A Prosecutor for the Defense (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series Book 4)

by Stephen Penner

  Brunelle was about to apologize, maybe even use it as a launching pad for trying to talk his way out of the contempt finding, but decided instead to pull out his wallet and extract a one dollar bill. He stepped around his table and over to the bailiff who took it with boredom. This must happen a lot, Brunelle deduced.

  He returned to his position standing next to Jeremy and awaited further instructions. Carlisle eyed him for several seconds, her eyes even wider than normal. Brunelle knew what a crazy owl looked like.

  Finally, she returned her eyelids to a normal position and raised her chin slightly to Brunelle. “Please introduce yourself and your client, counselor.”

  Brunelle looked over at Westerly again, unsure despite the invitation. Westerly again nodded, and so Brunelle looked up to face the wise old owl. “David Brunelle, Your Honor. I represent the defendant, Jeremy Stephenson.”

  Brunelle sat down again and eyed the judge warily as she smiled to herself, quite self-satisfied. “I would apologize, Mr. Brunelle,” she said, “except that I have nothing for which to apologize. I am the judge and there are rules and I will enforce those rules.”

  Brunelle didn’t really see a question or other invitation to respond in her statement so he simply nodded and waited.

  “You will find,” Carlisle went on, “that I am a fair judge, and a wise judge, and a good judge. But you will not find me to be an easy judge.”

  Again, not really a need to reply. Another nod. He stole a glance at Westerly, who was pretending to take notes about something.

  “Is the defense ready for the status conference, Mr. Brunelle?”

  Finally a question. And he knew the answer. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Carlisle looked to Westerly. “Are the people ready, Mr. Westerly?”

  The D.A. nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Carlisle nodded to herself several times. “Good, good, good,” she muttered. Then she looked up sharply. “Let us begin.”

  Brunelle replied instinctively, “Yes, Yo—“ but caught himself as the judge widened an avian eye at him.

  He expected to be fined another dollar, but Carlisle relaxed her eye and spun her head to the prosecutor. “Charges?”

  “Murder in the first degree,” Westerly replied, “and arson in the first degree.”

  Judge Carlisle swiveled her head back to Brunelle. “Defenses?”

  Brunelle grimaced. He wished he could have said ‘alibi’ or ‘duress’ or even ‘entrapment.’ But he had nothing. Not even the best one, ‘self-defense.’ Self-defense was only available after you admitted you did it. It was the ‘Yes, I did it, but I had to’ defense. The best part was that once you claimed self-defense, the prosecution had to disprove it, and beyond a reasonable doubt. No small task. But Jeremy had insisted he hadn’t killed Vanessa. Which meant Brunelle couldn’t claim self-defense. That left only one option.

  “General denial,” Brunelle answered. It was as lame as it sounded. The ‘I’m not saying I didn’t do it, I’m just saying you can’t prove it’ defense. The one the guilty people used.

  Carlisle raised an eyebrow. “General denial,” she repeated. “Are you certain?”

  Brunelle frowned. He considered ‘alibi’, but sitting at home alone reading a book wasn’t an alibi. It was a fucking lie. An alibi required a witness, and the most likely witness was the woman Jeremy was with. The one who just loaned Jeremy twenty thousand dollars. But she wasn’t about to come forward and apparently Jeremy wasn’t going to ask her to. “Yes, Your Honor. General denial.”

  And so it went. The Judge checking off the items on her checklist, first with Westerly then with Brunelle. Witness lists filed? Interviews completed? Jury questionnaires filed? Everything ready for trial?

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Westerly answered. “The people are ready for trial.”

  “Is the defendant ready for trial, Mr. Brunelle?”

  Brunelle nodded, but more out of resignation than conviction. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Chapter 29

  Actually, Brunelle wasn’t completely ready for trial. There was one more thing to do. One last conversation with Jeremy. The one the defense attorneys called the ‘come to Jesus’ talk.

  Unfortunately, Kat had insisted on coming along. It was unfortunate for two reasons. First, it would definitely impinge on his tough guy defense attorney shtick. But more importantly, he’d avoided watching the two of them interact to that point. He wasn’t looking forward to being the third wheel.

