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us.”
    â€œThe past isn’t even the past,” I told her. “Not for him, and not for me. Not until the state dismisses these charges.”
    We’d see her at the hearing, I said.
    â€œSo what do you think, should he take the deal?” Teddy asked when I finished recapping my conversation.
    â€œJeanie has a point. The withheld evidence could actually bolster the prosecution’s case, give him a motive he didn’t have before. But no, the thought of him pleading guilty puts a bad taste in my mouth. Obviously we’ve got to tell him about the offer, but it seems to me that they ought to dismiss the charges.”
    â€œI agree,” Teddy said, looking uncomfortable with the reversal of our roles, me automatically taking the lead and he looking to me for confirmation of what he was thinking. “But if he’s got a chance to walk away from it, time served . . . Part of me thinks he’s dumb not to grab the deal.”
    â€œThat’s his decision,” I said. “We don’t get to make it for him.”
    My tone was sharper than I’d intended, and my words had the effect of shutting down further debate. I wanted our father to fight, and at the moment I wasn’t interested in probing my motives. As with my last visit, we had to wait over half an hour at the guard shack in the wind and cold out there on the bay before they’d let us in. During our wait, we didn’t speak any more of the deal that was on the table, a deal that Teddy clearly wanted my father to take.
    One of the officers had decided to be a hard-ass. He wanted us to see Lawrence in the regular visitors’ room, where conversations were recorded and there could be no expectation of privacy. After making us wait around just because he could, he finally let us go through to the attorney-client conference area.
    â€œHey there, Papa,” Lawrence said when the guard finally brought him in.
    Teddy rose, and our father clasped hands with him, the closest he could get to a hug with the olive-jacketed guards watching through the glass. “I knew you could do it.” Lawrence’s voice was tight, higher than normal. His excitement was palpable, in contrast with the impatience he’d shown toward me the other day. “Teddy, they can’t stop talking about you in here. People coming up to me I’ve never met, saying, ‘That boy of yours, he never gave up on you.’ You’re a hero to every poor son of a bitch in this place. You had every reason to give up and you never did.”
    â€œWe had a little holdup there,” Teddy said, his hand still in our father’s.
    â€œYou got shot in the fucking head. You call that a holdup?” Lawrence shook his head disbelievingly. “You know I’m the whole reason he was so hot to get his law license back, just to show those fuckers that Teddy Maxwell always wins.”
    Lawrence took his time with the photos Teddy’d brought. Finally he slipped the stack back into the envelope. “She’s beautiful,” he said. “You ought to be goddamned proud.”
    â€œYou keep them,” Teddy said.
    â€œDon’t need to. I’m getting out of here soon, aren’t I?” He slid the envelope back. “You get real tired of living your life secondhand. Or thirdhand, as it is.” He turned to me, drumming his fingers excitedly on the table. “So where are we at with the case?”
    â€œAngela Crowder is the DA. She made an offer. You plead to second-degree murder and the state will agree to recommend a sentence of time served, meaning you walk out of the courtroom a free man. You’d be on parole, so they could always violate you. I told her you wouldn’t take it. The offer’s good until the hearing, though.”
    â€œThey’re bluffing,” Lawrence said.
    â€œI wouldn’t be so sure. What she said is that they’re investigating. It sounds to me like they’re