Marcia Clark - Guilt By Degrees

She nodded.

I watched again as the homeless man grabbed the woman’s forearm. At the moment the woman pulled away, I told the shopkeeper to freeze the picture.

I pointed to the screen, which showed John Doe still on his feet. “Makes it hard to believe that the stabber was just trying to protect her,” I remarked.

“Though not impossible,” Bailey said. “We need to find some surveillance footage from another angle.”

“Ideally, one that shows the stabber,” I agreed. “And it’d be good to find this woman. She had to have seen something.”

“Right,” Bailey replied.

“So why’d she split without reporting?” I asked.

Bailey shook her head.

We continued watching. Our John Doe dropped out of frame. Pedestrians walked by. Eventually a man stopped and looked down at the spot where John Doe had fallen, then walked on. Some minutes later, a young girl aimed her iPhone at the same spot, then continued down the street. Other passersby parted around an unseen obstacle, then rejoined and kept moving. I winced as, one by one, each of them walked right past my John Doe, most without so much as a second glance.

According to the time counter, John Doe lay on the ground for two and a half hours before the police arrived.

Chase saunteredinto her office and dropped the flash drive on her desk with fake nonchalance. “We’ve got him,” he said with a superior smile.

Sabrina flashed him a skeptical look. “We’ll see,” she replied. She didn’t really doubt him, though. Chase wasn’t a braggart. Tenacious and whip-smart, he had an almost perfect track record. Which was why she’d brought him in as her right-hand man. Well, that, and the fact that she’d always trusted him more than anyone else in the world. Though what that meant was somewhat murky, since she trusted no one else at all. Sabrina waited as Chase flopped down into the cushy sofa to the right of her desk and pulled off his “cover”-a wig and fake glasses. Sabrina wasn’t usually a fan of disguises. Too often, they screamed “costume,” which only managed to draw more attention. But she was forced to admit that for Chase, there was no other option. His long nose, piercing black eyes fringed by insanely long lashes, and thick curling brown hair presented a combination distinctive enough to make an impression on even a marginally observant witness.

“I take it my intel was good, then?” she asked.

“I don’t know how you do it, but it’s the best.”

Sabrina plugged in the flash drive, then picked up the remote and pressed a button. The floor-to-ceiling metallic shades moved quietly across the wall of windows and shut out the afternoon sun. Now the only light in the cavernous office came from the glow of the cobalt-blue buttons on the remote in her hand.

She swiveled her chair to face the wall on the right and pressed another button. A flat screen descended and locked into place at eye level. Sabrina hit play, and the image of an empty bedroom filled the screen in gray scale. The colors were so muted, it was difficult to make out what was in the room. She adjusted the contrast for maximum definition, and the outline of a bed, a dresser with a television set, and two nightstands-typical hotel furniture-came into view. Seconds later, a man in his sixties-in slacks and shirtsleeves, his expensive suit jacket slung over one shoulder-entered, loosening his tie. He tossed his jacket onto a chair in the corner, lumbered over to the king-size bed, and sat down heavily, hands hanging loosely between his thighs. Sabrina smirked. The man was obviously more than a few drinks into his good time. He rubbed his face, then looked around the room. Sabrina hit pause and peered over at Chase.

“Can you enhance this? I don’t want there to be any doubt.”

“Yeah, of course. But, trust me, there won’t be.”

Sabrina turned back to the screen and continued the footage. The man went over to the minibar and pulled out two small bottles of champagne and two flutes. The door of the mini-fridge closed with a thunk, and when he set down the glasses, the clink gave a clear treble tinkle. Sabrina noted the clarity of the sound, pleased. A knock came at the door, and the man went to answer it. The visitor moved past him into the room and stopped dramatically at the foot of the bed.

She was tall and slender, with waist-length blond hair, and dressed in a classic trench coat cinched with a knotted belt. When she spoke, her words nearly boomed from the speakers in the silent room. “Pour the champagne, darling. We don’t have all day.”

The man obeyed, and the visitor undid the belt and dropped the coat to the floor to reveal a black sequined bustier and black fishnet stockings. She strutted over to the man. They clinked glasses and drank, and the man reached out with one hand and began to caress her breasts.

She drained her glass, sat down on the bed, and leaned back on her elbows, letting her hair cascade down her back. “Bring me any prezzies?”

“Just this,” the man said, brandishing a clear baggie holding what looked like three grams of white powder.

“For the girl who has everything.” She took the bag, dipped in a long plastic fingernail, and scooped out a nice little mound.

Sabrina hit pause, freezing the image of the woman holding a healthy snort of cocaine on her nail.

“Congressman Rankin, you dog,” Sabrina said to the screen. “Or should I say bitch? ” She gave a low chuckle. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was fake.”

“I couldn’t fake it, man. Who could ever dream up stuff this crazy?”

There was that. A transvestite and a coker. And married with children. The rank, arrogant stupidity of it all was incredible, almost laughable. “Bless their pointed little heads-and Adam’s apples,” Sabrina remarked with a smirk.

“It was touch and go for a minute there. I lost him after the lunch break-somehow he melted into the crowd and got away from me. I panicked at first, but then I spotted his boyfriend there”-Chase gestured to the man on the screen-“the one you singled out in Miami. He was leaving the restaurant, so I followed him.”

“And the rest, as they say, is history.”

Chase gave a modest shrug.

Sabrina paused, then frowned. “How’d you get the camera in?”

“My old standby, the maintenance-man rig. Told the front desk I had to inspect the wiring and suggested they could give him a drink while he waited. They’ll never check the maintenance logs. I mean, who’s gonna complain?” Chase snickered.

Sabrina gestured to the flat screen. “I assume our lovebirds ‘get down’ after this?”

Chase’s features twisted sourly. “You don’t want to see it.” He turned to the screen. “But the picture’s good enough, right? And the sound. Couldn’t be better, right?”

Sabrina nodded. “We got him.”

“So when do we get paid?”

By thetime Bailey and I thanked our store manager for his help and stepped out onto the sidewalk, lacy cirrus clouds had spread across the sky, covering the sun and causing the temperature to drop. I shivered inside my peacoat and looked longingly across the street at the Subway sandwich shop.

“You hungry?” Bailey asked, seeing the focus of my gaze.

“Kinda, yeah,” I said, though I knew it wasn’t just because my stomach was empty. I needed some comfort food. This case was making me feel sad and lonely.

“I’m with you,” she said.

We headed back across the street and walked in. I’d just begun to read the menu on the wall behind the counter when I saw a familiar face.

I nudged Bailey. “That’s the eyewit, the guy who pissed backward on the stand today,” I whispered. His long, stringy hair was thankfully imprisoned by a hairnet, but there was no mistaking the face with that scraggly soul patch.