A criminal psychiatrist, Patrick’s passion was understanding criminal behavior, driven by a need to understand his father’s actions. While Tex was gifted with winning the genetic lottery, Patrick was less physically intimidating. Law frustrated him, but he was proud of his brother’s fights in the courtroom. Patrick had spent his years studying, throwing himself into books, while his brother was throwing himself into every fight that came his way. Their relationship had been littered by constant arguments about their father’s innocence, about the past that Tex so dearly held onto.
“So what’s this about then? What’s so desperate it couldn’t wait until the weekend? Girls, perhaps? How’s the love life, Tex?”
Hunter didn’t respond.
“Oh.” Patrick leaned forward and waved his finger. “There was a twitch in your face then. You like someone. Is it Esther? Has it finally happened? Is she pregnant?”
Tex Hunter ignored his brother and ordered a drink. The server was charismatic, charming, and full of passion for his job. He talked for too long about the drink options, and lingered even longer, before leaving to fill the order.
“Tex, you’re getting older. Time is passing you by. Don’t waste your years chasing shadows. There has to be a time when you let all this go and fall in love. Love is what matters; you know? And Esther is the perfect girl for you. She’s pretty, she’s smart, she’s ambitious. She’s a winner. I’d marry her.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about girls.”
The New Yorkers next to them started to rave about their experience with deep dish pizza. There wasn’t a crumb left on their plates, not a piece of topping, not a splash of sauce. Chicago-style deep dish pizza had won the doubters over.
“I know what you want to talk about. I mean, why else would you contact me?” Patrick lowered his drink and stared at his brother. “But like I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want to keep having the same conversation about our family over and over again.”
“I’ve heard Natalie’s name a lot this week.”
“Natalie? I haven’t seen her in more than thirty years. I don’t even know if I would recognize her now. She could be sitting in this restaurant, sitting next to us, and I don’t think I’d know it was her. Last time I saw her; she was eighteen and she’d be over fifty now. She was still a kid when she left. An innocent kid. Who knows what life has dealt her? Children? Family? Divorce?”
“Her old boyfriend contacted me. Rick Cowan. He wants me to defend him in court.”
“Rick Cowan? That’s also a person I haven’t heard from in a long time, and let me say, I’m happy I haven’t heard from him. The guy was a sleaze. I never liked him. Why would you consider defending someone like him?”
The server delivered their pizzas, the dishes barely fitting on the small wooden table. The brothers thanked the server, and then blew the steam off their pizzas at the same time.
“Cowan has something I want and he’s offered it to pay for his defense.”
“Here we go. This is where you start on about our father again, right?”
His younger brother didn’t answer. He picked up a slice of pizza, blew more steam off the top, waited a moment, and then bit into it.
“Tex?” Patrick pressed. “How many times do you want to go through this? You’ve tried every path and every avenue. You’ve done everything you can to save him. There’s nothing left to do. Accept the reality. Drop this quest.”
“Our father said he was innocent, remember? And Cowan might have something to prove it. The reason I contacted you is because I need to find Natalie. You still have the contacts in the border patrol, don’t you?”
Patrick nodded his response.
“Use your contacts, and see if we can at least touch base with her. I want to know what she knows. It would be nice to talk to her, at least.”
“Come on, Tex. Why can’t we ever have a normal lunch? Why can’t we talk about the Cubs, the Bulls, or the Bears. Complain that Chicago sports isn’t what it used to be. Complain about the state of the traffic, or how the trains are falling apart. Normal things. That’s what we should be doing.” Patrick lowered his eyes. “It’s time to let this go. Our father was high on pain meds when he said he was innocent. It was the word of an old drugged up criminal who doesn’t have long left to live. He could’ve said anything.”
“That man is your father.”
“Still a drugged up criminal.”
“Cowan has been receiving evidence from someone over the last thirty years. As one of the few character witnesses to defend our father, someone has been sending him evidence that our father is innocent, and he’s been holding onto it.”
