“And I'm your boss. I'm in charge,” he said. She could hear the frustration in his voice.
“I don't envy you that job,” she said dryly. “I ought to really antagonize you. You could take me off this powder keg. But I don't want off it,” she admitted. “Must be the Swedish masochist in me.”
“You're exactly who I want with this witness, Kate,” he said. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and smiled like a man with a toothache. “Now who's the masochist?”
“I'm sorry. I don't like being made to feel like a pawn, that's all.”
“Focus on the outcome. We got what we wanted.”
His relationship with Sabin was intact. Her apparent overstepping of boundaries would be written off to her well-known arrogance, Sabin would forgive her because he had the hots for her, and Rob came off looking like a diplomat, if not a leader. Once again the end justified the means. Nothing hurt but her pride.
“I'm not averse to conspiracy, you know,” she said, still miffed. She'd had every intention of stealing Angie away from Sabin's clutches, and she would never in a million years have let Rob Marshall in on the plan. That was what was really grating on her—that Rob had one-upped her. She never wanted to think he was more clever than her or more shrewd or her superior in any way. A hell of an attitude to have toward her boss.
“Have you heard anything back from your friends in Wisconsin yet?” she asked.
“Nothing yet.”
“It'd be nice to know who the hell this kid is. I feel like I'm working with a blindfold on.”
“I've got the videotape of Angie's interviews,” he said, setting his hands at his middle. “I thought it might be helpful to sit down together and go over it. Maybe we could bring Quinn into that too. I'd like to hear his opinion.”
“Yeah, why not?” Kate said, resigning herself. “Let me know when you set it up. I have to get to court.”
Some days it just seemed the better option to stay home and hit her thumb with a hammer. At least that was a pain from which she could easily recover. John Quinn was another matter altogether.
“I WAS AFRAID you weren't coming,” David Willis said with no small amount of accusation. He rushed up to Kate as she made her way around the knots of lawyers in the hall outside the criminal courtrooms.
“I'm sorry I'm late, Mr. Willis. I was in a meeting with the county attorney.”
“About my case?”
“No. Everything is ready to go for your case.”
“I'm not going to have to testify, right?”
“Not today, Mr. Willis.” Kate steered her client toward the courtroom. “This is just a hearing. The prosecutor, Mr. Merced, will be presenting just enough evidence to have the court bind Mr. Zubek over for trial.”
“But he won't call me as a surprise witness or anything?” He looked half terrified, half hopeful at the prospect.
Somehow, Kate knew this was just how David Willis had looked in his high school yearbook back in the seventies: out-of-date crew cut and nerd glasses, pants that were an odd shade of green and an inch too high-waisted. People had probably assaulted him regularly all his life.
For the occasion of the hearing, he had worn the black horn-rimmed glasses that had been broken in the course of his assault. They were held together in two places by adhesive tape. His left wrist was encased in a molded plastic cast, and he wore a cervical collar like a thick turtleneck.
“Surprise witnesses happen only on Matlock,” Kate said.
“Because I'm just not ready for that. I'm going to have to work myself up to that, you know.”
“Yes, I think we're all aware of that, Mr. Willis.” Because he had called every day for the last week to remind them: Kate, Ken Merced, Ken's secretary, the legal services receptionist.
“I won't be in any physical danger, will I? He'll be in handcuffs and leg irons, right?”
“You'll be perfectly safe.”
“Because, you know, situational stress can push people over the edge. I've been reading up on it. I've been religiously attending the victims' group you set me up with, Ms. Conlan, and I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about the criminal mind, and the psychology of victims, and post-traumatic stress disorder—just the way you told me to do.”
Kate often recommended her clients educate themselves as to what to expect of their own reactions and emotions following a crime. It gave them a sense of understanding and a small feeling of control. She didn't recommend it as an all-consuming hobby.
Knowing Willis would want to be close to the action, she chose the first row in the gallery behind the prosecution's table, where Ken Merced was going over some notes. Willis bumped into her as she stopped to indicate the row, then tripped over his own feet trying to move aside and gallantly motion Kate in ahead of him.
Kate shook her head as she stepped into the row and took a seat. Willis fumbled with the cheap briefcase he'd brought with him. Filled with news clippings about his case, Polaroids taken of him in the ER after the attack, brochures on victims' groups and therapists, and a hardcover copy of Coping After the Crime. He pulled out a yellow legal pad and prepared to take notes of the proceedings—as he had at every meeting Kate had had with him.
Merced turned to them with a pleasant poker face. “We're all set, Mr. Willis. This won't take long.”
“You're certain you won't need me to testify?”
“Not today.”
He gave a shuddering sigh. “Because I'm not ready for that.”
“No.” Merced turned back toward the table. “None of us are.”
Kate sat back and tried to will the tension out of her jaw as Willis became engrossed in making his preliminary notes.
“You always were a secret soft touch.”
The low whisper rumbled over her right shoulder, the breath caressing the delicate skin of her neck. Kate jerked around, scowling. Quinn leaned ahead on his chair, elbows braced on his knees, dark eyes gleaming, that little-boy-caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar smile firmly and calculatingly in place.
“I need to talk to you,” he murmured.
“You have my office number.”
“I do,” he admitted. “However, you seem not to want to answer my messages.”
“I'm a very busy person.”
“I can see that.”
“Don't mock me,” she snapped.
David Willis grabbed hold of her forearm and she turned back around. The side door had opened, and O. T. Zubek entered the courtroom with his lawyer, a deputy trailing after them. Zubek was a human fireplug, squat with thick limbs and a protruding belly. He wore a cheap navy-blue suit that showed a dusting of dandruff on the shoulders, and a baby-blue knit shirt underneath, untucked and too snug around the middle. He looked right at Willis and scowled, his face the doughy caricature of a cartoon tough guy with a blue-shadowed jaw.
Willis stared at him, bug-eyed for a second, then twisted toward Kate. “Did you see that? He threatened me! That was threatening eye contact. I perceived that as a threat. Why isn't he in handcuffs?”
“Try to stay calm, Mr. Willis, or the judge will have you removed from the courtroom.”
“I'm not the criminal here!”
“Everyone knows that.”
The judge entered from chambers and everyone rose, then sat again. The docket number and charges were read, the prosecution and defense attorneys stated their names for the record, and the probable-cause hearing was under way.
Merced called his first witness, a pear-shaped man who serviced Slurpee machines at 7-Eleven stores in the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area. He testified he had heard Willis arguing with Zubek about the condition of a delivery of Hostess Twinkies and assorted snack cakes in the store Willis managed, and that he had seen the two come tumbling down the chips aisle, Zubek striking Willis repeatedly.