THE ORPHAN’S GUILT
- A Joe Gunther Novel -
ARCHER MAYOR
CHAPTER ONE
Searching Out the Weak Spot
Sally Kravitz liked Scott Jezek. A runner, a reader, a family man, he was the kind of lawyer who made lawyer jokes ring hollow. He
was a small-time operator, owner of a one-man practice in Brattleboro, Vermont, a town that, since the 1970s, had earned an
eccentric, politicized, left-wing reputation that allowed unusual types like Jezek to fit right in.
His most winning feature for Sally was his soft spot for the underdog. Having cut his legal teeth for two decades in Boston, Jezek
had amassed a small fortune and was yearning for a simpler life, if still within the practice of law. He’d chosen Brattleboro for this, and
opened what he referred to as a “boutique firm,” where he could pick and choose his clients based on whether he believed in their
cause over their ability to pay, often charging just enough to settle his bills and, for the most part, rejecting the very people who could
easily afford his high-octane background and credentials.
This made Sally and Scott kindred spirits, since, though wildly different in nature, their backgrounds had sculpted in each a
sympathy for the downtrodden. A homegrown Brattleboro girl, Sally had been reared by a father devoted to experiencing and learning
from the hardscrabble lives of society’s lower rungs. He had moved her around the town like a nomad for years, camping out in other
people’s apartments and trailers and homes, exchanging labor and gifts for shelter, while absorbing a culture from which most
middleclass residents only dreamed of escaping.
But just as Scott Jezek no longer depended on money to function as a lawyer, Dan Kravitz, Sally’s father, hadn’t lived among the
disadvantaged through fate or misfortune. It had been a choice. In fact, he had money. Quite a bit, not that anyone knew it. He’d
developed a covert career as an information thief, and a good one, complete with a rigid and moral standard of operations, who broke
into high-end homes to bug people’s electronic devices and thus follow—and benefit from— their activities, whether legal or not. As a
result, once he felt that his daughter had learned what she could on society’s ground floor, he’d put her into a prestigious prep school
so she could study the flip side.
Now, at last an adult, Sally had chosen a profession that helped her again to peer into how and why people function as they do, as a
private investigator.
And like Scott Jezek, she selected many jobs despite a lower income. Differing from most of her colleagues, she tried to avoid
domestic work—the euphemism for spousal cheating cases—and weighted her business toward defense mitigation. Lawyers like Scott
hired her to discover good things about their clients, for use in tempering the prejudice of prosecutors or judges or both, since their
grasp of a defendant’s entire personality was often based solely on the charges against them.
That explained Sally’s being here now. Scott had phoned earlier that morning to ask if “an unusual DUI” might be of interest.
Sally didn’t drink alcohol. At all. Never had. It was one of her personal details that, despite the influences that had formed her, she
had created for herself an unreachable behavioral niche, where she remained safe like an eagle high on a cliff.
That being said, she understood addiction and the various forces leading to it. She didn’t necessarily disagree that some drunks
were self-indulgent boors, too inconsiderate of others to merit much slack. But Sally’s own view was more charitable, having found that
most addicts were caught up in emotions exceeding their ability to control them.
Jezek’s office matched his profile. Housed in an old Victorian mansion, now home to a preponderance of psychology
practices—of which Brattleboro had an impressive number—it consisted of a single room flooded with light from a large bay window
and appointed with hardwood floors, wood paneling, and a coffered ceiling. Lining the ancient mantelpiece above an inoperative
fireplace was a parade of some of Jezek’s collection of antique Christmas cards, lined up like a colorful if faded paper train.
The lawyer himself, dressed casually in jeans and an open-necked, button-down shirt, rose from his chair upon her entrance and
fairly raced around his desk to greet her.
“Sally,” he said, smiling broadly, shaking her hand, and waving her into one of two guest chairs. “You came. I am delighted.”
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