Chapters (48)
- also by patricia cornwell
- title page
- copyright
- dedication
- contents
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- two nights later
- credits
“I don’t care what anybody says, there’s something suspicious about why he let her get away with that,” Marino hammers the same point, making me crazy with his speculations and theories of plots and plans and possible conspiracies. “It’s one thing for the judge to be an ass because you pissed him off, and I warned you about being late.”
I don’t want to hear another word about it.
“As you’ve pointed out more than once? Since that Supreme Court ruling we’re going to be jerked around more than ever, hauled into court all the time for nothing. But you can’t just show up when you decide.”
I’m in no mood to be lectured.
“But irregardless”—he uses a non-word of his that drives me mad—“the assistant U.S. attorney’s supposed to be on your side.” He turns up the windshield wipers full tilt, his reading glasses on the tip of his nose, as if they somehow will help him see in a downpour.
“I was a defense witness, not a prosecution witness,” I remind him.
“And that’s suspicious, too. Why didn’t Steward subpoena you? He had to know you were a sitting duck because of that e-mail about Mildred Lott turning into soap, so he should have beaten Donoghue to the draw. Then you would have been his witness. He would have qualified you as an expert instead of her doing it, and you wouldn’t have been put through the mill with all these personal questions that sure as hell didn’t make you look good.”
“No matter who ordered me to court, I was going to end up there, and Donoghue would have asked whatever she wanted.”
“You’re her witness and on her side, and still she does that to you?” he persists, and I can’t stand it when he gets this way, defending me after it’s too late, when he couldn’t have changed anything to begin with.
“It’s not about taking sides.” My patience is almost shot.
“Oh, yeah, it is. Everything’s about taking sides.” Marino leans on the horn and yells, “Move, butt munch!” He honks again at the taxi in front of us, and the rude noise goes through my brain like a spike. “Like, whose side is Steward really on? You were the last defense witness, and he didn’t bother to cross-examine you, just let that damn news clip hang in the air?”
“There really wasn’t anything to ask me. I don’t know the identity of the body we recovered from the bay, and that was made clear.”