Backfire

by Catherine Coulter

  “How can you protect Judge Hunt if you don’t pay more attention to who’s on your tail?”

  He got her, curse him. “Yeah, you’re right, but that’ll be the last time. Talk would be good. Come on in. I’ll put on some coffee. So it’s only ten o’clock? What does that have to do with my shooting you?”

  “No shooting until after midnight, that’s the rule.”

  “Haven’t heard that one. I think it’s smart to talk about the case.”

  “So what do ants sound like when they’re nesting?”

  She grinned at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the door to a small lobby with a black-and-white tiled floor, black mailboxes set against a stark white wall, and a half-dozen palm trees in green and blue pots stationed in the corners. She waved him in. “The elevator’s a 1920s job that creaks and groans all the way up. Scares most people, but I love it. Still, I prefer to walk up. Keeps yummy things like spareribs from making a home on my thighs.” They walked steep, wide stairs to the third and top floor.

  “I’m on the end.” The corridor was wide, covered in a red carpet splashed with cabbage roses that should have made Harry bilious. Instead he found it curiously charming. She stopped in front of a blue door, unlocked it, and stepped in. She flipped on the light, waved him in.

  Eve’s living room wasn’t what Harry was expecting, although he wasn’t quite sure what that would be, since he’d only met her earlier in the day. Maybe a black leather sofa and chairs and lots of gym mats on the floor? No, the living room was light, airy, filled with color. There was a view of the city through the big windows and a sliver of a view of the bay. He followed her to the kitchen, streamlined but softened with fresh flowers in a vase on the two-seater kitchen table, herbs in small pots lining the windowsill over the sink. It was painted a soft yellow.

  “Nice apartment.”

  “It’s mine now, bought it when the building went condo five years ago. It’s the right size for me.”

  Eve smacked the heel of her hand to her head. “I’m an idiot.” After she turned on the coffeemaker, Eve pulled out her cell, and typed on the small Google screen.

  “Well, okay, that’s only because you aren’t FBI. What are you doing?”

  She stared at him.

  “What? Oh, I’m picturing you lying flat on your back, out like a light, me standing over you rubbing my bruised knuckles.”

  “That’s a pretty solid fantasy scenario. What are you doing really?”

  She punched in numbers she’d looked up on her cell. “Calling the Port Authority to see if there were any cargo ships coming through the Golden Gate about midnight last night.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. He guessed he was an idiot, too.

  “Here we go.” She dialed, got a message, punched off her cell. “It’s late, no one there. I’ll call in the morning.”

  She laid her cell phone on the counter. “Where do you live, Harry?”

  “Over in Laurel Heights.”

  She knew it was a lovely area near the Presidio, with streets named after trees. “You have a house?”

  He nodded. “After my wife left—” He cut off like a spigot run dry, nodded at the coffeepot.

  As Eve filled two large mugs, a hank of her blond hair fell along the side of her face. He watched her tuck it behind her ear. “This is decaf, so we’ll both have a shot at some sleep tonight. What do you take in your coffee?”

  “Black is good.”

  When they were seated across from each other at the kitchen table, Harry waved his hand toward the window. “What have you got planted in that first pot?”

  “Thyme.”

  “Yeah? You put that in birthday cakes?” Again, he saw her in a pretty swingy summer dress, long legs in open-toed sandals, serving cake up to a noisy herd of kids at a party.

  “Not unless my specialty was pasta primavera cake.”

  He laughed. “I called the hospital on the way over. Judge Hunt is sleeping. No setbacks so far. I hope he makes it out of the hospital in time to see Emma play at Davies Hall.”

  “If he can make it without causing a stir and disturbing the audience, he’ll be there,” Eve said. “With the paramedics, if he needs them.”

  “He’s a local hero. The paramedics would be thrilled. Emma blew my mind tonight.”

  “I guess I’ve heard her play so many times I’m used to it. It was Sherlock who blew me away. Made me feel inferior. Judge Sherlock told me she chose being an agent over trying to make it as a concert pianist. When I asked him why, he only smiled and shook his head. I wonder what happened.”