“And he hasn’t released it? Or passed it on?”
“He was pressured into making sure the case went away, and pressured into making sure the evidence was never seen, but he held onto it all. Kept it locked away.”
“Why would he do that? Guilt?” Patrick tried to work over the feelings in his head. He stared at the pizza, desperately wanting to dive into it. “And why would anyone send anything to Rick Cowan?”
“I don’t know, and he won’t tell me who it’s from, but it’s thirty years of details. Thirty years of evidence we haven’t seen. We have to get our hands on the file. This is our chance to make it right. This is our chance to clear our dad’s name and finally get justice.”
“Why do you trust him? The name Rick Cowan carries no trust.” Patrick reached for his slice of pizza. He pulled at it, the cheese trying to hold it back, and placed it on his plate. Using a knife and fork, he cut off the crust and bit into it, and his shoulders instantly relaxed. It was a moment, a rush of flavor he loved. When he finished his first bite, he looked back to his brother. “He could be using you, Tex. He knows how much you want to prove our father’s innocence; he knows how much you need this. You’ve never let it go, and he knows it.”
“I don’t trust Cowan, but this is too good a chance to let slip. There’s too much riding on this to let it go.”
“It must be guilt.” Patrick sighed, looked at his pizza slice, and then cut off another piece to eat. “That must be driving Cowan to keep those files. Perhaps he felt he didn’t do enough for his girlfriend’s father, or he didn’t tell the whole truth. He must have a deep-seated feeling of letting Natalie down. That must be driving his behavior.”
“Always using those psycho-analysis skills.”
“It’s my job, Tex. You can’t switch that stuff off just because you’re not in the office. A person’s work should be a representation of their skills, not something separate from the person. We should strive to work in the fields that suit our personalities. These are my skills and it’s a part of me.”
“Do you think if you used your contacts you could find Natalie? I’d like to send her an email, or talk to her on the phone, if at all possible.”
Patrick sighed, looked around the busy restaurant, and then leaned forward. “I’ve tried to find her before, maybe fifteen, or twenty years ago, but I had no luck. I couldn’t find a trace of her. I couldn’t even find a hint.”
“Life’s different now. There’s so many more ways to find someone. Fifteen years ago, we didn’t have access to the internet like we do now. This is our chance. This is our time to find her. Maybe we can find something on social media, or something online. I just need a starting point.”
“I don’t know. It’s been a long time, and when someone wants to stay hidden, it would be hard to find them.”
“Please, Patrick. For me. Let’s find Natalie.”
Patrick nodded. He loved his brother, but chasing this line of enquiry was a recipe for trouble.
And little did he know how right his instincts were.
Chapter 8
“Tex, this is too much.” Assistant Esther Wright tapped her fingers on the edge of the boardroom table with a rhythm that was only identifiable to her. “Rick Cowan has been taunting the police for a decade. There’s a list of charges as long as this table but nothing has stuck
. You could almost track his life in mug-shots. How does someone escape the system so often?”
“He’s previously had money and contacts.” Hunter sat at the end of the boardroom table, tie loosened, sleeves rolled to his elbows, one long leg crossed over the other. “He doesn’t have that now. Money can buy all sorts of influence, and now that it’s gone, so have most of his friends. Nobody has his back now.”
The boardroom in the Law Office of Tex Hunter, Defense Attorney, was roomy; a vacant space that was barely used, filled by a long glass table, a whiteboard, and black leather office chairs. Hunter didn’t like working from such a vast space. The view of Chicago from the boardroom, however, was something he did enjoy. The floor to ceiling windows looked out to the buildings along West Jackson Boulevard, and if they looked down, they could see the streets below filled with people rushing to get out of the cold wind.
Esther Wright had organized Rick Cowan’s paperwork into piles, filling the boardroom table in a methodical pattern. There were witness statements in one pile, crime scene photos in another, and evidence documents in another. Each pile was organized with precision, lined up against the edges of the table, not a piece of paper out of place.
