“So?”
Hester looked at Shauna. “You want to tell him?”
“No, that’s okay.”
“But you’re the one who did all the hard work.”
Fein said, “Cut the crap, Crimstein.”
The door behind them opened. Hester’s secretary brought the sheets of paper over to her boss along with a small cassette tape. “Thank you, Cheryl.”
“No problem.”
“You can go home now. Come in late tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
Cheryl left. Hester took out her half-moon reading glasses. She slipped them on and started reading the pages.
“I’m getting tired of this, Hester.”
“You like dogs, Lance?”
“What?”
“Dogs. I’m not a big fan of them myself. But this one … Shauna, you have that photograph?”
“Right here.” Shauna held up a large photograph of Chloe for all to see. “She’s a bearded collie.”
“Isn’t she cute, Lance?”
Lance Fein stood. Krinsky stood too. Dimonte didn’t budge. “I’ve had enough.”
“You leave now,” Hester said, “and this dog will piss all over your career like it’s a fire hydrant.”
“What the hell are you talking?”
She handed two of the sheets to Fein. “That dog proves Beck didn’t do it. He was at Kinko’s last night. He entered with the dog. Caused quite a ruckus, I understand. Here are four statements from independent witnesses positively IDing Beck. He rented some computer time while there—more precisely, from four past midnight to twelve twenty-three A.M., according to their billing records.” She grinned. “Here, fellas. Copies for all of you.”
“You expect me to take these at face value?”
“Not all. Please, by all means, follow up.”
Hester tossed a copy at Krinsky and another at Dimonte. Krinsky gathered it up and asked if he could use a phone.
“Sure,” Crimstein said. “But if you’re going to make any toll calls, kindly charge it to the department.” She gave him a sickly sweet smile. “Thanks so much.”
Fein read the sheet, his complexion turning to something in the ash-gray family.
“Thinking about expanding the time of death a bit?” Hester asked. “Feel free, but guess what? There was bridge construction that night. He’s covered.”
Fein was actually quaking. He muttered something under his breath that might have rhymed with “witch.”
“Now, now, Lance.” Hester Crimstein made a tsk-tsk noise. “You should be thanking me.”
“What?”
“Just think of how I could have sandbagged you. There you are, all those cameras, all that delightful media coverage, ready to announce the big arrest of this vicious murderer. You put on your best power tie, make that big speech about keeping the streets safe, about what a team effort the capture of this animal was, though really you should be getting all the credit. The flashbulbs start going off. You smile and call the reporters by their first names, all the while imagining your big oak desk in the governor’s mansion—and then bam, I lower the boom. I give the media this airtight alibi. Imagine, Lance. Man, oh, man, do you owe me, or what?”
Fein shot daggers with his eyes. “He still assaulted a police officer.”
“No, Lance, he didn’t. Think spin, my friend. Fact: You, Assistant District Attorney Lance Fein, jumped to the wrong conclusion. You hunted down an innocent man with your storm troopers—and not just an innocent man, but a doctor who chooses to work for lower pay with the poor instead of in the lucrative private sector.” She sat back, smiling. “Oh, this is good, let me see. So while using dozens of city cops at Lord-knows-what expense, all with guns drawn and chasing down this innocent man, one officer, young and beefy and gung-ho, traps him in an alleyway and starts pounding on him. Nobody else is in sight, so this young cop takes it upon himself to make this scared man pay. Poor, persecuted Dr. David Beck, a widower I might add, did nothing but lash out in self-defense.”
“That’ll never sell.”
“Sure it will, Lance. I don’t want to sound immodest, but who’s better at spin than yours truly? And wait, you haven’t heard me wax philosophical on the comparisons between this case and Richard Jewell, or on the overzealousness of the D.A.’s office, or how they were so eager to pin this on Dr. David Beck, hero to the downtrodden, that they obviously planted evidence at his residence.”
“Planted?” Fein was apoplectic. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Come on, Lance, we know Dr. David Beck couldn’t have done it. We have a proof-positive alibi in the testimony of four—ah, hell, we’ll dig up more than four before this is through—independent, unbiased witnesses that he didn’t do it. So how did all that evidence get there? You, Mr. Fein, and your storm troopers. Mark Fuhrman will look like Mahatma Gandhi by the time I’m through with you.”
Fein’s hands tightened into fists. He gulped down a few breaths and made himself lean back. “Okay,” he began slowly. “Assuming this alibi checks out—”
“Oh it will.”
“Assuming it does, what do you want?”
“Well now, that’s an awfully good question. You’re in a bind, Lance. You arrest him, you look like an idiot. You call off the arrest, you look like an idiot. I’m not sure I see any way around it.” Hester Crimstein stood, started pacing as though working a closing. “I’ve looked into this and I’ve thought about it and I think I’ve found a way to minimize the damage. Care to hear it?”
Fein glared some more. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve done one thing smart in all this. Just one, but maybe it’s enough. You’ve kept your mug away from the media. That’s because, I imagine, it would be a tad embarrassing trying to explain how this doctor escaped your dragnet. But that’s good. Everything that has been reported can be blamed on anonymous leaks. So here’s what you do, Lance. You call a press conference. You tell them that the leaks are false, that Dr. Beck is being sought as a material witness, nothing more than that. You do not suspect him in this crime—in fact, you’re certain he didn’t commit it—but you learned that he was one of the last people to see the victim alive and wanted to speak with him.”
“That’ll never fly.”