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home.”
    The resident piped up then. “No, I’m sorry, Judge Moore. You have a concussion. We’ll need to admit you overnight for observation.”
    Carey Moore raised her chin and gave the young doctor a glimpse of the steely look she had leveled at many a difficult witness in her days as a prosecutor. “I’m going home to my daughter. I’ll sign a release. Why don’t you get that process started?”
    The science club president looked like she didn’t know whether she should be offended or afraid. She disappeared into the hall.
    “You might want to reconsider that, Judge Moore,” Liska said. “Someone attacked you.”
    “I was mugged. It’s over.”
    “With all due respect, you don’t know that.”
    Kovac watched her set her jaw as best she could, considering the split lip. She wanted to believe what she wanted to believe.
    “You managed to piss off a lot of people today, Judge,” he said. “Maybe someone decided they needed to express themselves in person.”
    “He stole my wallet.”
    “Bonus.”
    “He?” Liska said. “Did you see him?”
    “No. He was behind me. The voice was male.”
    “Young, old? Black, white?”
    “Angry. That’s what I remember. Angry. Full of rage.”
    “What did he say?”
    “‘You fucking bitch. You fucking cunt,’” the judge said without emotion.
    “Did he use your name?” Kovac asked.
    “No.”
    “You didn’t recognize the voice.”
    “No. Of course not.”
    “So, he knocked you down, grabbed your purse. That was it?” Kovac said, knowing that that wasn’t so.
    She closed her eyes briefly, started to sigh, winced again, and tried to cover that up. Tough cookie, he thought. The mutt had done a number on her. She had to be in a considerable amount of pain, and he knew from experience docs didn’t dole out the good narcotics to people with concussions. They had probably given her some Tylenol. Big deal. Like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite. She had to have one mother of a headache.
    “I was going to my car—”
    “Did you see anyone in the parking ramp?” Kovac asked.
    “No.”
    “In the skyway?”
    “No. I went to pull my keys out of my purse—”
    “You should have had them out before you left the government center.”
    She flicked an annoyed look at him. “I dropped my Palm Pilot, bent to pick it up, he hit me from behind, hard across the back, with some kind of club. He kept hitting me, cursing me. I was trying to grab my car keys.”
    “Where was your wallet?”
    “I dropped my purse when he knocked me down. Everything spilled out of it.”
    Kovac and Liska exchanged a glance.
    “And he was calling you names, hitting you?” Liska said.
    “Yes.”
    “‘You fucking bitch, you fucking cunt,’” Kovac said.
    “Yes.”
    “And when did he go for your wallet?”
    “I don’t know. I hit the alarm on my car key. He slammed my head down. I lost consciousness.”
    “He took your wallet as he left,” Kovac said.
    “I guess.”
    Then the wallet hadn’t been his first objective. Purse snatchers snatched purses. Muggers hit and ran. This guy had been focused on his victim, personalized the attack by calling her names, prolonged the attack, grabbed the wallet as an afterthought as he took off.
    “He knocked you down from behind and he kept hitting you?” Kovac said. “Where was he? Standing over you?”
    “No. Closer. I remember he grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I felt his weight on me.”
    “So he was on his knees? Maybe straddling you?”
    She knew where he was going, and she didn’t want to hear it. Carey Moore had prosecuted more than her share of violent crimes—assaults, rapes, murders. She didn’t want to admit that someone might have tried to rape her, kill her.
    “Was your driver’s license in your wallet?” Liska asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Is the address on the license your home address?”
    “No. I’ve known better than that for a long time, Detective.”
    “Was there anything in your purse that might have