“What?” I asked, startled. “Rig DNA results?”
“You haven’t been listening,” he blurted out impatiently.
“Well, I missed something, that’s certain.”
“I’m saying no one could accuse you of rigging anything that’s my point. So our relationship has nothing to do with what I’m thinking.”
“Okay.”
“It’s just . . .” He faltered.
“Just what?” I asked. Then, as he drained his glass again, I added, “Bill, you have to drive.”
He waved it off.
“Then what is it?” I demanded again. “What?”
He pressed his lips together and wouldn’t look at me. Slowly, he drew it out. “It’s just I’m not sure where you’ll be in the eyes of the jurors by then.”
I couldn’t have been more stunned had he struck me with his open palm.
“My God . . . You do know something. What? What! What is that son of a bitch plotting? He’s going to fire me because of this goddam computer violation, is this what he’s said to you?”
“Amburgey? He’s not plotting anything. Hell, he doesn’t have to. If your office gets blamed for the leaks, and if the public eventually believes the inflammatory news stories are why the killer’s striking with increased frequency, then your head will be on the block. People need someone to blame. I can’t afford my star witness to have a credibility or popularity problem.”
“Is this what you and Tanner were discussing so intensely after lunch?”
I was just a blink away from tears. “I saw you on the sidewalk, coming out of The Peking . . .”
A long silence. He had seen me, too, then but had pretended otherwise. Why? Because he and Tanner probably were talking about me! “We were discussing the cases,” he replied evasively. “Discussing a lot of things.”
I was so enraged, so stung, I didn’t trust myself to say a word.
“Listen,” he said wearily as he loosened his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt. “This didn’t go right. I didn’t mean for it to come out like this. I swear to God. Now you’re all upset, and I’m all upset. I’m sorry.”
My silence was stony.
He took a deep breath. “It’s just we have real things to worry about and we should be working on them together. I’m painting worst-case scenarios so we can be prepared, okay?”
“What exactly do you expect me to do?” I measured each word to keep my voice steady.
“Think five times about everything. Like tennis. When you’re down or psyched you’ve got to play it careful. Concentrate on every shot, don’t take your eye off the ball for a second.”
His tennis analogies got on my nerves sometimes. Right now was a good example. “I always think about what I’m doing,” I said testily. “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job. I’m not known for missing shots.”
“It’s especially important now. Abby Turnbull’s poison. I think she’s setting us up. Both of us. Behind the scenes. Using you or your office computer to get to me. Not giving a damn if she maims justice in the process. The cases get blown out of the water and you and I are both blown out of office. It’s that simple.”
Maybe he was right, but I was having a hard time accepting that Abby Turnbull could be so evil. Surely if she had even a drop of human blood in her veins she would want the killer punished. She wouldn’t use four brutally murdered young women as pawns in her vindictive machinations if she were guilty of vindictive machinations, and I wasn’t convinced she was.
I was about to tell him he was exaggerating, his bad encounter with her had momentarily distorted his reason. But something stopped me.
I didn’t want to talk about this anymore.
I was afraid to.
It was nagging at me. He’d waited until now to say anything. Why? His encounter with her was weeks ago. If she were setting us up, if she were so dangerous to both of us, then why hadn’t he told me this before now?
“I think what you need is a good night’s sleep,” I said quietly.
“I think we’d be wise to strike this conversation, at least certain portions of it, go on as if it never happened.”