Twisted

typing notes and observations about this meeting into the battered laptop computer he was inseparable from. The keyboarding was a habit that drove most defendants nuts but it had no apparent effect on Ray Hartman.
    The other one of the fivesome was Adele Viamonte, the assistant DA who’d been assigned to Tribow in the violent felonies division for the past year. She was almost ten years older than Tribow; she’d picked up her interest in law later in life after a successful first career: raising twin boys, nowteenagers. Viamonte’s mind and tongue were as sharp as her confidence was solid. She now looked over Hartman’s tanned skin, taut belly, silvery hair, broad shoulders and thick neck. She then turned to his lawyer and asked, “So can we assume that this meeting with Mr. Hartman and his ego is over with?”
    Hartman gave a faint, embarrassed laugh, as if a student had said something awkward in class, the put-down motivated solely because, the prosecutor guessed, Viamonte was a woman.
    The defense lawyer repeated what he’d been saying all along. “My client isn’t interested in a plea bargain that involves jail time.”
    Tribow echoed his own litany. “But that’s all we’re offering.”
    “Then he wants to go to trial. He’s confident he’ll be found innocent.”
    Tribow didn’t know how that was going to happen. Ray Hartman had shot a man in the head one Sunday afternoon last March. There was physical evidence—ballistics, gunpowder residue on his hand. There were witnesses who placed him at the scene, searching for the victim just before the death. There were reports of earlier threats by Hartman and statements of intent to cause the victim harm. There was a motive. While Danny Tribow was always guarded about the outcomes of the cases he prosecuted, this was as solid as any he’d ever had.
    And so he tried one last time. “If you accept murder two I’ll recommend fifteen years.”
    “No way,” Hartman responded, laughing at theabsurdity of the suggestion. “You didn’t hear my shyster here. No jail time. I’ll pay a fine. I’ll pay a big goddamn fine. I’ll do community service. But no jail time.”
    Daniel Tribow was a slight man, unflappable and soft-spoken. He would have looked right at home in a bow tie and suspenders. “Sir,” he said now, speaking directly to Hartman, “you understand I’m going to prosecute you for premeditated murder. In this state that’s a special circumstances crime—meaning I can seek the death penalty.”
    “What I understand is that I don’t see much point in continuing this little get-together. I’ve got a lunch date waiting and, if you ask me, you boys and girls better bone up on your law—you sure as hell need to if you think you’re getting me convicted.”
    “If that’s what you want, sir.” Tribow stood. He shook the lawyer’s hand though not the suspect’s. Adele Viamonte glanced at both lawyer and client as if they were clerks who’d short-changed her and remained seated, apparently struggling to keep from saying what she really felt.

    When they were gone Tribow sat back in his chair. He spun to look out the window at the rolling countryside of suburbia, bright green with early summer colors. Tribow played absently with the only artwork in his office: a baby’s mobile of Winnie-the-Pooh characters, stuck to his chipped credenza top with a suction cup. It was his son’s—well, had been, when the boy, now ten, was an infant. When DannyJunior had lost interest in the mobile, his father didn’t have the heart to throw it away and brought it here to the office. His wife thought this was one of those silly things he did sometimes, like his infamous practical jokes or dressing up in costumes for his son’s parties. Tribow didn’t tell her that he wanted the toy here for one reason only: to remind him of his family during those long weeks preparing for and prosecuting cases, when it seemed that the only family he had were judges, jurors, detectives and colleagues.
    He now mused, “I offer him ten years against a possible special-circumstances murder and he says he’ll take his chances? I don’t get it.”
    Viamonte shook her head. “Nope. Doesn’t add up. He’d be out in seven. If he loses on special circumstances—and that’s likely—he could get the needle.”
    “How ’bout the answer?” a man’s voice asked from the doorway.
    “Sure.” Tribow spun around in the chair and nodded Richard Moyer, a senior county