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and he had treated her like a dumb blonde instead of a former assistant district attorney. At one point he'd airily informed her that she had "totally misconstrued the deeper meaning" of Plessy v. Ferguson. After the show, he had invited her to his hotel room—a lavish suite at the St. Regis Hotel, charged to Hard Gavel along with the limo—for a drink. She had gone with one purpose in mind. Over drinks, she'd sat opposite him while he'd talked about his greatness, her miniskirted thighs parted just enough to provide a glimpse of the heaven within. Having brought him to a state of painful arousal, she had looked at her watch, announced she was running late, and left him to quench his ardor with any means at hand.
    As Hard Gavel's ratings increased, Alan Crudman's attitude toward her became less and less condescending. He now addressed her as he would a Supreme Court justice.
    Perri had asked him on the show tonight because she was mad at Boyce. Boyce was refusing to feed her details about the case.
    "So how do you think the defense is shaping up so far?"
    "I wouldn't want to second-guess Boyce Baylor," Alan Crudman lied, "but I'm frankly surprised that he hasn't put together a top-level team. All he's got is associates from his own firm, most of them younger people. This is, as I don't need to tell you, going to be a very tough case. Even I would find it a tough case. And I certainly wouldn't try to do it all myself. So it's either remarkable, or daring, or both, that he seems intent on trying this case all by himself."
    "You're acknowledged as being the best in the business"—she knew this would infuriate Boyce—"when you take a case of this profile—"
    "Perri"—Alan Crudman smiled, not one of nature's prettier sights—"with all due respect, there has never in history been a case of this profile."
    "—you usually partner up with other distinguished attorneys. It's not like you're saying, I can't handle this all by myself. Right?"
    "Absolutely. In the J. J. Bronco case, as you'll recall, there were—what?—six of us. I, of course, was lead counsel, but I had Barry Strutt to handle the bloodstains, Lee Vermann for hair samples, Kyle Coots, who as you know is the authority on slash wounds—he wrote the book—so we had a good, solid team. And of course justice prevailed."
    "On that, any progress in the search for the real killers?"
    "I—there's—I understand he's pursuing it. But as far as the MacMann case goes, yes, I am surprised that Boyce Baylor seems determined to do it all by himself. I'm sure he has his reasons."

* * *
    Beth too was watching. She had developed a curiosity about Perri Pettengill.
    Listening to Alan Crudman, whom she had loathed since he had pronounced on television that J. J. Bronco was "one hundred thousand percent not guilty" of the grisly murders, confirmed her decision not to return his call during the first days of her nightmare. Yet the lawyer in Beth was wrestling with the fact that he was Alan Crudman, a lawyer of great ability. Even if she discounted his palpable jealousy of Boyce, his comments did make her wonder why Boyce was so intent on going into court solo. She'd asked him why he hadn't assembled the mother of all defense teams. He'd said he didn't want to overwhelm the jury with too many expensive suits. The fourth time she'd asked, he'd gotten huffy and reminded her that he was in charge. Two possibilities lurked in her mind: one, he was playing single-combat warrior to beat the odds and win back her heart; two, he wanted to lose this case to punish her for what she'd done to him. She didn't like either scenario, though the first was preferable.
     

Chapter 9
    If it wasn't going to be easy to impanel a jury in United States v. Elizabeth MacMann, finding a judge was presenting its own challenges. There were thirteen full-time judges on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Four had to recuse themselves because they had been appointed to the bench by the late