charged Blues, who was blocking her escape. He let her hit him dead on, grunting at the impact, bear-hugging her as he let her pummel his chest until she collapsed, Abby swarming her, searching for the place that hurt most.
Mason tried to find a common genetic thread that tied Abby to Jordan as she stroked Jordan's face and hair, calming her. They didn't look like mother and daughter, each a mirror reflecting the other's past or future. A child could favor either parent or neither, Mason knew from his own experience when well-meaning people told his aunt how he looked like her, though they only shared a faint resemblance. Abby hadn't described her child's father, except as the worst mistake of her life.
Abby was both soft and strong. Jordan had a prickly, hard veneer shot through with hairline fractures. Abby was beautiful, graced with a lively sensuality. Jordan was too ill at ease with herself to summon passion. He knew that their differences didn't exclude the possibility they were mother and daughter, though they underscored how unlikely it was that that link would be found in their blood.
Still, he had witnessed how Jordan and Abby reacted to each other with visceral, intuitive affection. Abby accepted her, welcomed her, and Jordan responded, loosening a bit, clamoring to be like Abby, a woman possessed of her life, not possessed by it. Now, Abby held her in a mother's unconditional embrace, a bond strong enough for the moment.
Wednesday dawned with a cold, biting rain spit from cement clouds, too harsh for the last September days of summer, but a perfect backdrop for surrender. Samantha let Mason bring Jordan in through the police garage, away from the cameras that waited in response to a leak from 'a source close to the investigation,' as Channel 6's Sherri Thomas reported. Samantha cursed the leak, promising Mason she would plug it if she could find it, both of them knowing that leaks and cockroaches were permanent residents of government offices.
Mason didn't object to the quick arraignment, preferring to keep Jordan's courtroom appearances to a minimum and hoping the full press corps might not yet have gotten the word. Judge Pistone made short work of the arraignment, revoking Jordan's bail and ordering a preliminary hearing two weeks after the preliminary hearing on the Davenport murder charge, now only ten days away.
Microphones surrounded Mason when he stepped into the hall outside the courtroom. Sherri Thomas wielded hers like a machete, slicing through the competition, squaring off in front of Mason.
'Mr. Mason,' she said. 'Now that your client is off the streets, is the killing over? What's next?'
Mason knew she wasn't interested in his answer. The story she wanted was in her question. 'Justice,' he told her, brushing aside the rest of the pack.
Chapter 23
Mason loved old westerns. The Magnificent Seven, a movie about seven hired gunslingers who saved a poor Mexican village from a band of outlaws, was one of his favorites. The youngest gunman, barely out of his teens, was infatuated with the romantic heroism of the veterans. Two of the older gunmen indoctrinated him in the perks of their profession, one saying that they had no enemies, the other adding they had no enemies still alive, the last boast a bluff to cloak his lost nerve.
Mason felt like the aging gunslinger, his promise of justice blowing away like dust-bowl dirt as he sat in the courtroom waiting for Judge Pistone to gavel to life the first of Jordan's preliminary hearings. He hadn't lost his nerve, only his way. Jordan's case-now cases-had punched and pulled him in too many different directions. He forced himself to focus on the proof, a mantra he repeated under his breath.
Jordan sat beside him, wearing a charcoal-gray skirt and white blouse Abby had bought her. Modest, not severe, Abby, ever the PR expert, had told her, reminding Jordan to look at the witnesses and the judge. Jordan looked over her shoulder, casting an anxious look at Abby, who nodded encouragement from the first row of spectators. A courtroom deputy evicted a reporter from a spot on the end of the row at the center aisle, making way for Jordan's mother as the bailiff instructed everyone to rise.
Carol Hackett was wrapped in a black suit with a Prozac lining, her face so flat and her eyes so dull, Mason wasn't certain she knew where she was. He checked the courtroom for Arthur Hackett, not finding him among the crowd. That was a bad sign for reasons other than family relations. Witnesses were not allowed in the courtroom until they testified so that they were not influenced by what they heard from other witnesses. Arthur Hackett was going to testify against his daughter.
