I stepped to the door to watch them stick my brother in the back of a black Ford Crown Victoria. Apparently the Newburgh Police Department had gotten a pretty good deal on the model. I stayed on the curb until the Ford pulled down the street and out of sight.

The few people on the street didn’t seem interested in a nonviolent arrest.

When I stepped back inside I said to the bartender, “Who’s Lise?”

The surly bartender barely looked up from the ledger he was working on and said, “Best attorney this side of the city. She changed everything when she showed up last year. Natty is as good as out on this bullshit. I just called her and she said you can go by her office around five. She’ll know something by then, after she talks to the DA.”

That was more words than the bartender had ever spoken to me.

I debated calling my mom but wanted to have more information first, so I drove around Newburgh to get a better feel for the city. It had a bad reputation, but I had learned that cities, just like people, rarely matched the way they were portrayed in the media. Almost every other year, Newburgh was listed as the most dangerous city in New York or given some title like “Murder Capital of the State.” And to be fair, it had been flooded with drugs, guns, and gangs, in that order. But there were a lot of people trying to make it a better place to live. People who understood that working with at-risk kids could have the biggest payoff down the road. I noticed adults coaching kids in every park and mothers keeping a close eye on their toddlers as they played. They were families, and that meant there was still hope for Newburgh.

I found the law office on Ann Street near downtown. The building was a typical three-story brick, block-shaped structure with a little grocery store stuck awkwardly to the side. Lise Mendez’s office was on the second floor, and of course there was no elevator. The building housed a couple of lawyers, an accountant, and a financial planner. It was a drug dealer’s dream. When I found the right door, there was no name painted on the glass, just a card taped in the corner. This did not instill confidence as I stepped into the room and realized the reception area was unused and empty except for a couple of chairs. I heard a voice in the inner office say, “In here.”

I stepped through the door to find Lise Mendez standing behind a large, ornate desk that didn’t seem to go with the office. She had a pretty face and long, black hair tied in a loose ponytail. She was probably thirty-five and radiated that sort of professional confidence that came from a good education and some success in her field.