Although their records were stored on computers, safely protected in the world of cyberspace, Hunter still preferred to work with paper copies in front of him. The tactile feel of the paper files helped him think. Holding a photo in his hands, reading over a paper contract, or searching through pages of files was easier than staring at a glowing screen.
“If he was a betting man, he should take the odds of winning.” Ray Jones stood by one of the windows, arms folded, staring out at his city. “The last win in court was a jury decision?”
“Assault charge five years ago. Not guilty. Not even a hung jury.” Esther flicked open a file.
“This is twisted. These guys do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it. And because they’re paying the right people, they get away with it. It seems people like Cowan are above the law, while people like my neighbors are below it.” Jones ran his hand over his freshly waxed head. Of African-American heritage, he stood six-foot-four, with shoulders as wide as the doorframe. His muscle tone hadn’t disappeared as he went through his forties—the intense daily workouts ensured that. “Do you think it’s political?”
“He runs a strip club where influential officials have been known to attend. He’d have photos that powerful people don’t want released. That’s all the leverage he needs.” Hunter stood and walked around the boardroom table. “He’s been flaunting the fact he can break the law whenever he wants, and they’ve never been able to do anything about it. He knows he’s above the law. He knows he can get away with it.”
“He’s even been posting photos on Instagram of him using drugs.” Esther added, opening another file and sliding it across to Hunter. “But when the cops came after him, he said it was a stunt to increase his popularity on social media. There was nothing the cops could do. According to these files, his strip club has been raided five times in the past five years, and nothing has ever been found. It was raided twice for prostitution, twice for drug possession, and once for firearm possession. It seems that he’s been tipped off by someone on the inside each time. He’s spent the last decade openly laughing in the faces of the force.”
Hunter walked to the whiteboard, staring at the picture of Rick Cowan’s face stuck to the middle. There were scribbles down the side of the board, notes from Hunter’s thoughts, but he could barely read them himself.
“All the cameras were turned off that morning. That had to be an inside job. Someone inside the club must’ve turned those cameras off. That has to be a lead.” Esther added. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”
“You’re right. Find out who turned off the video surveillance footage, and we find out who set him up. Our best bet is to find footage outside the club, see who’s coming in and out. Is there another angle we can get on the entrance?” Hunter asked. “Perhaps something that will show the cops bringing the drugs into the club.”
“That will only work if what he says is true,” Jones opened a file. “I’ll look into the cameras up and down the street and see if there’s anything, but I imagine if this is a set-up, then the cops would’ve already found those cameras. There’s not much use chasing ghosts, especially if Cowan is lying to us. So he’s really claiming he’s innocent this time?” Jones asked as he moved to the chair closest to the door, and sat down. “Really innocent, or just innocent enough to beat the charges in court?”
“He was set-up. I’m convinced of that now. And it was someone with inside knowledge of the club—they knew how to turn off the cameras and they knew how to access the private room. And whoever set him up, whoever is behind this corruption racket, I’m going to take down.”
“That doesn’t make Cowan an innocent person,” Esther added.
“He didn’t order these drugs. That’s clear. And the cornerstone of our justice system is the innocent should not be intimidated by those who run it. The innocent should be free. If the cops want to get him for something else, then they should do that, but he didn’t do this. We’ve taken the case, and we’ll follow this to the end. He’s been set up, entrapment at its worst, and we’re going to prove that in court. That’s our role in the system.”
Jones threw his hands in the air in surrender. “I’ll check the surrounding businesses and see if we can get any angle on the entrance to the club.”
Jones already had to break bad news to Hunter that morning—there was no evidence Cowan had gone to any storage facility, or any office to check his files. The security around the Five-Star was tight, as was the security around Cowan’s apartment. Hunter didn’t expect Cowan to keep the files there anyway. Jones was still canvasing his contacts to find any potential leads, but hopes weren’t high.
