The Egg at Dumstreet

Battlefield

The man's grasp was even firmer than his voice and smile.

"Please sit." Rudi Marez motioned towards a chair at the battleship's guest side and retreated to his own. He sat down and steepled his fingers, like in the photograph on the website. And, in fact, also like in that photograph, his back was guarded by a wall of books. Gold and silver lettering adorned the dark spines of the fat volumes. But the shelf didn't reach the ceiling—above it was a section of white wall dominated by an animal's head. Some kind of buffalo, huge, horned, stuffed, and dead. It looked startled.

"So, you know Monica."

"Yes, she's my neighbor." Art sat up straight, noting that his head was below Rudi Marez' receding hairline, even though the man wasn't tall. He wondered if the visitor's chair was lower than the host's.

Unsteepling his hands, the lawyer leaned back. He waved towards a framed picture sitting on the window-facing bow of the battleship. "Monica," he said. "She's my daughter. But, to be honest with you, I haven't seen much of her in the last few years."

The frame displayed a photograph of a family—a woman, a man, and three kids. Obviously the Marez clan, at a time when the children still did their parents' bidding.

Beyond the frame, the large window offered a scenic view over the city below them, the lake beyond it, and—in a rare moment of meteorological splendor—the dazzling mountains in the distance.

"So, are you two together? A couple?"

The commanding voice tore Art's eyes away from the breathtaking scenery. "No, we're just friends." Art had decided that they were friends, in a lowest-common-denominator sort of way at least. "And when I heard she'd been arrested, I wanted to see her. But the police have told me that only family is allowed to visit."

"We'll see about that..." A grim smile played around Rudi Marez' lips. It disappeared moments later, and coal-black eyes bored into Art. "What do you know about that murder?"

The words rolled over the expanse of desk and loomed up when they reached Art, surrounding him like a gang of bullies, tempting him to confess to a crime he hadn't committed.

He took a breath and recounted what he knew about the events at Dumstreet 9, repeating what he had told Savage in the first interview.

After he had finished, the bull and the lawyer studied him, the former's expression still startled, the latter's intense.

"And what about Monica? Did she do it?" Rudi Marez leaned forward.

Once more, Art sat straight. "No." He was astonished at the conviction the word carried.

The lawyer nodded. "Good. You seem to know what you're talking about."

The man's statement felt like a legal trap snapping shut, holding him responsible for his word and Monica's behavior. He considered adding a disclaimer, but his instincts told him that this was a skirmish he could not win.

Rudi Marez' hands traced a dark leather pad laid out before him. "You see... Monica's my daughter. And of all of my kids, she's probably the smartest. But she's stubborn, headstrong, and wild. Someone as smart as she could have been anything... And what does she do with her life?" He shook his head, then pressed his lips together. "She works as a waitress. And now she's in detention, accused of murder."

Art was tempted to explain that a certain behavior was apt to make your kids do the exact opposite of what you wanted, but he remained silent.

"And she won't even accept her family's help. I've offered her the best team of lawyers that money and connections can buy." The emphasis on the word 'connections' told of a deeper meaning that was beyond Art's grasp. "But she won't have that, sticking with some mediocre public defender instead." He got up with a sigh. "Come, I want to show you something."