Guilty as Sin (12 page)

"You know Dr. Wright that well?"

"I'm a psych major," he said, cigarette bobbing on his lip. "I've spent 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 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 ring 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 sud-ly 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. lien 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 etter. 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 een 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, at 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. Ihings 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 it intrigued him enough, he would capitalize on it. Suddenly the report's that 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."