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

by Laura Snider

  Ashley shook her head, reminding herself that it was all in the past. Lydia was gone. A relic of a lost world. A past life. Then she descended the stairs to the main level of her home where it smelled of fresh coffee. Auto-brew set to a timer last night. Ashley inhaled deeply. The aroma was happy, warm. She wished she could suck the feeling inside her, bottle it up, and keep it in that empty space usually occupied by thoughts of Tom.

  She selected a coffee cup that had lines like a legal notebook and the word “no” inscribed on it. One simple word, but it held such power, such strength. That’s what she should tell Tom next time he called, if he ever called. Then she’d hang up.

  The payback would feel good for a moment. Much in the same way she’d felt after telling Tom not to come that weekend. It felt wonderful to say at the time, to dole out punishment for all the bottled-up anger he’d caused, but later it had twisted into the heavy acid that now ate away at her stomach. It was a lesson that she’d had to learn the hard way. Momentary triumph wasn’t worth it.

  “Are you dogs ready to eat?” Ashley said, turning toward her two loyal friends.

  Finn wagged his tail and Princess yipped, spinning two times before sitting back on her haunches. Ashley filled both bowls with kibble, then sipped her coffee as she watched them eat. Finn ate daintily, one kernel at a time. Princess scarfed her food down, swallowing many of the pieces whole.

  “I hear you, sister,” Ashley said as she patted Princess on the head. “I could stress eat an elephant right now.”

  It took Finn a full ten minutes to finish his breakfast. When he was done, Ashley opened the front door to let the dogs out. They dashed outside, leaping and soaring over something sitting on the front porch. Ashley moved closer to get a better look. It was a package. A white box tied with a red ribbon. Not something USPS or UPS would bring. Someone had dropped it off at her doorstep.

  Ashley took a step back, her insides twisting with fear. Her first thought was of that psycho who had grabbed her arm after Rachel’s sentencing. Had he figured out where she lived? She looked to her left, then to her right, but nobody seemed to be around.

  Calm down, she told herself. You’re jumpy today.

  After all, she couldn’t leave it sitting on the front porch forever. Sooner or later, she’d have to deal with it. She picked up the package and shook it. Multiple small items bounced around inside.

  At least it isn’t a bomb, she thought. Although her training in bomb detection was nil, so it wasn’t exactly an expert’s opinion.

  She shrugged and brought it inside. Sliding the ribbon off, she closed one eye and held the box as far from her body as she could. Slowly, ever so gingerly, she lifted the lid. She held her breath for a long, tense moment. No boom.

  After a moment, she opened both eyes and stared at the contents. A white letter sat on top of red tissue paper. She grabbed the letter, flipping it over. No words on the outside. She opened it cautiously, half expecting anthrax to fall out but finding none. It was just a simple letter in familiar handwriting. It read, Sorry. And was signed with Tom’s signature.

  Ashley dug into the tissue paper, finding another box of homemade candies. They looked to be assorted, some with caramel, some with nuts, like Tom had put a good deal of effort into them.

  “What?” Ashley said aloud, turning back to the letter. She looked from one side to the other, flipping it back and forth as though the movement would unlock a secret message. But no, no secrets. Just one lousy word that didn’t mean much without more context.

  “Sorry for what?” she said. There were so many things that required apologies. Was this for all of them? One of them? If so, which one?

  She dug in the box, hoping to find a second letter. There was none.

  “What. The. Literal. Fuck,” Ashley growled.

  Was Tom messing with her? Why would he drive all the way to Brine to leave a box on her doorstep? Why hadn’t he knocked on the door and hand-delivered it? It was completely asinine. If it was a grand gesture, it had fallen flat. Nothing grand about this one at all.

  She could spend all morning wondering at his meaning, but luckily, she didn’t have time for that. If she was going to make it to Rachel’s deposition by nine, she needed to get on the road. She tossed the box in the passenger seat of her SUV and backed out of the driveway. She’d eat it later. Or perhaps never. Maybe she’d toss all the candies in the trash. That would show him. Except he wouldn’t see her do it, so that would make it less satisfying.

