Chosen Prey

up one notch to first degree, the way the mandatory sentencing works now, he’d go down for the max—same thing he’d get if he fought it. Without a death penalty, we’ve got nothing to deal with except dropping the degree of guilt.”
    “Why don’t you talk to Wisconsin?” Lucas asked. “They have a couple of counts on the guy, they think. Work out a deal where if he takes one count of first degree over here, he serves his time, and Wisconsin drops out. If he doesn’t agree, he goes to trial in both states. One of us’ll get him.”
    Towson was drumming on his calendar pad with a yellow pencil. “That’s an option,” he said to Dunn. “Weak, though.”
    “The problem is, I’ve looked at the Wisconsin cases, and they’ve got less than we do. About the only thing that connects him to Wisconsin is that he was at Stout.”
    “And Aronson’s pearls and the method of the murders and the fact that they were buried together. There’s really a lot there,” Lucas said.
    “Tell you what,” Towson said. “We won’t make any move on a deal until we’re through looking at everything. If you’ve got anything else, roll it out. And maybe J. B. will make the first offer.”
    “Who’s handling the preliminary?” Lucas asked.
    “I am,” Kirk said. “We’re just gonna sketch the case, put Whitcomb up and get a statement about the jewelry, and that pretty much ought to do it. You coming?”
    “Yeah, I want to look at him again,” Lucas said. “He’s a strange duck.”
     
    M ARSHALL WAS BACK for the preliminary hearing, dressed in a brown corduroy suit and fancy brown cowboy boots, his hair slicked down.
    “You look like Madonna’s boyfriend,” Marcy told him.
    “Aw, shoot, you get off my case,” he said. He didn’t quite dig his toe into the tile.
    The hearing was routine—Qatar in a dark suit and tie, but his face drawn and white, his eyes ringed as though he’d been weeping—until Randy Whitcomb was rolled in.
    Randy, strapped into a wheelchair, looking out at the chamber under a lowered brow, scanning the rows of press people and gawkers, finally found Lucas and fixed his gaze. Marcy, sitting next to Lucas, whispered, “Is he looking at you?”
    “Yeah. And he looks pissed,” Lucas whispered back.
    Kirk took Whitcomb through the preliminaries.
    Yes, Randy said, he’d bought the pearls from a man who said he was from St. Pat’s. Yes, he’d bought the diamond rings from the same man. He’d sold the pearls on the street, he said. He didn’t know who had them now.
    “Do you see the man who sold you the jewelry here in the courtroom?” Kirk asked.
    Randy looked around for a full minute, scanning up and down each row, then said, “No. I don’t see him.”
    Kirk took a step back. “Look at this man here at the defense table.”
    Glass, Qatar’s defense attorney, surprised as anyone, struggled to his feet, but before he could object to Kirk’s direction, Randy leaned toward the microphone and said, “I never seen him before in my life.”
    A moan swept the courtroom. Marshall said, “What happened?” and Marcy said, “The little jerk.”
    Lucas didn’t say anything, because he could feel Randy staring at him and knew he wasn’t finished. “How do you like that, asshole?” Randy bellowed into the microphone. He pointed at Lucas and yelled, “You cocksucker, how you like them apples?”
    The judge was beating on his desk, but Randy kept shouting, and finally the judge told the bailiff to wheel him out. Randy went, screaming all the way, and Lucas stood up and said, “We gotta find out what happened. We gotta get the little sonofabitch. Where’s Lansing? Did anybody see Lansing?”
    Lansing was in the hallway. As soon as Lucas and Marcy stepped outside, Randy, whose outburst had subsided, began screaming again: “You keep that motherfucker away from me; you keep that motherfucker away.”
    Lansing came over and said, “You heard him.”
    Lucas reached forward and pinched a piece of Lansing’s coat lapel between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not up to me to give you advice, but I will, because you’re so young and dumb. You better find out what happened, or you could be looking at the end of your legal career. You cut this deal, and we’ve got the case hanging on it. We’re all in shit city now—you not the least of us.”
    Lansing swallowed and stepped back. “I know. I’ll find out what happened.”
    “Get back,” Lucas said.
     
    M ARSHALL CAME OUT and