Fire and Justice_A Legal Thriller

by Peter O'Mahoney

  Penny Pearson doesn’t have that.

  She’s a young, excitable woman who wants to explore the world.

  There is no feeling of evil around her.

  But perhaps, for once, he’s wrong.

  “Hello, Bill.” Penny smiles nicely as he steps into the greater office.

  He doesn’t respond.

  Instead, he walks into his private office, closes the door behind him, places his briefcase down, and opens the top drawer of his desk.

  There it is.

  Something that he hoped he would never have to use.

  But in case he has completely misjudged his assistant, he takes his Smith & Wesson from its locked container and carefully loads the gun.

  Having spent a lot of time at a shooting range letting off steam, he knows how to handle his piece. He knows he can aim, he knows he can shoot, but he doesn’t know if he can kill.

  When the moment of adversity confronts him, he’ll have one split second to make a decision.

  He’s hoping that he doesn’t have to make that decision today.

  Once loaded, he carefully places the gun on top of a stack of files in the top drawer, leaving it slightly open. The gun rests heavy on the files, and Bill stares at it for a number of minutes.

  How could he use that weapon on a girl like Penny?

  Even if the situation called for it, he doubts he could pull a gun on her.

  Even with all the fire that rages inside her, he just doesn’t feel like she’s guilty.

  Despite all the evidence pointing her way, he doesn’t feel like she is capable of multiple murders.

  Which leads him to his next dilemma – does he present the evidence to the trial in an attempt to get his client off the charges, even if it leads to Penny?

  Could he present her name to Detective Pitt, even if he feels she is blameless?

  If throwing Penny’s name into the guilty ring gets his brother off the charges, should he do it?

  His brother or an innocent girl?

  Staring at the gun in his top drawer, he shakes his head.

  He cannot throw a possibly innocent person in prison for the sake of another innocent person.

  Two wrongs don’t make a right.

  After ten years knee-deep in law, Bill has developed a feeling for those who are hiding something. He knows when someone is running scared.

  They have fear.

  Fear of the justice system, fear of getting caught, fear of the future.

  Neither his brother nor Penny Pearson has that feeling.

  He cannot fathom that either of them is guilty.

  “How’d it go today?” Penny enthusiastically pops her head around Bill’s door, startling him.

  He hurries to shut the top drawer, hiding the weapon.

  Bill doesn’t answer Penny’s question. Instead, he walks to his bookshelf and opens his whiskey bottle, pouring himself a small glass.

  He hesitates for a moment and then pours a second glass.

  “Please, Penny, sit down,” he says, turning to face Penny and offering her a glass.

  “Oh, no, Bill. I don’t drink. I couldn’t possibly after what happened to my parents.” She waves him away as she sits down on one of the chairs at his desk.

  Bill stares at her for a few moments. “You’re the same as your aunt, Nicole, aren’t you? Never touched a drop?”

  “Aunt Nicole gave up drinking after what happened to my mother. It was all too much for her. She hates drinking now. Every time we drive past a bar, she shudders. It’s strange to watch. She hates alcohol, but she hates drunks more.”

  “That sounds intense.”

  “It is. She is a very intense woman. Sometimes I worry about her. Sometimes it feels like she loses touch with reality. It was hard for all of us. Losing her sister, my mother, tore her heart out. I dealt with it in my own way, but I’ve talked about it. I’ve seen people for it. Lots of psychologists. For years I’ve seen people about it. For Aunt Nicole, she went the other way. She shut up shop and has never said a word about that day. She hates alcohol. She has even been lobbying the government to restrict alcohol laws. That has almost become her life goal. You can ask her about it yourself. She should be here any minute to pick me up for lunch.”

  Bill freezes.

  The penny drops.

  “Hello, Bill,” the voice comes from his door. “Hope you’re well. Penny, Caleb’s waiting in the car, so we better get going.”

