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Jennifer Raglan. The head Crown attorney.”
    “Ms. Raglan? Here?”
    He stood and scanned the room. He felt light-headed. His mind was racing.
    Zeilinski crouched down beside him to take a look.
    What was Jennifer Raglan, of all people, doing here in this cheap motel room? On a Monday morning? Disguising herself with a wig and sunglasses? Celebrating with champagne and candles?
    “Is unbelievable,” Zeilinski said.
    Is, Kennicott thought, my first homicide.

5
    AMANKWAH’S DULL MONDAY WAS DULL NO MORE. AFTER THE WAINWRIGHT TRIAL HAD gone nowhere; instead of checking out any of the murder trials, he’d taken a chance on the hockey-player sexual assault trial. And he’d hit pay dirt.
    Deirdre Acton, the actress-turned-waitress, was being cross-examined by Canton Carmichael, a perfectly coiffed defence lawyer with a silky-smooth voice. It had just come to light that she used the professional name TAD for certain extracurricular activities.
    “What does TAD, capital T , capital A , capital D , stand for?” Carmichael asked, acting innocent as a lamb.
    “Uh, it means ‘The After Date,’ ” Acton muttered.
    “The what?” Carmichael asked, hand to his ear, giving the jurors nearest him a sly look.
    “The After Date,” Acton spat out. “That’s what it means.”
    “And what exactly is an after date?” Carmichael asked, acting naive for the jurors, who now couldn’t take their eyes off Acton.
    “Well,” she said, “I’m the date that players have, after they’ve had a date with, you know, another woman.”
    “Players, what kind of players?”
    “Well, like, hockey players.”
    Carmichael grinned. He’d set up a projector near the jurors, where everyone in court could see it. He picked up a remote, and a screen shot of a website page appeared. The site was titled the Penalty Box, and featured a photo of a woman in a bikini, leaning provocatively on a hockey stick. “Ms. Acton, do you recognize this?” he asked, all sweetness and light.
    “It’s my site,” she mumbled.
    “Your what?”
    “My website.” Her eyes were slits as she stared at Carmichael.
    “And the woman we see in the picture . . . ”
    “That’s me.”
    Amankwah watched the next image come up on the screen.
    Now Carmichael was showing her Facebook home page, headed by a photo of Acton from the waist up. She wore a pair of shoulder pads that barely covered her breasts, and nothing more. The small inset photo was a close-up of a tattoo extremely low on her backside. It featured a hockey stick about to hit a puck with the words “Slap Me” underneath.
    “And this is . . . ”
    “My Facebook page.”
    Carmichael switched back to her website.
    “Would you mind reading your biographical sketch for the jury, please?”
    She looked over at the Crown’s table, as if the prosecutor, a bright young lawyer named Albert Fernandez, could somehow help her. He didn’t make eye contact with her.
    She glared back at Carmichael. “Okay, it says, ‘I’m an after-hours player for players who want to play,’ ” she said without looking at the screen. “You happy?”
    Carmichael, totally unfazed, looked up at the presiding judge, Oliver Rothbart, who had been patiently watching the proceedings, a mildly amused look on his face. “I think, Your Honour, this might be an opportune moment to take the morning break. I don’t know about the jury, but I sure could use a cup of coffee.”
    The jurors were all grinning. A few of them laughed. Amankwah willed the judge to agree. He was dying for some java.
    “Good idea,” Rothbart said. “I have a few administrative duties to attend to this morning, so we’ll come back after lunch. That may give you both some time to consider any relevant legal issues that might arise when we recommence.”
    He let his gaze settle on Fernandez, then Carmichael.
    The judge’s message was clear: I can’t say this in front of the jury, but obviously this case is going nowhere fast. I’ve got better