“A gun?” Sam asked. Had he been shot, too?
“A pistol,” Rusty confirmed. “One of those foreign models.”
“For fucksakes, Dad,” Charlie muttered. “Then did you drop a shipping container on his head?”
“Well—”
“That’s how Lethal Weapon 2 ends. You told me you watched it the other night.”
“Did I?” Rusty seemed blameless, which meant there was much to blame.
And that Sam was an idiot.
“You asshole.” Charlie stuck her hand on her hip. “What really happened?”
Sam felt her mouth start to move, but she could not speak.
Rusty said, “I was stabbed. It was dark. I didn’t see him.” He shrugged. “Forgive a man for trying to exploit the meager attentions of his two demanding daughters.”
“That was all a lie?” Sam seized her purse between her hands. “All of it, pulled from a stupid movie?” Before she knew what she was doing, Sam swung the bag at her father’s head. “You asshole,” she hissed, echoing Charlie’s words. “Why would you do that?”
Rusty laughed even as he held up his hands to block the blow.
“Asshole,” she repeated, hitting him again.
Rusty flinched. His hand went to his stomach. “Don’t make sense: you raise your arms and your belly hurts.”
Sam said, “They cut through your abdominal muscles, you lying imbecile. It’s called your core because it is the central, innermost foundation of your body’s musculature.”
“My God,” he said. “It’s like hearing Gamma.”
Sam dropped her purse onto the floor before she hit him again. Her hands were shaking. She felt besieged by acrimony and acerbity and indignation and all of the other tumultuous feelings that had kept her away from her family for so long. “Good Christ in heaven,” she practically screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Rusty listed on his fingers, “I was stabbed several times. I have a heart condition. I have a filthy mouth that I apparently passed onto my daughters. I guess the smoking and the drinking are two separate things, but—”
“Shut up,” Charlie interrupted, her anger seemingly reignited by Sam’s outburst. “Do you realize the kind of night we’ve all had? I slept in a God damn chair. Lenore was about ready to pull out her hair. Ben is—well, Ben will tell you he’s fine, but he’s not, Dad. He was really upset, and he had to tell me that you were hurt, and you know how shitty that was, and then he had to email Sam, and sure as fuck Sam doesn’t want to be here ever, as in never.” She finally stopped for breath. Tears filled her eyes. “We thought that you were going to die, you selfish old shit.”
Rusty remained unmoved. “Death snickers at us all, my dear. The eternal footman will not hold my coat forever.”
“Don’t fucking Prufrock me.” Charlie wiped her eyes with her fingers. She turned to Sam. “I can probably go online and try to change your flight to an earlier one.” She told Rusty, “You’re going to be in the hospital for at least another week. I’ll have Lenore notify your clients. I can get continuances on—”
“No.” Rusty sat up, his humor quickly retreating. “I need you to handle Kelly Wilson’s arraignment tomorrow.”
“What the—” Charlie threw her hands into the air, clearly exasperated. “Rusty, we’ve been over this. I can’t be—”
“He means me,” Sam said, because Rusty had not stopped looking at her since he had made the request. “He wants me to handle the arraignment.”
A flash of jealousy lit up Charlie’s eyes, though she had refused the task.
Rusty shrugged at Sam. “Tomorrow at nine. Easy peasy. In and out, maybe ten minutes.”
“She’s not licensed with the state bar,” Charlie pointed out. “She can’t—”
“She’s licensed.” Rusty winked at Sam. “Tell her I’m right.”
Sam didn’t ask her father how he knew she had passed the Georgia bar exam. Instead, she looked at her watch. “My flight is already booked for later today.”
“Plans can be altered.”
“Delta will charge a change fee and—”
“I can float you a loan to cover it.”
Sam brushed some imaginary lint off the sleeve of her six-hundred-dollar blouse.
They all knew this wasn’t about the money.
Rusty said, “I just need a few days to get back on my feet, then I can jump into the case. It’s a deep dive, my girl. There’s a lot going on there. What say you help your old daddy make sure the big wheels keep on turnin’?”
Sam shook her head, though she knew that Rusty was probably Kelly Wilson’s only chance at a zealous defense. Even if the standard was lowered to an obligatory defense, it would likely be impossible to find someone to take the job on short notice, especially given that her current lawyer had been stabbed.
Still, that was a Rusty problem.
Sam said, “I have work to do back in New York. I’ve got my own cases. Very important cases. We’ll be at trial within the next three weeks.”
Neither of them spoke. They both stared at her.
“What?”
Charlie said, quietly, “Sam, sit down.”
“I don’t need to sit down.”
“You’re slurring your words.”
Sam knew that she was right. She also knew that she would be damned if she sat down over a simple case of exhaustion-induced dysarthria.
She just needed a moment.
She took off her glasses. She pulled a tissue from the box by Rusty’s bed. She cleaned the lenses, as if the problem was a spot that could be easily wiped away.
Rusty said, “Baby, why don’t you go downstairs with your sister, let her get some food in you, then we can talk about it when you feel better.”
Sam shook her head. “I’m—”
“Nuh-uh,” Charlie interrupted. “Not my job, mister. You tell her about your unicorn.”
“Come on,” he tutted. “She doesn’t need to know that part right now.”
“She’s not an idiot, Rusty. She’s going to ask eventually, and I’m not going to be the one to tell her.”
“I’m right here.” Sam put on her glasses. “Could you both stop talking as if I’m in another room?”
Charlie slumped against the wall. Her arms were crossed again. “If you do the arraignment, you’re going to have to enter a plea of not guilty.”
“And?” Sam asked. Seldom was a plea of guilty entered at an arraignment.
“I don’t mean pro forma. Dad really thinks Kelly Wilson is not guilty.”
“Not guilty?” Now Sam’s auditory processing was shot. They had finally managed to short-circuit the last meaningful parts of her brain. “Of course she’s guilty.”
Charlie said, “Tell that to Foghorn Leghorn, JD, over there. He thinks Kelly is innocent.”
“But—”
Charlie held up her hands in surrender. “Preacher/choir.”
Sam turned to Rusty. If she was unable to ask the obvious question, it wasn’t because of her injury. Her father had finally lost his mind.
He said, “Talk to Kelly Wilson yourself. Go to the police station after you eat. Tell them you’re my co-counsel. Get Kelly alone in a room and talk with her. Five minutes, tops. You’ll see what I mean.”
“See what?” Charlie asked. “She murdered a grown man and a little girl in cold blood. You want to talk about seeing? I was there less than a minute after it happened. I saw Kelly literally—literally—holding the smoking gun. I watched that little girl die. But Ironside over here thinks that she’s innocent.”
Sam had to take a moment to let the shock of Charlie’s involvement sink in before she could ask her sister, “What were you doing there? At the shooting? How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” Charlie kept her focus on Rusty. “Think about what you’re asking, Dad. What it means for her to get involved in this. You want Sam to get attacked by some revenge-driven maniac, too?” She snorted a derisive laugh. “Again?”
Rusty was immun
e to low blows. “Sammy-Sam, lookit, just talk to the girl. It’d help me to get a second opinion anyway. Even the great man you see before you is not infallible. I’d value your input as a colleague.”
His flattery only annoyed her. “Do mass shootings fall under the purview of intellectual property?” she asked. “Or have you forgotten the kind of law that I practice?”