Burden of Truth (Cass Leary Legal Thriller Series Book 1)

by Robin James

  “That’s a tricky one.” A deep male voice came from behind me, making the skin prickle between my shoulder blades.

  I turned and found myself face to chest with Detective Eric Wray. He was off duty, dressed casually in a plain black t-shirt stretched taut over hard muscles and faded blue jeans. He was handsome, still, but more haggard, with dark circles rimming his gun-metal gray eyes. His dark hair looked slept on. He handed me a crisp, new dollar bill.

  “Ah ... thanks,” I said, trading him for my crumpled offering. I fed Eric’s dollar into the machine and got rewarded with the clunking sound as an Orange Crush dropped into the bin.

  “Meeting with a client?” he asked.

  I smiled and reached for the pop can. “You know I couldn’t tell you that even if I was.”

  Wray cast a furtive glance over his shoulder and it was in me to ask him why he was here. I didn’t though. “You know, I didn’t really get a chance to thank you for your help with the Ames family the other day. At the courthouse.”

  Eric gave me a sad smile and slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I’m sorry about that, actually. The Woodbridge county guys should have had a tighter lock on things that day. We may not always be on the same side of things, but you didn’t deserve that.”

  “Well, your Delphi city guys had an even looser lock on things the last time I was in your building.” I winced after I said it. So did Eric. It probably wasn’t fair of me. He hadn’t even been there the day of Aubrey’s confession. This wasn’t his case.

  Eric put his hands up, palms out, in a gesture of mock surrender. “Listen, I won’t pretend we’re always going to be on the same side of things, but I respect your job.”

  Now I felt like a total ass. I bit my lip. “And I respect yours. But you can’t tell me what happened was above board.”

  “Truce,” he said. “If you stick around long enough, I have a feeling we’ll cross paths on other stuff. Why don’t we save our battles for then?”

  I let out a breath. He was right and I was touchy. I tried a different approach.

  “Dan Ames,” I said. “You’re friends, right?”

  Eric didn’t let his smile fall but side-stepped, heading down a short hallway from the vending machine. Whatever he meant to say, he clearly didn’t want to be overheard. I followed.

  Eric turned. “You’ve been gone for a while, huh? Big firm in Chicago?”

  I smirked. Smooth evasion. “I have.”

  Eric pursed his lips and nodded, satisfied with that dribble of information. “Well, I suppose you’re finding not much has changed around here. Everybody knows everybody. So yeah. I know Dan.”

  “It wasn’t an accusation. Honest. If memory serves, you were on the football team. Captain, right? I was just a lowly freshman.”

  “I remember you.” He smiled. “Had your nose in a book.”

  His answer shocked me. Guys like Eric Wray didn’t notice girls named Leary. “Nice guess,” I said.

  “No guessing. You went through a blue hair phase right?”

  Okay. Now I was floored. Eric Wray had been about as big a deal as a guy could be back then. Homecoming King. Scholar athlete. All of it. I was pretty sure he’d been recruited by U. of M. until he had some kind of knee injury.

  “Right,” I answered. “And you had a Wendy Maloney phase. She made my life miserable.” Wendy had been queen to his king. I’d been a favorite target of her and her cheerleader friends. Westlake snobbery at its very worst.

  Eric’s face fell, but he recovered just as fast. It was then that I saw the flash of gold on the ring finger of his left hand and the pieces fell in place.

  “Oh. Sorry. Apparently not a phase. Well, I suppose we all had our own personal high school misery. Congratulations. Er ... tell Wendy I said hey.”

  Eric raised an amused brow but didn’t torture me anymore. He just let me pull my own fat foot out of my mouth with his merciful silence.

  “Looking to relive your glory days?” he asked, gesturing to the yearbook under my arm.

  “What? Oh. No. I’m just ... doing a little …”

  “Little after our time though,” he said, turning his head sideways so he could read the date on the book’s spine. “Aubrey’s year.”

  “I think so.”

  All traces of mirth melted from Eric Wray’s face. “She’s always been a good kid,” he said, his tone growing serious. “Nose in a book. Kind of like you.”

