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SEATTLE (Monday, Dec. 3, 2012, 9 a.m.) — Mac again was escorted to an interrogation room, a larger one, with a wooden table, and chairs that matched. More people in the room today.
“That’s not necessary,” Leatherstocking objected to the cuffs. The officers ignored him. Mac sat in a chair with his hands cuffed in front of him.
“I’d like to talk to my client before we proceed,” Leatherstocking said, apparently repeating an earlier request. That too was ignored.
Mac looked around the table. Leatherstocking sat to his right, perfectly dressed as usual. Rodriguez didn’t look as hostile as he had when he’d arrested Mac. Mac noted the change but couldn’t guess why it might have occurred. The third man at the table was a young man from the district attorney’s office. Jim Peterson? Something like that. Mac had watched him try a case once; not one of Seattle’s more impressive legal minds.
Mac leaned over to Leatherstocking, ignoring the other two. “I don’t want to talk to them,” he said firmly. “I need out of here. Get me arraigned, bail posted and out.”
Leatherstocking shook his head. “Unless they’ve got more than they did, you could walk out of here without charges. You don’t want a record.”
Mac snorted. He looked at Rodriguez and Peterson. “They think they’ve got more,” he said. “They found my Glock with my fingerprints on it. It matched the bullet in Donnelly’s place.”
Leatherstocking raised an eyebrow. “So your gun was stolen during the burglary the other night?” He said it loudly enough to be heard.
Mac smiled in appreciation. “Apparently. But there’s bound to be more. I need to be out of here — before the frame gets worse.”
Leatherstocking looked at Mac considering. Mac met his eyes easily, but he couldn’t tell what the older man was thinking. Leatherstocking nodded slowly.
“Gentlemen, I am advising my client to be silent,” he said, turning back toward the table. “Either arraign him or release him.”
Peterson shrugged. “So be it. See if there’s a judge who can hear it. I’m ready.”
Rodriguez said mildly, “Are you sure you’ve got a case, Jim?”
Everyone stared at him.
“Case? You bet your ass I have a case!” Peterson said indignantly. “You thought I had a pretty good case yesterday.”
Rodriguez shrugged. “Been thinking. Some things don’t add up right. Been nice how this case fell into the DA’s lap on a Sunday morning.”
Mac leaned forward, put his elbows on the table and listened. This was getting good, he thought. What was with Rodriguez?
“We have the weapon. It matches, and it has his fingerprints on it. We know what Donnelly was investigating scared him. We know when and how and why. That isn’t a case?”
“Donnelly awake and talking?” Mac asked.
“No, he’s still in a coma,” Rodriguez answered, still mild.
“So how did you determine what it was that Donnelly had?”
“We got a tip,” Peterson said. “And it’s checking out. Right down the line.”
Mac sucked on the inside of his cheek. How much more would Peterson spill before he woke up and shut up?
Leatherstocking injected a question. “All this on an anonymous tip? You’re a trusting soul, Jim.”
“Wasn’t anonymous,” Peterson said triumphantly. Rodriguez stiffened at that comment. News to him, Mac thought. He isn’t going to like that. “And this is a case you’re going to lose, Leatherstocking. To me.”
Leatherstocking sighed and stretched. “I doubt it. But I’ve lost before; my ego can handle it.” He looked at his Rolex. “It’s getting late, gentlemen. Let’s getting moving. Still isn’t too late to turn him loose.”
Rodriguez looked as if the idea had appeal but said nothing. Peterson just snorted and gathered up his files. Rodriguez motioned to the police officers to take Mac to the courtroom holding cell. “This way, gentlemen,” he said sardonically to the other two.
It took a half-hour to get before the judge. Leatherstocking was looking at the courtroom door with concern when Mac took his seat beside him. “Thought she’d be here by now,” Leatherstocking said under his breath.
“She?”
“Janet Andrews. She had to go to the office first for some meeting about this. She should be here by now.”
Mac looked at him. “You talk as if you know her. Personally.”
Leatherstocking glanced back at the door. “Janet’s been with the paper a long time. She’s one of the best editors there, best in the state, in my opinion. When the Examiner gets hauled into court, I always try to get her to be the one who takes the stand. She thinks fast, understands nuances. Damn good at handling cross examination.”
Mac nodded. “They going to let me post bail?” he asked. “Will the newspaper stand bail? Or do I need to get a hold of my aunt?”
Leatherstocking doodled a minute on his legal pad. “We’ll see if Janet’s here before then. We’ve still got the arraignment.”
“That won’t take long,” Mac said.
Paterson presented the charges to the judge. Mac said not guilty. The issue of bail brought protests from Paterson.
“This is a man who is accused of trying to kill a police officer to protect his drug dealing activities,” Paterson said. “We request no bail.”
Leatherstocking rose languidly. “If the state thinks my client is a drug dealer why are there no charges? It is inappropriate to make such slanders of character when the district attorney’s office is unwilling to even charge him with the crime. We request bail be set at a reasonable amount. My client is a respected reporter for the Seattle Examiner. He is a decorated Marine with family here. And he is innocent. He has no reason to run away from these accusations.”
Leatherstocking sat down. Paterson repeated his concern about turning loose a possible cop killer. Mac leaned over. “Can you call a witness?”
Leatherstocking shrugged. “Sure. But Janet still isn’t here.”
