Free 1 Motor City Shakedown by Jonathan Watkins

and beaming grin. He chuckled, and the chuckle grew into outright laughter. After a moment Issabella realized she was also laughing. The both of them laughed together in the gathering afternoon sun, alone on the sidewalk.
    “But I’m appointed,” she whispered, afraid that if she said it too loudly, the check might disappear with a cartoon poof of smoke.
    “Appointed to a retained case,” he corrected. “Did you think you’d be getting the flat county fee?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Silly girl.”
    “I still have a lot of questions,” she said.
    “Sure. Questions are good. Issabella?”
    She looked at him.
    “I’m glad you’re with me on this. Lawyering’s a hell of a gig, isn’t it?”
    She nodded and stared at the check again.
    “Yeah,” she said. “I guess it really is.”
     
    *
     
    D arren peered out Issabella’s office window and took a sip of his giant hazelnut latte. He’d picked it up after dropping her off to get her car so he could follow her there.
    He absently wiped the foam from his upper lip and squinted across the street.
    “You know…” he said, still staring out the window.
    “Ugh. Yes. You don’t have to say it,” Issabella muttered. She grabbed up the big pile of manila folders from firms where lawyers weren’t expected to write cogent arguments, and dumped it unceremoniously in the bottom drawer of her desk, where it landed with a thud. She kicked the drawer closed and immediately felt better.
    “That building is…ominous.”
    “Yes,” s he said, and sat down behind her desk, “I know.”
    “It’s like your office is in the shadow of a vampire’s tomb or something.”
    She ran her hands through her hair in frustration and a soft groan escaped her lips.
    “It’s positively looming …” Darren whispered. “You should move. That’s got to be bad luck, or at least a dark sign or something. It’s like some oppressive metaphor—“
    “No, it’s not,” she said flatly, and made a sharp gesture for him to s it in the chair across from her. “It doesn’t say anything other than that all I could afford to rent was an office under the ugliest building in Detroit. It’s not a curse or a bad sign. Sit.”
    Once they were both seated across from one another, Darren seemed at a sudden loss for words. He had talked freely and absently throughout their car ride to her apartment in Canton, about figuring out the ‘Big Story’ of Vernon Pullins’ legal case, about the need to hit the ground running and get as much pre-trial investigation done as possible before Vernon woke up.
    “Once he’s awake again— God, I hope he wakes up --they’ll arraign him on charges. And then it’s off to the ballgame. You and me, Iz—Issabella, we need to hustle and start poking into everything about his life, about what happened at his house, who called the cops, what people heard and saw, who this cop is that died in there…”
    He had rattled on and on. With Vernon in a coma, the prosecution’s case was stalled. It allowed the two of them time to perform a lot of work without being under the ticking clock of court dates. As he had continued to map out all the various things the two of them had to tackle, Issabella grew more and more excited.
    This was why she had gotten into criminal law—the opportunity to pound the ground and chase down witnesses, to flesh out a full story of events and find out what was a lie and what was a useful lie. Criminal law held the promise of high stakes and high drama.
    Now, though, Darren was more subdued and he seemed content to look pleasantly at her and sip his gigantic latte. His two speeds appeared to be ‘frenetic’ and ‘inscrutable’.
    ‘He’s like a top that just spins like crazy, winds down and stops until something gets him spinning again.’
    “So,” Issabella said, at last, “y ou still haven’t answered my question.”
    “Hmm? What one?”
    “Why did you want me on this case?” she said, and knew that it sounded weak, like she