Overkill

other cases?”

“Oh,” she said, her face instantly turning red. It was the same blush she’d displayed at an earlier court appearance, back when Judge Wexler had made a reference to Jaywalker’s reputation for indiscretion. Now, as then, her steely exterior had cracked just a bit, allowing the Katie in her to emerge.

“No,” she said. “I have no other cases on this morning.”

“Good,” said Jaywalker. “I need a cup of coffee, and I’d love you to join me.”

She looked around. He couldn’t tell if she was checking to see if any of her supervisors were in the area, or hoping to find an excuse to turn him down. But there were no supervisors or excuses in sight. Just defendants, family members, court officers, and other lawyers waiting around for an elevator to show up.

“Okay,” she said. “But it’s got to be Dutch treat. You understand I can’t allow you to pay for me. It would be-”

“Perish the thought,” said Jaywalker.

At Jaywalker’s insistence, they bypassed the first-floor luncheonette and found a place a block west, on Lafayette Street. In-house loyalty was one thing, but ptomaine poisoning was quite another.

She ordered coffee and a bagel, he tea with lemon.

“You should eat something,” she said. For some reason, women were always telling him that. Maybe it was the combination of his being six feet tall and weighing a hundred and fifty pounds. Okay, a hundred and forty- eight.

“I try to make it a point to avoid eating before five o’clock,” he said.

“That’s terrible. Don’t you like food?”

“I love food,” he explained. “But I’m a binge eater. So I put off eating till the end of the day. Postponed gratification.”

“That’s really, really bad for you.” Then again, maybe something about him brought out the mothering instinct in them.

“I’m sure you’re right,” he agreed. “And it’s not like I’m recommending it or anything. I was just answering your question.”

“Which makes you one for two.”

“Excuse me?”

“I actually asked you two questions,” she said. “You only answered one of them.”

And here he thought he’d been paying close attention to her. He stared at her for a moment from across the booth that separated them, and in the process managed to lose track of the conversation. He’d forgotten how pretty she was, glasses and all. But suggesting she try contacts would be way over the line, wouldn’t it? Particularly if it turned out she had some terrible condition that prevented her from wearing them.

“You only answered one of my questions,” she said again.

“What was the other one again?” He truly had no idea.

“I asked you, ‘What witnesses?’”

“Ahhhh.” He laughed at her segue back to business. “That question. All right, but you still haven’t answered one of mine.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Only this time, the mock clearly overtook the serious. Somehow, in less than an hour’s time, she’d gone from Ms. Darcy to Katherine, and now she was threatening to morph all the way into the elusive Katie. He thought of The Three Faces of Eve but decided against mentioning it.

“I’m not changing the subject,” he said instead. “You were supposed to let me know how many times Teresa Morales had seen my client before she picked him out at a lineup.”

“So I was,” she admitted.

“So you tell me that,” he said, “and I’ll tell you who my witnesses are.”

“Sorta like, I’ll show you mine, you show me yours?”

“Sorta like,” he echoed.

No blush in sight this time. Too bad.

“Okay,” she said. “Teresa Morales says she knew your client from the neighborhood, that she’d seen him at least a dozen times, at least half of those for extended periods of time. I meant to put that on the record this morning. I will next time.”

So the lineup had indeed been confirmatory, meaning Jaywalker wouldn’t get a hearing into how it had been conducted. On the plus side, Teresa’s testimony that there’d been as many as a dozen pre-shooting encounters between Jeremy and the Raiders would corroborate Jeremy’s account of being constantly harassed by them.

Jeremy and the Raiders. Wasn’t that a rock group?

“Your turn,” said K. T. Darcy.

“Fair enough. The first witness I’m looking for is a former barber named Frankie something.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He was named Frankie something, even if Jaywalker happened to know what the something was. He didn’t want Darcy’s investigators getting to his witnesses before he did. He was willing to play this show-me game, but only up to a point. And that point was located right before revealing so much that it might hurt his client.

“What’s this Frankie going to say?” she asked.

“Frankie says he witnessed an encounter between my client and the gang. I’m sorry, the Christian youth group. Only now Frankie’s retired, and all I know is he’s supposed to be somewhere in Puerto Rico. Probably the rain forest.”

“And?”

“And the other witness,” said Jaywalker, “is a young lady who goes by the name Miranda.”

“Might that be Miranda Raven?”

“It might be.” Jaywalker nodded. Actually, he’d intended to fudge on her last name, too, and was surprised to learn that Darcy not only knew it but had it on the tip of her tongue.

“We’re looking for her, too,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” said Darcy. “Have you spoken with her yet?”

“Uh, not exactly.”

“Well, we have,” said Darcy. “And she corroborates our other witnesses’ accounts of the fight and the shooting.”

“Including the shot between the eyes?” Jaywalker asked, his voice audibly catching on the word eyes.

“Including the shot between the eyes,” said Darcy. “The one where the victim’s lying on his back, begging for his life. And your client calmly takes it away from him.”

“Calmly? Miranda said calmly?”

“Okay,” said Darcy. “Maybe that wasn’t precisely the word she used. But find her if you can, and talk to her. Then get back to me, and we’ll compare what she tells you with the statement she wrote out and signed for the detectives.”

For a moment Jaywalker was speechless. When he recovered, it was to ask, “How about showing me her statement now, so I can confront her with it?”

“Were you going to tell me her last name?”

“No,” said Jaywalker. “No, I wasn’t. Mea culpa.”

“How about Frankie the Former Barber?”

“His last name I honestly don’t know,” he lied.

“You talk with Miranda,” said Katherine Darcy. “And then we’ll take a look at her statement together.”

God, she was good.

The check came to $5.75, and after protesting that her having had a bagel meant she should pay most of it, she relented and agreed to split it down the middle. Outside on the street, Jaywalker thanked her for having joined him. “Too bad the stakes of this case are so high,” he told her. “Otherwise, it would be fun.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Maybe some other time.”

Afterwards, he played those last four words over in his head fifty times before coming to the conclusion that