Natural Suspect (2001) (8 page)

"I have acquired all the news that's not yet fit to print. Need instructions. Discard. Discard with prejudice. I make no recommendation. There are positives and negatives to both solutions. Please advise soonest."

Sissy nodded and thought hard for a moment. She moved the cursor to
reply
and when the e-mail screen came up, typed:
I have no problem with either solution as long as you believe the problem is effectively neutralized. Will rely upon your professional expertise guiding these situations.

She did not sign the e-mail, but punched the button sending it on its electronic way.

She leaned back in her chair, rocking idly, staring at the screen. Sissy felt she was in an odd state, slightly on the edge of anticipation, seeing things unfolding like a Japanese origami sculpture. She was accustomed to waiting, to being patient, which, she sometimes thought, was her strongest suit. Patience and the ability to stay within character, she reminded herself. She idly wondered why there weren't awards for performers such as herself, who managed to play a role successfully for months on end. The prize she expected was now well within sight.

Sissy sighed. Morgy-Worgy's usual deeply inadequate lovemaking had left her restless, her nerves slightly tingling, as if electric currents were scorching her skin. She punched at the computer keyboard and slid effortlessly into a sadomasochism-and-bondage chat room, where she signed into the electronic conversation as Irma The Bitch. She spent a pleasant half hour taunting and teasing some of the other chat room members, finally making an assignation with some dweeb who promised to lick dog fecal matter off her boots. She told the man to meet her at midnight the following night at a biker's bar in the East Village and insisted the groveling guest wear a pink silk shirt, feather boa, and skintight white pants. She figured if the submissive showed up, the membership of the Village Vipers M
. C
. would kill him almost instantly.

She signed off the S&M chat room and spent some time linked to a mathematics study group Web site operated by MIT. There were generally some interesting issues being discussed late at night by the next generation of scientists, but this, too, only ate at the hours, instead of filling them. Finally she signed off the computer and packed it back into her suitcase. She picked up the Fowles novel and read for another hour, admiring the complexity of the characters and the situation, as well as the dexterity with which the author slid between past and present. By then it was past midnight.

Sissy stretched, like an old cat aroused from a nap. It was late enough to go to bed, though she had little desire to climb beneath the sheets next to her rich, untalented, obnoxious, and unattractive husband.

The things a gal is forced to do to get ahead, she said to herself. This made her laugh, inwardly.

She breathed out slowly. Might as well sleep, she thought. Need my energy to get up in the morning and be dumb again.

Sissy replaced the novel next to the computer, zipped up the bag, and secreted it in the closet. Then she padded off down the hallway, each stride taking her away from who she actually was and back into who she was portraying, so that by the time she reached the bedroom she shared with Morgan Hightower, she felt almost as stupid as he so blindly thought she was.

From where he
sat in front of his computer screen, Trent Ballard could see that the snow was still swirling down onto the Manhattan streets. It made him shiver and reach over to his desktop to seize the steaming coffee cup he'd placed there. He took a long pull, tasting the bitterness in the drink. It is late, he told himself. It is cold. Wet. Maybe the love-struck and songwriters think the city is beautiful beneath newly fallen snow, but I know that it is merely an immense pain and that for days everything will be slushy, gray, and icy. He glanced over toward Buck, the mega-rabbit, who was merrily munching on a stalk of celery in his cage. "Even the lupine prefer warmth, huh, Buck?"

The rabbit continued to eat, eyeing his master with undisguised contempt.

"Well, soon enough," the prosecutor said. "Soon enough we'll have some of that nice Caribbean warmth." He grinned at the rabbit. "Buck, did I ever mention to you how much I enjoy a good rabbit stew?"

The beast stared back, still chewing, as if trying to imply that he enjoyed fresh human.

Ballard turned away, fixing his eyes on the computer screen. For the tenth time he read the e-mail letter that glowed in front of him. He warned himself to think carefully before composing a reply. As best as he could tell, everything in the murder case against Julia Hightower was going perfectly, and he didn't want to do anything that might upset that particular applecart. Certainly nothing that might imply that there was something larger going on than simply the highest profile prosecution he'd ever handled. And, he thought, perhaps the largest he would ever handle.

Especially if everything worked out as well as he planned.

Wording his reply carefully, Trent Ballard wrote a few words, then zipped them off into electronic nether-space.

He closed down the computer, reminding himself that the day was fast approaching when he would have to trash this unit and replace it with something new which did not have all sorts of curious and unusual things printed in its electronic hard drive memory.

Behind him, Buck finished the celery stalk. Ballard rose from his desk, oddly energized, feeling no need for sleep. He returned his eyes to the streets below his apartment window. What a mess, he thought. He wondered if anyone official ever anticipated a storm such as this, and whether they planned for it. He thought not. New York liked to react, not anticipate. This was not how he had run his life. And certainly not how he planned to run the rest of it, which, he felt, was starting to look quite nice.

This satisfying reverie was interrupted by the sharp ring of his telephone.

He was momentarily taken aback. It's late, he told himself. And no one is supposed to call me at my home.

Trent reached for the telephone with a sense of disquiet creasing the self-congratulatory image he'd concocted.

"Yes?" he answered abruptly.

The voice on the other end was familiar and surprising. He smiled.

"I didn't think we'd be talking so soon," he said.

Chapter
4.

G
rowing up in
Queens, Devin didn't get much practice dealing with the dysfunctional rich, but she did learn how to change a tire. Not that the idea of switching out a flat on the side of the Long Island Expressway in the middle of a blinding snowstorm thrilled her. On the other hand, it beat the hell out of waiting forever for the Auto Club to show up or, worse, trudging back to the Hightower estate and asking for help.

