I made a brief computer stop to check out Melvin Jackson and get
directions to the address Johnson had given me.
I ran Jackson for both local and out-of-jurisdiction convictions.
Nothing but a two-year-old DUI and a pop for cocaine residue a year
before that. Maybe the second one sounds major, but a stop with some
burnt rock in your crack pipe translates into a violation and a fine in
Portland, Oregon. What did I expect to find on his record? Repeated
offenses for stalking and kidnapping? Despite common perceptions, a
remarkable number of murder defendants have no prior involvement with
law enforcement.
Next stop: Mapquest. Glenville's one of those new suburbs. You know
the kind: stores in big boxes, houses with four-car garages on
quarter-acre lots, plenty of Olive Gardens for family dining. I'd
watched it grow over the past five years, passing it on the freeway
each time I drove to the coast. But I'd never be able to find my way
around it without a little virtual help.
I clicked on the option for driving directions and then entered the
addresses for the courthouse and the construction site. Two seconds
later, voila turn-by-turn directions with accompanying map. Whenever I
try to figure out how a computer can provide driving directions between
any two points in this enormous country of ours, it starts to hurt my
head. I choose to chalk it up to magic.
I hoofed it to the county lot, checked out a blue Taurus from the
fleet, and did my best to follow the painfully detailed directions.
Around mile four on Highway 26, my cell rang. MCT again. They should
have been using my DA pager to reach me. I was careful not to give my
cell number out for work.
The call turned out to straddle the line between the personal and
professional, a differentiation I'd successfully maintained until a
couple of months ago. It was Chuck.
'Where are you?' he asked.
'Just past the zoo. I'm on my way to Glenville.'
'Good, I was hoping to catch you in the car. Sorry to bug you on a
call-out, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Mike and I are
working on this thing too. It didn't sound like Johnson got a chance
to tell you.'
No, he hadn't. This was great. A relationship with Chuck broke not
only my no-cop rule but also the completely independent,
profession-neutral rule against dating Chuck. He makes me, in a word,
crazy. He is stubborn, headstrong, mule-minded, and every other
synonym for a particular characteristic that does not blend well with
what I like to call, in contrast, my well-established personality.
Dating him would be hard enough; working with him would only make
matters worse.
'Russ Frist is running MCU now, and we haven't talked yet about how to
handle this. Hell, Chuck, you and I haven't even talked about it.
Given that we haven't spoken to each other in two weeks, maybe this is
a non issue But right now my mind is on this case, not our
relationship. Your working on this investigation is going to force the
issue.'
Chuck, of course, had no problem talking about 'us' just minutes after
learning about a murder. He had been in MCT for nearly two years now,
which translates into roughly forty homicide cases. Work in this
business long enough, and you see death as a detached professional, the
way a plumber must view a burst pipe.
'Whoa, back it up, Kincaid. I haven't talked to you for two weeks
because you said you needed time away with Grace.'
'And I did. All I was saying, Chuck, is that things were all hot and
lusty for a while there, and now you haven't talked to me in two weeks.
More importantly, I'm in the middle of my first murder case and just
can't deal with this right now.'
'Hot and lusty, huh?'
Damn him. 'Shut up and answer the question.'
'I didn't hear a question, counselor.'
Crazy. That's what he makes me. Two minutes on the phone with him,
and I already had visions of running my Jetta off the road. I hung up
instead.
The phone rang immediately.
'I think we got disconnected,' he said.
'You know these pesky west hills,' I replied.
'Cut you off every time. Look, I'm sorry I pissed you off. All I was
trying to say was that you went to Maui because you needed some space.
The funny thing about space is that you only get it if the people close
to you step back and give it to you.'
'I needed to get away from work and from my house, where really bad
