For the Defense (4 page)

Connie lifted her eyes to Jack’s. “Bruce had been so sweet to me. He’d asked me to marry him. I couldn’t believe he was the man who’d driven the car that had killed my baby.”

Jack held firmly onto her hand. “What did you do?”

“All I could think about was getting away. I ran from the garage and got into my car. I started the engine and backed into the street.”

“Did you see Bruce?”

Connie nodded. “When I put the car in drive and stepped on the gas, Bruce ran into the street and waved his arms, trying to get me to stop.”

“Did you try to stop?”

Connie’s chin dropped to her chest. “I tried to steer around him, but I was crying, and I couldn’t see him anymore. All I could see was Amy.”

“Connie, did you want to kill Bruce?” Jack asked.

“No. I only wanted to get away from him.”

Jack gently lifted Connie’s chin with his fingertips. The pain on her face bore witness to the truth of her words.

D
IANA ACCEPTED
Jack’s suggestion to talk about the case over lunch. Normally, she ate at her desk, unwilling to accept the long lines that were inevitable at good restaurants. But talking with him while grabbing a bite would actually be a more efficient use of their time.

Still, she felt uneasy.

She’d worked closely with both Richard and David Knight on cases, even shared an occasional meal with Richard without a moment’s unease. Jack’s brothers were also very good-looking, but she felt different around Jack, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

It probably had something to do with watching him work his magic on Connie. That had been damn scary. Jack knew how to get a woman to talk to him and to trust him with effortless charm. She had no doubt that he could probably make a woman believe anything he said.

How could a woman ever know when he was being sincere?

Diana led the way to a favorite restaurant not far from her office. They got a great table on the second-story terrace that overlooked the street below. The day was dull, as most days in Western Washington were. In the distance the snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains wore dark lumpy hats of cumulus clouds.

But the early summer temperature was mild and the air tasted sweet, reminding Diana that people whose jobs
chained them to desks all day needed to get out for a little natural light and fresh air once in a while.

The restaurant catered to business clientele, its patrons appropriately attired. But Jack had taken off his suit coat and tie, opened the collar of his shirt and rolled its sleeves to the elbows. Despite the lack of sunshine, he wore large reflective sunglasses and—what was strangest of all—a false beard.

After the waiter had taken their orders and scurried away, the reason for Jack’s altered appearance finally occurred to Diana.

“Do you still get recognized when you go out in public?” she asked.

“Enough that I do my best to avoid it.”

“How do fans react to seeing a screen villain in the flesh?”

“Depends on the fan. The nice ones smile and ask for my autograph.”

“And the others?”

“They demand to know why I stole my uncle’s business while he was in the hospital with a brain tumor, refused to give my nephew part of my liver when he required a transplant, drove my horse-racing competitor to suicide, seduced my sister’s best friend when she was in mourning, denied her baby was mine and then tried to murder her husband when he returned from the Amazon—having not been killed in the plane crash after all—only to find he was my long-lost brother who had been raised in the orphanage when we were separated as infants.”

She shook her head in amusement. “My, my, you were busy. I must have missed taping a few of the shows.”

“I’m surprised you taped any. You don’t strike me as a soap fan.”

“Mel was writing a paper that involved your TV character, and my assignment was to preserve your perform
ances via the VCR,” she admitted. “You might find her conclusions interesting reading.”

“If Mel wrote the paper, I might find her conclusions above my reading comprehension.”

He was smiling, and Diana suddenly found herself smiling back. She knew few adults—and no men—who would have felt comfortable enough with themselves to admit that, even in jest.

This man had a couple of nice points about him.

The waiter delivered Diana’s seafood salad and Jack’s sliced roast beef along with their iced teas. Diana realized she was quite hungry and dug in. Her first bite tasted heavenly. This sure beat yogurt and an apple at her desk.

“I understand why you don’t want Connie convicted of murder,” he said between bites. “That would be unjust.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” she said, and she was. But she was cautious, too. “Now tell me why you feel that way.”

She studied his face for any sign of the confidence with which he’d greeted her that morning. Or the captivating attention he’d lavished on Connie. But his sunglasses and beard hid so much of his face that reading any expression was next to impossible.

