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“She is saying things that only lawyers would say.”
I’d have asked for more details, but I’d listened to enough lawyers to know exactly what he meant. Edward opened the door to the office to a woman’s voice threatening to sue Leduc, his department, the city of Hanuman, and I think she mentioned the state cops when Edward and Olaf stepped far enough into the room for me to see the person who went with the voice. She was about Edward’s height, though about two inches of that was the heels peeking out from her pants suit. Her makeup was understated. Her dark hair was cut short and styled so that all the waves in it had been tamed. I could never get my hair to do that.
Milligan and Custer were watching the argument like it was a tennis match. Angel was standing in the doorway to the cells, one hip leaning against the doorjamb so that the swell of her hips was more pronounced, or maybe it was the pencil skirt. I’d have wanted to take off the high heels that went with it by now, but I knew that Angel would wear them all day. It was an outfit, and she wouldn’t ruin it by changing shoes.
“I’m following the letter of the law,” Leduc said.
“Sheriff Leduc, are you really telling me that you’re fine with following this particular law to its conclusion?”
“My job is to uphold the law, and that is exactly what I intend to do,” he said.
“Oh, come on, Dukie. Don’t be such a hard case,” Angel said from the doorway.
Dukie? I thought.
Angel put a smile on her crimson lips that made Duke almost smile back at her. Then he seemed to catch himself and aimed a frown back at the lawyer. I was betting if I called him Dukie, he’d have included me in the argument.
“What are we arguing about?” I asked.
“I’m here to save a life and right an injustice,” the lawyer said.
Angel said, “Marshals, meet Amanda Brooks, tilter at windmills, the Coalition’s very own Ms. Don Quixote.”
“That would be Doña Quixote,” I said, but I held my hand out toward Ms. Brooks.
She half smiled, but her face was set for the fight with Leduc, so she never quite looked at me, as if the fight was more important. I wasn’t offended, because I had my own version of that look.
I let her shake hands with Edward and Olaf as I explained to Leduc that we had a confession from someone else.
“Muriel didn’t crack,” he said, and it was a statement.
“But Todd did,” I said.
He nodded. “I still can’t believe that they would do that to Ray.”
I just looked at him pleasantly; no reason to muddy the waters by agreeing that I didn’t think they had done it either. I wanted Bobby out of jail and home until the judicial system could catch up with the warrant in my pocket.
The lawyer said, “Wait. You have a confession to the crime that my client is accused of. Is that correct?”
“That is correct,” I said.
“I’m happy that Mr. Marchand is going to go free, but this would have been a good test of the warrant system versus due process,” she said.
“It still can be, because he’s not going free just yet,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
Edward and I explained to her that the warrant of execution was still live and had Bobby’s name on it, because the confessed killer was human, and we were all a little fuzzy on how to proceed now. I ended with “According to the judge who signed the original warrant, there doesn’t seem to be any precedent for vacating a warrant on the grounds that you have the wrong person.”
Edward added in his best Ted voice, softly puzzled and pleasant, “Fact is, the crime looks to be just normal human beings pretending to be a Therianthrope, so the crime itself doesn’t fall under the execution-warrant system.”
“It’s not a supernatural crime, so the preternatural branch shouldn’t be here,” Brooks said.
“That’s true,” I said, “but we are here, and the warrant is live, and suddenly we’re in legal limbo.”
“You are not in limbo,” Olaf said.
We looked at him.
