Undetermined Death : A Legal Thriller (Ashley Montgomery Book 2)

by Laura Snider

  “We understand,” Isaac said.

  “I’d like to get a little background on you and your family.”

  Isaac nodded.

  “How many children do you have?”

  “None anymore.”

  The guy had disowned his only child. Even before her conviction. Katie was struck with a sudden pang of empathy for Rachel. The girl truly was alone in the world. Much as Katie had been ever since she was sixteen. Rachel was eighteen, but in today’s world, that still felt like a child. Katie shook her head, reminding herself of Rachel’s horrendous actions. The girl was nothing like Katie had been as a child. Katie had to make tough decisions, but she never physically harmed anyone. Rachel had. She’d killed a helpless baby.

  George tapped his fingers on the table. “Rachel was an only child?”

  “Yes.”

  “By choice or circumstance?”

  Isaac’s eyes drifted toward his wife. “Circumstance. My wife couldn’t have more than the one. We tried. I wanted a boy, you see. But something is wrong with her body.”

  “Miscarriages?” Katie asked.

  Isaac ignored Katie entirely, directing his answer to George. “The babies all died in the first trimester. Something about a hostile environment.”

  “Did that upset you?” Katie stared right at Lyndsay as she spoke, but the woman made no move to answer.

  “It bothered me back then,” Isaac said to George as though they were the only two in the room. “Miscarriage after miscarriage. But knowing my wife, they would have all ended up as girls anyway. Seeing how Rachel turned out, I wish I would have stuck with no kids.”

  Me. I. My. The world revolved around Isaac Smithson, at least in his eyes. Katie’s gaze traveled toward Lyndsay, who was sitting so still she looked petrified. Her eyes remained trained on her intertwined fingers, cast downward in a demure fashion. Deference to her husband. Katie would get no answers from her. At least not while her husband was around.

  “So, just the one child,” George said. “Do you want grandchildren?”

  Isaac shook his head. “We won’t have any. The only chance was that one sitting there in the morgue. Rachel won’t get knocked up where she’s going. I hear she has a public defender representing her. A woman. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that girl is getting out of jail.”

  Isaac was underestimating Ashley. A mistake that far too many had made in the past. But Katie wasn’t going to correct him. He’d find out once he came face-to-face with the local public defender.

  “Did you know Rachel was pregnant?” George asked.

  Isaac sat up straighter and Lyndsay twisted her hands in her lap. This was the million-dollar question. One asked in all the news coverage and debated in the rumor mill down at Genie’s Diner. Everyone wanted to know the parents’ role in Rachel’s crime. If they knew, they could have done something. Found a doctor and provided prenatal care for Rachel. Kept closer tabs on their girl. Any small change might have resulted in the birth of a healthy baby.

  “No,” Isaac said, slowly yet firmly. “We knew nothing.”

  Katie could hardly believe that an eighteen-year-old could hide a full pregnancy, but it was possible if Rachel hadn’t gotten very big. It was approaching winter, the season for large, baggy clothes.

  “Who is the father of the child?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “You don’t have any ideas? No boyfriends? Friends who might have turned into something more?”

  “None that I knew about. But she was in school. Who knows what kind of trouble she got up to while there?”

  The school would know, Katie thought, but did not say.

  “If you ask me, that school counselor was a little too interested in her. He kept pulling her out of class. Talking to her. She didn’t have anything to say, but he kept trying.”

  School counselor? Katie wrote on her notepad.

  That was easy enough to follow up on. There should be records at the school. She hoped the school counselor didn’t turn out to be the baby’s father. Or any adult, for that matter. Rachel was seventeen when she conceived. A minor. An adult paramour would complicate the prosecution. Create sympathy for a girl who didn’t deserve any.

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.” Isaac pressed his palms into his eyes. “Well, actually, yes.”

  “Who?”

  “There was a guy who spent some time hanging around the house. He was in his twenties.” Isaac paused to think for a moment, then nodded. “Early to mid-twenties. He would stroll by the house around the time that Rachel was walking home from school. I told him to stay away from her, but he kept turning up.”

  “Who was it?” George asked.

  Katie sat up straight, pen poised and ready to jot down the name.

  “I don’t know his name. He was a police officer from one of the Des Moines suburbs.”

  “Do you know which suburb?”

  “No. But like I said, he was young. In his twenties.”

  It was a hint, but it didn’t narrow the field all that much. Des Moines was a city of suburbs. There was Ankeny, Clive, Urbandale, West Des Moines, Waukee, Pleasant Hill, Altoona, Norwalk, and Grimes. And those were just the names that instantly came to mind. There were more. Thousands of police officers in the Des Moines area would fit Isaac’s limited description.

  “How about clubs or after-school programs?”

  “None. Rachel went to school and came home. She was a loner.”

  Katie clicked her pen, then leaned forward. “How about other people? Did anyone else visit your house regularly?”

  Rachel’s baby had a father. It wasn’t immaculate conception, that was for sure. The lab would test the baby’s DNA, but unless the father was a felon or his DNA was already on file for some other reason, there was little chance they’d match it to anyone.

