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

by Stephen Penner

  “Good afternoon,” he began.

  Laura surrendered a tight nod. “Hello.”

  “Could you please state your name for the record?”

  “Laura Mayer.”

  Normally, Brunelle might next have asked if she knew the defendant. It was a standard, non-leading way to explain to the jury how the witness was related to the case. But this wasn’t the normal case, and he wasn’t calling her for the normal reasons. So instead, he asked, “Did you know the victim, Vanessa Stephenson?”

  Even the question was a dangerous concession. Whether Vanessa was actually a ‘victim’ was the whole point of the trial; the jury would decide that. Then again, Vanessa was dead, so maybe the issue wasn’t whether she was a victim, but rather what she was a victim of.

  “Yes,” was Laura’s simple response. She was still clutching her purse, tense as a snare drum.

  “How did you know her?”

  Laura thought for a moment before answering, “She was my business partner. And a friend.”

  Brunelle nodded. That’s what he wanted her to say. The jury needed to hear those things. Both of those things.

  “What was your business?”

  “We were co-owners of a dance studio in the SOMA district,” Laura answered. “Inner Beauty Dance and Dreams.”

  Brunelle stole a glance at the jury to see what they thought of the name. It was idealistic, almost silly. But then again, it was San Francisco. The jurors seemed to appreciate the name.

  “And how did you come to open that studio with Vanessa?”

  Laura nodded, then relaxed a bit as she surrendered herself to memories more comfortable than her present circumstances. “Well, we met at an arts exhibition downtown. It was a fund raiser for youth art programs. She was very devoted to the arts. So am I. We began discussing the arts community here in San Francisco. We got on quite well and agreed to meet up again sometime for coffee. Eventually she mentioned her dream of opening a dance studio and I mentioned my desire to use my resources to expand the reach of the arts. I guess you could say the idea was both of ours.”

  That was a nice story. Laura was a nice lady. So was Vanessa, Brunelle was sure. It was important the jury see the genuine affection Laura had for Vanessa. It would explain a lot.

  “How did the business fare?” Brunelle pushed into less comfortable territory.

  Laura’s expression reflected the change. It went from wistful to pained. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  “Why is that?”

  Laura shrugged “It lost money right out of the gate, and just kept losing more. We knew it would take a while to turn around, but we didn’t realize how bad it would be. Vanessa…” Laura shook her head, but fondly. “Vanessa just couldn’t say no. She took on students who couldn’t pay, so we hired instructors we couldn’t pay, and bought equipment we couldn’t afford. It just got worse and worse.”

  Brunelle nodded in a way that he hoped looked sympathetic. “Is that typical with artistic ventures?” He guessed it might be.

  “Not always,” Laura replied, “but it’s not uncommon. A business needs to be run as a business. If it’s run as a hobby, it’s likely doomed.”

  “Is that what this was?” Brunelle asked. “Vanessa’s hobby?”

  Laura gave a quick shake of her head. “No. It was her dream.”

  “But you can’t pay the bills with a dream, can you?” Brunelle echoed Westerly’s opening remarks.

  “No,” Laura agreed. “But Vanessa was very passionate about the studio. Almost too much so. She didn’t want to be bothered with the financial side of it. But that sort of thing can’t be ignored indefinitely.”

  “So who bankrolled Vanessa’s dream?”

  This was the beginning of the pay off, the reason he’d rushed Sophia out the door with a hastily drafted subpoena for Laura Mayer. But he wasn’t quite there yet.

  “At first,” Laura said, a bit proudly, “I did. But I could only do so much.”

  “And when you were tapped out, who stepped in?”

  Laura finally looked at Brunelle’s client. The defendant. The accused murderer of her friend. She nodded at him. “Jeremy.”

  So the victim’s friend and supporter just told the jury that Jeremy was actually a loving husband who supported his wife’s untenable dream of owning a dance studio. Brunelle smiled inside and mentally checked off the first of his two goals for Laura’s direct exam. He didn’t know if he’d get the second goal.

