A Case of Hate Read online

  We fly upstairs to the guestroom – I could never do this in our marital bed, it would only compound the moral trespass – and I’m Lincoln Unbuttoned for a glorious twenty-five minutes. I’m looking at my watch every three or four minutes, checking time isn’t running away with me. Matthew sucks me into these vortexes where an hour can pass in a minute.

  “Stop looking at your watch,” he says.

  “I can’t help it,” I say, but then he switches positions and everything disappears, my watch, my husband, the DA’s office, Liliana Fairweather, San Cristobal County, the world, even. We’re writhing in some far-away galaxy, not knowing yesterday or tomorrow or even our own names.

  Soon, it comes to an end, and we lie beside each other, breathing too loudly, awed by our journey.

  Then the heavy rock of guilt drops to the bottom of my stomach. I jump out of bed, scrambling to get my clothing back on. “No. No, no, no. We must never do this again. Do you hear me? Never. Absolutely never.”

  Matthew sits up on the bed with a lopsided smile and puts his hand out for me to hold. “Was it that bad?”

  I slap it away. “No, as you well know,” I say tightly. “It was that... addictive. Stop it, just stop it. Leave me alone.” But I know I don’t mean it. Well, I do mean it, with the rational part of my mind, with my will, with my intention. But there’s something deeper inside me that sticks to him like a little helpless iron filing to a master magnet. I have no choice in the matter, it seems. It’s terrifying. Exhilarating. Everything my carefully-ordered life is not.

  “You’re a Lieutenant Detective, for goodness’ sake,” I say. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

  He sighed and began to put on his clothes. “I’m not a superhero, Lincoln. I’ve accepted that. It’s about time you do the same.”

  I hear something.

  “Hey, stop, stop moving,” I whisper.

  Oh sweet mother.

  Blood pounds through my head.

  It’s the sound of a car.

  Coming up my gravel driveway.

  Chapter 3

  Liliana Fairweather

  “As much as I’d like to see your poor little mournful face when I smash you in the courtroom,” I say, “why don’t we just spare you the humiliation and the workload?”

  She can’t believe I’m in her living room. Her hair’s rumpled, like she’s put her stuck-up bitch hairstyle back in quick-time. Her face is red. Lieutenant Detective Matthew Landers just left, not meeting my eyes.

  “A plea bargain is out of the question, Ms. Fairweather,” she says, then puts on a false smile. “Would you like a drink of water?” She goes toward the double door to the kitchen.

  I lean back in her sensible, country-style couch. “Huh. Well, I’m sure Brett would be fascinated to know about Landers’ whereabouts this evening.”

  She pauses, then turns slowly, a smile fixed on her face. “I’m sure the Bar Association would be equally if not more fascinated by some of your dubious case manipulations.”

  “Bluff,” I say immediately. “You’d have reported me already if you had anything substantial. You were a Girl Scout when you were younger, I’m sure?”

  That mask of a smile doesn’t waver. She’s a satisfying opponent, I’ll give her that. Like a solid brick wall I can chip chip chip chip away at until she crumbles.

  “Ah, well, it may surprise you, Ms. Fairweather, but I have a large caseload and little time to compile the exceptionally long dossier it would take to document your questionable activities. But I’m sure I could wrangle a new assistant or two to do the job for me.”

  “With all those important cases to do, why not get this one off your back?”

  “There is no plea bargain on offer.”

  I laugh. “Oh, well that’s good news, because I’m not talking about a deal.”

  “You mean you want us to drop it?” It was her turn to laugh, scornfully. “With this much forensic evidence? You’ve a cat’s chance in hell, Ms. Fairweather, if you’ll pardon my language.”

  “Evidence only linked to my client by a search that violated his Fourth Amendment rights.”

  “It did not.”

  I can see she’s rattled. I’ve pulled that one on her a couple times before, decimating her discovery once, getting the case dismissed twice. “That’s just a starter for ten, Lincoln.” I grin. “You’re not going to win this one. It’s better when I file my motion to suppress you take it gracefully and bow out.”

