Chapter 3 - The Little Liar

Alice was just emerging from the offices of a family court judge when she ran straight into her fellow attorney Théry.

“We’ll be seeing each other in court soon, on the Lange case,” she told him.

“How come?”

“I’m representing the plaintiff.”

“Wait, why? Did her attorney dump her?”

“No, she wanted to change.”

Alice didn’t feel like saying more. Théry had already stopped listening, anyway.

“That reminds me—I need to go back to see my client in prison. He’s a good guy, not the smartest. He’s a truck driver.”

“Plasterer.”

“Oh yes! You’re right. Plasterer. There are so many, I end up confusing them. Well then, I’ll be up against you?”

“Yes.”

“He got ten years, if I remember right. If we get that bitch Gendron for the appeal, she’ll try to slap at least another five on him. That’s the sentence these days, for raping a minor. Particularly with Alice Keridreux, Esquire, laying it on thick about the victim’s suffering, I’m guessing.”

Alice didn’t respond.

“These judges—the longer I do this, the more I hate them. Narrow-minded, weaned on political correctness. And cowardly with it. It’s just a bunch of women now, anyway. The last few men you’ll see in the corridors at the law courts carry brooms and buckets. And the young ones are the worst. I mean, have you seen them in their sneakers? They’re trying cases in sneakers! The jurors are the same. Force-fed TV series. They don’t listen to you these days. They look at you like they know it all way better than you do, because they’ve seen every episode of their favorite courtroom drama. No way you can plant a tiny seed of doubt in them! They’re too scared of being yelled at. When I think how many guys I used to get acquitted! And, believe me, there was a whole heap of guilty parties in that crowd … Say, do you think I’m actually too old for this?”

Alice was touched by his sudden distress. She noticed the slight shaking in his hands as he undid his robe. The jabot was yellowed, the lining torn in places. She thought he looked thinner, almost swimming in his suit. Like many of her cohort, she had cut her teeth with Théry. At the time he’d looked good, lived large, gambled for high stakes at the casino and made sure he was seen in the best restaurants in town, with a wife fifteen years his junior. He’d surrounded himself with young female associates, preferably pretty ones, and sent them to visit prisoners instead of doing it himself. “My recruiting agents,” he’d bragged.

Théry had secured some celebrated acquittals, his name had been bandied around from one prison to another, the practice had flourished. Big local lawbreakers had fought over him, and he had just loved his reputation as a stick of dynamite that terrified magistrates. Then his star had faded, his wife had cleaned him out before leaving him, and he was ending his career as he had started it, with a client base of small-time drug dealers, violent husbands, sex-offender fathers, and rapists, people who hardly paid him and whose defenses he botched. He’d grown bitter, could no longer bear to see great cases slip through his fingers and go to someone he’d trained, never missing an opportunity to remind them how indebted they were to him. “And whom do you have to thank?” he would snap at Alice when she congratulated herself for a good result. Over time she’d tired of his boasting, but she still had a spark of filial affection for him.

She looked at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock, she had some time before her next meeting.

“Are you free for lunch? It’s on me.”

Théry made a pretense of hesitating.

“I have a busy day, at the office … You know that kid who was found drowned? They’ve arrested a suspect. I think I have a good chance of getting the case. But I’d be happy to have a sauerkraut and some profiteroles with you.”

Alice suggested getting away from the law courts. She knew a little restaurant where they could chat in peace. Théry looped his arm through hers.

“I still need to keep going, though. I have no choice. What a shit job! It snatches back everything it gave you. One minute you have glory, success, and money—the next it’s all gone. I blew it all. I’m not like those boutique lawyers who manage their little practices well, eat sushi, drink fruit juice, don’t smoke, ride a bicycle, and do yoga. I hope you didn’t start yoga, did you?”

Alice could feel Théry appraising her like a shady horse dealer. She’d dressed in a hurry that morning, her tight blouse making her look like a badly stuffed sausage. She straightened instinctively.

“I swim.”

“Oh, of course! You swim! The lesser spotted Keridreux likes ice-cold water. Back when you were my intern you slipped off to swim all the time, whatever the weather.”

Théry’s face had softened.

“And you’re looking good. Are you still going to your island?”

