Guilty Pleasure (3 page)

He heard a knock on the door.

“
Come in.”

His gaze was transfixed on the newspaper
article. He was savoring the moment. He knew this would be on the
local news as well, this only heightened his gratification.

“
Horrible, isn’t
it.”

Michael was snapped out of his daze. He
looked up and saw Nicole standing in front of his desk.

“
Pardon me.”

“
That poor girl being
killed like that.”

“
Tragic.” He folded up the
paper and set it aside.

“
I have finished that case.
You were right it was pretty cut and dry. I couldn’t really find
any precedence to lessen his sentence other than pleading
guilty.”

“
He has plead guilty and he
was sentence to twenty years.”

“
What?”

“
They bumped his case
forward. I’m glad you worked so hard on that simple case. It gives
me confidence that you can handle more. Now, don’t look at me like
I’m some sort of asshole.”

“
I wasn’t,” she quickly
said then averted her gaze to the floor.

“
I will have Emily give you
some more cases that I need some help on. Just let me know if I
pile too much on you.”

“
I can handle a lot,
Sir.”

“
You don’t need to be this
nervous around me. I won’t bite you.”

“
This is my first job in my
field of study I just…”

Michael stood and walked over to her.

“
Look at me.”

She slowly raised her gaze to him.

“
That’s better.” He smiled
warmly at her.

She couldn’t look away from his dark
eyes.

“
You are a very attractive
woman, Nicole. Your boyfriend is a lucky man.”

“
I don’t have a
boyfriend.”

“
I’m finding that hard to
believe.”

“
I’m new to this town
and…”

“
You get flustered easily.
I find that quite charming. I’m a pretty easy man to get along with
Nicole, so relax. As long as you do your job, so I can do mine then
we will get along just fine. This next case we will be working on
involves a man who killed his wife in a jealous rage. Do you
believe he should go to jail for this crime?”

“
I don’t know all the
particulars of the case. Even if I did, it would be up to the jury
to decide if he should go to jail.”

“
Imagine you come home from
a long day at work and you find your spouse fucking someone else in
your bed. You have given up everything for this person’s happiness
and here they are defiling the bed you share with some other
person. The rage he must have felt…”

“
Even so, not everyone
resorts to murder.”

“
Some people can’t control
that primitive side to themselves. Should he be punished because of
it? To be honest, if I was in his shoes I might have done the same
thing. We need the jury to feel like they could have picked up that
gun and did the same thing.”

“
You are condoning his
actions?”

“
I didn’t say that I said I
understand his actions. Tomorrow, you will be with me when I talk
to Mr. Williams. If you hear his story from him instead of hearing
it from me, maybe you will understand. I don’t believe he deserves
to go to jail for the rest of his life over his wife’s
betrayal.”

“
If you want me to be there
I will.”

“
Have you ever interviewed
a defendant in jail before?”

“
No.”

“
Good, then this will be a
learning experience for you. I will handle everything, you are
simply to take notes and listen.”

***

Nicole stayed close to Michael when they
entered the Cook County jail. After they were searched a guard led
them to an interview room. The area was dreary, which was the best
way she could describe it. There was a long table with two chairs
on one side and one on the other. The air was heavy and she was
finding it hard to breathe.

“
Remember, you are only to
observe. Don’t say anything to Mr. Williams.”

“
Yes, Sir.”

Michael reached down and grabbed Nicole’s
hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s alright. He will be
shackled and you have me to protect you.”

“
I’m not afraid of Mr.
Williams, it’s just a little hard to breathe.”

“
It is oppressive in here
isn’t it. I guess I’m a bit jaded from doing this for this long.
You will get used to it.” Michael let go of her hand and focused on
the door when he heard the sound of the guard unlocking
it.

Nicole looked at the middle-aged man as he
shambled inside. His arms and legs were shackled given only enough
slack to walk. The guard helped Mr. Williams to sit down. Nicole
really wasn’t expecting Mr. Williams to look like this. He had
tattoos all over both arms and from what she could tell his chest
was probably covered in them too. He had harshness about him, a
coldness to his eyes. From what Michael had told her she had
pictured an average looking man, who had a fatherly vibe to him.
This man certainly didn’t.

“
How long do I have to stay
here? Why hasn’t my bail been set yet?”

“
Well Richard, since you
have a previous arrest record and the violent nature of the crime
you are charged with the judge has denied you bail.”

“
What?! You mother fucker,
you said you could get me bail.” Richard slammed his fist down on
the table startling Nicole. He glared at Michael. Michael didn’t
flinch and only stared coldly back at him.

Richard chuckled. “It’s good to know my
pretty boy lawyer isn’t scared easily.”

“
Well, your mother is
paying this pretty boy lawyer quite a sum of money to see that her
scumbag son is once again free to walk the streets.”

Nicole looked at Michael surprised he would
call his client a scumbag.

“
Is this your little
bitch?” Richard said, looking at Nicole.

“
You will watch your
manners around my assistant or I walk.”

Richard turned his gaze back to Michael.

“
I want you to tell me
about the night you killed your wife. In as much detail as you
can.” Michael gestured for Nicole to start taping.

She set the small digital recorder on the
table and hit record.

“
I already told
you…”

“
I want you to tell me
again. I need details to work with.”

Nicole watched Richard as he just sat there
for a moment.

