“I need everything you can tell me about the person who wrote these.”
He emptied the envelope. “Faxes? You expect me to work from faxes?” Then he spotted the valentines. Dixie had included them to keep him alert. “Have these been dusted?”
“They’re okay. Don’t worry about prints.”
He opened the top card. “Red ink. Were they all in red ink? Says something if they were. Felt tip. That’s not good.”
“They were all written in red, but maybe not with the same pen.” She glanced meaningfully at Sarina, who was all eyes and interest.
Ramón plucked a fax from the stack and turned it upside down, comparing it with an upside-down valentine.
“What’re you pulling here, Dixie Flannigan? Two different people wrote these. See the downstrokes on this one?” He waved the faxed copy. “Hard. Angry. But this—” He dropped the fax and thumped the card with a flick of his stubby index finger. “Steady ink flow. Artistic. Probably traced. Forgery case?”
“Not exactly. When can you have something for me?”
“Not today. I have too much work today. Maybe tomorrow. But call first,
always
call first. Drop in like you did today, maybe I’m here, maybe not. Maybe I’m working in my jockey shorts. Call. We’ll talk tomorrow.” His phone rang. He shoved everything back in the envelope and shooed Dixie and Sarina out the door.
Back in the hallway, as soon as Dixie had closed the door behind them, Sarina skipped ahead and turned to walk backward.
“Ramón-the-bald looked at those notes two seconds—maybe three, max—and he knew they weren’t the same. How did he do that so fast? Is that creepy?”
“Ramón can be creepy, all right. Plenty of practice.” But the graphologist’s abilities had amazed Dixie often enough.
She’d used him once on a drug case, to compare the handwriting of a boy who died a crack user. Before his death, the boy’s handwriting had deteriorated, just as his brain and body had. Ramón pinpointed the week the kid started using. By questioning the boy’s friends, Dixie had learned of a recent acquaintance, which resulted in the arrest of a new pusher in town. Too bad Ramón made such a bad impression on judges and juries.
At the courthouse, she found another rare parking place at a meter. A new cold front had blown in. Wind whipped around the buildings, tumbling leaves and candy wrappers along the sidewalks. As Dixie stepped out of the Porsche, the wind spit road dirt in her eyes.
They located the court where Brenda’s case was being presented and found a pair of aisle seats. The defendant was a thirteen-year-old who’d brought his father’s handgun to school to scare the bullies who beat him up every day for his lunch money. The gun scared them, all right, especially after it blew a hole in one boy’s shoulder.
A young girl sat sloe-eyed and solemn in the witness box; Brenda spoke to her softly, using simple, direct questions and soothing hand motions. Brenda’s hands, slender, with long coral nails, spoke as expressively as her words. Some of her opponents claimed she mesmerized juries with those hands, and Dixie didn’t doubt it. Today, however, Brenda’s manicure appeared ragged.
For twenty minutes, Dixie watched her friend skillfully question the reluctant witness. Then the judge granted defense counsel’s request for a recess. Dixie caught up with Brenda at the prosecutor’s table.
“How about coffee and a donut, Counselor? My treat.”
“Donut?” Brenda flashed a smile. “Trying to fatten me up before self-defense class tomorrow?”
“Okay, a bran muffin. How about it?”
“Sorry. No time right now. How’s that cushy job?” She glanced at Sarina, who had perched on the other end of the
table and was digging in her bag. “Is Joanna Francis as beautiful in person as on the screen?”
“Beauty is as beauty does, as my sainted Irish adoptive mother used to say.”
“Ah. Does that mean you managed to piss off the boss your very first day?”
“I’ve been my usual charming self.” But Dixie couldn’t keep the grin off her face. Her reputation for being difficult was founded on fact. “I’m afraid Ms. Francis doesn’t appreciate my charm.”
“Should I find that surprising?” Brenda tucked her papers into a tan leather briefcase. As she headed toward the door, Dixie fell in stride beside her.
“Not much I do would surprise you, Benson. We know each other too well, which brings me back to lunch, since you can’t do coffee now. How about it?”
“Sorry, I have an important errand to run that will eat into my lunch hour. Maybe tomorrow.”
Dixie wanted to talk now. She crooked a finger at Sarina to follow as she walked with Brenda out of the courtroom. The teenager fell in step a few paces behind them, but Dixie motioned her into protective range.