“Whenever I can. How about you? Still faithful to your boat?”

Alice immediately regretted asking. She’d heard through the grapevine that he’d been forced to sell the boat to pay his debts.

“That’s in the past. Like everything else.”

Almost before they sat down, Théry summoned the waiter.

“The beef for me,” he said. “Rare, with fries and a large glass of red. The lady will have a green salad with no dressing and a lemon verbena tea.”

“With an omelet in between, please.”

Alice’s invitation seemed to have buoyed him up. He even became attentive, asking about her current case. He almost choked laughing when she started mimicking one of her clients. “It’s Chrystel with a y and just one l, Ms. Keridreux. I’m very particular about that.” Alice had always had a gift for it, friends told her she’d missed her vocation. Théry played along, poking fun at the courts’ newspeak, the preponderance of “lived experiences” and “lifelong misery,” and the “therapeutic benefits” of trials, along with other expressions that irked them both.

Alice was back with the boss she’d once known, a sharp, wily man with the dark humor of a lawyer that so terrifies people outside the profession. She’d climbed the career ladder surrounded by male narratives like his, so embellished that they no longer bore any resemblance to the facts. Starting with the same anecdote about a trial, they would change the court, the key players, and the date. The story grew, was elaborated, and went on to fuel legends about the profession. They all inherited these tales, and then the day came when they in turn passed them on.

“Have you heard from Jean?” Théry asked.

“I call him often. His voice is getting weaker and weaker. Last time he told me he wants to stop his treatment.”

“D’you know, of all the lawyers I know, he’s the only one I truly admire. Jean is a master.”

“Do you remember the Lucienne story?”

“’Lucienne had black hair, she wore a yellow cardigan and a pleated skirt,’” Alice began.

“‘Her husband, Marcel, was a carpenter. He had two fingers missing …’” Théry went on.

Their recollections complemented each other: a detail forgotten by one was salvaged by the other. Lucienne had turned up at Jean’s practice confessing that she had hidden her baby’s body years earlier. The child had been beaten to death by his father, they had rolled him up in a towel and buried him in a plot of land owned by the family. Justice had never been done in the case; the couple had moved away, and life had started again. She’d told Jean that she was haunted by her baby, she wanted to give him a burial place, a proper one, with a name and dates engraved on a tombstone in a cemetery. She didn’t have the courage to turn herself in. She wanted Jean to be the one to call the police. He told her it was not for him to do.

“And a week later she was at his door …”

“With her suitcase.”

Jean had told Lucienne everything that could happen to her: police custody, an inquiry, the search for the body, a showdown with her husband, a trial, conviction. She obstinately insisted that she couldn’t go on living while her child had no grave.

“At the time, Jean was already representing everybody who was anybody, the cops despised him,” said Théry.

“He had a lot of sleepless nights over it.”

Jean had called the police station, and two cops had come to his office for Lucienne. The child’s bones were found exactly where she’d said they would be. She’d been convicted.

“He always wondered whether he did the right thing.”

Silence settled between them; they were both moved. Théry ordered two coffees.

“You know, with the Lange case,” he said, “I’m sure the judge had a crush on Laurentin, your predecessor. She must have been flattered to have a Parisian in her office, the tramp. But at the beginning, she was always decent with me, I even secured my client’s release. The peacock could have killed me. And then Lange screwed up, he came back to the area, someone recognized him and went to the police. He’d violated his parole, bam, back to the slammer. After that the judge refused all my requests for a witness confrontation. She said the kid couldn’t handle it. I gave up in the end. It’s not like I wanted to spend my life with Lange. He’s the kind of client who writes you letters every day but plays dead the minute you send your invoice. Luckily, I had other more interesting cases on my books at the time.”

As he said goodbye to Alice outside the brasserie, he added, “So, I know this isn’t going to stop my bank manager jumping up and down, but, if I remember right, this case wouldn’t even hang together with glue. It’s her word against his. If I were still at the top of my game, I’d make mincemeat of your client and of you, Keridreux. Okay, I’ll try to persuade Lange to confess to something. Otherwise, it’s a lost cause. You see, I’m bettering myself. I’m starting to feel the victims’ pain too.”