Page 88 of Never Flinch

Silence in the gazebo. Mrs. Grinsted puts the tray down. Her mouth grows a thin-lipped smile that is much like her husband’s.But is that surprising?Izzy thinks.Don’t they say that men and women who’ve been married a long time grow to look like each other?

“Her name is Jane Haggarty. She’s a part-time legal secretary and ugly as a scarecrow in a melon patch. They’ve been seeing each other off and on for a little over a year.” She turns to her husband. “Did you really think I didn’t know? You are anextremelybad cheater, Russ.”

Izzy hardly knows what to say next, mostly because Mrs. Grinsted—she still doesn’t know the woman’s first name—is socalm. Tom, however, has no problem. Grinsted, after all, once went at him on the stand.

“Will this Jane Haggarty confirm you were with her on the twentieth of May, Mr. Grinsted?”

“Erin, I…” Grinsted doesn’t seem to know how to finish, but at least Izzy now knows Mrs. Grinsted’s first name. Her first thought isShe looks too thin and too disappointed to be an Erin.

“We’ll discuss this later, after the police have gone,” Erin Grinsted says. “For now just be happy I saved your bacon. For a lawyer, you certainly know how to talk yourself into trouble.”

She leaves, disappearing into the kitchen without a backward glance. Grinsted sits down at the gazebo table. The belt of his robe, which he has been obsessively tightening, comes undone. The robe flops open. Underneath is a pajama jacket pooched out by a middle-aged potbelly.

“Thanks, assholes,” he says without looking up.

“To coin a metaphor that may be apt in this case,” Izzy says, “the jury is out on who’s the asshole here. The question is whether this Jane Haggarty will confirm you were with her at the time when we believe Reverend Mike Rafferty was murdered.” They will ask Grinsted for an alibi for the Sinclair murder if necessary. It may not be.

“She will.” Still without looking up.

“Address?” Tom has his notebook out.

“4636 Fairlawn Court. She’s married, but they’re separated.” He looks up at last. His eyes are tearless but glazed, like the eyes of a fighter who’s just been the recipient of a hard right to the jaw. “Why in God’s name would you thinkIwas killing those people? I gave Alan Duffrey the best defense I could. Judge and jury got it wrong. Prosecutor has ambitions. End of story.”

Izzy has no intention of bringing her private investigator friend into the discussion. Nor does she have to. She asks Grinsted if the name Claire Rademacher rings a bell.

“She worked at First Lake City,” Grinsted says, sounding suspicious. “Chief cashier, if I remember rightly.”

“You never called her to testify,” Tom says.

“Had no reason to.” Grinsted sounds more suspicious than ever. As a veteran litigator, he understands there’s a trapdoor here somewhere; he just doesn’t know where.

Tom Atta now tells Grinsted—with real satisfaction—about thePlastic Mancomic books Cary Tolliver brought Alan Duffrey as a “congratulations on your promotion” present. There was no mention of this six-issue series in the court transcripts, nor of the Mylar bags. Izzy tries to tell herself she’s not enjoying the look of dismayed understanding that dawns on Grinsted’s face. Then she gives up. Sheisenjoying it.Partly because Grinsted has been cheating on his wife, more because Grinsted thought his wife was too dumb to know, mostly just because she, like most police, dislikes defense attorneys. In theory, she understands their importance to the legal process. In practice, she thinks most of them suck. She reads Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller books, and roots for the Lincoln Lawyer to fall on his face.

“The fingerprints weren’t on those kiddy-fiddler magazines?” Grinsted is still trying to get the enormity of his lapse into his head. “They were just on the bags?”

“That is correct,” Tom says. “Maybe next time, Counselor, you should hire a private investigator instead of trying to hog the retainer and subsequent fees for yourself.”

“Douglas Allen needs to be disbarred!” In his indignation, Grinsted seems to have forgotten he has big trouble on the home front.

“I think disciplinary revocation is the best you can hope for,” Izzy says, “but that should put a pretty good-sized stick in his spokes. Disbarment is unlikely. Allen neversaidthe fingerprints were on the magazines, he simply let you assume it. I doubt if you’ll admit it, but I think you believed those magazines were Duffrey’s all along, even though he denied it.”

“Whatever I may have believed—and you aren’t in my head, Detective Jaynes, so you don’t really know—is immaterial to the defense I mounted for my client. I repeat, I pulled my guts out for that man.”

“But you didn’t pull them out enough to hire an investigator,” Izzy says. She thinks—no,knows—that if Grinsted had hired Holly Gibney, Alan Duffrey would still be alive and free. So in all probability would McElroy, Epstein, Mitborough, and Sinclair. Also, an unknown woman with a juror’s name in her dead hand. And Rafferty, him too.

Grinsted opens his mouth to offer a rebuttal, but Tom gets there first. “Even on your own, you should have figured out fingerprints that clear couldn’t have been taken from the pulp stock those magazines were printed on.”

“Andyourpeople didn’t figure it out?” Grinsted asks. He pulls the belt of his robe tight again, as if trying to strangle the potbelly beneath. “Your forensics crew? Theymusthave known, but nobody came forward! No one!”

This is something Izzy hasn’t even considered, and it hits home.

“Our job isn’t to doyourjob.” She knows it’s specious logic, but it’s the best she can do on short notice. “You could have deposed Rademacher, but you didn’t. You didn’t even interview her.”

“Doug Allen got Alan Duffrey killed,” Grinsted says. He seems to be talking to himself. “With an assist from the police.”

“Oh, I think you also played a part,” Tom says. “Wouldn’t you say so, Counselor? Or should I call you Trig?”

There’s no guilty reaction to the calculated use of the nickname. No reaction at all. Grinsted just seems lost in thought. Perhaps realizing that this is just Confrontation 1, to be followed by Confrontation 2, after Izzy and Tom leave.

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