  Ashley drove the first several miles ignoring the box of chocolates. Then her eyes slowly drifted toward it. Her stomach growled. She’d fed the dogs, but she hadn’t eaten anything herself. It wasn’t ideal, but she decided she’d eat a couple pieces, just enough to tide her over until lunch.

  The breakfast of champions, she thought as she tossed the first one in her mouth.

  12

  Katie

  “You’ve done this before, right?” Ashley’s voice was as cold as the cement walls of the jail surrounding them.

  It was always that way when Katie came face to face with the defense attorney while in their professional capacities. It was Monday morning, nine o’clock sharp, the time slated for Katie’s deposition. Ashley and her client sat across a long, heavy table from Katie and the prosecutor, Charles Hanson. The court reporter, a middle-aged woman named Nancy, occupied the seat at the head of the table. Nancy typically had a jolly personality and an easy smile, but even her mood was affected by the tension in the room.

  “A deposition?” Katie quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah. I’ve given plenty. I believe my last one was by you. Charlotte Spark’s case.”

  Charlotte, too, was a killer. Although she’d chosen poison instead of drowning. Katie’s eyes darted toward Ashley’s client. Rachel’s hands and feet were bound in chains, tucked under the table. The girl was slumped forward so far that her dark, stick-straight hair blanketed her face, obscuring her expression.

  “That was…” Ashley tapped the end of her pen against her lips. “Six months or so ago, right?”

  “Yeah. A black widow case. The defendant poisoned her husband with arsenic.” Katie didn’t have to say allegedly anymore. That jury had rendered a quick guilty verdict. Charlotte was rotting away in Mitchellville, the only women’s prison in Iowa. A life sentence. Her only opportunity for release was in a body bag.

  “You are employed by the Brine Police Department?”

  “Yes. I’ve been working for the Brine PD for six years.”

  “What is your current position?”

  Katie narrowed her eyes. “Patrol officer.” Ashley knew Chief Carmichael had passed Katie up for the detective promotion. She also knew it was a sore subject.

  “Are there any detectives?”

  “Yes,” Katie said through gritted teeth. She didn’t know where Ashley was going with her questioning unless her purpose was to get under Katie’s skin. If that was the case, her efforts were working. “George.”

  “George Thomanson?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was involved in your interview with my client, Rachel Smithson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you bring a copy of that recording with you?”

  “Yes.” Katie slid a disk across the table.

  Ashley caught it with nimble fingers and flashed a smile. Not her mocking, lawyer smile, but the one she reserved for Katie when they were off duty. When they were able to be friends.

  That small display of gratefulness eased some of the tension building in Katie’s shoulders. She had been annoyed that she had to track the disk down at all. Getting her hands on it over the weekend hadn’t been easy. She’d already turned it over to Charles. One might think it was as simple as calling him and requesting a copy, but it wasn’t.

  Katie’s eyes darted toward the prosecutor sitting next to her, checking to see if he had a reaction to the disk, an apology for wasting her time, perhaps, but he wasn’t even paying attention. He only cared about the disk when he thought he
could keep it from Ashley. Now that it was inevitable that she’d get it, he wasn’t interested. He’d brought a newspaper with him to the deposition and was reading it now.

  “Since George Thomanson was the senior officer, the detective, would you agree that he was in charge of the interview?” Ashley asked.

  “I suppose.”

  “When did this interview take place?”

  “As soon as we could track Rachel down.”

  “How did you know that you were looking for Rachel?”

  It was a good question. Katie hadn’t known who Rachel was prior to the investigation.

  “I spoke with the hotel manager. They provided a copy of the video recordings as well as a record of the hotel reservation. The reservation was in Rachel’s name and the person on the recording matched Rachel’s driver’s license photograph.”