  “Who knows? Maybe in the pursuit of her blood?”

  Eve said, “It’s hard to imagine Savich and Sherlock are actually married.”

  “Cheney told me he’s heard stories about Sherlock going toe-to-toe with Savich when she disagrees with him, that she can be as stubborn as he imagined his mother-in-law would be if he had one. But despite that, he says what impresses him the most about Sherlock is her loyalty.” He studied his coffee, swirled it in his cup. “Imagine that, loyalty in a woman.”

  Whoa. Best move right along.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Eve said. “Virginia Trolley has asked to be part of our protection team. She’ll have officers stick close to Ramsey’s house, keep people from sneaking in when no one’s home. Did you know Virginia Trolley is a longtime friend of Ramsey’s? She’s a good cop, too.”

  Harry said, “I met Lieutenant Trolley. She acted suspicious, didn’t much like me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing at all. I was my charming self.”

  “Yeah, I can only imagine.”

  “She’s like you, wears a uniform.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Look at you, all in black with that kick-butt red leather jacket. I’ll bet your socks and your underwear are black, too.”

  He’d nailed that one.

  “You didn’t tell me what you did to make Virginia dislike you.”

  “Strange, really. I only happened to mention that the San Francisco cops are really good at writing parking tickets.”

  Eve rolled her eyes, then grinned. “Yeah, no secret there. Got to raise money to support the city budget.”

  “Good coffee, even though it’s decaf. Cheney told me he put Burt Seng with Sherlock on finding that Zodiac. Fact is, Burt could find a contact lens in a swimming pool. He’ll be updating us at the meeting tomorrow.”

  “I hadn’t heard about a meeting. Do you think I can be in on that? When? Tomorrow morning?”

  He couldn’t help himself. “That’d be okay, if you don’t forget your place.”

  She leaped for the bait, coffee sputtered out. She wiped a napkin over her mouth and gave him a look to fry his liver.

  He quickly raised his hand, smiling. “You gotta learn control, Barbieri. You can’t lose it every time someone makes an innocent comment rubs you the wrong way.”

  The jerk, but he’d done it on purpose, and she’d been ready to go for his throat. She dredged up a smile and a sneer. “And when do you interview the Cahills? Can I go with you for that?”

  “Savich and I planned to do that in the morning. That actually is why I followed you home tonight, so I could ask you about the trial. I’d wanted to be there from the beginning, since it was my case, but something else came up. Since Judge Hunt isn’t in any shape to tell me about it himself yet, could you tell me exactly what was happening to make him so suspicious about Mickey O’Rourke?”

  Eve said, “Ramsey never talked to me about it directly—of course he wouldn’t—but I can tell you what I saw.

  “The trial was still in the final pretrial motion stage. They hadn’t impaneled a jury yet. Milo Siles, the Cahills’ defense attorney, had been making all sorts of motions for discovery
. He’d demanded proof of everything the government accessed from the murder victim’s computer, especially anything that was considered top secret. He kept going on about the Brady rules giving the defense the right to any documents it needs to defend their clients, even in the case of espionage. It was pretty obvious, really, Siles was trying to force the government to disclose exactly what Mark Lindy—the murder victim—did for them.”

  “Yeah, I know all about Mark Lindy, since it was my case, like I told you. So it sounds like Siles was trying to get the government to drop the case rather than have what Mark Lindy was working on compromised? That sounds nuts.”

  “Just you wait. There was a lot of talk then about the Classified Information Procedures Act that provides protection for the government and for defendants in these kinds of cases. There were a bunch of conferences, some of them in camera—that means in Ramsey’s chambers—and after that, Ramsey started getting more and more hard-nosed with O’Rourke. You see, Ramsey had ruled some of that information admissible, but O’Rourke had repeatedly failed to provide it to the court. At first his excuses seemed reasonable, but then he had no more excuses, even bad ones.

  “I’ll tell you, it was quite a sight seeing Ramsey lambaste a federal prosecutor like that. He said the court would have to impose sanctions, possibly dismiss the federal indictment, and you could tell that really burned Ramsey, and that’s when he suspended the trial, the same day he was shot.”

