Page 62 of Homecoming

“What did he say?”

“I’ll never forget it,” Bertha said with a smile. “He said, ‘Mother, I know exactly who I married, and she’s everything I want, so leave her alone, or you won’t be seeing much of me.’”

“Whoa,” Kara said. “That’s hot.”

“Sure was, and he was richly rewarded for that when we got home.”

“Ack! Stop!”

Bertha cackled with laughter. “As if you’re not doing the same thing every chance you get.”

Kara sent a guilty look Dan’s way.

“She has a point, babe.”

“You be quiet.”

Bertha laughed even harder at the face Kara made at her husband.

A loud knock on the door startled them.

“Who the heck is that at this hour?” Bertha asked as she got up to answer the door.

A young police officer stood at the door, holding a large white envelope. “Package for Dan Torrington. Can you sign here, please?”

“I’ve got this, Bertha,” Dan said. “Who’s it from?”

“Detective Cosgrove asked me to drop this off to you earlier. I got called to an MVA… That’s a motor vehicle accident.”

“I’m familiar with the term.”

“Oh right. Of course you’d know that. Sorry. Anyway, he asked me to drop this off to you. Sorry to come by so late.”

Dan took the package from the young man and signed the receipt.

“You all have a nice evening.”

“You do the same.”

“What is it?” Kara asked after Dan opened the envelope and examined the contents.

“Final police and autopsy reports.”

“Ah, some light bedtime reading,” Bertha said, grimacing.

Dan set the documents on the counter and returned to the table.

“How do you bear it?” Bertha asked. “The details of a case like this.”

“It’s never easy, that’s for sure, but I try to focus on the facts and remind myself of the job I need to do.”

“Do you ever start to hate your clients?”

“I have, many times, grown to despise them, especially when I realized they were full of shit and every word out of their mouth was a lie. It’s harder to put up a full-throated defense of someone like that, which is why these days I only take clients who I believe are innocent. Everyone deserves a robust defense, but not everyone deserves that from me. Not anymore.”

Bertha nodded. “I like that.”

“It’s easier to be picky at this point in my career. In the beginning, I didn’t have the luxury of saying no to the true scumbags who deserved to be locked up for the rest of their lives. I always did my best for them, but it didn’t break my heart to see them convicted and sent away.”

---