She found him acutely interested in the way she'd be handling his brother's case, not just superficially but in the legal intricacies, and at one point she jokingly asked him if he'd read for the law at one time. He had a way of coming around the corner and blind-siding her with these very pointed questions that made her glad she knew her stuff as a lawyer. Joseph was a bright and well-read man. He began probing into the possibilities related to an insanity plea, to which she responded:
“This is an area where even the police have a lot of misinformation. It's quite complex as an issue with respect to Ukie. It's not necessarily true, you see, that a person adjudged insane is legally without culpability or responsibility. When you try a case like this one—just to look at one avenue of the thing, the jury is going to be asked to make a decision based on criminal INTENT. Did that individual entertain a criminal intent at the time of the alleged offenses? You, the defense, you get your psychiatric depositions and your witnesses lined up in a row, and you have to prove to those men and women of the jury that your defendant's insanity is the LEGAL definition of insanity, not the MEDICAL one. They aren't the same, and most people don't..."
And he was touching her. She flinched. If he'd been slow to make a move, when he finally got around to it there was no preamble at all. He made his move without need of flirtation, without a look into hot eyes, without so much as a word or gesture, just the way she dipped her head, averted her eyes suddenly, turned a little into profile, and made herself so openly ready and vulnerable, and he let the vulnerability excite him as he concentrated on the things that pleased him as he moved over beside her and it seemed to her the most natural thing in the world to have this warm and lovely stranger slowly slide his hand up her leg inching it up exposing the golden tan sleekness of the long and perfect legs, now flirting a little when she looked into his serious hot eyes and she can feel him doing something and her twin spheres are exposed and the nipples want to feel his warm caress and they wait, erect, but he cups her breasts instead and without even a first kiss he lowers his head to her and kisses down her chest, the hot tip of his long tongue flicking out and searing her nipples, around them and down to the small, tantalizingly sculpted downiness between her gently curving Y and she says something but neither of them is sure what and he takes the thing out of his pants and as he kisses his way back up her, lets go and wets himself and lubricates her moistness with his hand, and then she feels the large maleness of him fill her and his handsome face is against hers and he is in the hollow of her throat and they are moving and oh my God she tells him she wants him deeper and there is a rock hard chorus and an implosion in the hot tight wetness of their relentless, wild passion.
That voice all the while that has the resonance of some thrilling church organ my God ORGAN oh yes rumbling and whispering and telling her the things he wants them to do, the sweetness of his compliments, she catches a phrase about her “egalitarian elegance” and he tells her he could hardly stand not touching her the last time they were together, the way the slippery sliding slickness of those beautiful long endless legs and kissable curvaceous thighs blowing him kisses as she walked near him, the communication breakthrough he called it, a hearing and sensory innovation, for the first time, he said, “a woman's legs spoke aloud,” and he translated the word to her. The word spoken in leg. She knows the word. It is common in English-language usage. An invitation to dine. Her legs whispered EAT, he says. And because she is his regal queen bestowing a favor on her court jester, he must do as she commands.
And this is the way Noel and Joseph spent the afternoon. On the living-room floor of the Collier home. Pure, raw, funky, wonderful, animal sex. And then he takes her in his arms and kisses her and then this breathtakingly good-looking man enters her again and the both of them give themselves to it with equal abandon. And afterward spent and wasted, flat on his back with the once-tumescent and blue-veined pink engine of destruction flaccid and flopped over dead atop his right leg, the woman beside him snuggled close breathing slowly and with her mouth open, a pair of horses after a long run, sweat drying on them, satisfied, content beyond description, unashamed and together, they cuddled for a moment and decided what to do about it all. They wrestled with the weighty problem for a good four or perhaps five seconds before each of them fell asleep. Asleep with their arms around each other, cuddled together in the gathering darkness in exhausted dreamless slumber.
South Dallas
Donna Scannapieco met Eichord downtown at the prearranged time and he tried to break the ice with her as they walked to the car.
“It's been rough, hasn't it?"
“Yeah.” She nodded, bitterly.
“I've got to tell you, you've been wonderful through all of the questioning."
“Thanks. You guys have your job to do. It can't be pleasant. Dealing with dirt like him."
“Well. The work is like anything else. It has its rewards just like it has a downside. The job has a way of sort of taking over your life, Donna."
“I can see how it would be hard not to take it home with you if you were conscientious. Sort of like, what do they call those welfare people—case-workers? You'd see thing you'd want to do something about."
“Yes. There are some parallels between our work and persons in the social services.” He sounded like he'd been stuffing cotton in his cheeks, pedantic, stupid almost. He had a rather benign hangover this morning—it was more of a. lethargy, mental doldrums that had taken over. Why did he have so much trouble relating to this gal?
Donna was quite presentable today. French jeans, high-heeled boots, a silk warm-up jacket with the number 34 (closest she could find to half of 69?) which he put her down for, then instantly chastized himself for his unfairness. Perfect, appropriate attire for visiting the horrible site of your abduction, torment, and repeated rape at the hands of Spookie Ukie. All the way to the house location they talked. It felt like a somewhat stilted exchange of dialogue, unnatural, artificial, as if each party was thrust into an uncomfortable closeness and talking to lighten the tension. Not the most conducive atmosphere for a meaningful conversation, but they both hung in there.
Donna asked him a lot of questions about the job, and he was getting that feeling you get when the questions become too one-sided, an off-key thing that creates the impression you're being interviewed rather than talked to. He supposed it was the combination of her wanting Ukie nailed so badly, a thing of making sure the cops with whom she had contact were capable of prosecuting and maximizing the leads she was supplying, and then there was the old bugaboo of his dubious celebrity.
He had no great problem with the need for the way in which his own people used him. The brass all the way up the ladder had made it patently clear that it was as important in the execution of his job as the expertise he brought to bear on a given murder case. A lesser man or a shakier ego, or it could be argued, a more resolutely ethical soldier would have rebelled. But he had the magic that works for media. He could get ink like a bandit Never mind that the numbers-oriented “journalists” tended to see his accomplishments in the acceptable and understandable molds of Sherlock, or Rocky Balboa, or some larger-than-life battler of evil.
Eichord knew that the Demented and Hearts cases had been flukes. Media didn't want to know about all the ones where he had no vibes at all. Nobody would be doing any monographs on the ones he missed, the serial killings in his own home town that he'd never got to first base with, the missed calls, the times he'd shot blanks. The hierarchy didn't publicize those. And they made sure his personal methodology was kept secret. He worked like any other ordinary cop. It was all long, boring, often-wasted hours of drudgery. Ninety-nine-percent perspiration and one-half of one percent inspiration mixed with a soupcan of luck.