by Tami Hoag
The door behind him opened, and a tall youth with angry dark eyes glared out over the professor's head. “You got a problem here, Professor?”
“No, Tyrell. There's no problem,” Priest said evenly.
Tyrell kept his gaze fixed hard on Ellen. “Hey, you that bitch lawyer.”
“Tyrell . . .”
Priest turned and attempted to contain the trouble to the classroom, an effort as futile as trying to shove the cork back in a champagne bottle. The door swung wide and two more members of the Sci-Fi Cowboys stared out, arrogant and indignant and big enough to pick their mentor up and set him aside like a child.
“Dr. Wright is innocent!”
“He's gonna kick your ass in court!”
“Guys! Please go back to your seats!” Priest ordered. They stared past him as if he were invisible, their attention on the woman who was, in their minds, an enemy.
Ellen held her ground. She had tried enough hardened criminals of sixteen and seventeen to know the rules. Show no fear. Show no emotion. With hormones at high tide, the kids had enough emotion for everyone—all of it negative, ready to boil up into violence.
“Dr. Wright will have his chance to prove his innocence in court.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Court didn't give me a chance. Court screwed my ass.”
Priest frowned at her.
“You've got your hands full, Professor,” Ellen said. “I'll let you go. If anything occurs to you that may be of help to the case, please call me or Chief Holt.”
“When hell freezes over, bitch!” the one called Tyrell shouted as she turned and walked away.
The neighborhood to the south of the Harris College campus had once been a town in its own right. Harrisburg had competed with Deer Lake for commerce and population during the latter part of the nineteenth century. But Deer Lake had won the railroad and the title of county seat, and Harrisburg had lost its identity. At some point, what was left of it had been annexed by the Deer Lake municipality, and someone had slapped it with the nickname Dinkytown.
The old buildings on the main drag housed businesses that targeted the college crowd. The buildings were shabby, but the signs were trendy and artsy. The Clip Joint Hair and Tanning salon, the Tome Bookstore, the Leaning Tower of Pizza, Green World—a nature and New Age shop—the Leaf and Bean Coffee House, a mix of bars, restaurants, and tiny art galleries.
Ellen headed for an old creamery building on the north end. The Pack Rat was a secondhand shop crammed with a boggling array of junk. Racks of “vintage” clothes from the sixties and seventies crowded the front of the room. A hand-lettered sign above them read Blast From the Past! Ellen scowled at the thought that anything she might have worn in high school was now considered nostalgic.
She worked her way back through the haphazard displays of outdated textbooks and Harris mementos that alumni had undoubtedly trucked out of their basements and attics to make room for more timely junk. The clerk behind the counter was a large girl with a shock of purple hair, black eye shadow, and a ruby stud in the side of her nose. She was engaged in animated conversation with a tall young man as slender as a rope, stoop-shouldered and rusty-haired. He wore the scraggly chin whiskers that passed for a beard with the grunge crowd and sucked on a cigarette with serious purpose. The pair of them caught sight of Ellen simultaneously and gave her the kind of look that suggested they were more interested in making small talk than money.
“I'm looking for Todd Childs,” Ellen said.
“I'm Todd.” He tapped the ash off his cigarette into a tin ashtray with a plastic hula dancer perched on the rim.
“Ellen North. I'm with the county attorney's office. I'd like to have a few minutes of your time if I could.”
He took a last deep drag, crushed the cigarette out, and blew the smoke out his nostrils on a sigh of disgust. “I was just leaving. I've got a class in half an hour.”
“It won't take long.”
She watched his face as he weighed the merits of denying her. He exchanged a look with Vampira behind the counter. Behind his round-rimmed glasses his pupils were dilated, large ink-black spots rimmed by thin lines of color. Steiger called him a pothead. The scent that underscored the cigarette smoke on him was unmistakable. But smoking a little grass was a long way from being an accessory to the kind of crimes Garrett Wright had committed.
“Clock's ticking,” she said with a phony smile.
Todd heaved another sigh. “All right, fine. Let's go back in the office.”
