William Bernhardt - Hate Crime

“And that was all?”

“He was a carpenter, I remember. Took his stuff up to the flea market sometimes to sell.”

“And?”

“Sometimes we… talked about cars.”

“Cars? Just cars?”

“Race cars. Kind of a hobby for us. We were both into drag racing.”

Swift blinked. “Drag racing? Like-zoom-zoom? American Graffiti ?”

“Right. We could rattle on for hours, talking about mag wheels and stick shifts and stuff. He seemed a little old for that sort of thing. But as I learned, he raced pretty regularly.”

“On the street? When the cops weren’t looking?”

“No, man. On designated drag strips. It’s safe. Legal. When he talked about his favorite strip, he called it-what was it?-’the happiest place on earth.’ ”

“And you’re sure he wasn’t talking about Disneyland?”

“Positive. Drag racing.”

“I didn’t know there were any strips around Tulsa.”

“Tulsa?” The kid was incredulous. “He wasn’t from Tulsa. He was just passing through. Taking care of some business. His strip was near Evanston.”

“Evanston?” Swift’s eyes widened. “As in the suburb of Chicago?”

“That’s the one.”

Swift gave Mike a long look. “Well, guess what, boys and girls? I think you’re going to be paying a visit to my neck of the woods.”

Mike nodded. “Sounds that way. We can’t get a flight till tomorrow morning, though.” He gave Sid his card. “If you think of anything else you know about this guy-anything at all-give me a call.”

“Okay. Sure.”

They prepared to leave. “And kid?”

“Yes, sir?”

“The federal penitentiary in McAlester is a really ugly place. Take my word for it. You don’t want to go.”

“No, sir.”

“So keep your nose clean. Tomlinson?”

“Yes, Major?”

“Nice work.” He slapped his old friend and protégé on the shoulder. “Wanna grab a sandwich? You can fill me in on what you and Karen and that girl of yours have been up to. And what’s going down with the uniforms. Especially the gossip. I love the gossip…”

“Christina!” Loving bellowed. “You’re needed in the conference room. There’s like-thirty of ’em in there!”

“I’ll be just a minute.” She met him in the hallway. “I’ve been reading your reports. You’ve covered a heck of a lot of ground.”

The burly man tipped an imaginary hat. “I aim to please, ma’am.”

“I really appreciate your tracking down all of Johnny Christensen’s friends and frat brothers.”

“Yeah. Too bad none of ’em knows nothin.’ ” He shook his head. “I gotta tell you, Christina. No one saw Tony in the vacant lot, and no one saw him moved to the frat house.”

“I know. But it was late, and there was no reason for anyone to be there. Keep on it, okay?”

“Natch.”

“You might get with Jones and see what he’s got on this ANGER group. Maybe a little infiltration would turn up something useful.”

“I’ll check into it.”

“Good. Get a copy of Paula’s report on Tony and the man who shot Brett Mathers. It’s very thorough. Good starting place.”

“Will do.”

Christina started for the conference room. “Wanna help me in here?”

He grinned sheepishly. “You don’t want my help, Chris. I’d just hire the cutest one.”

“Right.” She pushed the door open and entered the conference room-which was packed solid with young law students. And Jones.

“Have you talked to Ben about this yet?” he asked.

“No. He doesn’t want to be involved.”

“He might want to be involved in acquiring new staff! We don’t have the money to hire an intern.”

“Find it.”

“Where? It’s not as if you’re getting paid big bucks.”

“I don’t know. There must be someplace.”

“I could take it out of your salary.”

She paused. “Someplace else.” She laid her clipboard on the table and addressed the sea of eager young faces. “Good morning, and thank you for coming. As I’m sure you all know, we’ve been handed a major case with an extremely tight deadline-and we need help. If you’re looking to make a fortune overnight or to get another line on your résumé, leave now. But if you want to knuckle down and do some seriously hard work-and maybe get a crash course in how criminal cases are tried-line up over here. Be prepared to tell me what your goals are-why you wanted to be a lawyer in the first place. We’ll start the interviews immediately.”

After an hour or so, the faces blurred together and Christina had a hard time differentiating the words of one candidate from another’s.

“I guess it was Perry Mason that did it for me. I mean, watching the show, somehow you just knew Della was the brains of the outfit. But did she ever get any credit? Nooooo.”

“I think the American criminal justice system is in sorry shape. I became a lawyer so I could reform the system from within. And get a swimming pool. I live to swim.”

“My mom always said, ‘Carrie, the way you argue, you ought to be a lawyer.’ So here I am!”

“I used to watch you on Court TV, every afternoon, during the Wallace Barrett trial. And I thought, Man, can that girl dress! I wanna get me some of that action.”

“Doesn’t it drive you crazy when people talk about the Founding Fathers? I mean, how sexist is that? There were women in those colonies, too.”

“Mostly, I want to be a lawyer so I can give speeches. I give seriously hot speeches. When I talk, people melt like butter.”

“I hate it when creeps tell lawyer jokes. I mean, that’s so bigoted. Negative stereotypes, based on someone’s profession. It’s disgusting. Now, Aggie jokes-those are funny.”

And worst of all, in Christina’s estimation: “I just want to be an attorney so I can help other people.”

“Ugh.” Christina rolled her eyes. “No, thanks. We’ve already got one of those.”

And then there was one. By the end of the morning, Christina had narrowed the field to: Vicki Harmon. On the plus side, she was smart, energetic, and appeared to work out regularly-a good quality given the rigors of trial preparation and courtroom proceedings. Furthermore, she was personally recommended by the dean of Northwestern, and she had the best résumé of the lot. On the minus side, Christina thought, she’s probably smarter than I am, is even shorter than I am, and by all indications is even quieter than Ben. If such a thing is possible.

She hired the girl anyway. “I assume you can start immediately.”

Vicki spoke softly-more like a mouse squeak than a human voice. “Oh yes. I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

Christina shook her head. “When I say immediately, I mean immediately. As in now .”

Vicki blinked. “Oh.”

“This trial starts Monday, remember? And I don’t want to scare you off-but you’ll be my right-hand man. My Number One.”

Another blink. “Oh.”

Despite her quietness, the girl was seriously cute-which was kind of a strike against her. Christina was used to being the cute one in the office, but there was no way she could out-cute this little slip of a thing who was twelve years younger. Oh, well. The sacrifices she made for her clients…

“And not that this is immediately relevant,” Christina continued, “but I see on your résumé that you speak French.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“Not just clichés, but really, truly speak French?”

“It was my minor in college. Can I still have the job?”

Christina batted her lips with a finger. “Let me think. You’re young, pretty, smart, ambitious, have good grades, are well dressed, almost a lawyer, free of entanglements, and you speak French. Vicki-you’re living my dream.”