  Bill doesn’t respond, slowly looking up to stare at Nicole Cowan, his bookkeeper, silhouetted in his office door. Dressed in a skirt and business shirt, she looks broad. Tough.

  5’10.

  Strong.

  Slim.

  A fighter. A black belt.

  A loner.

  Past trauma that hasn’t been dealt with.

  In the dark, and with trousers on, she could easily be mistaken for a male.

  “I was just telling Bill about how much you hate drunks. He was very interested. He—”

  “Was he?” Nicole turns to look at the defense attorney. “Tell me, how’s the case coming along? Any progress with this serial killer?”

  “Yes, Nicole.” He stares at her. “I’ve just solved it.”

  Chapter 33

  “Penny, can you go and wait in the car?” Nicole says slowly, not taking her eyes off Bill. “I need to have a private chat with Bill for a few moments.”

  Bill stares at Nicole without saying a word as Penny picks up her bag and walks out the door. “Bye, Bill. I’ll see you later this afternoon.”

  He nods goodbye, moving his right hand towards the top drawer of his desk.

  Silence blankets the room after Penny walks out of the office. They listen for the front door to click shut before they begin talking.

  “So…” Nicole breaks the tension. “Anything you want to talk to me about? The weather? Life? Death?”

  “No.”

  “Are we really going to play this game, Bill?”

  “I like games, Nicole.”

  Nicole smiles. “I can’t let you leave this room, Bill.”

  “That’s not your choice.” His voice is firm.

  “I can’t let you destroy what I have.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You don’t get that choice. I can tell that you’ve figured it out. And to be honest, I’m a little disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “I would’ve thought that you would have figured it out before now.” Nicole stares at him. “I would have thought that all the investigations led to me. I understand that the police couldn’t figure it out – but I thought that you, the great defense lawyer, would have seen it right away.”

  “Seen what?”

  “I remember when we first met; you mistook me for a criminal, one of your clients. I was so offended. How could someone see me as a criminal? How could someone see me as the defendant? I’m just a boring bookkeeper, not a criminal.”

  “Are you?”

  Nicole smirks. “You should always trust your instincts. You said that to me. I remember around five years ago – you and I were at lunch. I had a sandwich, and you had a hotdog, and the sandwich was terrible. Horrible. A disgusting sandwich. I asked what made you decide to have the hotdog, and you said it was your instinct. You just felt the decision. You were joking at the time, but that sentence has stuck with me. You should always trust your instincts.”

  “Did you do it?”

  She laughs awkwardly. “Even when all the evidence states that it was me, even when I’m standing in front of you saying all this, you still don’t want to believe it. I wonder why that is? Is it because I’m too pretty to be a serial killer? Or maybe too smart?”

  “Serial killer?”

  “You don’t think that Gerard was my first, do you?”

  Everything around Bill has stopped.

  His world has stopped spinning.

  “I saved him.” She is confident.

 
“How? How could you have saved him?”

  “I saved him from himself. Gerard was a danger to himself and the rest of the world. The world is safer without Gerard in it. I save people, Bill. It’s what I do. I’m making the world a better place, a safer place. I should be getting awards for my work, people should be praising me as a hero. I make sure that people are safe in their own city.”

  “So you’re just going to kill every drunk in the world?”

  “No. Only the ones I can. It’s like recycling. You put the empty can in the recycling bin, but you don’t spend your time volunteering at recycling plants. You just do your bit to make the world a better place. That’s what I am doing. I’m doing my bit to make the world a better place. I’m saving people. I’m doing my bit for the people of this planet. Everything is so much safer now.”

  “You murder people that need help. That’s not saving the world; that’s making it a worse place. These people needed your help.”

  “They’re beyond help!” Nicole snaps.

  “Nobody is beyond help.”

  “Oh, please.” She shakes her head. “Think about poor Penny. The poor girl. What she went through. No wonder she is full of anger. No wonder she is full of fire.”

