Accomplice Liability

by Stephen Penner

  The only way she could have looked less interested was if she’d been allowed to chew gum on the stand. Loudly.

  “And how did you know Derrick?’

  Ashford shrugged. “He was just another drug addict who would crash at Burn—Mr. Hernandez’s house.”

  “So you had seen him at Mr. Hernandez and Ms. Keller’s residence?”

  That provoked a glare from Ashford. “Mr. Hernandez paid the bills. All the bills. Ms. Keller,” she pronounced the name in a mocking sing-song, “didn’t pay for shit.”

  Like you? Brunelle thought. Luckily, Carlisle was doing the examination.

  “Okay,” Carlisle soothed. Authenticity was all good and well, but she didn’t want to get bogged down in a heroin-funded love triangle. “Let’s talk a little more about Derrick. How long did you know him?”

  Ashford shrugged. “I don’t know. A while, I guess. It’s kinda hard to say. He was just another guy, ya know?”

  Carlisle nodded. “Of course.” As if she’d spent a lot of time in junkie flop houses. “But you knew him before his death?”

  Ashford nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And were you there the night he died?”

  Another nod, but still no real emotion. “Yeah.” Then, after a moment. “I mean, I didn’t see it or anything. But yeah, I was in the house.”

  “Can you tell us what happened that night?”

  But before Ashford could begin her story, Jacobsen stood up. “Objection, Your Honor. The question calls for a narrative response.”

  Brunelle frowned. Because Jacobsen was right. Lawyers could tell all the stories they wanted, but not witnesses. Witnesses—the ones who really knew what happened—were limited to answering the questions put to them. Specific questions, not ‘tell us what happened’ questions.

  “Objection sustained,” Judge Quinn said. She didn’t wait for a response from Carlisle. Carlisle didn’t bother trying to offer one. “Rephrase your question, counselor.”

  Carlisle nodded and tried again. “Where were you when Derrick was killed?”

  “I was upstairs,” Ashford answered. “Waiting for … Mr. Hernandez.”

  Brunelle shook his head ever so slightly. Even ‘Burner’ would have been better than ‘waiting for Mr. Hernandez.’ In part, because everyone knew what she waiting for.

  “Did Mr. Hernandez ever come upstairs?”

  Ashford shook her head. “No. I went downstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “I heard gunshots.”

  Brunelle smiled slightly. That’s all they really needed from her. Well, that, and what she saw when she came downstairs.

  “And what did you see when you came downstairs?”

  Ashford nodded again, but more to herself, and she closed her eyes as she remembered the scene.

  “Everybody was in the kitchen. Derrick was on the floor, kind of up against the wall. There was a bunch of blood on the wall behind him and on the floor and stuff. Nate was just kind of standing over him. And Sammy was freaking out, screaming something. I don’t know what.”

  Carlisle waited for more, but after a moment had to follow up with, “And what about Mr. Hernandez? Was he there?”

  Ashford frowned slightly. “Yeah,” she admitted quietly.

  “And where was he?”

  The frown deepened. “In the kitchen.”

  Yep, pulling teeth, Brunelle thought. But Carlisle seemed the competent dentist.

  “Where was he in relation to Derrick?”

  Ashford shrugged. “Standing over him, I guess. Kind of next to Nate.”

  “Did you see a gun?”

  Ashford nodded, but didn’t reply audibly.

  “You have to say it out loud,” Carlisle instructed her. “Did you see a gun?”

  “Yes,” Ashford snapped. “Yes, I saw a gun, okay?”

  “And who was holding the gun?”

  Ashford didn’t answer.

  “Who was holding the gun, Amanda?”

  Ashford looked at Hernandez, then at Keller. Brunelle wondered if she’d decide to verbally plant the gun on her romantic rival. There were ways to impeach a witness with her previous statements, but that wasn’t a road they wanted to have to go down. Luckily, Ashford looked back at Hernandez, and then down again. “Mr. Hernandez.”

  Carlisle knew enough to sit down. Difficult witnesses rarely got better with additional questions. She thanked the judge and sat down again. It was time to see how Amanda would hold up under cross examination. Jacobsen, per usual, was first. He stood up and approached Ashford.

