For all his swagger, Jack was a decent man. The problem was that he didn't belong here, and he knew it. Wherever Jack was going, he certainly hadn't arrived yet. He probably expected to step up to a white-shoe law firm someday and escape this pit of public defense. Or perhaps he had his eye on a judgeship or some political office, the sort of aspirations that would make Burton Westerley proud.
Dad would love this guy. She was amused by how well Jack was dressed today in a perfect hand-tailored suit. His clients probably didn't care about such things, so who was he trying to impress? The answer was obvious: he was always prepared for his moment in the spotlight. Like so many criminal lawyers, he preferred high-profile cases and loved the media. Jack Cummings was a man on the move and gobbled up all the attention he could get.
Jack also hit on every woman he met, including the women in the Primary Defenders group. Too slick for Constance, she turned him down. Besides, he didn't look anything like her dream man. To his credit, he did take "no" for an answer. Still, he loved to tease, another aspect of him that would please her father.
Go ahead, hit me with your joke. Constance smiled. "Good morning, Jack." Then she waited for him to deliver his daily zinger.
Jack stepped over to her desk and put his hand on the pile of cases. Something was coming, perhaps a witty remark about torching the pile and freeing all the prisoners. He rapped his knuckles on the big pile. When his face still didn't crack a smile, she sat up. Perhaps this wasn't a joke.
Jack started to look through the tabs in her case pile. "You've got a big stack of cases. And I'm going to make it grow shorter."
Wait, didn't I just wish for that? Had he read her thoughts? Constance shivered.
Jack kept looking through the tabs in her stack. He found a folder halfway down and pulled it out.
What was that case? She read the name and remembered it. A sixteen-year-old boy facing two years in juvenile detention. She'd been working with him for a month now, trying to make deals with the prosecutor. Constance had even visited the boy's home and met his obviously alcoholic foster parents. She wondered if detention might be a better place for him.
She looked up at Jack. "What happened?"
He took a long breath and handed the kid's folder to her. "I hate to be the one to tell you, but he committed suicide last night."