  She pauses. I can see the cogs in her mind whir furiously. “What was your need to turn up at my home unannounced?”

  I shrug. “Just giving you a heads up about how – if you take this to trial – it’s going to be just another public embarrassment for the DA’s office, with your face attached. I know you had wonderful success with the heroin issues in the past, and well done on that, really, but I’d think carefully about your plans going forward.”

  “I don’t need—” she begins.

  “I’d seek out some DA’s office approval ratings from the public,” I interrupt. “Plummeting, probably. Time for some damage control, I’d say. Before your husband replaces you with a younger, sexier Exec ADA. Could you imagine the stories the tabloids would run?” I chuckle. “Do try to take a long-sighted view, won’t you? For your own sake, at least?”

  She smiles at me. “You can leave my property now. Your psychological mind games are not in any way constructive, so I’m not going to sit here and listen to them.”

  “You’re standing.”

  “Besides, unfortunately for you, they don’t work on me.”

  I get up and smooth my favorite baby pink ruffle top. I’ve worn it with jeans and pink chunky heels, one of my favorite outfits. “Perhaps not. But they work wonderfully on the lay public, the press media, and juries, don’t they?” She walks me to the door and I follow. “Though I do object to you painting my interpretations in a negative light by calling them mind games. Everyone has a right to a voice and opinion, Lincoln. As well as a fair trial.”

  “It’s a shame we’re not before judge and jury right now, isn’t it?” she says. “To hear your delightful oratory.”

  That makes me laugh. I step out the front door. “Aren’t you sweet? Well, see you at the first arraignment. You won’t be getting a second. It’ll be dropped before then. Just a heads up.”

  She shuts the door in my face.

  It’s Friday night, and I debate in my head over whether to hit Bijou Wine Bar or stay home with Chinese takeout and do more case prep. Bijou wins. Case prep can wait until tomorrow.

  My phone rings on Bluetooth, interrupting my heavy metal – a band called Nightwish that make me feel like a dragon fixing to breathe fire and scorch all my enemies to ash. A quick glance at the screen shows me it’s Paula.

  “Hi, mom. Are you okay?”

  I hear sniffling sounds. As usual. “Lily, he cheated on me again.” She breaks into a round of sobs

  I sigh and adjust my grip on the steering wheel. “Oh, mom.” I resist the urge to tell her I won the bet we placed on this event unfolding. She was adamant he wouldn’t, full of blind, desperate, misplaced faith. “I hate to hear you so upset.”

  She keeps right on crying. “He was my everything, Lily.”

  I roll my eyes but keep my voice sweet. “You need to be your everything, mom.”

  “I know, I know, so you always tell me. It’s all very well to say that. But when it comes down to it... it’s different. Every woman needs a strong pair of arms to fall into at night.”

  “You believing that is why you keep attracting these assholes who cheat on you, mom!”

  “You would say that. Not all of us are alpha independent females like you, baby.” The way she says alpha independent females, in a mock-macho tone, really grates. But it’s just her own weakness talking. I know that. “I want someone who makes me feel like a woman.”

  “You have a vagina, don’t you? Therefore you are a woman.”

  “You just don’t get it.”

&
nbsp; “I do,” I say. “But it’s a fairytale, mom, to keep women subservient, barefoot cleaners in the kitchen popping out babies. You’re nearly 50. It’s time to stop believing in them.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly about to have a baby any time soon, am I, Lily?”

  “No, thank god.”

  She’d popped out me first, then my three little brothers, all by different ‘stepfathers’ who stuck around for a short while. I got attached to a few when I was about four or five, an amateur boxer named Zsombor and Clive, an insurance agent. Clive was her ‘sensible choice’ who left her for an 18-year-old waitress. It turned out Zsombor used to like using his fists outside the ring.

