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I’d handled some very high profile cases, too. As near as I could figure, Gold hated me for being as famous as she was. She’d cast a lot of aspersions on me, equating me with past clients.
I’d been forced to retaliate: Brad Rommel deserved a fair fight. If I was going to enter the arena spattered with mud, Gold would have to appear soiled, too. It made extra work for me—depressingly cynical work—but the jury couldn’t be allowed to see Gold as the better person.
I’d gone to the State Bar and the news media to block in advance Gold’s sale of rights to the Rommel story—though as far as I knew, she wasn’t planning a sale. I’d made a public stink about the commercial exploitation of victims and the DA’s obligation to provide closure rather than seek personal enrichment. What if victims stopped revealing “embarrassing” details to DAs because they didn’t want them featured in a movie of the week?
My statements convinced two of the serial rapist’s victims to sue Gold. I hadn’t intended that to happen.
“I’m not so sure I’m kidding,” Sandy added.
“No,” I repeated, “it’s crazy, Sandy. The whole idea of someone being after me is crazy.” I said it with such authority.
“When do you go back up to Hillsdale?”
“I’ve got a Motion to Exclude Evidence tomorrow. Win or lose, I’m back here the day after. If I do lose, I’ll go up again on the weekend. Can you come?” One of Brad’s better qualities was his affluence. He owned a fishing boat, an airplane, and a mountain cabin. He could afford an out-of-town investigator. And Sandy was worth the extra money.
His grin told me he planned to stick close to me for a while. “Looking forward to the sunshine,” he replied.
Again I glanced out his window. Sometimes I found myself fantasizing about the savage chill and smothering wetness of the Pacific north coast. There was an animal sensuality to being battered by wind and flogged by rain. Maybe I’d spent too much of my adulthood in the temperate city.
Or maybe I’d finally noticed that San Francisco was changing. Mission neighborhoods that a few years ago enjoyed a colorful renaissance now cowered in fear of gang violence. AIDS lent a plague-year leer to the Castro Street carnivals. Everywhere, stunned throw-aways shivered in doorways. On a gray day, without bay sparkle or views, the city could be downright ugly.
And somehow it was gray days I missed most.
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About the Author
Lia Matera is the Edgar, Anthony, and Macavity Award–nominated author of nine novels. A graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law, where she was editor in chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Matera was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School before becoming a full-time writer of legal mysteries. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
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Copyright © 1994 by Lia Matera
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-6672-3
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