Accompanied by Gardiner Harris, she was fingerprinted and photographed, her belongings confiscated, each step intended to dehumanize her, reducing her to a collection of inked ridges and swirls, a mug shot, and an inmate number.She’d seen the work product the process generated countless times in the files that came across her desk. The fingerprints told her nothing about her client, but the mug shot spoke. It told her whether her client was cocky, afraid, or confused, whether he or she was high or had been drinking when arrested or whether he or she was desperate for the next fix. Most important, the mug shot told her whether her client had a face a jury could love or, at best, not hate too much.She thought about all of that when she posed for her photograph, worried that she’d had her eyes closed or, worse, that the flash had given her red eyes, devil eyes, her mother used to call them. She wanted to ask for a preview, a do-over. Not because she was vain but because she was, like so many she represented, scared to death, and she didn’t want the world to know it.Her next stop would be the county jail, where she’d be made to strip and trade her civilian clothing for an orange jumpsuit and paper slippers.
