Free Wild Justice by Phillip Margolin Page A

figure out why McCarthy wanted to know if you knew Dr. Clifford Grant. Frank laid a gentle hand on Cardoni s arm. One last thing, Vince. Don t give up hope. Cardoni looked directly into Frank Jaffe s eyes. His voice was steady and hard. I never give up, Frank, and I never forget, either. Someone has set me up. That means that someone is going to pay. So, Frank asked Amanda when they were alone in the car and headed home, what do you make of all that? Amanda had been very quiet since the videotape started to roll, and she was subdued when she answered Frank s question. The police seem pretty certain that Cardoni is guilty. What do you think? Amanda shivered. I don t like him, Dad. Any specific reason, or just your gut? His reactions aren t normal. Have you noticed that he switches emotions the way you and I switch TV channels? One second he s in a rage, the next he s cold as ice. Vince isn t Marcus Welby, MD. That s for sure. What was the other case you handled for him? An assault. Vince was trying to score some cocaine. Amanda s eyebrows raised. He was in a bar that doesn t usually cater to members of the medical profession. He also tried to score with someone s girlfriend. When the boyfriend objected, Vince beat him so badly that he had to be taken to the hospital. Fortunately for Vince the man was an ex-con, and no one in that type of bar has decent eyesight or much of a memory when it s the police asking the questions. The mention of violence made Amanda flash on Mary Sandowski s tearstained face. She felt a little dizzy and squeezed her eyes shut. Frank noticed that Amanda s face was drained of color. Are you okay? he asked. I was just thinking about that poor woman. I m sorry you had to see that. Amanda grew thoughtful. When I was a little girl, you never took me to court when you tried the really bad cases, did you? You were too young. You didn t even do it when I was in high school. I remember asking you about the Fong case and the one where the two girls were tortured, but you never seemed to have the time. You didn t need to hear about stuff like that at that age. You always did shelter me when I was growing up. You think it was easy for me raising a little girl by myself? Frank answered defensively. I always tried to figure out what your mother would have done, and I could never see Samantha letting me take an eleven-year-old to a rape trial. No, I don t suppose she would have, Amanda answered with a brief smile. Then she thought about the videotape again and grew somber. I guess it doesn t get much worse than what I just saw, she said. No, it doesn t. I never really understood what you did, until now. I mean I knew intellectually, but. . . There s nothing intellectual about criminal law, Amanda. There are no ivory towers, just tragedy and human beings at their worst. Why do you do it? Good question. Maybe because it is real. I d be bored silly closing real-estate deals or drawing up contracts. And every once in a while you do make a difference in some poor bastard s life. I ve represented a lot of very bad people, but I ve also freed two people from prison who were sentenced to death for crimes they didn t commit, and I ve kept people out of jail who didn t deserve to be there. I guess you can say that I spend a lot of my time in the shit, but every so often I come up with a pearl, and that makes the bad stuff worthwhile. You don t have to take every case, though. You can turn some away. Frank glanced at his daughter. Like this one, you mean? What if he s guilty? We don t know that. What if you knew beyond any doubt that Cardoni tortured that woman? How could you help a person who could do what we saw on that tape? Frank sighed. That s the question every criminal lawyer asks at some point in his or her career. I expect you ll be mulling it over while we work on this case. Those who decide they can t do it switch to some more refined type of law. Are there enough pearls to justify working for someone like Cardoni? Do