"To you, maybe. Quite frankly, I don't see the problem."
"Well, since I'm handling the case, I guess my opinion has to matter to
you on this one."
"Sam, if you're doing this because you're pissed off at me, I'm sorry I
said some harsh things about your office at the meeting, but they
weren't directed at you personally. I was only trying to get Duncan's
attention. Hell, you're the one who told me at one time all he cared
about was politics." He laughed, but I didn't see what was funny.
"Can't you just be happy that you finally got the promotion you wanted
and that your first big case came together? I realize I'm not the best
messenger for this, but you're not acting like yourself on this one."
"You're a piss-poor messenger, Roger. You don't even know me
anymore."
"Well, you're not acting like the person I used to know. Look at the
evidence: You've got a fingerprint, the weapon, motive, something
approaching a confession. Prescott all but told you on Friday she'd
hold Jackson over. And you're spending your Sunday night chasing down
figments of your imagination. Gunderson's just some guy who gave
Jackson a job."
"And who happened to have an appeal in front of the victim."
"And how long ago was that, Samantha? And how many cases did
Easterbrook hear on a monthly basis? It's like you're trying to make
your job harder than it is I don't know maybe to recapture some of the
glory days back in New York."
It was a telephonic slap in the face. Before Roger took the job at
Nike, I had been an up-and-comer in the busiest federal prosecutors
office in the country, on my way to handling complex high-stakes
conspiracies. We both knew that in the world of lawyers who never stop
measuring themselves against one another, I had suffered a serious slip
down the ladder when we moved to Portland.
He was already trying to apologize, telling me he didn't mean it the
way it sounded. But, to me at that moment, there was only one possible
meaning.
"The only slumming I ever did, Roger, was when I married you."
I wanted the satisfaction of slamming the phone into a cradle, but all
I had was my thumb against the disconnect button of my cordless.
I tried not to let his comment get to me. Not that Rogers opinion
mattered, but I knew I wouldn't even be a prosecutor if it weren't for
him. I graduated from law school planning on selling out as necessary
to pay off my mountainous debt. But when I was offered a position as a
federal prosecutor in New York, Roger was the one who told me I had to
take it. And when he moved us to Portland for his Nike job and I
couldn't transfer into the U.S. Attorney's Office here, he was the one
who encouraged me to remain a prosecutor, even though the choice
required a 50-percent pay cut and a serious hit in the prestige
department. He paid off my loans in full, using the bundle we'd made
selling the New York apartment his parents had given us. Then, when I
kicked him out of the house and insisted on a quick divorce, he nearly
floored me when he told my attorney to forget about the money. He
wouldn't be able to live with himself if I had to represent corporate
clients because of him.
I knew I'd been a bigger jerk than I should have been, but I didn't
know what to think about his criticism. It was easy to imagine the
lawyer in Roger trying to psych me out so I wouldn't subpoena Gunderson
and disturb Jim Thorpe. On the other hand, Roger wasn't the only
person telling me I was wildly off the mark on this one.
The train was about to run right over Melvin Jackson, and I could do
nothing to stop it. I wasn't even sure I wanted to; I just wanted to
make sure that we were heading in the right direction. But the bureau
had essentially washed its hands of this case, and if I tried to haul
Gunderson into the prelim, a quick call from Dunn Simon to the boss
would get me overruled and probably fired. And, if Jackson really did
it which he most likely did it would all be for nothing.
Luckily, I'd been doing this long enough to know that one of the best
ways to wield power is to do it subtly.
I left a message for Graham Szlipkowsky to call me right away.
I had been home from a run for thirty minutes, my stomach was growling,
and I was getting ready to cave in to take-out cravings when the phone
rang.
"Hey, babe. At the risk of sounding pathetic, I'm beginning to miss
you. If you're willing to chance my cooking, how does a quiet dinner
at your place sound?"
There's something to be said about a man with good timing.
Unfortunately, in this man's case, that something was that he couldn't
cook. So we compromised. After a quick run to Fred Meyer, he was
washing and chopping, and I was doing the stuff that mattered.
When we finally sat down at the table, he could tell I was exhausted.
"What's up with you? Big party last night?"
"You bet. The orgy didn't end till four; then I had to deal with the
bikers. Between the meth and the Jack "
"Seriously, Sam, what's going on?"
"Nothing. I've been working my ass off, and I'm tired."
"Is this still on the Jackson case?" I nodded since I had a mouth full
of sea bass. "What have you been digging around in? I thought that
case was locked up."
Add another to the list of people reminding me the case was cleared.
"I'm just double-checking."
"Here's an idea. Why don't you tell me what you're unsure about. I
have some experience dealing with these kinds of things, you know."
It would be nice to have his take on the case, but I didn't want him to
be in a position where he was torn between me and the department. When
we eventually decided whether we could handle working on the same
cases, I'd have to add that to my reasons for believing it was a bad
idea.
For now, I was keeping it vague. "I've been looking into some things
Clarissa might have been involved in, making sure they're not related
to the murder."
"Does this have something to do with the conversation we had with Pink
and the fax I sent to the property room on Friday?"
"Maybe. I haven't quite figured it out yet."
"I see. Let me be more specific. What exactly did that key open, and
what was located inside?"
"Don't interrogate me, Chuck."
"You're not giving me any choice, Sam. Getting information out of a
perp is a cakewalk compared to a conversation with you these days."
"Here's an idea. You let me do my job, and I'll talk to you as much as
you want about anything else you choose."
"I'm not trying to be a jerk, Sam. There are two separate issues here.
One is the bureau being pissed off that you appear to have second