"Right. Anyway, getting a second shop off the ground would have been a
major pain in the ass. Who needs it?"
"All that work might get in the way of hanging out with me," I said.
"Couldn't let that happen."
The waitress stopped to clear our plates. I left a token morsel on the
plate, so I could tell myself I didn't eat the whole platter. Grace
took great pleasure in telling the waitress she was still working on
it.
"And how's the rest of the new job? Are you going to share your toys
with the other kids this time around?"
"My problems, Grace, are never with the other kids. They're with the
supposed grown-ups watching over us."
Grace knew about some of the run-ins I'd had with coworkers in the
office, all of whom happened to be my superiors. She says I have a
problem with authority. I say my only problem is that the assholes are
the ones who get promoted.
"And what lucky soul gets to put up with you now?" she asked.
"It's hard to believe, but he seems pretty decent so far. Supposedly
he makes people cry, but I've never actually heard that from anyone
firsthand."
"Does the new boss have a name?" she asked.
"That would be one Senior Deputy District Attorney Russell Frist," I
said, deepening my voice into the best Frist boom I could muster.
"Resident weight-lifting crew-cut-wearing stud muffin."
Grace was smirking.
"What?"
"I can't decide whether to tell you," she said.
"Well, you have to now. You can't announce that there's something to
be said and then hold out on me."
After the requisite symbolic pause, she said, "Fine," as if I'd dragged
it out of her. "I don't repeat the things clients tell me, but I
suppose there's no harm in telling you that someone's a client. I know
Russell Frist from the salon."
"Big bad butch Russ Frist goes to Lockworks? For a crew-cut?"
"Nope, not the hair. No point paying sixty bucks for that."
"Oh, please tell me that you wax his back," I pleaded.
"Not that good. But he does get a monthly no-polish manicure and pays
extra for the paraffin wrap."
When I got back to the office, I was still in a good mood from my big
food and small secret. The rest of the office might think of Frist as
a mister scary, but I knew he had soft hands. I like people who are
hard to sum up. They make life interesting.
My first stop was to see Jessica Walters.
She was leaning back in her chair with her stocking feet on the desk,
one hand holding the phone to her ear, the other tapping her trademark
pencil on her armrest. The person on the other end of the line was
having a bad day that was getting worse as the conversation
continued.
"You're smoking crack if you think I'll agree to probation.... I don't
care if your guy's in denial, Conaughton. As far as I'm concerned, the
most important part of your job is to smack him out of it. I'm not the
one who needs a talking to, but you'd rather waste my time from the
comfort of your office than haul yourself to county for a much-needed
sit-down.. .. I'm hanging up now, because it's not going to happen.
Either take the forty months or confirm the trial date. Call me back
with anything else and I'll stop talking to you."
She set the handpiece in its cradle as gently as if she'd been checking
the weather.
"Close case?" I asked.
"Typical plea-bargaining bullshit. They're never as close as the
defense wants you to think."
"I got your message earlier. What's up?"
"You believe in coincidences, Kincaid?"
One of my favorite crime writers says there's no such thing, but I'd
never thought much about it. "Sure," I said, "when I need to."
"Honest answer. Well, I do too. They happen all the time, or at least
that's what I'm telling myself on this one. Your vie called me
Friday."
"On what case?"
"The city judge, Clarissa Easterbrook. She called me Friday and left a
message."
"About what?"
"I have no idea. I was in trial all last week. I took the message
down with the rest of them and have been working my way through the
list. The name meant nothing at the time I wrote it down, but when I
got to it this morning it gave me the heebie-jeebies."
"What exactly did she say?"
"All I wrote in my call book was her name and number. If she had said
what she was calling about, I would have noted it."
"You didn't realize this until today?"
"Watch it, Kincaid. That sanctimony's better spent on the rest of the
fuckups around here. All I had was a name and number. I don't think
she even said she was calling from the city hearings department."
I could see how that could happen. "Can you think of any reason she
might have been calling? Are you in any groups together? The Women's
Bar Association, maybe?"
"Sure, along with forty-three percent of all the other attorneys in
this town. Did she call you?"
"Good point. Whatever it means, thanks for telling me. I'll pass it
on to MCT and see if it connects up with anything else. Do you have
the number she left?"
On the way back to my office, Alice Gerstein stopped me in the hall and
announced that Clarissa Easterbrook s sister was waiting for me in the
corner we call the reception area.
"When did she get here?"
"Right before noon."
I had checked my voice mail around then, but no one had left a message
about the pop-in.
"Did she say what she wanted?" I whispered.
"Just to talk to you about the case. I offered to have you call her to
set an appointment, but she insisted on waiting."
Tara Carney had finished the crossword during her wait and moved on to
the jumble. I apologized for making her wait and explained that I was
out of the office and didn't know she was planning to come in.
"I really didn't mind. I've been running out of things that make me
feel useful, so waiting here to talk to you .. . well, at least it was
something."
Apparently Susan Kerr wasn't the only one who was trying to stay busy.
I offered Tara the best we had around here, a Dixie cup of water. Don't
knock it. Until a few of us pooled our own funds for a cooler, the
only water we had was brown.
Once we were in my office with the door closed, I asked her why she'd
come in.
"There's something I haven't told the police yet, and it's been