“Hear about Patricia Carrera disappearing?” Dixie murmured to Brenda.
“From nearly everybody I talked to today. Frankly, I hope the woman fell into a deep dark ravine where she can’t hurt that child anymore.”
“You and everybody who worked on the case, from what I understand.” Down the hall ahead of them, Dixie saw Julie Colby and Grace Foxworth, the woman whose daughter was in a coma, thanks to Lawrence Coombs. As Dixie watched, Grace Foxworth opened a pack of cigarettes. Part of Julie’s job was woodshedding the victims and witnesses—keeping them calm, preparing them for court. The process often created a bond that lingered even after the case was finished. Dixie wondered if smoke breaks had become a bonding time
for people who still indulged. She didn’t miss the worried look Julie tossed Brenda as they passed each other in the hall.
“What you said about Carrera falling into a ravine,” Dixie said, “is that only wishful thinking? Or do you know something about it?”
Brenda rummaged through her shoulder bag, not looking at Dixie. When she finally plucked a wad of keys from the purse, her eyes remained averted. She snapped the latch shut and sorted out her car key.
“What are you getting at?” she asked.
The elevator stopped. People poured out.
Dixie lowered her voice. “I’m worried about you, Bren. Two nights ago, you were upset enough about Coombs’ acquittal to consider trashing your career. I’ve known you a long time, and I think I can tell whether you’re really riled or mildly pissed off. You were fuming.”
They stepped into the elevator car. Sarina slouched into a corner, but Dixie could see her eyes following the conversation.
“The jury should have put that reptile away so long he wouldn’t remember what a woman looked like, much less have enough lead in his pencil to rape one,” Brenda whispered. Her hands tightened on her shoulder strap, stretching the skin over her knuckles.
“Hearing Coombs got a dose of what he likes to dish out, the Brenda I know would have called her friends together for a suds party. Instead, I can’t seem to get your ear for three minutes. I find myself wondering why.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been busy.” Brenda’s expression was inscrutable, but her fist stayed clenched around the purse strap.
They exited the elevator, and then the building. Dixie kept a wary eye on Sarina as they strode along the breezy sidewalk toward a parking garage. The wind had turned colder. Dixie zipped her jacket.
“What errand is so important you schedule it during lunch? You hate rushing around the city at lunchtime.”
“Since when did I start reporting to you, Dixie? If I remember right, you left the kitchen when you could no longer stand the heat. Some of us have to hang in there the best way we can.”
They’d arrived at Brenda’s Mazda. Oily black mud had splashed and dried on the rear fenders. The car was scarcely a year old, usually spotless. Dixie had driven Brenda to every auto dealer in town to find the perfect car, a car that “spoke to her.” The white Miata, which Brenda affectionately christened Miles, must have whispered sweet nothings, because Brenda fell in love at first purr of the engine, and treated the auto better than some people treat their pets. Changed the oil every three thousand miles, hand-washed it twice a week, with bumper-to-bumper detailing monthly, and gave it a quick pass-over with a damp chamois anytime it got so much as a flyspeck.
“You must
really
be busy to neglect Miles,” Dixie commented.
Brenda’s knuckles were white as she turned the key in the door lock. One nail had broken off at the quick.
“Dixie, what if you
knew
who was involved in the Coombs assault? With your high-minded ideals, what would
you
do with that knowledge?”
Dixie wasn’t sure how to answer. Coombs was the sort of monster who should be locked away, yet a jury had acquitted him. Legally, he was free to resume life as before, which for him meant preying on unsuspecting women. The only legal mechanism for dealing with that was to wait until he assaulted another woman, and pray the victim filed charges.
Everyone involved in the case knew Coombs was guilty, and Dixie couldn’t deny the moment of jubilation she’d felt on hearing he’d been the victim instead of the victimizer for a change. But whoever assaulted Coombs was technically guilty of the same sort of crime Coombs himself had committed, assault and rape. Only God and State were allowed to mete out punishment. Did that mean monsters
who could flummox the system should be exempt from punishment?
Not in Dixie’s eyes. Such dilemmas had driven her from practicing law. If she knew for certain who Coombs’ attackers were, would she turn them in?
“How about the Carrera disappearance?” she countered quietly. “Is the same someone involved in that?”
Brenda jerked the car door open.
