he was going to have to wait.”
“Did he say anything to anybody before he was outside?”
“He was talking to somebody on his phone by then. As he’s on his way out the door the cop hears the kid say that no, hedidn’tthink this trial was worth dying over.”
Seventy-Three
Jimmy
