“Barfy. I feel totally barfy. We can’t lose this, Matthew. We just can’t. And by the way, Sanjay is married to Ludmila. You people never cease to amaze me.”

“Huh? What? Sanjay married that Gayle woman? And how am I suddenly ‘you people’?”

“Never mind. Honestly, not important. We need to focus on Nelson.”

“OK, let me know when you’re ready to discuss that one,” he said. “And don’t worry—I have a great feeling about Dell Nelson. The guy’s going to get another chance.”

“I hope you’re right. The thought of losing this case honestly makes me want to cry. I’ve never in my life wanted something so bad. It just keeps hitting me—this is real. This is not a fake constitutional law test case. This is a real, living, breathing person. Not to mention the implications the case has for hundreds of other people who’ve been screwed by their lawyers.”

“I feel the same way, Sheila. So—if you had to do it again, would you rather have had this experience, the chance to be a part of such a monumental case and deal with crazy Friedman, or not have to deal with her and not have had this opportunity?”

“I would rather know if Mayor Adams took money from Robert Nussbaum’s spinoff company. That’s what I’d rather,” I replied. “Holy shit!” We were nearing Independence Hall, which had transformed into a parking lot for live trucks, satellite dishes, and protesters.

“Wow,” Matthew said, stopping. “This is even bigger than I thought. As for Nussbaum, Evan swore he’d get us the goods. So, let’s just focus on getting through today, OK?”

Evan had been in contact with the clerk of the court regarding the Tarmac/Tartac/Adams’s contribution fund. The clerk felt indebted to Evan. He hadn’t realized that Evan had failed the bar when he sent out the test results to every judge on the third circuit. After all, he’d started the tradition of the “annual bar e-mail” because law clerks never failed the bar and it was meant to be a congratulatory sort of thing. Shortly after the fateful e-mail, Judge Friedman had called the clerk to chew him out for “humiliating” her. He immediately contacted Evan to apologize for what he surmised would be a “hideous punishment from that Friedman character.”

Though Evan felt no sense of duty to Judge Friedman, he did feel passionately about the death penalty and, therefore, he’d offered months ago to help out with the Nelson case in any way possible. It wasn’t until Anika offered up her jewels of information that I’d found a role for him.