Finally, he got his volunteer. By choosing him.
“Harper,” he said, pointing. “I believe you’re the youngest of the firm’s partners, isn’t that right?”
Poor Harper, whoever he was. The guy stepped forward with a forced smile, taking the shotgun from his boss like a vegetarian picking up a double cheeseburger. Clearly, he was a city boy. Probably the only hunting he’d ever done in his life was for an apartment.
Brennan provided him with a quick tutorial before giving nods in the direction of both traps, each being manned by a guy sporting the universal hired-hand pose: feet slightly spread, arms behind the back, fingers clasped.
Pull!
Harper missed terribly with both shots. On the bright side, he didn’t kill himself or any of the rest of us. Same for the other “volunteers” Brennan summoned after him. No one could shoot a lick.
“Your turn, Mr. Mann,” I kept waiting to hear, and to be honest, the thought of shattering at least one of those little clay suckers, if not both, was feeling pretty damn good.
Brennan, however, never looked my way. “Perhaps it’s time I give it a whirl,” he announced instead.
But before he could even reach down into the box of shells by his feet, his wife, Abigail, chimed in with a nod to Title IX and her fellow women. “What about one of the girls?” she asked.
Brennan didn’t miss a beat. “Honey, we both know how much life insurance I have. The last thing I’m about to do is hand you a loaded gun.”
“I wasn’t talking about me,” she said once the laughter subsided. “Perhaps one of our female guests would like to try.”
“You’re right,” said Brennan. What else could he say? “How about it, ladies? I didn’t mean to exclude you.”
But of course he did. Had I truly been writing a Times profile on him, I probably would’ve noted that less than ten percent of his firm’s partners were women.
Still, as with the men, there were no takers. Just silence.
“C’mon, now,” he prodded. “I promise you won’t break a nail.”
Wow, he really just said that, didn’t he?
No one was groaning, though. Instead, the guests were too busy turning in search of the voice that had suddenly called out from the patio.
“I’ll give it a shot,” she said.
Chapter 84
On a scale of one to ten for entrances, it was easily an eleven.
Stepping off the patio and joining the Ralph Lauren ad on the lawn was the quintessential Benetton couple — a stunning all-American blonde on the arm of a handsome Middle Eastern man.
That said, all eyes were on the blonde.
She, too, was wearing a sleeveless sundress, entirely white with a plunging neckline, but amid all the tan and toned arms of the other female guests, hers appeared a little tanner, a little more toned.
“Shahid, you made it!”
Our semicircle around Brennan did a Red Sea part so the couple of the moment could greet the host and hostess. All anyone else could do was watch and listen as the man, Shahid, introduced his plus-one, Beverly Sands.
“Beverly and I only just met, so you need to make me look good,” said Shahid with a tug on his royal-blue blazer.
“I think you look pretty good already,” said Abigail, linking her arm with Shahid’s. This was clearly her signature move.
“Actually, I was going to ask the same of you, Shahid,” said Brennan before turning to find me among his guests. I stepped forward. “Trevor Mann, I’d like you to meet a client of mine, Shahid Al Dossari, and his friend, Beverly Sands.”
“Very nice to meet you both,” I said, shaking their hands.
“So you know, Trevor’s writing a profile of me for the New York Times,” Brennan explained.
Shahid nodded, impressed. So did Beverly. But for a split second, before her nod, I could’ve sworn there was something else. A sort of look she gave me. A squint. In a word... doubt.
Or, hell, maybe it was just the sun in my eyes.
Whatever it was, it came and went, her attention returning quickly to Brennan. Specifically, the open shotgun nestled over his forearm.
Playfully but with an edge, she asked, “So am I going to shoot that damn thing or not?”
“Hell, yes,” said Brennan, snapping to.
As Abigail stepped back with Shahid still looped on her arm, Brennan proceeded to give Beverly the same tutorial he’d given the men, albeit with considerably more care and attention. The more he talked, the more she hung on his every word like a rapt pupil.
“Like this?” she asked, unsure, propping the butt of the gun high against her shoulder.
“Actually, you want to bring it a little lower, sweetheart,” said Brennan, guiding the stock down a few inches.
“And I aim by looking through...?”
“You want to line up the front and rear sights,” he said, pointing them out.
“So now what happens?” she asked, closing one eye to aim.
“Now you try to shoot one of the clay disks that will be coming out of those little houses to your left and right,” said Brennan.
“Just one?”
He chuckled. So did more than half of the other men in the crowd. “Or two, if you’d like,” said Brennan. “Feel free to shoot them both. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little optimism.”
With that, he looked back at Shahid and gave him a wink.
“Okay, I’m ready,” said Beverly.
“Great,” said Brennan. “All that’s left to do is say—”
But Beverly Sands knew exactly what to say. Among other things.
“Pull!” she yelled.
As fast as the pigeons were released from the traps, they shattered even faster. First the low one, then the high one. Two quick blasts and they were blown to pieces... all over Abigail Brennan’s lawn.
Casually, Beverly handed the shotgun back to a stunned Brennan and immediately looked down at her hand.
“What do you know?” she said with a perfect shrug. “I think I broke a nail.”
Chapter 85
I’d been around a lot of good defense attorneys, and the best of them were always lightning quick on their feet while oozing grace under pressure at all times. They also knew a no-win situation when they saw one.
In other words, there was no way Josiah Brennan was taking his turn with that shotgun.
“All right, then,” he said, turning to his guests with the best self-deprecating laugh he could muster. “I think it’s lunchtime.”
The menu back on the patio was an eclectic mix of upscale and down-home. Next to the grilled New Zealand baby lamb chops were baked beans and corn bread. The napkins were linen, the utensils plastic. If the red velvet cake and the trifle were too rich for you, there was a tray of Rice Krispie treats made by the Brennans’ nine-year-old daughter, Rebecca, who looked like a mini-me of her mother.
I figured a half hour to eat and mingle and blend in with the crowd. Then it was time to get lost. As for my permission to wander aimlessly in someone else’s home, that was as easy as three words. “Where’s the bathroom?”
I made sure to pose the question to Mr. Henchman, since he was the only guy whose job it was to make sure I didn’t do what I was about to do. In his mind, at least for a few minutes, I was accounted for inside the house.
“Down the hall, second left,” he told me.
Closing the door behind me in the bathroom, I counted to thirty while staring at an equestrian-patterned wallpaper that even Ann Romney would’ve passed on. In case Mr. Henchman was standing watch, I then flushed the toilet and ran the sink for a few seconds.