Guilty (26 page)

" WHAT DO you mean the charges were dropped? " Kate yelled into her cell phone. One hand covered her free ear in an effort to block some of the street noise. "The charges couldn't have been dropped." "Let me check again," the woman on the other end of the phone said, and there was a
click
followed by canned music. Grinding her teeth at the delay, Kate had to face the facts: She had been put on hold.

These were the first moments Kate had had to herself during a very hectic day. She had been working flat out since she stepped onto the ninth floor at five minutes before eight that morning, eating lunch at her desk, taking bathroom breaks on the run. Rescheduling everything was a backbreaker that had the entire criminal justice system scrambling. The first funerals were scheduled for the next day, and reworking timetables around them was creating even more of a snarl. Anything that couldn't be postponed had been moved to today in the Federal Building, and getting witnesses, defendants, lawyers, judges, and assorted support personnel all together at the right place at the right time was a logistical nightmare. She had been running around like a chicken with its head off all day going back and forth. Most everybody in the DA's office was doing the same. Finally, telling Mona she needed a breath of fresh air to clear her head, she had at last managed to get away. Now, at just a few minutes shy of five P.M., she was striding purposefully toward the detention center on a glorious late-fall afternoon that was bright and beautiful enough to bring the tourists out in droves. Golden sunlight sparkled off the top windows of the skyscrapers. The sidewalks were thick with pedestrians. The streets were crowded with vehicles, even more than usual, as people were starting to get off work. The purple Philly Phlash tourist bus that looped around to local attractions rumbled past, and she saw that it was standing room only on board. Hot-dog vendors, pretzel stands, soft-drink carts, and street peddlers hawking freshly printed T-shirts with sayings like
I Love Philly
above Monday's date and
Survivor: Criminal Justice Center
had sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Their combined smells, along with car exhaust, perfumed the air. It was as if the sensational nature of the killings was acting as a magnet, drawing even more people and activity than usual into Center City.

On the bright side, there had been only a few reporters outside her house when she had left that morning, and none at all outside the DA's office at any time during the day that she had seen, so it seemed that the message that no one on their side was going to talk to the media was getting out.

"I'm sorry." The woman on the phone was back. Kate had to strain to hear her over the street noise. "But our records show that all charges against Mr. Castellanos have been dropped and he was released from custody about an hour ago."

Dumbfounded, Kate stopped dead, oblivious to the people streaming around her. "That can't be." "That's what our records show."

Kate sucked in air. She was attracting curious looks as passersby brushed past her, but she barely even noticed. "Who signed the release order?" she demanded. It was too late. The woman had hung up. A dial tone buzzing like an angry wasp in Kate's ear was the only reply. For a moment, a long moment, she kept the phone where it was while she stared blindly at the busy intersection in front of her and the news slowly sank in.
Mario's out on the street.

The morning's chill had mellowed, and although she was wearing a black blazer and slacks with a long-sleeved blue oxford-cloth blouse and had been walking very fast in her flats before she stopped, she was suddenly freezing cold. Her stomach knotted and her heart began to pound as she gripped her cell phone—which she was using out of utter paranoia because she didn't want the calls to come up on the office log, just in case anyone ever checked them, which she was pretty sure no one ever did—to call the detention center to arrange for another meeting with Mario. In which she had meant to threaten to trump up enough charges to see to it that he was put away for life if any of his goon pals ever came within spitting distance of her or Ben again. And never mind that he would almost certainly threaten her back if she didn't get him out.

She had even been prepared to promise that she
would
get him out and forget about the whole confidential-informant thing. Whatever it took to keep him and his associates away from Ben.

But she had still meant to make him sweat for it as much as she could. The one thing she had known from the beginning she could not do was just roll over and play dead. If Mario knew he had succeeded in frightening her last night, she was toast. Once a bully, always a bully.

Oh my God, maybe Mario thinks I already did what he asked. Maybe he thinks I got him out. Or maybe he'll be satisfied with just being out however it happened and leave me alone.

