by Jae
"Another lineup." Dawn bit her lip.
"Yes."
Dawn looked up at her. "For the last time?"
Aiden laughed. "Don't think I didn't notice you asking me if it's him only in different words."
Dawn smiled ruefully and stood. "I can't get anything past you, can I? Okay, let's get it over with."
* * *
Ray leaned against the edge of the table, crossing his arms as he waited for the six men in the lineup to be led into the adjoining room. Normally, he would have stepped up to the one-way mirror to flank Dawn on the side his partner didn't occupy. But as he read this victim's body language, he saw that with Aiden by her side Dawn was as comfortable as she could be being only one room away from the man suspected of raping her.
He looked at Aiden, reading her protective stance as easily as he would his own in a mirror. What is it between those two? Ray wondered. He had seen his partner show a total disinterest in women – and men – who had been more attractive, wealthier, and a whole lot less complicated than Dawn Kinsley.
Ray's thoughts were interrupted when a police officer opened the door to the adjoining room and six men filed into the room. "Do you recognize any of these men?" Ray asked when they had all taken their positions.
Dawn didn't even hesitate for a second. "Number four."
Bingo! Ray directed a triumphant smile at the defense attorney Gary Ballard had immediately hired. "Where do you recognize him from?"
"He's the man who broke into my apartment and raped me," Dawn said clearly. Her gaze never wavered, never turned away from the one-way glass.
While the other two victims hadn't been as sure, Ray knew that this positive identification was above reproach.
Kade nodded in the direction of Dawn and the detectives before she turned on her heels and strode out of the room, tossing a "See you at the arraignment, Mr. D'Aquino" over her shoulder.
The defense lawyer grimaced and followed her out of the room.
Dawn turned away from the one-way glass. "I picked the right one, didn't I? It's him."
Aiden nodded.
Dawn sank down onto the edge of the table. "What now?" she looked up at the detectives with green eyes that held equal parts relief and fear.
"Now you go home and let us worry about burying him in evidence." Aiden directed her to the door with one hand lightly resting on her elbow. "You can sleep tonight, knowing that he's enjoying our hospitality."
CHAPTER 13
AIDEN STARED AT the man sitting at the small table across from her. They had been at this for hours, but still no confession from Gary Ballard. His lawyer was earning his money by sitting there and studying the interrogation room's walls with feigned interest.
"So, let me sum up the vast information your client has given us in the last four hours: he's as innocent as a newborn babe," Aiden said, getting impatient with the relaxed suspect.
"Got that right, Officer." Gary Ballard flashed a smile at her.
Ray, who had leaned against the wall behind Ballard, stepped forward and leaned over his shoulder. "It's Detective, but I guess that's really hard for you to remember seeing as how you couldn't even remember ever meeting Dawn Kinsley, Melanie Riggs, or Jayne Matthews. Maybe the results of the DNA test we're running on your blood sample will refresh your memory, huh?"
Gary Ballard shrugged coolly. "Maybe I did meet them; maybe I didn't. Never heard their names, though. You know how it is with one-night stands; you don't stay around long enough to learn the life story."
One-night stands? For a few seconds, Aiden couldn't hear anything else Ballard said; the blood was rushing through her ears too loudly. She clenched her teeth until her jaw began to hurt again.
In the adjacent observation room, Dr. Albert Renshaw stepped back from the one-way mirror and shook his head. "He's not going to give us anything. Not like this."
Kade, who was watching the interview next to him, nodded in agreement. It didn't take a degree in psychology to see that the interrogation was going nowhere. "Should I tell my detectives not to waste their time with him?"
"No." Renshaw turned and looked into Kade's eyes. It always amused her a little that he had to look up to do so, and she wondered if there was a Freudian complex that matched the situation. "I want you to go in there," Renshaw said.
"Me?" Kade was skeptical. "If two experienced detectives can't get him to agree on the time of day, I hardly think that I'll scare him into talking."
Renshaw just smiled. "It's not fear I'm after; it's anger and hate, which seem to be his most dominant emotions. He's confident and cocky, but he's not dumb. He won't give us anything as long as he's able to control his anger. We know it's there; just think about the way he hit his victims and destroyed every symbol of lesbianism in sight. His anger is always lurking just beneath the surface. We only have to trigger it and get him to lash out, like he did at Detective Carlisle when she arrested him."
Kade had to admit that it sounded reasonable. If Ballard lost his cool, maybe he would let some details slip that she could use against him in court. "How do we do that? Short of going in there and slapping him in the face, what can I do to provoke his anger?"
A grim smile formed on the psychiatrist's lips. "You have to grab him by the balls."
"I hope you mean that in a figurative sense," Kade murmured.
"You have to hit him in his weak spot and reject his manhood, his masculinity," Renshaw said. "His motive, the whole reason why he commits those rapes, is the urgent need to validate his masculinity and to prove his superiority."
Kade shrugged. "Why is that so urgent for him?"
