The client who would not talk

Mara Doucette met Joel Pardy in the cells under the courthouse at eight in the morning, which was the only time the cells were quiet. He was forty, wore a cleaner’s uniform with a name tag that said JOE, and folded his hands on the steel table like a man in church. She explained who she was, what he was charged with and what would happen at ten. He nodded at each part. He did not say a word.

The charge was break and enter at Farrow Jewellers on Barrington Street, a narrow old shop with a green door and a very good alarm. The alarm had not gone off. The police had video of a man in a cleaner’s uniform walking in at 3:14 in the morning. They had his fingerprint on the glass case. And they had a brass key in his jacket pocket that opened the green door.

“You do not have to tell me anything today,” Mara said. “But at some point you will have to tell me something, or I will be defending you with my eyes closed.” Joel looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at the clock on the wall, the way people do when they are waiting for someone else to arrive.