YOU WANT TO see it?” Jake asked.
Casey sat on the end of the bed in his hotel room at the Holiday Inn and crossed her legs, tugging down the hem of her skirt. In his hand, Jake held a long black TV remote.
“Yes.”
“’Cause, technically, I shouldn’t,” Jake said. “You know, keeping the parts of the story separate and all that.”
“I can do a Chinese wall in my brain,” she said.
“A what, in your brain?”
“When you have an ethical conflict in part of your firm, you create a Chinese wall to keep certain lawyers separated from the information, like the Great Wall of China. It’s just a way of keeping confidences, that’s all.”
He aimed the remote at the disc player atop the TV and played for her the interview with Myron Kissle. Casey let out a low whistle.
“You like?” he asked, feeling good not only from his work but from the painkillers for his head.
“And I was proud of my angle on this,” she said.
“DNA trumps a surly old cop,” Jake said. “That’s what’s setting your man free.”
“But Kissle completes it,” she said. “I mean, Nelson Rivers actually stalking her? You were right about no one else having the complete story. The mom issuing a mandate on a murder investigation? Personally threatening the cops? I can’t believe she got away with it.”
“Small town, right?”
“I know, but.”
“Anyway,” Jake said, “I guess it’s back to Texas now?”
“We’re doing a big press conference tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
“I know,” Jake said. “My bosses love it. Everyone will be talking about the scandal, upset and ready to make someone pay, then we’ll hit prime time Friday night and introduce everyone to the villain. It’s classic. So, are you leaving right after that? I’d like to sit down with you again, nothing big, just to add some depth to what I’ve already got on Hubbard, the racial angle.”
“No problem,” Casey said, “but it’ll depend on Graham’s jet. I think we’re out of here right after the press conference. This whole thing was faster than I ever thought it’d be. It’ll be strange to watch this thing play out without me. Like leaving the fireworks before the grand finale, but I have a lot to do back home.”
“Maybe I could do a story on that sometime?” Jake said, sitting down on the end of the second bed and facing her with his hands in his lap. “Your clinic, I mean. It’s the kind of thing I like.”
“Anything that helps the cause,” she said, unable to keep her eyes from traveling across the chiseled lines of his face.
“And it’d be good to see me?”
“Of course,” she said. “Everyone loves a celebrity, Jake. You probably know that too well.”
“I wanted to explain what happened to me on Friday,” Jake said.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said, picking a piece of lint free from her navy skirt.
“I do, though,” he said. “I got tripped up.”
Jake turned his head and parted the curtain of blond hair in the back of his head, revealing the wound. He’d seen it in the mirror, gruesome and purple and stitched shut with black thread, still oozing coagulated lumps of blood.
“Jesus,” Casey said, standing up.
“It’s okay,” Jake said. “I hit my head, running from Graham and his goons.”
“Robert did it?”
“No. I did, a stupid mistake,” Jake said, letting the hair fall back over the wound and turning his eyes back to her. “Well, maybe not stupid, but a mistake. Your guy Graham has something going on outside the lines. I know that. It’s just not what I thought.”
They sat back down on the corners of the beds, Casey with her hands folded in her lap, her knees pressed together. Jake told her again what he knew about the shipload of manufacturing equipment and how Massimo stood to make a lot of money if the deal went through.
“And that’s exactly what he told me,” Casey said, holding Jake’s steady gaze.
“But I still think something is up with him and those people,” Jake said. “I could tell, just by the… I don’t know. My gut. Those people are not good.”
“They’re in toxic waste and city politics,” Casey said. “What’d you think?”
“More than that,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. This is the story now, but I wanted you to know I tried to reach out to you once my head cleared, but I got no answer.”
“I went to Turks, to get the DNA,” Casey said. “My cell didn’t work down there. Sorry about that.”
“Sounds like it wouldn’t have mattered,” Jake said.
Casey shrugged. “So I can see you on TV Friday night, huh?”
“Graham’s pull is even heavier than I thought,” Jake said. “Yeah, it’s all one big happy network family-Twenty/Twenty agreed to let me do the story and my show loves the exposure, so I’ve got a boatload of work to do.”
“Seems like the hardest part is done,” Casey said.
“I’m going to take a crack at Judge Rivers. You never know,” Jake said with a grin. “Either way, we’re going to indict this whole town. That’s the angle, and I have to admit, it’s a good one.”
“The town?”
“A prison town, corrupt politics, bribes, payoffs, extortion, nepotism, you name it,” Jake said. “They want me to throw the kitchen sink at this place, make it much bigger than a woman DA. She’s the crown jewel, but they want us to rip up the floorboards, show how everyone kept quiet and sent an innocent black man to jail for twenty years. How Rivers got away. How his mom went on to position herself for the highest court in the state.”
“How did she?” Casey said.
“Probably the same way she got her son off,” Jake said. “Like Myron Kissle said, the woman’s a barracuda, and that always makes good TV. I could save myself about three days in the library if I had someone who knows local politics who’d talk to me.”
“I think I know someone who might be up for it,” Casey said.
“The ear guy?” Jake said, sticking a pinkie into his ear. “I was thinking that. Be nice if you weighed in for me. I think he’d do it for me, but he works for you.”
“My pleasure.”