“What is this?” she said, defensive. “Reality 101?”
Sam pulled her gently into his arms, stroking her hair back from her face. “Give us a chance, Stella,” he whispered. “We won’t let you down.”
She remained there for some time, her cheek pressed against Sam’s jacket. It felt so good to have his arms around her, to know that someone cared. Finally she extracted herself, kissing him quickly on the forehead. Then she exited the car and made her way to the front door, disappearing inside the dark house.
Holly stormed into Frank Minor’s office after her last court appearance of the day. “What do you mean I can’t have an investigator?” she shouted. “This is the biggest case I’ve ever handled, and you’re telling me I have to do all the work myself.”
“We don’t have anyone available,” Minor said. If I had someone, I’d assign them.”
“We’ll have to hire an independent investigator, then,” she said, dropping down in a chair in front of his desk. “There are several good agencies in town, Frank. I’d rather use our own people, but if I have to, I’ll settle for an outsider.”
“We’re already over budget this year,” he said, tapping his pencil on the desk. “Harper may clear on his case by the time you get to the prelim. The prelim’s been continued anyway, I hear.”
“Only a week,” Holly pointed out. “If I walk in there with what we have now, the case might not be held over for trial. Stella has an investigator. Growman lets her have anything she wants.”
“If that’s true,” he said, chuckling, “then I suggest you get back to work.”
“Screw you,” Holly said. “I want that investigator, Frank.”
Minor spun his chair around and gazed out the window. “I’ve been thinking about Randall’s statement, particularly the part about the man he thought he saw arguing with Stella’s father,” he told her. “Her father was a building inspector. Who knows, there might be something there.” Wheeling his chair back around, he added, “Check all the newspapers around the time of the fire and see what you come up with. Also, contact the building inspector’s office and see what Cataloni was working on at the time of his death. Corruption in the building industry is fairly widespread. Maybe Stella’s father stumbled onto something heavy and someone went after him.”
Holly’s jaw dropped. “What are you saying?” she cried. “That you think Stella is innocent?
Shit, Frank, if you think the woman is innocent, why are we prosecuting her?”
“I didn’t say I thought she was innocent,” he argued. “I just think we should cover all the bases. Do you want the defense to sandbag us with this kind of argument? Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re not here to put innocent people in prison.”
“In case I’ve forgotten?” she said, incredulous. “This was your call, not mine.” Minor was backtracking, giving her the impression that he thought they were making a mistake by going forward. Suddenly it all came together, and Holly’s blood began to boil. “You amaze me, Frank,” she told him. “You’re looking for an escape route, aren’t you? If Stella’s cleared, are you going to make certain I take the fall for this fiasco? Well,” she said, wrapping her arms around her chest, “I’m not going to stand for it. People are always dumping on me, and I’m tired of it. You’re not going to hang me out to dry.”
He laughed at her. When Holly got riled, she reminded him of a toy poodle. He occasionally felt an urge to see how far he could push her. “And just what are you going to do about it?”
Holly stood to leave. “Stella’s guilty and I’m going to prove it,” she said, her face set with determination. “This is my chance to make a name for myself. No one’s going to take this away from me.”
“Now that’s what I’m looking for,” Minor said, leveling a finger at her. “The killer instinct, Oppenheimer. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Think again,” Holly said. She turned on her heel and marched out of the room, purposely slamming the door behind her.
“I need to see you in my office,” Holly said, stopping at Janet’s desk and then continuing on to her own. Janet stood, then picked up her steno book and pencil. Once they were both situated, Holly outlined Minor’s concerns. “I want you to handle this research for me. Stella’s been bombarding me with motions, so I don’t have enough time to do it myself.”
“Really?” Janet said. “That would be great. Holly. I could get a feel for what it’s going to be like when I get out of law school.”
Holly ignored her as she thought through what she wanted her to do. “You’ll have to contact the building inspector’s office and find out what Tony Cataloni was working on at the time of his death. Then you need to take it a step further and compile a list of the various people he might have come in contact with on job sites. Once you get some names, shoot them to records and check to see if any of them comes back with a criminal record.” She tapped her pen against her chin. That should be enough to satisfy Minor.” God, Holly,” Janet said, realizing the implications of what Holly had asked her to do, “we might be able to prove Stella’s innocence if we find the man her father was arguing with.” A dreamy look passed over her face. The thought that she might be the one to clear Stella was enormously appealing.
“Listen,” Holly said, “you can get that stupid look off your face, because Stella is guilty. All we’re doing here is trying to discredit any defense tactics she may spring on us down the line. Get right on it,” she concluded, picking a stack of papers off her desk.
“Can I look over what evidence you have now?” Janet asked. “It might help me to understand all the nuances in the case.”
“Sure,” Holly said. “Look over anything you want.”
Janet walked to the door and then stopped. “I have several days of typing I haven’t finished. You won’t be able to get the motions filed;, Holly. Who’s going to handle my work?”
“You are,” Holly answered without raising her head.
“Don’t you want me to go to the building office in person, rather than handle it over the phone? They might be more cooperative that way. This goes back so many years, Holly. How do we know the building inspector’s office still has that kind of information on file?”