Kate savored that thought for a calming second or two before reality hit.

Yeah, and maybe there's a tooth fairy, too.

"Are you okay, miss?" a man's voice penetrated the fog she was lost in. Blinking, she saw that a nice-looking, mid-thirtyish man in a business suit had stopped walking and was looking at her in concern.

Kate met his gaze, saw the inquisitive glances she was attracting from her fellow pedestrians, and forced herself back into the moment.

If a breakdown was on the agenda, she was just going to have to have it later.

"I'm fine, thanks."

She even managed a quick smile for the Good Samaritan as she lowered her phone, snapping it shut, stowing it away in her pocket. Aware finally of the attention she was attracting, she started walking again. The Good Samaritan nodded and moved on. She now had no reason to go to the detention center, she reversed course, heading back toward the office. She actually felt proud of how well she was coping until she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a store window. Her shoulders were hunched. Her movements were jerky. With her hair scraped back in its lawyerly bun, she had a really good view of her face: Strain was apparent in every feature.

She looked shocked. Blindsided. Scared.

Big surprise. That's exactly how she felt.

Mario's free.

Little curls of panic spiraled to life inside her at the thought.

What do I do now?

She was just realizing that she didn't have an answer for that when, out of nowhere, someone grabbed her arm.

C h a p t e r 18

KATE JUMPED LIKE she had been shot. Her head snapped around so fast to see who had grabbed her that she almost gave herself whiplash.

"Did I startle you? Sorry 'bout that." Bryan grinned at her. It was his hand curled around her upper arm. Her heart slid out of her throat to settle back into something like its normal position in her chest. Its galloping slowed to the point where she no longer feared dropping dead on the spot. She was able to move again, to breathe, to resume walking down the crowded street. "You heading anywhere interesting?"

"Depends on what you call interesting. I'm on my way back to work." Kate dredged up a smile. She had seen Bryan only in passing since Rodriguez had dragged her out from under the counsel table in courtroom 207. He looked unchanged by the ordeal. His round face was cheerful. His brown eyes twinkled at her. His stocky body in its business-friendly gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie seemed to radiate energy. He was carrying his briefcase, which, as usual and like most of the other briefcases associated with the DA's office, was bulging with way too much work. "How about you?"

"Actually, I'm just on my way back from a meeting with the mayor." Bryan dropped her arm and fell into step beside her. His tone was nonchalant, but Kate could tell from the pinkening of his cheeks how proud he was of that. "Or should I say,
we're
just on our way back from a meeting with the mayor."

That was the first indication Kate had that Bryan wasn't alone. She followed his sideways glance to the tall, portly, white-haired figure just a step off the pace on Bryan's other side. As he saw her looking at him, he gave her a nod and a smile.

Sylvester Buchanan, the district attorney himself, Kate's boss of bosses. As she recognized him, her eyes widened.

She had met him only once before, for a few brief moments at a reception for the retiring head of the Major Trials Unit. That had been in July, when she'd been on the job for just more than a month. They had been introduced, exchanged a brief handshake. She doubted he remembered, or had a clue who she was.

"We were just talking about you," Bryan said happily, dodging a stream of oncoming pedestrian traffic.

"Really?" Kate's eyebrows shot up. If they were talking about her, maybe Buchanan knew who she was after all. A career plus—if she even had a career left after this thing with Mario shook out. Still, her eyes slid in Buchanan's direction again. He sidestepped closer to Bryan as a couple of young women armed with baby strollers plowed past.

"Yes, indeed," he confirmed, beaming at her. "And I'm happy to be the one to give you some good news. The mayor wants to honor you with a Shining Star award. And he wants to present it to you personally next Friday night at the fund-raiser he's cohosting for Jim Wolff."

