Chapter 277: The Case

"Max is still pulling that," said Sean. "But the pattern in the documents you’re holding suggests this isn’t the first time."

"It never is," said Margaux. She looked at the file one more time. Then at Sean. "How did you come to be involved in this."

"He’s someone I know," said Sean. "Was someone I knew."

"He hurt someone connected to you," said Margaux.

"He hurt someone," said Sean. "That’s the reason I’m here."

Margaux looked at him for a moment. Not with warmth particularly. With the specific assessment of someone who had spent twenty-two years deciding which cases were worth taking and had developed a reliable method for making that decision.

"The retainer Elena transferred covers the opening phase," she said. "Investigation, initial filing, arraignment. If this goes to full trial the cost increases significantly."

"I know," said Sean.

"And you’re comfortable with that," she said.

"He hurts women," said Sean. "I’m comfortable with whatever it costs to stop that."

Margaux looked at him for another moment. Then she picked up a pen and made a note on the top page of the documentation package.

"I’m taking the case," she said. "My investigator starts today. I want Max’s contact information for the source documentation so we can properly authenticate the materials before we file."

"I’ll send it this afternoon," said Sean.

"The fraud charges will be filed by Wednesday," said Margaux. "That gets a detective assigned. From there the domestic situation becomes part of a broader investigation and we can push for a consolidated approach that doesn’t depend on the victim’s cooperation."

"How long," said Sean.

"Before he’s looking at a prosecutor across a table," said Margaux, "two weeks. Before a verdict, four to six months depending on how his defense responds." She paused. "Most men like him plead when they see the full picture. They’re used to pressure working in their favor. When it stops working they fold."

"He’ll fold," said Sean.

"You sound certain," said Margaux.

"He’s been running out of options for a while," said Sean. "This is him running out of the last one."

Margaux looked at him.

"How do you know that," she said.

Sean thought about the most honest version of the answer.

"I read people well," he said.

Margaux held his gaze for a moment. Then she turned to Elena. "The supporting documentation from the property angle, the residential complaint records, send those through your office so they’re properly attested."

"Already preparing them," said Elena.

"Good." Margaux stood. The meeting was done. She didn’t perform endings. She simply stopped when the thing was complete. She looked at Sean one more time. "Mr. Miller."

"Yes," he said.

"When the case closes," she said, "and it will close in the direction I intend it to close, I’ll send you a final billing statement. Whatever is left after the retainer you’ve already provided."

"That’s fine," said Sean.

"I want you to know," she said, "that I take cases like this because they need to be won. Not because they’re easy. This one isn’t easy. What you’ve provided makes it possible. There’s a difference between possible and easy."

"I know there is," said Sean. "That’s why I found you."

Something moved through Margaux Devlin’s expression that wasn’t quite warmth and wasn’t quite approval but was somewhere in the specific territory between those two things.

"Elena," she said. "He’s unusual."

"I’ve noticed," said Elena.

"Good unusual," said Margaux. "Don’t let him get too used to being unusual."

She walked toward her office door and held it open and that was that.

====================

In the car Sean texted Max.

Margaux is in. She needs your contact information for source authentication. Sending her your details now.

Already, said Max. That was fast.

She reads quickly, said Sean.

What did she think of the package, said Max.

She called the credit fraud clean, said Sean. She called the withdrawn report the most significant document.

A pause. Because of the language in the original filing.

Yes, said Sean.

I thought so, said Max. When I read it I thought that. The way it was written. Another pause. She filed it herself. Nobody helped her with that. You could tell.

Sean looked at the window.

’She filed it at eleven PM,’ he thought. ’Sat with something for hours and then picked up the phone.’

"James," he said.

"Sir," said James.

"Take me to campus," he said. "I have a ten thirty."

"Of course sir," said James.

He texted Olivia.

Meeting is done. Margaux took the case. Fraud charges filed by Wednesday.

Olivia replied in a minute. Wednesday.

Wednesday, he confirmed.

And then, she said.

And then it moves the way it moves, said Sean. She has a ninety-one percent conviction rate. I trust the process.

A pause. Sean.

Yeah.

You spent a lot of money on this, she said.

Yes, he said.

For someone who hurt someone who hurt you, she said.

He thought about how to answer that.

For someone who hurt a person who couldn’t stop it, he said. The history between her and me doesn’t change what Anthony did to her.

A longer pause.

That’s, Olivia started. Then: You know what it is.

What, said Sean.

It’s why, she said. That’s all. It’s just why.

He didn’t ask her to explain that. He understood what she meant.

He put his phone in his pocket and watched the city move past the window, the Monday morning version of it, everyone with somewhere to be.

—----------------

The fraud charges were filed at nine forty-seven Wednesday morning.

Sean was in his economics lecture when Max texted him.

Charges filed. Detective assigned. Anthony Ruiz received notification at his apartment at approximately nine fifteen this morning.

Sean read the text.

He looked at the front of the lecture hall where his professor was building a model on the whiteboard about market equilibrium, the specific academic abstraction of things that worked differently in practice.

He thought about Anthony Ruiz at nine fifteen on a Wednesday morning receiving a notification he hadn’t expected.