Zero at the Bone (40 page)

“Mr. Carlisle, if you have any
relevant
questions for Dr. Francisco, you may continue.”

Carlisle appeared to be totally unruffled by his defeat and went on as if everything was going just how he’d planned. “Dr. Francisco, what is your race, for the record?” Jack glanced at Brad, who gave him a slight here-we-go eye-roll. “Genetically, there’s no such thing as race,” he said.

“I’ll rephrase. What is your race in the common, non-genetic use of the term?”

“I’m Caucasian.”

“And the defendants are Latino, are they not?”

“They are.”

Zero at the Bone | 183

“Dr. Francisco, earlier today we heard testimony from an expert in eyewitness identification who informed us that witnesses often have difficulty accurately identifying people of a different race from their own. Are you familiar with this phenomenon?”

“I am, yes.”

“Do you still maintain that the men you saw murder Maria Dominguez were the defendants?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“How can you be so positive?”

“Mr. Carlisle, I’m a doctor who specializes in faces, and I have a very good eye for detail. Their
ethnicity
did not affect my ability to clearly identify them. I am positive that the men I saw are your clients.” That had been a tip from Brad, to refer to the defendants as “your clients” during cross-examination, to subtly reinforce the attorney’s connection to the criminals on trial and his desire to get them off.

“You have a good eye for detail?” Carlisle said.

“I think so, yes.”

Carlisle abruptly turned his back to Jack. “What color are my eyes, then?” Brad jumped up. “Your Honor, the witness has answered defense counsel’s questions; this demonstration is argumentative and unnecessary.” Carlisle answered while keeping his back turned. “Witness has touted his eye for detail, I am entitled to test this assertion if we are to accept his identification of the defendants.”

Petersen sighed. “Overruled.”

“Dr. Francisco? We’re waiting.”

Jack smiled.
Oral sex in the garage. You asked for this, asshole.
“Mr. Carlisle, your eyes appear to be blue. However, the presence of a thin circle of brown around the pupils makes me think they’re probably colored contact lenses. Your eyelashes are unusually short, your lower lip is slightly fuller than your upper, and I suspect you are of Mediterranean descent based on your prominent brow shelf, cleft chin and squared-off jawline. Your earlobes are small and attached and you nicked yourself shaving this morning under the left side of your jaw. You have a small mole on your upper right cheek, a chicken pox scar in almost the same spot on your left, your teeth are veneers, you’ve had a nose job, and I think you’ve had cheek implants too.” He was sorely tempted to add a smart-ass
Anything else?
but he thought he’d made his point, and rubbing it in would just make him look like a smug jerk.

The jury was smiling and tossing
nyah, nyah
glances at Carlisle, who had clearly not endeared himself to them with his grandstanding. The gallery was tittering. Brad Salie was turning purple with suppressed glee. Carlisle turned to face him, the only sign of distress a slight blush around his ears. “No further questions,” he said, and went back to his table.

Brad stood. “No redirect, Your Honor.”

Petersen nodded. “The witness is excused.”

JACK had to wait until court was adjourned in case he was recalled, but just after four o’clock Brad came hurtling into the witness’s room and made a beeline right for him. He grasped Jack’s shoulders, beaming. “You. If it weren’t really inappropriate I could tongue-kiss you right now.”

184 | Jane Seville

“Uh, that’s okay.”

“That was
brilliant.
”

“I can’t believe he made that shit up about a male prostitute and a blow job!”

“Oh, and I intend to follow up on that, believe me. I want that jackass at least censured for making shit up. But it might actually have worked in our favor.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. The fact that the jury found out he was inventing all that just made it very clear to them that he is absolutely terrified of your testimony, or else he wouldn’t go to such lengths to discredit you. So what you said must be pretty important.” Jack nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

“Well, Jack, you’re done! How does it feel?”

Kinda shitty, actually.
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about giving this testimony for so long, now that it’s over… I’m a bit lost.”

“When are you going into Witsec?”

