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Steffi’s hesitation had been planned and rehearsed. As though uneasy, she said, “I hate to bother you with what will seem like petty office politics.”
“Is it Hammond and Detective Smilow? Are they behaving like rival bullies instead of professionals?”
“There have been a few verbal skirmishes, with some snide volleys being fired from both sides. I can handle that. It’s something else.”
He glanced at his desk clock. “You’ll have to forgive me, Steffi. I have a meeting in ten minutes.”
“It’s Hammond’s general attitude,” she blurted out.
Mason frowned. “His attitude? Toward what?”
“He seems… I don’t know…” She hem-hawed as though searching for the right word and finally coming up with, “Indifferent.”
Mason leaned back in his chair and studied her over his steepled fingers. “I find that hard to believe. This case is right up Hammond’s alley.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” she exclaimed. “Ordinarily he would be chomping at the bit. He would be hounding Smilow to gather enough evidence to take to the grand jury. He would be anxious to start preparing for trial. This case has got all the ingredients that usually make him salivate.
“That’s why I’m at a total loss,” she continued. “He seems not to care if the mystery is solved. I’ve been briefing him on everything I get from Smilow. I’ve kept him apprised of what leads are hot and which have turned cold. Hammond reacts to every scrap of information with the same degree of disinterest.”
Mason thoughtfully scratched his cheek. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know what to make of it,” she said with just the right mix of exasperation and puzzlement. “That’s why I came to you. For guidance. I’m in the second seat on this case and don’t want to overstep my bounds. Please tell me how to handle this.”
Monroe Mason was approaching
his seventieth birthday. He had grown tired of the grind of holding public office. For the last couple of years, he had delegated a lot of responsibility to the young and eager assistant solicitors, advising them when necessary, but for the most part giving them their heads to operate as they saw fit. He looked forward to retirement so he could golf and fish to his heart’s content and not have to deal even with the political aspects of the job.
But it wasn’t by accident that he had served as county solicitor for the past twenty-four years. He had been a shrewd operator when he assumed the office, and he had lost none of that edge. His instincts were as keen as ever. He could still sense when someone was being less than entirely up-front with him.
Steffi had counted on her boss’s intuitiveness when she planned this meeting.
“Are you sure you don’t know what’s bothering him?” he asked her, lowering his booming voice to a dull roar.
With feigned anxiety, Steffi pulled her lower lip through her teeth. “I’ve painted myself into a corner, haven’t I?”
“You don’t want to speak badly of a colleague.”
“Something like that.”
“I appreciate the awkwardness of your situation. I admire your loyalty to Hammond. But this case is too important for sensitivities. If he is shirking his duties—”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that,” she said hastily. “He would never drop the ball. It’s just that I don’t think he’s running full out with it. His heart isn’t in it.”
“Do you know why?”
“Every time I’ve broached the subject, he reacts as though I’ve smashed a sore toe. He’s touchy and cranky.” She paused as though mulling it over. “But if you asked me to speculate on what’s bothering him…”
“I have.”
She pretended to think it over carefully before finally saying, “At this point, our suspect is a woman. Alex Ladd is an intelligent, successful woman. She’s refined and articulate, and some might think attractive.”
Mason actually laughed. “You think Hammond’s got a crush on her?”
Steffi laughed with him. “Of course not.”
“But you’re saying that her gender is influencing his approach to the case.”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility. But it makes a weird sort of sense. You know Hammond better than I do. You’ve known him all his life. You know how he was brought up.”
