Chapter 27
Jackson walked into Chen’s office to find both Chen and Brunelle waiting for him. Brunelle wasn’t about to accuse a cop of lying—a detective, and falsifying a police report, no less—without a witness. And backup. Chen was perfect. Brunelle trusted him. So did Jackson.
“Oh, uh, hey,” Jackson started when he saw Brunelle. “What’s going on, Larry? You didn’t tell me Mr. D.A.-man would be here.”
“Hey, Tim,” Brunelle greeted the detective.
Chen shrugged. “Yeah, well, this meeting was Dave’s idea. He just wanted…” he thought for a moment, “…to do it here at the precinct. So I volunteered my office.”
Jackson nodded slowly, then sat down in the one guest chair that was unoccupied. “Geez, you’re a terrible liar, Larry. How do you ever get anyone to confess?”
Chen chuckled. “Personal charm, I guess.”
“He’s not lying, Tim,” Brunelle interjected. “I did want to do it here. It’s sensitive. I thought it would be better if we did it on your home turf.”
Jackson frowned and jerked a thumb toward the door. “My home turf is down the hall. This is Larry’s turf. What the hell is going on?”
Brunelle hesitated, looking to Chen for guidance.
Chen just shook his head lightly and gestured toward Jackson. “Just tell him, Dave. No games. We’re all grown-ups here.”
Jackson looked back to Brunelle and raised an expectant eyebrow.
Brunelle took a breath then exhaled. “Robyn Dunn said you lied in your police report. She said Keller never said she was there for the shooting and never identified Hernandez as the shooter.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jackson sat forward in his chair. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He looked to Chen. “Is he fucking kidding me?”
Chen shook his head. “I don’t think he’s kidding you, Tim.”
“I’m not kidding you,” Brunelle confirmed. “That’s what she told me. She got a copy of your report from Jacobsen and then stormed into my office.”
“My unofficial, unapproved report?” Jackson asked indignantly. “The one I emailed to your partner without question when she said she needed it immediately? The one that isn’t supposed to go out until it’s been approved? The one I violated policy to get to you because you needed it because that’s what you do when someone on your team needs help? That report? That fucking report?”
Brunelle managed a tight smile and a nod. “Yeah, that fucking report.”
Jackson crossed his arm and leaned back again in his chair. He looked away. “Nice. That’s what I get for doing someone a favor, I guess.”
“Does it matter that it wasn’t approved?” Brunelle asked. “Is that why there’s a disconnect between what you wrote and what Robyn told me?”
“Robyn, huh?” Jackson turned back to Brunelle. “Not Ms. Dunn, but Robyn. Nice. No, there’s no disconnect. What I wrote in that report was the truth, the absolute truth. Having some fucking lieutenant approve it doesn’t change what’s in it. I know what Sammy said and she said Hernandez was the shooter.”
“Did she say she saw it?” Brunelle followed up.
Jackson narrowed his eyes at Brunelle. “What does my report say?”
Brunelle didn’t need to look at a copy of it. He’d memorized it before daring this. “It says she saw it.”
“Then she saw it,” Jackson growled through clenched teeth.
Brunelle wasn’t sure where to go next. It wasn’t like he’d expected Jackson to admit fabricating a police report. Then again, he wasn’t really sure what he’d expected. And he didn’t want to make an enemy of Jackson.
“Okay.” Brunelle raised his palms. “That’s all I needed to hear. The defense attorney told me something I had to follow up on. I followed up on it. We’re done. Thanks.”
Jackson’s expression softened too. He relaxed his body. “No worries, Dave. I get it. We both have jobs to do. But I take my job just as seriously as you do. I want to put the bad guys away. Why would I risk that by lying about some penny-ante snitch we don’t even really need?”
Brunelle wasn’t sure they didn’t really need Samantha Keller. But he supposed he was going to find out, because there was no way in hell Robyn was going to let her testify for the state.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Brunelle replied. “Like I said, a defense attorney tells me something like that, I gotta follow up on it. But now I’ve followed up and we’re good.”