  “What did Jeremy do to prop it up?”

  “He loaned money to the studio,” Laura answered after a moment’s hesitation. It was always artificial when an attorney and witness went through the dance of question-and-answer about information they both already knew. But Brunelle and Laura were walking into an even more uncomfortable area: questions and answers about information they both already knew, and knew was supposed to be secret.

  But trials were truth-seeking exercises.

  “Loaned?” Brunelle questioned.

  Laura gave a begrudging nod. “Gave,” she corrected. “He gave money to the studio.”

  “And did that succeed in getting the studio onto sound financial footing?” Brunelle knew the answer was no, but he thought he finally understood why. And what it meant.

  “No,” Laura shook her head. “Not really.”

  Brunelle was about to head onto dangerous ground. Well, maybe not dangerous, but unknown. He didn’t know how much Laura would give him, and it occurred to him there was someone else who might get in his way: Westerly. But a quick glance at his opponent showed him to be interested, apparently earnest in his desire to hear what Laura had to say, and nowhere near objecting. Brunelle relaxed a bit. But only a bit.

  “Why not?”

  Brunelle had watched lots of police interrogations. One thing detectives often told the suspects was something along the lines of, ‘When I ask a question, I already know the answer. I’m just checking to see if you’ll tell me the truth.’ Half the time, it was bullshit, but it usually worked.

  He knew the answer to his question. He wondered if Laura would tell him the truth.

  She shifted in her seat and clutched her purse tighter. She looked at Brunelle, then Jeremy, then down. She didn’t look at the jury.

  “I had lost a lot of money,” she said quietly. “I knew Jeremy’s money would only delay the inevitable, not prevent it. I decided to withdraw my investment from the business while I still could.”

  Good, thought Brunelle. She’d told the truth. Even if she’d hidden it inside big words.

  “You took Jeremy’s money out without telling anyone,” he translated, “to get back the money you’d lost?”

  Laura nodded slowly and sighed. “Yes.”

  It was interesting, and interesting was always good for a trial attorney. But it wasn’t quite enough.

  “But Vanessa wouldn’t shut the studio down, would she?”

  Laura shook her head. “No. It was her passion. Her dream. Nothing was going to deter her. Not even the financial realities.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Least of all the financial realities. It wasn’t about money. It was about art.”

  This was the tricky part. That second goal on his checklist. He could walk her up to it, slowly, so the jury could understand it. Or he could take advantage of the intimacy that shared knowledge gives two people. He knew. She knew he knew. And she was ready to tell the truth.

  “Jeremy took out a dangerous loan from some loan sharks to make up his losses,” he said, more statement than question. “And you agreed to pay back that loan for him from the insurance money you got from the fire.”

  Laura looked over to Jeremy again and admitted, “Yes.”

  Brunelle looked at him too, then back to his witness. He ignored Westerly’s stunned expression. “And you never would have loaned money to someone you knew had murdered your friend Vanessa, would you?’

  Laura looked down again and shook her head, “No.”

  Pay off time.

  “You didn’t
answer the phone when Vanessa called you that night because you didn’t want her to know you weren’t home, right?”

  Laura just nodded. Technically, he should have asked her to respond out loud for the court reporter. But this wasn’t for the court reporter; it was for the jury.

  “You didn’t know she was in the back room when you set the fire, did you?”

  A hush fell over the courtroom as Laura Mayer sat in the witness chair, her hands still on her purse, but no longer clutching it. The truth did set you free. And it could set others free too.

  “No,” she said quietly without looking up. “I had no idea. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was one in the morning. No one was supposed to be there.” Her lips started to tremble and she looked up at Brunelle. “Something had to give. It wasn’t working. But she wouldn’t listen. I thought… I thought if the studio had a fire, well, then she’d have to walk away. We would split the insurance money and part as friends.”

  “But instead,” Brunelle observed, “you just parted.”

