We have a video camera pointed into the cell, so that someone is always watching over a perp. I should be going through the paperwork, which takes forever, but instead, I swing into dispatch to stare at the monitor. For ten whole minutes, Jacob Hunt doesn’t move, unless you count the way his hand is fluttering. Then, very slowly, he scoots backward until he is leaning against the wall, pressed against the corner of the cell. His mouth is moving.

“What the hell is he saying?” I ask the dispatcher.

“Beats me.”

I walk out of dispatch and crack the door that leads to the holding cell. Jacob’s voice is faint:

All around in my hometown,

They’re trying to track me down.

They say they want to bring me in guilty

For the killing of a deputy.

I swing open the door and walk up to the cell. Jacob is still singing, his voice rising and falling. My footsteps echo on the concrete, but he doesn’t stop, not even when I am standing on the other side of the bars, directly in front of him, with my arms crossed.

He sings through the chorus two more times before he stops. He doesn’t look at me, but I can tell from the way his shoulders square that he knows I’m here.

With a sigh, I realize that I’m not going to leave this kid alone again. And I’m not going to get my paperwork done unless I can convince him it’s another lesson in police procedure. “So,” I say, unlocking the cell door, “have you ever filled out an intake form?”

As soon as I hear the detective say that he’ll arrest Emma Hunt if she doesn’t shut up, I snap out of the panic I am in, a panic induced by the sentence he spoke just slightly before that: Then we’ll drive him down to the courthouse for his arraignment.

What the hell do I know about arraignments?

I have won a couple of civil suits. But a criminal arraignment is a whole different animal.

We are in Emma’s car, driving to the courthouse, but that was a struggle. She didn’t want to leave the police station without Jacob; the only way I managed to convince her to leave was by pointing her in the direction of where her son would be heading. “I ought to be with him,” she says, running a red light. “I’m his mother, for God’s sake.” As if that triggers something else in her mind, she grimaces. “Theo. Oh my God, Theo… He doesn’t even know we’re here…”

I don’t know who Theo is, and to be honest, I don’t have time to care. I am busy wondering where I am supposed to stand in the courtroom.

What do I say?

Do I speak first, or does the prosecutor?

“This is a total misunderstanding,” Emma insists. “Jacob’s never hurt anyone. This couldn’t be his fault.”

Actually, I don’t even know which courtroom to go to.

“Are you even listening?” Emma asks, and I realize at that moment she must have asked me a question.

“Yes,” I say, figuring I have a 50 percent chance of being right.

She narrows her eyes. “Left or right,” she repeats.

We are sitting at a stop sign. “Left,” I murmur.

“What happens at the arraignment?” she asks. “Jacob won’t have to talk, will he?”

“No. The lawyer does. I mean, I do. The whole point of an arraignment is just to read the charges and set bail.” This much I remember from law school, anyway.

But it’s not the right thing to say to Emma. “Bail?” she repeats. “They’re going to lock Jacob up?”

“I don’t know,” I say, totally honest. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Emma parks in the courthouse lot. “When will he get here?”

I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that it’s nearly the end of the business day, and if Detective Matson doesn’t get his ass in gear, Jacob’s going to be spending the night at the county jail-but there’s no way I’m going to tell Emma that.

It’s quiet inside the courthouse; most of the cases are through for the day. However, mine is just beginning, and I need a crash course in criminal law before my client figures out I’m a total fraud. “Why don’t you wait here?” I suggest, pointing to a chair in the lobby.

“Where are you going?”

“To do, um, some paperwork that needs to be filed before Jacob arrives,” I say, trying to look as confident as possible, and then I make a beeline for the office of the clerk.

It’s just like nurses in a hospital tend to know more than the doctors most of the time; if you really want to get the answer to a question about court, you should spend more time buttering up the clerks than the judges. “Hello,” I say to the small, dark-haired woman peering into a computer screen. “I’m here for a criminal arraignment.”

She flicks a glance upward. “How nice for you,” she says flatly.

My gaze falls on a nameplate on her desk. “I wonder, Dorothy, if you could tell me in which courtroom that might take place?”

“The criminal courtroom would be a safe bet…”

“Right.” I smile, as if I knew this all along. “And the judge…?”

“If it’s Monday, it’s Judge Cuttings,” she says.

“Thanks. Thanks very much,” I reply. “Really nice to meet you.”

“The highlight of my day,” Dorothy intones.

I am about to walk out the door when I turn back at the last moment. “One more thing…”

“Yes?”

“Am I, um, supposed to say anything?”

She looks up from her computer. “The judge will ask you whether your client pleads guilty or not guilty,” Dorothy answers.

“Great,” I say. “I really appreciate that.”

In the lobby, I find Emma hanging up her cell phone. “So?” she asks.

I sink into the empty seat beside her. “Piece of cake,” I tell her, and I hope I can convince myself.

Emma and I sit through three drug possession charges, one B and E, and an indecent exposure charge before Jacob is brought into the courtroom. From my vantage point in the gallery, I can tell the moment Emma notices he’s here: she sits up a little straighter, and her breath catches in her throat.

If you have spent any time in a courtroom, you’ll know that high school football players-the mean ones with no necks-grow up and become bailiffs. Two of these behemoths are manhandling Jacob, who’s doing his damnedest to get the hell away from them. He keeps craning his neck, looking at the people in the courtroom, and as soon as he spots Emma, his entire body sags with relief.

I stand up, heading down from the gallery, because it’s showtime, and realize too late that Emma’s following me. “You have to stay here,” I whisper over my shoulder as I take my place at the defendant’s table beside my client.

“Hi,” I say to Jacob under my breath. “My name’s Oliver. Your mom hired me to be your lawyer, and I’ve got it all under control. Don’t say anything to the judge. Just let me do the talking.”

The whole time I’m speaking, Jacob is looking at his lap. The minute I finish, he twists in his seat. “Mom,” he calls out, “what’s going on?”

“Counselor,” the bigger bailiff says, “either shut your client up or he’s going back in the holding cell.”

“I just told you not to talk to anybody,” I tell Jacob.

“You told me not to say anything to the judge.”

“You can’t talk to anybody,” I clarify. “Do you understand?”

Jacob glances down at the table.

“Jacob? Hello?”

“You told me not to talk to anybody,” he mutters. “Will you make up your mind already?”

Judge Cuttings is a hard-boiled New Englander who, in his time off, runs a llama farm and who, in my opinion, looks a little like a llama himself. He has just announced Jacob’s name when Dorothy the clerk enters through a side door and passes him a note. Looking down his long nose at it, he sighs. “I have two arraignments for Mr. Robichaud that need to be done in another courtroom. Since he’s currently here with his clients, I’ll do those first, and then we’ll take the prisoner’s case.”