He led the way through the maze to a room the size of a broom closet, where he took a seat between piles of junk on the desk. The only chair was a dirty green beanbag. Ellen gave it a dubious glance and leaned a shoulder against the door frame.
Wright's student jumped on the offensive. “The charges against Dr. Wright are so bogus.”
“The police caught him fleeing the scene.”
He shook his head, fishing in the pocket of his flannel shirt for another Marlboro. “No way. It was some kind of frame job or something.”
“You know Dr. Wright that well?”
“I'm a psych major,” he said, cigarette bobbing on his lip. “I've spent the last two years of my life immersed in the workings of the human mind.”
“So are you the next Sigmund Freud or the next Carl Jung?”
He kept his eyes on her as he lit up and took the first drag. “Freud was a pervert. Garrett Wright is not.”
“I admire your loyalty, Todd, but I'm afraid it's misplaced.”
He shook his head, his stubbornness manifesting itself in the set of his mouth, a tight hyphen encircled by the ratty goatee. “He would have to be a total sociopath to do what you say he did. No way. We would have known.”
“Isn't that part of sociopathic behavior? The ability to fool the people around you into thinking you're perfectly normal?”
The cigarette came up in a hand that wasn't quite steady. He took another puff and looked away.
“You realize there's a strong possibility you'll be called to testify at the hearing next week,” Ellen said.
“Oh, man . . .”
“You were with Dr. Wright Saturday morning when Agent O'Malley came to his office. You were a part of the conversation when Dr. Wright and Agent O'Malley were discussing her driving out to Christopher Priest's home. You told the police you left Dr. Wright's office around one-fifteen and didn't see Dr. Wright again that day. You'll have to say that in court.”
He banded one arm around his skinny midsection as if he had suddenly developed a stomachache. “Fuck.”
“The truth is the truth, Todd,” Ellen murmured, caught between sympathy and suspicion. Was he reluctant because Wright was his mentor or because Wright was his partner in crime and he now saw the whole thing unraveling around them? “Think of it this way—you won't actually be testifying against Dr. Wright. It's not as if you saw him commit a crime . . . is it, Todd?”
His answer was a long time coming. He stared at the wall, at a Magic Eye calendar that looked as if someone had squirted out ketchup and mustard in no discernible pattern. Ellen wondered if he saw the hidden picture. She didn't. Only the guilty knew the secret. Only the guilty could see the pattern through the chaos.
“No,” he said at last.
“I'll let you get to that class.” She straightened from the door and started to turn, then looked back at him. “Can you tell me where you were last night around midnight?”
“In bed. Alone.” He tossed his half-finished cigarette into an abandoned coffee cup. “Where were you?”
She faked a smile. “One of the perks of the job—I get to ask all the questions.”
The scent of smoke lingered on her coat. Ellen sniffed at a lapel and frowned as she wound her way through the outer office to Phoebe's desk.
“Shouldn't your generation be smart enough not to smoke cigarettes?” she complained.
“Yes, but we're largely without focus and grounded in the disillusionment of the times, so . . .” She
shrugged, screwing her pixie face into a look of apology.
“Be sure Todd Childs gets a subpoena. And please call Mitch and tell him if he brings Childs in for questioning again, I want to watch.”
“Gotcha.” Like a kaleidoscope image, Phoebe's features rearranged themselves again, blooming into a look of excitement. “You've got a full house,” she said, hooking a thumb in the direction of Ellen's office.
Realization dawned with a sick thud in her stomach. Appointment time. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I must have led a very wicked past life.”
“I'd like to lead a wicked present life,” Phoebe said. “You could pass that information along to Mr. Gorgeous Blue Eyes if you'd like.”
Ellen shook her head and let herself into her office. The room seemed much too small for the size of the egos present. She had the wild feeling that if she opened the window to alleviate the pressure, she would be sucked out and dumped in the snow two stories down.
“Sorry I'm late,” she said, setting her briefcase down and shrugging out of her coat. “I've got a lot of legwork to do before the hearing next week.”
“You couldn't make Reed do it?” Rudy groused.
