Abbie sipped at her coffee. Tracy sipped at hers. The silence grew.
Tracy shifted in her seat.
"Are you working with Matt on my case?"
"I'm reviewing the evidence to see if we've got any good legal motions."
"And what have you concluded?"
Tracy hesitated. She wasn't sure that Reynolds would want her to answer the question, but Abigail Griffen was no ordinary client. She was also a brilliant attorney. And Tracy was relieved to be freed from making small talk.
"I haven't reached a final decision, but I don't think we're going to win this case on a legal technicality. Do you have any ideas for a pretrial motion?"
Abbie shook her head. "I've thought about it, but I don't see anything either. What's it like working for Matt?"
"I like it," Tracy answered guardedly, not willing to discuss her boss with Griffen.
"He seems like such a strange man," Abbie said. When Tracy didn't respond, she asked, "Is he as passionate about all his cases as he is about mine?"
"He's very dedicated to his clients," Tracy answered in a neutral tone.
Abbie's eyes lost focus for a moment. Tracy waited uncomfortably for the conversation to resume.
"He used to watch my trials. Did you know that?"
There was no rhythm to their discussion and the statement fell into the conversation like a heavy object. Tracy remembered seeing Reynolds at the Marie Harwood trial, but she wasn't certain where Mrs. Griffen was going, so she didn't respond. Abbie went on as if she had not expected a response.
"I saw him more than once in the back of the courtroom, watching me. He would sit for a while, then leave. I don't think he realized that I'd seen him."
Abbie looked directly at Tracy when she said this. Tracy felt compelled to say something.
"What do you think he was doing there?"
Abbie warmed her hands on her cup. Instead of answering Tracy's question, she changed the subject.
"Does Matt like me?"
"What?" , The question made Tracy very uncomfortable.
"Has he said anything . . . ?" She paused and looked across the table at Tracy. "Do you think he likes me?"
All of a sudden, Abigail Griffen seemed terribly vulnerable to Tracy.
"I think he believes you," she replied, warming to Abbie a little.
"Yes. He does," Abbie said, more to herself than to Tracy.
Tracy was surprised to find herself feeling sorry for Abbie. She had thought a lot about her as a defendant, but she suddenly saw her as a person and she wondered what it must be like to be confined, even if the prison was as luxurious as the Griffen house. Mary Kelly had portrayed Abbie as an ice princess, but she did not seem very tough now.
Tracy suddenly realized how sad it was that Mrs. Griffen had looked forward to her visit and she reevaluated her earlier opinion that Abbie was coming on to Reynolds to blind him to her possible guilt. Abbie was totally alone and Matthew was one of her few links to the outside world.
Tracy had read about hostages in the Middle East and kidnap victims, like Patty Hearst, who became dependent on their kidnappers and developed a bond with them.
The condition even had a name, the Stockholm syndrome. Maybe Abbie's enforced isolation was making her dependent on Reynolds and that was why she appeared to be playing up to him.
"Are you getting along okay?" Tracy asked.
"I'm lonely. I'm also bored to death. I tried to convince myself that this would be like a vacation, but it's not. I read a lot, but you can't read all day. I even tried daytime television." Abbie laughed.
"I'll know I'm completely desperate when I start following the soaps."
"The trial will start soon. Mr. Reynolds will win and your life will go back to normal."
"I'd like to think that, but I doubt my life will ever be normal again, even if Matt wins." Abbie stood up. "I'll get you the camera."
When Abbie went upstairs, Tracy waited in the entryway.
Abbie returned with a camera case. She handed it to Tracy.
"Thank you for having the cup of coffee. I know you didn't want to."
"No, I . . ."
"It's okay. I was hungry for company. Thanks for putting up with me."
They shook hands and Tracy took the camera. As she pulled out of the driveway, she glanced back at the house. Mrs. Griffen was watching her from the front door.
2313 Lee Terrace was a single-story brown ranch-style house with a well-tended yard in a pleasant middle-class neighborhood.
A nondescript light blue Chevy and an equally nondescript maroon Ford were parked in the driveway. As the officers assigned to raid the house drew closer to it, they could hear the muted sounds of music.
Inside the living room of the house, three young women sat in front of a low coffee table talking and laughing while they worked. In the center of the table was a large plate piled high with cocaine. The woman on the end of the couch closest to the front door picked up a small plastic bag from a pile and filled the bag with cocaine. The next woman folded over the Baggie, then used a Bic lighter to seal it. The third put the sealed Baggie in a cooking pot that was close to overflowing with packaged dreams.
Two men in sleeveless tee shirts lounged in chairs, smoking and watching MTV. One man cradled an Uzi. A MAC-10 submachine gun was lying next to the second man's chair within easy reach. Two other men with automatic weapons were in the kitchen playing cards and guarding the back of the house.
Bobby Cruz watched the women work. He was doing his job, which was to protect Raoul Otero's product. From his position he would see if one Of the women tried to slip a Baggie down her blouse or up her skirt. Cruz knew that the women were too frightened of him to steal, but he hoped they would anyway, because Raoul permitted him to personally punish the offender.
"Julio," Cruz said. One of the men watching TV turned around. "I'm going to pee."
Julio picked up the MAC-10 and took Cruz's post against the wall. Cruz knew that Julio would not be tempted to look the other way by a glimpse of breast or thigh and a promise of future delights. Once upon a time, Cruz had forced Julio to assist him while he interrogated a street dealer Raoul suspected of being a police informant. Ever since, Julio had been as frightened of Cruz as the women were.
As Cruz walked down the hall toward the bathroom, the front and back doors exploded.
"Police! Freeze!" echoed through the house. Cruz heard the women scream. One of them burst down the hall behind him as he ducked into the bedroom. There were more screams in the front room and shots from the kitchen. Someone was shrieking in Spanish. An Anglo was bellowing that he'd been hit. Cruz calmly ran through his possible courses of action.
"Put 'em down," someone yelled in the living room. Cruz opened the clothes closet and moved behind the clothes hangers.
The closet was crowded with dresses because two of the women who were packaging the cocaine lived here. Cruz pressed himself into a corner of the closet and waited. The odds were that someone would search the closet. If it was his fate to be arrested, he would go peacefully and let Raoul fix things later. But he would try to cheat fate if that was at all possible.
There were heavy footfalls in the bedroom. He heard the voices of two men. The closet door opened. Cruz could see a man in a baseball cap and a blue jacket through a break in the dresses.
He knew these jackets. They were worn on raids, and POLICE was stenciled on the back in bold yellow letters.
"Sanchez, get in here," someone called from the hall. "This asshole claims he doesn't habla inglds."
The man at the closet door turned his head to watch Sanchez leave. When he turned back, Bobby Cruz stepped through the curtain of dresses and calmly stuck his knife through the officer's voice box. The policeman's eyes widened in shock. His hands flew to his throat. He tried to speak, but he could only gurgle as blood and spittle dripped out of his mouth. Cruz pulled the policeman through the dresses and laid his body on the floor. He was still twitching when Cruz worked off his jacket, but he was dead by the time Cruz adjusted the baseball cap and slipped out of the bedroom into the hall.