“Yeah, well, you’re not my boss. I don’t have a boss.”

“Is that right? Like I said, I could fire your ass right here right now.”

I pointed down the hall to the door to the press conference room.

“Yeah, that’ll look good. Firing the independent prosecutor you just hired. Didn’t Nixon do that during the Watergate mess? Worked real well for him. Why don’t we go back in and tell them? I’m sure there are still a few cameras in there.”

Williams hesitated, realizing his predicament. I had backed him against the wall without even moving. He would look like a complete and unelectable fool if he fired me, and he knew it. He leaned in closer and his whisper dropped lower as he used the oldest threat in the mano a mano handbook. I was ready for it.

“Do not fuck with me, Haller.”

“Then don’t fuck with my case. This isn’t a campaign stop and it’s not about money. This is murder, boss. You want me to get a conviction, then get out of my way.”

I threw him the bone of calling him boss. Williams pressed his mouth into a tight line and stared at me for a long moment.

“Just so we understand each other,” he finally said.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I think we do.”

“Before you talk to the media about this case, you get it approved by my office first. Understand?”

“Got it.”

He turned and headed down the hall. His entourage followed. I remained in the hallway and watched them go. The truth was, there was nothing in the law that I objected to more than the death penalty. It was not that I had ever had a client executed or even tried such a case. It was simply a belief in the idea that an enlightened society did not kill its own.

But somehow that didn’t stop me from using the threat of the death penalty as an edge in the case. As I stood there alone in the hallway, I thought that maybe that made me a better prosecutor than I had imagined I could be.