  Laura nodded. Tears were welling in her eyes. “I am sorry. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. I don’t know why she was there. She shouldn’t have been there.”

  Brunelle nodded. “I know.”

  The hush hadn’t abated. If anything it had deepened.

  Brunelle looked up at the judge. “No further questions.”

  Carlisle watched him walk back to his seat and sit down next to Jeremy, who was bursting to say something, but didn’t dare break the silence that had settled over the courtroom. Then the judge looked to Westerly. “Mr. Westerly?”

  She didn’t ask if he had any questions. Westerly knew what she was really asking. He nodded and stood up.

  “Your Honor,” he said, “the people move to dismiss the charges against Mr. Stephenson.”

  Judge Carlisle nodded. “Motion granted. Case dismissed.”

  Epilogue

  The flight back to Seattle was more than relaxing. Normally Brunelle wasn’t a fan of cramped seats, too-small snacks, and expensive drinks, but the case was over, he was on his way home, and Kat was beside him.

  Yamata had been wrong. The post-trial celebrations did involve hugging, but Jeremy hugged Lizzy while Kat’s hugs were exclusively Brunelle’s. They had celebrated his victory that night as well. Three times.

  There was just one thing that kept bugging Kat.

  “Come on, David,” she tried again as the plane neared the Seattle airport. “What did Jeremy tell you in the jury room? I promise I won’t tell.”

  But Brunelle shook his head. “I really can’t, Kat. It’s attorney-client privilege. If he reported me to the bar, I could be suspended, or worse.”

  “He doesn’t have to know,” Kat responded.

  Brunelle grinned but shook his head again. “No, you’d let it slip. Believe me. You think you wouldn’t, but I know what it is, and some time when you’re talking to him about something, you’d forget you’re not supposed to know and say something about it. Trust me, it’s better if you don’t know.”

  In more ways than one, he thought.

  “Hmph,” Kat pouted. Then she wrapped her arm through his and laid her head on his shoulder. “I think you kind of liked being a defense attorney. It gave you a chance to be the bad boy.”

  Brunelle leaned over and kissed the top of her head. He really liked kissing the top of her head. “Do you like bad boys?”

  Kat pulled her head from his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Maybe. Do you like bad girls?”

  Brunelle just smiled and leaned in to kiss her—when Lizzy popped her head over from the seat behind.

  “Would you two stop being so fucking adorable?”

  Both of the adults just stared at her for a moment, then Kat burst out laughing and Brunelle lowered his head into his hand, smiling.

  “Sit down, young lady,” Kat finally managed to say through her giggles. “This is none of your business.”

  “None of your fucking business,” Brunelle corrected, looking up again.

  Kat nodded, trying to seem serious. “Right. What he said.”

  Lizzy smiled and blew a kiss at her mom, then plopped back down in her seat again.

  “Thank you for making it okay for my daughter to say that word,” Kat jokingly snarled. “You do like being the bad boy.”

  Brunelle grinned and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “You can punish me when we get home.”

  END

  The following is a preview of the next David Brunelle legal thriller

  SUBSTANTIAL RISK

  A sex club. A dead “submissive.” A “dominant” in custody.

  Homicide D.A. Dave Brunelle barely understands the terms. How can he ever hope to understand the bondage subculture well enough to hold a killer responsible for the apparently accidental death of his own girlfriend? Brunelle embarks on a voyage of discovery, both of himself and of things he never even knew existed. In so doing, however, he risks losing not only his case, but everything—and everyone—dear to him.

  Chapter 1

  The Cu-CUM-ber Club.

  The sign flashed a lurid purple and green, as if arguing with the red and blue strobe of the police cars parked in front of the ‘business.’ The middle syllable flashed the brightest.

  David Brunelle, homicide prosecutor with the King County Prosecutor’s Office, squeezed his car into a ‘loading only’ spot across the street and stepped out into the frenzy. Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood was euphemistically described as ‘eclectic.’ In fact, it was ground zero for both the city’s arts community and its gay community. There were arts and gays elsewhere of course, but if you wanted to see a 6’4” drag queen walking down the street playing the accordion, then you went to Capitol Hill. And when the cops showed up, the locals spilled out of their lofts and studios to make sure their safe place was still safe. It was. Except for one person inside the Cu-CUM-ber club.

