“You had sex.”
Dale nodded miserably. “Consensual sex. But afterward, she asked me for money-”
“You refused and she reported you.”
“No. I didn’t refuse. I gave her a hundred dollars. I figured it was more than what she’d ordinarily get. But she said that wouldn’t cut it. She wanted ten thousand, and if I didn’t pay, she’d say I raped her. I didn’t believe her, and I didn’t think anyone else would, either. So I said, go ahead.”
And she did. “They just dropped it without any follow-up?”
“Internal Affairs set a meeting for her, but she never showed.”
That explained why it hadn’t gone any further. But I saw a common thread here. “So you’d been drinking when you slept with that prostitute, and you’d been drinking when you had the fight with Chloe-”
Dale shook his head. “It’s not a drinking problem; it’s a judgment problem.” He frowned. “And maybe a bit of an anger-management issue.”
Sounded like both to me, but it wasn’t my job to psychoanalyze him. “That prostitute, what’s her name again?”
“Jenny. Jenny Knox.”
“Right. That doesn’t sound like a hooker name.”
“Like I said, I don’t think she’d been in the business long. And she didn’t look like your typical hooker.” He frowned as he stared down at the counter. “I don’t want to come off like I’m defending what I did. I should never have slept with her. But I certainly didn’t rape her. I’ve never raped anyone in my life.” His eyes were pleading. “I swear.”
Dale looked entirely sincere. I could feel myself falling for it, believing him. But I pulled myself back. He’d looked sincere the last time he told me he wasn’t hiding anything. I knew it shouldn’t matter whether I believed him. It definitely wouldn’t have with any other client. I had to stop thinking of him as anything more than just another client. All that mattered was that the jury believed him. And with that performance, they would. “The next issue is, who might’ve leaked this story? Does anyone in IA hate you enough to leak this?” It’d have to be quite an enemy to want to see him go down for a double.
Dale rubbed at a spot on the window between us. “I can’t think of anyone in the department who’d have that big of a beef with me.” He looked at me. “I was thinking this sounded more like your neck of the woods.”
Prosecutors weren’t supposed to have access to those personnel files without a court order. But if Zack had a buddy in IA, he could get the information under the table. I nodded. “I’ll get into that in court tomorrow. Michelle’s going to put us on calendar so I can do some backspin.” I thought about whether I should have Dale in court with me when I thrashed about this leak. The cameras would do close-ups on Dale’s face while I argued that my client-my father-was being unfairly maligned with a bogus rape charge. But all the public would hear was “Dale” plus “rape.” And seeing Dale’s image would only reinforce the connection. “I want to keep you as far away from this as I can, so I think you should waive your appearance tomorrow. Okay?” Dale nodded. I pulled the waiver-of-appearance form out of my briefcase.
I leaned in. “Look, I need you to get this: You can’t keep hiding shit from me. One more bomb explodes in my face and I’m out. I don’t care who you are. So what else is there?”
His expression was earnest. “There’s nothing else. I swear.”
I didn’t know whether to believe him. I just knew I didn’t want to care so much.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I went back to the office in a somewhat calmer mood than when I’d left. Not because I necessarily bought Dale’s story, but because I had bigger, more immediate minefields to navigate.
I told Alex and Michelle to come into my office. The phones were so constant it sounded like one long, continuous ring. Michelle came in looking frazzled. “It’s been like that all morning. News shows, cable shows, print reporters, and of course, the usual psychos-but a lot more of them, and they’re a lot meaner. At least the story about Dale being your dad got us some sympathy calls. This time it’s a whole raft of no-life nutjobs saying Dale’s a monster and you’re a scumbag for representing him.”
I’d been wishing something would happen to take the story about Dale being my father off the radar. Now I realized I should’ve been more specific. “Any threats?”
“Not so far.”
I supposed that’d have to pass for my good news of the day. “We need to get all the information we can on this hooker-”
Alex read from his iPad. “She’s thirty-six, five foot seven, one hundred thirty pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes, and has a tattoo of Taz, the Tasmanian devil, on her left shoulder. Only a couple of busts for hooking, a couple of old busts for shoplifting, and one joyriding that got dismissed for insufficient evidence. The two prostitution arrests were in LA; the rest were all down in Orange County.”
“Damn, that all you could get?” I smiled. “Nice job, Alex. Any information on where she is now?”
“Working on it. Her last known address was in Orange County, but that was as of two years ago, and the apartment building is a senior living facility now.”
“But she got busted in Hollywood a year ago. Didn’t the cops get a new address?”
“No. She gave the same old one, and for some reason, she got released that night with no charges filed, so they never got around to checking it out.”
“Yeah, and I know why.” I told them what Dale had said.
Alex shook his head. “That’s some kind of bad luck.”
If Dale was telling the truth. “You might want to check the area where she last got busted, see if she lived nearby. And Dale said he brought in a tweaker that night. Go see Dale and see if he can help you track down that tweaker. You also might want to talk to the desk sergeant on duty that night. See if he backs up Dale’s story.”
“Zack sure screwed us hard,” Michelle said.
I nodded. “I’m kind of surprised. He doesn’t have a rep as a dirty player, but…”
Michelle looked disgusted. “A big case can be a big motivator.”
We all went back to work. I had to get ready for tomorrow, and I still didn’t have a solid zinger for the preliminary hearing. I didn’t know whether I’d put Chas Gorman on the witness stand at trial, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to trot him out now. The less time Zack had to dig up dirt on him, the better.
I put myself to bed by midnight, hoping to rest up for tomorrow. But I had the nightmare again. I woke up at three a.m., my heart pounding, struggling for breath. It took me an hour to get back to sleep. When I crawled out of bed at six, I was tired and achy. I pounded three cups of coffee in rapid succession-though angry as I was, I didn’t need the caffeine bump.
And given my state of mind, Xander did the world a favor by driving me to court. I was thinking about what I’d say to the press when my cell phone rang. Maybe Alex had already come up with something. I was so desperate for good news I didn’t stop to think that it was too early for him to have gotten anything. And so, when the obnoxiously familiar, ever-entitled voice of my mother came through the phone, it was a double crusher.
“Didn’t I tell you so, Samantha? A murderer and a rapist!”
“Mother, if you saw the news, then you know I’m on my way to court. I can’t-”
She railed on, heedless. “You have to get off this case! Surely now you can see who he is? I told you, there was a reason I broke it off with him. Maybe now you’ll believe me!”