  “Is the recording from the hotel on this disk?” Ashley tapped it lightly with her index finger.

  “No.”

  “Can I get a copy of that?”

  Katie’s eyes cut to the prosecutor. She’d given him everything. Apparently, he’d provided nothing to Ashley. “Yes.”

  Charles cleared his throat. “I’ll get you the remainder of discovery by the end of the week.” He didn’t lower his newspaper.

  “Okay,” Ashley said in an annoyed tone. “Was Rachel’s current address on her driver’s license?”

  Katie’s eyes cut to Rachel. The girl hadn’t moved. She sat there, unnaturally still, with her hair covering her face. It was creepy.

  “Yes. We were able to use the address on her driver’s license to track her to her Waukee address.”

  “Did you go straight to Rachel’s home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who answered the door?”

  Katie thought back. It wasn’t a detail that she’d committed to memory. To her, it wasn’t important. “Perhaps Isaac Smithson?” Although the memory was hazy.

  “Rachel’s father?”

  “Yes. I believe Isaac is Rachel’s father.”

  Ashley quirked an eyebrow. Nothing got past her. “You believe?”

  “Well, yes. I haven’t seen Rachel’s birth certificate, so I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty. But all individuals identified Isaac as Rachel’s father.”

  “All individuals, meaning who?”

  “Rachel, Isaac, and Lyndsay.”

  “Lyndsay is…”

  “Rachel’s mom.”

  “Okay.” Ashley sat back and scribbled a few notes onto the second page of her notepad, careful to keep it out of Katie’s line of sight. “So, how would you describe Isaac Smithson’s demeanor at that time?”

  Katie chewed on her lip, trying to remember. His face was beet red. She remembered that clearly. Like he was angry or upset. “He seemed flustered, like I had caught him off guard. Or in the middle of something.” She paused for a long moment. “That’s not unusual, though. The Smithsons are not the type of people who have law enforcement knocking on their door regularly.”

  “Oh,” Ashley said, leaning forward, “and what type of people have law enforcement at their door regularly?”

  It was a challenge. A barely veiled reference to racism and classism in law enforcement. It was also bullshit. Ashley knew Katie was fair to everyone. Or at least she thought Ashley knew that. “You know what I meant. I’m not a Waukee police officer so I don’t know for sure, but I doubt there are any calls to service at that residence.”

  A call to service meant the number of times local law enforcement had to respond to a residence, no matter the reason. It could be 911 calls, welfare checks, child abuse complaints, or reports made to the tip line.

  “You doubt? Does that mean you haven’t checked?”

  “I don’t know why I would check. This is a case about a baby discarded in a hotel room by your client. It doesn’t matter how many times the Waukee PD has been to the Smithson residence.”

  “It doesn’t?” Ashley wrote another note, slowly this time, dragging it out for dramatic reasons. “Why not?”

  “Rachel’s baby wasn’t ever there.”

  Ashley nodded. “Because you agree that a fetus is not a baby. Meaning that a fetus is not a living person under the law.”

  “Under the law, no. At least not the current law.”

  There was talk that the Iowa legislature was going to try to redefine the definition of life, but that hadn’t happened yet.

  “Do you know why Rachel came to Brine to have her baby?”

  “I know why she said she came to Brine. I don’t know that it’s the truth.”

  “Why did she say she came to Brine?”

  Katie looked at the girl again. Rachel was as still as a statue. “She said it was the first town she’d come to. She didn’t know where she was. She knew she was in labor and wanted to have the baby somewhere private.”

  Ashley cocked her head. “Private from whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was a good question. Katie wondered if it had something to do with the police officer Isaac claimed had been hanging around the house. Or perhaps Rachel had always intended to kill her baby and throw him in the garbage. After all, she had hidden the pregnancy for nine months.

