Judgment Calls by Alafair Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

America’s most beloved actress. Physically, she was as perfect as Grace had expected. But after working with her for three days, Grace now believed her to be one of the ugliest people she’d met.
    “This girl was killing me, Sam. She likes to tell all those magazines that her famous hair just looks that way on its own? Well, God let me make it through the weekend so I could tell you otherwise. She must’ve stopped shooting six times a day, yelling at me, It’s drying out, it’s drying out. Can’t you see I need a mist?” Then I’d have to stop what I was doing and spray her head with a mixture of moisturizer and Evian water. She says regular water leaves a ‘residue.” Then everyone had to sit there and wait while I scrunched her hair with my fingers until it dried, to lock in what she says are natural curls.
    “So, during a break, when I was touching her up, I mentioned in passing that shooting schedules can be hard on the hair. You know, all that blow drying, crimping, curling, and whatnot really takes its toll. Truth is, her hair’s toast, beyond saving. I pulled her hair up around her shoulders and told her she’d look just as beautiful with a short cut if she wanted a change after this movie’s done. The girl wigged.”
    Grace lifted her head and affected a slight southern accent. ” “I’m not some house frau who needs a frumpy easy-to-manage hairdo. With all due respect, you’re not being paid to think. You’re being paid to make sure I look good. And this hair is what looks good, what has put me on the cover of hundreds of magazines, and what makes me worth twenty million dollars a film.” It was all I could do not to cut that shit right off her head. Add the fact that she picks her teeth and reeks of garlic, and I don’t see her as America’s little sweetheart anymore.”
    People judge others by their professions, but the reality is that Grace, in addition to being funny and extremely good at what she does, is incredibly smart. She always has been. In high school, the two of us were always neck and neck at the top of the class. Although we started to lose touch a few years into college, she was the first person I called when I moved back to Portland, and we picked up the friendship right where we’d left off.
    As much as I was enjoying Grace’s comic relief, I couldn’t get the Derringer case out of my mind. I laid out everything I knew so far.
    She shook her head. “I don’t know how you handle a job where you have to think about that kind of stuff. There must be some happy medium between those sick subjects and the superficial junk I have to deal with all day.”
    “Maybe we should both hang it up and become account-ants.
    “Nah, too boring,” she said. “We’ll just have to keep trying to balance each other out.”
    “Seriously, it’s not just that it’s hard, Grace. I’ve gotten used to dealing with unpleasant subjects at work. I’m scared I’m going to lose. These are the most serious charges I’ve ever filed against anyone, and part of me’s excited about it. But if it falls apart, I won’t just look bad at work, I’ll feel like shit for letting this dirtbag go free.”
    “Sam, you’ve got to put it in perspective. If it weren’t for you, this guy would already have won. Tim O’Donnell would’ve issued that chippy assault charge against him. What could he get for that?”
    “With his record, maybe two years at most after conviction. He’d be out in eighteen months, maybe even nine if he pled guilty,” I said.
    “See? And, even in a worst-case scenario, you’ll still get that, right?”
    “I think so. Even if the case falls apart, I think Lopez would plead Derringer out to assault to avoid going to verdict on the attempted murder.”
    “So what are you worrying about? Sounds to me like you saved the day just by getting involved, no matter what happens. This way, the police are still working on the case, so they might even catch the second guy. You need to