But Jackson continued to defend himself. “I took detailed notes. Everything in that report is one hundred percent accurate. I told you she’d talk if it was just me and her and no recorder, and she did. Now, she reads the report and realizes Burner’s gonna know she sold him out, so she tells her attorney that wasn’t what she really meant. That’s why she didn’t want to be recorded. So she could change her story. She’s just scared of Hernandez, that’s all.”
Brunelle nodded throughout. Then he asked the one thing he cared about from Jackson’s soliloquy. “Where are the notes?”
Jackson cocked his head. “What?”
“The notes,” Brunelle repeated. “Your notes of the interview. Where are they?” He could show them to Robyn. Get her to understand it was just a misunderstanding. Maybe she was misremembering the interview.
Jackson took a moment before answering. “I destroyed them.”
“What?” Brunelle threw his hands up. “Why did you destroy them?”
“Standard procedure,” Jackson answered. He glanced to Chen for support. “I put everything in my notes into the report. No need to keep the notes any more, so I destroyed them. That’s Seattle P.D. policy.”
Brunelle looked to Chen as well.
Chen shrugged. “The policy doesn’t require that we destroy our notes. But it allows it. Once it makes it into an official report, we can destroy the notes. We can’t keep every last thing we ever write down.”
Maybe not every last thing, Brunelle conceded to himself. But the interview of an eyewitness to a murder?
“I wish you’d kept them,” Brunelle said instead. “I could show them to Robyn.”
Jackson’s expression hardened again. “What? My word isn’t good enough? You believe your girlfriend over me?”
Brunelle was taken aback. “She’s, she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Not any more, maybe,” Jackson scoffed. “But everybody knows you two hooked up.”
Brunelle was speechless. He looked to Chen for support, but got none.
Chen just shrugged. “Seattle may be a big city now,” he said, “but the cops and courts are still a small community. Word gets around.”
Brunelle wanted to protest, but he couldn’t. “Okay, fine. Maybe we did hook up. Once. A long time ago. Well, before this case anyway. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you. I just—”
“Sure,” Jackson laughed. “That had nothing to do with it. Let me ask you this: would you be here if it had been Wilkins’ attorney?”
“Jessica Edwards?” Brunelle confirmed. “I’d look into it too.”
“What about the others?” Jackson pressed. “That Lannigan guy? Or Rainaldi?”
“Rainaldi?” Brunelle thought. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. And Lannigan? No. I’d just figure he fell asleep, or was texting during the interview.”
“Jacobsen?” Jackson asked.
“Lying,” Brunelle answered.
Jackson crossed his arms smugly. “So it does matter that it was a girlfriend?”
“It matters that it was someone I’ve come to trust professionally,” Brunelle replied.
“More than a detective with nearly twenty years’ experience?” Jackson demanded.
Brunelle thought for a moment. “No, I guess not.”
Jackson nodded. “Thank you.”
Brunelle thought for a few more moments. “Don’t mention it.”
Chapter 28
Brunelle wasn’t sure whom he could trust. And that wasn’t just the detectives.
Where it really mattered w
as the witnesses. The codefendants. The accomplices. The murderers. How could Brunelle decide which accomplices to murder deserved a break? And more importantly—although it probably shouldn’t have been more important—which accomplices to murder could he trust when they took the stand at the trials of the other murderers? Even an accomplice who deserved a break wasn’t going to get one if Brunelle couldn’t trust what they might say or do when they got in front of the jury.
The motion to sever was two days away and he still hadn’t made his final decision on which defendants to endorse as witnesses and split from the others. It was classic internal bargaining. He wanted to work with Keller and Fuller. But he was going to have to work with Rittenberger and Ashford. He was trying to avoid the decision he didn’t want to make. And procrastination could lead to late nights.
“Hey, Dave.” Carlisle knocked lightly on his open door. “What are you doing here so late? It’s after six. Shouldn’t you be getting your beauty rest for the big hearing?”
