Guilty as Sin (2 page)

She wanted her ducks in a row when she sat down across the table from her boss. Rudy Stovich could be unpredictable, but he could also be herded. In her two years in
Park
County
, Ellen had honed her shepherding skills to the point that they had become instinctive, reflexive. She didn't know that she even wanted the Wright case, and still she was aligning her strategy.

"Will you be handling the prosecution?" Megan asked, working hard to even out her breathing. A fine sheen of sweat glazed her forehead.

"I'll certainly be a part of it. The county attorney hasn't made his final decision yet."

"Well, hell, why rush? It's only been two days since we made the collar. Initial appearance is what—all of hours away?"

"The bond hearing is tomorrow morning."

"Will he charge it out or wimp out and go for a grand jury?"

"That remains to be seen."

The media loved to make much of grand jury proceedings. As if the word "grand" somehow implied "better" or "more important." A grand jury hearing was a prosecutor's showcase—they got to present their evidence with no interference from the defense, no cross-examination of their witnesses. There was no need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt; all they had to show was probable cause that the defendant committed the crime. The grand jury had its uses. In the state of
Minnesota
only a grand jury could hand down first-degree-murder indictments. But, as yet, they weren't dealing with murder, and the thought of handing the fate of this indictment into the hands of two dozen citizens made Ellen's palms sweat.

The members of a grand jury could do whatever they wanted. They didn't have to listen to the prosecutor's argument. If they didn't want to believe Garrett Wright was capable of evil, he would walk. She could only hope that the ego appeal of doing a solo act in front of a grand jury didn't override Rudy's common sense.

Stovich had survived more than a decade as
Park
County
attorney not so much by his legal wits as by his political wiles. More comfortable with civil law than with criminal law, he handpicked the few felony trials he prosecuted, choosing them for their political value. His courtroom style was dated and clumsy, with all the finesse of a vaudeville player. But Rudy's constituents seldom saw him in a courtroom, and as a glad-handing, ass-kissing backwoods politician he was without peer.

"Is Wright talking?" Megan asked quietly.

"He isn't saying anything we want to hear. He insists his arrest was a mistake."

"Yeah, right. His mistake. Who's his lawyer?"

"Dennis Enberg, a local attorney."

"Is he just a lawyer or is he an asshole lawyer?"

"Denny's okay," Ellen said, flicking off the tape recorder. She'd been in the system too long to take affront. The distinction was one she had made herself from time to time. And, having come from a family of attorneys, she was long since immune to lawyer jokes and slurs.

She slid down off the stool and reached for her briefcase. Megan was slipping away from consciousness. Exhaustion and medication were going to end the interview whether she was finished asking questions or not.

"He's your basic ham-and-egger," Ellen continued. "He does the misdemeanor prosecutions for the city of
Tatonka, gets pressed into service as a public defender here from time to time, has a decent practice of his own. You know how the system works in these rural counties."

"Yeah. Mayberry RFD. So what're you doing here, counselor?"

She shrugged into her heavy wool coat and worked the thick leather buttons into their moorings. "Me? I'm just here to do justice."

"Amen to that."

Ellen had spent her entire twelve-year career in the service of one county or another. Much to the consternation of her parents, who had wanted her to follow their footsteps into the lucrative life of tax law.
Hennepin
County
, which encompassed the city of
Minneapolis and its wealthy western suburbs where she had grown up, had swallowed up the first decade of her life after Mitchell Law in
St. Paul. She had immersed herself in the hectic pace, eager to put away as many bad guys as she could. Veterans of the overloaded
Hennepin
County
court system had taken in her enthusiasm, with the knowing skepticism of the war weary and speculated on her burnout date.

In ten years her tenacity had only toughened, but her enthusiasm had tarnished badly, coated with the verdigris of cynicism. She still remembered clearly the day she had stopped herself in the hall of the Hennepin County courthouse, chilled to the bone by the realization that she had become so inured to all of it that she was beginning to grow numb to the sight of victims and corpses and perpetrators. Not a pleasant epiphany. She hadn't become a prosecutor to foster an immunity to human suffering. She hadn't stayed in the system because she wanted to reach a point where cases were little more than docket numbers and sentencing guidelines. She had become an attorney out of genetic predisposition, environmental conditioning, and a genuine desire to fight for justice.

The solution seemed to be to get away from the city, go somewhere more sane, where gangs and major crime were an aberration. A place where she could feel she was making a difference and not just trying to stick her thumb in a badly leaking dam.

Deer
Lake
had fit the bill perfectly. A town of fifteen thousand, it was near enough to
Minneapolis to be convenient, and just far enough away for the town to maintain its rural character.
Harris
College
provided an influx of youth and the sophistication of an academic community. A growing segment of white-collar Twin Cities commuters provided a healthy tax base. Crime, while on the increase, was generally petty. Burglaries, minor drug deals, workers from the BuckLand Cheese factory beating each other senseless after too many beers at the American Legion hall. People here were still shockable. And they had been shocked to the core by the abduction of Josh Kirkwood.

Briefcase clutched in one gloved hand, the low heels of her leather boots clicking against the hard polished floor, Ellen walked down the corridor of
Deer
Lake
Community
Hospital
. Most of the activity in the hundred-bed facility seemed to center on the combination nurses' station / reception desk in the main lobby, where people with appointments were complaining about the long wait and people without appointments tried to appear sicker than they really were in hopes of getting worked in faster.

