Whoa, thought Dara, who hadn’t expected the inmates to have this kind of freedom of movement. They just walked around like that? Without shackles or anything? How was that safe?
The ones with their attorneys spared her a quick glance, then resumed their conversations, ignoring her, but the others in the holding pen, having nothing better to do, gawked. The second she stepped into their view, the stunned looks spread like wildfire. After several seconds of surprised but appreciative silence, they started to murmur, point, and laugh until her ears burned.
“Come on.” Jamal, his face flushed, took her arm and led her to a cheap sofa, where she sat with as much dignity as she could.
Then it got worse.
An inmate came right up to the glass and sauntered past, looking her up and down like she was one of the elephants in an enclosure at the zoo. Very quickly, a loose procession of gapers formed and paraded by, visual jackals waiting for their turn at the carcass.
At that point, an inmate in the visiting room with them got up from his bench and came over after his attorney left but before the guard could come collect him. Tall, burly, with short, twisted braids, he wore a black eye patch over his left eye, the one thing that could make him look more menacing than he already did.
“Whassup, sweet thang?”
“Hey,” she said coolly.
“I betchoo ain’t had none-a this in a while.” He grabbed his crotch. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so uptight. Why don’t you come in the other room with me and let me work that pretty little . . .”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, standing. “I’m finding the guard now.”
But he’d already trailed off, his eyes fixed on a point just behind her.
Mike was back, tight-lipped with rage. He studied her face intently for a long moment, then edged her behind him and turned a withering eye toward the inmate.
“Whassup, Mike?” the man wheedled.
“Terrell,” Mike replied, his voice clipped and quiet, like a pistol’s safety being switched off.
“She witchoo?” Terrell asked warily.
“She’s with me,” Mike said, his voice louder now so everyone in the room could hear. “Got it?” He flashed a grim smile that made the “or else” unnecessary.
“No problem, man.” Terrell raised his hands and backed away from Dara as if she’d turned radioactive. “You should-a said something sooner.”
Just then, a guard came, took Terrell’s arm and led him back into the holding area.
Mike turned back to Dara, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. If thunder had a face, this would be it. She winced and dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Let’s go,” he barked.
Mike wheeled around and led them to a small table in the corner. Dara still felt the prisoners staring at her, but this time, to her tremendous relief, they watched her with a newfound respect.
Mark Johnson, alleged murderer and former NFL player, was escorted to their table a minute later by one of the guards. He was huge, taller even than Mike, and outweighed him by at least forty pounds. He was bald, with a mustache, goatee and pierced ears on both sides. Multiple tattoos ran up and down his arms, and his hands were at least twice the size of hers, with fingers like Polish sausages. He was attractive, in a thuggish sort of way, and his body was certainly something, although he was far too bulky for Dara’s tastes. His neck was like a log of firewood.
She remembered the Alicia she’d known in high school—sheltered, sweet, a little spoiled—and tried to reconcile her with her husband, this menacing giant from the streets with the checkered past that included suspensions for fighting in college, a conviction for weapons possession and two accusations, quickly followed by settlements, of sexual assault against women.
Yeah, Dara had Googled both his history and news stories about the murder.
Why would Alicia have married this bad boy? To help him walk the straight and narrow? Sure. Good luck with that.
The murder victim, Dante Morgan, was a childhood friend of Johnson’s and his business partner in the club. Was she sitting across the table from the man who’d killed him? Dara wondered, a chill pressing against her spine.
“Thanks for taking my case, man,” Johnson said to Mike after the introductions were made and they’d seated themselves around the table.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Dara,” said Mike.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Johnson told her, smirking.
“Don’t mention it.” She took out her notebook and turned to Mike, waiting for him to begin the interview.
Mike watched Johnson leer at Dara and seethed, painfully aware that plenty of women went for the professional athlete types with their big bucks and fast cars. Maybe Dara was one of them.
Not that it was any of Mike’s business. He was here to do a job, he reminded himself, so he’d better start doing it.
“Tell us what happened,” Mike told Johnson, his voice a little sharper than he'd intended.
Johnson shrugged and furrowed his brow in the worst show of puzzlement Mike had ever seen. The cherry on top of this D-list performance? Johnson's eyes widened with an innocent baby look that didn’t really work with all the tattoos, several of which were of naked women.
“I don’t know. Someone shot my partner at the club the other night. Now they blame me for it, but I didn’t do it.”
“Where did it happen?”
“In the storage closet.”
“Where were you at the time?”
“In my office.”
“Can anyone vouch for you?”
“My hostess, Desiree Campbell.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“What were you doing?”
“Talking about seating at the tables.”
“Why do the police think you did it?”
Johnson hesitated for several beats. “Because I found him. And because we, uh, had a few words earlier in the evening.”
And there it was. Johnson's motive for killing his partner. Mike took care to keep his face blank and his voice casual. “About?”