  “So, you’re a prostitute?” he started.

  Nice, Brunelle thought. Wow.

  “No!” Ashford shouted back. She knew she couldn’t say, ‘Fuck you,’ but her face said it for her.

  Jacobsen didn’t bother arguing the point. “You’re a prostitute, and a drug addict, and a liar.”

  Technically it wasn’t a question. But all it really lacked was a final, ‘right?’ so there was little point in objecting.

  “I’m not lying,” Ashford crossed her arms in protest. Apparently, she wasn’t going to challenge the prostitute allegation after all. Or the drug addict one.

  “You lied to Ms. Keller, didn’t you?” Jacobsen pointed to Keller. “About your relationship with Mr. Hernandez?”

  But Ashford shook her head vigorously, her arms still crossed. “Nope. Burner—Mr. Hernandez—did that. She knew why I was there. And I wasn’t the first one, or the only one.” She shot a glance at Keller. “I mean, how do you think she started with him?”

  Robyn stood up. “Objection, Your Honor!” It was a personal attack, which brought Robyn to her feet, but those weren’t necessarily objectionable. She’d need to give a reason. “Lack of personal knowledge.”

  Brunelle’s eyebrows shot up. Lack of personal knowledge? So basically, it was true, but Ashford wasn’t around to know it firsthand. Weak. And surprising.

  Judge Quinn frowned. But she sustained the objection. “Ask another question. Mr. Jacobsen.”

  “Gladly,” Jacobsen replied with a grin. “So you traded yourself to Mr. Hernandez for drugs, correct?”

  Back to the prostitute angle. Although, that didn’t exactly make Hernandez look like a saint either.

  Ashford hesitated, not wanting to answer yes to that particular question. But before she could, Jacobsen interjected anyway.

  “Just like you sold yourself to Mr. Brunelle to get a plea bargain, isn’t that correct?”

  Oh, so she’s a prostitute to me, Brunelle realized. But he resisted the urge to object to that personal attack. It wasn’t like it didn’t have some truth to it. Plus, he knew Welles was dying in the first row, unable to object because he wasn’t the lawyer to any party, but desperately wanting to defend his client’s honor. Or at least hear the sound of his own voice.

  “I don’t know,” Ashford answered. “I told him what I knew and they never charged me with anything. So yeah, whatever.”

  Jacobsen turned around and pointed at Welles, conspicuous in his tailored suit and silk tie. “That’s your lawyer, Mr. Welles, correct? And he worked out a deal with Mr. Brunelle to keep you from getting charged like everyone else in this room, didn’t he?”

  “That’s my lawyer,” Ashford admitted with a shrug. “But I don’t know exactly what the deal was. I just know I told him what I just told you, and they didn’t charge me. So yeah.”

  “So yeah,” Jacobsen mimicked. Then, “No further questions.”

  He retook his seat and Edwards stood up. “Just to be clear,” she said, “you got your drugs from Mr. Hernandez, not my client, Mr. Wilkins, correct?”

  “Correct,” Ashford agreed with a nod.

  “And you were having sex with Mr. Hernandez, not Mr. Wilkins, right?”

  Another nod. “Right.”

  “And when you came down the stairs and saw Derrick Shanborn lying on the floor bleeding, the gun was in Mr. Hernandez’s hand, not Mr. Wilkins’, right?”

  A final nod. “Right.”


  “No further questions.”

  Brunelle was impressed. It was absolutely surgical. The best type of cross. He wondered if Robyn would follow suit.

  Dunn approached Ashford. “Let’s talk a little bit about your relationship with Mr. Hernandez.”

  Nope. Brunelle sighed. Not surgical.

  “Okay,” Ashford replied cautiously.

  “You called him ‘Burner,’ right? That was his nickname?”

  “Everybody called him Burner,” Ashford answered. “Not just me.”

  “And my client, Sammy.” Dunn pointed back at Keller. “Everyone called her ‘Burner’s old lady,’ right?”

  Ashford shrugged. “I guess. I mean, that’s what she was. I don’t know if people called her that. I called her Sammy.”

  “And being Burner’s old lady is a pretty sweet gig, right?” Dunn asked.

