Poison Flower (2 page)

"Yes, sir," Shelby said.

"There's an attorney waiting to speak with you. Stand up."

He stood and the cop unlocked his shackles from the rail on the wall and guided him out the door. Shelby took deep, even breaths. This was the start, and he was going to need to be sharp. The cop led him along the back hallway to the first open door, a room with a small window that started head-high with steel mesh over it. The cop ushered him in and closed the door behind them.

Seated at the table was the woman with black hair. Today she was dressed in a black suit, and she had draped a black raincoat over the table. The cop led Shelby to a chair across the table from her and began to shackle Shelby to the ring welded to the table.

The black-haired woman dropped something that sounded like a pen, and crouched to pick it up. For a moment Shelby and the guard lost sight of her under the table. The guard suddenly released Shelby's chain and stepped back. "Hey! What are you doing" He reached for something on his belt and took a first step to go around the table toward her. Before he could make the turn, his legs bent at the knees and he pitched forward. He fell to the floor, and rolled over to get his radio off his belt, but she batted it out of his grasp with her hand, and it clattered across the floor.

She held up her other hand to show him a hypodermic needle she had used on his leg. "It's a low dose of anesthetic. It won't hurt you, and the effect will be gone in a little while. I'm sorry."

The cop stared at her with wide eyes, but he didn't seem to be able to move. In a few seconds his eyes closed. She said, "He'll be out for a half hour." She knelt; unbuckled the cop's utility belt with his gun, mace, and handcuffs and set it across the room in a corner; reached into his breast pocket to get his cell phone; and took the battery and put it with his other equipment.

Shelby saw that the cop hadn't managed to close the hasp to lock his chain to the ring, so he pulled it through and freed himself.

She took the key from the cop's limp hand and removed the chains from around Shelby's waist and between his ankles. "Take off the jumpsuit."

Shelby unzipped it and stepped out of it, then stood in his underwear feeling cold and vulnerable. The woman looked out the screened window and took off her suit pants, which had been rolled at the waist to conceal their length, and cinched with a belt at her hips. She took off her black stretch turtleneck and handed it to him. This left her in a pair of tight black pants and a fitted vest over her white blouse. The suit coat she had left inside her raincoat when she'd taken it off, she now extricated and handed to Shelby. He put it on, and it fit reasonably well. She put on her raincoat.

She turned to him again, and he felt the blue eyes sweeping down from his face to his feet.

"How do I look" he asked.

"Not like a prisoner." She knelt again beside the cop, took off his black shoes, and handed them to Shelby so he could put them on. He kicked off his plastic sandals, stepped into the oversize shoes, and tied them as tightly as possible. The last thing she handed him was her briefcase. "Ready"

He nodded. She unlocked the door with one of the keys from the cop's belt, and went out to the narrow, empty corridor. There were doors all along the left side that led to rooms like the one they'd just left, and one windowless steel door at the end with a clipboard hanging on it. The sheet on the clipboard listed Kristen Alvarez, but she took out a pen and added the name Gregory Campbell to the list with the same entry time as Kristen Alvarez. She looked at her watch and signed them both out. They stepped out into the main hallway of the building. As they walked, she and Shelby looked straight ahead and never met the eyes of passersby. Shelby noticed that any eyes passed over him and lingered on her. She was beautiful, tall and erect, and took long, purposeful strides. They made a turn and stepped through the exit door into the staircase.

They hurried down four floors without meeting anyone on the stairs, and then she stopped at a small glass door with a fire extinguisher inside. She opened the door, reached behind the extinguisher, and produced a red-and-white juror badge in a plastic holder and clipped it to Shelby's breast pocket. She looked at her watch. "We're on the fifth floor. Just go out into the hall near the jury room and sit on one of the benches. In three minutes it will be noon."

"How can I ever thank you"

"You're not even out yet. Make sure you get one of the first elevators."

