"Lipton," Sales hissed venomously.
Lipton heard his call in the midst of his amusement and his face suddenly went blank, then froze in an instant of terror.
"This is for my little girl," Sales said, spitting his words and then pulling the trigger. A small orange flame lit the gloom, illuminating for a brief second the dime-size hole the slug punched into Lipton's forehead before expanding around its hollow point and blasting through the back of his skull in a spray of brains and blood.
"Freeze!"
It was Bolinger and James Unger. They had rounded the corner of the boathouse, and they stood there on the edge of the dock with their guns pointed in the direction of the boat. Sales held up his hands and dropped the gun.
"Where's the professor?" Bolinger shouted. The tempest was rising now, and only a stout call could be heard above the sound of the wind as it washed through the trees.
"Where is he?" Unger demanded loudly, his voice breaking with hysteria.
"He's dead," Casey heard herself say tiredly.
"Dead? Come in here," Bolinger instructed. "Can you row in?"
Sales lay gasping for air in the bottom of the boat. Casey climbed over him and fitted her oar back into its oarlock. With a dozen hard strokes they were bumping back up against the dock.
"What happened?" Bolinger demanded of Casey. "I heard the shot. What happened?"
Casey looked up at him and then at Sales, whose pale, wet face plastered with long strands of his black hair showed no emotion whatsoever.
"I can't talk to you about it, Detective," she said reflexively, then added, "and neither can he."
"What? Why the hell not?" Unger snapped, stepping forward, his body posture brazenly challenging her.
"Because," she said, looking from the two irritated police to Sales, "this man is invoking his Fifth Amendment rights and I can't say anything to you at this time… I'm his lawyer."
EPILOGUE
Casey stood before the jury with the power and majesty of a Celtic princess, her deep red hair twisted high up on her head like a crown, her eyes afire with conviction. Her forest green closely tailored suit showed off the strength of her body as well. For the final time, she had presented her argument and it was a good one. Now, all she needed was to close the deal, lock them in.
"To convict my client of murder, I want you to remember this: The law requires that such a crime be an intentional act, proved by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, and just as important, is the fact that any of us has the right, the right, to use deadly force if we feel our own lives are in jeopardy…"
Casey let her gaze pass over them all, individually, so they could each get the full sense of her conviction.
"A long time ago," she said quietly, "when I was being introduced to the law and its intricacies, I, like many of us, felt the need to punish someone, anyone, for a criminal act. It's an innate reaction. We see someone hurt, we want someone to be punished. But I was told back then to think about this, and these words changed my life: What if it were you…
"What if it were you, or you, or you, or me?" she said, letting her open hand pass over them all before coming to rest on her own breast. "What if it were you, and what if it were true?
"Think about that, ladies and gentlemen," she said, raising her voice gradually as she spoke. "Think about what I've told you here over these past few days. Think about what my client, a fellow human being, has been through. Now, imagine it was you, you were in that very same situation… and imagine everything I've told you was true…
"My client is not guilty," Casey said, quietly again, "not of a crime. My client is innocent… Please, I ask you, let justice be served."
Casey looked at them long and hard, reading their faces. Inwardly she smiled. She had them. They belonged to her the way a great stage actor could own an audience on the Friday night opening of a celebrated play. She stayed there, letting the energy flow between them until she felt it begin to ebb. At that perfect moment, she turned and sat down. Only then was there a whisper, only then did anyone in the entire courtroom dare to move.
Tony leaned her way and whispered, "Should I have someone get us some sandwiches while we wait?"
"No," she told him, smiling gently. "I've got plans for lunch already. Besides, there won't be time for sandwiches."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"This won't take more than twenty minutes."
Casey was wrong.
It took twenty-four. The jury foreman stood and handed the verdict to the bailiff, who handed it to the judge. She read it, handed it back, and told the foreman to please read the verdict.
The foreman, a lineman for the telephone company, was nervous and unused to speaking in public. Forgetting most of the formalities, he simply blurted out, "We're the jury and we find the defendant not guilty."
Emotion washed through the courtroom like the crest of a flood. While Tony patted her on the back, Catalina Enos buried her head in Casey's chest, sobbing hysterically and begging her in broken English to accept her heartfelt thanks. The husband's family burst out into angry shouts and had to be forcibly removed from the courtroom.
After accepting the district attorney's perfunctory congratulations, Casey put her arm around the young girl and ushered her out of the courtroom and down the steps without bothering to stop for the shrieking mob of reporters hungry for sound bites. She'd let Tony handle that part of it. It wouldn't do her any good anyway.
When she'd finally fought their way through, Casey tucked the still sobbing girl into the front seat of her Mercedes and got in beside her. They'd optimistically gone over their plan during the past several weeks. Casey had located a halfway house for women in the Houston area that had agreed to take Catalina and help her through a job-training program until she became self-sufficient. The home provided counseling for women who lived in fear like Catalina, and Casey assured her that she would be quite safe from her husband's family since no one but she and a trusted friend would know where she was.
Casey drove through the downtown area to an IHOP resting in the shadow of the highway overhead. Donald Sales sat in a vinyl booth by the window drinking coffee and reading the paper. He looked up in surprise when they walked in.
"I thought I'd be here all day," he said.
"You know I work fast," Casey said with a smile.
"This is true," he replied, signaling for them to sit down.
"Sit and eat, Catalina," Casey told the girl. "You've got a long drive. This is the friend I told you about. I trust him with my life, Catalina, and so can you."
The girl smiled bashfully at Sales and scooted into the booth. Casey slipped Sales an envelope.
"What's this?" he asked, his eyes sharpening.
"For expenses," she told him.
Sales snorted and handed it back. She took it, knowing better than to argue.
"Sit down," he told her.
"I'd love to, but I can't," she said. "I've got a meeting."
Casey held out her hand. Sales took it and she bent over and kissed him on the cheek.
"Thank you, Donald," she said.
"What for?" he said brusquely. "Kidnapping you, or being a stellar client?"
It had taken several weeks for the media storm surrounding Lipton's death to subside. But during that time many months ago, Casey had worked assiduously to convince the district attorney that he would be best served by dropping any and all charges against Donald Sales. Bob Bolinger had been instrumental in her efforts. And although it was certainly unorthodox for a cop to help prove someone innocent, Bolinger privately told his friends that it was no more unorthodox than letting James Unger take all the credit for bringing down Lipton.