“Connie isn’t capable of intentionally squashing a bug, much less a man,” he said. “I can’t imagine that anyone talking with her for five minutes could think otherwise.”

Actually, Diana knew a lot of people too cynical to see her client for who she was. She was relieved to learn Jack wasn’t one of those people. That told her something important about him that nothing else could have. He did have some genuine emotional substance beneath the polished surface.

“Have you told the prosecutor what happened?” he asked.

Diana’s mouth was full of chunks of tender shrimp and fresh avocado. She shook her head in response.

“I think you should. Any prosecutor who heard Connie’s story would understand that she wasn’t responsible for her actions at the time she ran over Bruce Weaton.”

Diana swallowed before responding. “Any prosecutor in the wonderful world of TV maybe. In real life our Chief Prosecutor has too much time and effort invested in proving Connie’s guilt to entertain any thoughts of her possible innocence.”

“You don’t think he’d care about getting to the truth?”

“All George Staker cares about is arranging the facts in front of a jury so he wins the case. If I told him Connie’s story, he not only wouldn’t believe me, he’d do everything within his power to use the information against her.”

“You’ve been up against Staker before,” Jack guessed.

Diana nodded.

“Tell me about it.”

She sipped her tea as she gave his request some careful thought. It would be fair to tell him, she supposed. If he stayed on this case, he would need to know exactly what he’d be up against. Relating the basic facts should be enough.

“My client was a retired military man in his sixties, taking care of his wife who had terminal cancer,” she began. “He got up to attend to her in the middle of the night and inadvertently gave her too much medication. In the morning, he found her dead. Staker claimed the man had deliberately given his wife an overdose to collect on her term life insurance that was due to expire. He charged him with murder.”

“Are you sure your client was innocent?”

“Positive. I spoke to the hospice nurse. She’d visited the night my client’s wife died and administered pain medication without mentioning that fact to my client. He was
asleep on the couch, exhausted from caring for his wife. When he was awakened a few hours later by his wife’s moaning, he gave her another dose of medication, assuming she hadn’t had any. When I learned all this, I went to Staker and asked him to drop the charges.”

“He didn’t,” Jack guessed.

“And he used what I told him to strengthen the state’s case. In his opening statement to the jury, he said the hospice nurse had spent many nights at my client’s home, implying they were having an affair. When the hospice nurse got on the stand, Staker cross-examined her about her recent divorce and asked if she was lying because she wanted my client’s wife dead so she could be with him.”

“And her denial didn’t carry any weight,” Jack said, “because the force of the accusation was enough to get the jury to believe the affair was true.”

Diana nodded. “I’m always amazed how ready people are to think the worst about someone without a lick of proof.”

“Your client was convicted?”

Diana put down her fork, her appetite suddenly abandoning her. “He took his own life.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jack had spoken the words softly. Without his impressive array of facial expressions and tonal range, he still sounded very sincere. Diana wondered how he’d managed to do that. Was that ability part of his training, or could it be she was seeing the real him?

“When did this happen?” he asked after a moment.

She hadn’t thought she’d share this next part. Now she realized she wanted to.

“Two years ago. I’m still not able to discuss the case dispassionately. Maybe I never will be. My client was a good man who loved his wife dearly. He was depressed
over her death and filled with guilt for having had a part in ending her life prematurely, however unintentional.”

“Is that why he killed himself?”

“I think he would have come out of his depression if he hadn’t been unfairly accused and tried. He left a letter, thanking me for believing him and asking me to make sure that the hospice nurse was not victimized.”

“What did Staker say when you showed him the letter?”

Diana spoke the words through a clenched jaw. “He said he wished the guy hadn’t killed himself before the jury had reached their guilty verdict because he was robbed of another win. Staker was competing with the prosecutor in a neighboring county for most convictions within a calendar year.”

Jack called Staker a filthy name, so filthy in fact that Diana decided right then that she liked Jack very much.

“Is Staker in another competition?” he asked, his tone cool with contempt. “Or does he have a vendetta against Connie?”

“I don’t know about another competition,” Diana said, “but he never has anything personal against a defendant. They’re simply not real to him. Nothing and no one is real to Staker but Staker. The law is something he uses for his own ends. He intends to use Connie’s trial to launch his campaign for judge. Her high-profile trial and conviction will give him the media spotlight he craves as the ‘hard on crime’ candidate.”

