THE ARGUMENT

“The facts are the facts,” Roxana said. “The Morales accident was just that: an accident.”

She laid it out piece by piece. A patch of ice on the road, nearly invisible. The Moraleses’ small SUV skidded over it into the oncoming lane, where an eighteen-wheeler struck it head-on. The vehicle exploded.

She opened a file: police reports, photographs of the scene, and an autopsy report that identified the remains of the ill-fated couple through genetic testing. John Morales had been driving below the speed limit. Forensics showed that neither he nor his wife, Anna, had been intoxicated.

“By the way,” Roxana added, “the Moraleses were born in Uruguay. South Americans, like you.”

I looked at her coldly. “Is the fact that they’re Hispanic supposed to influence my duty to represent my client zealously?”

Roxy said nothing. Then, quietly: “Doesn’t the name ‘Morales’ make you think of morals? Would that influence you, counselor?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. She was right. It was ironic, almost unbearably so, that I was fighting against morality itself. And worse, I was about to harm innocent orphans, a subject that reminded me of my own painful history.

“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense, Roxy,” I said, abruptly changing the subject. “The policy has an extremely high payout per insured, even without the double-indemnity clause. We’re looking at three million dollars per person. According to the file, they were paying a thousand dollars a month by the time of the accident. Yet their financial records show the Moraleses were barely making ends meet. Anna was a schoolteacher, John a construction-site supervisor. Their combined income doesn’t justify those payments.”

I was arguing against my own devil’s advocate. Roxana and I had always taken opposite sides when we worked a case, to find the weak links in the argument.

“True,” she said. “And that may be your best argument in court, Xavier. But John Morales was a successful stock-market investor when they first arrived from Uruguay, until his investments collapsed a few years ago and they lost nearly everything. Besides, being almost broke hardly proves a desire to commit suicide for the sake of insurance fraud, never mind the resolve to leave two kids without parents or family in the United States.”

She paused. “Did you know the kids are in county-appointed foster care because no one has claimed them?”

“No, I didn’t. Why hasn’t anyone claimed them?”

“Their only aunt lives in South America. From what I could find, she’s very old and not in good health.”

She had barely finished the sentence when Mr. Ross knocked on my office door.

“I have Mickey’s report,” he said, in his usual matter-of-fact way. He set a file on my desk, left the room, and closed the door behind him.

Roxana and I stared at each other in silence. Neither of us touched the file.

Finally, I reached for it, opened it, and stared at what was inside.