the vic in the mirror the next morning. There was a contusion on her forehead crowning a lump the size of a golf ball. One eye, the flesh around it already swollen, was going to turn black.
A short line of stitches crawled over her swollen lower lip like a black ant. She had a cell phone pressed to one ear. Alerting the scavengers out in the waiting room, or complaining to the mayor how people weren’t safe on the streets, no thanks to her.
He moved past the doctor without acknowledging her, walked up to Judge Moore, took the phone out of her hand, and clicked it off.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“I’ll need your undivided attention, Judge Moore. That is, if you want your assailant caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. You might care about that more now than you did a couple of hours ago.”
She snatched the phone back from him and turned it on, never taking her glare off his face. “I was on the line with my nanny, letting her know I’m going to be late and not to let my daughter see any news on television. I don’t want her to find out from strangers that her mother has been attacked.
“I don’t care what you need, Detective Kovac,” she said. “You aren’t more important than my child.”
Kovac arched a brow and took a step back. So much for her weakened physical state. She looked like a tigress ready to tear his throat out. “My mistake.”
“Yes, it is.”
She looked down then, touched a hand to her forehead, and winced as her fingers brushed against the angry red abrasion. Flesh v. Concrete.
“I’m sorry, Anka. We got cut off. Please get Lucy in her pajamas and put a movie on for her.” She was silent for a moment, listening to the nanny. “Yes, all right. Put her on… Hi, sweet pea,” she said softly, tears welling in her eyes.
Kovac turned a little away from her in order to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping, even though he was.
“No, honey, I won’t be home before you go to bed. I’m sorry… I know I promised, but I had an accident and fell down, and I’m at the doctor now…”
She closed her eyes, and a couple of tears squeezed out from between her lashes. “No, honey, I don’t know what time Daddy will get home… Why don’t you have a slumber party with Anka?”
She touched a knuckle beneath the blackening eye to discreetly wipe away the tears.
Kovac scowled and turned away completely. He didn’t want to feel sorry for Carey Moore. She was no friend to him, certainly no friend to Stan Dempsey, who would never be right again after working the Haas murders. He couldn’t even imagine what Wayne Haas and his son were feeling after hearing about the judge’s ruling against the prosecution. The last thing Kovac wanted was to feel sorry for her.
“I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart… I love you more…” Her voice strained, she said good night and ended the call.
Kovac waited. Liska joined him.
“Did you make her cry?” she whispered, accusatory.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“And you wonder why you’re single.”
“I know why I’m single,” he grumbled. “And I know why I’m going to stay that way.”
“Let’s get this over with.” Judge Moore had her voice and her composure back.
Kovac shrugged. Liska gave him a look of womanly disgust and pushed past him.
“Judge Moore, I’m Detective Liska-”
“I know who you are,” the judge said. “Can we cut to the chase, Detective? I want to go home.”
The resident piped up then. “No, I’m sorry, Judge Moore. You have a concussion. We’ll need to admit you overnight for observation.”
Carey Moore raised her chin and gave the young doctor a glimpse of the steely look she had leveled at many a difficult witness in her days as a prosecutor. “I’m going home to my daughter. I’ll sign a release. Why don’t you get that process started?”
The science club president looked like she didn’t know whether she should be offended or afraid. She disappeared into the hall.
“You might want to reconsider that, Judge Moore,” Liska said. “Someone attacked you.”
“I was mugged. It’s over.”
“With all due respect, you don’t know that.”
Kovac watched her set her jaw as best she could, considering the split lip. She wanted to believe what she wanted to believe.
“You managed to piss off a lot of people today, Judge,” he said. “Maybe someone decided they needed to express themselves in person.”
“He stole my wallet.”
“Bonus.”
“He?” Liska said. “Did you see him?”
“No. He was behind me. The voice was male.”
“Young, old? Black, white?”
“Angry. That’s what I remember. Angry. Full of rage.”
“What did he say?”
“‘You fucking bitch. You fucking cunt,’” the judge said without emotion.
“Did he use your name?” Kovac asked.
“No.”
“You didn’t recognize the voice.”
“No. Of course not.”
“So, he knocked you down, grabbed your purse. That was it?” Kovac said, knowing that that wasn’t so.
She closed her eyes briefly, started to sigh, winced again, and tried to cover that up. Tough cookie, he thought. The mutt had done a number on her. She had to be in a considerable amount of pain, and he knew from experience docs didn’t dole out the good narcotics to people with concussions. They had probably given her some Tylenol. Big deal. Like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite. She had to have one mother of a headache.
“I was going to my car-”
“Did you see anyone in the parking ramp?” Kovac asked.
“No.”
“In the skyway?”
“No. I went to pull my keys out of my purse-”
“You should have had them out before you left the government center.”
She flicked an annoyed look at him. “I dropped my Palm Pilot, bent to pick it up, he hit me from behind, hard across the back, with some kind of club. He kept hitting me, cursing me. I was trying to grab my car keys.”
“Where was your wallet?”
“I dropped my purse when he knocked me down. Everything spilled out of it.”
Kovac and Liska exchanged a glance.
“And he was calling you names, hitting you?” Liska said.
“Yes.”
“‘You fucking bitch, you fucking cunt,’” Kovac said.
“Yes.”
“And when did he go for your wallet?”
“I don’t know. I hit the alarm on my car key. He slammed my head down. I lost consciousness.”
“He took your wallet as he left,” Kovac said.
“I guess.”
Then the wallet hadn’t been his first objective. Purse snatchers snatched purses. Muggers hit and ran. This guy had been focused on his victim, personalized the attack by calling her names, prolonged the attack, grabbed the wallet as an afterthought as he took off.
“He knocked you down from behind and he kept hitting you?” Kovac said. “Where was he? Standing over you?”
“No. Closer. I remember he grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I felt his weight on me.”
