Blood Defense - [6]

She had a skeptical look. “That’s a pretty sad tale of woe. You check it out?”

“No. Why would he lie?” I shot her a dagger. “Of course I checked it out.”

Michelle paused for a moment, then nodded and turned back to her computer. “Okay, back to work. Get me your time sheets on Ringer. One way or another, he’ll be done soon.”

I saluted and headed into my office. My office decor is best described as early “I don’t give a damn,” because I don’t. Plus, there’s no one to impress. My clients are almost always in custody. Most of my cases are court appointments-basically public defender cases that the public defender can’t take for one reason or another. So I have the minimum: a big desk and lawyer’s chair (I scored them on the cheap at a storage locker sale) and a couple of unmatched chairs in front of my desk that sit lower than mine (so I can look imposing). The only thing on my desk other than my computer is a bottle of tequila shaped like a skull-a present from a former boyfriend-and a little jade “money tree” with tiny gold-colored bells hanging from the branches. Michelle gave it to me for inspiration. It hasn’t done much for us so far.

I spent the rest of the afternoon pulling together the paperwork for Michelle and working up the cases that I probably wouldn’t be able to plead out. Alex showed up at six o’clock. He looks nothing like any real-life investigator I’ve ever seen. But Hollywood would cast him in a hot second: thick black hair swept to the side, olive skin, and eyes like black diamonds. It’d broken Michelle’s heart when I told her he was gay. But she knew better than to argue; my gay-dar almost never fails me-and it hadn’t this time, either.

I walked out to the anteroom. “You don’t look joyous. No luck on those records?”

He shook his head.

“Look, don’t sweat it. If you can’t, you can’t. We’ll just have to-”

“Oh, I can.” His tone was calm, utterly self-assured. “It’ll just take a little more time. When’s Deshawn’s hearing?”

I liked his confidence. And I knew it was justified. It was only a fluke that he’d been caught stealing those BMWs. He was that good. Which was why I’d been able to make him a sweetheart deal for no time and straight probation: he’d agreed to show the cops how he’d done it. “His hearing’s set for next week.”

Alex made a poof sound. “I’ll have it for you in two days.” He gestured to the monitor of Michelle’s desktop, which was splashed with the latest headline on the double murder in Laurel Canyon. “They’ve been thumping Chloe’s and Paige’s murders nonstop.”

I nodded. So nonstop it filled the airwaves, the Ethernet, and every tabloid rag in the supermarket. You couldn’t get away from the case if you tried. “But it’s all background stories on Chloe. They still don’t have anyone.”

Michelle, always on the hunt, looked at me with fire in her eyes. “Oh, they will. Trust me. And when they do, you’ve gotta go for it.” I didn’t answer. “Sam, I’m not kidding.”

“I know.”

Michelle looked at me with frustration. “I don’t get it. You took Ringer for no publicity.”

I was about to say that Ringer hadn’t killed his victim. But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was Chloe. And Paige. Something about them hit too close to home.

FOUR

But I couldn’t stop following the coverage of the “Canyon Killer” case, as the press had dubbed it. So far, the only new announcement was that the girls had been stabbed to death with the same weapon-a carving knife that was missing from the butcher block on the kitchen counter. The police media liaison said it was too soon to speculate about who’d done it or why. But the usual pundits disagreed. They immediately pronounced that the use of the carving knife showed the murders weren’t premeditated, that the girls had probably walked in on a burglar. When their apartment was burglarized two months before, the perp had gotten in through an open sliding glass door. That same door was found open after the police discovered the bodies.

Predictably, most of the coverage was devoted to Chloe Monahan. The tabloids in particular were feeding nonstop off the tragedy of a young actress who’d managed to pull herself out of a drug-infused abyss and climb her way back to the brink of superstardom only to have her life brutally cut short.

To top it off, they’d dug up a whole new, heart-grabbing wrinkle. Though no one knew it at the time, when she was a child star, Chloe had been the sole support for her family, which included a younger sister, an absentee father, and an abusive mother. The makeup artists, who now felt the truth must be told (but only to a tabloid that was notorious for checkbook journalism), said they’d kept special concealer on hand to cover the bruises. Those stories probably explained why Chloe’s mother hadn’t surfaced to suck up some of the limelight.

But her roommate, Paige Avner, got almost no ink. Pretty but not glamorous, Paige had been a part-time print-ad model and waitress. Nothing to be ashamed of, but not the stuff of fairy tales, either. Her story was largely eclipsed by the searing drama of Chloe’s life. What little press she did get was centered on the fact that she and Chloe had met when they were kids on the set of