Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,223

at him pleasantly; no reason to muddy the waters by agreeing that I didn’t think they had done it either. I wanted Bobby out of jail and home until the judicial system could catch up with the warrant in my pocket.

The lawyer said, “Wait. You have a confession to the crime that my client is accused of. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” I said.

“I’m happy that Mr. Marchand is going to go free, but this would have been a good test of the warrant system versus due process,” she said.

“It still can be, because he’s not going free just yet,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

Edward and I explained to her that the warrant of execution was still live and had Bobby’s name on it, because the confessed killer was human, and we were all a little fuzzy on how to proceed now. I ended with “According to the judge who signed the original warrant, there doesn’t seem to be any precedent for vacating a warrant on the grounds that you have the wrong person.”

Edward added in his best Ted voice, softly puzzled and pleasant, “Fact is, the crime looks to be just normal human beings pretending to be a Therianthrope, so the crime itself doesn’t fall under the execution-warrant system.”

“It’s not a supernatural crime, so the preternatural branch shouldn’t be here,” Brooks said.

“That’s true,” I said, “but we are here, and the warrant is live, and suddenly we’re in legal limbo.”

“You are not in limbo,” Olaf said.

We looked at him.

“Legally you are still bound to kill the person named on the warrant within seventy-two hours from the moment the warrant is live.”

“And the fact that legally my only option is to kill someone I now know is innocent just because he happens to be a wereanimal—sorry, Therianthrope—is why the supernatural-execution system needs more legal options.”

“You complicate things, Anita. The law is clear.”

“Marshal Jeffries, are you seriously telling us that you could go in there and kill Bobby Marchand knowing that he is innocent of this crime?” the lawyer asked.

“You know that rule in court that you don’t ask questions unless you know the answer will help your case?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s not always possible, but yes.”

“Otto’s answer won’t help you.”

She looked at the big man. “Are you seriously telling me you would kill an innocent man?”

“I do my job to the letter of the law as written,” he said, and he gave me a look that even hidden behind sunglasses was chilling, or maybe that was just me, because Ms. Amanda Brooks didn’t seem to be afraid of him.

“The entire warrant system is just a due process and civil rights nightmare,” she said.

Edward and I agreed with her. Olaf just listened to us talk after that. I think he was still upset because he and I weren’t going to get to torture and kill anyone together this time.

“Go tell Bobby the good news,” Edward said in Ted’s thickest down-home-on-the-range accent. He even put a big smile with it.

“Oh, he heard you,” Angel said from the doorway, where she was still leaning seductively.

I’d have looked like I’d broken my hip if I’d stayed leaning that long; she made it seem just right. She wasted a smile on me and then turned it behind her toward the cells and Bobby.

I was smiling by the time I got to the doorway. Angel didn’t move, just turned that red-lipsticked smile back toward me. I expected her to move out of the way so I could get past, but she smiled at me with a glint in her eyes that almost dared me to comment. I ignored the challenge in her face and squeezed past her hip, rubbing my arm along the promising swell of it. If we hadn’t had a lawyer and other cops watching, I might have put more body English into it, or then again, I might not have. I could see Bobby in the cell beyond her, and he was my goal. He was standing at the bars smiling, and I was smiling back like an idiot.

“Am I really getting out of here today?” he asked.

I shook my head.

His smile faded. “I thought . . .”

“You are getting out, but we can’t let you out of your cell today. We’re thinking tomorrow.”

He wrapped his fingers around the bars. “You said you knew who killed Uncle Ray. Why aren’t they in here and I’m out there?”

“They’re in jail,” I said.

Edward poked his head in the doorway without having to push his