The Letter Of The Law

were never perfect. She thought of her own mother's devotion to a husband who treated her like a chair. Occasionally, he would take his ease with her. Otherwise, he apparently gave her no thought whatsoever.

They'd never done much of anything together besides eat at the same silent dinner table to begin with, although in the early days there was at least a vitality about them. Her mother's pretty cheeks always seemed flushed with sun or wind, and the muscles in her father's forearms bespoke the sinewy strength of a farmer. But then, as the years passed, each of them went to seed. Her father's belly began to hang over his belt, and as her older brother did more and more of the work, his muscles grew flaccid. Her mother's face grew pale and drawn, and her hair began to fade to a mousy gray as she shrank in stature. It wasn't long before disinterest grew into disdain, at least on her father's part. Casey's lot was better than that anyway. If nothing else, Taylor still had a strong sexual hunger for her.

Casey flipped the steak and in the edge of her vision saw something move. Someone had ducked back into the woods bordering the fairway. She searched the cart path that looped around the water, back to the tee, and then snaked along the fairway through the cluster of trees on the near side of the course. There wasn't a cart in sight. Neither was there a golf bag or anything that would indicate the presence of a golfer who'd hooked his shot into the thick woods on the far side of the fairway. The sun was low in the west but not yet below the ridge of hills beyond the golf course. It still burned brightly yellow, and Casey had to shade her eyes and squint toward the spot in the woods where she was almost certain she'd seen the strange movement.

What she needed was a glass of wine. She was jumpy and overreacting to an emotional few days. She took her steak off the grill and cut the flame. With several glances over her shoulder, she went back into the house, stopping to lock the sliding door that led into the kitchen. She set her steak on the granite bar and dumped the broccoli down on the plate beside it.

From the wine rack she removed a good bottle of merlot, opened it, and poured a large glass. While the wine breathed, she went back to the glass door and peered outside for several minutes. The sun had dropped down below the edge of the hills, and the sky was already beginning to turn a deep postcard pink. Casey took little notice of the sky. Instead, she carefully studied the woods that bordered the fairway.

After a while she turned her attention back to her meal. But before sitting down, she went upstairs and took a small Colt 7mm automatic out of the dresser drawer. She set it down beside her plate and took a long sip of wine. The steak was a little underdone, but she ate it anyway, relishing the taste of blood with her wine. Half a bottle later, with her stomach now full, she began to relax once more.

When the doorbell rang, she jumped. They didn't live in the kind of neighborhood where people made house calls. Each house was on its own small estate. Neighbors naturally afforded one another a considerable degree of privacy. But no one else should have been able to get into the development without stopping at the gate. Security would have called to ask her permission to let them in. Pistol in hand, she cautiously approached the front door. Through the ornate beveled glass in the door, she could make out the shadowy form of a man.

With her free hand on the doorknob she said, 'Tony?'

He was the only person she could think of who might be able to get past the security gate without their calling, although even that didn't make sense. The fleeting images she thought she'd seen in the garage and outside came back to her. Whoever it was rang the bell again.

'Tony!' she said as an edge of panic crept into her voice. 'Is that you?'

There was a sidelight next to the door that was cloaked in a translucent curtain. Casey wanted to pull the curtain aside and look out, but something inside her didn't want to be seen peering out like a timid mouse by whoever was there. The man rapped his knuckles hard and loud against the wood of the door. Casey started to feel angry now; angry at her fear and angry at the insistence of whoever was out there. She was no coward. She'd grown up literally fighting like a boy. In that moment, she remembered with pride the shock on her parents' faces when she'd been suspended from school for breaking the nose of an insolent boy. If she had to shoot someone to defend herself, she could do that, too, and without hesitation. Against her better senses, she raised the gun, twisted the lock, and yanked open the door with a ferocious look on her face.

'Ms. Jordan.'

'Detective,' she said, still angry. 'Why in hell are you here?'

'Did I shake you up?' Bolinger asked, eyeing the gun with only mild concern. His badge had been enough to get him through the gates. Bolinger had actually tracked Unger down at the clubhouse. To make the agent feel a part of things, he'd filled him in on the details of his investigation into Lipton's computer, including the titillating details about Roman Empire Ltd., before requesting that Unger process a subpoena.

'No. Yes. You didn't shake me up,' Casey explained, dropping the gun down to her side, 'but I certainly didn't expect to be disturbed by you at home, my home, without warning.'

'Well, I don't mean to disturb you,' Bolinger said sarcastically. 'But my captain wanted me to make sure you knew about Frank Castle and that we're still looking for Donald Sales and I was… in the neighborhood, so to speak.'

'I read the papers,' Casey said defiantly. Actually, she felt like a fool standing there with a pistol in her big T-shirt and a pair of UT athletic shorts. The last time she'd seen Bolinger, she'd been in a charcoal business suit and heels, and the only thing in her hand was a briefcase.

'That's what I said,' he told her, unable to keep his eyes from wandering toward her fine bare legs. 'But the captain, he doesn't want something to happen to you and have anyone say that we should have made you aware of the situation so you could… so you could be more alert than you otherwise might be. But I see you're already prepared for the worst.'

