Free A Criminal Defense by Steven Gore Page B

she asked, pointing at the envelope.
    â€œA love letter from somebody who’s one step behind me, but who thinks they’re one step ahead.”
    â€œBetter for you than the other way around.”
    Donnally made a point of scratching his head. “I’m not sure I understand that one.”
    Janie smiled. “Ever since Freud and Jung, shrinks are allowed to be cryptic and nonsensical. It adds to our aura of enlightenment.” She pointed at the chair across from her and closed the laptop lid. “Tell me about your day. All I know is what’s been on TV.” Her smile transformed into a grin. “I kind of like the title special master, especially since in San Francisco it sounds kind of sexual. Dungeons. Dominatrices. And special masters.” She raised her eyebrows. “Did they give you a little whip?”
    Donnally smiled back, holding up his empty hands, and then filled her in on what had happened since he’d climbed out of their bed at 4 A.M.
    â€œI’ve got to handle Takiyah Jackson carefully,” Donnally said when he came to the end of the story and began to think about next steps. “I’m convinced that folie à deux really does capture her relationship with Hamlin.”
    â€œOr maybe a folie à plusieurs,” Janie said. “A madness of many. He had lots of people willing to work for him and lots of attorneys willing to work with him, like Sheldon Galen.”
    Donnally narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you know about Galen?”
    â€œHe was on the news. And not easily forgotten. He has a New York accent and a face like a greyhound.”
    Janie paused in thought for a moment, then said, “ ‘Madness’ may be too strong a word, but I see why you’d latch on to it.”
    Donnally felt himself stiffen and his stomach tighten. The problem with having a shrink as a girlfriend is the continuing risk of getting shrunk.
    Janie stared at him. He knew she was waiting for permission to say what was on her mind. He nodded.
    â€œIt’s because you can’t accept that people like Hamlin feel morally justified in what they do.”
    He knew she was right.
    â€œI think that’s why you never really understood narcotics officers who planted drugs on gangsters and then committed perjury to make the cases stick. You always believed their motives were more basic, like it was only about power. Cons playing the part of cops. Same with Hamlin, you always thought attorneys like him were motivated by greed alone and they merely disguised their motives in moral language.”
    Donnally always thought one of his strengths as a detective was that he never believed either cops’ or crooks’ justifications for their criminal offenses. Rather, he saw the crimes graphically and abstractly, like moves in a game, or as forms of self-deception or as attempts to justify the unjustifiable.
    Janie hadn’t known him during those years. He had been referred to her after he was shot. It wasn’t that the department thought he’d gone nuts and needed treatment. It was just a requirement of the general orders that an officer who killed a suspect in the line of duty undergo a psych evaluation. He considered it a sign of his sanity that at the first meeting he decided he’d rather date her than get shrunk by her.
    She ended up doing both, starting with the dating.
    â€œI think that’s why you sometimes sound like you operate on a kind of mechanistic and reductionist theory of homicide and view them as motivated only by drugs, sex, or money.”
    It was like she’d been sitting at the next table in the Golden Phoenix listening in, but in truth it was that she’d paid close enough attention over the years to be able to tell him how he saw the world, and why he did so.
    â€œBut I’m not sure you really believe that. It’s just that thinking in terms of power, of brute causes and effects, seems more honest to