“You served, Your Honor?” Battles asked.
“Proudly,” Yokavich said. “Petty officer second class.”
Battles smiled and Tracy could see daggers in the eyes of those seated in the gallery.
“The brig is now called the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility.” Battles shrugged. “I think it sounds better to the politicians. Personally, I like brig.”
Yokavich gave a thin smile. Tracy had never seen him smile. He looked like a schoolboy chatting up the best-looking girl in the class. “It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Battles said.
“They better end this now or these people might riot,” Tracy said to Kins.
“And with good reason,” Kins said.
“Right.” Yokavich looked to Cerrabone as if he’d forgotten he was there. “Anything else?”
“No, Your Honor,” Cerrabone and Moore said in unison.
“Madam Clerk, call the next case,” Yokavich said.
Tracy watched Battles walk with Trejo and the two burly correctional guards, bending close to whisper in his ear and pat him on the shoulder before he stepped through the door.
The victim’s advocate present at the hearing was speaking to Shaniqua Miller and her mother, but they weren’t paying her much attention. This had gone about as badly as Tracy could have predicted. Cerrabone turned and gave her an eye roll filled with disgust but otherwise held it together.
Battles and Moore started up the aisle to the exit. When she reached the doorway, Battles turned and looked back over her shoulder, her gaze finding Tracy, as if to drop a challenge of sorts.
CHAPTER 15
Del adjusted his suit jacket as he stepped from the elevator and made his way down the marble floor toward the courtroom of the honorable Deborah Kerr. He pulled open the large wooden door and slipped into a bench at the back of the sparsely populated gallery. Several jurors seated in the jury box on the front right side of the courtroom glanced at him, but only briefly. Their attention was fixed on Celia McDaniel. As Del had suspected, McDaniel was good on her feet, with an easy way about her and, today at least, a charming Southern drawl that was downright intoxicating.
After ten minutes, when McDaniel paused to change subjects, Judge Kerr looked up at the clock on the wall. “Counsel, perhaps this is a good place to break for the day?”
McDaniel glanced at the clock, though Del knew she’d break. The judge had just given her an opportunity to send the jurors home after a long day and long week. Only a fool would not accept. Celia McDaniel was no fool.
“That would be fine, Your Honor. With any luck, we might all beat the traffic home.”
As the jurors gathered their belongings and filed out of the room, Del made his way to counsel’s table where McDaniel was packing her materials into a Bekins box. She stopped when she saw him. He hadn’t seen her since the coffee shop, when she’d left a coffee and two donuts on the table. Her upper lip curled, which he figured could be a smile . . . or a smirk.
“So, what brings you here so late on a Friday afternoon, Detective? Did you locate the drug dealer?”
Del would work with McDaniel to prepare charges, if and when he had the name or names of the persons who supplied Allie with the drugs that had killed her and potentially killed the others who had overdosed, but that was not his reason for being there.
“No, not yet.” Del cleared his throat. “I came to apologize about the other day. I didn’t know about your son and I said a few things that were . . .”
“Boorish?”
Del shrugged. “I was going to say insensitive, but boorish works.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard a lot worse. What’s the status of the information on the person who supplied your niece?”
He was glad to change the subject, though Allie’s investigation had not been the reason for his visit. “I sent Allie’s phone and computer to TESU yesterday for analysis. Melton is going to try to rush it for me.”
“I understand from Funk that there’ve been more deaths.”
“Two. Same scene. Appears to be the same product. I brought a sample for Funk to look at and hopefully analyze. He says it isn’t black tar. It might be China white.”
“That would be unusual on the West Coast.”
“That’s what Funk said.”
“Did you notify the narcotics section?”
Del nodded. “They’re talking to known users, and I heard they have bike cops out spreading the word. I was told that the case might be pulled from Violent Crimes . . . from me.”
McDaniel thought about this. “Maybe with respect to determining what’s in the product and where it’s coming from, but not if we charge whoever is supplying it with a controlled substance homicide. That would be Violent Crimes jurisdiction.”
“Thanks,” he said.
She started to pick up the box, but Del put out a hand, wanting to discuss the reason for his visit. “I was hoping to maybe buy you a drink . . . as a peace offering for my boorish behavior.”
McDaniel’s brow furrowed. “Is this a pity drink, Detective?”
“No,” Del said quickly, not expecting her response to be hostile. “No. Nothing like that.”
“So you’re just trying to clear your conscience because you feel bad.”
Del rocked back on his heels, now completely uncertain of what to say. “I didn’t think of it that way either.”
McDaniel smiled. Her eyes glinted. “I’m just playing with you. Friday night after a long week, who can’t use a drink?” She picked up the box. “But I never drink unless I’m eating, and I already told you I love to eat. Do you like Thai food?”
“Yeah,” Del said. In truth, he wasn’t a big fan but he wasn’t about to say anything that could send the conversation off track. “Love Thai food.”
McDaniel handed him the box. “Help me drop this off at the office,” she said. “I know a great place downtown.”
CHAPTER 16
Monday morning, Leah Battles unclipped her bike shoe from the pedal and pulled on the string around her neck. When riding to and from work, she carried her military ID in a clear slip holder beneath her riding shirt. She flashed the ID at the master-at-arms, or MA, working the Charleston Gate as she did each morning, and started to slip it back beneath her shirt.
“Hang on.” The guard came out of the shack and walked toward her.
Battles had ridden her bike to Naval Base Kitsap every day for the past three years, rain or shine. Was she obsessive about it? No. She was frugal. She wasn’t getting rich in the Navy, and owning a car in downtown Seattle without a designated place to park meant feeding an expensive garage. She’d rather feed herself. The cost of driving a car onto the ferry every morning and every night was also not inconsequential. A bike saved money, and provided at least some exercise for those days and weeks when work got crazy, as she sensed it was about to. The ferry terminal was just blocks from her Pioneer Square apartment, and it was about a two-mile ride from the Bremerton Ferry Terminal to the Charleston Gate.