  “This isn’t about Penny.”

  “No. It’s about my sister, Anne, and everyone just like her. All those poor innocent people.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right to kill people.”

  “Poor Penny watched her alcoholic father kill my sister in a drunken rage. Then she watched him shoot himself in the throat. Do you know how evil that is? She was just eight years old! Eight. She was just a girl. An innocent girl. And she had to witness that. Her own father, who used to beat my sister on a regular basis, shot her own mother. And then shot himself. In their living room! While she was standing there!”

  “That doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”

  “I spent my entire childhood watching my alcoholic father destroy my life, and then I watched another drunk destroy my sister. I couldn’t bear it anymore. When I saw Penny crying at the funeral of her mother, I vowed to myself I would do everything possible to stop this from happening to someone else. I can’t stop them all, but I can make a small difference. I make the world a better place.”

  “You’re a murderer.”

  “No. I’m a savior.” The anger in Nicole’s voice is clear. “My father was a drunk. I had years of abuse at the hands of that drunk. That’s why my sister found her husband so attractive. It’s what she knew. It’s what she grew up with. When a drunk tried to mug me in an alley late at night, twelve months ago, I reacted on instinct and hit him. He fell to the ground, but all I could smell was his breath. It washed all over me, and all I could think about was my father and my sister. There was a rope next to me, and I tied it around his throat, then held it tight. It was a release for me. Years of pain were released in that moment. As the drunk stopped breathing, I felt amazing. No amount of therapy had gotten close to that feeling. And oh my, it felt good. It felt so good.”

  “It felt good?”

  “Oh, it felt so good, Bill. It felt better than good – it felt wonderful. Amazing. I’ll never forget that moment. It was a release of all the bad energy that had been stored up inside me. Years and years of anguish disappeared in that moment. The longer I held that rope, the better it felt. I felt like I was taking his energy. Oh, that was delightful. I had never felt like that before. It felt right.”

  “How many more?”

  “There have been a few,” she replies flippantly.

  “A few? You can’t even remember the exact number?”

  “I don’t keep a tally of the people I save from themselves. I just do my bit for the world.”

  “You’re not saving them. You’re killing innocent people.”

  “They’re not innocent, Bill!” she bites back. “Don’t you understand?! I only kill the ones who are a threat to the future. They’re the ones that deserve it. They’re drunks. They’re a threat to society. They’re the reason why the world is in trouble. Who knows how many lives I have saved? I’m a hero. A hero!”

  “You go looking for them, don’t you? You go looking for these people.” Bill’s thoughts begin to catch up with what is happening.

  His right hand moves onto the handle of his desk drawer.

  “Sometimes, but mostly they come looking for me. Almost as if God brings them to me. Like Gerard. That evil drunk came to me. He came looking for me. He put his hands on me. That evil drunk dared to touch me. He got what he deserved.”

  “He wasn’t evil.”

  She laughs again. “They’re all evil, Bill. All of them.”

  The thoughts run through his head.

  The night in the alley.

  The hints.

  The conversations.

  “You’re going claim self-defense, aren’t you? You’re going to say that this is all self-defense.”

  “Very clever, Bill.” She patronizes him. “I’m glad you figured it out. I only go for the ones that try to touch me first. They’re drunk, and I’m allowed to defend myself against their attack. Even you told me that. I’m a poor innocent woman, Bill. And if I suspect they’re likely to use force, then I can return the same. That will always stand up in a court of law. I’m a savior. A hero.”

  “You’re not a savior. You’re nothing more than a psychotic criminal.”

  “Oh, Bill.” She frowns. “Everything I do is self-defense. Can’t you see that?”

  “How can you choke someone in self-defense?”

  “They attack me. Like you said, I’m allowed to defend myself with force when threatened. If one of these cases ever gets to court, I’ll get off on self-defense. It’s all planned. But my theory hasn’t been tested yet.”

