So, although she was always too busy to waste a lot of time in a beauty parlor, she made it to Cathleen’s Coiffeurs every Tuesday at 8:00 A.M., watched what she ate, and, weather permitting, jogged on the Parkway for an hour starting at 7:00 A.M. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The result was a rather tall, lithe forty-nine-year-old, who wore her blonde hair cut stylishly but short, and whose husband had no reason to see if the grass was greener in someone else’s bedroom.
After graduation-third in her class-from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, and passing the bar examination, Eileen McNamara had declined offers to join any of the several more or less prestigious law firms because she suspected she was going to become the Token Female.
Instead, she took a job with the Public Defender’s Office, which had the responsibility of providing legal counsel to the indigent. She had quickly proven herself to be a highly competent courtroom lawyer.
But she had always been a little uncomfortable after she had convinced a jury that there was reasonable doubt that some miserable sonofabitch had actually pistol-whipped a grandmother while in the process of robbing her corner grocery, or some other miserable sonofabitch had actually been pushing drugs on grammar school kids.
And she had been unhappy in the company of her colleagues, who almost universally believed that having been born into poverty, or to a drug-addict mother, or of Afro-American /Puerto Rican/Latin/Outer Mongolian/Whatever parentage was an excuse to commit robbery, rape, and murder, and to meanwhile support oneself in outrageous luxury by selling what were known as “prohibited substances” to others.
So she had changed sides. Philadelphia’s district attorney was delighted to offer Miss Eileen McNamara a position as an assistant district attorney not only because she was a good-looking blonde, but also because her record of successfully defending people his assistant D.A. s had prosecuted unsuccessfully had made them look even more incompetent than they actually were.
She had been somewhat happier in the D.A.’s office, but not much. The cases she would have liked to prosecute seemed to get assigned to the “more experienced” of her fellow assistant D.A. s, and the cases she was assigned to prosecute were-she quickly figured out-the ones her fellow assistant D.A. s didn’t want because the cases were either weak or politically dangerous or both.
But she did her best with the cases she was given, and managed to convince one jury after another that not only was there not any reasonable doubt that some miserable sonofabitch had done what the cops had said he or she had done, but that he or she had done it with full knowledge of what he or she was doing, and in the belief he or she was going to get away with it, and therefore did not deserve much pity from the criminal justice system.
Assistant District Attorney McNamara quickly discovered- as something of a surprise-that as a general rule of thumb, she liked the cops. By and large, they were really what they considered themselves to be, a thin blue line protecting
society from the barbarians.
What surprised her in this regard was that they seemed to genuinely share her concern for what she thought of as the other group of innocent victims of a criminal act. The first group was of course those who had been robbed/beaten/ murdered by the criminal. The second group was the wives/ parents/children of the miserable sonofabitch who had committed the crime.
Eileen McNamara had been an assistant district attorney almost three years when she first ran into Benjamin Solomon, M.D., F.A.C.S. More accurately, when Ben ran into her, rear-ending her Plymouth with his Cadillac as she was looking for a parking place in South Philadelphia.
Ben hadn’t been going very fast, just not paying attention, but fast enough to do considerable damage to her trunk and right fender. The accident had taken place within, if not the sight, then the hearing, of Officer Martin Shaugnessy.
Officer Shaugnessy had trotted to the scene. He pretended not to recognize the good-looking blonde assistant D.A. who had once made mincemeat out of the public defender who had decided that the best way to get his client off the hook was to paint arresting Officer Shaugnessy as an ignorant, prejudiced police thug who took an almost sexual pleasure in persecuting young men of Puerto Rican extraction.
“How much have you had to drink, sir?” was his first question now to Dr. Solomon, who had just given Miss McNamara his effusive apologies and insurance card.
“Drink? It’s eight-thirty in the morning! I haven’t even had my breakfast!”
“People who speed and drive as recklessly as you obviously were, sir, are often driving under the influence. Would you please extend your right arm, close your eyes, and try to touch your nose?”
“Officer, I don’t think the doctor has been drinking,” Miss McNamara said. “I think this was just a simple fender bender.”
“You sure?” Officer Shaugnessy asked, dubiously.
“I’m sure,” Miss McNamara said. “And I’m sure the doctor and I can work this out between us.”
“Well, if you say so, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” Miss McNamara said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Officer Shaugnessy said. He filled out the Form 75–48, which the insurance companies would need, and then went back to walking his beat.
While they were waiting for the wrecker, Eileen became aware that the doctor kept stealing looks at her. For some reason, it didn’t make her uncomfortable; usually when men did that, it did.
As the wrecker hauled her Plymouth away, Dr. Solomon looked directly at her. His eyes on hers did make her uncomfortable.
“What was that with the cop all about?” Dr. Solomon asked. “You know him?”
“I know a lot of cops,” Eileen said. “That one looked familiar. But do I know him? No.”
“How is it you know a lot of cops?”
“I’m an assistant D.A.”