growing up. Whether it was an award for something she did in sports or school, half the time her parents weren't even there. And just recently, after she had won the Texas Trial Lawyers Association's highest honor, her father had responded over the phone by saying, 'That's real nice. What'd they eat at the dinner?'
'Did you ever think you might like to know why or what I'm upset about, Taylor?' she asked, suddenly mad at her husband for a lifetime of underappreciation.
'Yeah,' he said. 'Sure.' But his feet remained on the coffee table, his eyes on the screen.
'Can you shut that off for a minute?' she said.
'Honey, it's a good part right now,' he told her, eyes still glued to the set. 'Give me a minute…'
'Fine,' Casey said. She shot off the couch and stomped all the way up the broad spiral staircase to get ready for bed. When she was in her nightshirt, she went to the top of the stairs. She could faintly hear the movie echoing through the long hallways and off the marble walls of the magnificent entryway. He was still watching. She returned to the bedroom and lay down but couldn't sleep. He was obviously going to watch to the conclusion. She was in the middle of an enormous case, a case everyone in all of Texas was talking about, and her husband couldn't even pause his sophomoric action movie to discuss her concerns. It was infuriating.
When he finally did come to bed, she gave him a good dose of silence and the stiffest body language she could muster. He kissed the back of her head anyway, pulled on his sleeping mask, and dropped off to sleep like a champion. Casey twisted under the covers in an attempt to wake him and let him know she was still unsettled, but to no avail. Taylor was out. She lay alone for almost an hour and then felt her way past the fluted columns supporting the archway into the bathroom. She carefully closed the door before feeling for the light switch. Beside the sink on her side of the bathroom, she fished through the ornately carved cabinet until she found a sleeping pill. It wasn't something she liked to do, but with the trial tomorrow and the mysterious conference in chambers, she needed some sleep.
In the morning, it was obvious to Casey that Taylor was now mad at her for being mad at him-so she was mad right back.
On her way into town, Casey turned up the music on the radio louder than normal. She found a song she could sing along with and tried to lose herself in the music, but it kept coming back to her. Her marriage was a farce. It wasn't the fight. It was what was behind the fight. There was nothing there. He didn't really care about her. She was a trophy. She had to face that fact. Her career, her efforts, her cares and concerns were simply interesting novelties for conversation at dinner parties. She saw the way he looked at other women. She was no fool.
Or was she? Had she been kidding herself when she brushed off his roving eyes as a man who simply appreciated beautiful things? There had been other signs as well, now that she allowed herself to think about it. Sometimes he would go on trips and she wouldn't hear from him for a day or two. Then there were phone calls to the house late at night. When she answered, the callers would hang up. Was that just chance or was something there? When they argued, how could it not affect him if she was the only thing in his life? Well, maybe she wasn't the only thing in his life.
That wouldn't be fair. He was the only thing in hers. Yes, she was attracted to the notion of hobnobbing with the social elite. She felt comfortable with his set of friends and the things they did, weekends in New York, holidays in Tahiti or Paris, cocktail parties at the Ritz. And his friends accepted her. She liked that, and she liked his suave manner, his money, and his good looks. But those things were frivolous charms. Beneath all that, she really loved him. She loved him and now she wondered for the first time if he loved her back. Tears began to spill down her cheeks. Without a sniff she wiped them away and turned the music even louder.
Casey was thankful when she finally reached the courtroom steps. Most of her waking hours were spent being a lawyer, and in that world, despite its inevitable disappointments, she was a happy woman. She locked away her haunting suspicions and focused on the unusual request by the judge to see her. When she entered his office, Hopewood was already sitting opposite the judge's imposing desk. His hands were folded patiently across his prodigious belly. His smile told her something bad was coming.
'Sit down,' Rawlins told her.
Casey did.
'Glen has some information that he wants brought into evidence,' Rawlins said, looking down his nose through his reading glasses at a document on his desk. 'Obviously, you need to know about it.'
Rawlins looked at the DA, who unfolded his hands and said, 'We have a like crime that we've linked Lipton to. About six months before Marcia Sales was murdered, a young woman was killed in Atlanta. Like Marcia Sales, she was a law school student. Like Ms. Sales, she was disemboweled and her gall bladder was missing. Also as with Marcia Sales, the crime, although heinous and bizarre, apparently wasn't sexual in nature.'
'You have hard evidence linking my client to that crime?' Casey demanded, cloaking her distress in hostility.
Hopewood looked at Rawlins, then back to Casey before saying, 'Not physical evidence, but the girl attended a seminar given by Lipton two months before her death. It's a crime so similar that even you would have to agree that there is only one killer…'
'I agree to nothing,' Casey said tempestuously. 'You have no basis to submit this into evidence.'
'Well, that, Ms. Jordan,' Rawlins interjected, 'is for me to decide. I am the judge…' He let his scowl sink in before saying, 'I'm adjourning the trial until tomorrow afternoon. I'll hear arguments from you both at one o'clock.'