  Harry nodded. “Since Judge Hunt’s known O’Rourke pretty well after working with him for years, he realized he wouldn’t behave like that—ignoring the judge’s directives time after time—if something weren’t seriously wrong. No way would a federal prosecutor want a case dismissed, except if there was bad stuff going on, and he was directly involved. Yes, that fits nicely.

  “Thanks, Eve. I’ve got a better handle on it now. About the Cahills: Savich wants to meet with them as soon as possible, before they have a chance to talk all this through with their lawyer. We’re going to offer them a chance to spend some time together if they’re willing to talk to us immediately, without waiting for Siles. They’re going to want to see each other real bad, one reason is so they can both be sure they can still trust each other. A lot has happened in two days. Who knows what they know? What they’ve heard? What they’re thinking? Maybe they’re ready to deal.”

  “Maybe,” Eve said.

  Harry rose. “Gotta go. Thanks for the coffee.”

  She followed him to the front door. “Do you think I could go interview the Cahills with you?”

  “That’ll be up to Savich.”

  Eve didn’t think her chances were that good. Besides, there was so much to do, best not to overload anywhere. She dropped it. “Hey, what tree are you heading for?”

  An eyebrow went up, and then he grinned. “Yeah, yeah, my street name. I live on Maple—my house is in the center of the block. I’m really close to pizza and Szechuan, and the dry cleaner’s. All the comforts, lots of people driving around, parking to shop or eat. The cops love to ticket in that neighborhood.”

  “Imagine Virginia not liking you when, I’m sure, you just happened to mention that to her.”

  She heard him whistling as he walked away down the corridor. She was in bed ten minutes later.

  So his wife had left him the house on Maple and he’d stayed there.

  Hall of Justice

  850 Bryant Street

  San Francisco

  Saturday morning

  Two guards walked Cindy Cahill over from county jail number two to the interview room on the sixth floor, where the men were housed in the Hall of Justice. She shuffled into the room ahead of the guards, wearing her prisoner’s three-piece suit—cuffs, belly chain, and leg irons. She looked up and saw her husband, Clive, dressed as she was, sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs.

  “Clive,” she said, and tried to move toward him, but the guards stopped her. Clive rose slowly, smiling at her. “Hi, gorgeous. I liked you in the blue suit Milo brought you to wear in court last week, but hey, orange looks great on you, too. You okay?”

  “I’m okay, but I wish I knew what’s—” Cindy shot a look at Savich and shut up.

  Savich rose slowly as the guards seated Cindy beside her husband, then left the small room with Savich’s nod.

  Savich introduced himself and Eve to the Cahills. He said, “Before we begin, I’d like you to confirm you’ve both agreed not to have your attorney, Mr. Siles, present. Is that correct?”

  “Sure,” Clive said. “Like I already said before my sweet wife arrived, we don’t need Milo for this. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we have nothing to hide. And how could I pass up the chance to spend some time with Cindy? Even talking to you clowns is better than being bored.”

  He sat back in the uncomfortable chair, like a seasoned lounge lizard.

  Savich asked, “Mrs. Cahill?”

  “Okay with me,” Cindy said. “So call me Cindy. I heard the guards talking about you, Agent Savich; said you were from Washington, and you were real important.”

  Clive said, “Hey, where’s Special Agent Christoff? That boy needs manners, you know? He’s a hard man, that one, not much fun at all.”

  Savich watched them look at each other for a moment—affectionately? Wondering if the other would spill the beans? He didn’t know, but allowing them to be together in the same room without their lawyer present was a good start. With everything that had happened—suspension of the trial, the federal prosecutor O’Rourke gone missing, and Ramsey shot—Savich knew both of the Cahills would want to find out as much as they could about what the Feds knew. He doubted they’d fold their tents and want to deal given what had happened, but maybe they’d let drop something—anything—to give him some leverage, particularly with Milo Siles, since even on a good day the chances of getting the truth out of a defense lawyer were harder than getting a bipartisan bill out of Congress.

