Her Deadly Game

On June 2, 2023, Keera Duggan sits in a Seattle courtroom, hoping that her father, Patrick “Patsy” Duggan, will return from lunch. They are trying a case together, defending one of his friends against a drunk driving charge. Over the years, Patsy has earned the nickname “Irish Brawler” for his aggressive courtroom style and, as a result, has many enemies among his opposing counsel and judges. If he is late to court, he won’t be given any leeway by the judge, who had butted heads with Patsy in the past as a lawyer. In addition, Patsy’s alcohol use disorder is well-known, and Keera worries that if he does return, he will be inebriated.

In the meantime, Keera questions the witness, a police officer who pulled their client over, systematically dismantling his testimony. Keera approaches her courtroom strategy with the same principles she uses when playing chess.

Keera wins the case, but when her client thanks her, Keera cautions him that he must change his pattern of drinking and driving before he hurts himself or someone else. When he promises to quit drinking, she reflects on how many times her father has said the same thing.

When Keera leaves the courtroom, she finds Miller Ambrose, a senior prosecutor and Keera’s former boss, waiting in the hallway. Ambrose is the reason behind her new job at the family firm: They were in a relationship until Keera realized that Ambrose misused alcohol and contributed to her own alcohol misuse as well. When she broke off their relationship, he harassed and stalked her until she threatened to expose him. Her caseload suddenly changed, becoming filled with misdemeanor cases, and she decided to leave the prosecutor’s office. Her switch to her father’s criminal defense firm puts her in direct opposition to Ambrose, although they have yet to face each other in the courtroom.

Now, Ambrose needles her about defending drunk drivers, but Keera ignores him. She returns to the family firm’s office, where her sister, Maggie, is answering the phones. Maggie yells at Keera for letting Patsy go to lunch alone, leaving the possibility that he might drink too much. As she has done many times before, Maggie found him at one of his usual bars and drove him home. Their other sister, Ella, steps in, reminding them to be professional, and Maggie storms out.

Ella tells Keera that their client called to complain about Keera’s confrontation. She wonders why Keera would bother, as that strategy has never worked with Patsy. In her opinion, their job is to minimize the damaging effects of Patsy’s alcohol use since they can’t change or “cure” him. She also reminds Keera that the Duggan family’s monthly Sunday dinner is coming up.

On June 4, two days after Keera’s courtroom win, Rossi pulls up to a crime scene in Seattle’s high-end Denny-Blaine neighborhood. He and Ford talk about the unseasonable heat as they walk toward the house, and Rossi notices that the property has a security camera. Inside, the victim’s husband is already talking to an officer. The house is spacious and filled with modern art, but they notice that it is hot. The officer tells them that the husband found the thermostat turned off when he first entered. They determine that the air conditioning is working but had been purposely turned off.

The husband, Vince LaRussa, tells Rossi and Ford that he came home from a fundraising event to find his wife, Anne, shot in the back of the head in their kitchen. He seems genuinely shocked and grief-stricken, but Rossi wonders aloud why Anne didn’t go with him to the event, asking, “Your wife doesn’t like to dance?” (36). Vince says no but gives him a strange look. Vince gives the detectives his camera footage and then walks through the house with an officer to determine whether anything was stolen. When Rossi and Ford enter the kitchen and see the victim, they understand the look Vince gave when asked if his wife liked to dance: She used a wheelchair.

Later the same day, Keera goes to her parents’ house for the family’s monthly Sunday dinner, bringing a store-bought cake. Keera’s family is close-knit, although she reflects that her counselor once called them “‘enmeshed’ and not in a flattering way” (40). She tries to maintain her distance and hasn’t told them about her relationship with Ambrose, its disastrous end, or why she left her position at the prosecutor’s office. Keera would love to skip these dinners, but her mother would never allow it; also, as complicated as their relationships are, they are family, and she loves them.

Maggie immediately rebukes Keera for arriving late and not helping. Their mother, Bernadette, tells Keera that Patsy is sad lately because his legal skills have started to slip with age, attempting to explain his absence in court. She asks Keera to be compassionate. Keera reflects that if her father were to stop trying cases, their firm would lose their biggest clients without his reputation.

Keera finds Patsy watching television, and he asks her to play chess later, like old times. She agrees because it is “easier than saying no” (44). At dinner, Patsy announces that he and Ella have agreed to make Keera a non-equity partner at the family firm. The family toasts Keera, who feels trapped.

