Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

really, really
lucky – it turned out
really
well, but it might not have.’
‘You guys are 
really
overreacting. Can we enjoy a
small moment of good news? Just thirty seconds of good
news in the past nine days? Please?’
Tanner pointedly looked at his watch. ‘Okay, go.’
When I started to talk, he popped his index finger,
made the uhp-uhp noise that grown-ups make when
children try to interrupt. Slowly, his index finger lowered,
then landed on the watch face.
‘Okay, thirty seconds. Did you enjoy it?’ He paused to
see if I’d say anything – the pointed silence a teacher
allows after asking the disruptive student: 
Are you done
talking?
‘Now we need to talk. We are in a place where
excellent timing is absolutely key.’
‘I agree.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ He arched an eyebrow at me. ‘I want to
go to the police very, very soon with the contents of the
woodshed. While the hoi polloi is—’
Just hoi polloi
, I thought, 
not
the 
hoi polloi
. It was

---

something Amy had taught me.
‘—all loving on you again. Or, excuse me, not 
again
.
Finally. The reporters have found Go’s house, and I don’t
feel secure leaving that woodshed, its contents,
undisclosed much longer. The Elliotts are …?’
‘We can’t count on the Elliotts’ support anymore,’ I
said. ‘Not at all.’ Another pause. Tanner decided not to
lecture me, or even ask what happened.
‘So we need offense,’ I said, feeling untouchable,
angry, ready.
‘Nick, don’t let one good turn make you feel
indestructible,’ Go said. She pressed some extra-strengths
from her purse into my hand. ‘Get rid of your hangover. You
need to be on today.’ ‘It’s going to be okay,’ I told her. I
popped the pills, turned to Tanner. ‘What do we do? Let’s
make a plan.’
‘Great, here’s the deal,’ Tanner said. ‘This is incredibly
unorthodox, but that’s me. Tomorrow we are doing an
interview with Sharon Schieber.’
‘Wow, that’s … for sure?’ Sharon Schieber was as
good as I could ask for: the top-rated (ages 30–55) network
(broader reach than cable) newswoman (to prove I could
have respectful relations with people who have vaginas)
working today. She was known for dabbling very
occasionally in the impure waters of true-crime journalism,
but when she did, she got freakin’ righteous. Two years
ago, she took under her silken wing a young mother who
had been imprisoned for shaking her infant to death.
Sharon Schieber presented a whole legal – and very
emotional – defense case over a series of nights. The
woman is now back home in Nebraska, remarried and

---

expecting a child.
‘That’s for sure. She got in touch after the video went
viral.’
‘So the video did help.’ I couldn’t resist.
‘It gave you an interesting wrinkle: Before the video, it
was clear you did it. Now there’s a slight chance you didn’t.
I don’t know how it is you finally seemed genuine—’
‘Because last night it served an actual purpose: Get
Amy back,’ Go said. ‘It was an offensive maneuver. Where
before it would just be indulgent, undeserved, disingenuous
emotion.’
I gave her a thank-you smile.
‘Well, keep remembering that it is serving a purpose,’
Tanner said. ‘Nick, I’m not fucking around here: This is
beyond unorthodox. Most lawyers would be shutting you up.
But it’s something I’ve been wanting to try. The media has
saturated the legal environment. With the Internet,
Facebook, YouTube, there’s no such thing as an unbiased
jury anymore. No clean slate. Eighty, ninety percent of a
case is decided before you get in the courtroom. So why
not use it – control the story. But it’s a risk. I want every
word, every gesture, every bit of information planned out
ahead of time. But you have to be natural, likable, or this will
all backfire.’
‘Oh, that sounds simple,’ I said. ‘One hundred percent
canned yet totally genuine.’
‘You have to be extremely careful with your wording,
and we will tell Sharon that you won’t answer certain
questions. She’ll ask you anyway, but we’ll teach you how to
say,