  Savich said as he sat down, “You needn’t worry. Agent Christoff won’t be joining us. There will be only myself and Marshal Barbieri.”

  As Savich spoke, Cindy didn’t look away from his face. She rested her cheek on her long white fingers, her fingernails not so lovely now. Those dark eyes of hers saw deep into a man’s soul, no, not his soul, Savich thought, she made a direct connection to his sex, and the pull of her was powerful. He recognized he was new prey to her, and so Savich clicked away, knew she recognized that he’d turned her off, and hoped she would work really hard to snare him. He wanted to observe her methods.

  When Cindy turned her eyes to Eve, with her fresh, very pretty face and blond ponytail, she didn’t look happy, and he was pleased. What came out of her mouth pleased him even more. “Well, now, aren’t you the cutest little thing? All blond and blue-eyed, like a little princess, and yet here you are, a big U.S. marshal all dressed up in red and black, like a hard-ass. I thought all you marshals did was chase bad guys who escaped from the real cops. Like Tommy Lee Jones.”

  “My hero,” Eve said. She was pleased Savich had decided to bring her even though Harry had been major-league ripped until Savich had calmly said it was obvious Cindy would have the advantage with two male interviewers, plus she would be instantly wary of anything that came out of Harry’s mouth, since he’d led the case against them and interviewed her at least a dozen times. Savich wanted to shuffle the deck, pull out a joker, and present Cindy with another woman. Hopefully Cindy hadn’t noticed her in the courtroom. Unspoken to Harry was the message that since Eve Barbieri was a looker, why not try to rattle Cindy Cahill, who firmly believed she was God’s gift to all men? Harry hadn’t said another word. On their way to the interview room, Savich had said only to Eve, “Rattle her.”

  “And would you look, you’ve got a little holster where you carry your gun. Isn’t that delicious? I always liked macho girls. I mean, men can be so difficult, don’t you
think? Tell me, Eve, what do you do with a difficult man?” And Cindy Cahill slanted Savich a sloe-eyed look.

  Eve smiled at Cindy, recognizing pure sex on the hoof when she saw it. She was sure men vibrated to full alert when Cindy waltzed into their vicinity. She was also beautiful, despite so many months spent in jail. Her dark eyes were exotic, slightly slanted, full of sparkle and high-voltage tease. She looked at you with incredible focus, and that focus was now turned on Eve. Eve sensed a formidable intelligence behind those hot, dark eyes—and something else when Cindy looked at her—calculation, and hatred. Hatred? Was Savich right? Was this incredible woman jealous of her? She said nothing.

  Savich smiled. “Maybe what we should be talking about, Cindy, is how you thought you could get away with threatening a federal prosecutor.”

  Direct attack, Eve thought, and took due note.

  Cindy Cahill answered Savich, her voice dripping Southern Savannah honey, “Threaten the federal prosecutor? You mean Mr. O’Rourke? I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent Savich. Do you, Clive?”

  Clive said through a yawn, “Not a clue.”

  “What you both must have figured out by now,” Savich continued smoothly, “is that your whole plan to get the murder charges dismissed has blown up in your face. Judge Hunt saw through it, and now there will be a mistrial. You will be tried again, with even greater security, and you’ll be convicted. If you had anything to do with Judge Hunt’s shooting or with O’Rourke’s disappearance, we’ll find that out, too. I would think two people facing the death penalty might be asking about a deal right about now.”

  Clive and Cindy exchanged glances. Clive said, “We already told you we had nothing to do with any of that. Mr. Siles has already told us to sit back and wait awhile, see what happens now. Right, darling?”

  Cindy said, “Right. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Siles.”

  Savich said, “You’ve got to know your lawyer doesn’t want to end up in prison with you, if he was involved. If you could help us find Mr. O’Rourke, or to find Judge Hunt’s shooter before he can do any more harm, I’m sure the U.S. attorney would be very interested in possibly removing the death penalty from the table, maybe even reducing your sentences. And I’m sure the government would very much like to know who you sold that information to from Mark Lindy’s computer.”