He paused at the door to the office and listened. He heard nothing. He opened the door ready to pounce on a startled or off-guard Helen Grandfield. But there was no one in the outer office.
Stevie wondered if Dario was out, possibly for the day. It wouldn't be like him to miss a day, but the last few days had been like no others.
Stevie went to the inner door, listened again, heard nothing and slowly opened it. The lights were dim and the blinds closed, but Stevie could see Dario Marco behind his desk.
Dario looked up. Stevie was not prepared for what he saw, a calm Dario Marco who said, "Stevie, we've been waiting for you."
Out of the corner stepped Jacob the Jockey and Helen Grandfield. The Jockey had a gun in his hand, and it was aimed at Stevie.
The table in front of Joelle Fineberg's desk was crowded. She had the lowest seniority, actually none at all, so Joelle had the smallest office.
She had opted for a very small desk, a small bookcase, and room enough for the table around which six people could fit with reasonable comfort. She used the table as a work space, clearing it off for meetings like this one by simply gathering papers and books, placing them in a black plastic container, and slipping the container behind her desk and out of sight.
"You don't even have enough for a grand jury," said Noah Pease, his hand on the shoulder of Louisa Cormier, who sat next to him and looked straight ahead.
"I think we do," said Fineberg, who sat across from them with Mac on one side of her and Aiden on the other.
A neat pile of papers and photographs sat on the table like a deck of oversized cards waiting to be cut for a hard game of poker, which was close to what they were playing.
Fineberg looked at Mac and said, "Detective, would you go over the evidence once more?"
Mac looked down at the yellow pad in front of him and went step-by-step over the evidence. Then she looked up at Aiden, who nodded her agreement.
Pease's face remained blank. So did Louisa Cormier's.
"Would it surprise you to know that Detectives Taylor and Burn found your client's fingerprints on seven different items in Charles Lutnikov's apartment?" said Fineberg.
"Yes," said Pease. "It would."
Fineberg went through the pile of papers in the stack and came up with seven photographs. She held them out to Pease.
"Perfect match," said the assistant DA. "A cup, a countertop, the desk, and four on bookshelves."
The fingerprints were a perfect match to Louisa Cormier's.
Louisa Cormier reached for the photographs.
"Circumstantial," said Pease with a sigh.
"Your client lied to us about ever being in Lutnikov's apartment," Fineberg said.
"I've been there once," said Louisa. "Now I remember. He asked me to pick up… something."
"You have a reason why we're here?" asked Pease.
"Negotiation," said Fineberg.
"No," said Pease, shaking his head.
"Then we go before the grand jury asking for Murder Two," said Fineberg.
She turned to Mac and said, "Detectives Taylor and Burn will testify. He's convinced by the evidence the CSI unit has gathered and so am I. A jury will be too."
"Ms. Cormier is a highly respected literary figure with no motive," said Pease. "Your case stands on the argument that she did not write her own books. She did."
"Detective Taylor?" said Fineberg.
"Convince me. Convince my expert," said Mac.
"How?" asked Pease.
"Have her write something," said Fineberg.
"Ridiculous," said Pease.
"She has four days before we go in front of the grand jury," said Fineberg. "Five pages. That shouldn't be impossible, especially when a murder charge is involved."
"I couldn't write under this pressure," said Louisa Cormier, handing the photographs of the fingerprints back to her lawyer, who placed them neatly on the table and slid them across to Fineberg.
"You're counting on a jury having sympathy for a famous and much-loved celebrity," said Fineberg. "How quickly we forget Martha Stewart. You could, of course, counter with O.J. Simpson, but…"
Pease was looking at Fineberg now with an irritation that might well have already turned to open hostility in a less-experienced lawyer.
"We get to that grand jury," said Fineberg, "and our case comes out, at least enough of it to get a True Bill."
A True Bill, as both lawyers knew, is a written decision of the grand jury, signed by the jury foreperson, that it has heard sufficient evidence from the prosecution to believe that an accused person has probably committed a crime and should be indicted.
"And damage my client's reputation," said Pease. "As will any plea bargain."
"We have the gun," said Fineberg, looking at Mac.
"We're testing the gun in Ms. Cormier's drawer," he said.
"Which you've already determined has not been- " Pease began.
"It matches the bullet we found at the bottom of the elevator shaft," said Mac. "Ms. Cormier shot Charles Lutnikov, put on her coat, dropped her gun and the bolt cutter, which she'd probably had in her trophy case, into her tote bag, locked the elevator on her floor, and hurried down the stairs in time to take her usual, morning walk. It was eight on a snowy blizzard-like weekend. It wasn't likely anyone in her section of the building would be up and trying to get the elevator for hours. Besides, she planned to be gone only about thirty minutes."
"And where does your fanciful story assume my client went?" asked Pease.
"To Drietch's firing range, four blocks away," said Mac. "Even in the snow and ice she could make it in fifteen minutes. I just did by walking fast. She knew the range wasn't open for another three hours on a Saturday. She opened the outer door with a simple credit card. Her detective in three of her books has done the same thing. Ms. Cormier had probably checked that it could be done."
"Premeditation," said Joelle Fineberg.
"Your client went to the room where the guns are stored," Mac went on. "She cut the bolt on the box containing the gun she used at the range, took the gun out, dropped it in her purse and replaced it with the murder weapon. Then she threw the cut lock onto the firing range. She knew someone would eventually notice, after she switched the guns again, that the range Walther would be found, that any competent detective would know it hadn't been fired recently and she knew an examination of the gun and bullet would show they didn't match, but she didn't think it would come to that. If Drietch or anyone checked the box even before the switch was made again, they'd think they were seeing the gun that was normally kept there. Ms. Cormier was reasonably confident that they wouldn't check, but it really didn't matter."
"How far-fetched can-?" Pease said.
"I suggest you read one of your client's first three novels if you want to see how far-fetched a story she can come up with."
Pease shook his head wearily as if listening to Mac was an undeserved punishment he would have to endure.
Mac ignored the lawyer and went on.
"Ms. Cormier went back home quickly, put the bolt cutter in the basement, went up the stairs, released the elevator so it would go down to the first floor, and put the gun she had taken from the shooting range into her drawer."
"And then?" Pease asked, shaking his head as if he were being forced to listen to a fairy tale.
"She waited for us to come and readily showed us the gun, practically insisted on it. It was the gun she had taken from the range, not the one she always kept in her drawer. When we were gone, she went back to the range, said she wanted to practice and switched the guns again, leaving the one that was usually in the box. Officer Burn went to the range, examined the gun, and determined that it wasn't the murder weapon."
"Your client hid the murder weapon in plain sight," said Fineberg. "In the drawer of her desk. She did it thinking that CSI wouldn't examine it a second time after determining that it hadn't been fired."