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Her features contorted with emotion. “You’d do well to leave right now, Hammond. I would jump at the chance to make up for what I did last time, but you’d be crazy to depend on me again.”
He smiled grimly. “Well, I’ve been called crazy before.”
Tears formed in her eyes, but she cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “What… what did you have in mind?”
“You’ve heard about Lute Pettijohn.”
Her lower jaw went slack. “You want me to work on something as important as that?”
“Indirectly.” He shifted uncomfortably on the booth’s hard bench. “What I want you to do isn’t officially for the D.A.’s office. It’s strictly confidential. Between you and me. Nobody else must know. Okay?”
“I’m a fuckup, Hammond. I’ve demonstrated that. But I always liked you. I admire you. You’re one of the good guys, and I flatter myself into thinking of you as a friend. You were good to me when people would do an about-face to avoid speaking. I may let you down, probably will, but they’d have to cut out my tongue before I would betray your confidence.”
“I believe that.” He peered deeply into her eyes. “How drunk are you?”
“I’ve got a good buzz going, but I’ll remember this tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He paused to take a deep breath. “I want you to learn what you can about… Should I write this down?”
“Would you ever want it to come back to you?”
He thought about it for a moment. “No.”
“Then don’t write it down. If it ain’t tangible, it ain’t evidence.”
“Evidence? Whoa, Loretta,” he said, holding up both hands. “What I want you to do is confidential. It stretches ethics. But it’s not illegal. I just want to level the playing field for a suspect.”
Tilting her head, she regarded him curiously. “Maybe I’m drunker than I thought. Did you just say—”
“You heard me right.”
“You want to give a suspect in the Pettijohn case a break?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“How come?”
“You’re not drunk enough for me to explain that.”
A laugh rattled out of her chest. “Okay,” she said, still dubious. “Who’s the suspect?”
“Dr. Alex Ladd.”
“Is he in Charleston?”
“It’s a she.”
She blinked several times, then gave him a long, hard look. “A she.”
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Hammond pretended not to notice the obvious question posed by her raised eyebrows. “She’s a psychologist here in Charleston. Find out everything you can about her. Background, family, schooling, anything. Everything. But in particular any possible connection she might have had with Lute Pettijohn.”
“Like if she was a girlfriend?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Like that.”
“I got the impression that Steffi Mundell was prosecuting the Pettijohn case.”