“I don’t know.”

“As soon as possible,” said Churchill, who had just entered the room. He came up to Jack and shook his hand. “You were really great up there,” he said. “Told you.

Prosecutor’s wet dream.”

“Well, he’s at least got time to come out for a drink,” Brad said.

Churchill looked at Jack. “I don’t know. I need to keep him secure.”

“There’s a bar on the next block that we can get to with the tunnels; we go there all the time. Come on, Churchill! The brothers aren’t going to waltz up and pop him in a bar full of witnesses!”

Suddenly, Jack wanted to go out for a drink with the boys. Badly. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he said.

“Jack—”

“I’ve been stuck in that hotel room for almost a week, and I’m going to be there all weekend, right?”

“Yeah,” Churchill said, looking glum.

“It’ll be fine. One night. Let me celebrate getting all that shit into the court records.”

Churchill thought for a moment, and then gave a reluctant nod. “All right. But I’m coming too, with a couple armed marshals.”

Jack grinned. “Great!”

Brad clapped Jack on the shoulder. “I’ve got to file some paperwork and meet with Linda just for a moment. Wait here? I’ll come get you within the hour.”

“We’ll be here.” Brad left and Jack settled back into his chair, feeling like he might be rejoining the human race, if only for a few brief hours. Normal people didn’t live in hotel rooms and hide in other people’s brothers’ houses for months on end; they rode the subway and ate lunch in restaurants and went out for drinks with friends.

And their boyfriends.

Jack shut his eyes and pictured himself in a bar. Churchill and Brad were there, and the marshals who’d been guarding him… and he turned his head and there was D, smiling and drinking beer and plugging quarters into the jukebox, even laughing at the off-color jokes and fending off advances from women.

He rubbed his eyes and banished the vision. D was far away, and thinking of him now could only hurt.

“Jack, I’ll be back in a minute,” Churchill said. “Got to make a phone call.” Zero at the Bone | 185

“Okay,” Jack said, barely noticing. He put his head down on his arms, folded on the tabletop, and let his eyes fall shut again, the background noise of conversation and people coming and going fading away.
Just a few quick winks….

He was asleep within a minute.

186 | Jane Seville

D’S PHONE had rung three times before he answered, a measure of his distraction.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Churchill.”

“Yeah?”

“Um… well, Jack’s done testifying.”

D exhaled. “Good.”

“The prosecutor invited Jack to come out for a drink, and me too, and… well, we’re going.”

He sat up straighter. “I swear it sounded like you jus’ said you was’ lettin’ Jack go ta some unsecured location where he could be shot or poisoned or God knows what.”

“He isn’t a prisoner, D. He’s performed a heroic civic service. The man deserves a little… relaxation.”

“He’ll be real fuckin’ relaxed when he’s
dead!
” D exclaimed.

“I think you’re being overly paranoid. We will be in a public place in front of many witnesses, most of whom will be lawyers and police officers, we can get there through the tunnels to minimize his exposure, and he will be guarded.”

“That don’t make it safe. If he were my mark I can think of a half-dozen ways ta kill him in them circumstances and you’d never know it was me or even realize it was happenin’ ’til it was too fuckin’ late.”

“D, Jack wants to go. He’s frustrated and he’s got cabin fever and he misses you.

He deserves some socialization.”

That gave D pause. If it were up to him, he’d keep Jack locked in a cage forever, where no one could get to him and he’d always be safe. But much as he might want to, much as he’d sleep better knowing that Jack was safe, he couldn’t do that. “Safe” could quickly come to mean “trapped.” And trapped things tended to want to escape. “Guess I ain’t stoppin’ ya,” D grumbled. “But I’ll be watchin’.”

“You do whatever you feel you have to do,” Churchill said. He sounded annoyed.

“What I done ta piss you off, now?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do I sound pissed off? Maybe it’s just looking at that man’s face day in and day out, that hangdog look that says he thinks he’s never going to see you again, when all the time you’re right here and you could be spending this time
with
him instead of watching him day and night. Stalking isn’t usually recommended as the basis for a lasting relationship, you know.”

