Kill All the Lawyers

breasts that were barely buds, then facing the camera head-on, legs spread, unashamedly showing a small tuft of hair, strawberry blond in the sun. Smiling goofily in one shot, seemingly innocent. Pouting seductively in another, a child's parody of pornography. A close-up, just a head shot, showed something else. A glassy-eyed stare.

Stoned. She was high on something.

Twelve or thirteen. Naked and stoned. There was something both sad and horrifying about it. As for Kreeger, could there be any doubt? He was both a killer and a pedophile. For a moment, Steve imagined himself as Amanda's father. What would he have done? Beaten Kreeger with a baseball bat. For starters. Crushed every bone in his body, starting with the ankles, working his way up to his demented skull.

Yeah, Kreeger, we're all capable of killing. And maybe we're all capable of justifying it, too.

One of the photos jogged something in Steve's mind, but what was it? He studied the shot. Amanda, her arms thrown back and shoulders leaning forward, like a swimmer, on the blocks at the start of a race.

The bronze statue in the corner of the bedroom.

It wasn't a boy at all. It was Amanda, cast in bronze, her thin torso boylike. Kreeger had chosen to freeze his memory of her at her prepubescent stage. And those paintings on the walls. The Caribbean islanders. Those young girls carrying the produce. Naked from the waist up.

Getting creepy in here.

He heard a sound, and an interior door opened. The bathroom.

Out walked Amanda, her hair wringing wet, a white towel wrapped around her body. Her startled look melted instantly into a playful smile. 'Good morning, sir. You must be the handyman.'

He had expected a scream. Not role-playing.

'My mommy and daddy aren't home,' she continued in a little-girl voice. 'But you can fix anything you want.'

Was the childlike tone the way she spoke to Kreeger? Then and now. In this very room, on this very bed. Creepy had just become downright base and vile.

'Nothing here I could fix.' Steve dropped the album back in the drawer. 'Too big a job.'

'Don't you like my pictures?' She giggled. When he didn't answer, she unwrapped the towel and dropped it to the floor. 'Which do you like better, the old me or the new me?'

Steve hadn't moved from the corner of the bed. She stepped closer, spreading her legs, pressing her inner thighs against his knees, pinning him in place. Her skin was burnished red from the hot shower, her breasts at eye level, nipples taut. If she moved any closer, he could suffer a detached retina.

'Uncle Bill likes the old me better.' Her tone one of mock sadness. 'When I was thirteen, I could lock my ankles behind my head.'

'You should have tried out for the Olympics.'

'Uncle Bill says my boobs are too big now, but I mean, I'm not exactly a cow, right?' She moved her shoulders from side to side, her breasts barely jiggling just inches from his nose.

'Your breasts are fine, Amanda.'

'Uncle Bill likes them small. Little tulips, he calls them.' She plopped into his lap, her legs spread, facing him, straddling his thighs. 'You sure you like mine?'

'What's not to like?' Sounding like his father. Feeling like a schmuck, a real nudnik.

'So why don't you touch them?' A whiny child's voice. 'You can, you know. You can kiss my boobies and do anything you want.'

He didn't move.

She turned sideways so that one breast slid across his cheek, smooth and warm against his skin. She made a humming sound and said, 'You need a shave, but it feels good.'

'You're a bad girl.'

'So spank me.' She slid sideways across his lap and flipped over, arching her back so that her bottom was hoisted just above his knees. He saw the jellyfish tattoo again, tentacles streaming down each buttock.

'If I spank you, will you be good?'

'I'll be so-o-o good.' Another girlish giggle. 'Unless you want me to be so-o-o bad.'

He hesitated, weighing the options.

'What are you waiting for, Uncle Steve?'

Uncle Steve.

The name sounded repulsive on her lips.

He drew back his arm and slapped her butt as hard as he could with an open palm. A one-handed smack as loud as a marlin hitting the water.

'Ow! What the fuck!' She leapt off him, yelping, all traces of jailbait vanished from her voice. 'You bastard! That hurt like hell!'

'Sorry, Amanda, but I'm not your Uncle Steve.' He got to his feet and started for the door.

'I'm gonna tell Uncle Bill what you did.'

'What'd I do?'

'Raped me.'

'Right. Gave you a candy bar and had my way with you.'

'He'll believe me. And then you know what he'll do?'

'Hit me on the head and dump me into the Jacuzzi? Like he did to your mother.'

A laugh came from her mouth, but her eyes were hard, narrow slits. 'Is that what you think happened?'

'The jury called it manslaughter. But you and I know better, don't we, Amanda? We both know Bill killed your mother so he could be with you.'

'That's crazy.' Another laugh, sharp as barbed wire. 'You've got everything backwards.'

Steve longed to ask the question: 'So what happened, Amanda? What happened the night your mother drowned?' But sometimes the best cross-examination is silence-the best question, the one unasked. Leave a moment of dead calm, and the witness might just fill in the gap.

'Uncle Bill didn't kill my mom, silly,' Amanda Lamm said. 'I did!'

Jogging toward the car, Steve played back what Amanda had told him. She and her mother were spending the weekend at Kreeger's house. Her mother found her on the pool patio, smoking some weed. They had a blistering argument, Mom screaming she'd lose custody if Amanda didn't clean up her act, the girl screaming back that she gave Bill more pleasure than Mom did, and the only reason he kept the old lady around was to be close to Amanda. Her mother slapped her. Amanda picked up a skimmer pole-the 'pool thingie,' she called it-and hit back. Somehow, her mother ended up in the hot tub and drowned. Later that night, after the paramedics had carted Mom away, with the police investigating, good old Uncle Bill tucked Amanda into bed with warm milk, a handful of pills, and the promise that he would cover for her.

But that's not what really happened. Amanda was lying.

No. Lying is the wrong word, Steve thought. Amanda could pass a polygraph exam because she believed her own story.

But Steve felt sure she hadn't killed her mother: Kreeger simply convinced her that she had. How hard could it have been for him? Amanda was a thirteen-year-old with a drug problem. Her parents were going through a horrific divorce. An older man had started paying attention to her. A devious and manipulative man who preyed on her insecurities and took her to his bed.

Steve tried to picture the end of that horrific night, Kreeger leaning over Amanda's bed. What did he whisper to her? How did he shape her memories?

'I took care of everything, Amanda. Don't worry.'

'What happened, Uncle Bill?'

'I told them your mother slipped and hit her head. It'll be all right.'

'What will?'

'You never intended to hit her.'

'I hit my mother?'

That was the only version of events that made sense to Steve. Nancy Lamm, who had her own addiction problems, discovered Kreeger was drugging her daughter and having sex with her. Nancy argued with Kreeger,