Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

going to be one hell of a show.
    And so even though he wasn’t tired, he’d make himself sleep. He needed to be well rested so that he didn’t miss a single moment.
    Tuesday, December 3, 10.10 A.M.
    Assistant State’s Attorney Daphne Montgomery glanced at the clock on the wall for the tenth time in as many minutes. The door to the jury deliberation room remained firmly closed and the tension in the courtroom seemed to double with every sweep of that slow-moving minute hand. What the hell is taking them so long?
    ‘What the hell is taking them so long?’ a male voice muttered over her shoulder. Daphne looked up to see her boss pulling out the chair next to hers. ‘Just a little moral support before the party starts,’ Grayson added in a murmur. ‘This is always the hardest for me. Waiting those last few minutes for the jury to file in.’
    ‘Assuming they’re even still back there and haven’t all fled to Tahiti or something,’ Daphne murmured back. Which would be par for the course for this case, a three-ring circus even before jury selection had begun, thirty very long days ago.
    Grayson frowned. ‘What do you know?’
    ‘Only that the jurors saw the protesters this morning, just like we did.’ The crowd had more than doubled that morning, their collective energy increasing by far more. ‘And the Millhouse contingent is smiling like canary-eating cats.’
    The Millhouse contingent included Bill and Cindy – parents of the accused – and a half dozen of their saner family members. ‘Saner’ being relative, of course.
    ‘More like vultures,’ Grayson said with contempt. ‘Circling.’
    Reggie sat at the defendant’s table with an arrogant smile. He expects to be acquitted . The eighteen-year-old had beaten an African-American couple to death after finding them stranded on the road. His lawyer had the nerve to present a self-defense plea, claiming the couple lured an unsuspecting Reggie to their aid and struck him first.
    The media had stirred a frenzy in the city. Reggie’s father, Bill, had worked the talk-show circuit, presenting his family as ordinary, hard-working, and middle-class, struggling to make ends meet and pay the rent – just like everyone else. Bill Millhouse had made numerous pleas for support – and dollars – for Reggie’s defense.
    Has this country become so politically correct that a white man can’t defend himself? had become Bill’s sound bite. His followers had responded enthusiastically, donating a staggering sum through a website set up for that purpose.
    Black community leaders responded with rhetoric of their own and the battle spread from television to churches and civic halls, bars and beauty parlors, spilling over into the largely anonymous internet blogosphere like . . . a cancer. Insidious and terrifying.
    But defeatable , Daphne thought resolutely. This I know for a fact .
    Because she’d beaten cancer herself. It was an empowering thing, beating cancer. It had left her with the feeling of I stared death in the eye, so hit me with your best shot, asshole . Earned arrogance, so to speak. Reggie’s arrogance was nothing but a cheap imitation. Like a ten-dollar Prada knockoff .
    She met Reggie’s eyes across the aisle. Watched his smile fade to a grim snarl. Too bad his online fan club isn’t here to see it . Reggie pretended to be a poster child for milk-drinking, clean-living, misunderstood American youth. A frightening number of people in TV and Internet-land had bought his innocent act, lock, stock, and wallet.
    And then you met me, you little sonofabitch .
    ‘ Well, sugar,’ she said softly to Grayson, ‘those vultures can circle all they want. I’m nobody’s road kill today.’
    ‘Atta girl, sugar ,’ he said, mimicking her twang. A glance up at him revealed the approval in his eyes. Because she knew the kind of man he was, his approval meant a lot. But his approval was tempered with caution. ‘Are you wearing your vest?’
    ‘Every damn day, because either way this jury comes back, there’ll be trouble.’
    ‘Either way this jury comes back,’ Grayson countered, ‘you’ve done a good job.’
    ‘I had good evidence.’ The detectives had been meticulous, the ME unshakable. Daphne had presented a solid case while the Millhouse clan stared with blatant malice, trying to intimidate her. That they’d succeeded was a secret she’d never reveal.
    ‘You stuck,’ Grayson said simply. ‘A lot of prosecutors would have quit. A few