  Isaac’s cool gray gaze slowly slid toward Katie. His lip curled into a sneer. For a moment, Katie thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he did.

  “Nobody,” Isaac said. “I keep everyone off my property. Even cops.”

  Katie narrowed her eyes. “Why cops?”

  “I told you one has been hanging around my house, waiting for Rachel. I heard what happened around here with that John Jackie fella. The guy worked for you and he was a serial killer. I’m not letting the devil in through my front door. Especially if they are hiring people like you.”

  Katie knew that he meant women. She had more talent and intellect in her pinky finger than he did in his whole body. And women, including Katie, were perceptive, a gift that Katie used to her advantage in investigations. It often took a while with witnesses, but she could differentiate between lies and truths.

  Katie’s instincts told her that this man was lying. But why? It could be something as simple as a desire to make himself look better. Or it could be something far worse.

  3

  Ashley

  “Hi, Elena,” Ashley called as she stepped through the front door of the public defender’s office.

  Elena was the office manager, a new hire who was already proving invaluable. She was in her early twenties, tall with long, flowing dark hair, and a high-school graduate with no college training. But Ashley hadn’t been looking for degrees on a resume when she’d made the hiring decision. What Ashley needed was smart and discreet. Elena was both of those things.

  “Hey, Ashley,” Elena said in her sing-song voice.

  Ashley had never quite understood how Elena could manage so much happiness. Her life had not been easy. She lived in constant fear of losing her parents. She was born in America, but her parents were undocumented. Their lifestyle was entirely dependent on a president they didn’t get to choose.

  Ashley wished she could do something for the family, but immigration was an extremely specialized area of the law. She had never done that kind of work. It was probably best for Elena’s family to continue hiding in plain sight anyway.

  “Any mail?”

  Elena pointed
to a side table. A stack of envelopes lay beside a stunning bouquet of flowers and two unopened boxes. “From your fan club.”

  The gifts had been coming every few days since Ashley had participated in an interview with Iowa Public Radio. The interview was mostly about her wrongful incarceration and attempted murder by a Brine police officer last year, but Ashley had also used it as a springboard to fundraise.

  Her efforts had paid off, literally. She’d received enough donations to hire Elena and keep her on indefinitely. But as Ashley’s mother used to say, Nothing is free. The cost of the interview had been the flock of men who heard her story, looked her up, and decided that she was the woman for them.

  Ashley groaned and grabbed a pair of scissors, heading toward the pile of mail. The flowers had no note, which Ashley appreciated. If she read one more I love you from a stranger, she might just lose her mind. These men were infatuated. It was not love. Tom hadn’t even told her that he loved her yet and they had been dating for ten months. But that relationship had been rocky lately, so maybe he never would.

  She turned her attention to the boxes and ran scissors along the tape of the first one. Inside were two heart-shaped boxes of assorted chocolates, store-bought and sealed.

  “One for you.” She handed a box to Elena. “And one for me.”

  “Thanks,” Elena said.

  Ashley turned to the second box. The return label listed an address and name that she recognized. Tom Archie. A smile spread across her lips. Two weeks had passed since Tom had learned about the gifts from her admirers. It was the basis of another—she wouldn’t call it an argument—passive-aggressive exchange of words. He was bothered by other men sending her gifts.

  This was the second box he had sent this week. Apparently, he’d decided to add himself to her list of suitors. It was a kind gesture, she supposed, even though it was motivated by jealousy. It didn’t make up for all the weirdness that had been settling between them, but it helped.

  Ashley ran the scissors along the packing tape, slicing it in two, then popped the top. Inside, she found a second box, smooth and white. A box made for gifting. She lifted the lid, and the sweet scent of homemade candies filled the air. An envelope fluttered to the floor.

  “Is that another box of candies?” Elena said, coming up to Ashley’s side.

  Ashley nodded. Tom had never baked anything for her. The fact that he had now meant something. The first box of chocolates had been fantastic, but she would have appreciated the gift even if the candy tasted like ashes.

  “I didn’t realize he knew his way around a kitchen,” Elena said.

  Elena hadn’t known Tom while he was the jail administrator, back before he and Ashley got together, but she had gotten to know him over the past several months. He was in Brine every Friday afternoon. Ashley was always busy until closing time, so he would sit out front with Elena and chat.

  Ashley shrugged. “Me neither.”

  “They look delicious.”

  Ashley held the box toward Elena. “You’re welcome to try one.”

  “No.” Elena raised her hands. “I couldn’t possibly. He made those for you. Not me. Besides.” She patted her flat stomach. “I’m watching my figure.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” Ashley didn’t understand why girls Elena’s age couldn’t see themselves clearly. Even the thin ones found fault with their bodies.

  “I just need to lose a couple pounds.”

  Ashley shook her head and crouched to pick up the envelope that had fallen from the box. There was no point arguing sense into Elena. Girls her age had been brainwashed by a lifetime of stick figures in “beauty” magazines. “I’ll open this one in my office,” Ashley said, holding up the envelope.

  “I would, too,” Elena said, waggling her eyebrows.