'Are you trying to scare me, Sergeant?' she asked.

'No. You're already scared,' he said placidly. 'That's pretty obvious. Has something happened?'

Casey pressed her lips tightly together and considered the detective. Irrational or not, she was scared. She was still shaking from the unannounced intrusion and the connection it had in her mind to the shadowy fears she'd already experienced. She cleared her throat and said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee, Sergeant?'

'I've been known to drink coffee,' he said, stepping across the threshold and into the house.

Bolinger sat at the kitchen table while Casey put the coffee on.

'That's some view,' he remarked, looking out past the pool, across the water, and down the dark green fairway of the luxuriant golf course and the blood-red sky still framing the hills. 'I never realized getting criminals off was such a lucrative business.'

Casey placed two steaming ceramic mugs on the table and sat down across from Bolinger. 'I'm not a lawyer because of the money, Detective. I do it because I believe in it. Our judicial system is the best in the world, the best in the history of the human race.'

'Wow. That's pretty good,' Bolinger said with a mischievous smile. 'Do you think the judicial system was working good when you got Lipton off?'

'I didn't free Professor Lipton.' Casey sniffed. 'A jury did that. I advocated for him to the best of my abilities. That's what I do. That's what people deserve. I know you're not familiar with it, but it's called the presumption of innocence, Detective.'

Bolinger shook his head. 'Do you think society deserves to have him running around out there, killing innocent young women?'

'Detective,' Casey said, glowering. 'I invited you in for a cup of coffee, not to talk about Professor Lipton. I'd like to know what's being done to find Donald Sales. I would think you'd be looking for him.

'But,' she added sharply, 'I'm only basing that on logic.'

Bolinger sighed and took a swig of his coffee. It was the flavored stuff that cost fifteen bucks a pound. He swallowed it fast to get past the taste and thought wistfully about the Dunkin' Donuts he would have to visit on the way home for a cup of coffee. 'I'm interested in them both. Hey, look, I don't mean to be callous, but I find it pretty ironic that someone who spends her time helping to set criminals free is now concerned about one that's on the loose.'

Casey bit back a caustic response and instead asked, 'Is there any particular reason your captain thinks that I have a reason to worry about Donald Sales?'

'I don't know,' Bolinger said, considering her carefully. 'I guess I haven't thought about it too much. I guess not, really. Sales is probably in Mexico by now, or somewhere.'

'But not here?' Casey asked.

'No. Not here.'

Casey nodded and came quite close to telling him about the things she'd seen.

'There is something I'd like to ask you about Lipton, though,' he continued. 'I'd like to know about his legal seminars.'

'The Letter of the Law,' she said.

'The Letter of the Law?' he asked quizzically.

'The seminars, that's what they're called,' Casey told him. 'He wrote a book, too. They focus on the nuances of our criminal justice system.'

Bolinger took another quick sip and fought back a grimace. 'Lipton had a computer that we confiscated when we arrested him last year. One of our people looked at it, but not very hard. I was thinking that he probably kept his business records on that computer. Would you agree with that?'

Casey looked at him blank-faced. 'I can't really discuss anything about Professor Lipton with you, Sergeant. You should know that. He's my client.'

'I thought he was your client,' Bolinger said. 'And… if you go by the books, he's been tried and acquitted in the case where you represented him. Technically, you're not his lawyer anymore, and you can talk to me about him and you know it. And you also know that if you have information that could prevent a future crime, you not only can tell me, you're ethically bound to.'

'I know the law, Sergeant,' she said impatiently.

'He's gone, you know,' Bolinger said quietly. 'I need to find him, and I'd like to know where it was he conducted these seminars.'

'I really shouldn't be discussing any of this,' she said.

'Can't you just tell me if I'm right? I mean about his computer. I know you have it. I spoke to Michael Dove. He got it from property and gave it to you when you took the case.' Bolinger leaned across the table and dropped his voice in an excited tone, 'I'm going to level with you… I don't think Marcia Sales or the girl in Atlanta were the only ones. I think there were probably girls before and… there'll be girls to come.'

'Detective, I-'

'No! You just listen to me,' Bolinger said, his eyes burning with intensity. 'You don't have to say anything, just listen. I've got a feeling that that computer holds the key to everything, where he was, where he's going. Maybe even a list of women he met over the years at these seminars, a goddamn target list!

'That's how these kinds of people do things,' he continued frantically. 'They don't stop! That job on Marcia Sales was done by someone who'd done it before, probably dozens of times. He took her fucking gall bladder for a trophy, for God's sake!'

Bolinger was boiling over now. He'd been formulating his theory for months, without telling anyone. It had just churned around in his gut fermenting until now. 'That's the kind of crazy shit a serial killer does, that crazy connection. She wasn't raped. She was eviscerated! That's bizarre. It's unheard of. He's probably impotent. He gets off on tying up these women lawyers. He tapes them up, that's his way of controlling them, asserting his dominance. Then he butchers them and takes their gall