And she did the rest, just as I’d known she would.In this case, doing the rest meant placing a call to Mateo Fuentes, in the public defender’s office. Mateo had been working in the P.D. office for several years now, and I can tell you as a former cop that I hated it when Mateo worked one of my cases. The guy was tenacious, brilliant, articulate, and sneaky as hell. In other words, he was the perfect trial lawyer. He could have made a mint in private practice, but he never went that route. Don’t get me wrong: public defenders are, as a rule, good people and they tend to be good lawyers—competent if not spectacular. But generally speaking, the shining stars in the P.D. office can find better jobs with the D.A. or in private practice. Public defense is crap work. At least half the time the lawyers there find themselves defending people they know or suspect are guilty. The pay is low compared with what most lawyers make, and the hours are nothing special.Most guys with Mateo’s talent would have been out of there years ago.