“Use your free time,” Holly said. She dropped her pen and looked up at Janet. “You have an hour for lunch every day. If you find something, work on it at home.” Seeing the other woman’s jaw drop at the thought of working without pay, she added, “If you do a good job on this, I’ll write you a nice letter. You can use it to help you get into law school.”
“What if they won’t tell me anything?”
“There’s always a way,” Holly said, arching an eyebrow. She took in Janet’s simple blouse and long skirt, her scraggly brown hair. The woman wasn’t ugly, she thought, but she was terribly plain. Her forehead was too broad, her eyes too deeply set, and her fashion sense was appalling. Holly had ways to get what she wanted, particularly from the opposite sex. Janet Hernandez, she decided, would have to get the job done the hard way. “If they don’t cooperate,” she said, “tell them we’ll get a subpoena. Before you do anything, though, get the Dallas Morning News on the line.”
“Now?” Janet said, glancing at her watch. “It’s after six, Holly. My husband’s supposed to pick me up any minute. Don’t you want to wait until tomorrow morning?”
“No,” she answered, picking up the phone. “Go home, Janet. I’ll make the call myself.”
“I have to take you off the case.”
Brenda Anderson and Ben Growman were seated in a booth at Cable’s coffee shop not far from her apartment. Growman was sipping a cup of coffee, watching as Brenda wolfed down her hamburger. Once he had spoken, she choked on her food, and had to wash it down with her soda. “What are you saying?”
Growman looked out the window, deep in thought. “Someone called the Dallas Morning News and told them that you’ve been in Houston investigating Stella’s case,” he said. “Charley Abernathy called me a few mi
nutes before I left the office, asking me who was footing the bill for your services.”
“We can’t do this to Stella,” Brenda said, placing her palms on the table. “She needs me, Ben. It’s terrible. She’s hardly eating. Wait until you see her. Her shoulder blades stick out in the back and her legs are as thin as toothpicks. The woman has it coming from every possible direction. Her brother’s giving her problems, her uncle. Holly, Winters, and that doesn’t count this mysterious witness who just happens to be an ex-cop.”
His expression was flat, unreadable. “Do you think there’s anything to her conspiracy theory?”
“There could be,” Brenda said, “but it’s too early to tell. If you give me more time, though, we might make some real headway. This afternoon—”
“I can’t,” he said. “If I don’t put a stop to it, Abernathy says he’ll do a story on how I’m expending the taxpayers’ money to defend an accused murderer.”
“Bastard,” Brenda said, crunching her napkin in her hand. “Listen, Ben,” she said a few moments later, “Stella’s in tremendous danger, and I’m not referring to the possible outcome of the case. Didn’t you hear about the incident with her skirt?” She also filled him in on Mario’s arrest on drug charges, and how Holly was trying to coerce him into testifying for the prosecution.
Flagging down the waitress, Growman asked for a refill on his coffee, then took out his wallet to pay their bill. “My hands are tied, Brenda. We’ve done all we can do.”
She wasn’t about to abandon Stella. “I’ll quit, then,” she said. Brenda heard the words come out of her mouth, but had difficulty believing she had spoken them. She seldom asserted herself, and Growman had always intimidated her. The district attorney seemed to have a shield around him, and very few people other than Stella had ever penetrated it.
Dropping some bills on the table, Growman slid out of the booth. “You’re being foolish,” he said, yanking on the cuffs of his shirt. “You’re a good employee, Brenda. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
Brenda had competed against hundreds of candidates for her present position. If she resigned until Stella’s legal problems were resolved, she would probably have to reapply and wait for another opening. How would she support herself in the interim? “Wait, Ben,” she said, quickly scooting out of the booth, “I know how to solve the problem. I have three weeks’ vacation coming, plus another three weeks of accumulated sick time. As long as I’m not being paid by the county, no one has anything to complain about. Right?”
Growman gave her suggestion some thought. “If that’s what you want to do, then I guess I can’t stop you.”
“I’ll call personnel tomorrow,” Brenda said, sighing with relief.
The situation in Stella’s office was worse than she imagined. Case files were overflowing her in-basket, her desk was completely covered in paperwork, and her secretary handed her at least twenty message slips when she walked through the door that morning. “Has Brenda Anderson called yet?”
“Yes,” she said. “She wants you to meet her at Oracle Labs on Inwood Road at three o’clock. If you can’t make it, she told me to let her know right away. She only has the use of the lab from three to five.”
“Three’s fine,” Stella said. “Do you know where Growman is?”
“In his office, I guess,” the woman said. “Want me to call and make certain he’s there?”
“Please,” she said, entering her office and collapsing in her chair. How would she ever catch up on her work? Scanning several files, she found her mind returning to her own predicament. If the charges weren’t dropped by the prelim, Growman would have to consider replacing her. He really didn’t have a choice. If she hadn’t been in a supervisory position with the agency, he could simply reassign her cases until she returned, but the way it was, the work was simply stacking up. If they weren’t careful, they would miss mandatory filing dates and dangerous offenders would go free.
She heard a noise and looked up, seeing Growman standing in front of her desk.