“Our main tactic in court will be discrediting the witnesses themselves, so these redacted witness statements aren’t much use without a background check. These five key witnesses are hiding something, and the prosecution doesn’t want us to find out what that is.” Hunter tapped the pile of files on the edge of the table. “We need names so we can investigate their past and show the court they aren’t credible. They won’t be strong witnesses. The prosecution is trying to buy time for these guys.”
“I suggest Witness B is an exotic dancer.” Esther moved a report across the table. “In the witness statement, she said she works in an ‘Entertainment’ role. It shouldn’t be hard to discredit her on the stand.”
“Cowan won’t like that.” Jones added. “She’ll likely go missing before the trial if any of his past cases are an indication.”
Hunter sighed. He knew the statement was true.
“Who do you think the other suppressed witnesses are?” Esther asked. “Any clue?”
“None at this point. This statement,” Hunter opened a file, “is the original tip-off and is key to the prosecution case. Witness A stated they had inside information that the drugs were coming on that day. Most of their statement is redacted but it has to be someone close to Cowan.”
“A security guard at the club?” Jones suggested.
“Maybe. Have a look into that, and see if you can find anything. One of the guards has been following me over the past few weeks, so there might be something in that.”
“Lisa Forde could be a candidate as one of the redacted witnesses. That’s Cowan’s first wife. She was asked to be a witness in his last assault trial, and when she got to the stand, changed her whole story. She could’ve turned on him after all this time.” Esther pointed at the picture on the table of Rick Cowan’s former wife.
“Get her number and we’ll call her.”
“Should we do that? What if she’s protected witness?” Esther asked.
“If we don’t have the redacted witness names, then we can’t avoid them. We’re not talking to her as a potential redacted witness, we’re merely investigating the case. We’re allowed to scrutinize the evi
dence. And part of our investigation has led us to our client’s ex-wife. It’s all above board.”
Esther typed into her laptop computer and brought up the details of Lisa Forde. According to social media profiles, Lisa Forde was in her early thirties, struggling to get by, and if the photos were anything to go by, heavily addicted to drugs. Within five minutes of typing, Esther had information on Lisa Forde’s phone number, address, current employment, and every personal detail they could need.
Hunter typed the number into the conference phone on the table, putting the call on speaker phone.
“Lisa Forde?” Hunter asked when she answered after one ring.
“Yes.” The woman was cautious.
“My name is Tex Hunter. I’m a lawyer and I’m representing Rick Cowan.”
There was no answer.
“Ms. Forde?”
“Did Rick tell you to call me?”
“No.”
“Is he in prison? Locked away?” Her voice was shaky. “Is that why you’re calling?”
“He’s not, but he could use your assistance. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your involvement with the Five-Star Gentlemen’s Club.”
“I can’t help you.”
The phone went dead. Hunter re-dialed the number. The call went immediately to voicemail.
“She’s blocked your number.” Esther dialed the number again, but it was the same result. “That was a quick reaction. She sounded spooked the second you mentioned Cowan. Even if we show up at her home, she’s not going to talk to us.”
“She’s scared of something,” Jones added. “And if you were smart, you’d be cautious as well.”
The evidence they had gathered had become clear: Rick Cowan was cunning, sly, and dangerous. Everyone seemed to know it, and everyone seemed to have a reason to avoid him.
Chapter 9
The mood in the Five-Star Gentlemen’s Club was somber as Jasmine Langford finished her Tuesday afternoon shift, the worst, and counted her takings in the changing room. Not much to speak of. A couple of older men threw a few dollars her way in sympathy, but it was barely worth dancing for. Her shifts were getting worse. The prized Friday and Saturday night slots were being assigned to the younger girls. They couldn’t dance as well as she did, they couldn’t entertain like she could, but that didn’t matter. The men weren’t there to score the girls on their dancing performances. She looked over her shoulder as one of the other girls came into the changing room, about to begin her night shift. The twenty-year-old had a chest large enough to double as airbags.
Deadly Justice: A Legal Thriller (Tex Hunter Book 4) Page 5