  “Hey, Dave,” Seattle P.D. Detective Larry Chen greeted Brunelle as the D.A. crossed the street and ducked under the crime scene tape. “Welcome to the show.”

  Brunelle nodded toward the sign. “You should have said, ‘Welcome to the club.’”

  Chen grinned. “Sorry, Dave. I don’t belong to this particular club, so I can’t welcome you to it. But trust me, there’s a show inside. Or there was. But it went horribly wrong.”

  Brunelle frowned thoughtfully as he examined the exterior of the club. There really wasn’t any doubt it was a sex club. No need to hide that up here. The gift shop Brunelle had parked in front of had greeting cards in its front window featuring artistic photos of pierced genitals. Capitol Hill wasn’t ashamed of itself. It wasn’t shy either.

  This particular sex club seemed to feature some sort of fetish culture. There was a definite dungeon theme going on with the exterior decorating. Brunelle found himself curious about what was inside. That gift shop had a lot of Curious George dolls in its window too.

  “Something went wrong, huh?” Brunelle finally replied, pulling his mind back to why he was there. The 1 a.m. phone call about the new homicide on 15th Avenue. “So is the body still inside?”

  Chen nodded. “Yep.” He looked at the dungeon doors, then back to Brunelle. “Ready to go in?”

  Brunelle looked at the doors too, their faux stone paint job daring him inside. He smiled despite the circumstances. “Yep.”

  *

  Brunelle anticipated experiencing several different feelings in addition to his curiosity, but the overwhelming emotion he felt as they stepped inside was disappointment. He’d expected dark and seedy, with dim lights and scantily clad customers. Devices and noises, music and dancers, lions and tigers and bears. He wasn’t exactly sure. But he was expecting a sex club. What he found, of course, was a crime scene.

  All the lights were up. There were no customers, just cops. Fully dressed and definitely not dancing. There were also what appeared to be a couple of employees—civilians who wouldn’t normally be allowed inside otherwise. One such civilia
n hurried up to them, obviously upset. He was tall, with receding brown hair and a small belly fighting against his white button-up shirt. He wore glasses that were a bit too large and thick enough to distort his eyes.

  “Detective Chen!” he called out. Obviously Chen had been inside already. Of course he had, Brunelle realized. That’s how Chen knew to call him. “Detective Chen, I just wanted to tell you, Michael is in my office.”

  Chen nodded to the man. “Thank you, Mr. Gillespie.”

  “Who’s Michael?” Brunelle asked as Mr. Gillespie scurried away to attend to whatever the manager of a sex club needs to attend to when there’s been a murder in the club.

  “Michael’s our killer,” Chen replied.

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. “He stuck around?”

  Chen nodded. “The victim was his long-time girlfriend.”

  Brunelle wasn’t that surprised. Domestic violence homicides were unfortunately common. Although not so much in public. “What happened?”

  Chen opened his mouth to explain, then closed it again. “Come on, Dave. You should see it for yourself.”

  *

  They walked down a long narrow hallway with exposed concrete floors and framed photos on the walls. The photos, Brunelle didn’t even pretend not to notice, were of various clients performing various acts with various other clients and equipment. Most of the identities seemed to be hidden beneath masks and or said equipment. He finally tore his eyes away when they reached the private room that housed the remains of the victim.

  “In here,” Chen gestured into the room. Brunelle hesitated, then walked in first, uncertain what he’d find.

  Like the main room, the lights were all on, thereby destroying the mood that likely existed during regular operating protocols. Also doing violence to the mood were the two police officers in full uniform photographing the scene—although Brunelle could imagine circumstances where that might work into the fantasy. The final nail in the eroticism coffin was the dead body on the dais in the center of the room.