Marbury sat down across from him, placed his hands on the table, and then clenched them. He looked ready to commence either begging for mercy or lying on the witness stand.
“She is an abominable woman. Insufferable whiner. Everything was someone else’s fault. She’s not quite right in the head, in my opinion. Might make for a good legal defense, actually.”
“Yes, yes, most assuredly, I think we can safely conclude that any person who imprisons and tortures another is not in their right mind,” said Buckley.
When Spector glanced at him with hiked eyebrows, he read her mind and added, “If it’s done solely for the sadistic pleasure of the person doing the torturing. But if it’s done for the purposes of obtaining vital information? Well, even our very own government has done that.”
He looked back at Spector with a superior expression and she finally glanced away.
Marbury looked puzzled by this back-and-forth, but ended up ignoring it and plunging on. “Since I told her the attorney-client privilege would protect anything she said, the idiot woman told me that an FBI agent and her associate had tricked her into confessing to killing her husband in Georgia on the same night that this Rebecca Atkins escaped from where she was being imprisoned. She was furious about that and wanted me to get the evidence thrown out.”
Spector stepped forward and said, “Did she question who sent you to her aid?”
“Not in the least. She strikes me as someone who sincerely believes that aid will come whenever she damn well needs it. The fact is, since she’s a fugitive from justice, no judge would cut her loose. She’d simply disappear again.”
Buckley clearly didn’t care about bail or Desiree Atkins. “What did she tell you about El Cain?”
“She hadn’t seen her since that night in Georgia.” Marbury paused to rub at his mouth. “Until Cain walked into her jail cell earlier today with an older woman.”
Buckley and Spector exchanged a significant glance.
“You didn’t mention that on the phone. How did it come about?” asked a frowning Buckley.
“They just showed up. She had no idea they were coming. The older woman and Pine had visited Atkins previously. They said that they wanted to discuss doing some kind of deal with her. She didn’t know the details yet. They were going to get back to her.”
Buckley glanced at Spector. “You really need to work your contacts at the FBI to find out more about Agent Pine.”
“I actually found out some things. I was going to discuss them with you when all this happened.”
“Well, I’d like to hear them now.”
“Okay, first, Pine’s apparently a world-class agent, but she’s definitely a lone wolf. She could have climbed the Bureau ladder, but has no interest in doing so. Currently, she’s assigned to the Grand Canyon area and lives in a town called Shattered Rock. It’s a one-agent RA,” she added, referring to a small FBI Resident Agent office. “Carol Blum, the ‘older woman,’ is her assistant there. But it’s odd that she’s out in the field with Pine on a case. That’s not how the Bureau operates. And this El Cain matter is obviously a cold case, so I was confused as to why Pine was even involved at all. I mean, it’s not her area of responsibility. I asked that very question, but my contacts had no answers.” She added in a warning tone, “But by all accounts, Peter, Pine is good, I mean really, really good. We need to tread carefully.”
“Well, considering she escaped from us, I would tend to agree with you.”
Marbury looked very uncomfortable hearing this. “Mr. Buckley, please, I can’t be party to any of this. I have to tread cautiously here to maintain my legal career.”
“Don’t worry, Marbury, none of this will come back to you.” He gave the lawyer a piercing look. “And if memory serves, weren’t you part of El Chapo’s defense team a few years ago?”