unit attached to her right away. Someone to sit with her during police interviews. Someone to let her know not to talk to the press. Someone to maintain the thread of contact between her and the county attorney's office. Someone to keep tabs on her.”
“It sounds like what you want is a baby-sitter. I've got cases ongoing.”
“We'll shift some of your caseload.”
“Not Willis,” she said, then grimaced. “As much as I'd like to dump him. And absolutely not Melanie Hessler.”
“I could take Hessler, Kate,” Rob insisted. “I sat in on the initial meeting. I'm familiar with the case.”
“No.”
“I've worked with plenty of rape victims.”
“No,” she said as if she were the boss and the decision was hers to make.
Sabin looked annoyed. “What case is this?”
“Melanie Hessler. She was raped by two men in the alley behind the adult bookstore she works in downtown,” Kate explained. “She's very fragile, and she's terrified about the trial. She couldn't take me abandoning her—especially not to a man. She needs me. I won't let her go.”
Rob huffed a sigh.
“Fine,” Sabin declared impatiently. “But this case is priority one. I don't care what it takes. I want this lunatic out of business. Now.”
Now that the victim would garner more than a minute and a half on the six o'clock news. Kate had to wonder how many dead prostitutes it would have taken to get Ted Sabin to feel that same level of urgency. But she kept the question to herself and nodded, and tried to ignore the sense of dread that settled in her stomach like a lead weight.
Just another witness, she told herself. Just another case. Back to the usual, familiar entanglements of her job.
A dead billionaire's daughter, a case full of politicos, a serial killer, and someone winging in from Quantico. Someone from ISU. Someone who hadn't been there five years ago, she had to hope—but knew that hope was a flimsy shield.
Suddenly, Las Vegas didn't seem so bad after all.
3
CHAPTER
“THIS HAPPENED IN the night. It was dark. How much could she have seen?” Kate asked.
The three of them walked together through the underground concourse that ran beneath Fifth Street and connected the government center to the depressing Gothic stone monstrosity that housed the Minneapolis city government offices and the Minneapolis police department. The underground corridor was busy. No one was going out onto the street voluntarily. The gloomy morning had turned dour as a leaden sky sank low above the city and let loose with a cold, steady rain. November: a lovely month in Minnesota.
“She told the police she saw him,” Rob said, trundling along beside her. His legs were short for his body, and hurrying gave him the toddling gait of a midget, even though he was of average height. “We have to hope she saw him well enough to identify him.”
“I'd like a composite sketch in time for the press conference,” Sabin announced.
Kate ground her molars. Oh, yeah, this was going to be a peach of a case. “A good sketch takes time, Ted. It pays to get it right.”
“Yes, well, the sooner we get a description out there, a picture out there, the better.”
In her mind's eye she could envision Sabin wringing information out of the witness, then tossing her aside like a rag.
“We'll do everything we can to expedite the situation, Mr. Sabin,” Rob promised. Kate shot him a dirty look.
The city hall building had at one time in its history been the Hennepin County courthouse, and had been constructed with a sense of sober grandiosity to impress visitors. The Fourth Street entrance, which Kate seldom had cause to pass through, was as stunning as a palace, with a marble double grand staircase, incredible stained glass, and the enormous
The criminal investigative division of the PD had been crammed into a gloomy warren of rooms at the end of a cavernous hall while remodeling went on in their usual digs. The reception area was cut up with temporary partitions. There were files and boxes stacked everywhere, beat-up dingy gray metal file cabinets had been pushed into every available corner. Tacked to the wall beside the door into the converted broom closet that now housed sex crimes investigators was a sign that proclaimed:
TURKEY WAKE!
NOVEMBER 27
PATRICK'S
1600HRS
Sabin gave the receptionist a dismissive wave and took a right into the homicide offices. The room was a maze of ugly steel desks the color of dirty putty. Some desks were occupied, most were not. Some were neat, most were awash in paperwork. Notes and photographs and cartoons were tacked and taped to walls and cabinets. A notice on one side of the door ordered: HOMICIDE—LOCK UP YOUR GUNS!
Telephone receiver pressed to his ear, Sam Kovac spotted them, scowled, and waved them over. A twenty- two-year veteran, Kovac had that universal cop look about him with the requisite mustache and cheap haircut, both sandy brown and liberally threaded with silver.
“Yeah, I realize you're dating my second wife's sister, Sid.” He pulled a fresh pack of Salems from a carton on his desk and fumbled with the cellophane wrapper. He had shed the jacket of his rumpled brown suit and jerked his tie loose. “That doesn't entitle you to inside information on this murder. All that'll get you is my sympathy. Yeah? Yeah? She said that? Well, why do you think I left her? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is that right?”
He bit at the tab on the cigarette wrapper and ripped the pack open with his teeth. “You hear that, Sid? That's the sound of me tearing you a new one if you print a word of that. You understand me? You want information? Come to the press conference with everybody else. Yeah? Well, same to you.”
He slammed the receiver down and turned his scowl on the county attorney. His eyes were the green-brown of damp bark, bloodshot, and hard and bright with intelligence. “Damn newsies. This is gonna get uglier than my aunt Selma, and she has a face that could make a bulldog puke.”
“Do they have Bondurant's name?” Sabin asked.
“Of course they do.” He pulled a cigarette from the pack and let it dangle from his lip as he rummaged through the junk on his desk. “They're all over this like flies on dog crap,” he said, glancing back at them over his shoulder. “Hi, Kate—Jesus, what happened to you?”
“Long story. I'm sure you'll hear it at Patrick's tonight. Where's our witness?”
“Down the hall.”
“Is she working with the sketch artist yet?” Sabin asked.
Kovac blew air between his lips and made a sound like a disgusted horse. “She's not even working with
Rob Marshall looked alarmed. “She's not a problem, is she?” He flashed the bootlicker's smile at Sabin. “I suppose she's just shaken up, Mr. Sabin. Kate will settle her down.”