Dixie studied the emotions playing over her friend’s face as she tossed her briefcase and handbag to the passenger seat. Was that emotion guilt or fear? Maybe both.
“Bren, I’m not hypocritical enough to feel sorry about Coombs. But we both know that rough justice is not the answer to plugging all the holes in the legal system. There’s good reason a jury is always made up of twelve individuals—and never the same twelve. Otherwise, personalities, one-upmanship, or the herd instinct to follow the strongest leader would begin to color their decisions. If you know the people responsible for the assault on Coombs—”
“I don’t need a second conscience, Dixie. One is plenty.” Brenda slid onto the contour seat and tried to yank the door shut. But Dixie grabbed it.
“Once a stone starts rolling downhill, it gathers speed. It gets harder and harder to stop. You can stop this one. Now.”
“Dixie, butt out!” Brenda stabbed a key in the ignition.
Still holding the door against Brenda’s effort to close it, Dixie leaned in. “If you were me, Bren, would you butt out?”
The attorney’s face crumpled briefly, then she put the car in gear and began to pull away.
“When you’re ready to talk, call me.” Dixie stepped back so the car door could swing shut. “Otherwise, three o’clock tomorrow for defense class, right? We’ll teach this one together.”
Brenda nodded stiffly. The car screamed out of the parking garage. Dixie considered butting out, as Brenda had requested. She didn’t like confronting her own attitudes about justice; so why should she pressure Brenda? If the
prosecutor knew, or suspected, who the Avenging Angels were, and if she was handling the situation in as professional a manner as she could, Dixie’s meddling wouldn’t help any.
And what if Brenda herself was involved—could Dixie turn her in?
Years earlier, in a seedier part of the city, Brenda had saved Dixie from a crucial moment of bad judgment. The punk brother of a drug dealer Dixie was prosecuting beat a twelve-year-old witness to death. Dixie arrived to talk to the boy she planned to call as a witness and found him bleeding in a pile of dirt and broken crockery. He’d stumbled into a potted plant before falling from the balcony outside his family’s apartment four flights up. From the beginning, he’d been frightened, but willing to testify because he wanted the drug dealers out of his neighborhood before his younger brothers were old enough to be enticed.
The boy hadn’t lived long enough to name his assailant, but Dixie knew who’d killed him. Brenda had been surprised when Dixie didn’t tell the responding officers who she suspected.
“No evidence,” she’d told Brenda. “They’d never hold him on it.” The truth was, Dixie wanted the satisfaction of personally pushing the punk’s face in. So what if she lost her job and landed in jail for assault and battery?
Brenda kept reasoning with Dixie, rolling out every homily in the book: “You can’t save the world. Stick to your job, let the cops do theirs. You have to trust the system.” One old saw finally hit home: “If you wallow in their dirt, Dixie, you’ll never feel clean again.”
Was Brenda wallowing in dirt now? Or was she protecting someone else? Maybe Clarissa Thomas and her husband had decided to go after Coombs rather than be terrorized by him. Or maybe Regan had rounded up a few friends and decided to mete out the justice Coombs escaped in court. Either way, Dixie could’ve left it alone if it stopped with Coombs. But what if one taste of vengeance wasn’t enough?
When did the dirt get too deep, too messy, to merely brush off? Dixie couldn’t ignore her instinct that Brenda was in trouble.
And back at the courthouse, there was at least one other person who seemed worried about her: Julie Colby.
“Since your meeting was a washout, we have time to go to Alroy’s studio. I think he did some of the effects on
Star Voyager.”
Sarina’s words came in a rush, as if heading off whatever Dixie planned to do next.
Dixie herded the girl back toward the courthouse.
“There’s someone else I need to talk to.”
A Metro bus wheezed to a stop at the corner, chuffing the air with diesel fumes.
“Okay, you’ve got things to do.” Sarina stubbornly slowed her pace, allowing the
WALK
light to change. “Only let’s not lose sight of who the paying customer is here.”
“Belle Richards is the paying customer.”
“And my mother pays Richards. Doesn’t that give me some say in where we go?”
“Sarina, your mother doesn’t even know yet that you visited Duncan’s studio the first time. I notice you didn’t volunteer that information—invented a trip to NASA, instead.
Did you have your cover story picked out before realizing you wouldn’t be carting around town on your own?”