The Last Innocent Man Read Online Free Page B

part?” he asked.
    “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if Tom Cruise gets the lead.” She struck a pose. “Whadda ya think? Do I still have what it takes?”
    “Yes, Monica, you still do.”
    And they were suddenly too close to personal problems for comfort.
    “Look,” David said to change the subject, “is there any possibility we can deal on this one?”
    “Not a chance, Dave,” Monica answered.
    “Not even if I threw in Tom Cruise?” David asked with a smile.
    “Not even for Tom Cruise.”
    “That’s what I thought, but I had to try.”
    “You always do.”
    They stood together for a moment, until they both realized they had run out of conversation.
    “Take care of yourself,” Monica said. David knew she meant it. She was the one who had been hurt most by their divorce, and that fact always made him feel bad.
    “You, too,” he told her. They walked out to their cars, and David watched Monica drive off; then he shut his eyes and sat in the hot car for a moment while the air-conditioning came on. He didn’t need a case like this so soon after Gault. He needed a vacation. But, then, he always did. He couldn’t remember the last time he had not been under pressure. The difference was he had never thought about it before.

3
    D arlene Hersch was out of breath by the time she reached the squad room. The clock over the water fountain told her the bad news. She had sprinted from the car and she was still late. There was nothing she could do about it now. Only she hated to make a bad impression. All the other officers in the special vice unit had been on the police force for several years. She was new, and it looked bad to be the only late arrival.
    The squad room was small. The dull-green paint on the walls was peeling, and the linoleum-tile flooring buck-led in places. Rows of clipboards hung from two of the walls. A bulletin board occupied the third. All the space in between was covered by cartoons about police work, bulletins about office procedure, and a large poster that gave instructions about what to do in the event of a fire.
    A sink and a countertop ran along the outer wall. The countertop was littered with paper cups, and two pots of coffee steamed next to the room’s only window. The center of the room had been taken over by two long Formica-topped tables. Sandra Tallant and Louise Guest, the other policewomen on the squad, sat at the end of the table near the door. Darlene slid onto a metal bridge chair and hoped Sergeant Ryder would not notice that she was late.
    “Have another rough night, Darlene?” Ortiz asked in a loud voice. Darlene flushed. Neale grinned and Coffin snickered. Sergeant Ryder looked up from the desk at the front of the room, and Darlene turned her head and glared at Ortiz. Ortiz winked. The bastard.
    Ortiz perched on the countertop near the coffeepots. He was handsome, and he knew it. With his dark complexion, shaggy mustache, and thick black hair, curled and cared for like D’Artagnan’s, he played the lady’s man. Darlene thought he was an asshole.
    Sergeant Ryder stood up and checked his notes on the clipboard he always carried. A big, insecure man, he was always rechecking his facts, as if he feared that they would change if he did not keep constant track of them.
    “Are we all here?” he asked rhetorically. He had known the precise number of people in the room every minute since he had arrived.
    “Okay, for those of you who have not been keeping up with the captain’s weekly bulletin on developments in the law, last week the public defender filed a motion claiming that the equal-protection rights of Vonetta Renae King were being violated….”
    “They got us there,” Ortiz called out. “Vonetta’s been violated more than any whore I know.”
    Coffin giggled and Ryder stared at him. Coffin covered his mouth and coughed.
    “Is it all right if I continue, Bert?” Ryder asked in a tired voice. He knew there was no way to keep Ortiz from acting the clown. He also knew