  But when Kat wanted something, Kat usually got it. Brunelle had kind of given up resisting.

  And now that she was ‘on the defense team,’ Kat could come with Brunelle to the jail even if it wasn’t family visiting hours, which it wasn’t. But that was just as well. Lizzy wasn’t flying down until the night before the trial. Kat wasn’t going to make her miss the trial, but she was going to minimize the amount of school she missed. One more fucking thing for Lizzy’s mom and dad to talk about while lawyer-boyfriend counted the tiles on the ceiling.

  “Kat!” Jeremy exclaimed as he stepped into his half of the consultation room. He actually stopped in the doorway, but the guard pushed him in and closed the door. He hesitated for a moment, then sat down reluctantly. He tried to smooth his hair and checked his shirt for stains. Obviously he didn’t bother to clean up for Brunelle, but for his ex-wife—his first real love, most likely—he wanted to look as good as he could, regardless of the circumstances.

  Brunelle would have felt bad for him, but he was too busy feeling glad that Jeremy hadn’t shaved and couldn’t quite get that one tuft of hair in the back to lay down.

  “Hello, Jeremy,” Kat said. Even her cold, businesslike voice had a certain warmth to it. Brunelle wasn’t sure what Jeremy had done to lose her, but he knew two things: he was an idiot to have done it, and Brunelle was glad he did.

  “What are you doing here?” Jeremy asked. “I mean, I’m glad to see you, but I—I don’t understand.”

  “I’m helping David out,” Kat replied, this time with an edge to her warmth. Like a blade heated in a fire. Doubly deadly. “And we need to talk.”

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. She had told him she was just tagging along. She wanted to be part of the final consultation. She wanted to make sure everything was ready and Jeremy was as informed and as prepared as he could be.

  She turned to Brunelle. “Could you step out for a minute, David?”

  Brunelle’s other eyebrow lifted. Apart from the fact that it was, technically, an attorney-client visit and not a family visit, he also didn’t want to be completely excluded. It was one thing to be the third wheel. It was another to be the spare laying in the garage.

  But he said, “Sure.” Of course he did. It was Kat.

  He stepped outside into the small hallway on the other side of the conference room door. He thought he’d count ceiling tiles, but instead he found himself contemplating the cinderblock wall, its pock-marked face only partially smoothed over by the layers of institutional gray paint spread across it over the years.

  Everything had imperfections, some were just more obvious than others. And it was human nature to try to correct those imperfections. Or if they couldn’t be corrected, than to conceal them, even temporarily. Jeremy Stephenson and Gary Overstreet had made careers of it, but they weren’t the only ones. Laura Mayer’s perfect luxury condo undoubtedly covered her own scars and failings. Westerly seemed put together, but that was only because Brunelle didn’t really know him yet. And Judge Carlisle was obviously overcompensating for far more than Brunelle ever wanted to know. He stopped his analysis at himself, and Kat. He didn’t need to dwell on his own imperfections. And as imperfect as he knew Kat was—she had to be, she was human—he enjoyed the feeling that even her flaws were perfect, parts of the immaculate whole. A part of him knew from experience that the illusion would fade, but the better part of him knew not to hurry the fading along.

  He turned from the wall and gazed unfocused down the hallway. He kicked at the linoleum and wo
ndered how late room service was open. He didn’t think about the trial really; there’d be time and occasion to worry about that later. And he didn’t think much about Lizzy’s impending arrival. He didn’t think about Duncan at all, and certainly not Yamata tearing up the place with what were supposed to be his cases. Mostly, he just shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for his girlfriend to be done talking to her ex-husband. It sucked.

  But eventually, it was over.

  Kat opened the door and stepped out to join him in the hallway. “Okay,” she said. “We can go.”

  “Go?” Brunelle replied. “I haven’t even talked to him.”

  Kat shook her head. “No need. I talked to him. We’re done.”

  Brunelle looked at her for a moment, then opened the door to the room. But Jeremy was already gone, on his way back to his cell.

  Brunelle turned back to Kat. “I thought I was in charge here?”

