themselves before moving out into the private sector. Under Vail's careful guidance, they handled the bulk of the 2,600 murders, robberies, rapes, aggravated assaults, burglaries, car heists, child molestations, and white-collar felonies the DA's office handled every year.
The Wild Bunch was something else. Young, aggressive, litigious, and brilliant, they took on the complex, multifarious cases, acting as a team. Although they were extremely competitive, they were bonded by mutual respect, arduous hours, meagre pay, and the chance to learn from the master. Some, like Parver, had applied for the job. Others had been tracked down by the tenacious Naomi Chance. Through the four or five years they had been together, each had become a specialist in a certain area and had learned to depend on the others. They were backed up by Stenner and his investigators, seasoned cops who were experts at walking the tightrope between statutory compliance and forbidden procedures. They were all cunning, adroit, resourceful. They questioned legal theory and were not above taking tolerable risks if the payoff was high enough, and on those rare occasions when they screwed up, they did it so spectacularly that Vail, an outrageous risk-taker himself, was usually sympathetic.
The young lawyers had one thing in common: they all loved the courtroom. It was why Naomi and Vail had picked them, a prerequisite. Like it was for Vail, the law was both a religion and a contest for them; the courtroom was their church, their Roman Coliseum, the arena where all their competitive juices, their legal knowledge, their resourcefulness and cunning were adrenalized. Vail had also instilled in each an inner demand to challenge the law, to attack its canons, traditions, statutes, its very structure, while they coaxed and manoeuvred and seduced juries to accept their perception of the truth. It was his fervent belief that this legal domain had to be defied and challenged constantly if it was to endure. He insisted that they spend two or three days a month in court, studying juries and lawyers, their timing, their tricks, their opening and closing statements, and he watched with satisfaction as each developed his or her own individual styles, his or her own way of dealing with this, the most intriguing of all blood sports.
The whole team disliked James Wayne Darby intensely. He was brash, arrogant, swaggering, and flirtatious towards the women on the team and surly towards the men. His lawyer, Paul Rainey, was just the opposite, a gentleman, but a hardcase, with a strong moral streak. He believed passionately in his clients. So far, no charges had been brought against Darby.
Parver was hungry to try another case to get over her recent defeat. Darby could be it - if they could break his story. But Vail was aware that Parver's eagerness could also be her undoing.
'This is our last shot at Darby,' he told Parver. 'Just remember, Paul Rainey can kill you with a dirty look. If he gets pushy, ignore him. You know the playing field; if he gets offside, I'll jump on him. You stay focused on Darby. Just keep doing what you do best.'
'I know,' she said.
'Do you have anything new?'
'Not really. There's one thing. The phone number?'
'Phone number?'
'The slip of paper with Poppy Palmer's phone number.'
Parver went through a thick dossier of police data, coroner's reports, evidence files, and interviews, finally pulling out a copy of the slip of paper, which she laid before Vail.
'This is the note that Darby claims he found beside the phone,' she said. It was a ragged piece of notepaper with the entry: Pammer, 555-3667.
'He says Ramona Darby must have written the note because he didn't - and also Palmer's name is misspelled. Two handwriting analysts had failed to come up with a conclusive ID.'
'So…?'
'So suppose he wrote it and left it there for Ramona to find. Or… suppose he left it there
'Only if we get him into court. There isn't any case at this point. We don't have a damn thing to take to a grand jury.'
'There's some strong evidence here,' she said defensively.
'All circumstantial,' he argued. 'You can call it whatever you want: evidence, conjecture, guesswork, insinuation, circumstance, lies, whatever, it's all for one purpose. Define the crime and lure the jury into separating your fact from the opposition's fiction - and right now we don't have one, single hard fact to nail this guy with.'
'True. But suppose we could panic Palmer? She backed up his story. If she's looking at perjury and accessory before the fact…'
