French Silk(72)

"Don't play word games with me. Ariel Wilde's man was thorough. He told her every move you made, and she passed the details along to me. You gave Claire Laurent your jacket. You embraced her. You kissed her. Didn't you?"

Cassidy gave a terse nod.

"According to the spy's account, it wasn't a polite little peck, either."

"No," Cassidy said gruffly. "It wasn't."

"Jesus!" Crowder rose to his feet and banged his fist on his desk. "What the hell were you thinking of?"

Cassidy bowed his head. "Shit." After a long, still moment, he raised his head. "I can see how it might have looked to someone who didn't know that circumstances. I was questioning her, Tony."

"You were also swapping spit!" he bellowed.

In a much softer, more reasonable tone, Cassidy said, "I was shooting holes in her defense, trying to find the element that's missing from her story."

"So you're sure there's a missing element?"

"Almost positive. I don't know if she's lying to protect herself or someone else, but she's not telling the whole truth. Unfortunately, I can't arrest her on a gut feeling."

"'Unfortunately'?" The D.A. studied him with shrewd eyes that missed nothing. "Are you going to sit there and tell me you don't find this woman attractive?"

"No." Cassidy looked him straight in the eye. "She's extremely attractive to me."

Crowder sank back into his chair and ran a hand over his thinning hair. "I should have become a dentist like my mother wanted me to." Grumbling, he added, "At least you didn't lie to me. And I'd have known if you had. There've been rumors."

"Rumors about what?"

"About your attraction to Ms. Laurent. Glenn complained to the P.C. about it. He came to me with it."

"Christ!" Cassidy exclaimed angrily. "Glenn had no right to—"

"Dammit, he had every right. This is his case, too, remember? He doesn't want it f*cked up by a prosecutor with a valentine where his head should be." He shook his head. "I don't want to do this to you, kid. But you leave me no alternative. I've got to take you off the case."

"Don't, Tony." Cassidy left his chair and leaned over Crowder's desk. "I've got to have it. I'll bring the culprit to trial and I'll get a conviction. My career's riding on it. I won't squander this opportunity. Not for anything."

"Not even for a woman you're attracted to?"

"Especially not for that."

Crowder studied him for a moment. "You sound like you mean it."

"I do." Cassidy debated over whether to broach a subject that had always remained closed to discussion. However, last night he had told Claire that from here on, he was playing to win. Crowder needed to be convinced of that, too. "You must have wondered, Tony, why I switched from defense counsel when I came here."

"I thought it was curious that you gave up a lucrative practice in exchange for the salary this parish pays you. But after reviewing your win/loss columns, I considered myself too lucky to have you on my side to start prying. Why bring it up now?"

Cassidy began pacing the length of Crowder's office. "As you said, I had a money-making practice going. I'd racked up an impressive number of wins, some in court, others in plea bargains. Either way, my clients were walking, and I was feeling pretty damn smug about it and very sure of myself."

"I know the type."

Cassidy nodded grimly to Crowder's comment. "A particular client retained me to defend him. He was a bad-ass with a list of priors as long as my arm. He'd been sent up for assault but had served only a fraction of his sentence when he was released. A few weeks into his parole, he phoned me. He said I came highly recommended. Said he'd heard I wasn't afraid of anything. Said he was confident I would see to it that he walked."

He stopped, closed his eyes for a moment, and added, "The hell of it was, Tony, I was confident of it too. I took his case. This time he'd been charged with sexual assault, although the woman had managed to get away before he could rape her."

He ceased pacing and stared out the window. "The victim was in her early twenties, pretty, good figure," he began softly. "My client had accosted her when she came out of her office building at dusk. I didn't have a prayer. He'd literally been caught with his pants down half a block from the scene. The prosecutor turned down all offers of a plea bargain. He wanted this guy behind bars. The case went to trail. All I could rely on was showmanship, and by then I had it down to a science," he said, making a fist and squeezing hard.

"I pulled out all the stops. By the time I got finished with that girl in cross-examination, the jury was convinced she was a whore who wore miniskirts to work in order to lure her male co-workers. I actually remember thinking how lucky I was that she was chesty because it substantiated my case. I made sure the jury's attention was called to her breasts. Christ."

He rubbed his eyes, attempting to eradicate the disturbing mental picture of the sobbing young woman he'd stripped and assaulted on the witness stand. "I crucified her, ruined her reputation, painted her up to be a cock-teaser who had teased one cock too many and, as a result, got more than she'd bargained for."