Death Gets a Time-Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

fish,” I groaned, crashing through the kitchen and making it just in time.

Four
    I still wasn’t feeling one hundred percent better the next day, but Al had set up an appointment for us to visit Jupiter Jones at the county jail. One of Raoul Wasserman’s associates would be meeting us. Wasserman had, as it turned out, been willing to let us join the investigative team. I suppose Lilly’s phone call telling him that she’d fire him if he didn’t agree might have had something to do with that.
    Unfortunately, we were supposed to meet at the jail at nine in the morning, and I couldn’t drop Isaac off at preschool until eight forty-five. I was almost fifteen minutes late, and decidedly frazzled, when I finally hustled into the jail. I found Al chatting up the attorney from Wasserman’s office. Her elegant black suit revealed a long stretch of very thin, very sexy leg. She wore gorgeous, dainty, slingback heels and I had to stifle myself to keep from asking her where she bought them and how much they had cost. I love impractical, beautiful shoes. As the only part of my body I don’t actively loathe, my feet deserve to be rewarded with a pair of Manolos or Jimmy Choos on a regular basis.
    The young attorney looked at me appraisingly, and I self-consciously pulled at the hem of my sweater, tugging it over the waistband of the skirt that I’d had to pin closed because the button had popped off long ago. At least I was wearing a nice pair of Stuart Weizman spectator pumps. I maneuvered one foot forward to show them off.
    “I’m Juliet Applebaum,” I said, sticking out my hand.
    “Valerie Sloan. You’re late.”
    I forced a smile. “I don’t think Jupiter’s going to mind. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”
    “I have another appointment at ten-thirty,” she said.
    Al discreetly put a warning hand on my arm. I shrugged him off and smiled grimly at the arrogant young attorney. “Well, then, we’d better hurry,” I said.
    Jupiter Jones looked much younger than his thirty years, and drooped over the table as if he were trying to make his lanky body as inconspicuous as possible. His lips were chapped and peeling and he picked absently at them, dropping tiny flakes of skin on the table. I felt the gorge rise in my throat, and I battled it down. The young attorney introduced him to us, and he nodded almost imperceptibly.
    “I’m a friend of Lilly’s,” I said, and he finally raised his eyes to mine. “This is Al Hockey.” Al nodded once as Jupiter flashed him a nervous glance. “Lilly wants us to help in your case, to work on your investigative team.”
    He mumbled something.
    “Excuse me?” I asked.
    “Can you get me out of here?” he said softly.
    “Mr. Wasserman is doing what he can, Mr. Jones,” Ms. Sloan said. “We’re going to appeal the denial of bail. You know that. Mr. Wasserman told you that in the letter he sent you.”
    Jupiter nodded and ducked his head. I watched him peel another curlicue of skin off his lip. He licked nervously at the bright red dot of blood that appeared. I shot the attorney an irritated glance. Why is it that some lawyers never seem to learn how to talk to their clients? Is it that they are so full of their own importance, so confident that they knowwhat’s best, that they can’t see the person for whom they work as anything other than an incompetent child, one who needs to be told what to do? I fear I had had something of that attitude myself, when I first started at the public defender’s office. I was full of good intentions, excited about my role as advocate for the underprivileged. It was a bank robber named Malcolm Waterwright who taught me, finally, to see my clients as people, like myself. He was a middle-aged man with a drug habit. I’d negotiated his guilty plea, and basically forced him to accept it. Of course the choice was his, but I made it clear to him that I knew best, and that there wasn’t really any other option. And truthfully, that was