'How can you even consider a hearing?' Casey cried. 'This is totally immaterial! If you let him parade that out in front of a jury, they'll take it as a propensity. Thousands of people attend Professor Lipton's seminars every year.'
'I'd like to have it admitted as a common plan,' Hopewood told her. 'To show the common scheme here. The pattern is quite relevant.'
'Both of you save it for tomorrow afternoon,' Rawlins barked. 'I told you there's a hearing, so there's a hearing. Now, I have work to do.'
With that, the judge dropped his head like a puppet and began going through his mail as if neither attorney was even there. Casey shot a dirty look at Hopewood, then got up and left.
Lipton had been moved from the county jail to the public safety building across the street for the trial. And although it irked her to give in to his overbearing demands to know every detail of the case, this was a development any client had a right to know, so Casey went directly over to apprise him of the situation. As she crossed the street in front of a police cruiser with two officers who'd stopped to gawk at her legs, she wondered if what Hopewood was saying was true. She really believed Lipton's story, not just because it was her job. She thought his story was quite credible. But now, even though she was confident that she could have the information about the dead girl in Atlanta suppressed from the jury, the knowledge of it made her own convictions about his innocence seem almost ludicrous.
Because he was at the safety building, Casey had to talk to her client through a glass window in a smelly little cubicle whose corners were dark with ancient scum.
'What's going on?' he demanded even before he was in his seat on the other side of the glass. He already knew from the guards that he wasn't going to court that morning, but he didn't know why.
Casey looked at him carefully. While his facial expression and body language were under control, there was a wild light in the professor's eyes that she hadn't seen before.
'The DA found a girl in Atlanta who was killed the same way as Marcia Sales,' she said, watching him closely.
Lipton showed no outward reaction. But while he digested the news, Casey could see from his eyes that his mind was spinning. She thought that was a bad sign until he said, 'So, they know now that it's not me.'
Casey was confused and couldn't hide it. It was the last thing she had expected him to say. She thought she read guilt in his eyes, but the words he spoke were stunningly innocent.
'If it happened again,' he said, with the smile of a man who has learned a small trick, 'and I'm in jail, then whoever it is, is still out there. I am exonerated.'
'No,' Casey said, shaking her head, but understanding that she had neglected to say when the girl had been murdered. 'The girl was killed before Marcia Sales, six months before… and about two months after attending one of your seminars at Emory.'
Lipton furrowed his brow and brought his hand up to his chin, a professorial pose.
'It must have been Sales,' he said, looking up. 'Who else could have done it? He must have planned to kill Marcia well in advance…'
Casey didn't know whether she could buy that idea or not, but she didn't want to waste her time thinking about it. It was improper of her, really. The professor was her client, and she was sworn to advocate for him as best she could.
'Maybe it was him,' she admitted. 'But, as you know, I don't think there's any way even Van Rawlins would allow that information into court, even if they had conclusive proof against you, which they don't.'
'Listen,' the professor said. 'They're going to use People v. Molineux to try and get it in under common plan or scheme. It's an old case from New York around the turn of the twentieth century. But you're right, it shouldn't succeed, although with Rawlins we'll want to make your brief airtight. Go right to
Casey nodded that she did. She couldn't help being impressed by his instant recollection of specific cases on an isolated legal issue. She had always known he was brilliant. Students at the law school invariably said he had a photographic memory. She had doubted that until he appeared at a third-year student's graduation party one May afternoon. After a few drinks, Lipton began to show off his memory by answering questions about the phone book. Casey didn't believe it was anything more than a trick until she took the book and showed him page 187 for all of three seconds. After taking the book away, Casey eyed him warily and asked what was the number of Alan Cutler. Lipton rattled it off at once.
Suddenly she was ashamed of ever having doubted her former professor's innocence. She hoped the suspicion in her voice hadn't been noticeable.
'How is everything?' she said haltingly, hoping to rebuild any rapport she might have damaged with her suspicious questioning. 'I mean, in here, in the safety building.'
'Oh, it's not unlike the county jail,' he told her with a forced smile. 'But I'm looking forward to being out. I'-a silly little chortle escaped Lipton's throat and he looked at her slyly-'I'm looking forward to having a woman again, my dear. I am a man of passionate humors. I want a woman and a good Cuban cigar, a Cohiba to be exact, and a bottle of Opus merlot.
'Is it difficult for you to think of my earthly desires?' he said, laughing softly again. He was obviously enjoying himself.
'Of course not,' she said uncomfortably. In truth, any talk about someone else's sex life made her cringe. Just as unsettling was his sudden gleeful conviviality, and she wished she'd never taken their conversation into personal territory. During all their previous interactions, he had maintained the detached posture of a pedagogue, treating her like an eager student. She much preferred that, however, to his intimacy.
'Good,' he said lightly. 'I like a woman who isn't a prude. Is your little assistant a prude?'
Casey was stunned by the question.
'I don't think Patti's personal characteristics are anything we need to discuss, Professor Lipton,' she said reservedly.
'But why not?' Lipton said. 'Why can't we have a little gossip between us? It's always business, but we know each other well enough now to be beyond that. Is she
