“What a chickenshit way to try to get rid of this case. You know what really went down here.”

“Spare me the lecture, Donny. It was war. And we all agreed to make it part of the past. Hell, you defended some of the worst so-called war criminals.”

“The worst. But that was different, and you know it,” said Donny.

“Whatever,” said Karen. “I’m not the one trying to profit from the dead. If you’ll excuse me, I am going to take my clients over to Bullion for a celebratory lunch.”

“Steaks paid for by the dead.”

“Fuck off, Donny. There’s plenty of that to go around and you know it.”

“I’m not kidding about settlement. You heard what I got on the record today. There’s more of that to come. A lot more. If you wait, it will be too late.”

She laughed in his face. She had Donny—and his case—nailed, like a frog pinned to the dissection table.

As he watched them leave, he tried to convince himself there was a way out. Instead, he felt the floor disappear under his feet as he stood to gather his papers. The win-lose extremes of litigation always put high mileage on the souls of the lawyers. Especially a lawyer like Donny, who was both emotionally and financially invested in the outcome. But bad verdicts from runaway juries and adverse rulings from mercurial judges were to be expected. This was like going to the doctor for your annual physical and finding out you’re already dead.

He looked at his files spread out there on the table. He had been so proud of what he had pulled together on this, a clear chronology that fleshed out his theory of the case and was actually supported by evidence he could show the company had been trying to suppress. Now it just looked like crazy man stuff, all his outlines and charts and sticky note palimpsests that theorized a lot but proved nothing.

He picked the death certificate back up, but couldn’t stomach looking at it again, and just shoved it in his bag with the rest of the files, only barely resisting his urge to toss it all in the government-issue trash bin.

He needed to get back to the sanctuary of his office and regroup. But first he had to get past the blogger from Detention Watch, who was waiting for him outside the courtroom.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said.

“Donny, can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Sure,” said Donny, stopping there in the hallway by the sign that listed the day’s docket, and trying to summon his composure as he thought how to frame it. Sarah’s readership was small, but sometimes her content got picked up by others.

“That was wild,” said Sarah. “I for sure didn’t see that coming.”

“You heard the testimony that witness gave, right?” said Donny.

“Yes, that was some really scary stuff.”