“It’s too risky fer him ta know—”

“Too risky, yeah. Risky for him, or for you?”

Zero at the Bone | 187

“Huh?”

“I know why you won’t let me tell him you’re here. Because he’d insist on seeing you, and you can’t allow that, can you?”

“No, I fuckin’ cain’t!” D shouted. “I cain’t be distracted. I cain’t let my guard down fer a single second and Jack is the damn national champion a distractin’ me! I gotta concentrate if I am gonna protect him.”

“That is
my job
now, D, and I wish you’d let me do it.”

“Fer how long? How long you gonna watch over him, and anticipate any threat that might come? I’m prepared ta do it forever; how ’bout you?” Silence. “Yeah. It’s
my
job ta protect him. My only job. And I aim ta do it.” He hung up, fuming.

Fuckin’ guy. Tellin’ me what’s what.

Except he’s right and ya know he is. Jack would insist on seein’ you if he knew you
was here and you cain’t stand ta see him when all you’d be thinkin’ ’bout is having ta
leave him again, for a lot longer this time.

God. I cain’t go on this way. I cain’t live like this. I cain’t do my fuckin’ job.

I cain’t protect him like this. I’m too damn…
involved.
I think a somethin’

happenin’ ta him ’n’ my guts get all twisted up ’n’ I cain’t think. I ain’t no good ta him
like that.

I gotta do somethin’.

THE bar was full of the after-work happy-hour crowd, ties loosened and hair down, smiling and ordering margaritas and Cosmos and martinis. A lot of them seemed to be lawyers, and all of them seemed to know who Jack was. He wouldn’t have to buy a drink for himself for the next twenty rounds, if he didn’t pass out first.

Everyone seemed to have heard the story of Carlisle’s disastrous cross-examination.

“Did you really tell that Armani asshole he was wearing colored contacts?” some lawyer asked Jack.

He nodded. “That color blue does not exist in nature.”

“Goddamn, I’d’ve paid good money to see that.”

“Shove off my witness, Byron,” Brad said, returning to Jack’s side. Churchill was sticking close to him without being too obvious about it, and his two marshal keepers were bellied up to the bar. Jack didn’t care. He was riding so high he felt like calling up Raoul Dominguez and telling him to do his worst. “You’re quite the folk hero, Jack,” he said.

“Whatever.”

“You made a lot of friends today among the law-and-order types. You’ll sure as hell never get a speeding ticket in Baltimore ever again.”

“Not as if I’ll actually be living here anymore,” Jack said.

Brad sobered. “I’m sorry that has to be part of this.”

“Don’t be. I knew what I was getting into.” Jack drained his gin and tonic. “Hey, let me ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Why did Carlisle risk such a showy maneuver with that eye-color thing? Seems like it was pretty fair odds I’d have noticed his eye color.”

“It was a risk, yeah. He’s pulled tricks like that in the past, although this particular one was new to me. It’s a pretty safe bet for him, though. Witnesses are anxious, they’re 188 | Jane Seville

under pressure, and on the stand they’re usually looking at the defendants, into the gallery, at the prosecutor… and if they look at Carlisle, they’re not really seeing him. I’m guessing after today he’ll think twice before trying that again, though.” Jack laughed. “Maybe.” He stood up. “I’m gonna go get a bottled water. Don’t feel like getting hammered tonight.”

He headed through the crowd toward the bar, craning his neck over the thickening crowds of off-duty lawyers. People brushed by close, and it felt a little claustrophobic.

Perhaps he’d gotten used to solitude after all.

Suddenly, he felt something pressed into his hand. He looked around, but no one met his eyes, and it could have been anybody. He made his way to the side of the bar and looked down at the folded-up note in his palm. Jack’s eyes narrowed and he looked around again. No one was paying him any particular attention. He set his glass on the bar.