Rossi and Ford establish perimeters around the LaRussa home; the media is already arriving due to the wealth and status of the victim. Rossi thinks about the crime scene: Anne is in her wheelchair facing out the kitchen windows, and the gun is on the floor beside her, along with a broken glass in a puddle of water. Oddly, there is also water on the kitchen counter behind her, along with a lit vanilla candle. The oven, for some reason, is locked. Ford equates the scene to a riddle, like a locked-room mystery. Although the gun is beside Anne, it seems impossible that she died by suicide; rheumatoid arthritis made it difficult for her to hold anything, much less pull a trigger. It is unusual, however, for a killer to leave the gun behind. As far as Vince knew, she wasn’t expecting visitors that night, and he’d come home early so that she wouldn’t be alone too long.

Vince tells them that four years earlier, Anne was thrown from her horse during a competition. Through rehabilitation, she regained some use of her arms and legs but remained in the wheelchair. Vince is in wealth management, and most of his work can be done from home, so after her accident, he mostly used the home office so that he could be there if she needed him.

He shares that Anne’s rehabilitation progress had recently plateaued. She had panic attacks and sought treatment for her mental health, although she’d recently stopped. Vince shows Rossi their medicine cabinet, filled with prescription bottles. Because the house is a crime scene, Vince decides to stay in their condo downtown, but before he leaves, he asserts that he didn’t kill Anne.

At home after family dinner, Keera reflects on Patsy and Ella’s decision to make her a partner. She realizes that the decision is connected to Bernadette’s earlier comment and what she herself has suspected: Patsy is losing his touch, and they’re bringing her on to step in and save the family firm.

Keera pours a glass of scotch and sits down at her laptop, where she is engaged in an online chess match with an anonymous opponent, the Dark Knight. Keera has been playing with him online for some time under the username Seattle Pawnslayer, the nickname Patsy gave her when she played competitively. The Dark Knight has resigned their match and offered the opening move in a new one. The conservative opening doesn’t fit his usual style, which is aggressive and reckless; she wonders if he’s reconsidering his strategy because he hasn’t won a single match against her.

While she considers her next move, her phone rings. She is the attorney on call for the firm, and when she answers, a man named Vince LaRussa tells her that his wife has been murdered and he needs representation. Keera tells him to stop talking to the police. She immediately leaves for the police station, deciding not to call Patsy or Ella so that she won’t be sidelined. She wants to be an active part of this case, and even though she’s never defended someone charged with murder, she is trained to do so.

Because of her training, she knows that as the husband of the victim, Vince is the most likely suspect. On her way to the station, she looks up Vince online and finds that he is an investment manager with a reputation as a genius, making amazing profits for his clients. The case will be high profile, which explains why Vince called Patsy’s firm, as he is still known as the best attorney in Seattle for such a high-stakes case.

At the station, Keera finds out that Frank Rossi is the case’s lead detective. They worked together during her time with the prosecutor’s office, but their relationship was awkward after Rossi confessed to feelings for Keera, not knowing about her secret relationship with Ambrose. Although Rossi later apologized, their interactions had been strained ever since.

Keera asks Rossi why, if they aren’t charging Vince, they took him into the station. Rossi confesses that the prosecutor’s office made that decision. With that, Ambrose appears in the hallway, letting her know that he is the case’s prosecutor.

Although Keera knows that prosecutors are chosen randomly, she also knows that Ambrose will fully exploit the opportunity. Upon finding out that they aren’t charging Vince yet, she asks Rossi to release him so that they can leave. After Rossi leaves, Ambrose reminds Keera of the statistics about how the husband is usually the killer in these cases.

Keera suggests that she and Vince talk through the case while his memory is fresh. They go to his condo, and Keera waits while Vince calls Anne’s family to tell them about her death. He offers Keera a drink, but after a long pause, she declines.

Vince tells Keera that he didn’t kill Anne, but Keera tells him she doesn’t care—her job is to represent him, regardless. He talks through the night again and tells her about Anne’s accident. When she wonders whether Anne might have died by suicide, he explains her difficulty holding things, a detail that doesn’t help Vince’s case. Before Keera leaves, she reminds Vince not to talk to anyone, especially the police, about the investigation or the case.

When Keera gets home, it is one o’clock in the morning. She picks up the drink she left behind earlier and takes a sip, sitting down at her computer. She studies the Dark Knight’s latest move and counters. While she plays, she thinks about Vince; even though he seems to be innocent, she can’t quite forget the statistical probability that he is the killer.