She exchanged the high heels she'd worn to court for a pair of thick-soled boots she kept under the seat along with a first-aid kit, a flashlight, and a can of Mace. Pausing to take a tissue from her purse, she proceeded to blow her nose with a distinctly unladylike honk. She couldn't begin to imagine what had come over her. It wasn't like her to feel so sorry for herself that she gave in to tears. She hoped it was a bad case of trial nerves and not an incipient nervous breakdown. Fortunately, insanity wasn't catching. If it was, after her exposure to the Hightowers, she'd end up in the loony bin for sure.

Tonight had been the last straw. Ever since the day Julia Hightower showed up at her office, it seemed to Devin as if she'd been making excuses for one Hightower or another. At first she'd felt so lucky to be given the chance to defend someone like Julia Hightower that she'd practically been grateful to breathe the same air as her wealthy client. During their first meeting she'd had to keep reminding herself to act
cool and not stare. It was hard. Just one of Julias diamonds probably cost more than Devin's father had made driving a city bus his whole life. No doubt about it, the money had done a number on her head.

Pulling up the collar of her coat, Devin opened the door and climbed out of the Toyota into the snow. Maybe it was the cold air, but she suddenly felt more confident and clearheaded than she had in weeks. Lately she'd been thrown by the trappings--the money, the media, the fact that her mother was calling every night all excited to report that she'd seen her on
TV.
Tonight had helped her finally see what should have been obvious all along. Except for the fact that Julia's checks actually cleared the bank, the Hightowers were no different from any of her other clients.

As a matter of fact, they were probably worse. When you came right down to it, what was she dealing with except a drunk, a slut, and a stupendously bad artist married to a woman with an IQ half her bra size? Even if she didn't manage to get the mother off, at the very least Devin figured she'd be able to get them a slot on
Jerry Springer.

"Who knows?" she thought to herself as she turned the key in the lock to open up the trunk. "Maybe he'll do a theme show: Rich women who sleep with their gardeners."

She took the jack and some other tools out of the trunk. If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes she would never have believed it. No way in a million years could she have dreamed up the naked little man and his potbelly. She suppressed a shudder and did her best to drive the offending image from her brain. At least when she'd given in to a moment of weakness it had been with Trent Ballard, who was at least a member of the same species . . .

The ground felt soft beneath the wet snow, still not frozen. She hoped she'd be able to muster the necessary traction to get the Toyota out of the ditch. Standing up, she could see by the light of her flashlight that she had been lucky that the car had come to a stop where it did. A few feet farther and both she and the Toyota would have ended up in a ravine.

Positioning the jack, Devin loosened the lug nuts one by one. The soft earth was less stable than she would have liked, and she made
a c
onscious effort to work quickly. With her dancers build, people didn't usually think of her as being strong, but when it came to handling tools she understood that skill counted for more than strength. In that way, fixing things was a lot like trying cases.

She got to her feet and brushed the snow from her legs. Then she bent over again and slowly started to work the jack, afraid that if she pumped the handle too fast it would destabilize the car and the jack might slip.

She wondered what Trent Ballard was doing right now. He was probably lying in his warm bed, dreaming up ways to outmaneuver her in court. Devin had no illusions about Ballard. Hot tub or no hot tub, she knew he would stop at nothing to beat her.

Not that she had any intention of letting him. This case was definitely her ticket, her chance to move up to the majors. There was no way she was going to lose this case, even if she had to get a picture of him walking his grotesque rabbit and figure out a way to show it to the jury. Naturally, she hoped it wouldn't come to that. She knew the state's evidence and had seen the holes in it. Besides, she had a few surprises of her own.

Even though she suffered from bouts of self-doubt, Devin knew her way around the courtroom. She'd learned it by doing Trent Ballard's job, working for Aaron McCandliss prosecuting cases in Nassau County. She also knew that the system was on her side. Even before O
. J
., it had been getting harder and harder to get juries to put people behind bars.

She blamed it on
TV.
Starting with
Perry Mason
, television had continually raised the bar of reasonable doubt until virtually every juror in America walked into the courtroom expecting to take part in an hour-long drama. They wanted a smoking gun, surprise witnesses, fingerprints, and loose ends tied up so neatly during closing arguments that the defendant fell to his knees and begged for mercy.

Devin knew what it was like going to court expecting to fight a losing battle with the last six episodes of
Law and Order.
That's why she liked the defense side better. In the end, it was much easier. All she had to do was come up with excuses and change the subject, and the way
a g
ood defense attorney did that was by putting someone else on trial. It really didn't matter who--the victim, the police, the stepfather who sexually abused the defendant as a child, or that mythic figure, the other guy, who conceivably could have done it.

Until tonight Devin had been feeling mildly guilty about her plan to use a variation of this oft-used ploy, but after what she'd been through tonight at the hands of the Hightowers, she no longer felt any qualms. Instead, she smiled to herself as she finished unscrewing the lug nuts and dropped them into her pocket so that she'd be able to find them later.

With a grunt of effort, she got down and grabbed either side of the flat and pulled it toward her until it came off. As she dragged it back to the trunk she was pleased to see that the storm seemed to be easing up. She might make it home yet. Working up a sweat, she pulled out the spare and propped it up against the rear bumper while she heaved the flat back into the trunk.

Whether it was the impact of the flat or a gust of wind, Devin couldn't tell, but somehow, something sent the spare tire rolling. Before she could react, it had picked up speed and was heading down the incline toward the ravine. Devin took off after it. She hadn't come this far to spend the rest of her night waiting for a tow truck.