States of Grace, Mandy Miller [uplifting novels .txt] 📗

a wizened old gal in fluffy pink bedroom slippers, the other a large Latino dude in a wife beater, arms crossed over a beer belly, a tattoo of a snake crawling up his neck. The gal is generating a shuffling sound by moving her slippers back and forth on the filthy linoleum floor. The man lets out a coñoevery few minutes.

I perch on a metal chair in a corner, one turned away from the entrance—just in case Reilly walks in. It’s bolted to the floor. Why? To avoid it from being used as a projectile? Certainly no one in their right mind would want to steal the damn thing.

And again, I’m waiting. For what seems like hours, although I suspect it’s my anxiety talking. Cops parade in and out through a security door with a shrill buzzer that jolts me out of my seat each time it sounds. I’m tempted to make a run for it. If they have a solid case against Zoe, I’ll hear about it sooner rather than later. And if not, if they’ve got squat, they’ll make it seem like they’ve got something, just to yank my chain.

Pink Slippers and Wife Beater give up and leave.

And still I wait.

As I’m about to leave, the security door buzzes open and Sonny Sorenson appears. He’s dressed in standard detective attire—open-neck shirt and dress pants, gold shield on a lanyard around his neck, Glock on his hip.

He waves me over. “Grace, come on in.”

“Sonny, yeah, hi,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. First rule for defense lawyers is the same as for jilted lovers. Never act needy. Be cool, but I blow that one right out of the box by spilling the contents of my purse onto the floor I’d wager last saw a mop during the Clinton administration—phone clattering out, lipstick rolling away, wallet, hairbrush, and Nicorette gum in a pile.

How I’d love a cigarette right about now. But I gave those up too, right along with everything else that used to make me happy.

Sonny holds the door, eyes crinkling up at the edges, seemingly amused at my scramble to retrieve my things.

“Good to see you again, Detective,” I say, smoothing my hair.

“It’s Sonny, remember?” His eyes lock onto mine. They’re bluer than I remember.

And I do remember. We met when he was in narcotics and the arresting officer on several of my drug prosecutions. Later, he was partnered with Reilly in homicide division, the same cop who railroaded Vinnie, slapped the cuffs on my wrists and tossed me into the back of a patrol car like a sack of potatoes. A jury bought Reilly’s good-cop routine and found him not guilty of falsifying evidence and witness tampering and sent him right him back to serving and protecting. His three co-conspirators, however, are still locked up in the same prison where Vinnie lost three years of his life, an injustice that enrages me still.

Sonny shepherds me through a rabbit warren of cubicles and along a hallway lined with interview rooms, the same corridor Reilly led me down in handcuffs, his beefy paws prodding me along in front of him like livestock.

Sonny stops at the last door on the left and stands back for me to enter.

The very same room.

“It’s been too long.”

Same padded walls, same two-way mirror. Same knot in my gut. “Yeah, how long is too long?”

He motions for me to take a seat. I choose the chair facing the door, the cop’s usual position.

“Reilly’s still your partner? At least that’s what the arrest report for Zoe Slim says.”

Sonny’s reels back. “Whoa there. What, no time for small talk? Like hello, how’ve you been, Sonny?”

He drops into the seat opposite, reaching back over his shoulder to close the door. “And here I was, thinking we were friends.”

“‘Were’ would be the operative word in that statement.” I immediately regret the sarcasm. I should know better. Sonny’s always been on the up-and-up. He has to be given his dubious pedigree. His father was Sal “Sideburns” Saladino, an old-time made guy in the Miami crew via the Bronx. Until he was executed by the Russians looking to take over his action. He took a bullet to the head and was found in the trunk of his Cadillac Seville on Sunny Isles Beach when Sonny was in high school. That left Sondra, Sonny’s Swedish mother, to raise him. Sonny took his mother’s maiden name to escape the stigma. He was first in his class at the police academy, and his stellar arrest and conviction record got him promoted to detective early. Sonny’s intolerance for crime would make Eliot Ness seem like a slacker.

“To be clear, I had nothing to do with the Vicanti fiasco.”

“I never said you did. But if I were you, I’d watch your back. I’m going to be watching mine this time around. The Slim case is big for me, and I’m not going to let him screw me or my client over.”

He tips his chair up onto its hind legs. “If it makes you feel any better, Reilly’s off today.”

“Maybe that makes you feel better. Not likely he’d take kindly to your consorting with the enemy.”

“I don’t know what Frank did or didn’t do, and I don’t want to know. But he’s a good partner.”

“Whatever you say, Detective.”

“Jesus, enough already. I always respected your work. The least you can do is give me the same courtesy. We made a good team. Put some real bad guys away, didn’t we?”

“That’s ancient history. Let’s cut to the chase. Why’d you ask me here?”

He drops the chair back on all fours. “To give you a heads up on some preliminary information we’ve got on the Sinclair murder.”

“Right. Because cops always want to help defense lawyers.”

“None of us need to be wasting our time.”

“And there it is, the inevitable efficiency argument.”

“Please. I’m not your enemy here. I heard you caught this case, and I just wanted to bring you up to speed. You can do whatever you want with what I