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probably right. The Whitmires would call
their lieutenant. Or have the commissioner call their lieutenant’s captain to
call their lieutenant. Or have the mayor call the commissioner—however those
kinds of people managed to pull the strings that were beyond reach of the rest
of the population.
    But Ellie was the last person on earth who was
going to make it easy for them. Nothing about their celebrity or money could
change the fact that they’d raised a sad, screwed-up kid who ended it all, drunk
and naked and bloody in a bathtub.
    “Hey, you. I thought you said you had a
callout.”
    She had texted Max Donovan, the assistant district
attorney handling today’s motion, on their way to the scene on Barrow Street.
She wasn’t on a texting basis with most prosecutors, but this particular ADA was
her boyfriend.
    “Turned out to be a quickie.”
    “Wasn’t aware we had quickie murder investigations
these days. Oh, there was that case on Wooster last year where a guy thought his
neighbor was murdering a woman, but the woman turned out to be a girlfriend
doll.”
    “This one had a real body, but it was a clear-cut
suicide. Well, clear-cut to everyone but the family.”
    The amusement fell from his face. “And you’re okay
with that?”
    “Any reason I shouldn’t be?”
    “All right. Forget I said anything. I’m glad you
could make it. Maybe time for a quick lunch when we’re done here?”
    “That’d be good.”
    Owing to their work schedules, they hadn’t seen
each other for four days. Given the consistent routine they’d developed over the
last year, four nights apart was practically a long-distance relationship.
    The bailiff stuck her head out of the courtroom
door. “The judge is ready.”
    Ellie’s testimony took all of sixteen minutes. She
was there to defend against a murderer’s postconviction motion for release. The
defendant alleged that his attorney had offered ineffective assistance of
counsel by allowing Ellie to interrogate him about the death of his girlfriend.
The necessary information was straightforward. The defendant had been the one to
call the police, claiming he’d come home and found her bludgeoned on the kitchen
floor of their shared Chinatown apartment. He wasn’t in custody. He wasn’t even
a suspect. His alleged “counsel” was a real estate lawyer who lived in the
apartment next door and came over to offer friendly support.
    It wasn’t the lawyer’s fault that Ellie noticed the
tiny lacerations marking each blow on the victim’s body, or the sharp, raised
edge of the defendant’s pinkie ring, or the red marks on the defendant’s
knuckles. Just a single, plainly phrased question about a possible explanation
for those three circumstances had been enough for the defendant to break
down.
    It would have been a straightforward hearing if it
weren’t for the fact that Judge Frederick Knight was known throughout the New
York criminal justice system as the Big Pig.
    Maybe the term was unfair, a reference to his
considerable weight of at least three bills. But Ellie suspected the nickname
would never have come into play if the man did not strive at every second to
out-misogynize Andrew Dice Clay.
    The nonsense began as she rose from the witness
chair after testifying.
    “I know you.”
    If Ellie had been at a nursing home in Queens, she
would have expected the line from a patient—the really, really old one, who
didn’t know anyone anymore.
    “Ellie Hatcher, Your Honor. This is my fifth time
here.” She rattled off the defendants’ names. She always remembered them. She
could tell you the dates of the arrests, too. Probably their dates of births as
well. Ellie’s brain was weird that way.
    It was all a blur to Judge Knight, who shook his
head with her mention of each case. “Only five times here, and I remember you?
Take that as a compliment, Officer.”
    Detective.
    “You keep yourself in shape. That’s good. Pretty
girl there, right, Donovan?”
    Max didn’t miss a