Patrick Ortiz had taken over for his assistant prosecutor, not because he was grandstanding for votes, but because he loved a meaty case. With his average build, rumpled suits, and elbows-on-the-counter-it's-just- youand-me-talking style, Ortiz was the lawyer as Everyman, inviting his opponents' underestimation. By the end of a trial, jurors wanted to buy him a beer and defense attorneys wanted to spike it.
The purpose of the preliminary hearing was not to establish Jordan's guilt or innocence. It was to establish that there was sufficient proof to require Jordan to stand trial for the murder of Gina Davenport. Ortiz didn't have to prove she did it. He only had to convince the judge that he was likely to prove that at trial.
Stripped of its sensational trappings, Ortiz had a simple case. He had a victim-Gina Davenport. He had a defendant with a motive for murder-Jordan Hackett, who was furious that Dr. Gina refused to continue treating her because of a contract dispute with her father. He had an unimpeachable witness to testify about Jordan's motive- her father, whose pain on testifying would confirm his truthfulness. He had a witness who placed Jordan at the scene-Earl Luke Fisher. He had physical evidence that showed the defendant had laid hands on the victim-Jordan's hair and clothing fibers. Best of all, he had a confession. And-in a world where everything was caught on tape, from drivers running red lights to terrorists flying passenger planes into office buildings-Patrick Ortiz had Gina Davenport's murder on video.
Ortiz explained all of that to Judge Pistone, who, as usual, kept his head down as if it hung on a broken hinge until Ortiz mentioned the videotape. The judge raised an eyebrow, pulling the rest of his face up along with it.
'You intend to introduce the videotape?' the Judge asked Ortiz.
'Yes, sir, I do,' Ortiz answered.
'For what purpose?'
Mason caught the annoyance in Judge Pistone's question, knowing the answer. Ortiz wanted to show the videotape not just because it was evidence of the crime, but because-for a trial lawyer-it was cool. It was cooler than any piece of evidence the prosecutor could have, short of footage showing Jordan pitching Dr. Gina through the glass.
'It's evidence of the crime,' Ortiz answered.
'Does it show who did it?' the judge asked.
'No.'
'You're not worried that I won't believe that Dr. Davenport is dead, are you, Mr. Ortiz?'
Mason bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Displaying gruesome photographs of the victim was the first tactic every prosecutor learned. Every defense lawyer objected to that evidence because its only purpose was to inflame the jury. Everyone knew the victim was dead. That's why they were in the courtroom. Mason had never seen a judge refuse to allow this kind of evidence, especially on the judge's own initiative without an objection from the defense lawyer. Judge Pistone was known for his roughshod treatment of criminal defendants, making his questions all the more surprising. Mason sat back, knowing better than to open his mouth.
'Even so, Your Honor, this sort of evidence is routinely admitted-'
'For a jury. I'm not the jury. I know she's dead. You want to put on some evidence that the defendant did it, I'm all ears. Save the show for the jury. Now get on with it.'
Ortiz got the judge's message and swallowed his irritation. Earl Luke Fisher was the first witness. Earl Luke kept his story straight, testifying that Jordan had let herself in the front door of the Cable Depot just before ten o'clock the night of the murder. He rejected Mason's suggestion on cross-examination that Gina Davenport had let Jordan in as Jordan claimed in her confession. Mason highlighted the inconsistency in the hope of raising doubt in the judge's mind when Ortiz offered the confession into evidence.
Arthur Hackett's entrance into the courtroom elicited a swoon of sympathy from the gallery. His face was ashen, his eyes bleak. He walked with the tired gait of someone as exhausted by the prospect of sleep as of waking, unable to find peace in either state. The destruction of his family had leveled him. He stopped at the end of the first row of spectators, placing his hand on his wife's shoulder for a moment-to rest, to reassure, to gather the
