She opened a drawer and gave me a few pills. I took them and pointed to a water bottle on her desk. She handed it to me and I washed down the pills.

“He doesn’t look good,” I said.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“How long does he have?”

“I found out about it four months ago. When I took him some wine for his birthday. He told me the doctor said a couple years.”

“You visit him on his birthday?”

“And Christmas.” She hesitated. “And Father’s Day.”

We stared at each other a second. Luckily, Will walked in and said, “Hey, I was just—” He tripped over a box and nearly tumbled over the desk. He knocked one of Gates’s little statuettes of Lady Justice off the desk. He picked it up and put it back. “Sorry.”

“What is it, Will?”

He looked to me and said, “Mr. Graham, can I just say it’s awesome that you’re actually here.”

“In body only.”

He grinned and then looked at Gates. “Have you told him?”

“Told me what?”

“There’s an open position.”

Gates said, “He’s not interested, Will. Now what did you need?”

“Are you sure?” he said. “I mean, how cool would that be? Tatum Graham in our office as a prosecutor. I mean, that’d be insane.”

I chuckled. “Me, a prosecutor? Sorry, kid. But prosecutors are the tadpoles swimming with the crocodiles like me. Not my thing.”

“Oh,” he said, genuinely disappointed. “I just think . . . I just thought that would be great.” He turned to Gates and said, “Settled the Marlow case. Just wanted to tell you.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded and looked to me and said, “It was good meeting you.”

When he left I said, “Sweet kid.”

“He is. Bit green.”

“You could train him.”

“I don’t really have the time. All my prosecutors are new and young. People get experience here and move on to bigger and better in the cities. The two I got left, Will and Jia, are barely a year out of law school. And I already have to give them a murder case.”

“You’re kidding?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have a choice. With the campaigning I’m doing, I just don’t have the time.” She paused and looked out the window a second. “You know, they could actually use someone to train them. We just lost our most senior prosecutor. If you know anyone, I’d appreciate a recommend.”

I chuckled.

“What?” she said.

“It’s just cute that you think you can bullshit me. Look, you would hate me working here, and I just retired from the law.”

“I can understand why you’d need a change of scenery after what happened with your last case, but is retirement from the law really the answer? I mean . . . why?”

I shook my head and looked down to her desk. “Personal reasons.”

“You’re too young to retire.”