He nodded and went out into the fifth-floor hallway. In two and a half minutes the staff in the jury assembly room would let the two hundred or so bored prospective jurors go to lunch, and they'd all stream out to jam the hallway and the elevators and stairs. He walked toward the jury assembly room, but stopped outside the door and sat down on the bench by the wall closest to the elevator to wait.

JANE WHITEFIELD RAN DOWN THE stairwell the rest of the way toward the first floor, but just as she was reaching for the door handle to go out to the lobby, she heard a door a few floors up flung open, and she could hear the measured sound of leather-soled shoes on the metal stairs, and the murmur of voices-jurors. She almost smiled, but instead kept her face blank and serene as she stepped out into a narrow corridor to the back of the lobby near the elevators.

Then Jane saw the three men. Shelby's sister had given her photographs of them when she had come to Jane in Deganawida, New York, to ask for her help. "I took these during Jim's trial," she said. "These are the three who helped frame him. They bribed some witnesses to say that Jim had done violent things when he got mad at people, some to say they saw him sitting in the parking lot waiting for Susan to come home that night, and scared at least two other witnesses away so they couldn't be found in time for the trial."

The pictures had been taken from different angles: one photo of them taken as they were coming out of some public building together, one taken when they were getting into a car, and one taken through the open side window as they pulled away. The men were all about thirty to forty, with short, well-barbered hair, all wearing suits. They looked like lawyers or business clients arriving for a case.

Jane watched them. They had already passed through the metal detectors to get in, so they couldn't be carrying guns. But they were moving against the crowd of jurors and lawyers departing for lunch, standing in front of the bank of elevators, and as each door opened to let jurors out, the three men moved a little closer to get in. There were six elevators on each side of the lobby. There was still a good chance that when James Shelby's elevator arrived they would be entering another one, or at least not looking in his direction.

Jane moved closer to them. This was developing into a situation where she might have to pay a high price for James Shelby. She had prepared herself for this possibility a long time ago, something that was implicit in the promise she made to her clients. If she was going to save innocent people from the enemies who wanted them dead, there would be times when she must fight.

She was close to the three men now, almost to their backs. The door of the elevator to their left opened and she saw James Shelby. He was in the middle of the crowded elevator, and as the door opened he spilled out with a dozen jurors, all pushing forward, weaving to get past the surge of people wanting to get in. A hand shot out as one of the men in front of her grabbed Shelby's arm, and Jane pushed off with her back foot to throw her body into the arm, wrenching the hand off Shelby. The man grunted in pain and surprise and half-turned to get a look at her over his shoulder, but she pivoted, her back to him and his companions as she moved toward the main exit. Ahead of her she saw Shelby heading across the lobby with the torrent of people.

"That's him!" the man yelled.

"What are you talking about" That seemed to be one of his companions.

"It's Shelby! He's leaving!"

The voices were behind her as she caught up with Shelby and pushed him out with the crowd into the narrower space at the glass doors.

"Stop him!" the man said. "It's him!"

Jane got Shelby out onto the sunken patio outside the entrance where the steps went up onto Broadway. "Go!" she said to him. "Just as we planned."

He looked at her in panic, but his legs took him up onto Broadway, and he kept going.

Jane planted herself at the foot of the steps. She reached into a pocket of her purse, took out a black elastic band, gathered her hair in a ponytail and slid the elastic over it, then tucked it under so the hair was tight to her head. She stood straight and held on to her purse.

The man who had grabbed Shelby had wasted fifteen seconds keeping his companions out of the elevator and another fifteen getting them to plow through the crowd and across the lobby. The people in the crowd were unwilling to let anyone push them aside to get out of the building ahead of them, so getting out took time and the three men weren't much faster than anyone else.

Jane felt the seconds passing. Shelby should spot the parked car soon. Within another minute or two he should get in, find the keys, start the engine. Next he would head for the freeway entrance. Maybe the crowd would delay the men long enough.

But the three men burst out the double doors. They had been craning their necks to see what went on through the glass while they fought their way to the exit, so they all dashed toward the steps where Shelby had escaped to the street. Jane knew Shelby was still not completely recovered from the stabbing two months ago, so he would be slow. Not enough time had passed since she'd freed him from the man's grasp. They could still run him down if she didn't stop them.