Brunelle had been curled over his desk, head on his hands, staring at the hectic scribbles and arrows he’d been sketching out on his legal pad. He straightened up and rubbed his eyes. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Carlisle put a fist on her hip. “You think I need beauty rest?”
Brunelle closed his eyes for a moment. Maybe he didn’t miss having a girlfriend after all. “That’s not what I meant. I—”
Carlisle laughed. “I’m just kidding, Dave. Geez, relax. I know women can be impossible sometimes, but not right now. And for the record, so can men.”
“Okay,” Brunelle answered. “So you stayed late to give me cryptic relationship advice?”
“No, silly,” Carlisle laughed. “I stayed late because I have a full caseload of burglary cases, plus our little endeavor. I just stopped by to see if you were still here.”
Brunelle glanced around his office. “Yep, I’m still here.”
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to figure out some way to proceed that doesn’t rely on Josh Rittenberger.”
A chuckle from Carlisle. “And how’s that going?”
Brunelle grimaced. “You know the case. What do you think?”
“I think…” Carlisle raised a thoughtful hand to her chin, “you should stop trying to figure everything out on your own. We’re supposed to be a team, remember?”
“I know,” Brunelle allowed. He ran a hand over his head. “I guess I just have trouble giving up control sometimes.”
“Ya think?” Carlisle teased. Then she threw him a quick nod. “Is that what happened between you and Robyn? She doesn’t seem like the type who would want to be controlled.”
Brunelle wasn’t ready for that direct of a question, or observation. “Uh, well, it was a little more complicated than that.”
Carlisle nodded. “Yeah, women are complicated. Again, so can men be. But women? Yeah…”
Brunelle wasn’t sure what to make of their conversation. He was usually ready to read flirting into almost any interaction with a woman. Somehow, though, it seemed to be missing just then despite the subject matter.
“So, you wanna figure it out over dinner?” Carlisle suggested.
“My relationship with Robyn?” Brunelle asked.
Carlisle shook her head. “No, dummy. Our case. Who to cut deals with, so we can convict the rest. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. That,” Brunelle answered. “Right. Uh, sure. Another imaginary Vietnamese place in Lake City?”
“Hey, that place turned out to be real,” Carlisle defended. “I just didn’t know that when we started. How about a real Mexican place on Capitol Hill? I’ll drive.”
Brunelle nodded. “Capitol Hill?” Where Robyn lived. Maybe she’d see them together. He sighed. “Sounds great.”
* * *
“So,” Brunelle started the shop-talk after ordering the enchiladas verdes and handing his menu to the waiter, “how are we going to discuss secret plans on an active murder case in a crowded restaurant?”
“Easy,” Carlisle responded over her water glass. “We use my code names. Remember?”
Brunelle smiled. “Oh, yeah. I liked those. But I’m not sure I remember them all.”
“Well, we start with ‘Shooter,’” Carlisle reminded him.
Brunelle nodded. “Right, although Shooter already has a nickname.”
“Right, but that nickname is what people actually call him,” Carlisle explained. “So it’s like it’s his real name. We should stick with Shooter.”
“Agreed,” Brunelle said.
At that point, the waiter arrived with their drinks. A margarita for Carlisle and a whiskey, neat, for Brunelle. He was glad they hadn’t said ‘Burner’ after all. For all he knew, the waiter used to get his drugs from Hernandez too.
“Who’s next?” Carlisle asked, before taking a sip of her drink.
Brunelle thought for a moment. “Girlfriend. But that went sideways pretty bad. So I don’t think that’s going to work out.” He took a drink of his own.
“Yeah…” Carlisle nodded. “Okay, moving on, what about Harpy?”
Brunelle thought for a moment. “You know, I almost think Harpy would have been our best witness, if only Lannigan—” He stopped himself. “Wait, can we use the attorneys’ names?”
Carlisle considered for a moment, aided by another sip of margarita. “I vote no. It could compromise the identity of our targets. Let’s just call them ‘Harpy’s attorney’ and ‘Junkie’s attorney’ and like that.”