  “You did?” Kat laughed. Then she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Silly you.”

  Chapter 30

  The night before trial found Brunelle leaning on his hotel balcony, watching the sun set and considering what was to come. Lizzy had arrived that morning. The three of them spent the day walking around the city ignoring the reason they were all there. After dinner they retired to the hotel room, where Lizzy could click on the TV and she and her mom could continue to whistle past her father’s graveyard.

  But Brunelle didn’t want to watch TV. He had work to do. Or at least, work to think about.

  “Penny for your thoughts.” Kat put a hand on his back and slid in next to him at the balcony railing. “And no jokes about lawyers’ thoughts being worth a hundred dollars an hour.”

  Brunelle smiled. He’d used that one before, but he wasn’t really in the mood for it anyway. “Damn. That’s my best joke. Guess I better think of something else.”

  Kat rubbed her hand across his back. “You could just answer my question. You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

  Brunelle laughed quietly, then turned back toward the hotel room. “Naw, just the weight of her world.”

  Kat turned too to see her daughter sprawled out on the bed, gazing at the TV, remote in one hand, diet cola in the other. She looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. The grown-ups knew better.

  “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, David,” Kat said. They both turned back to watch the sky swelling pink and orange over the building tops. “Jeremy got himself into this, not you.”

  Brunelle shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s my job to get him out of it.”

  Kat reached out and took his hand. “I know you’ll do your best. That’s all I can ask.”

  “What if my best isn’t good enough?” Brunelle turned to her. “I’m not really a defense attorney.”

  “You’re the best lawyer I know,” Kat replied. “If anyone can get Jeremy out of this mess, you can.”

  Brunelle turned away again and shook his head. “I don’t know, Kat. I don’t have a lot to work with. They have motive, means, and opportunity. The only things I’ve been able to uncover are more motives.” He frowned. “And it doesn’t help that he keeps lying to me.”

  Kat nodded and put her arm around his waist. “I know.”

  Brunelle thought for a few seconds, mulling whether to ask the next question. Finally, without looking over to her, he said, “He didn’t lie to you, did he?”

  Kat chuckled. “He lied to me all the time. That’s why we split up. That, and what he was lying about.”

  Brunelle smiled and put his own arm around her. “I meant when you talked to him at the jail. He didn’t lie to you then, did he?”

  Kat paused. “No,” she finally said.

  “What did he say?” Brunelle asked. He tried to sound only casually interested. But she knew him too well for that to work.

  Kat shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

  Brunelle laughed. “Now who’s lying?”

  Kat laughed too. Then her expression turned serious again. “He said he’s scared.”

  Brunelle nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. He should be.”

  Kat laughed again. “Even his own lawyer says he should be scared. Yep, he’s fucked.”

  Brunelle laughed lightly. But it was too serious a conversation for it to last. “Did you tell him the truth?”

  Kat turned to look up at him. “About what?”

  Brunelle shrugged. “I dunno. About his chances, maybe. Or…”

  She took his chin in her hand and made him look at her. “Or what, David?”

  Another shrug, but he didn’t turn away. “Did you tell him you loved him? Is that why you wanted me to leave?”

  Kat smiled. Her eyes sparkled from the setting sun. “I wanted you to leave so I could tell him how fucking lucky he is to have you as a lawyer. If you were there when I said it, he’d think I was saying it for your benefit, not his.”

  Brunelle smiled. “You avoided my real question,” he observed.

  Kat smiled too. “You’re good. Jeremy’s gonna be just fine.”

  Brunelle leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss. “You’re still doing it.”

  Kat chuckled and kissed him back. Then she admitted, “Yes, when I left I told him I loved him. I do. But I’m not in love with him. We spent a lot of years together and we have a child in common. Of course I still love him.”

  Brunelle shrugged and tried to keep his smile. He was insightful enough to understand he didn’t have the same life experience as Kat. “Of course,” he agreed.

  “But,” Kat leaned up and kissed him again, not a quick peck either, “I adore you.”