Johnson stared at him. “I don’t like the way he kept the books.”
Yeah, okay, Mike thought, stifling a curse and crossing his arms. He could see where this was going: Johnson was the innocent victim here, a man who had—alas!—had the misfortune of coincidentally arguing with his partner the very night he’d been killed by someone else.
So Johnson did it.
At least now Mike knew what he was dealing with.
“I suppose there are dozens of witnesses to the argument,” he asked, uncrossing his arms and picking up his pen again.
Johnson slowly nodded his huge head.
Thinking hard, Mike tapped the pen on the table. Maybe there were some extenuating circumstances he could work with, some way he could piece together a defense. Dara—Johnson!—was counting on him.
“You know,” he said idly, doodling on his pad, “juries tend to understand crimes of passion. Say, for example, you and Morgan had an argument and it escalated. Maybe a punch was thrown, things got out of hand. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
He looked up and waited.
Johnson growled. “I said I didn’t do it.”
Riiiiiiiiight.
And I’m President Obama.
“Do you have a gun at the club?” Mike continued.
“Yeah, but it was in the safe.”
“Security videos?”
“Not for that part of the club. Police took ’em.”
Mike checked his watch and got up. This conversation was going nowhere fast, and they were running out of time before the hearing. “Here’s what’ll happen. The prosecutor will read the charges against you, and the judge will ask how you plead. I’ll say not guilty. Then I’ll ask for bail. The prosecutor will oppose bail because you’re wealthy and could flee to anywhere in the world. I’ll say you won’t flee because of your family. The judge will grant bail, but it’ll be high. I’m guessing between a quarter
and half a million, and you’ll have to come up with twenty percent and surrender your passport. You’ll be home by dinner. Any questions?”
Johnson seemed impressed. “Yeah. Can you fast-track my trial or something? I need to get my name cleared and I need to get my club back open.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Can they nail me for this, man?”
Mike rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and assessed the evidence. His own personal opinion about Johnson’s guilt notwithstanding, they were actually in decent shape.
“No witnesses to the shooting. You have an alibi. No weapon that we know of. Sounds like their case is mostly circumstantial, but we need to see what the forensics reports say. If your alibi holds up, I’d say you’ve got a fighting chance.”
Jamal and Dara also stood. Dara packed up her notebook.
“Your wife brought a suit for you to wear,” Mike added. “And there’s one last thing. My big rule: any client who lies to me gets fired. We clear?”
Unblinking, Johnson held his gaze. “Absolutely.”
“Can I see you for a minute?” Mike said curtly to Dara when they got back to the office after the hearing. They needed to get a few things settled, pronto. If nothing else, he was determined for her to respect his authority in the office.
“Uh-oh.” Snickering, Jamal scurried off to the relative safety of his own office.
Grim-faced, she followed Mike into his office and sat as he slammed the door behind her.
He sat on the edge of the desk and frowned down at her. She frowned mulishly up at him.
“I think what we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Now you’re quoting Cool Hand Luke. My dress was fine.”
“Not for the justice center, it wasn’t,” he snarled, remembering the way Johnson and his thuggish comrades had drooled at her like hyenas closing in on a gazelle as she tipped her beautiful head down to the watering hole for a drink.
She shifted uncomfortably. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. No worries. I didn’t have any other clean work clothes to wear anyway. Let’s move on.”
He snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you think it’s possible you don’t know everything about everything at the ripe old age of twenty-three?”
She said nothing.
“That room was full of men accused of everything from murder to spousal abuse to robbery to rape. A lot of them were sprung on bail this afternoon, the same as Johnson. They saw you with me. They could find you again if they wanted to. You need to keep that in mind.”
“It’s not like I was trying to draw undue attention to myself,” she insisted. “This is a plain black dress—”
Something inside Mike’s head snapped like an overstretched rubber band.
No one was this naive.
“Don’t you get it?” he yelled. “It doesn’t matter whether you were trying or not! Do you need me to draw you a picture? It’s not the dress, Dara! It’s the body!”
Ringing silence.
Wait, what?
What had he just said?
Dara’s jaw dropped.
With dawning horror, he realized he might have crossed a line.
Brilliant, Baldwin, he thought, his face and ears burning hot enough to melt his eyeballs.
You’ve just bought yourself a sexual harassment suit.
Disgusted, he turned, yanked the door open and stalked out of his office.
6
Dara’s head was still spinning when Jamal met her in her office minutes later. Sitting behind her desk, she stared out the window and tried to corral her thoughts, which was like trying to keep cats contained behind a split rail fence.
Had Mike just complimented her? Or insulted her?
Why did she care so much either way?
Couldn’t she sue him for sexual harassment?
Why did she know that was the last thing she’d ever do?
“Still standing, I see,” Jamal said, chuckling, as he collapsed in a chair.