"Not only does he hate lesbians, I suspect that deep inside, he fears that he might have inherited the 'gay gene' from his mother," Renshaw said.
"His mother?" Kade didn't understand about what he was talking.
Dr. Renshaw nodded and handed over a slim file.
Kade quickly opened it and skimmed the report. "His mother is a lesbian?"
Renshaw nodded. "Yes, but for a long time, she didn't live openly gay, so Ballard might secretly be afraid that there's a latent homosexuality in him, too. He has to have total control over a woman, a homosexual woman, to counter these fears," Renshaw said. "If you take away that control, his superiority, he has to do something to reestablish it."
"How do I do that?"
Renshaw ticked it off on his fingers. "First, you send Ray out of the room – and don't be nice about it Order him around as though men are inferior."
Kade grinned. "No problem. I can do that. What's next?"
"You ignore Ballard for as long as you can get away with it," Renshaw said.
Kade raised an eyebrow. "What do I do instead? There aren't exactly a lot of distractions in there." She pointed to the bare, sterile interrogation room.
"Detective Carlisle is in there," Renshaw said, his baby blue eyes twinkling over the rim of his glasses. "You pay attention to her – only her. Look at her; smile at her; touch her. Give Ballard the impression that you're more than colleagues. He can't stand it if two women only have eyes for each other and don't spare him even a fleeting glance. If you ignore him in favor of a woman, especially a woman he thinks might be a lesbian, he has to do something to get your attention."
Kade stared at him for a moment, but she had to admit that his plan certainly seemed logical. "Shouldn't we explain the plan to Detective Carlisle first if we expect her to play the role of my lesbian lover?"
The psychiatrist just grinned. "No, that would grant Ballard a breather that we don't want to give him. I'm sure Detective Carlisle is experienced enough to play the game and improvise if you give her the right cues."
"Okay, let's do it." Kade squared her shoulders and strode out of the room.
* * *
Aiden glanced up when the door opened and Kade entered without a knock.
The DDA didn't look at Ballard or his lawyer. She gave Ray a curt nod. "You're needed elsewhere, Detective," she told him in the condescending tone that was
normally reserved for low-life criminals, "doing something more important than this." She pointed at Ballard, and her facial expression seemed to add "like scraping chewing gum off the underside of your desk."
Ray lived with five females; he knew when it was safer for him to leave the room.
Aiden had just started to speculate about the source of Kade's bad mood when the DDA turned to her. A warm smile lit up Kade's features. "Hi, Aiden." Her voice was an intimate purr, and she threw back her red hair in a gesture that was pure seduction.
Aiden? Aiden knew that Kade rarely called her by her first name. She watched with growing astonishment as Kade perched on the edge of the table directly in front of her, turning her back on Ballard and his lawyer. Aiden's eyes were involuntarily drawn downward to the long, slender legs when the suit skirt slid up and revealed more of them than usual.
Instead of addressing Ballard, Kade leaned forward, her body almost touching Aiden's, and began to chat. "So, Aiden, how have you been since this morning?"
Since this morning? Kade knew as well as she did that they hadn't seen each other that morning. Puzzled by the DDA's behavior, she studied her face and the twinkling blue eyes. What the hell is going on here, Kade? Then her gaze fell on Ballard, and suddenly, she understood what Kade was trying to do.
For the first time since his arrest, Garett Ballard's face showed something other than cool arrogance. His eyes were glowing with an almost unnatural rage.
"Sadly, the day didn't continue as exciting as it began, Counselor," Aiden answered. She let her voice caress the last word, making it sound like a lover's pet name. "Just sitting around, wasting my time listening to a bragging liar."
Kade half turned toward Ballard as if noticing him for the first time. Her cool gaze slid up and down his body and then turned back to Aiden, dismissing him. "What's he lying and bragging about?" she asked Aiden as if Ballard weren't sitting right there.
"He's claiming to have slept with three lesbians."
Again, Kade turned. She looked at Ballard with a pitying smile. "I can hardly believe he slept with three women in his life, much less three lesbians."
Ballard sprang up. His chair clattered to the floor. "You fucking dykes! I should –"
Aiden started to rise, but Victor D'Aquino, his lawyer, was already dragging Ballard back from the table and the two women behind it.
"Get your hands off me!" Ballard towered angrily over his attorney. "I'm going to show –"
"Garett! Don't say another word! Sit down, and don't open your mouth again, no matter what they say. They're only trying to provoke you." He straightened the chair and sat the red-faced, glowering Ballard onto it.
Shit! Aiden traded disappointed glances with Kade. They both knew that his lawyer had successfully prevented Ballard from incriminating himself. They wouldn't get anything else out of him now. It might not have been a total waste, though. There was still the trial to think about, and if Garett Ballard could be provoked once, they could do it again.
A knock on the door got Aiden's attention. Roughly, she pushed her chair back from the table, signaling Kade to leave the room with her.
