'I thought you were going to trust me.'
Dupre twisted in his seat.
'Jon?'
'You won't believe me.'
'Try me.'
Dupre looked away from Amanda.
'You know why I'm here, Jon,' she said in a steady voice. 'I'm the only lawyer who would take your case, the only person who wants to help you. But I can't work in a vacuum.'
Dupre met Amanda's eyes. He spoke slowly, weighing each word.
'Wendell Hayes cut me.'
'With the shiv?'
'That's right.'
'How did he get the shiv?' Amanda asked. 'Did he wrestle it away from you?'
'Hayes brought the knife into the jail. It was his. He attacked me, not the other way around. I know it sounds insane, but that's what happened.' Dupre brought his cuffed hands to his face and rubbed his forehead. 'This whole thing is a nightmare.'
'How could Hayes smuggle a knife through the metal detector?'
'I don't know. All I know is the moment the guard was out of sight Hayes was on me.' Dupre pointed to the stitches along his forearm and the cuts on his hands. 'I got these blocking the knife. I'm not dead because I caught Hayes in the throat with a lucky punch. He dropped the shiv and I grabbed it and stuck him in the eye.'
'Why didn't you stop then?'
Dupre looked incredulous. 'He was trying to murder me. I was locked in with him. Hayes is huge and I didn't know if he had other weapons. I had to finish him.'
'I've got to level with you, Jon. This sounds . . . far-fetched. Why would Wendell Hayes want to kill you?'
Dupre looked down at the table and shook his head.
'Did he even know you before Judge Grant appointed him?' Amanda asked.
'Not really. My parents knew him, but they weren't friends. Before I was banned from the club I saw him at the Westmont a few times.'
Amanda shook her head. 'This isn't going to fly.'
'You think I'm lying?' Dupre asked angrily.
'I didn't say that. In fact, I have a witness who supports your story.'
Amanda told him what Paul Baylor had concluded after viewing the photographs from the jail infirmary.
'Unfortunately, Paul's testimony alone won't be enough to acquit you,' Amanda concluded. 'Can you think of any other way to prove that Hayes attacked you?'
'No.'
'Then you see our problem. Your word is not going to be enough to convince a jury that a prominent attorney would try to kill a client he hardly knew. What's Hayes's motive? How are we going to counter the argument that Hayes couldn't have smuggled the shiv through the metal detector? You didn't go through a metal detector, and the weapon is the type of homemade job that jail inmates make.'
'I could take a lie detector test.'
'The results aren't admissible in court.'
Dupre threw his head back and slammed his hands on the table. The guard on the other side of the window started to raise his radio to his mouth as he moved toward the door. Amanda waved him off.
'Forget Hayes for a moment. Tell me about Senator Travis,' Amanda said.
'I didn't kill him.'
'Why did you argue with him the day before he was killed?'
'He dated one of my girls and she turned up dead.'
'Lori Andrews?'
Dupre nodded. 'The last time he dated her he beat her up.'
'Did Travis admit that he had anything to do with Lori Andrews's murder?'
'No. He said he didn't touch her. But I didn't believe him.'
'I'm surprised that you cared about Andrews. Her disappearance helped you, didn't it? It got your case dismissed.'
'I'm glad Lori didn't show up, but I didn't want her dead.'
'The police found an earring at the Travis crime scene that's supposed to be identical to one you were wearing when you argued with Hayes at the Westmont.'