“Your boss has a terrible temper,” she grumbled, spinning her chair to face him.
“You gave as good as you got.”
“Like that’s a good thing. He’s probably going to fire me now for mouthing off.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? He already doesn’t like me.”
“Get real. I want to tell you something.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Listen up. This is important.”
“Hit me.”
“The thing about Mike you need to understand is he’s all heart.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I know he’s cocky, and he can be a bully—”
“Can be a bully?” she asked, incredulous. “He is a bully.”
Jamal tilted his head and reconsidered. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s a big bully.”
“Thank you.”
“But the point is I know he would do anything for me. He would give me his last dollar if he thought I needed it.”
Dara was in no mood to hear him sing the praises of the mighty Mike Baldwin. “That’s beautiful,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “What’s it got to do with me?”
“He’d do anything for you, too, Dara. He was only looking out for you today. Just because you don’t like the way he says something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to what he’s saying.”
This whole stupid discussion was a waste of time, and she had work to do. She picked up her pen.
“Listen, Jamal. I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but don’t bother. I already told you Mike doesn’t like me. The only reason I’m here is because my professor forced me on him.”
Jamal snorted out a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
There was no use arguing the point with him. “Trust me. He doesn’t like me.”
Jamal’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “You trust me. I may not know the whole story, but I know Mike well enough to know he likes you just fine.”
“Right. And I’ll be sure to mention to Mike you think so highly of his advice.”
Jamal got up. “Don’t make me hurt you. Because I will.”
Dara laughed.
“You any good at English?” he asked.
Dara thought of her summa cum laude English lit degree from Michigan and gave him a wry smile. “I can get by. Why?”
“I’ll never get my GED if English keeps kicking my ass. Maybe you can help.”
“Anytime,” she said quickly. “I’d be happy to.”
There was a pause.
“You dating Sean?” he asked, studying her with narrowed eyes.
“No,” she said, startled. “Where’d that come from?”
“But he’s into you, isn’t he?”
Flustered, she fidgeted in her seat. “We’re just friends.”
“Yeah. Good. You should keep it that way.”
Jamal nodded thoughtfully, pausing to smile at her before he left.
Dara stared after him for a couple seconds, realizing she’d made a new and valuable friend.
Then she shored up her courage and headed back to Mike’s office.
He’d been replacing one of the books on the shelf closest to his desk, but he turned and watched her approach, eyebrows raised.
She leaned against the doorframe. “How alarmed should I be that you and Terrell the Thug are on a first-name basis?”
Mike smiled, and the tension between them was broken. “He’s like family. I represented him a couple of years ago on drug possession charges, but he was convicted.”
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, throwing her hand across her heart. “Am I to understand the great Mike Baldwin has lost a case?”
He smiled indulgently. “Shocking, but it doesn’t happen that often.”
“Let me sit down.”
“Very funny.”
She decided to say it quickly, before she lost her nerve.
“I
, uh ...didn’t think it’d be that bad at the justice center.”
He sank into his chair and flipped through some papers on his desk.
“That’s interesting because I thought I told you it would be bad if you wore that dress. Actually, your clothes probably wouldn’t’ve mattered. But you still should’ve listened to me.”
“I’m sorry for blowing up at you.”
“You should be.”
“Oh, all right!” she cried, the reins to her temper sliding out of her grip. “If you weren’t such an overbearing bully, maybe I would have listened to you.” She paused to take a calming breath. “And, by the way, as my boss, I have the utmost respect for you, so forget what I just said.”
His eyes glittered with amusement. “Anyone ever mention you’ve got a smart mouth?”
She froze, her gaze locked with his.
He’d asked that exact question at the party and hearing it now caught her off guard. She’d tried to forget that night and had presumed he’d done the same.
Maybe some things weren’t so easily forgotten.
“Dara?” called a voice from the hallway. “Where are you?”
Something spiraled sickeningly inside her—disappointment mingled with irritation.
Not Sean again. Not here. Not now.
She and Mike quickly turned away from each other, as though both pairs of eyes had been negatively charged and could no longer connect. Mike made an indistinct sound that might have been a muttered curse.
“Dara?”
“In here,” Dara said, not bothering to hide the lack of enthusiasm in her voice.
“What are you doing in here?” Sean asked her as he came in.
“What are you doing here?”
The sharpness in her tone made his smile wobble, which made her feel bad. On the other hand, it was probably time she started setting firmer boundaries with Sean. Just because his internship was a couple blocks away at the ACLU didn’t mean he needed to show up unannounced here all the time.
“Thought you might want to grab a bite,” he said lightly.
She tried to smile, to soften her rejection, but her lips refused to cooperate. “You should call.”
Sean blinked, a light dimming behind his eyes. “You got it.”
Her face burning as hot as her curiosity, she shot a glance at Mike to see if he’d listened to this little interchange. To see if he cared what she and Sean did or didn’t do.
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