A clutch of reporters loitering at the periphery of the sick zone perked up at the sight of Ellen and scooted toward her, pencils and pads at the ready. Two women and four men, an assortment of expensive wool topcoats and scruffy ski jackets, spray-starched coifs and greased-back ponytails. A photographer angled a camera at her, and she turned her head as the flash went off.

"Ms. North, do you have any comment on the condition of Agent O'Malley?"

"Ms. North, is there any truth to the rumor Garrett Wright sexually assaulted Agent O'Malley?"

The second question drew a peeved look from Ellen. "I've heard no such rumor," she said crisply, not even breaking stride.

The key to handling the media in full frenzy: keep moving. If you stopped, they would swarm and devour you and you would be regurgitated as a headline or a sound bite with film at ten. Ellen knew better than to allow herself to be trapped. She had learned those lessons the hard way, having been thrown to the hyenas on occasion as the sacrificial junior assistant on a case.

The lack of a juicy answer seemed only to sharpen the reporters' hunger. Two cut around to her left. Two scuttled backward in front of her. The one on her right hopped along sideways, the end of a dirty untied shoelace clacking against the floor with every stride.

"What kind of bail will the county attorney request?"

"Can you give us a rundown of the charges being filed?"

"The county attorney will be giving a press conference at the courthouse later this afternoon," Ellen said. "I suggest you save your questions until then."

She pushed through the hospital's front door, bracing herself automatically for the cold. A pale wash of sunlight filtered weakly down on the pristine snow. On the far side of the parking lot a tractor rumbled along, plowing the stuff into a minor mountain range.

She headed across the lot for her Bonneville, well aware that hers were not the only pair of shoes squeaking over the packed snow. Looking down from the corner of her eye, she saw the loose lace flapping alongside a battered Nike running shoe.

"I meant it," she said, fishing her keys out of her coat pocket. "I don't have anything for you."

" 'No comment' don't feed the bulldog."

She cut him a glance. He had to be fresh out of high school, so wet behind the ears he shouldn't have been allowed to go out in the cold without a snowsuit. His face was finely sculpted. Black hair with a suspicious red cast swung down across his narrow brown eyes. He swept it back impatiently. Toung Keanu Reeves. God spare me. Not much taller than her own five feet seven inches, he had the build of an alley cat, lean, agile, with the restless energy to match. It seemed to vibrate in the air around him as if someone had plugged him into a high-voltage generator.

"Then I'm afraid your dog will go hungry, Mr. —?"

"Slater. Adam Slater.
Grand Forks Herald"

Ellen pulled open the car door and hefted her briefcase across into the passenger's seat. "The
Grand Forks paper sent their own reporter all the way down here?"

"I'm ambitious," he proclaimed, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet as if he had to keep himself ready to bolt and run at a second's notice. Cub reporter trying to race ahead of the ravenous pack.

"Are you old enough to have a job?" Ellen asked, cranky with his enthusiasm.

"You used to be ambitious, too," he said as she climbed behind the wheel of the car.

She looked up at him, suspicious that he might know anything at all about her.

"I have some contacts in
Hennepin
County
."

Contacts. He looked as if his contacts would have been the guys who stole the midterm from the algebra teacher's desk.

"They say you used to be good when you were there." Way back when.

"I'm still good, Mr. Slater," Ellen declared, twisting the key in the ignition. "I'm good in any zip code."

"Yes, ma'am," he chirped, saluting her with his reporter's notebook.

"Ma'am," she grumbled as she put the car in gear and headed out of the lot. Her gaze strayed to the rearview mirror as she broke for traffic on the street. Mr. Ambition from
Grand Forks was bouncing his way back to the hospital entrance. "See if you ever have an affair with an older woman, you little twerp. Used to be good. I haven't lost it yet."

She wasn't entirely sure whether she meant her skills in the courtroom or her allure as a woman. As the reporter loped out of view, her gaze refocused on her reflection. Her face was more interesting than beautiful. Oval with a graceful forehead. Gray eyes—a little narrow. Nose—a little plain. Mouth—nothing to inspire erotic fantasies, but it was okay. She scrutinized for any sign of age, not liking the depth of the laugh lines that fanned out beside her eyes when she squinted. How long before she had to stop calling them laugh lines and start calling them crow's-feet?

A birthday was looming large on the horizon like a big black cloud, like the Hindenburg. Thirty-six. A shudder went down her back. She pretended it was from the cold and goosed the Bonneville's heater a notch. Thirty-six was just a number. A number closer to forty than thirty, but just a number, an arbitrary marking of the passing of time. She had more important things to worry about—like a lost boy and bringing his kidnapper to justice.

CHAPTER
 
2

The
Park
County
courthouse was a small monument in native limestone with Doric columns and Greek pediments out front. It dated to the late 1800's, when labor was cheap and time of little consequence. The interior boasted soaring ceilings that most likely raised heating bills, and ornate plaster moldings and medallions that undoubtedly required endowments from historical preservationists to maintain. A restoration was under way on the third floor, scaffolding set against the northeast wall like giant Tinkertoys.