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Cross whispered, “One final thing, Bobby. If you go near Alex again—ever—I’ll break your neck. And then I’ll mess up that pretty face of yours until you’re no longer recognizable. Your days as a ladies’ man will be over. The only looks you’ll get from women are ones of pity and revulsion.”
Bobby was stunned. But only for a few seconds. Then it all came together—the threat, the prosecutor’s insistence that Alex was innocent. He began to laugh. “Now I get it. Your cock’s twitching for my baby sister!”
Playfully he poked Hammond in the chest. “Am I right? Never mind, I know I am. I can read the signs. Tell you what, Mr. Special Assistant whatever the hell you call yourself. Whenever you want to fuck her, you come and see me. Any way you like it, backward, forward or sideways, I can set it up.”
The chair was uprooted, and Bobby was sent flying backward along with it. Rockets of pain were launched from the point of contact on his cheekbone. They detonated inside his skull. His ribs snapped as a fist with the force of a piston slammed into them.
“Mr. Cross?”
Bobby heard running footsteps and the voices of the guards. The sounds wafted toward him through a vast and hollow darkness.
“Everything all right in here, Mr. Cross?”
“I’m fine, thanks. But I’m afraid the prisoner needs some assistance.”
Chapter 38
“This is interesting.”
Steffi cradled the receiver of her desk phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hammond? Where are you?”
“I just left the jail. Bobby Trimble is ours for a while.”
“What about our deal with him?”
“His crimes on Speckle Island superseded that. I’ll fill you in later.”
“OK. So what’s interesting?”
“Basset,” he said. “Glenn Basset? The sergeant who oversees the evidence warehouse?”
“Okay. I know him, vaguely. Mustache?”
“That’s him. He has a sixteen-year-old daughter who was arrested for drug possession last year. First arrest. Basically a good kid, but had gotten in with the wrong crowd at school. Peer pressure. Isolated—”
“I got it. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Basset went to Smilow for counsel and help. Smilow intervened with our office on behalf of Basset’s daughter.”
“They swapped favors.”
“That’s my guess,” Hammond said.
“Only a guess?”
“So far it’s just rumor and innuendo. I’ve been nosing around. Cops are reluctant to talk about other cops, and I haven’t approached Basset with it yet.”
“I’d like to be there when you do, Hammond. What’s next?”
“I’ve got one more stop to make, then I’m going over to the Charles Towne.”
“What for?”
“Remember the robes?”
“That people wear to and from the spa? White fluffy things that make everybody look like a polar bear?”
“Where was Pettijohn’s?” he asked.
