"I didn't kill those women."
"I didn't ask you if you killed them. I asked if anything about the crimes sounded familiar."
Darius studied Betsy. She didn't like the way he made her feel like a lab specimen.
"Why are you interrogating me?" Darius asked. "You work for me, not the da."
"Mr. Darius, I decide whom I work for and right now I'm not so sure I want to work for you."
"Page said something, didn't he. He played with your head."
"Who is Peter Lake?"
Betsy expected a reaction, but not the one she got.
The look of icy calm deserted Darius. His lip trembled.
He looked, suddenly, like a man on the verge of tears.
"So Page knows about Hunter's Point."
"You haven't been honest with me, Mr. Darius."
"is that what this is all about?" Darius asked, pointing at the bulletproof glass. "Is that why you didn't ask for a contact visit? Are you afraid to be locked in with me? Afraid I'll Darius stopped. He put his head in his hands.
"I don't think I'm the right person to represent you," Betsy told him.
"Why?" Darius asked, his voice filled with pain.
"Because Page claims I raped and murdered those women? Did you refuse to represent Andrea Hammermill when the district attorney said she murdered her husband?"
"Andrea Hammermill was the victim of a husband who beat her constantly during her marriage."
"But she killed him, Betsy. I did not murder those women. I swear it. I did not kill anyone in Hunter's Point. I was Peter Lake, but, do you know who Peter Lake was? Did Page tell you that? Does he even know?
"Peter Lake was married to the most wonderful woman in the world. He was the father of a perfect child.
A little girl who never hurt anyone. And his wife and daughter were murdered by a madman named Henry Waters for an insane reason Peter could never fathom.
"Peter was a lawyer. He made money hand over fist.
He lived in a magnificent house and drove a fancy car, but all that money and everything he owned couldn't make him forget the wife and daughter who'd been taken from him. So he ran away. He assumed a new identity and started a new life, because his old life was impossible to bear."
Darius stopped talking. There were tears in his eyes Betsy did not know what to think. Moments ago, she was convinced Darius was a monster. Now, seeing his pain, she wasn't so sure.
"I'll make you a deal, Betsy," Darius said, his voice barely above a whisper. "If you reach the point where you don't believe I'm innocent, you can walk away from my case with my blessing, and you can keep your retainer."
Betsy did not know what to say. Those pictures. She couldn't stop wondering how the women felt in those first, long moments of terror, knowing that the best that could ever happen to them in the rest of their lives was a death that would bring an end to their pain.
"It's all right," Darius said, "I know how you feel.
You only saw the pictures. I saw the dead bodies of my wife and my child. And I still see them, Betsy."
Betsy felt ill. She took a deep breath. She could not stay in the narrow room any longer. She needed air. And she needed to find out a lot more about Peter Lake and what happened in Hunter's Point.
"Are you okay?" Darius asked.
"No, I'm not. I'm very confused."
"I know you are. Page laid a heavy trip on you. They said I'd be arraigned tomorrow. You get a good night's sleep and tell me what you've decided to do, then."
Betsy nodded.
"Two things, though," Darius said, looking directly at Betsy.
"What's that?"
"if you decide to keep me as a client, you've got to fight like hell for me."
"And the other thing?"
"From now on, I want every visit to be a contact visit. No more glass cage. I don't want my lawyer treating me like a zoo animal."
Chapter Ten
As soon as Rita Cohen opened the door wide enough, Kathy squeezed through and raced into the kitchen.
"You didn't buy that bubble-gum-flavored cereal again, did you, Mom?"
Betsy asked.
"She's a little kid, Betsy. Who could stand that healthy stuff you feed her all the time? let her live."
"That's what I'm trying to do. If it was up to you, she'd be on an all-cholesterol diet."
"When I was growing up, we didn't know from cholesterol. We ate what made us happy, not the same stuff you feed horses. And look at me.
Seventy-four and still going strong."
Betsy hugged her mother and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Rita was only five feet four, so Betsy had to bend down to do it. Betsy's dad never topped five feet nine. No one could figure where Betsy got her height.
"How come there's no school?" Rita asked.
"It's another teacher planning day. I forgot to read the flyer they sent home, so I didn't know until yesterday evening, when Kathy mentioned it."
"You have time for a cup of coffee?" Rita asked.
Betsy looked at her watch. It was only seven-twenty.
They would not let her into the jail to see Darius until eight.
"Sure," she said, dropping the backpack with Kathy's things on a chair and following her mother into the living room. The television was already on, tuned to a morning talk show.
"Don't let her watch too much TV," Betsy said, sitting down on the couch. "I packed some books and games for her."
"A little television isn't going to kill her any more than that cereal."
Betsy laughed. "One day with you undoes all the good habits I've instilled in a year. You're an absolute menace.
"Nonsense," Rita answered gruffly, pouring two cups of coffee from the pot she had prepared in expectation of Betsy's visit. "So, what are you doing this morning that's so important you had to abandon that lovely angel to such an ogre?"
"You've heard of Martin Darius?"
"Certainly."
"I'm representing him."
"What did he do?"
"The da. thinks Darius raped and killed the three women they found at his construction site. He also thinks Darius tortured and killed six women in Hunter's Point, New York, ten years ago."
"Oh, my God! Is he guilty?"
"I don't know. Darius swears he's innocent."
"And you believe him?"
Betsy shook her head. "It's too early to say."
"He's a rich man, Betsy. The police wouldn't arrest someone that important without proof."
"if I took the State's word for everything, Andrea Hammermill and Grace Peterson would be in prison today."
Rita looked concerned. "Should you be representing a man who rapes and tortures women after all the work you've done for women's rights?"
"We don't know that he tortured anyone, Mom, and that feminist label is something the press stuck on me. I want to work for women's rights, but I'm not just a woman's lawyer. This case will help me be seen as more than one-dimensional. It could make my career. And, more important, Darius may be innocent. The da. won't tell me why he thinks Darius is guilty. That makes me very suspicious. If he had the goods on Darius he'd be confident enough to tell me what he's got."
"I just don't want to see you get hurt."
"I won't get hurt, Mom, because I'll do a good job. I learned something when I won Grace's case. I have a talent. I'm a very good trial attorney. I have a knack for talking to jurors. I'm damned good at cross-examination.
If I win this case, people across the country are going to know how good I am, and that's why I want this case so badly. But I'm going to need your help."
"What do you mean?"
"The case is going to go on for at least a year. The trial could last for months. With the State asking for the death penalty, I'm going to have to fight every step of the way, and the case is extremely complicated. It's going to take — all my time. We're talking about events that occurred ten years ago. I've got to find out everything there is to know about Hunter's Point, Darius's background.