  In the short span of time that Elena and Ashley had been working together, they had developed a friendship. Ashley welcomed it. Elena had scores of friends, so one more probably didn’t mean much to her. She was an open book that everyone wanted to read. Ashley, on the other hand, was like a lockbox.

  “Before you go,” Elena said, “I wanted to tell you that I have that new case file ready.”

  “Rachel Smithson?”

  Elena nodded. Due to the volume of cases, their office was always running a little behind with the creation of files. “That’s the one. It’s sitting on your desk.”

  “I just saw Rachel.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “She’s…ummm…” Ashley searched for the right word to describe Rachel. “Odd.”

  “That’s to be expected, right? I mean, normal people don’t have babies alone in a hotel room, then check out and return home like nothing happened.”

  “True,” Ashley said.

  Elena had worked for Ashley long enough to know better than to assume a defendant’s guilt. But the facts she had outlined were incontrovertible. Rachel’s behavior was strange, whether she was the cause of her child’s death or not.

  “Thanks for getting the file ready,” Ashley said, patting Elena on the shoulder. There was no use focusing on unanswerable questions. “You’ve been doing some good work here. I don’t know how I ever managed without you.”

  A year earlier, Ashley had no support staff. She didn’t have the budget. The public defender’s office was an arm of the government, which meant that the legislature held the purse strings. Funding for criminal defense was unpopular in good years, but the economy had taken a downturn and Ashley watched helplessly as her funding disappeared. But she had found a way to outsmart the legislature. Thanks to Iowa Public Radio, she’d been able to cut out the middleman and go straight to the people.

  Ashley turned toward the hallway leading to her office. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  “Right-o,” Elena said, making the okay sign with her fingers.

  Ashley headed toward her office, positioned in the back of the old building. Several empty offices lay ahead of it, spots Ashley hoped to eventually fill. There had once been another defense attorney in the employ of the Brine public defender’s office, Jacob Matthews, but he had left for a corporate counsel position several months ago.

  When Ashley reached her office, she collapsed into her old but extremely comfortable chair and placed the box of treats from Tom on her heavily scratched desk. Taking two candies from the box, she popped one in her mouth and chewed. She groaned with pleasure. It was so good. Just like the first box of candy he had sent. She popped a second one in her mouth and turned to Tom’s letter. It read, I will do better, in Tom’s familiar, slanted scrawl.

  Oh, Tom, she thought with a sigh. They both needed to “do better,” but the question was how? The box of chocolates, while an appreciated gesture, wouldn’t solve anything. She needed to talk to him. Glancing at the clock, she decided it was time to try his cell again. She dialed Tom’s number and waited. It rang two times, then went to voicemail.

  “Hi, it’s me,” Ashley said. “Call me back.” She tried to keep her voice breezy but failed miserably. Could he blame her? He was the one complaining about her failure to make time for him, but he hadn’t been answering her calls either. It was hypocritical.

  She tossed her phone aside and turned to Rachel’s file. The arraignment was later that day. The first page of the file was the indictment. The caption read “State of Iowa, Plaintiff, vs. Rachel Smithson, Defendant.” Rachel’s mug shot was below her case number, FECR015987. In the picture, Rachel’s head was tilted down, her eyes shifted away from the camera. Her ruby lips were frozen in something between a smile and a frown.

  Ashley flipped the page and turned to the Minutes of Testimony. The Minutes were a list of witnesses and a short excerpt of their expected testimony created and signed by Charles Hanson, the lead prosecutor in the county. The Board of County Supervisors appointed Charles as county attorney after Elizabeth Clement’s arrest a year earlier.

  The list of names in the Minutes of Testimony was expected. A clerk at the hotel where the body
was found. Several members of the night cleaning staff. A seemingly endless list of officers, including Katie Mickey and George Thomanson. A medical examiner. Rachel’s father. But not Rachel’s mother.

  Ashley made a notation on her legal pad. Mother sympathetic? It was a longshot considering Lyndsay Smithson hadn’t attempted to reach her daughter since her arrest.

  Turning back to the Minutes of Testimony, Ashley noticed a second obvious and glaring name missing from the list. The father of Rachel’s unnamed baby. It wasn’t by accident. Nobody knew his identity, yet everyone was speculating. A few Waukee high school students appeared on the national news, claiming he or she knew someone who knew someone who said Rachel had a boyfriend. There were rumors about teachers, but no names had surfaced.

  A few days ago, several female students who lived near Rachel started mentioning a police officer. None had been able to describe him past, “He was hot, that’s why I noticed him.” This mysterious officer raised questions that nobody seemed interested in answering. Nobody except Ashley.

  It could be a dead end, or it could lead to a viable defense. Either way, Ashley couldn’t ignore it. She would start with the Waukee Police Department, which kept records of all dispatched officers. It would be easy to find out who might have gone to the Smithson residence in an official capacity.

  4

  Ashley

  “Hold still,” Ashley said as she sectioned off a chunk of Rachel’s long hair. It was 12:45, and there wasn’t much time before they needed to leave for Rachel’s arraignment hearing.

  Rachel squeezed her eyes shut as Ashley brought the scissors close to her face.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Ashley said in the most soothing tone she could muster. “Just a little snip and we’ll be done.”