Nothing But the Truth (5 page)

Sam cleared his throat. Brett remembered she was here to see a client, not ogle Ryan Foster. She briefly wondered why Ryan was downstairs anyway. Except for the bailiffs, the courtroom was empty. She shrugged away the thought and walked into the holdover. Two attorneys stood at the windows. One waited patiently while his client signed the sheaf of paperwork necessary to complete a plea agreement. The other was in a heated argument with his client over why he couldn’t get a better deal. Brett stood in the tiny space behind them and looked at the woman sitting in the hard plastic chair in front of her. She was shocked at her client’s appearance.

Brett had been appointed to represent dozens of women charged with prostitution over the years. Sometimes she could see hints of pretty through the dull veneer that years, or sometimes only months, of selling sexual favors for hits of crack created. The women Brett encountered in the holdover were never the glamorous hookers and escorts glorified in movies like
Pretty Woman
and
Mayflower Madam
. These women couldn’t afford to buy their own drugs, let alone designer clothes, fancy cars, and a high-toned loft where they could ply their trade. Selling sex wasn’t a chosen career path for these women; it was a back alley detour where they did the deals that would get them through another dreary day.

Ann Rawlings wasn’t one of these women. Only the hard glint in her eyes betrayed she had ever known hardship. She wore her jail-issue black and white jumpsuit and faux Crocs as though the outfit were couture. Her hair was mussy, but Brett could tell that was from having spent the last few nights in jail. The cut was stylish and her hair was shiny and healthy. Her fingernails were long and sported a deep plum polish. Her hands were well acquainted with creamy lotions. Her face was beautiful and blemish free. Brett imagined fine moisturizers lined her bathroom shelves.

Brett handed her a business card. “Ms. Rawlings, my name is Brett Logan. The court has appointed me to represent you. Do you know what you’re charged with?”

Ann flicked her glance from the card to Brett and back again. Her nod was barely perceptible.

“I don’t have any information other than what’s in the probable cause affidavit,” Brett said. She handed the paper to her and waited while she read. The detective reported he was working undercover and received an invitation to a private party at a townhome in North Dallas. He paid for the privilege of attending in exchange for the promise of his choice of sexual partners. Ann was there with two other women. She did the business end of the transaction and then instructed the other two women to provide the services the customer had paid for. Before they could begin, the detective identified himself and called for backup on his cell to assist with arrest. A search of the National Criminal Information database revealed Rawlings had no prior criminal record. Brett was puzzled. It took three misdemeanors to bump a prostitution case up to a felony. The facts she’d read so far didn’t support a charge of compelling. She flipped the page.
Damn.
One of the females was sixteen. Sixteen point nine actually. She had celebrated her seventeenth birthday the day after her arrest.

Brett decided to start the process of sorting through the facts with Ann. “Compelling prostitution is a second degree felony. They’re going to say that you caused this girl, Heather Daniels, to commit prostitution and because she was sixteen when the offense occurred, they don’t have to prove force or threats.” Brett paused. “Stop me if I’m telling you things you already know, but based on your record or lack thereof, I feel the need to be pretty detailed.” At Ann’s nod, Brett asked, “Why don’t you tell me how you know Heather and this other woman, Ginger?”

Stony silence.

“It’s kind of important that you give me whatever information you have. Whatever you tell me is confidential.” Brett almost grimaced as she spoke the words. They were surrounded by four other people, at least two of whom could hear everything they were saying. Technically, there was nothing privileged about their conversation, but realistically, Brett felt confident that the other folks crowded around them were too caught up in their own troubles to worry themselves with her client’s problems. Over the years, she had learned the compromises court-appointed work required.

“Your bond is set at twenty-five thousand dollars, which is high considering this is your first arrest. I can try to get it reduced if there’s another amount you might be able to afford to pay.”

Ann shook her head vigorously.

Brett stared down the unusual response, but she didn’t argue the point. “If you change your mind, let me know. Now, I really need to hear your side of the story.”

Ann shook her head again, slowly and emphatically.

“If you don’t talk to me now, I don’t have anything to go on other than what the police wrote here. We’ll just wait until the grand jury reviews your case and it’s assigned to one of the prosecutors in this court before we can try to work this out.”

“That’s fine.” The short sentence gave Brett her first look at a hint of expression in Ann’s face. Her teeth were straight and laser white. Ann Rawlings didn’t sell her body for crack. She saw a dentist every six months, in addition to having a regular manicure. She took care of herself, which to Brett usually meant someone who could afford to post bond and hire counsel. Brett wanted to know more, much more, but she had done this often enough to know Ann wasn’t going to talk to her until she was damn well ready. Most of the time she encountered clients in the holdover, desperate to give and receive information: how they didn’t do what they were accused of; how they did do it, but shouldn’t be punished for their sins; how they just needed to get out, and all they wanted Brett to do was get the bond lowered. In contrast, Ann was tight-lipped. Brett gathered the papers and stuffed them in her bag.

“I’ll mail you a copy of these. You have my card if you need anything. Your case will probably be set for the grand jury in a couple of weeks. If you are indicted, I’ll come to court on your case, but you won’t be brought down again until we’re ready to resolve your case, one way or another. I’ll come see you when we get an offer for you to consider. In the meantime, call or write if you want to fill me in.” Brett started toward the door, but paused before leaving. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call?”

Finally, the woman’s face displayed emotion. She turned pale and stark fear filled every feature. Brett started to walk back over, hold Rawlings’s hand, and assure her everything would be okay. Even as she took the first step, she realized Rawlings wasn’t looking for comfort. She was looking for safety, and she had found it within the confines of the county jail.
Who am I to take that from her?
Brett acknowledged the silent answer. “All right then. I’ll talk to you soon.”

