Free One Dog Night by David Rosenfelt

And if we need to shoot anyone, you’re our man.” Sam feels inhibited by being assigned only computer work; he wants to be out on the street gunning down bad guys.
    “Laurie, you’ll be in charge of the investigation itself, and Marcus will work with you.” I briefly look over at Marcus to see if he has any reaction, but he doesn’t. He likes Laurie, so I use her as a buffer whenever I can.
    Edna comes back into the room and announces, with obvious relief in her voice, that the copier is out of toner. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to rectify that technical a problem, so Sam says he’ll reload it when the meeting is over.
    “We don’t have a lot of time on this,” I say, trying to get things back on track. “If it goes on too long, our client is going to preempt us and plead guilty.”
    “Is he guilty?” Sam asks.
    “He thinks so, but I’m not so sure.” I take a few minutes to explain my doubts. “If we find out he’s right, he pleads guilty and we ride out of town.”
    The phone rings, and everybody looks at Edna, waiting for her to answer it. By the third ring, she gets the idea and reluctantly picks it up. After a brief hello, she holds the phone toward me. “It’s Pete Stanton.”
    “Tell him I’ll call him back,” I say, partially because we’re in the middle of a meeting, but mostly because I’m afraid to talk to him. He may have found out that I am representing Noah already. I had planned to tell him personally, but hadn’t yet summoned up the guts. I was thinking three years from Tuesday might be a good time to do it.
    Edna gets back on the phone, repeats what I said, and listens for a few moments. She then holds out the phone to me again. “He said that if you don’t take the call, whatever you are doing will be the last thing you ever do.”
    I nod and turn to the others in the room. “Maybe I should take this.”
    They get up and start to leave, with the exception of Laurie. I pick up the phone and say, “Hey, Pete old buddy, what’s going on?”
    “Tell me why,” he says.
    That sounds like a song lyric to me, and I’m feverishly searching for a joke to tell about it, something to lighten the mood. But this mood probably shouldn’t be lightened, so I hit it head-on.
    “Two reasons, least important first. He saved Tara’s life.”
    “The second one better be a beauty,” he says.
    “There is very substantial doubt in my mind that he is guilty.”
    “What a surprise, a defendant who claims he is innocent.” Pete has what I would call a healthy disrespect for defense attorneys, which is no great surprise. But I’m not hearing bitterness or intense anger in his voice yet, which surprises me.
    I do realize that I’ve got to be careful here; I can’t say anything that Noah told me, including his own belief that he committed the crime. It would be an obvious violation of attorney-client privilege.
    “I’m talking about in my mind, Pete. What I have seen so far doesn’t add up.”
    “Depends on who is doing the math. And whether they’re using lawyer-math.”
    “I’ll make you a promise,” I say. “If I think he’s probably guilty when we’re done with the investigation, I won’t take it to trial.”
    It’s an easy promise for me to make, since Noah doesn’t want to go to trial anyway, but I’m sure it comes as a surprise to Pete.
    He doesn’t say anything for maybe twenty seconds, probably trying to figure out what to make of it. Then, “That works.”
    “It does?” I ask, unable to conceal my surprise.
    “But I’ll make you a promise,” he says. “If you wind up getting a guilty party off the hook, you will wish you had been in that fire yourself.”
    Click.
    I hang up the phone and Laurie asks, “What did he say?”
    “He threatened to burn me alive.”
    “That’s it?” she asks. “I’ve heard him threaten worse than that fifty times at Charlie’s. How angry was he?”
    I nod. “That’s the weird part. I know Pete really well, and I