From that moment, he was no longer defending Michael.

He was defending himself, and separating himself, as fast and as visibly as he could, from the man beside him.

I did not blame Gregory Walsh for that, then or now.

He had taken a case that appeared, on its face, to be an ordinary family dispute over the care of an aging parent, the kind of matter that crosses a lawyer’s desk every week.

He had not known that his client had forged documents and staged injuries and altered medical records, because his client had lied to him too, had used his own attorney as one more unwitting instrument in the machine.