  Brunelle’s smile reached his eyes. He put his hands on Kat’s hips and tipped his forehead against hers. “I adore you too.”

  Then the moment passed as they both remembered the teenage girl inside the hotel room. Brunelle turned to look at Lizzy, keeping his hands on his girlfriend’s hips. “This really sucks,” he said. “It’s way more pressure than I realized. If I lose a case as a prosecutor, it doesn’t feel good, but no one goes to prison. No one’s dad goes to prison.”

  “Don’t worry, David,” Kat replied. “You’ll do it.”

  Brunelle shrugged and looked back in her eyes. “What if I don’t? What if he gets convicted and Lizzy loses her dad?”

  But Kat shook her head. “No, I mean you’re going to do your best, right?”

  Brunelle surrendered a crooked grin. He looked again at Lizzy. “I sure am.”

  Kat hugged him. “Then you’re going to do it. You’re going to do your best. That’s enough.”

  Brunelle hugged her back and rested his cheek on her head. He wished it were enough for him.

  Chapter 31

  In truth, doing his best wasn’t enough. Brunelle didn’t just want to do his best. He wanted to win. And not necessarily for the right reasons. Not just for those reasons, anyway. Not just for Lizzy and Kat and Jeremy and justice and the American flag and all that. He wanted to win because he wanted to win. He was used to winning. And a win would be one hell of a notch on his belt.

  Prosecutors win most of their cases. Not because they’re better than defense attorneys, but because all the cards are stacked in their favor. The defendant is supposed to be guilty. That is, prosecutors aren’t supposed to be prosecuting innocent people. There’s a reason the judge has to keep telling the jurors that the defendant is presumed innocent, that they can’t hold it against him if he doesn’t testify, and that cops are no more credible than other witness. The reason is that jurors—that ten percent of good citizens who actually show up for jury service instead of throwing away the summons—they believe in the system. They believe innocent people don’t go to prison, cops aren’t dirty, and if they were innocent they’d sure as hell take the stand and say so. So they listen to the judge, then go back into the jury room and vote to convict the guy who must have done something to get in trouble, based on the word of the cop who we have to be able to trust, and even i
f no one says it during deliberations, jeez, the defendant didn’t even try to defend himself. Another guilty verdict. Another notch in the prosecutor’s belt.

  But this. To go to another state and win a murder case as a defense attorney? That would seal his reputation. Brunelle hadn’t won all of his cases as a prosecutor, but he’d won most of them. If he could come back to Seattle as a victorious defense attorney too, well, it wouldn’t matter one fuck what Yamata had done while he was gone. His legend would be complete.

  And that’s what was secretly going through his head as he walked into Judge Carlisle’s courtroom the morning of trial to see Jim Westerly already setting out his law books and legal pad just as orderly and right-angled as Brunelle ever did.

  “Morning, Jim,” Brunelle greeted his opponent. No reason not to be civil.

  “Morning, Dave,” Westerly replied. “Ready to go?”

  Brunelle nodded. “I guess so,” he demurred. He didn’t want to put Westerly on notice that he was bringing his A-game. Let him think Brunelle was only half-hearted, the prosecutor in him dulling his desire to gain the acquittal. “We’ll see in a few minutes.”

  Before any more small talk could occur, the secure side door to the jail corridor clanked open and in walked Jeremy Stephenson, between two large and heavily armed guards. Jeremy was dressed in street clothes—a suit and tie Kat had brought from his apartment. Juries weren’t supposed to know that a defendant was in custody. Another fiction to make it seem like everything was fair. He was presumed innocent after all, right? Just ignore the man behind the curtain—and the armed officers within lunging distance of the ‘alleged’ murderer.

  Jeremy waited for the corrections officers to remove his wrist and ankle shackles, then shook Brunelle’s hand. “Hey, Dave. Good to see you.”

  Brunelle could see how nervous Jeremy was. His face was pale and gaunt, his eyes a bit too wide, and his hand was so clammy it was almost dripping. Of all the people involved, Brunelle supposed, Jeremy had the most to lose. If the jury convicted him, he’d go to prison for the rest of his life. Everyone else would go home and eat dinner.