  Ashford frowned. “I guess so. I don’t know.”

  “Lots of perks, right?” Dunn pressed. “Free rent, free drugs, social importance. All that, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashford said. “I guess I never really thought about it.”

  “Sure you did,” Dunn countered. “Because you were doing the same thing, weren’t you? Drugs, a place to crash, but it wasn’t official. You weren’t important, were you? You were just another girl he was using for sex, weren’t you?”

  “I’m important,” Ashford insisted. “I didn’t need to be his old lady to be important.”

  “Maybe not in your eyes,” Dunn offered, “but everyone else saw you for what you were. That must have made you angry.”

  Ashford shook her head. “No. I don’t care what other people think of me.”

  “Really?” Dunn replied. “Well, that would make you the first person in the history of the world. You wanted to be Burner’s old lady, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Ashford insisted. “It was just how things ended up. It wasn’t serious.”

  “And you still want to be his old lady, don’t you?” Dunn accused. “You want Sammy to go down for murder so you and Burner can be together, don’t you?”

  “I don’t care what happens to Sammy,” Ashford spat back. “She didn’t even do anything to Derrick. She was just standing there, screaming ‘What did you do?’ at Burner.”

  “You want this jury to believe that you don’t want Sammy Keller convicted of murder?” Dunn scoffed. “That she didn’t have anything to do with the murder of Derrick Shanborn?”

  “Yes!” Ashford answered. “I don’t want to convict her of murder. She didn’t do anything!”

  Dunn stopped. Then she smiled. “No further questions, Your Honor.” And then she sat down.

  Damn. Brunelle looked after her. Everyone did. Even the judge, who took a moment before she managed to say, “Mr. Lannigan. Any cross examination?”

  Lannigan stood up. By then, everyone knew the drill. Lannigan stood a few feet in front of his table. “Ms. Ashford,” he said, “did you see Lindsey Fuller shoot Derrick Shanborn?”

  Ashford was still upset from her exchange with Dunn. Her cheeks were stained red and her breath was fast. But she managed to focus enough to answer, “No.”

  So ended the examination of Snitch #1;

  But Snitch #2 was still to be done.

  Chapter 39

  “Joshua Rittenberger.”

  Rittenberger identified himself from the witness stand in response to Brunelle’s first question. They’d had to make special arrangements for Rittenberger’s testimony. Unlike Amanda Ashford, who’d avoided ever being charged at all, Rittenberger started out as another murder defendant, held pending bail in the King County Jail. And he was still charged with murder; he would only get his charges reduced after he testified. So he was still in the King County Jail.

  But the case law was clear that jurors couldn’t see a witness in jail garb. Criminal defendants were always dressed out for court in street clothes so the jurors wouldn’t know that the judge thought they were guilty enough and dangerous enough to detain pending the outcome of the trial. That would prejudice the jury against the defendant. The same rationale applied to witnesses. And not only did Rittenberger have to be dressed in street clothes, the jurors couldn’t see him being marched into the courtroom in handcuffs by two corrections officers. That would probably give it away too.

  So Rittenberger had been brought into court—in handcuffs and by two corrections officers, to be sure—but after a break in the proceedings and with all of the jurors safely behind the closed door of the jury room. When court was reconvened, the jurors stepped out to see a nice young man already on the witness stand, two extra corrections officers hanging out in the back of the courtroom, and a professionally dressed woman, Barbara Rainaldi, sitting in the first row of the gallery. The judge then swore Rittenberger in and Brunelle began his examination.

  “Mr. Rittenberger, did you know Derrick Shanborn?”

  When Ashford had identified her relationships, they had started with the defendants and ended with Shanborn. Mainly because they wanted to get her relationship with Hernandez—and Keller—out first. With Rittenberger, they reversed it because there was no awkward, sex-for-drugs love triangle going on. At least, not as far as Brunelle knew. Or cared to know.

  It was also to mix things up for the jury a bit. It could get boring hearing the same questions put to witness after witness. And it was also to bring Shanborn back to the forefront. Murder victims could get forgotten in the midst of a trial about the conduct of the police and the future of the defendants.

