Linda Fairstein - The Kills

I didn't see my paralegal, Maxine, enter and walk up to the clerk's desk on the front side of the room opposite the jury box. She was distracting Moffett, and he called her on it. "You got something you need to disturb us for, missy?"

"She's got to talk to Ms. Cooper, pronto, Judge," the clerk said.

He stood behind his chair and waved me in Maxine's direction. I was no happier than Moffett and my expression must have showed that.

"Sorry, Alex. Mercer told me to get to you immediately. He wants to know if you can ask the judge to revoke the defendant's bail and remand him overnight."

"What possible reason would I have to do that?" I asked.

"A woman called your office a little while ago, looking for you. She claims to be the foster mother of Dulles Tripping. She says the principal sent the boy home with a note this afternoon, telling her that there was a man hanging out in front of the school yard at seven-thirty this morning, asking other kids if they knew where Dulles was."

"Did the woman leave her name and number? Did the teacher describe the guy?"

I was snapping at Maxine for answers that I knew I should not expect her to have.

"From what she said to me, it sounds kind of like the defendant," Maxine said.

"If it happened first thing this morning, why did the principal wait so long to tell her?"

I was trying to recall what time Tripping had gotten to the courthouse.

"He didn't wait. The woman had some medical appointments in the morning, after she dropped Dulles off at school. They'd been looking for her all day but she never went back to the house until after she picked up the boy."

I was over a barrel again. I couldn't make a bail application alleging that the defendant might have violated the order of protection without at least a firsthand ability to assess the foster mother's credibility. One more player I hadn't yet met. I needed to get the details from the principal. If the request for remand backfired, I would have aggravated the judge unnecessarily. If I erred on the side of caution, I might be giving Tripping one more opportunity to intercept-or even to harm-his young son.

"I'll ask for ten minutes so I can call her. Give me the woman's number," I said to Maxine.

"That's just it. She was spooked. Said you didn't know her name and she wasn't about to leave it with Mercer or anyone else who could track her down. She just wanted you to know that she was taking Dulles and leaving town with him. She'll be in touch."

We finished picking our jury shortly after seven.

"Ten o'clock sharp, ladies and gentlemen," Moffett said, dismissing the twelve we had selected, along with two alternates.

"Tell you what I'm gonna do with regard to the boy," he announced to Robelon and me after the courtroom was cleared of the group. "I'll tell Ms. Taggart to have Dulles produced in my chambers after school tomorrow. Miss Cooper can try to talk to him and that other lawyer, what's his name?"

"Hoyt. Graham Hoyt."

"Yeah. He can sit in on it, too, on the boy's behalf. I'll hang around to iron out any problems that come up. How's that sound?"

I couldn't concentrate on the conversation. My mind was spinning, wondering whether the child was in any actual danger, where the foster mother might have taken him, how Nancy Taggart would respond when I told her about the call from the school, and why everyone in this case-except the victim-seemed to have his or her own agenda.

Robelon spewed out some form of objection and tried to make up for lack of case law to support his position by the sheer volume of his rhetoric.

"Alexandra," Moffett said, "I'm talking to you. We'll stop with your witness at five o'clock tomorrow and then I'll give you a chance to see if the kid'll cooperate."

"Fine, Your Honor." I had a better chance of winning the lottery than sitting in a room with Dulles Tripping by the end of the next day.

"Anything else?" he asked, unhooking the clasp of his robe and handing it to the court officer to hang until the morning.

"Judge, I'd just ask you to remind the defendant, now that proceedings have started, that the order of protection is in full force. He is not to attempt or have any contact with his son, whether in this courthouse, at his school, or-"

"That's really unnecessary, Alex," Robelon objected. "We don't even know what school the kid goes to or where he's living."

"I have no idea what you or your client know at this point. I'm in the rather unorthodox position of not having access to my own witnesses. It's quite clear that the family court, by allowing telephone calls and several meetings between Mr. Tripping and his son, undercut the order of one of the criminal court judges-"

I knew how to get under Moffett's collar. "Which she had no business doing. Alex is right about that. Be a good boy, Mr. Tripping, understood?"

"Yes, sir." The defendant seemed to be smirking at me as he answered Moffett.

The elevators stopped on the seventh floor and I ran my security badge through the scanner, walked down the quiet corridor and up to my eighth-floor office.

Ryan Blackmer, one of my favorite young lawyers, was keeping Mercer company in my office when I dragged in. "You need me?" I asked.

"Just a heads-up. Mind if I work on an investigation at Bayview?"

The prison facility on Manhattan's West Side was the only place in the county where female inmates were housed. "Be my guest. What is it?"

"Prisoner claims one of the guards-he's a captain, actually-has been having sex with her."

"Wouldn't be the first time. But those can be awfully hard to prove."

"She's doing seven years on a robbery with physical injury. Her lawyer claims she hasn't had a single visitor since Christmas, when her husband left her for her younger sister. Now she's four months pregnant. Might be as easy as a fetal DNA test."

"Go for it," I said as the phone rang.

Mercer answered it. "I don't think she's in the mood," he said, holding out the receiver to me.

"Chapman?"

"I'm running out of steam, Coop. Never shut my eyes for a minute last night and I'm just about to go lights-out."

"I'm too busy to tuck you in."

"I need a favor."

It was hard to refuse Mike. He had saved my neck on more occasions than I could count. "Shoot."

He laughed. "But first, what do you give for 'Famous Funerals'?" I glanced down at my watch. The "Final Jeopardy" question.

"Nothing. The subject's too close to home at the moment."

"Laid to rest in London's Highgate, his orator described him as the 'best hated and most calumniated man of his times.'"

From the days when I was immersed in my major in English literature, I knew that one of my favorite authors was interred there. "George Eliot's buried in Highgate. But she doesn't fit. And Bram Stoker's notorious vampire, Miss Lucy. Otherwise, not a clue. Skip the education and tell me what the favor is."

"That was Engels describing his buddy Karl Marx to the eight mourners who gathered at the graveside. Only eight. Imagine that. So can you stop at the morgue on the way home?"

"Sure. I didn't want to eat any dinner or polish up my opening statement."

"I know your style. You had your opening in the can a month ago. You've already written the summation."

Mike was right. I had learned from the old school, the guys who had mastered the art of criminal trial work under great prosecutors. Start your preparation with the closing argument. That way you could make a coherent presentation from the outset, building your case with a sound structure and layering in any new information that you gathered during the testimony of the witnesses. I had outlined those arguments weeks ago.

"What do you need?"

"You told me you were going to assign last night's homicide to someone."