  “What you do is premeditated. You premeditate what is going to happen. You have even premeditated your defense to the police. That’s not self-defense. That’s murder in the first degree! Your defense cannot stand up in a court of law. The justice system will see that you spend your remaining years behind bars.”

  She smiles at him. “Wouldn’t that be interesting? Wouldn’t that be the court case of a lifetime? I’d be going for self-defense against a drunk as the defendant, and the prosecution would be going for first-degree murder. Oh, that would be good! I’m getting tingles just thinking about it.”

  “On that day, I would happily be a prosecutor. I would take you for first-degree murder and let the jury decide. Your days as a murderer are over, Nicole. This ends today.”

  “It never ends. This is a fight that must keep going. This is my life’s work. Penny is starting to understand now. I hope that I build enough hatred within her that, one day, she will take my job. She will join me on the tour to rid the world of alcoholics. We will save the world together.”

  “She’ll never buy into your plan. She’s too smart.”

  “It’s already begun. I’ve been teaching her about self-defense and how if you murder someone in an act of self-defense, then you can’t be charged. I’m teaching her how to put herself in situations where drunks will be attracted to her. They will come to us, Bill. They will come to us.”

  “That’s not self-defense. With a level of certainty, you know what will happen if you draw the drunks to you. You put yourself in situations where you know you will be required to use lethal force. That is a premeditated event, and that is murder in the first degree.”

  “I didn’t premeditate Gerard West’s murder.” Nicole moves across the room, her right hand in her handbag, her left hand reaching out to lean on a chair. “I saw him on the street, begging for money, and I stopped to talk to him. He told me that he gets drunk every night. He told me everything. He told me that when he gets drunk, he likes to harass pretty women. It was only a matter of time before he became a rapist. And I proved that. I led him down that alley, and he tried to rape me. He tried to pull my skirt down. I had to defend myself against his hands. And your brother just happened to be there. Jonathon was
just a guy in the wrong place, but he was the perfect foil for me.”

  “That’s murder.”

  “If Gerard West didn’t attack me, he would still be alive.” She moves closer to Bill, leaning one hand on the desk between them. “Those are the cold, hard facts. The facts. It might be hard for you to accept, but I was acting in self-defense. If he didn’t touch me, he would still be alive.”

  “Premeditated is an action with deliberate purpose or previous consideration. You led Gerard down that alley for a purpose. Your deliberate purpose for walking down that alley was to use lethal force. You premeditated that attack.”

  “I never plan to kill anyone. Those stupid, evil drunks come to me.”

  “What you do is against the law. You are manipulating people into situations where their actions allow you to defend yourself using lethal force.”

  “I’m not manipulating anyone! I’m only living. That’s not illegal, but it’s my right as a free American. My movements in my own city should not be determined by threats. I’m a free woman. I will not have my actions determined by violent drunken men. Simply being prepared for an event doesn’t mean I premeditated it.”

  “You have premeditated the actions!” Bill leans forward, hand still on the drawer’s handle.

  “You’re forgetting that self-defense is not a crime!” Nicole argues. “And the legal term ‘premeditate’ cannot be used in a situation where there is no crime. Self-defense is not an offense! I don’t know those men! Can’t you see that?! I know nothing of them before I am forced to defend myself. Nothing I do is premeditated. I merely react on instinct when they attack me. And they always attack me first.”

  “I’m not saying that you are committing premeditated self-defense! I’m saying that you are committing premeditated murder. It’s murder in the first degree. And legally or not, what you’re doing is morally wrong!”

  “It is not wrong!” she shouts. “What I’m doing is right! I’m saving the world! I’m making it a better place.”

  He lowers his tone. “You’re a psychopath.”

  “I am not!” she snaps. “I am creating a better world for us all to live in. I’m creating a world where we don’t have to be scared of drunks. We don’t have to worry about when they will snap or what they will do next. I want to create a world where people are free to live without fear of drunken men.”