The Holdout

by Graham Moore

If the prosecutor’s tone was one of We all know what’s really going on here, don’t we? then hers was more like Who’s to know what’s ever real?

“I used to really like mystery stories.” She had no idea where he was going. “Agatha Christie,” he said. “All of them.” “I remember you reading those, when we were sequestered.” “I can’t read them anymore.” “Okay.” “I think I figured out why.” He took a breath. “In the stories, there’s always an answer at the end. Resolution. The detective confronts the killer; the killer admits it. We know for sure. But out here—it’s not like that. Out here, maybe somebody goes to jail. Maybe somebody doesn’t. But we never know the truth. The real, whole, definite truth. It’s impossible.” Maya didn’t know what to say.

It seemed that Bobby Nock’s lawyer had a better eye for people like Maya than Maya did. It didn’t feel good, to be so thoroughly known by someone who’d only seen her face across a courtroom. It was no comfort to learn that she was an identifiable type: the idealist. The crusader.

You had to really care about someone to fight with them this hard. You had to deeply care about someone’s opinion to be this offended by how totally wrong they were.