“I'm lead prosecutor. I'd damn well better know who I'm dealing with.”
Brooks smiled at her, the kind of secret, knowing smile lovers share. Ellen scowled at him and took her seat behind the desk.
“We understand perfectly, Ellen,” Bill Glendenning said magnanimously.
The state attorney general sat in one visitor's chair. The eyes behind the spectacles could easily have been mistaken for kind, but she knew better. Bill Glendenning was a shrewd man with a taste for power. She admired and respected him but was careful to temper that admiration with common sense. He was at the top of the food chain; he hadn't got there by being benevolent.
Rudy hovered behind him, too wired to sit down even if there had been a chair available for him. Unable to contain his excitement at having Glendenning in the offices two days running, he paced, his face glowing with zeal or a fever. He pulled a rumpled handkerchief out of his pants pocket and dabbed at his forehead.
“I'm sure I don't need to tell you, Ellen, we have a very unusual situation in this case,” Glendenning said in a fatherly voice.
“No, you don't need to tell me.” She resented the Ward Cleaver act, but she was careful to keep that resentment out of her reply. Instead, she rose from her chair to counteract the idea that she was a child to be lectured. Keeping every move casual, she stepped around the end of her desk and leaned a hip against it, standing with her arms crossed loosely.
“The abduction itself was an aberration,” Glendenning went on. “Things like that don't happen in Deer Lake—or so we all like to think. The fact that it did happen here has drawn the focus of the nation. They see it as a metaphor for our times. Isn't that so, Jay?”
Jay blinked at the sound of his name, breaking the trance he had fallen into staring at Ellen North's legs. The lady had a fine set of pegs on her—infinitely more worthy of his attention than Bill Glendenning's pointless pontificating. The attorney general was in this for himself, pure and simple. He was well aware that Jay's name was currently white-hot, and like any politician, Bill Glendenning would gladly bask in the warmth if he could. He wanted a piece of the action, all of the credit, and as much publicity as he could grab. A metaphor for our times.
“That's a fact, sir.” Jay nodded.
“It's a story bigger than Deer Lake, bigger than all of us,” Glendenning went on, shamelessly plagiarizing the words Jay had dazzled him with two nights ago over whiskey and cigars. “Ellen, you understand that, which is part of the reason Rudy entrusted you with this case.”
Rudy beamed at the mention of his name, an expression that crashed in the next instant.
“I was taught to put cases on even ground,” Ellen said. “I won't approach this case any differently because of the circumstances or because the man who stands accused is someone no one would have suspected.”
Impatience flashed behind Glendenning's Roosevelt glasses.
“I'm doing my job,” Ellen went on calmly. “My job is to put away Garrett Wright. I can't afford to lose my focus on that end or be distracted by a bigger picture. I can't stop people from taking an interest in this case or dissecting it as a ‘metaphor for our times,' but I can't let that become a part of my agenda.”
Rudy was turning burgundy from his throat up. He stood behind Glendenning, his eyes bugging out as if he were being choked. “But, Ellen—”
“Is absolutely right,” Jay drawled, smiling inwardly at the reactions. Ellen's look was wary. Glendenning scrambled to regroup. Behind him, Rudy Stovich pretended a coughing fit. “Lady Justice is blind, not looking to get her good side in front of the camera.”
“My point exactly,” Glendenning said, leaning over toward Jay like a buddy on a bar stool. “This is precisely why Ellen is the one to try this case.”
“That's why I chose her,” Rudy interjected, hooking a finger inside his collar and tugging at the figurative noose around his neck. “I knew from the start she was the one for the job.”
Ellen checked her watch instead of rolling her eyes. “Forgive my bluntness, but I have to be in court soon. What does any of this have to do with Mr. Brooks?”
His blue eyes twinkled with suppressed amusement. One corner of his mouth kicked up. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He had made concessions for this meeting. The jeans and denim shirt had been traded in for a button-down blue oxford and khakis. The parka had been replaced by a navy blazer tailored to emphasize the set of his shoulders. But he still hadn't shaved, and his silk tie was loose at the throat. All in all, he looked as if he had been rolled by thugs on his way home from a Chi-O mixer.
