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.“Remind me to thank the budget cutters when I lose the case.” Scanning her notes, she added, “Okay, just a few more questions.How long have you been friends with Victor Stockwell?”“What kind of question is that?”“An important one,” Sara insisted.“I know who he is, but we’ve never met.”Confused, Sara asked, “Then why’d you request him on the case?”“What’re you talking about?”“When I first picked up this case from ECAB, the booking sheet was marked for Victor.If you barely knew him, why’d you request him?”“I didn’t request anyone,” McCabe said.“Victor asked me if he could have the case.”Sara paused.“Really? Victor approached you?”“Yeah, he called me a few hours after the arrest—while I was doing the paperwork.He said he wanted the Kozlow case and asked me to put his name on the file.I figured he had some personal interest in it, so I wrote him in.” When he saw the puzzled look on Sara’s face, he asked, “Is something wrong with that?”“I don’t know,” Sara said.“That’s what I’ll have to find out.”When McCabe left Sara’s office, she shut the door behind him and returned to her desk.There had to be an explanation for why one of the office’s best prosecutors wanted such a low-profile assignment.Struggling to come up with a list of possible reasons, she picked up a nearby paper clip, unbent it, and started wrapping it around her index finger.Maybe Victor thought the case was interesting.Maybe he wanted to lighten his workload.Maybe he knew one of the parties involved.Maybe he knew Claire Doniger, and he was doing her a favor.Or maybe he knew Kozlow.As she continued to twist the paper clip, she thought about all the reasons why she should keep her suspicions to herself.But as her finger turned a light purple, she realized she had no idea what her next step was.The office was still uncharted territory, and without question, she needed help.Pulling off the paper clip, she looked for the intercom button on her phone.There wasn’t one—and this wasn’t her old firm.Leaning forward on her desk, she shouted, “Guff, can you come in here a second?”When Guff arrived, Sara asked him to close the door.“Uh-oh, what happened now?” he asked.“There’s something I have to tell you.”“Let me guess: You want to see my secret list.”“Your what?”“My secret list of funny words.I know people’re talking about it.I put a couple on E-mail last week, and now everyone’s clamoring for the rest.I’m not giving them out, though.You’ll have to be satisfied with what you have: salami, wicker, Nipsey Russell—”“Guff, please listen for a second.Remember when we were in ECAB the day I took the case?” Guff nodded.“When the cases were delivered, you were talking to Evelyn and Victor.So what you never saw was that Kozlow’s case was originally marked for someone else—that’s why I decided to take it.”“So what’s the big deal? Cops request good ADAs all the time.”“That’s exactly what I thought.But I just found out that it wasn’t the cop who requested this particular ADA—it was the ADA who requested the case.”“Which ADA?”Sara was silent.“Tell me whose case it was, Sara.This isn’t funny.It can really be—”“Victor’s,” she finally said.“It was Victor’s case.”“Oh, no.Why’d you have to go do something stupid like that? That’s like teasing a rabid dog.”“The delivery guy pulled off the Post-it.He said it was just a request—I didn’t know any better.”“Obviously not.”“Guff, I know it was a stupid move, but I can really use your help with this.There’s no one else I trust.”“I don’t know.I think this one is out of my league.If I were you, I’d go to Conrad.”“Conrad’ll bite my head off if he finds out I stole a case from another ADA.”“Listen, it’s your decision.But if I was choosing between the two, I’d take Conrad over Victor any day
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