*

“Give me the highlights of the case.” Ryan only wanted the information to assure herself Jeff’s strategy was sound. Despite the way she had spent her evening, Ryan knew the Edwards file as if she had worked it from the day it was indicted. She had returned to her house at four a.m., showered, changed, and driven directly to the office. Her body was still sore from her workout the night before, but she forced herself to huddle over the box of evidence until she could recite the salient facts off the top of her head. She knew her command of the details of the case would draw annoyance rather than admiration from Jeff, but she was determined to show him and everyone else that the years she’d spent upstairs hadn’t dulled her sharp litigator instincts.

“Ross Edwards. White male, fifty-five years old. Widow. No kids. He befriends Mary Dinelli, a disabled vet. Gulf War. Fifty-two years old. Maybe they have an affair, maybe not, but in any event, she tells her family she has a love interest and suddenly she drops out of sight. She gets a regular dole from the government, and someone is cashing those checks. Also, her family gets regular text messages with vague descriptions of what she’s doing.”

Ryan interjected. “What’s the first clue things are not as they seem?”

“Hard to say. She wasn’t close to her family, so the fact that she sent them text messages at all is kind of weird. I mean, you text people you’re close to, right? Texting isn’t something you do with distant relatives.”

Ryan nodded as if in agreement, but she couldn’t relate. She didn’t have anyone in the circle of closeness Jeff referred to. She didn’t text at all, but even if she did, she didn’t think she knew anyone she would choose to receive the quick, casual updates associated with the medium. “Go on.”

“Dinelli’s house catches fire. Supposedly, she makes an insurance claim. Fills out the paperwork, mails it in. Even shows up at the insurance office with her new boyfriend, Ross Edwards, to make the claim. She gives a sworn statement, then gets pissed off when the insurance company tells her they are investigating whether or not there’s coverage for the fire.”

“Wasn’t the policy good?”

“Policy was solid, but like most, it specifically excludes arson. The insurance investigator thought the story about how the fire started was fishy. Something about how they thought they might have left an iron on in the house, but the initial responders found evidence of accelerants. Anyway, this woman who showed up as Dinelli, goes ballistic, saying how she paid good money for that insurance policy, and she doesn’t understand how they can rip her off. Threatens to go to the state department of insurance with a complaint. She stomps out with Edwards in tow.”

Ryan fought the urge to tell Jeff to cut to the chase. He was obviously enjoying the telling of the story, carefully working his way up to the revelation that would be the lynchpin of their case. As much as she wanted him to get to it, she realized his story-telling efforts now were practice for spinning the tale into a guilty beyond a reasonable doubt verdict in front of a jury. She settled for making a few gentle prods here and there.

“So they determined the fire was the result of arson.”

“Yes, but at that point, they were concerned with other evidence they found at the scene. The arson investigator found human bone fragments in fairly close proximity to several bullet casings in the debris from the fire. He contacted Richardson PD, and they started digging deeper. At first figuratively, then literally. When they couldn’t find the rest of the body, they brought in a cadaver dog who led them to a dead body buried in the ground where the living room had been, with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the head. Sent the remains off to SWIFS.” He referred to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Science, the lab that performed most of the forensic analysis for law enforcement in the North Texas area.

Ryan knew the punch line, but she didn’t steal it.

“The body was formally identified as Mary Dinelli. Exact time of death was hard to pinpoint, but she definitely hadn’t suffered any fire-related injuries. Anyway, the medical examiner was certain the cause of death was the bullet in the head and that the shooting occurred prior to the fire. DFD contacted her family and verified that while someone was sending texts to her family and making fire insurance claims on her behalf, Mary Dinelli was dead and buried underneath the rubble of her own house.”

“I didn’t see any information in the file about how they made the initial connection to Edwards.” Ryan was grateful for the chance to ask a real question.

“Sorry.” Jeff’s expression was sheepish as he handed over a copy of the search warrant affidavit for Ross Edwards’s apartment. Ryan took a few minutes to review the document, which was itself a classic example of story weaving. In order to obtain a search warrant, the arson investigator had to convince a judge that the place he wanted to search contained evidence of a specific crime. He would submit a carefully crafted affidavit outlining the type of crime he was investigating along with the specific evidence he expected to find at the place to be searched. Many times, these affidavits were written on the fly, while law enforcement personnel staked out the residence to be searched. On those occasions, the document would contain nothing more than a bare bones recitation of only the essential facts.

The affidavit in support of the search warrant for Ross Edwards’s apartment was an epic novel. The specific crimes enumerated were arson, insurance fraud, identity theft, and the biggie, murder. With that grab bag of offenses, the list of specific items was easily expanded to include just about anything. All the investigator had to do was connect whatever he was looking for to its use as an instrument of one of the many crimes he believed Edwards had committed. Ryan viewed the connections as tenuous, but the investigator had done a convincing job of spinning a tale that placed Edwards at the center of full-scale fraud perpetrated on disabled veteran, Mary Dinelli. Surveillance cameras at banks around the metroplex had recorded Ross Edwards in the company of a woman who, in the grainy camera footage, vaguely resembled Mary Dinelli at a time when Ms. Dinelli was cold, dead, and probably buried on her own property. Once the judge signed off on the warrant, pretty much anything in the place was fair game.

What they found in Edwards’s apartment was a goldmine. Sitting in a nightstand drawer was Mary Dinelli’s cell phone with Ross Edwards’s fingerprints all over it and the cryptic texts to her family still in the log. Based on the medical examiner’s estimated date of death, Mary Dinelli was long dead when texts were sent from her phone telling her family not to worry, that she was fine. No smoking gun, to be sure, but when combined with the find of a few of Dinelli’s benefit check stubs, and Edwards’s appearance with a woman posing as Dinelli at the insurance company, they had enough to bring him in for questioning.