Illegal Alien

*30*

Dale Rice came into the courtroom. He looked at the new juror. Of course, he’d been in the room since the beginning, but this was his first day as an actual voting member of the panel. He was an Asian man, perhaps twenty-five or thirty. There was nothing in his face to convey which way he would vote. Dale smiled at him—a warm smile, a “trust me” smile, a “we’re all in this together” smile. It couldn’t hurt.

The day had been devoted to minor witnesses and arguing points of law.

Dale got home after nine P.M., exhausted—as he was more and more these days; he couldn’t deny his age.

Years ago, after having received a Los Angeles County “Lawyer of the Year” award, Dale Rice was asked by a reporter “whether he was proud today to be a Black American.”

Dale gave the reporter the kind of deadly cross-examinational stare normally reserved for lying police officers. “I’m proud every day to be a Black American,” he said.

Still, there weren’t many times when it was an actual advantage to be African-American. He was used to the screwups in restaurants. Waitresses bringing him the wrong meal—mixing up his order with that of the only other black person in the entire place. White people constantly confused him with other black men, men who, except for their skin color, looked nothing like him, and were often decades younger.

But the one time it perhaps was to his advantage to be big and black was when he wanted to go for late-night walks. Even here in Brentwood, most people were afraid to be out on the streets after midnight, but Dale knew that no one would try to mug him, and since he rarely got home from the office before nine p.m., he was grateful that at least the streets weren’t denied to him after dark, as they were to so many others. Of course, there was always the problem of police cars pulling up to him and asking to see his ID—for no good reason other than it was night, and he was black, and this was a rich white neighborhood.

Tonight, as he walked along, he thought about the case. The evidence against Hask seemed compelling. His lack of an alibi; his having shed his skin the night of the murder; the fact that he was experienced at dissection, having recently carved up the body of the dead Tosok, Seltar; the video showing him wielding precisely the sort of cutting device used to commit the crime—and his musings on that video about his people having given up too much by no longer hunting their own food.

Dale continued along the sidewalk. Up ahead, coming toward him, a white man was walking a small dog. The man caught sight of Dale, and crossed over to the other side of the road. Dale shook his head. It never ended—and it never ceased to hurt.

Judge Pringle should never have allowed the jury to watch Stant shed his skin. Perhaps that alone would be grounds for an appeal, should the likely happen and the jury find Hask guilty. And even if Ziegler hadn’t been able to raise the point in the courtroom at that moment, she’d doubtless make it in her closing argument: Hask and Stant were half brothers, and their regular shedding should have been closely synchronized. That it wasn’t was apparent proof that Hask’s shedding had been induced—and why else induce it on the day of the murder, except that he himself had committed the crime?

Dale’s footsteps echoed in the night. A few dogs, behind high stone fences, barked at him, but he didn’t mind that; dogs barked equally at everyone. If Dale’s life hadn’t been so busy, he’d have liked to have had a dog of his own.

Or a wife, for that matter.

He’d been engaged during law school, but he and Kelly had broken up before he’d graduated. She’d seen then what the work was like, the commitment, the fact that there really was room for nothing else in his life beside his career. Dale thought of her often. He had no idea what had become of her, but he hoped, wherever she was, that she was happy.

He was approaching a corner, a pool of light shining on the concrete sidewalk from the street lamp overhead. He stepped into the light and began walking now down the perpendicular street.

And then it hit him—how all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together.

Christ, if he was right—

If he was right, then Hask was innocent.

And he could prove it.

Of course, Hask would not cooperate. But it wouldn’t be the first time Dale had saved a client despite the client’s wishes. As he headed down that dark street Dale felt sure he knew who Hask was protecting.

He’d already arranged to examine Smathers tomorrow, but after that he would call Dr. Hernandez. And then—

Dale turned around and headed back home, moving as fast as his ancient form would allow.