Reprisal by Colin T. Nelson Read Free Book Online

of the secretaries asked.
    Jerry stopped dead, hung his head. “Ah … you know how they caught him?” Jerry waited to deliver the punch line. “The putz was standing outside waiting for his getaway car—the bus!” Everyone laughed. “He’s got the jewelry still in the garbage bag in his hot little hands when he’s nabbed. And he wants a fuckin’ trial!”
    Jerry wiped his eye and said, “I should write sit coms. You can’t make this stuff up.”
    “You can do it, Jerry,” Zehra called to him as she walked into her office. Jackie followed, and Zehra dropped her leather briefcase on the chair next to her desk. The office occupied a corner, shaped like a badly designed triangle. Large windows opened onto the condo high rise next door. At least Zehra faced east to catch the morning sun—something vital for her during the long winters.
    She turned to her computer and opened her email. Scrolling through the messages of upcoming birthdays, how stupid the judges were, a used car for sale until she saw one with an unknown sender. That wasn’t unusual since her address was a government office that anyone could access.
    She opened it, started to read, and gasped.
    It read: “Death to the infidel!”
    “What?” Jackie’s head jerked up.
    “I don’t know. I don’t … probably some nut.” Zehra showed her the message.
    “You get stuff like that?”
    “Never. I don’t feel good about this. Another reason for me to bail on El-Amin.”
    She saved it and sent an email to the IT guy in the office to see if he could
    find the source. It bothered her and she felt a low grumbling in her stomach.
    She looked at Jackie as she settled in the chair. Glad to have her help, Jackie started working as a public defender two years earlier. She’d come from a corporate law firm but found the work boring, even though it paid almost twice what she made as a government lawyer. She wanted the action of courtroom trial work.
    Shiny dark hair curved around Jackie’s round face. Large brown eyes almost distracted Zehra from the beautiful, flawless pale skin—that made her jealous since Jackie didn’t have a wrinkle anywhere. Unlike most Vietnamese women, she had an ample figure that she kept trim with yoga classes, four times a week. Some day, Zehra agreed, she’d come along for a class, although between snow boarding in the winter and biking in the summer, she kept herself busy.
    “Like those killer glasses, Jackie,” Zehra said about the square “Buddy Holly” glasses she wore.
    Jackie worked hard, was sharp, and anxious to help.
    Zehra remembered her own training as a law student in the prosecutor’s office, the county attorney, a few years ago. She thought of her mentor, Charlie Pollard, how much he’d taught her, and how excited she’d been to learn. She’d told that to Jackie.
    “Did you like working as a prosecutor?” Jackie asked.
    “Sure. There are pressures on both sides. They’re different, but I learned a lot over there. I met a lot of cops and began to see the world from their perspective. I went with them on ride-alongs and even spent some time at the gun range.”
    “You?” Jackie’s eyes opened wide.
    “Yeah, can you imagine? Me, essentially a pacifist, shooting pistols?” But I wanted to learn. Who knows? I may join the NRA.”
    Jackie laughed and asked what they needed to do today.
    “Bobby Joe Washington’s coming in this morning,” Zehra said.
    “How’d you get him? I hear he’s like one of the best.”
    “Right. He’s one of the only investigators to be trained in the FACS, the Facial Action Coding System.”
    “Is that like the TV show where the expert can tell if a person’s lying just by looking at their face?”
    “Yeah, I think so. Plus, our chief assigned him, specifically. BJ’s not happy about it, but, as usual, he’ll do a good job. He went to work as soon as we got the discovery evidence. I hope to hell, he’ll have something solid for us today. Otherwise, we’re in deep