  “You really think she did this?” I asked, surprised at my own boldness. Eric’s eyes flashed. Maybe I’d asked one question too many. Still, I had a feeling this man knew more of the town secrets than most.

  “I think it’s time for me to let you finish your visit. I don’t like being on Jeanie Mills’s bad side.” He gave me a wink.

  Dammit. And there I was thinking I’d been the smooth one.

  “See you around,” I said.

  Eric nodded and turned on his heel. I watched him disappear down the hall before heading back to Jeanie’s room.

  Chapter 14

  Jeanie was sweating when I got back to her as she tried to climb back into bed. I put the yearbook and the pop down and went to help her.

  “I’ve got it!” she shouted. I put my hands out, framing the air around her as she heaved herself up. When I was certain she wouldn’t tip out of bed, I went for the pop, opened it, and stuck a straw through the hole.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking big gulps. “I was starting to think you got lost.”

  “I ran into someone,” I said. “Eric Wray?”

  “Ah,” Jeanie said, putting the pop can on the table beside her. “Fridays at four. You can set your watch to it. I know half the nurses on this floor do.”

  “What’s Fridays at four?”

  “Honey, Eric Wray is the most ineligible bachelor in Delphi. Didn’t he tell you why he’s here?”

  “He did not. I got the impression he wasn’t planning on running into anyone he knew.”

  Jeanie shook her head. “I don’t know why he bothers. She doesn’t know he’s here. If she did, she wouldn’t deserve to.”

  “Who? His mother?”

  “No.” Jeanie shifted her weight. I helped her readjust her blanket to cover her feet. I caught a glimpse of her expertly painted red toes and gave her a raised brow. No way she did those herself. The vision of her letting someone else give her a pedi put a smile on my face.

  “Honey, Eric Wray comes to visit his piece-of-work wife every Friday. She’s got a room down the hall from me. She’s in a coma. I hear enough gossip when people think I’m sleeping. The bitch is never gonna wake up.”

  “Wait. Wendy? I’m lost. He married Wendy Maloney, right?”

  “Right. Blonde. Big boobs. Snotty as they come.”

  “Geez, Jeanie. This is harsh even for you. Wendy’s in a coma? How awful. How long?” The foot in my mouth was apparently fatter than I realized. Good God. I’d just told Eric to say “hey” to her for me.

  Jeanie shrugged. “I think the better part of a year. She was cheating on that poor bastard forever. If that wasn’t bad enough, she cleaned him out. Managed to drain his retirement fund and run up his credit cards. She was bad news all the way around. Word is her last and latest boyfriend dumped her. It was some other detective with the D.P.D. Can you believe that? She couldn’t just cheat on him. Had to humiliate him too. Anyway, she had one too many beers down at Mickey’s one night and got behind the wheel. Only good part of this story is that she didn’t hurt anyone else besides the telephone pole at Newcomb and Laredo Streets.”

  “Good lord! That’s awful! Wendy? I mean, we weren’t exactly friends but she was just so beautiful.”

  Jeanie reached for her pop. “Anyway ... why don’t you get down to it? Tell me what you need. You’ve been hanging onto that silly yearbook since you got here.”

  I let out a sigh. “Someone left this for me. I was going to end my story with it.”

  Jeanie flapped a hand in front of her face. “Save the story.
The cops have been sloppy with the press. Until your brilliant client waltzed in and started singing, their case against her was Swiss cheese, right? Full of holes?”

  “Well, yeah. She was the last person seen with Coach D. Her phone was found near him. Let’s assume she did in fact lure him to meet her in the park the night he was stabbed. And her texts to him raise a lot of questions.”

  I reached back into my briefcase and pulled out a single sheet of paper with the transcript of Aubrey’s texts. Jeanie read it. Her eyes were still sharp enough she didn’t need glasses. I knew her mind was even sharper. I filled her in on the rest of it, including my odd meeting with Kaitlyn and the yearbook showing up on Miranda’s desk. Then I opened it to the one page that finally caught my eye. Jeanie took it from me.