  These were the most obvious conclusions to Rachel’s actions. Katie wished that George would have thought to ask during her interview. That was the problem when men headed investigations that involved issues like childbirth. The birthing process and reasons behind birth choices were issues that only women seemed capable of fully understanding.

  “Could it be,” Ashley said, smiling widely, “that the answer could have something to do with the number of calls to service at the Smithsons’ Waukee residence?”

  “I don’t know.” Katie made a mental note to look into it.

  “You. Don’t. Know,” Ashley repeated, emphasizing each word.

  “No. Like I said, I was there to record, not to intervene. George asked the questions. You should ask him. If I had to guess, I would say that Rachel chose to come to Brine because she didn’t want her parents to know about the baby.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because she’d gone through all that trouble to hide her pregnancy from everyone, including her parents.”

  A wry smile spread across Ashley’s face as she leaned forward. “Now, who told you that? It wasn’t Rachel, was it?”

  Katie thought back, trying to remember the details of Rachel’s interview. After a moment, she shook her head. “No. Rachel didn’t say she hid the pregnancy. Isaac did.”

  “Ohh,” Ashley said, raising her eyebrows.

  Ashley had a reason for her questions. She was too far down the rabbit hole for it to be anything other than intentional. Ashley thought there was a defense hidden somewhere inside those calls to service, and she believed it had to do with Isaac or the responding officer. Katie would be a fool to ignore it.

  “Let’s talk about the baby,” Ashley said, switching subjects.

  “Okay.”

  “Have you read through the medical examiner’s report?”

  “No,” Katie answered truthfully. She hadn’t received it yet, and doubted Ashley had either. “I didn’t know it was available.”

  “If you haven’t seen it, then you don’t know the baby’s cause of death, right?”

  Rachel had admitted how she’d killed her baby in her interview. The cause of death was clear. “That’s not true.”

  “Are you a medical doctor?”

  Katie narrowed her eyes. “No. I’m not. But it doesn’t take an MD to put the pieces together. A newborn baby placed face down in a bathtub while the water is running would die by drowning. Nobody, not even newborns, can breathe under water.”

  “So,” Ashley said, a wry smile spreading across her lips, “if the medical examiner’s report comes back stating the cause of death is anything other than drowning, it must be wrong?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Ashley was building up to somet
hing. It felt like a carefully laid trap. “How do you know that the baby was born alive?”

  “I know,” Katie said through clenched teeth, “because your client said she gave birth to a live baby.” She nodded toward Rachel, who flinched at the word baby. “Rachel told George that the baby cried. That means he was alive.” Ashley was on a fishing expedition and Katie didn’t appreciate the attempt to hook her.

  “I didn’t ask what Rachel said. I asked if there is any indication that the child was ever alive.”

  “Yes,” Katie said, her face growing hot. “I don’t have the medical examiner’s report, but I suspect it will confirm that the baby was born alive. To say anything other than that would be pure speculation. All I know is what I have told you.”

  “And that is…”

  “That Rachel said the baby was alive. Which is a pretty good indication that it was a live birth.”

  “Are you certain?” Ashley waggled her eyebrows.

  “I don’t know,” Katie said, crossing her arms. “I am not a doctor, and I haven’t read the report.”

  “So, you’d agree that water must be in the baby’s lungs to indicate a live birth?”

  Katie’s insides boiled. “I said nothing of the sort.”

  Her irritation was growing with each passing second. She was well past annoyed and dangerously close to pissed off. Something in her expression must have gotten through to Ashley, because she then suggested that they take a break.

  “We can keep going today,” Ashley said, glancing at her watch. It was already 11:00 a.m. They’d been at it for two full hours. “I can stretch this out until lunch so that I have time to watch this video, or we can adjourn this deposition with the idea that we will continue at a later date and time.”

  Charles Hanson sighed and lowered his paper, carefully folding it along the proper crease lines. “We can adjourn this time, but I’m not going to do this with every deposition. You should have come prepared. It’s a waste of everyone’s time to recess in the middle of a deposition.”