Which was considerable, Adam Warner knew. The District Attorney had been around a long time. He knew where the bodies were buried and he knew how to squeeze the most out of that information.
“Thanks, Robert. I appreciate that.”
“My pleasure, Adam. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Meaning Jennifer Parker. The quid pro quo Stewart Needham had mentioned, with the girl used as a pawn. Adam Warner thought about Robert Di Silva’s words: I’m going to put her away for a long time. From reading the transcript, Adam judged that there was no real evidence against Jennifer Parker. Unless she confessed, or unless someone came forward with information that proved criminal complicity, Di Silva would not be able to touch the girl. He was counting on Adam to give him his vengeance.
The cold, harsh words of the transcript were clear-cut, and yet Adam wished he could have heard the tone of Jennifer Parker’s voice when she denied her guilt.
There were pressing matters claiming Adam’s attention, important cases involving major clients. It would have been easy to go ahead and carry out the wishes of Stewart Needham, Judge Lawrence Waldman and Robert Di Silva, but some instinct made Adam Warner hesitate. He picked up Jennifer Parker’s file again, scribbled some notes and began to make some long-distance telephone calls.
Adam had been given a responsibility and he intended to carry it through to the best of his ability. He was all too familiar with the long, back-breaking hours of study and hard work it took to become an attorney and to pass the bar. It was a prize that took years to attain, and he was not about to deprive someone of it unless he was cerain there was justification.
The following morning Adam Warner was on a plane to Seattle, Washington. He had meetings with Jennifer Parker’s law professors, with the head of a law firm where she had clerked for two summers, and with some of Jennifer’s former classmates.
Stewart Needham telephoned Adam in Seattle. “What are you doing up there, Adam? You’ve got a big case load waiting for you back here. That Parker thing should have been a snap.”
“A few questions have arisen,” Adam said carefully. “I’ll be back in a day or so, Stewart.”
There was a pause. “I see. Let’s not waste any more time on her than we have to.”
By the time Adam Warner left Seattle, he felt he knew Jennifer Parker almost as well as she knew herself. He had built up a portrait of her in his mind, a mental identikit, with pieces filled in by her law professors, her landlady, members of the law firm where she had served as a clerk, and classmates. The picture that Adam had acquired bore no resemblance to the picture Robert Di Silva had given him. Unless Jennifer Parker was the most consummate actress who ever lived, there was no way she could have been involved in a plot to free a man like Michael Moretti.
Now, almost two weeks after he had had that morning conversation with Stewart Needham, Adam Warner found himself facing the girl whose past he had been exploring. Adam had seen newspaper pictures of Jennifer, but they had not prepared him for the impact she made in person. Even in an old robe, without makeup, and her dark brown hair bath-damp, she was breathtaking.
Adam said, “I’ve been assigned to investigate your part in the Michael Moretti trial, Miss Parker.”
“Have you now!” Jennifer could feel an anger rising in her. It started as a spark and became a flame that exploded inside her. They still were not through with her. They were going to make her pay for the rest of her life. Well, she had had enough.
When Jennifer spoke, her voice was trembling. “I have nothing to say to you! You go back and tell them whatever you please. I did something stupid, but as far as I know, there’s no law against stupidity. The District Attorney thinks someone paid me off.” She waved a scornful hand in the air. “If I had any money, do you think I’d be living in a place like this?” Her voice was beginning to choke up. “I—I don’t care what you do. All I want is to be left alone. Now please go away!”