Jack chewed for a few minutes before he asked his next question. “What about the judge who will hear the case? Can you talk to him or her?”

“Him. William Gimbrere. He’s a friend of Barbara Weaton’s. And he would not be willing to listen.”

“As a friend of the mother of the victim, shouldn’t Gimbrere excuse himself from the case?”

“Every judge in the county is a friend of Barbara Weaton’s. Earl Payman should have petitioned the court for a change of venue at the time he entered Connie’s plea. He didn’t. When I did, Gimbrere told me the request had come too late and turned me down.”

“I can’t imagine that when the jury hears Connie’s story, they won’t at least opt for the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.”

“The only option the prosecution is going to give them is guilty or not guilty of first-degree murder. There will be no lesser charge from which they can choose.”

“The prosecutor can do that?” Jack asked.

“He’s done it.”

“But there’s no way he can prove premeditation.”

“A death doesn’t have to be premeditated to qualify as first-degree murder. Paraphrasing Washington State law, a defendant can be found guilty of first-degree murder if he or she manifests an extreme indifference to human life by engaging in conduct that creates a grave risk of death to any person and thereby causes the death of a person.”

“Like deliberately running over a guy with your car,” Jack said, nodding.

“And you can be sure that Staker will do everything he can to try to prove Connie did that deliberately.”

“How can he?”

“By characterizing Connie as a jealous lover. Bruce’s nephew said he was showing Connie his new bike and the next thing he knew she was running from the garage. Staker claims that Connie saw another woman’s panties lying on the dashboard of Bruce’s Mercedes and suddenly realized that Bruce was two-timing her.”

“The panties were there?”

“Red lace bikini,” Diana confirmed. “Part of the physical evidence in the prosecution’s case.”

“And the owner?”

“Tina Uttley, an employee at the real estate firm Bruce owned with his father and brother, identified them as hers. She’s also admitted to having an affair with Bruce at the time he was romancing Connie.”

“Did Bruce’s family know he’d proposed to Connie?” Jack asked.

“They said nothing about knowing in their statements to the sheriff’s office.”

Jack put down his knife and fork, pushed his empty plate aside. “Connie would have said something about Bruce seeing another woman if she’d known.”

“I’m certain you’re right,” Diana said. “But Staker’s going to claim that she realized the significance of the panties and that jealousy was her motive for killing Bruce.”

“Even though the nephew never mentioned that Connie even looked into the car?”

“All Staker has to do is put Connie in the vicinity and make the idea she saw the panties sound plausible. Without any other explanation for her running out of the garage, he’ll count on his suggestion to be taken as fact by the jury.”

Jack shook his head. “Connecting the dots so the picture of a lamb turns out to look like that of a lion.”

“Pretty scary how well Staker is able to connect those dots, too.”

When the waiter arrived to remove their empty dishes, Diana ordered iced tea refills as an excuse to keep squatter’s rights on their table. “A trial is basically the telling of two conflicting stories,” she said after the waiter had gone. “The story that seems to be the clearest and most believable to the jury given the supporting evidence will be the one they accept. I have to make Connie’s story the one the jury will believe.”

“How can I help?”

She liked the way he’d phrased that. Not, what is my job? Not, what do you want me to do? But, how can I help?

With every passing minute, Diana became more convinced that Jack really wanted to help.

“First,” she said, “you’re going to have to put Bruce Weaton in that car at the scene of Amy’s hit-and-run five years ago, establish an unbreakable link between him and the locket Connie found hidden in his garage, have every piece of physical evidence analyzed and authenticated by an outside forensic lab and do it without Staker knowing.”

“Oh, is that all,” Jack said, with good-natured sarcasm.

“No, that’s only step one of three.”

The waiter refilled their glasses, and Jack squeezed a slice of lemon over his iced tea. “Why an outside forensic lab?”

“One of our strongest weapons will be surprise. Staker and Sheriff Riker have been buddies since high school. What Sheriff Riker knows, Staker knows. We have to maintain complete secrecy about Connie’s story until she takes the stand.”

“So Staker can’t try to twist the facts the way he did in your other case.”