hide a knife in between little bottles of spices. You hid it-well, you hid it behind an upstairs toilet tank, for example. It was a clever enough spot, but not so clever that it would have eluded the police during the course of a thorough search.
So that part of it made sense.
The only part that didn't was why Samara had been so eager to show him what she claimed she'd just found, and how she thought it proved that someone was framing her. Jaywalker wasn't ready to buy that, not by a long shot. Still, the incident had had its effect on him. Until last night, he'd succeeded in burying Samara's case. He'd ignored it, blocked it out of his thoughts, pretended it no longer existed. Why? Because he was so wrapped up with his own ego, and so afraid he was going to lose his last trial.
Shame on him.
No matter how guilty she might be, Samara Tannen baum still deserved the best effort he could possibly give her. Wasn't that exactly what he'd preached his entire career, the pompous lecture he delivered whenever people asked him how he could represent people he knew were guilty? It was his job to go to war for them, he would in sist, his solemn duty. No less so than if he knew they were innocent. That was what separated him from the hacks, the guys who were in it only for the money, the guys who went through the motions. If a lawyer pulled one punch or held back the tiniest bit because he thought-or even knew — that his client had committed the crime, he was worthless.
Samara deserved better.
Samara deserved nothing less than a warrior.
It was time for Jaywalker to stop sulking in his tent. It was time to drag his armor out of the back of his closet, dust it off and suit up. He had a trial date on a murder case. He might have a guilty client with a ton of evidence stacked against her, but that was no excuse, and now was no time to desert her.
He picked up the phone and punched in Nicolo Le Grosso's number but had to settle for the answering ma chine. 'Nicky,' he said after identifying himself, 'I want you to get to work on Barry Tannenbaum's enemies. Con centrate on anyone who had access to Barry's apartment, and cross-reference that against any of them who might have had access to Samara's place, as well. I know it's a long shot, but it's the only shot we've got at the moment.'
Then he called Samara and told her he was coming over.
'What time is it?' she asked groggily.
He laughed and hung up.
She met him at the door wearing nothing, so far as he could tell, but a short white bathrobe and her ankle bracelet. Yet he could see she'd found time to shower, wash her hair and put on her makeup. Samara's days of jailhouse depri vation were clearly behind her, at least for the time being.
Jaywalker extended the blanket she'd lent him the night before, the one he'd worn home like an idiot.
'It's not like you had to make a special trip,' she said.
'I didn't. I came over because I want to talk some more.'
She let him in, and he followed her as she climbed a flight of stairs, furtively peeking upward like a schoolboy. They ended up in a room he hadn't been in before. She walked to one of two facing club chairs and motioned for him to sit in the other. As she lowered herself and went to tuck her legs beneath her, the bottom of her robe came open, and he looked away, causing her to smile once again at his embarrassment.
'I'm sorry,' he said.
'For looking? Or for not looking?'
'Neither,' he said. 'For last night.'
'I'm the one who woke you up, remember?'
'I do,' he said, 'and now we're even. But I still owe you an apology.'
She raised one eyebrow, a considerable talent in Jay walker's book. As a boy, he'd spent an hour in front of a mirror one afternoon, trying unsuccessfully to master the art. He'd finally concluded it was a girls-only thing.
'What for?' she asked.
'For not taking your case seriously enough.'
She seemed to think about that for a moment, then said, 'Okay, apology accepted.'
'So did you throw out the Seconal?'
'Of course not,' she said. 'I'm the one who knows I didn't put it there, remember?'
He smiled. She was good, he had to give her that much. She was also awfully good to look at, especially in her bathrobe. He stood up, figuring he might not be able to do so if he waited much longer. 'Listen,' he said, 'I want to have a look around, see what else the cops might have missed when they were here.'
They started on the top floor and worked their way down. The search took the better part of an hour, and though it turned up nothing as earthshaking as the Seconal, there were a couple of interesting finds. There was a copy of Samara and Barry's prenuptial agreement, for example, which basically would have left her without a dime if she'd divorced him. There was a drawer full of the skimpiest, sexiest underwear Jaywalker had ever set eyes on.
'Thongs,' explained Samara, stretching the string of one. It was so thin it could have been dental floss. She smiled wickedly as he averted his eyes.
There was a freezer dedicated to nothing but quarts and quarts of ice cream, most of them in designer flavors like Kiwi Mango Moment. And in a kitchen drawer were half a dozen stainless steel steak knives with sharp tips and ser rated cutting edges that, when compared to a photograph Jaywalker had pulled from his file and brought along, looked absolutely identical to the murder weapon, the one found behind the upstairs toilet tank, the one with Barry's blood on it.
He pulled out a second photo, one showing the blood stained blouse. 'What's the story with that?' he asked Samara.
'Mine,' she acknowledged.
'Did you wear it that last evening you spent with Barry?'
She shrugged. 'Who remembers?'
'Well, if you weren't wearing it, where would it have been?'
'In my dresser, I guess, or hanging up in my clothes closet.'
'And this?' he asked, showing her the third and last photo, depicting the bloodstained towel.
'Looks like one of mine.'
He let her talk him into staying for breakfast, or, more properly by that hour, brunch. She had French Vanilla with Ginger Root, topped with chocolate fudge sauce. Where she put the calories, he had no idea. He opted for the Double Dutch Chocolate, with a side of Mango Chutney Sorbet. They ate directly out of the containers, trading oohs and aahs with every shared spoonful. It was fun. It was the first time Jaywalker could remember having fun in… well, in a very long time.
He spent the next two weeks feverishly playing catch up. He read, reread and re-reread every scrap of paper in his file, which by this time had grown into three large card board boxes. He drew maps and charts, and had photo graphs blown up and mounted. He organized everything into subfiles, making extra copies of documents that related to more than one witness, so that at trial he wouldn't have to rummage around for something he needed to put his finger on.
He made notes and outlines for cross-examination. He prepared questions for jury selection. He worked on an opening statement and on a summation. He prepared for the pretrial hearing. He wrote out requests for the judge to include in his charge to the jury.
He bugged Nicky Legs to redouble his efforts on inves tigating Barry Tannenbaum's enemies. And while between them they were able to come up with a handful who'd hated Barry enough to have wished him dead, including two or three who might have had keys to Barry's apartment, none of them had access to Samara's, and none seemed likely candidates to have taken their fantasies and trans lated them into deeds.
He took a couple of suits and a handful of shirts to the cleaners. He shined two pairs of shoes and coordinated them with matching belts. He even uncharacteristically picked out three or four ties, enough to stretch out over what he guessed would be a two- or three-week trial.
Mostly, he spent time with Samara. Convinced that it would be a must for her to take the stand and deny any
