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CHAPTER 045

Alex Burnetwas in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. He hired notorious D.C. attorney Abe (“It Ain’t There”) Ganzler to defend him.

It turned out that Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but Ganzler-as was his custom-tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.)

It was in the midst of frantic preparation for the third day of the trial that Amy, Alex’s assistant, buzzed her to say that her father was on the phone. Alex picked up. “Pretty busy, Dad.”

“I won’t take long. I’m going away for a couple of weeks.”

“Okay, fine.” One of the other lawyers came in and dropped the latest newspapers on her desk. TheStar was running photographs of the raped child, the hospital in Malibu, and unflattering pictures of Alex and the kid’s mother, squinting in hard sunlight. “Where are you going, Dad?”

“Don’t know yet,” her father said, “but I need some time alone. Cell phone probably won’t work. I’ll send you a note when I get there. And a box of some stuff. In case you need it.”

“Okay, Dad, have fun.” She thumbed through theL.A. Times as she talked to him. For years theTimes had fought for the right to access and print all court documents, however preliminary, private, or speculative. California judges were extremely reluctant to seal even those documents that involved the home addresses of women being stalked or the anatomical details of children who had been raped. TheTimes’ policy of publishing everything also meant that attorneys could put gross and unfounded allegations in their pretrial filings, knowing theTimes would print them. And it invariably did. The public’s right to know. Yes, the public really needed to know exactly how long the tear was in the poor little boy’s-

“You holding up all right?” her father said.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m okay.”

“They’re not getting to you?”

“No. I’m waiting for help from the child welfare organizations, but they’re not issuing any statements. Strangely silent.”

“I’m sure you’re shocked by that,” he said. “The weasel is politically connected, right? Little dickhead. Gotta go, Lexie.”

“Bye, Dad.”

She turned away. The DNA matches were due today, but they hadn’t arrived yet. The samples obtained had been small, and she was worried about what they would show.