From his tone, it was clear that he expected her to be overwhelmed. Which she was, but not with the excitement he obviously anticipated. Jim Wolff was James Arvin Wolff IV, the front-running Republican candidate for President in 2008.
Not
the candidate she was anticipating voting for, although admittedly anything could happen between now and next November. And a Shining Star award was part of the mayor's new crime-fighting initiative: It recognized citizens who had played a significant role in the citywide effort to combat violent crime. The last one she remembered hearing anything about had been presented, sometime this past summer, to the widow of a small supermarket owner who had vowed not to give in to the robbers who continually targeted his store. If she recalled, the award had been posthumous: The supermarket owner had been killed in a shoot-out with the last thugs who had tried to rob him.

And she had supposedly shot the man who had taken her hostage. Considering the fact that it was an award honoring the effort to combat violent crime, there was irony in there somewhere.

"It's a very exclusive event, you know," Buchanan confided, looking slightly anxious, as if he feared she didn't quite realize how significantly she was being honored. Kate suspected she might be looking as appalled as she felt, and tried to adjust both her expression and her body language to something more closely resembling pleased surprise. "Black-tie. All the local movers and shakers. Good for you. Good for all of us at the DA's office. Lots of publicity. Might even make the national news."

Oh my God. Can this get any worse?

Kate fumbled for a response that would get her off the hook without offending Buchanan. "I ... I really don't think I deserve an award."

What she truly wanted to say was
No way, Jose. Not happening. Unh-uh. Forget about it.

"I told you she's modest," Bryan said to Buchanan as they reached the imposing stone edifice that housed the DA's offices and took up the entire corner. Getting to the door nearest them first, Bryan pulled it open for her. "But the way she handled herself—she's deserving. Believe me, I was there."

Kate groaned inwardly as she walked past Bryan into the spacious lobby. Buchanan followed. Glancing over her shoulder to say something, anything, to try to convince them that this was a hideous mistake, Kate was disconcerted to hear a stampede of footsteps on the marble floor and a way-too-familiar symphony of whirring sounds before she could get so much as a word out.

Her head snapped forward again. Just as she had suspected, the sounds came from half a dozen reporters converging on them, complete with a phalanx of cameras. Hoping she didn't look as much like a deer in the headlights as she felt, Kate veered toward the elevator banks with Bryan and Buchanan moving fast right behind her.

"Mrs. White, how does it feel to know you've been selected to receive a Shining Star award?" "Mrs. White, are you a supporter of Jim Wolff?" "Kate, why won't you talk about what happened in courtroom 207?" "Mr. Buchanan, did you suggest Mrs. White's name for this award when you met with the mayor today?"

"No comment," Kate said, feeling like an animal at bay as they backed her against the wall between two elevator shafts. She jabbed furiously at the button as the handful of others who had been waiting for the elevators moved away like the newcomers were radioactive. A harried glance up showed her that the closest elevator was on the left. It was on the third floor, coming down.

She edged toward it.

"Ms. White is both honored to be chosen and deeply deserving of a Shining Star award," Buchanan said in the kind of deep, authoritative voice she had heard him use before in public forums. It was quite different from the soft, kindly tones he used in private conversation, or at least the private conversation he had so recently directed at her. "And no"—he broke off briefly as a
ping
announced the arrival of the elevator—"I did not suggest her name to the mayor."

A few people got off the elevator, looking surprised to find themselves in the midst of a media frenzy. Kate slid inside. Bryan and Buchanan followed with alacrity as Kate pressed the button for the ninth floor.

"Kate, will you be at Judge Moran's funeral tomorrow?" "Mr. Buchanan, do you have any idea about the timetable for appointing a replacement judge?" "Kate, do you think you—"

The doors slid shut. Kate slumped against the side wall in relief.

"How did they get in here?" Buchanan shook his head in annoyance as Bryan shrugged. "I'll have to have a word with security. Kate ... may I call you Kate?"—she nodded assent—"would you press four, please?"

Kate wordlessly pressed the button for the fourth floor.

"And where the
devil
do they get their information? The mayor hasn't made any kind of public announcement about that award yet. Damned leaks."