“
I came home from a
particularly shitty day at the fucking factory. They let us out an
hour early because we had no more parts. Normally, I would just go
to the bar and have a beer or two, but this time I wanted to see
that stupid bitch wife of mine. I unlocked the door to our
apartment and just went inside. I grabbed a beer from the fridge
and headed to the bedroom. I could hear my wife moaning. I assumed
she was playing with the new toy I had gotten her a couple of weeks
ago. When I opened the door…I saw her with some dude. I went back
to the kitchen and took the gun out of the box on top of the
fridge. I cocked the gun and went straight back to the bedroom. I
fired the gun at both of them until there was no more bullets. Then
I called the police.”

“
You were angry when you
saw them together,” Michael said.

“
What the fuck do you
think?”

“
So angry that you calmly
walked back to the kitchen and grabbed your gun, which was
conveniently placed in a box on top of the fridge.”

“
Yes, that’s what I
said.”

“
Then you calmly walked
back into the bedroom and shot them both.”

“
Yes.”

“
I have a problem with that
story and so too will the prosecutor.”

“
What the fuck?”

“
If you were so angry that
you couldn’t control your anger, the word calmly wouldn’t be the
best word to use. And you were in the kitchen why not grab the
knife.”

“
Why the fuck would I grab
a knife when there is a gun right there?”

Michael reached over and clicked off the
recorder. “If I caught my wife fucking some strange guy in the bed
we shared together I would be in a rage and the first weapon I
would have seen would have been the knife, hell I might have even
beat both of them to death before I knew what I was doing. And yet,
you calmly went and got a gun that was in a box on your fridge. A
box that the investigators didn’t seem to find, so that would lead
me to believe you had the gun on you.”

Nicole could see by Richard’s reaction that
Michael was right.

“
So, let’s cut through the
bullshit. You came home found your wife fucking another man, you
pulled out the gun you had stashed on you and you shot them both
before you had time to think about it.”

“
I can’t say that…if they
found out I was carrying I’m going back to jail.”

“
You are going back to jail
regardless. So let’s stick with the truth here. I’m assuming you
were going to say the gun was your wife’s and she is the one who
put it on the fridge.”

“
Yeah.”

“
You are going to tell that
jury the truth. Your pass charges of arm robbery, well I can use
that to your advantage in this case.”

“
How?”

“
You didn’t make enough
money to satisfy your wife’s needs and you were forced to come up
with other means to do so. And though you didn’t want to commit
these crimes your fear of losing her love forced you to act in a
manner you wouldn’t normally do. After your release you took to
carrying a gun because you were afraid of retaliations from your
accomplices, and even though you didn’t turn them in an attempt to
make a plea deal someone did. When you walked into that bedroom and
saw your wife with that other man the rage you felt overwhelmed you
and the next thing you knew you were standing there holding the gun
in your hands and both of them were dead. This is the story you
will tell the jury.”

“
Wow…that’s
good.”

“
I know. You deviate from
this story and you are on your own. I’m going to try and get your
court date bumped up so we can get this over with.” Michael
signaled to the guard who was watching them through the two way
mirror.

Richard said nothing as the guard took him
from the room.

Michael and Nicole headed out of the jail to
Michael’s Mercedes. Nicole buckled herself in.

“
He was lying,” she
couldn’t stop herself from saying.

“
Of course he was. You saw
me catch him out on it.”

“
He had no remorse…he
wanted to kill her…”

“
She did cheat on
him.”

“
No, it was more than that.
I was going over the notes from the police at the scene. He said he
could hear her moaning, and yet both her and the man she supposedly
was having sex with were fully dressed.”

“
Nice catch, Nicole. But, a
man can make a woman orgasm without taking off her clothes. He got
there before they really got to it.”

“
No, I don’t believe so. He
was an awful person. You can feel that kind of vibe coming off of
him.”

“
Vibes, huh. And what kind
of vibes do you feel from me?”

“
The normal
kind.”

Michael stopped at the stoplight then turned
to her and smiled warmly. “The normal kind, that’s good to
know.”

“
You know what I mean. The
story you told me before I met Richard, I had a totally different
person pictured in my mind. That man had no remorse and his only
thought was saving his ass. What I think is that Richard’s wife was
planning on leaving him and he somehow found out. That poor man she
was with was only there to help her and he got killed for
it.”

“
And how would you go about
proving that?”

“
Interview their neighbors.
I doubt she would have had many friends because he would have
isolated her.”

“
Then who was the man she
was with?”

“
Perhaps a neighbor she
confided in.”

“
You should look into that.
The prosecution most certainly will and we need to prepare for
that.”

“
And if I’m right and he
did kill her to keep her from leaving?”

“
Then I guess Richard
better hope for a plea deal.”

“
You are going to still
defend him?”

Michael pulled into the parking garage and
parked. He got out of the car and went over to her side of the car.
He opened the door and helped her out. “I told you when you started
working here, Nicole, that not all of my clients are innocent.”

“
But if he killed
her…”

“
Does it matter the how and
why he killed her. She is still dead. Perhaps you should work for
the prosecution, Nicole…”

“
I want to work with you,
Sir. It’s just going to take some getting used to.”

She followed him to the elevator and they
headed up to the firm’s offices. Michael grabbed the cup of coffee
Emily handed him.