Jane took two steps and turned on the bottom step to face them. She could see that they still hadn't grasped what she was. To them she was a lady lawyer, and they planned to push past her and endure her look of irritated disdain.

The first one was easy, probably because he was bigger and faster than the other two. He didn't seem to be aware that she could possibly be a lethal opponent. He charged ahead, barely seeing her as he dashed to the steps. All Jane had to do was sidestep, trip him, place one hand on his spine and the other on the back of his head to direct his face downward into the steps. Her push increased his momentum enough so he hit hard and lay still.

The second man was the one who had grasped -Shelby's arm in front of the elevator, so he was ready. He didn't try to get around her, but went straight for her with both his hands up, preparing to throw a punch. Jane knew she couldn't fight toe-to-toe against a male opponent who outweighed her by a hundred pounds, so she never did. She retreated up two more steps to place herself beyond the man's fallen companion. He took a wild swing at her with his right fist, and when he missed, he had to put one foot on his unconscious comrade to keep from falling over him.

Jane swung her purse into his face. He grabbed it, and she wrapped the strap around his wrist, tugged him toward her over his unconscious companion, and delivered a quick jab to the bridge of his nose. When both of his hands went to his face, she stomp-kicked his kneecap from the side. He went down, landed on his friend, and rolled down the last step clutching his knee while his nose bled down the front of his clothes.

Spectators were beginning to gather, jamming the crowd that was still trying to leave the building. In the corner of her eye Jane caught the third man moving up the steps toward her back, but he threw his arms around her from behind in a bear hug before she could evade him. In a single motion she threw her head back into his nose and upper teeth, heel-stomped his right instep, made a fist with her right hand, and swung it behind her into his groin. She felt a puff of his hot breath on the back of her neck as he released her and rocked back.

His momentary distress seemed to give bystanders courage. A dozen men swarmed in at once, getting between Jane and the three attackers, holding them back and pinioning their arms. It was surprisingly quiet, just a bit of grunting and "You don't want to hit a woman, pal." "Calm down." "Just don't struggle." "Fight's over."

Suddenly there was a loud, authoritative voice. "Stand aside. Police officers." Five big cops in black LAPD uniforms moved in, parting the crowd as they made their way toward the three men.

Jane turned instantly and walked off, away from the center of the crowd, adjusting her steps to put as many people as possible between her and the policemen. She hurried along the sidewalk in front of the building and into the other, separate crowd of curious people who had retreated half a block before stopping to watch. As she burrowed deeper into the group, she took off the black raincoat, pulled the elastic band off her hair, and shook her long hair out. She set her face in a slightly amused expression, an implication that whatever had been going on down there had nothing to do with her and was, in any event, incomprehensible.

She got past the spectators and moved on with the stream of people going to lunch. She walked downhill on Broadway to First Street, and turned right to head for the Metro station at Hill and First. She walked quickly, taking long strides that carried her past most of the other pedestrians. The sidewalks were full of people wearing juror badges clipped to them or security ID on lanyards for the city and county offices in the civic center. There were male lawyers with thick briefcases and female lawyers pulling cases on wheels with long handles like suitcases. She spotted the tall red sign with an "M" on it, glanced behind her to look for anyone running, and kept going.

She reached the sign and turned into the walkway toward the escalators. A plain, dark blue Ford Crown Victoria sped up Hill Street toward her, veered to the curb, and stopped. Two men in suits got out quickly. One of them yelled, "Stop right there, miss. Police." He opened his coat and she could see a gold badge clipped to his belt. His companion stayed by the driver's door, but he had pulled out his gun and was steadying it on the roof of his car, not quite aiming at her, but showing it.

Jane's mind raced ahead. If she managed to get down the escalator without being shot by one police officer or wrestled to the pavement by the other, she might reach the platform and have to wait ten minutes for the next train. She couldn't outrun their car on these streets. She stood still and held her hands out from her sides. "What's the matter, officer"