French Silk(126)

Petrie's face turned even redder, but he kept his voice calm. "Insult me all you want. The facts remain the same. Yasmine was with me the night Jackson Wilde was shot and killed."

"Where?"

"At the Doubletree."

"You stayed overnight at the Doubletree and that didn't arouse Mrs. Petrie's suspicions?"

"I frequently stay downtown overnight if I'm going to be out late and have an early meeting scheduled for the next day. Sleeping over spares me a short night and a long commute the following morning."

"And gives you an opportunity to cheat on your wife."

"I'm trying to be up front with you," Petrie exclaimed angrily. "I've admitted to being with Yasmine at the Double-tree."

"I'll check on it."

"I'm sure you will."

"How do you explain her gun being used to kill Wilde if she didn't pull the trigger?"

"I may be able to shed some light on that."

"Then please do."

Following that sarcastic crack, Petrie addressed himself to Crowder. "I was with Yasmine when she rediscovered her gun."

"Rediscovered?"

"Yes. She was surprised to find it at the bottom of the handbag she was carrying at the time. She said it had been missing. She thought she'd lost it in transit between here and New York."

Mentally Cassidy cursed. It perfectly matched Claire's story and shot his case all to hell. His expression, however, remained pugnacious.

"I suggest you start questioning anyone who had access to Yasmine's handbag," Petrie said. "And put an end to investigating her activities that night."

"Which will be convenient as hell for you, won't it?"

Unruffled by Cassidy's snide remark, Petrie stooped down to retrieve his briefcase. "I leave the crime solving and prosecuting to you, Mr. Cassidy." He flashed a brittle smile. "Actually I'm sparing you hours of time, effort, and eventual public disgrace. I didn't have to come here and admit that I was with Yasmine that night. I felt it was my civic responsibility to do so. Now the taxpayers" money won't be wasted on another wild goose chase."

"The only one you're protecting is yourself," Cassidy said with a sneer. "You admitted to us that you and Yasmine were lovers only so you wouldn't have to admit it to your constituents."

Again Petrie gave him a fleeting smile. "You'd do well to take the advice of your mentor Mr. Crowder. Your ambition has been noted and duly recorded. Mr. Cassidy. But if you want to fill that chair," he said, nodding toward Crowder's desk, "you'd better learn to play the game."

"I don't shovel political bullshit, if that's what you mean."

"Everything is political; Mr. Cassidy. Most everything is also bullshit. If you're going to be in public office, get used to shoveling it."

Cassidy cocked his head to one side. "That's quite a speech, Petrie, but it sounds rehearsed. Did your wife write it for you?"

Petrie's arrogance collapsed like a dud parachute. He sputtered, "In this evening's Times Picayune I expect to read that the technician conducting the ballistics tests made a gross error, that Assistant District Attorney Cassidy's allegations regarding Yasmine were incorrect, that this office is retracting previous statements suggesting her possible involvement with the Wilde murder, and that you're redirecting your investigation. Let her suicide stand as the inexplicable action of an unbalanced woman, who, for reasons known only to her, chose to end her life on my doorstep, possibly in an attempt to make a radical political statement."

"Have you washed all the brain tissue off your wallpaper yet?"

"Cassidy."

"Or have you replaced the wallpaper altogether?"

"Cassidy!"

Once again, Crowder's reprimands were ignored. "Can you clean up that quickly, Petrie? A pail of water and some Spic 'n' Span, and whoosh she's expunged? Is that all her life meant to you?"

Using his words like a battering ram, Cassidy had hoped to smash the protective facade that was inherent to the public office Petrie held. He wanted to confront Petrie man to man, where he would have equal footing, if not the advantage. He wanted Petrie angry, scared, and upset. He finally got what he wanted.

"Yasmine wasn't worth the hell she put me through," Petrie smirked. "She was nothing but a whore with the hottest snatch I'd ever had. Too bad for you that you homed in on her cool friend, Claire Laurent, and not Yasmine."

Cassidy lunged at him, knocked him backward into the leather chair, and wound up with his forearm across Petrie's throat and his knee gouging his crotch.

"If Yasmine was a whore, what does that make you, you son of a bitch?" He increased the pressure against Petrie's windpipe and ground his knee into his vulnerable testicles. Petrie uttered a high-pitched squeal. Cassidy delighted in the terror he saw in his eyes.

But Cassidy's pleasure was short-lived. Crowder was almost thirty years older, but he was forty pounds heavier and as strong as a bull. His hands landed like sacks of wet concrete on Cassidy's shoulders, almost causing the leg supporting him to buckle. He pulled him off Petrie, who was clutching his throat and wheezing. He cowered from Cassidy and blubbered, "H-he's crazy."