  “It’s the girls’ track team, Aubrey’s junior year. There are some girls circled. Aubrey’s not one of them but her class picture is circled in the same color pen. I have no idea what it means. I don’t even know if Kaitlyn Taylor left this for me. Miranda swears she never had access to her desk. And there’s no name in it or any signatures. Don’t kids still sign these things?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Jeanie said, handing the yearbook back to me. “Who are the girls?”

  I flipped to the page I’d dog-eared. Chelsea Holbrook. Lindsey Claussen. Danielle Ford. Chelsea had been a freshman in this book. Lindsey a sophomore. Danielle a senior. One girl from each class, including Aubrey.

  “I really don’t know.”

  Jeanie took the book again and flipped through it to the back. Her mouth turned down as she settled on one page. “You missed one,” she said.

  My stomach flipped as I saw what she meant. She had it open to the faculty pictures. Larry Drazdowski’s face was also circled.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “You came here for a reason but it wasn’t advice, Cass. Your gut’s telling you something. What is it?”

  I let out a hard breath. “I think she lied to the cops. Aubrey Ames is trying to protect somebody with that confession of hers. I just can’t figure who or why.”

  “Did you try getting a hold of any of these other girls?”

  “And say what? Oh ... I’m investigating a murder and your picture showed up on my desk circled in a yearbook?”

  “If that’s what your gut is telling you to do, yeah? Start with the Claussen girl. But what about Aubrey Ames? Where does it stand with her?”

  “At a standstill. She’s shut down, Jeanie. It’s like she has no idea how serious the charges against her are. Jack LaForge isn’t even offering a plea deal now. I can try to have her confession thrown out on a Sixth Amendment violation but I’m on shaky ground with it. She signed a written waiver. She said it into the damn camera. And I’ve got an entire town out for blood, including probably half the judges on the bench.”

  “You gotta get out of Delphi with this one.”

  “I plan to try. But that’s if I’m willing to even keep going with this. I’ve had enough death threats to last me ... well ... forever.”

  Jeanie’s face changed. Her penetrating gaze split me wide open. I’d been careless. If she’d asked me about the Thorne Group at that moment, I knew she’d see right through any lie I told.

  Jeanie leaned back and scratched her chin. The corners of her mouth twitched as she tried to hold back a smile. How the hell could she find anything amusing in any of this?

  “You’ve bonded with her, haven’t you?”

  “Bonded? What? She’s like a squirrel caught in headlights. Terrified. Docile until the one day she wasn’t and she marched into that damn detective’s office. She doesn’t even read like a murder suspect, Jeanie. She reads like a ... a victim.”

  Jeanie put her hands behind her head. It seemed like a victory gesture. When I caught her eyes again, I knew that’s exactly what she thought too.

  “You have to come at her hard, Cass. She’s scared, but not of the right things. You’ve been babying her. She’s not Vangie. She’s not Matty. She’s not your mother. Get her away from her parents and make her tell you the truth. Somebody out there is trying to tell you something. Let it start with her. And if she won’t, then you wash your hands of it. Stop acting like her mother or her protector. You may have to be her enemy for a little while before you can really be her champion.”

  I opened my mouth to clap back, then shut it. Be her enemy for a little while before you can be her champion. Twenty-odd years ago, that’s exactly what Jeanie had done for me.

  “You’re right.”

  “Of course I am. Now write down two of those girls’ names for me. And have Miranda call my secretary. I still pay one. I need my laptop. I’ll work on tracking them down. You deal with your client. Let’s go to work.”

  And just like that, for the first time in four months, it felt good to be home.

  Chapter 15

  Rain fell in sheets as I made my way up Dan Ames’s long driveway. My windshield wipers made a wide streak, catching a maple leaf beneath them. It was green still, but summer would give way to fall in just a few more weeks. In three short months, Aubrey would go on trial for her life.

  The front door opened and Dan stepped out. He saw me and his step faltered. I left the car running and stepped outside, snapping open my umbrella.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, still standing under the protection of the porch.

  “I need to talk to Aubrey alone.”

