Free The Fourth Motive by Sean Lynch Page A

turkey.”
    “That was a fluke. Nothing like that is going to happen on this job. Trust me.”
    Kearns’ jaw dropped. “Trust you?”
    “All right,” Farrell said, showing his palms. “Poor choice of words.”
    “This judge who hired you, can he really get me appointed to the sheriff’s department,
     despite the Feds blackballing me?”
    “He can. He has the sheriff’s and DA’s ear.”
    “OK; against my better judgment, you’ve convinced me.” He took a deep breath. “I’m
     in.” Both men stood up and Kearns extended his hand. Farrell shook it triumphantly.
    “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to regret this,” Kearns said. “When do I start?”
    “How about now?”
     
     
     
     
       

CHAPTER 10
     
     
    Paige ignored the furtive glances of the other gym patrons and concentrated on regulating
     her breathing and keeping a steady pace on the StairMaster machine. She realized the
     large-frame sunglasses she was wearing were out of place inside the health club, particularly
     before sunrise, but considered them less conspicuous than the purple, crescent-shaped
     bruise surrounding her left eye.
    She was listening to Madonna’s new album, Like a Prayer, through the earphones on
     her yellow Sony Walkman cassette player. The same earphones which had been ripped
     from her head by a masked man the day before.
    Paige had risen even earlier than usual, unable to sleep. Her night had been consumed
     by sweat-soaked dreams of the attack on the beach, and she’d finally given up on slumber
     entirely. She opted instead to be at the Harbor Bay health club near her condominium
     when its doors opened at 5.30am for a pre-dawn workout.
    Paige’s body ached, her shoulders and back especially, from being body-slammed to
     the beach the previous day. She might have skipped her daily workout entirely if not
     for her fierce determination to ignore the assault and get on with her life.
    As Paige pumped her legs up and down on the stair machine, she replayed the attack
     and its aftermath over and over again in her mind. She’d been racking her memory for
     a recollection of the raspy voice of her assailant, to no avail. Nothing about the
     man’s cigarette-scarred speech was remotely familiar, and she was certain if she had
     heard that distinct tone of voice before, she’d remember it. Especially after hearing
     the same voice again on the phone in her office yesterday afternoon.
    She’d dutifully reported the threatening phone call to Sergeant Wendt but rejected
     his immediate demand to come down to her office in person to interview her and take
     another statement. Paige had had enough of cops by yesterday afternoon, and responded
     to Wendt’s insistence by hanging up on him. She realized it was rude but didn’t care.
     She had a busy afternoon in court waiting for her and wasn’t afraid of offending the
     Alameda cops.
    Paige was well aware the Alameda cops nicknamed her “Ice Queen”, and not merely for
     her routine dismissal of certain officers’ constant sexual advances. She knew most
     of the cops felt she undercharged their cases, pled them away too readily, or failed
     to charge them at all without due consideration for the work they put into them. To
     Paige, unlike her father, what the cops thought of her mattered not in the least.
     She did her job professionally, correctly, and by the book, and if some facet of a
     case was improperly completed, it was usually at the law enforcement end of the transaction.
     Paige was not about to waste her office’s limited time and budget on go-nowhere, bullshit
     cases which would embarrass the DA and divert her from more pressing criminal matters
     that actually had a chance of successful prosecution.
    Many times over the past couple of years, an outraged beat cop or detective would
     storm into her office and demand an explanation for what they perceived as her dereliction
     of duty in failing to prosecute one of their cases.
    Each time Paige, would