Ray slipped past them into the interrogation room, determined to try another tactic.
Out in the hallway, Aiden drew a few deep breaths.
Jeff Okada studied her silently. "Mr. Ballard still exercising his Fifth Amendment rights?"
"For the most part." Aiden nodded grimly. "He's a smart little bastard. He's denying he knew their names or addresses but admits a remote possibility that they may have been 'one-night stands,' just in case DNA results come back positive. Got anything from the lab?"
"Fresh from the press." Okada held up a piece of paper as they headed toward the squad room. "Ballard's blood sample is a perfect match to the semen from the rape kit done on Dawn Kinsley. And the prints found in her apartment are his, too."
Aiden nodded in satisfaction. While that didn't disprove his allegations of a one-night stand, it was a start, making it impossible for him to deny any knowledge of the victims. "Anything on the Glock? Does he have a concealed handgun license for it?"
"No license, no signs of the Glock," Okada said.
"No Glock? Damn."
Kade's heels echoed down the hallway as she caught up with them. "No worries, Detectives," she said. She showed them her sharklike lawyer smile. "That'll give us a reason to search for it in his apartment."
Aiden looked up hopefully. "We have enough for a search warrant, right?"
"With the DNA match, a positive identification in a lineup, plus motive and access, we have enough for Judge Gilmartin to offer to search the apartment himself," Kade emphasized.
Aiden smiled. "No, thanks, I think I'd rather do it myself. His signature will suffice."
Ray came out of the interrogation room.
"Did he cop to anything?" Aiden asked.
"No, I just left to petition the pope to confer sainthood on Mr. Ballard since he's such an innocent," Ray commented dryly.
Chuckling, Aiden shook her head. "Canonization will have to wait; we have an apartment to search. Kade said she can get us a warrant for Ballard's apartment."
"Can I talk to you for a second?" Ray pointed over his shoulder, farther down the hallway, where they would have more privacy.
Aiden followed him. She frowned at him, impatient to get going and search Ballard's apartment. "What is it?"
"Why don't you take a nap in the dungeon and let Jeff and Ruben search Ballard's apartment?" Ray suggested, nodding toward the small room that they sometimes used to catch an hour of sleep during long shifts.
"What?" Aiden turned so she was facing him fully, going into confrontation mode. "What is this crap, Ray? I don't need a nap, not when we're this close to –"
"What you're this close to is either a breakdown or a complaint in your personnel file." Ray stared at her. "You haven't really slept since Sunday, and it's not only the lack of sleep that's affecting you. You're emotionally involved in this case."
Aiden fixed him with an angry glare. "Now wait a minute, Bennet! If memory serves me correctly, it was you who told me just a few weeks ago that it was okay if I got to know Dawn. It was you who told me not to give it up."
"Yes." Ray nodded calmly. "I did tell you that because I could see that there was only one person who could help Dawn through this, but there's more than one person who's able to search his apartment."
Aiden ground her teeth. She knew he was right but was loath to admit it and leave this case in anyone else's hands.
"Aiden," Ray said, a lot gentler now, "I know you never behaved improperly toward Dawn, but you and she... You've become friends, and if the defense attorney learns about that, he'll try to use it against us. Even the appearance of impropriety could hurt the case, you know that."
"Okay, okay." Aiden rubbed her neck and sighed. "I'll stay out of it."
Ray nodded and turned to inform Okada of the change in plans.
"Ray?" Aiden called, waiting until she looked into her partner's compassionate eyes. "Thanks for looking out for me."
He smiled. "Hey, that's what partners are for: reminding you to sleep, eat your vegetables, and keep a healthy emotional distance."
"Well," Aiden returned the smile and caught up with him, "two out of three ain't bad."
CHAPTER 14
"NEXT CASE."
Aiden slipped into the courtroom where the arraignments were held just as Judge Stenton banged his gavel. Dawn's case was number fifteen on today's docket, and Aiden had timed it so that she arrived just before the case was called. She wanted to seek out one of the free seats in the back row of the courtroom, but Kade waved her to the front.
"Sit in the first row, please," Kade whispered to her. "Can't hurt for Judge Stenton to see the gigantic bruise on your jaw."
Aiden grimaced, but then had to smile. "Thanks a lot for the compassion, Counselor."
Kade shrugged. "I've got no choice but to use what I have."
"Bad news?" Aiden fur
rowed her brow.
"Okada did a background check on Ballard. Seems his grandparents left him a nice amount of money. If I can't get Stenton to decide on remand, he'll be out before lunch. Unfortunately, Stenton likes to release defendants on their own recognizance or set minimum bail," Kade told her.
Shit. Aiden turned her head, pointing her colorful jaw in the judge's direction. "The grandparents?"
"Looks like they disinherited their daughter when she left the family to move in with her female lover," Kade said.
Aiden raised a brow. "So, Renshaw was right, huh? At least in part. It wasn't a girlfriend but his mother who left him for a woman."