“Good call,” Brunelle agreed. “Okay, so yeah, Harpy would probably have been the best. She wasn’t high, at least as far as we know. And she doesn’t seem to have any particular loyalty to Shooter.”
“But her attorney is a weak sack of shit,” Carlisle observed.
Brunelle cocked his head, then laughed. “Well, yes. I believe that sums it up.”
“So that leaves Junkie and Siren,” Carlisle said.
“And Manager,” Brunelle reminded her. “He talked too.”
Carlisle rolled her eyes. “That Murder on the Orient Express story? We should have called him the Fiction Writer.”
“Yeah, if we give that story to the jury,” Brunelle opined, “they’ll acquit everyone just to get back at us for being stupid enough to believe him.”
Carlisle’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you think he’ll take the stand at the trial and actually tell that same story?”
“I hope so,” Brunelle replied before taking another sip. Mexican restaurants weren’t usually known for their whiskey selection, but he’d had worse. “Then the jury will know he’s lying.”
“And if he changes his story,” Carlisle observed, “we can impeach him with his crazy, Hercule Poirot fantasy.”
“Exactly,” Brunelle said. “Win-win.”
“Which is why he’ll never testify,” Carlisle supposed.
“Probably not,” Brunelle agreed. “And definitely not for us.”
“So it’s settled then,” Carlisle declared. “We endorse Junkie and Siren as the state’s witnesses and agree to the severance of Junkie’s trial from the others.”
“And we object to the severance of the remaining defendants from each other,” Brunelle continued, “so we only have to try the case once.”
Carlisle raised her glass. “Hear, hear.”
But Brunelle didn’t raise his glass to hers. He had fallen into his own thoughts. “I just wish we could have worked it out with Keller,” he complained. “That would have been the best possible result.”
Carlisle lowered her glass again and shook her head at him. “Because she would have given us the best testimony for the jury?” she asked. “Or because you would have gotten to work closely with Robyn Dunn?”
Brunelle had sipped too much of the whiskey to be able to pretend she wasn’t right. So he didn’t reply at all.
“You seem like you’re still pretty hung up on her,” Carlisle observed. “I mean, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
B
runelle shook his head. He could hardly mind someone telling him the truth. Well, he shouldn’t mind anyway. And for some reason he didn’t mind it coming from Carlisle.
“Were you guys together a long time?” she asked.
“No, actually,” Brunelle admitted. “In fact, the whole thing was pretty fleeting. A lot of buildup, but then it was over before I knew it. Maybe that’s why it still bugs me. It didn’t last long enough for us to get sick of each other.”
“Yeah,” Carlisle replied. Rather than meet Brunelle’s little joke with a laugh, she gave it a nod. She took another drink of her margarita, and for the first time opened up to Brunelle about her own personal life. “I was with Chris for almost ten years. We finally got married last year, but I think we were just trying to save something we both knew was over. Six months later we filed for divorce. It was simple enough—no fight over the property, no kids—but it still hurt. It always hurts when something ends, even when you know it should.”
Brunelle took a sip of his own drink. “Especially after ten years, I would guess.” He’d never been in that committed of a relationship.
“Yeah,” Carlisle answered. “And then you realize you’d put all of your emotional energy into that one person. When you emerge, you have to start all over. New house, new plans, new friends.” She stopped for a moment, then raised her glass again at Brunelle. “It’s nice to have a new friend to grab dinner with.”
Brunelle smiled and this time raised his glass. “Yes, it is.”
Chapter 29
“Are the parties ready on the defendants’ motions to sever for trial?” Quinn asked from her perch above the courtroom.
Just like last time, she had taken the bench at the stroke of nine. And just like last time, there were five defendants, seven attorneys, and enough jail guards to keep everyone on good behavior. Unlike last time, however, no one was seated in the jury box. Quinn had made arrangements for extra tables to be brought in. The prosecution table was shoved almost against the jury box, with the five defendants having to share three tables set up in an L-shape. There was barely enough room. The gap between the prosecution table and the defense tables was less than two feet; Jacobsen was practically sitting on Brunelle’s lap.
Accomplice Liability Page 16
