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After working my way through three security guards and a busy but very dignified outer office, I was finally handed off to a gray-haired woman at an enormous desk of steel and walnut. She looked like a member of MENSA who had been a supermodel in her youth before moving on to a career as a Marine Corps drill instructor. She looked me over with a steely, unflinching eye, and then nodded, stood up, and led me to the end of a hall, where a massive door stood open. She waved a hand to indicate that I might have the great boon of passing through the portal and into the Presence. I bowed to her formally and stepped into a large office, and found Frank Kraunauer standing by the window looking down at the beach. The window was actually a floor-to-ceiling wall of thick and tinted glass, but in spite of the huge expanse of window I didn’t think he could see very much detail from this high up. Still, the light from the window lit him with what looked like a full-body halo, the perfect effect for the Attorney Messiah. I wondered whether it was on purpose.
His suit today was clearly a first cousin to the one he’d worn to see me at TGK. It was a lighter shade, but the same unearthly fabric: light, supple, and very nearl
y self-aware. Kraunauer turned to face me as I came in, gave me his polite-shark smile, and waved at a chair that almost certainly cost more than a new Cadillac Escalade. I sat in it carefully, determined to avoid wrinkling it, while at the same time savoring the luxury. There wasn’t a lot to savor. It didn’t feel much different from the chair I had at home that cost twenty-nine dollars at a thrift shop.
“Mr. Morgan,” Frank said. He slid into his own high-backed chair behind a slim and shiny glass desk. “How are you enjoying your freedom?”
“It’s very nice,” I said. “I don’t even miss the room service.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” he said. He opened a folder and frowned at it. “I’m afraid we need to think of this as temporary, however.”
I had of course been expecting some such pronouncement, but even so I felt my heart sink a few notches. “Oh,” I said. “Um, how long have I got?”
Kraunauer’s frown deepened and he drummed his fingers on the glass of his desktop. “I can’t say right now,” he said slowly, as if he really hated admitting that there was something he didn’t know. “That’s going to depend on a lot of things. But the state attorney’s office has three years to file.” He looked up. “I would be very surprised if they take that long. Somebody really wants to see you go down for this,” he said.
“Quite a few somebodies,” I said.
He nodded. “It’s the kind of crime that makes people more than usually upset,” he said.
“Including me,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”
Kraunauer gave a quick wave of the hand and one small twitch of a smile, to show that even though he didn’t believe me, it didn’t matter in the least. “The important thing is,” he said, “they’ve played a little bit fast and loose with legal procedure. In some cases, way over the line. That’s how I got you out. But!” He shook his head. “It cuts the other way, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what other procedural surprises might be waiting for us,” he said. “And now that they know I’m onto them, they’re much more likely to dot all the i’s from here on out. Next time they arrest you…” He shrugged. “Anyway, fair warning. The easy part is over.”
I had a little trouble thinking of anything that had happened so far as “easy,” but maybe he meant easy for him. In any case, I took his point. “What can I do to help?” I said.
“Oh, well,” he said, looking slightly amused and forbidding at the same time. “You can’t really approach any potential witnesses or anything like that. I don’t want any amateur sleuthing.”
“Actually, it wouldn’t be amateur,” I said. “I am a trained forensics investigator…?”
“Yes, of course,” he said politely. “The point is, we don’t want to muddy the water, or give them any more ammunition than they already have.” He gave his head a very slight, very elegant shake. “I don’t want you to kid yourself. The state attorney is taking this on in person, and he’s pretty good.” He spread both hands about six inches apart and then let them drop back to the desktop. “I happen to think I’m better—but he will make a good case. You are in very real danger here.” He waited for it to sink in for a moment, then let me see three gleaming teeth. “On the plus side,” he said, “they don’t know what I’m doing—or what I know. I can tell you, I’ve seen the paperwork they’ve filed already, and I think I know what they’re going for. A lot of it having to do with your daughter—ah, stepdaughter?” He waggled a finger at me absentmindedly. “They’re going to hang the whole case around the pedophile angle.”
“I’m not a pedophile,” I protested.
He waved a hand dismissively. “They’ll make you look like one. And they’ll assume you threatened your daughter and she’ll say what you want her to. Standard scenario, predigested, and the courts eat it up. So whatever you can do with the forensic stuff won’t matter.” He nodded, as if he approved of the prosecutor taking that approach. “I think that’s the plan.”
“I see,” I said, and to be honest, I almost did. “And do we have a, um, counterplan?”
“We do,” he said, with the kind of firm, decisive command that added at least one more zero to his fee. “But it’s not a sure thing; it never is.” This time I got four teeth. “I do have a pretty good batting average,” he said modestly. “And I think we have a decent chance of beating this thing. But for the time being, I want you to keep a low profile. You can’t leave town, of course. But stay out of sight; don’t make trouble.” He nodded at his own wisdom, and added, “And keep all your receipts, naturally. We’re going to tack all your expenses onto our countersuit.”
“Oh,” I said, mildly surprised. “There’s a countersuit?”
Kraunauer smacked the desktop with both hands, and for the first time he looked genuinely happy. “Absolutely!” he said. “After the bullshit they put you through? They’re going to pay for this, believe me. Through the nose.” I thought for a moment he would rub his hands together and say mwa-hahaha—but the moment passed, and all he said was, “Seven figures, certainly. If it’s the right judge, eight.”
“Eight figures—as in, more than ten million?” I said, almost sure I was misunderstanding him.
“At the very least a healthy seven,” he assured me.
“Um—do you mean dollars?” I said, which was certainly feeble, but I couldn’t really picture that kind of money—in the abstract, no problem, but in my bank account? Three Ferraris, fly-to-Paris-for-breakfast money for little old moi?
“Dollars,” he said, nodding very seriously.
And I believe he said a few more things, but I’m not quite sure I remember them. Ten minutes later, with my head still spinning, I was back in my rental car. The meeting with Kraunauer had obviously been intended to reassure me and, of course, to keep me from killing anyone else for a while, which was a little more problematic. Other than that, it had seemed like a waste of time. Aside from dazzling me with the picture of Dexter the Fabulously Rich, I had learned nothing except that I couldn’t leave town. And the farther I got from Kraunauer, the more unreal the promised money seemed. Still, at least everything was deductible, if I kept my receipts. Hotel, car rental, even food.
I thought it all through again. The tantalizing tease of a ridiculously large payout was clearly just talk, designed to keep me in line. Even if we won some mythical enormous judgment, it would go into the appeals process for years, and when it finally came out the other end, most of the cash would go to Kraunauer. So aside from pie in the sky, the only thing of substance I could really take from the meeting was the warning: My freedom was temporary, and it was far from certain that I would escape a permanent place in prison. I knew a little about the state penitentiary. It made TGK look like a luxury resort. It would probably make me yearn for my old cell, and wish I could have the Brown Meat Sandwich again.
