Page 104 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

“Mm.” And then, as though flipping a switch, his mother’s head tilt, her smile, the way she held her shoulders, even the way she wielded her briefcase, all of it assumed the fearsome edges of a shark’s tooth, a steely sharpness that drew the attention of every eye in the room.

The AG—a tall sixtyish woman wearing a wide-legged gray pinstriped pantsuit, with her gray hair pulled back into a smooth twist—swung toward them from her desk, her hand extended.

“Taylor Cramer!” she said, delight oozing from her very pores. “I have heardsomuch about you, but I never thought I’d have the pleasure.”

“Maudie Arthur,” Ellery’s mother said, her tone set on “polite enthusiasm.” “I’m so glad our paths have finally crossed. I’ve heard quite a bit about you as well.”

Ellery kept his own polite smile on his face, but while he didn’t speak “female catfight” that well, he had a feeling his mother and Maudie Arthur were in the process of exposing their claws and inspecting each point for sharpness.

“And is this your son?” Ooh…. Ellery heard it then. The hint of condescension, as though Ellery was a third grader at “take your child to work” day.

“Ellery Cramer,” he said, sticking out his hand with the assumption she would shake it. “Of Cramer, Rivers, and Henderson. It’s a pleasure.”

She shook his hand, her own cold and bony, and regarded him with some sharpness. “Oh,” she said, as though just putting two things together. “Ihaveheard of you. The Dirty/Pretty killer? That Russian mob thing this summer? And, wait….” She gnawed her lower lip. “The city DA who had to resign last fall, and the sniper at the college. It seems as though your law firm had a hand in all those situations, didn’t it?”

“We try to stay busy,” he said blandly.

“You try to stick your fingers into everybody’s pie,” she said, sounding sharp, and his chin went up in defense.

“I’ve been taught not to let injustice slide by because fixing it gets my hands dirty,” he said. “That Russian mob thing, by the way, restored a busload of trafficked children to their parents—”

“And put you and Jackson in the hospital,” his mother added.

“You are fucking welcome.” Ellery smiled with all his teeth, his irritation at the woman making his hackles rise.

Nobody was more surprised than he was when she actually took a step back.

“No disrespect intended,” she said, blinking slowly. “Who’s Jackson?”

Ellery couldn’t explain it. It was like being a bird of prey and ruffling his feathers—or being a dragon and puffing up his mantle, ready for the attack. What hewantedto scream was, “Keep his name out of your whore mouth!” and he was grateful for his mother when she spoke instead.

“The PI at his firm.”

Ellery didn’t dart his eyes to meet hers. The fact that she hadn’t said, “My son’s fiancé,” with full parental pride, told him that this woman had set her hackles in place as well.

“Well, my goodness—I hope you’re giving him hazard pay.”

“He’s very dedicated,” Ellery said blithely, “and it’s been lovely to take a trip down memory lane, but we have some rather urgent business today. I’m sure you’ve been briefed?”

“Your mother has given me a bare-bones explanation of why you’re interested in Gannett Hoover’s property, but I fail to see the urgency of the request. Why can’t you wait one more day—or even a week—before you search his property?”

Elleryneededa yoga breath, but he didn’t have time, and he definitely couldn’t appear weak in front of this woman.

“My mother explained to you the links between the Moms for Clean Living and Gannett Hoover’s advisor, Newton Dwayne, who lives on Mr. Hoover’s property, am I correct?” Ellery asked, trying to keep his pulse from roaring in his ears.

“Yes—I understand the director of the service group—”

“Hate group,” Ellery said grimly. “Moms for Clean Living is in the process of being classified as an alt-right hate group.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder. “Here are copies of documents with which they claimed they were taking custody of—and I quote here—‘recalcitrant students’ from parents, in order to ‘school them in Christian methods.’ And here,” he pulled out the folder of faxed reports from the child advocates who had been placing children and intervening with parents and counting bruises and atrocities since eight o’clock the night before, “is a folder full of what wasactuallydone to those children when they were supposed to be ‘in school.’”

“These are all notarized,” the state district attorney said numbly.

“They are,” Ellery confirmed. “And they’re horrible.”

“But Gannett Hoover—”

“And here,” Ellery said, pulling out the copies of the property that Jackson had copied the night before. “These are copies of the holdings controlled by Moms for Clean Living, Valerie Trainor, Newton Dwayne’s ex-wife, as chief signatory on the first line.”

“Which means—”

---