Killer Ambition - [85]

“I’ll be in touch,” Terry said.

The guard opened the door, and I began to follow Bailey out when Jack suddenly blurted, “I didn’t kill anyone!” He cowered like a whipped puppy under Terry’s glare, but found the courage to add, “I just need you to know that.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Jack.”

Terry glared at me. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Just being polite, Counselor.”

Bailey and I left, and as we walked out into the afternoon boiler room of a day, I breathed a sigh of relief. Even the smoggy heat was an improvement on the permanent stench of Mordor.

“Think he’ll take the deal?” I asked.

“If he has half a brain. But Terry’s not gonna help us. I’d say she’ll hold out for a ‘no time’ offer.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” It’s what I would do.

“Think he was telling the truth?”

“Seemed so.” I shrugged. “I’ve kind of felt that way all along. He’s just a punk. I don’t see him having the stones to kill. Especially not with a knife.”

“Then again, you never can tell.”

“Well, there is that.”

51

With so little time to prepare for a preliminary hearing that would likely be broadcast around the country-or as Declan put it, “go wide”-we had no time for lunch, and I wasn’t planning to make any time for dinner either. So Bailey dropped me at the office and headed back to the station, where she’d be hunkered down and getting ready too. When I passed by Melia’s desk, she jumped up and thrust a fistful of messages at me. I groaned inwardly and took them back to my office. I flipped through them quickly. There were more than thirty, and as I’d suspected, they were all from reporters. It was already too much to handle. I could either prepare my case or field press calls. I couldn’t do both. Much as I’d wanted to earn some brownie points and make nice, I was going to have to let Melia route all of the press calls to Sandi, our media relations chief. I told Declan.

“You might not have as big a problem with public opinion as you think, Rachel. Most of those people on the newscast were in the industry, and they all have something to gain by currying favor with Powers or Russell Antonovich.”

Exactly what Toni’d said. “But how do they all know Russell isn’t on board with us?”

“Are you kidding? Russell has minions circling him around the clock. And every single one of them knows everything about him. He likes beets, hates brussels sprouts, and throws away his socks after one wearing. He doesn’t care for the Lakers, loves the Oakland A’s. If that’s common knowledge…”

“Yeah.”

“And they like to spread any insider information to all their friends-it gives them status. So something as big as this? After the way he screamed his head off when you gave him the news? Believe me, word started spreading before we got off the lot. Which means everyone and her Chihuahua knew that the way to Russell’s heart was to vilify you. And I promise you that if we lose, every single one of them will be on Russell’s and Ian’s doorstep, calling in their chits.”

“So it doesn’t matter that Ian slashed the throats of two young kids. It’s all about sucking up to the big names-”

“Who can put them in films, buy their screenplays, hire their clients…yes.”

Sickening. But, really, was Hollywood so unique? What about Wall Street? Or Capitol Hill? They were no better. Some would argue they were a lot worse-and they might even be right.

“How’s the research coming?” I asked.

“I think you’re in good shape with the seizure of the laptop. The language you put in the warrant about electronic writings covers it. The only real issue’s going to be what writings you can get into evidence. But that’s a relevance issue, not a Fourth Amendment issue.”

“And on that note, you hear back from Cliff yet?”

“No progress there. He agrees, there’s nothing he’s seen so far that has anything to do with this case, but he’s checking for any anomalies in…something, I can’t remember the word he used-”

“Wouldn’t matter if you did. I wouldn’t have known what it meant.” I looked down at my “to do” list. “I’m going to dig into the coroner’s reports right now. Do me a favor and put in a request for Steve Diamond to compare the wound tracks on Brian and Hayley and see if he can say whether the same knife was used on both victims.”

My phone started ringing. Declan flashed me a look of sympathy and went off to take care of his task. I buzzed Melia and told her to take that call and start routing all my calls through Sandi.

“What if they’re personal?”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I don’t get personal calls on the office number. They always come to my cell, Melia.” But, really, how could I expect her to know that? Just because, in the past two years, not one personal call had ever come to my office number? Silly me.

I hung up and called Bailey. “We seized the Ruger they found in Ian’s bedroom, right?”

“Yeah. And to answer your real question, we are having it looked at, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. It seemed pretty clean.”

We’d already tested for fingerprints and found only Ian’s, so I figured Powers had initially held Brian at gunpoint because it would’ve been an easier way of controlling him if they’d had to move him up the mountain ridge to the killing ground. But Powers didn’t want to use the gun to kill because bullets and casings left too much evidence. If we could come up with evidence of soil or plant debris on the Ruger consistent with Boney Mountain, it would go a long way toward proving my theory correct. And proving premeditation.