“I’m sorry for the mess, Stella,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ve been handling most of your work myself, but it’s been tough.” He paused, staring at the files in her basket. “How bad does it look?”
Stella flicked the stack with her hand. “Bad, Ben. We’re only talking a few days here. If I manage to bring Brannigan on board, maybe I can concentrate on my work until the prelim, but if I can’t raise the money—”
“How much does he want?” Growman asked.
“He asked for fifty originally. Now that there’s two cases, he’ll probably ask for a hundred thousand on retainer.” Stella laughed nervously. “Piece of change, huh?”
Growman winced in sympathy. “How is Brenda working out for you?”
“She’s fabulous,” Stella said. “I don’t know what I would do without her. And, Ben—”
He was already leaving. He stopped and faced her.
“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done,” she said. Stopping to clear her throat, she continued, “By the way, you were right about Holly. She accused me of having an affair with you. I think she’s jealous. It must be why she’s been so hostile to me. When you endorsed me on television, she must have gone crazy.”
“Holly’s jealous of everyone, Stella,” Growman told her. “If anyone else has so much as an extra crumb on their plate, she wants it. Not only does she want it, but she’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
“It’s funny,” Stella said. “I never realized Holly was that type of person. You think you know someone, but you really don’t. She’s a complete phony, Ben. She’s even trying to turn Mario against me.”
“I heard,” Growman said. “Anderson told me. Do you think there’s any chance he’ll cooperate?”
“No,” Stella said, shaking her head. “Our relationship has been strained lately, but I think everything’s okay now. Mario’s just scared, Ben. I’m going to get him an attorney and see if we can’t resolve his drug case. Then Holly won’t have anything to hold over his head.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Growman said, continuing on through the doorway.
Stella pulled into the parking lot of Oracle Labs at three-fifteen that afternoon. She had worked through the lunch hour and managed to get the majority of the cases on her desk assigned. At least they would get filed, she thought as she opened the car door and stepped out into a furnace of stifling heat. Suddenly the humidity in Houston didn’t seem so bad. When you went outside in Houston during the summer months, it felt as if someone had thrown a wet blanket over your head. The heat in Dallas was so searing that Stella’s skin burned like a hot iron had been pressed against it. A lot of burn victims were sensitive to heat. Some of them even carried little portable fans around everywhere they went. It wasn’t so difficult to figure out, she thought, as she headed across the parking lot to the building. Once the flames had licked at your skin, you never wanted to feel hot again.
Glancing at the drab gray building that housed Oracle Labs, she wondered why it had no windows. It looked like a fortress of some kind, the architecture stark and unappealing. “I’m here to see Brenda Anderson,” she told the receptionist. She was seated at a curved marble console, a bank of computer terminals and security monitors in front of her. “She should be expecting me. Tell her Stella Cataloni is here.”
The woman directed Stella to a grouping of metal chairs. A few moments later, Brenda Anderson appeared. ‘ ‘We’re all set up,” she said, her face haggard. “We worked all night, but I think the program is fairly accurate. If we had more time, of course, we could add more details and take it to a higher level of reality.” She stopped and glanced at Stella. “For the sake of time, I think it’s better that we go with what we have. What do you think?”
“I guess,” Stella said, following as Brenda led her through a maze of long corridors. She glanced through the glass partitions at banks of whirring computers and other sophisticated electronic equipment. Even thoug
h she was glad to be out of the heat, she found herself shivering in the cold building. “What do they do in this place? It’s like a deep freeze in here. I don’t think they even keep the morgue this cold.”
“They keep it cool because of the equipment,” Brenda told her. “In here,” she said, opening a heavy steel door and holding it as Stella stepped through.
The room was enormous. Set up in individual work stations, the ceiling was two stories high, and Stella took in all kinds of wires and instruments that seemed to be suspended in thin air. With all the lights and cameras on tripods, it looked more like a television station than a computer workshop.
“This is the virtual reality lab,” Brenda advised. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to stand on that platform.” She turned and indicated an area behind her. “You’ll wear goggles, Stella. They have teleprocessors built into the lenses, so the images will seem similar to what you see on television. Instead of real-life images, however, the images you will see will be generated by the computer program we’ve designed specifically for this purpose. You’ll also have sound. I’ll be able to talk to you from the control room over there, and more or less guide you.” She pointed to a glassed-in room, accessible via a stairway to the second level.
“What do you mean by guiding me?” Stella asked. “I’m not going anywhere outside this room, right?”
“Right,” Anderson said. “But see the platform? It’s a little like a treadmill. Once we get everything hooked up, it will move when you move, giving you the feeling that you’re walking. It’s all just a simulation, of course, but the more realistic we make it, the more you should remember about the night of the fire.” A young man stepped up and Anderson introduced him. “This is Pete Frazer. He helped me develop the program, Stella. We have to pay for the use of the lab, but Pete offered his services for free.”
“Thanks,” Stella said, smiling weakly, “I really appreciate your help.” Frazer appeared to be in his early to mid-twenties. With long hair and intelligent blue eyes, he was handsome and outgoing, well dressed and confident.
Trial by Fire Page 21