“As I'm sure you are well aware, Ellen,” Glendenning said, “Mr. Brooks is a fixture in the ranks of true crime best-sellers. His abilities as an author speak for themselves.”
“I'm sure they do,” Ellen said dryly.
“Justifiable Homicide,” Rudy spouted, trying to wedge himself back into the conversation. “That's a personal favorite of mine.”
Glendenning shot him a quelling look over his shoulder. “We're all familiar with Mr. Brooks's work—”
“Actually, I'm not,” Ellen lied. “As a prosecutor, I find the growing mania for true crime disturbing and tawdry.” She offered a smile of false apology to Jay. “No offense intended, Mr. Brooks.”
He rubbed a hand across his mouth to hide his grin. “None taken, Ms. North.”
Bill Glendenning's jaw tightened to the quality of granite. Behind him, Rudy looked horrified.
“Jay has taken an interest in this case,” Glendenning said. “As a story that will touch the hearts and minds of people everywhere. He has expressed a particular interest in presenting it from our point of view.”
Ellen stared at Jay Butler Brooks, disgust twisting inside her. He was sitting beside the state attorney general. Bill and Jay, best pals. Jay Butler Brooks, current darling of the media, a man with money, a man with clout in the publishing world and in Hollywood; a man people would trust just because they had read about him in People and Vanity Fair and had come to the ridiculous conclusion that they knew him. Bill Glendenning, who would gladly use the publicity such an association would bring to help catapult himself into the governor's office.
Slowly, she retreated back behind the desk on the excuse of sticking papers into her briefcase. “‘Our point of view.' What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Brooks pushed himself up in his chair and leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs. Ellen could feel his gaze sharpen on her, but she refused to raise her eyes to meet his.
“A small-town justice system takes on a big-time case,” he said. “The last bastion of decency in America assaulted by the poisonous evil of our modern society. This case has captured the attention and imagination of millions. I know it certainly intrigues me.”
Ellen bit back a
dozen scathing remarks. The case intrigued him, and if it intrigued him enough, he would capitalize on it. Suddenly the reporters who had been feeding off this tragedy seemed like small fish. The shark had just come into the waters.
News was one thing. That Jay Butler Brooks would twist this into entertainment and make a fortune off it was reprehensible beyond words. She wanted to tell him so, but there he sat with his good friend the attorney general and her immediate boss hovering behind them—the nerd boy allowed to tag along with the cool guys because of his potential usefulness.
“What does this have to do with me?” she asked tightly.
“Oh, I am particularly intrigued by your role in all this, Ms. North,” he said. “Prosecuting attorney Ellen North leading the charge for justice.”
She jerked her head up and stared at him while every internal alarm system she had went off. His slow smile should have come complete with canary feathers sticking out the corners of his mouth.
“I'm just doing my job, Mr. Brooks. I'm not Joan of Arc.”
“That's all a matter of perspective.”
“Nevertheless, I'm not comfortable with the analogy.”
“Ellen, you're too modest,” Glendenning said.
She was tempted to remind him that Joan had been burned at the stake, but there was the chance he already knew it. The implications of that made her vaguely queasy.
“Jay has expressed an interest in following the case from the perspective of the prosecution,” Glendenning said again. “I've assured him you'll be accommodating.”
“Excuse me?” Ellen gaped at Bill Glendenning. “I'll be accommodating in what way?”
“Now, Ellen,” he said, returning to that patronizing tone that set her teeth on edge, “we're not suggesting anything unethical. Jay won't be privy to anything sensitive. He simply wants a chance to watch you work. He doesn't need our blessing to do that, but he asked for it anyway, as a courtesy.”
As a courtesy that would get him into the good graces of the state attorney general, which would damn well guarantee him access. No, he didn't need permission to watch the case from afar, but stroking Glendenning would grease wheels no reporter could even venture near, and it put Ellen in the untenable position of having to act the gracious hostess or run the risk of angering the powers that held the strings on her job.