  Aubrey came to the door behind him, her face drained of all color.

  “Cass …”

  “I haven’t decided whether I’m staying on this case,” I said. “No one in this family seems interested in following my advice. That’s pretty much a deal breaker for me.”

  “Cass ... you have to. The court said …” I put a hand up, cutting Aubrey off.

  “Look, this isn’t charity work for me. Coming this far with you has cost me. If you want my help, it’s going to have to come with my terms. You’re over eighteen, Aubrey. Time to act like it. Let’s take a little drive. Just the two of us.”

  Dan stormed off the porch. I stood my ground. There was movement in the window behind him. A curtain flapped as Diane Ames peaked out to see what was going on.

  “This is my daughter. This is her future.”

  “Yes. It is. Her future. I told you the first day we met on this case I wasn’t representing the family. Aubrey is my client. If I agree to stay on. If you think you need legal counsel, then I can refer you. But I don’t go one step further until Aubrey and I have had a chance to talk.”

  The front door opened. Diane was still wearing a pink terry cloth robe. She stepped out and put a careful hand on her husband’s arm. “Let her go, Dan,” she said. “You can’t protect her anymore.”

  He blanched then did a double take. Something about his wife’s words seemed to hit him like a gut punch. Aubrey stepped off the porch.

  I leaned forward and shielded her under my umbrella as the rain fell down even harder. She crossed her arms in front of her and walked slowly to the passenger door of my car. She gave one last look at her parents, then slid inside the car.

  Aubrey sat in silence as I drove away from her parents’ house and back toward town. She didn’t say anything when I kept on going. But when I made the turn to Shamrock Park, she sat bolt upright in her seat and smacked her palm against the window.

  She gave me a panicked look as I drove to the east side of the park near the entrance to the running trails. I cut my lights and pulled up perpendicular to a single park bench. A few yards to our right, mounds of wilting flowers and homemade signs decorated a twenty-foot circle around a street lamp.

  I brought Aubrey to the spot where Larry Drazdowski died. The signs were telling.

  R.I.P. Coach D

  The One True Hero I’ll Ever Know

  Never Forgotten

  Justice

  The shrine went up the second the police tape came down.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Aubrey was crying.


  “Because you need to see it. You need to understand what we’re up against.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Get out of the car.”

  “What? It’s raining!”

  “We’ve got bigger things to be afraid of than rain.” I got out of the car and slammed the door. My umbrella fought with me for a moment. The wind blew the rain sideways, so it wouldn’t be much use anyway. Still, I walked to the make-shift shrine and stood there, reading the cards.

  There were pictures of Larry Drazdowski smiling, laughing, hugging his players. One of them had even taped his state championship ring to one of the cards.

  I stood out there for maybe five full minutes before Aubrey finally came to join me. She was soaked to the bone, her blonde hair plastered to her face. I couldn’t tell anymore if those were tears on her cheeks or just more raindrops. Probably both.

  “Life, Aubrey. Your life. First-degree murder means no parole. You’re nineteen years old. Healthy. You could be in there seventy years. Eighty. You’d hold the record for the longest sentence ever served by a female inmate. Maybe any inmate. If you lived. Most don’t. Either way, you’ll die in there.”

  “Stop,” she cried. “Just stop it. I know all of this.”

  “If you know all of this, then what the hell are you doing?” I turned to her. “This man? They love him. They’ll love him even more once they hear what happened to him in every awful detail at trial.”

  “There won’t be a trial,” she said. “I don’t want one.”

  “It’s not up to you. The prosecution isn’t offering a plea deal. So, unless you’re just planning to change your plea to guilty, this is over.”

  “But it’s not first-degree murder. I didn’t plan it. You said …”

  “Did you kill him?” I practically screamed it. “The truth.”

  Aubrey sank to her knees. Her white jeans were soon covered with dark mud. I leaned down and covered her as best I could with the umbrella.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said.

  “It’s going to matter a hell of a lot to the people who came out here and signed these cards. Tell me the truth, Aubrey. You’re dying too. I can feel it pouring off you just like this rain.”