  Brunelle wanted the jurors to think about Shanborn when they listened to Rittenberger. Because Rittenberger was both the most important and the most troubling witness. He was the only eyewitness to the shooting, but his story was short on details and long on heroin.

  And it wasn’t as if they would be able to hide Rittenberger’s heroin use from the jury. The ability of a witness to perceive and remember went to the heart of the witness’s credibility. If Brunelle didn’t bring it out on direct exam, the defense attorney sure as hell would on cross. So he had to ‘draw the sting’ and admit the weaknesses in his case. Then hope the jury would believe Rittenberger anyway.

  “Yes,” Rittenberger answered. “I knew Derrick.”

  “How did you know Derrick?” Brunelle followed up.

  Rittenberger hesitated, then admitted, “We used drugs together.”

  Brunelle himself didn’t hesitate. He had written out every question and answer he planned to pull from Rittenberger. Shooting from the hip was possible with law enforcement witnesses, maybe even innocent bystanders, but not with druggie codefendants. When he was done checking all the boxes, he would sit down again. “What drugs?”

  “Uh, well, heroin mostly,” Rittenberger said. “Sometimes something else, if there wasn’t enough heroin, or just to try something different. But yeah, mostly heroin.”

  “Are you using heroin now?”

  Rittenberger made a confused face. Brunelle knew he’d been locked up since the murder. But wasn’t he supposed to not say that?

  “It’s a yes-or-no question,” Brunelle pointed out.

  “No.”

  “Were you using heroin the night Derrick was murdered?”

  Rittenberger’s expression relaxed. “Yeah. Definitely.”

  He almost sounded relieved at the thought of it. No doubt he’d be back on the junk as soon as he got out again.

  “Where were you that night?”

  “At Burner’s house.”

  So, no trouble using the nickname. Not like it mattered now. “Who’s Burner?”

  Rittenberger pointed at Hernandez. “That’s Burner. His last name is Hernandez, but everybody calls him Burner. I think his first name is Alman or something.”

  Great. Real close friends. How did grown people end up sleeping in the homes of people whose names they didn’t even know?

  “Why were you at Mr. Hernandez’s house?” Brunelle kept his thoughts to himself and his examination on track.

  “Uh,
well, I was still using back then,” Rittenberger said, “and so I was just gonna crash out there after I, uh, after I took a dose.”

  “And did you take a dose?” Brunelle asked, using Rittenberger’s own euphemism. As if it were medicine.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Was Mr. Hernandez there when you took the heroin?”

  Rittenberger nodded. “Well, yeah. I mean, I bought it from him.”

  Brunelle nodded. Makes sense.

  Before returning to Shanborn, Brunelle moved through the cast of characters again. “So, you know Mr. Hernandez. Do you also know Samantha Keller?”

  “Yeah, of course,” was the answer.

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s Burner’s girlfriend. Like, his main, long-time, real girlfriend.”

  Which led to: “Do you know Amanda Ashford?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Rittenberger answered. “She was like a side, short-term, not-real girlfriend.”

  As tempting as it might have been to linger on that sordid detail again, Brunelle pressed on. “Do you know Nate Wilkins?”

  Rittenberger nodded. “Yeah. He’s like Burner’s enforcer. If I didn’t pay on time or something, Nate was the one who came to talk to me.”

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. He knew everyone in the courtroom wanted to know if the enforcement ever went beyond talking. Brunelle sure did. Which meant the jurors did too. Edwards might object, but he couldn’t not ask a question the jurors wanted to know the answer to. “Just talk?”

  Edwards didn’t say a word and Rittenberger answered the question. “Oh, yeah. Just talk. I always paid up. I mean, I usually had to pay up front anyway. But once or twice, they let me pay them a couple days later. But I always did.”

  Brunelle frowned. That little detour wasn’t especially helpful. If anything, it made them seem charitable. On the other hand, Rittenberger said ‘they’ so that brought Wilkins tighter into Hernandez’s operation. Back to the script.

  “And do you know Lindsey Fuller?”

  Rittenberger frowned and looked over at her. “Yeah.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s my girlfriend.” Rittenberger looked away again. “Or she was, anyway.”