Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt Page B

referred to him as Gerry, but apparently when talking to someone of my level, it was Gerard.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I see that this pro-bono assignment has taken a somewhat unexpected turn.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said, for the second time, since the first time seemed to have gone fairly well.
    “Come in and let’s talk about it.”
    “Okay … will do. When?”
    “Let’s say in one hour,” he said.
    “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. I’ll be at the courthouse in one hour. I can be there tomorrow morning … if that works for you.”
    He was quiet for a few minutes, probably deciding the words he was going to use to fire me. Then, “Nine-thirty.”
    I started to say that was fine, and that I’d see him at nine-thirty, when I realized he was no longer on the phone.
    By the time I drove to the courthouse, which was in Newark, you would think that the president of the United States or Lindsay Lohan was arriving. I had been so busy that I don’t think I fully understood the media firestorm Sheryl’s plight had created. Demonstrations were well under way on both sides of the issue, but I would say the definite tilt was toward our side.
    I worked my way through the crowd into the courthouse, where the security guards seemed to be waiting for me. They guided me to the clerk’s office, and the actual filing took just a few minutes.
    The case of Harrison vs. New Jersey Department of Corrections was a reality.
    That was the good news. The bad news was we had almost no chance of prevailing, and if we did, it almost definitely would not be quick enough. Which meant that we were going to have to be very aggressive on the public relations side of the equation.
    I had exactly as much experience dealing with the media as I had with the New Jersey Supreme Court, but I figured that was as good a time as any to learn on the job. I walked out of the court and stopped at the top of the steps, which seemed like a logical place to hold an impromptu news conference.
    The assembled reporters threw about five million questions at me, none of which I even tried to answer. Instead I just waited until the din quieted down a little, then raised my arms and said I wanted to make a statement.
    “About six weeks ago the president of the United States held a ceremony at the White House, at which he posthumously awarded Captain Timothy Myerson the highest honor he could bestow, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Captain Myerson had fallen on an unexploded munition, so that the seven other men in his command would not themselves be killed.”
    The reporters looked confused by what I was saying, as if they had wandered into the wrong movie and couldn’t find an usher.
    “Captain Myerson did exactly what Sheryl Harrison wants to do, to give up her own life to save another. But she is not honored at a White House ceremony; instead she is prevented from performing this act of heroism by bureaucrats in the New Jersey State government.
    “As a grateful American, I am thankful that heroes like Captain Myerson do not have to check with bureaucrats and politicians before they perform their acts of tremendous generosity and courage. With the lawsuit we are filing today, we will try to give Sheryl Harrison that same freedom.”
    With that I declined to take any questions, which didn’t deter them, and they continued to yell them out as I walked away. It took me a while to physically extricate myself from the media mob, but when I was finally and safely in my car, I could reflect on how well it had gone.
    Maybe I wasted my time in law school.

 
    About two years ago, Ryan Palmer got the scare of his life.
    The fifty-one-year-old periodontist had gone in for his yearly physical, and expected to receive the same clean bill of health he had gotten the last five years.
    Instead he got the “C” word.
    The good news, according to his doctor, was that it was thyroid cancer, detected early and very, very curable. The bad news, thought Ryan, was that when it