the receiver.
"Good guess, since I've never called you about anything else in the
last three years. Now unless you've once again got your hands where
they don't belong, pick up the damn phone and get me off speaker."
I heard a click and then his voice was directly in my ear. Perhaps I
should have left well enough alone. "I had hoped you'd either squelch
the hostilities, Samantha, or remove yourself from the case."
He had no idea how much I had squelched. There was a time when I
wanted to rip his guts out in public if not literally, then at least
through well-placed billboards announcing that Mister Communitarian was
a cheat and a liar. He liked to think his charitable donations and
board memberships made him a good person, but Roger Kirkpatrick was a
thief of the worst kind, no better than a con man. His grift began
with the hours he spent with Nike's newest spokesperson, the
aforementioned volleyball pro. It was only after weeks of inner debate
that I had finally asked him if I needed to worry. Surely, he had
noticed that she was seventy-two inches of legs, breasts, muscle, and
tan. Negotiations, he assured me.
And, with that, I had given him my trust, not just in the general way a
wife trusts her husband, and not even just in the way I trusted Roger.
I had given him the trust I have in myself, in my own ability to judge
a man who looks me in the eye and tells me he's for real.
Yes, Roger had gotten off easy. If I seemed a little brusque, he was
going to have to deal.
"I wanted to make sure you knew that Jackson requested a prelim," I
said. "It's Friday morning. I'll need Townsend there at eight-thirty,
just in case."
"I know," he said. "I sent a paralegal over this morning for the
arraignment. I told Townsend to expect to be there. If you don't
mind, I'll be with him."
"Suit yourself. Easy billables, I suppose." Eventually, Town-sends
retention of a defense attorney would look terrible in front of a jury,
but it would be irrelevant to the judge who handled the prelim. "We
also would like him to meet with us before we make a final decision
about whether to seek the death penalty."
He assured me they'd both be at the meeting the next day.
"Is that everything?" he asked.
"Johnson needs to talk to Townsend. Some evidence might come out at
the prelim that could be disturbing." I told Roger about the
nonoxynol-9, my conversation with Tara, and Clarissa's phone records.
"That's a hell of a lot to dump on a guy, Samantha. Your cops didn't
think to mention any of this to him earlier?"
"Don't blow this out of proportion. This is the usual way it's done.
We guard the information, but in the end the family hears it first from
us. The only thing that's making this hard is having to go through you
to get to our victim's husband."
"When Johnson asked him the other night about barrier methods, Townsend
assumed there must have been a sexual assault."
"We still don't know," I said. "Maybe the nonoxynol's Jackson's.
Either way, Tara seems to think Clarissa was seeing someone else. Think
what you want about the phone calls."
"I'll tell him myself," he said.
"I want to send someone over, Roger. You can pick whomever you're most
comfortable with, and you can be there. But I want a cop to tell him."
It was the first step to bridging the gap between Townsend and PPB, an
accomplishment that would help the rest of the case run smoothly.
Roger wasn't having it. "I'm not trying to be an ass, Samantha, but
don't tell yourself you're doing this for Townsend. There's not a man
in the world who'd choose to hear something like that from a cop
instead of someone he at least knows is on his side. You want the cop
there to see his reaction, and it's totally unnecessary. Townsend's
cleared. I'll tell him myself."
I had to admit it with Townsend's alibi and poly, there was no
compelling justification for having a detective present when he heard
the news. "Fine," I said, "but some words of advice?" He was silent
during the pause. "When you break the news to Townsend, try to be a
little more subtle than you were with me."
I hung up, angry at myself for losing my cool. I wrote a memo for the
file about my conversation with Tara and sent a duplicate and the phone
records to the discovery desk. Now that Townsend would be getting the
news, I could make the disclosure to Slip.
I needed a pick-me-up. Fortunately, I had saved the best call for
last. Chuck answered at MCT.
"I was wondering when I'd hear from you," he said. "You find my note
last night?"
"Pretty cute. I'm not sure Vinnie enjoyed being the messenger, though.
Looked like he tried to chew it off of his collar."
"He was probably trying to eat the damn thing. Greedy mutt snarfs down
anything within a three-foot radius."
"Takes after his mommy that way. Now, as much as I'm enjoying
deconstructing my little man's eating habits, can you please share the
good news? I didn't appreciate the cliff-hanger."
"I am pleased to announce that Heidi Chung, famed PPB crime lab
specialist, will testify that blood on the hammer Johnson took from
Jackson's apartment belonged to Clarissa Easterbrook. The ME says it's
consistent with her injuries."
"Yes! I knew we'd get it." Even so, I felt relieved to have the news
officially in. Establishing probable cause against Jackson would be a
breeze.
"Ah, but there's more," he said. "A little surprise to end your day
with."
I kicked my door shut with my foot and dropped my voice low. "It's not
exactly a surprise if you tell me about it ahead of time."
"Get your mind out of the gutter, Kincaid. This surprise is from
Chung. She got Jackson's prints from his booking. Matched his right
index and middle to two of the unidentified latents on the
Easterbrooks' door knocker."
I let out a small scream. It always felt good when a case came
together, but it was particularly satisfying to have my first murder
case wrapped up with a tidy little bow on top. I told him to ask the
crime lab to get the reports to me ASAP so I could include them in
Slip's discovery package.
"Now," he said, "if you want to get back to that conversation you
started a second ago, I'm up for it. But I charge two ninety-nine for
the first minute and one ninety-nine thereafter."
"As tempting as that sounds," I said, "I think I'm in the mood for
something a little more personal."
"I could probably handle that. Maybe come up with a surprise or two of
my own."
"You're on. Seven o'clock, my house. Bring your toothbrush. This one