  At five, I became cynical, but sadly, 27 years later, my mom still hasn’t learned this very important lesson – that any affection or love a man professes is only an illusion, to both himself and you. When a man says, “I love you,” it simply means, “You make me feel good right now.”

  As for real love, loyalty, sticking around when the chips are down? You may find one or two up to the task.

  Most are far too selfish.

  I’ve learned to be spectacularly selfish, too. People just don’t like it when a woman wears it. Not that I give a flying fuck. I’m not here to play dumb little docile bitch for the benefit of misogynists, which the vast majority of men – and women, for that matter - are.

  “Look, Lily,” my mother says quietly. “I really don’t need a lecture, I just called for some support, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, ready to trot out what she wants to hear. “I feel horrible for you about it. I wish you’d leave him, and all men, and just think about yourself and making you happy for once, but—”

  “Being in a relationship is what makes me happy.”

  “Okay,” I say again, as soothingly as I can. “I understand.” I don’t understand that, or how she can be so completely foolish. But she’s my mom, and I love her. “Maybe he’ll change, who knows?” He won’t. “But at least give him hell, please, mom. Then at least it might be a wakeup call for him.”

  Unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to give anyone hell. I’ve always had to do it on her behalf. That’s how I ended up wanting to be a lawyer in the first place, landing up in juvenile court for pulling a knife on one of her more fisty boyfriends. My bad-ass lawyer got it thrown out. She quickly became my idol. Vanyshia Washington. Her name will be emblazoned in my memory until the day I die.

  “I’ll try,” mom says, her voice wavering. “Anyways, enough about me. How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “As always.”

  “Yup.” I pull up across the street from Bijou’s. “I’ve got to go now. Speak soon.”

  “Speak soon, love. Oh, just another thing...”

  I suppress a sigh. “Yes, mom?”

  “Do you really think he’ll change?”

  If I say no, she’s going to keep me on the phone for as long as she can, trying to change my mind. “Maybe, mom. Probably.”

  “He will,” she says. “I just know it.”

  “Okay, mom. Bye. Take care.”

  I hang up quickly before she can say anything else. I consider turning my phone off, but feel too guilty to go through with it.

  I check my mane of dark curls in the rearview mirror. They’re fuzzy at the front, so I take the curl custard I keep in the glove compartment and smooth it through. I retouch my dark pink lipstick, and preen at myself in the rearview. I haven’t got the prettiest face in the world, but my face is mine, and that’s why I love it. I get far too much attention from men, but it’s more confidence and grooming that makes it happen. I mostly tell them all to go fuck themselves, but if one is exceptionally sexy, I might play around with a little flirting. I only have sex a few times a year, though. Always one night stands, and never anyone I know or work with.

  The moment a guy starts seeing you that way, he starts disrespecting you. No one really knows what happened between Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden on the OJ trial, but a TV reenactment I saw had them flirting. The moment she even slightly softened to him, he overruled her instructions and made OJ try on those gloves. If they hadn’t had some kind of romantic spark, he’d have never pulled that shit. If they’d slept together, he’d have wrangled himself into first chair.

  I lock the car and stride into Bijou.

  “Oh hell no,” I say, shocked to see the sandy-haired man nursing something on the rocks, looking right at me from his seat at the bar. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Chapter 4

  Lincoln Agnew

  “Good morning, Your Honor. Liliana Fairweather on behalf of Jason Blachowicz.” She’s wearing her hair in a bun on top of her head, and that, paired with her gray chiffon dress and the absolute look of glee she has when she turns around to look at me, makes her look something akin to a crazed, evil bunny.

  “Marisol Cruz on behalf of Jason Blachowicz.”

  I step up behind them, looking up at Judge Roach, an-old timer due for retirement. Over the past 10 years I’ve seen him lose nearly all his hair, now with a little gray tuft on each side. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s not pro-prosecution or pro-defense, but balanced and impartial, and, according to his personal reputation, a wonderful family man with a veritable army of grandchildren. “Lincoln Agnew for the State.”