“Call Rodriguez.”
Leatherstocking raised an eyebrow at Mac, turned and looked at the police detective. “Are you sure?”
“No. But I’m willing to risk it. He’s different than he was when he picked me up yesterday morning. He’s been having second thoughts about something.”
Leatherstocking nodded. He stood up, was recognized by the court. “Your honor, we’d like to call Detective Rodriguez to the stand. I believe his views of my client and the case against him might be instructive.”
Rodriguez started, gave Mac an odd look. He approached the witness stand and was sworn in. Paterson was spluttering. Leatherstocking approached the detective as if it were a normal step to call a detective as a witness for the accused.
“This case has moved quite rapidly since Friday, hasn’t it?” Leatherstocking asked easily. Peterson objected as not germane to the issue of bail. The judge agreed.
“Do you oppose bail for my client?” Leatherstocking asked directly.
Rodriguez hesitated. “No,” he said at last.
Peterson objected; the judge overruled him.
“Why?” Leatherstocking asked.
“I don’t think the accused is likely to run,” Rodriguez said uncomfortably. “He has too much at stake here. His Marine record speaks for itself. He’s employed. His roots are here, his family, his friends.”
Leatherstocking looked at the detective for a moment, but then walked back to his chair. “No more questions.”
Peterson stood up, opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. Tried again. He shook his head and sat down. “No questions.”
The judge looked at Mac. Mac met his eyes squarely. “Bail is set at $100,000. Will the Examiner be posting your bail?”
Leatherstocking looked back at the door once again. “That is our current intention, your honor,” he said without a blink. Mac looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. Something wasn’t right, he thought, then laughed to himself. Shit, a lot wasn’t right about this scene. But then, why would Leatherstocking even expect the Examiner to post bail for a reporter on suspension?
“She’ll be here,” he whispered to Mac in reassurance, as he headed to the clerk’s office to do paperwork to post bail. Mac wondered which of the two of them he was trying to reassure. Mac reached for his legal pad, scribbled down Lindy’s address and a phone number where she could be reached.
“Just in case,” he said. Leatherstocking nodded.
The bailiff and Rodriguez escorted Mac back to the jail. “You put me on the spot,” Rodriguez observed. “Peterson is going to be after my neck on that one. Why?”
Mac shrugged it off. “You seemed to be having some second thoughts,” he said. “And that asshole pisses you off anyway.”
Rodriguez laughed, gave him a sloppy two-fingered salute and left Mac to sit alone in a holding cell and wait.
Now that he had time to consider the whole thing, Mac too wondered why Janet wasn’t at the arraignment. Obviously, she’d managed to call Leatherstocking and get him down there. In spite of the suspension. Did Leatherstocking even know about that? Mac’s shoulders were tight, hunched. He tried to loosen them, thought about dropping and doing pushups, but didn’t want to entertain the guards who might be watching. It was all Mac could do not to pace. He wanted out. He wanted to get his hands around Parker’s throat and choke some answers out of him.
It took an hour before he was allowed to change back into street clothes and be escorted out of the lockup. Janet was standing next to Leatherstocking when he got to the waiting room. He was enormously relieved to see her. “What took you so long?” he asked curiously, as the three walked out into the sunlight. It was mid-morning and the unseasonable dry weather was still holding. Seattle was a pretty city, even if it did rain for eight months of the year, and it had never looked better. Mac sighed with pleasure.
“Complications at the office,” Janet said vaguely and changed the subject. “I called your friend Shorty back. He should be here to pick you up.” She looked around, pointed to a battered pickup. “There.”
Mac stopped, looked at the pickup. “You’ve got to be kidding. Where did Shorty come up with that?”
Janet laughed. “It’s mine actually. I use it to haul garbage to the dump, that sort of thing. Shorty wanted a ride that wasn’t connected to you. He seemed to think my truck was the perfect camouflage.”
Mac laughed, shook his head. “Shit, I guess. No one would think either of us would be caught dead driving that thing. It ever occur to you to wash it? Maybe paint it?”
“Nope,” Janet said cheerfully. “You still got my numbers and Whitman’s? Don’t forget — call us direct. We’ve got a leak at the office.”
“Precious Kevin?” Mac asked.
Janet shrugged. “Be my first guess. Speaking of stories, how are you doing on nailing down one in this mess? In between jail time, I mean.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “I’m on it, boss,” he said, and headed for the pickup. He stopped, looked at it and shook his head. Danny leaned over and opened the passenger door for him.
Janet and the attorney watched them drive off.
“You going to tell him you personally stood bail for him?” Leatherstocking asked quietly.
“He’s not big on trust, you know,” she said, watching the pickup jerk as Shorty mastered the cantankerous truck. “He doesn’t need to know that the paper is being an asshole.”
Leatherstocking squeezed her shoulder. “They’ll come through in the end,” he said confidently. “They really are pretty good journalists.”
Janet nodded. “I know. But sometimes timing is the important part. Actually, as many strings as Parker is pulling, I’m surprised bail was even allowed.”
Leatherstocking frowned thoughtfully. “There’s more than one string-puller, I think,” he said slowly. He looked at his watch. “Got to run. Keep me posted. And I won’t bill these hours until the Examiner gets its head out of its collective ass.”
Janet laughed. “Good. Bail is one thing, but I can’t afford your rates.”