  My assistant on the case steps up behind me, a recent hire I oversaw myself, a tall, straight-laced bespectacled young man. “JaMarcus Brown-Keats for the State.”

  “All right, Mr. Blachowicz,” Judge Roach says. “You’ve been charged with murder in the first degree of Georgia Stafford that occurred on July 4th, a first-degree felony punishable by up to death, as the State has filed its notice of intent to seek the death penalty in this case.”

  I watch Ms. Fairweather stiffen, and can’t help a little warm joy glowing in my chest. I never let her know I was going to pull that out of the bag. Our state currently has a moratorium on the death penalty, but we can still push for it and land prisoners on death row. It’ll be terrible for her reputation.

  “You already have representation. And how does the defendant plead?”

  “In terms of entering a plea, we stand mute, Your Honor,” Ms. Fairweather says.

  What?!

  No one ever, ever, ever stands mute.

  There’s no point to it, apart from anything else.

  All it is, is a simple, “Screw you,” to the system. It’s refusing to acknowledge the People’s right to bring you up on charges. But there are no consequences for it, legally. It’s just Ms. Fairweather’s way of showing her utter contempt for me.

  “Standing mute,” Judge Roach says, raising his eyebrows at me. A sign of solidarity that makes me hopeful. “I’m referring this to a preliminary hearing on July 14th. That is to decide if there is probable cause to believe you have committed the offence and there is sufficient evidence against you for a trial, Mr. Blachowicz. Now to bail. State?”

  “State seeks to deny bail,” I say.

  “Your Honor, we contest that,” Ms. Fairweather says.

  Of course.

  “Bail as per the Felony Bail Schedule can be set at $1,000,000,” she continues. “We seek this outcome today. My client has no previous convictions, charges or even cautions, as you can see from this clean police record.” She holds it up. “He is no danger to the community as he has no history of violence—”

  My chance. “Actually, we have several video recordings of the defendant verbally abusing the client and using threatening body language.”

  “Which I’m sure you will agree does not constitute violence, Your Honor,” Ms. Fairweather steamrolls. She turns to me. “Fuck you. If I say that, does that constitute—”

  “Judge!”

  “Counsel,” he says sternly, “I will hold you in contempt of court if you curse again.”

  “I was merely seeking to illustrate—”

  “Ms. Fairweather,” he warns.

  “My apologies, Your Honor,” she says
. “In addition to the clean record, we have surety—”

  “I would like to see these videos,” Judge Roach interrupts.

  JaMarcus brings the laptop over to the judge and hits play. I watch Judge Roach’s eyes but he doesn’t have a very expressive face and is almost always impossible to read.

  “Ms. Fairweather, continue regarding the surety.”

  “We have surety in the defendant’s father, John Blachowicz.” She gestures towards his well-heeled, respectable-looking parents. His mother has on a Hermes scarf, for goodness’ sake.

  “He has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Prostate Cancer and his prognosis is uncertain. I have his medical records here.” She taps on the file on her desk. Judge Roach beckons her over, and she brings the paper for him. “He has humbly asked the court that we consider bail so he can spend what may be his last days alive with his only son, his only child. The defendant is satisfied with house arrest or any form of electronic monitoring you may see fit, Your Honor. The defendant’s father is a prominent local business owner.”

  “Relevance?” I shoot at her. “Or is this an attempt to sway the Court through classism and discrimination in the favor of the wealthy?”

  “His parents are ready to pay the bail amount without the assistant of a bondsman, and in fact his father currently has a cashier’s check on hand at the amount of one million dollars, to put in the clerk’s hand as soon as you give the word, Your Honor.”

  She’s using visual language, creating the scenario in people’s minds. Introducing it as a visual idea, so they can run through it mentally as a kind of ‘preparation’ for it actually happening. It’s a technique she often employs, I’ve noticed.

  “My client is very much hoping, Judge, that you will release him to his sick father and worried mother this morning, to get right into their car and go home with them.”