False Justice

by Larry A Winters

  With some reluctance, she nodded. “Agreed.”

  35

  At the police station, Jessie watched Cynthia Dax through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room wall.

  Dax had managed to reach her lawyer—Micah Burnside—en route to the police station, and the man had arrived only minutes after Dax was booked. Now he rested a hand reassuringly on Dax’s arm and spoke to her in what looked like a quiet, measured tone.

  Burnside was a top-tier criminal defense attorney who’d once been known for his prowess defending murderers, but, in his middle age, had fallen into the easy and comfortable practice of rescuing the irresponsible children of the rich and powerful from drunk and disorderly conduct and other embarrassing charges. Apparently, he also helped politicians get out of trouble.

  His presence seemed to calm his client. Dax still looked angry, but the fear that had been evident on her face when the cops had led her out of her courtroom in handcuffs seemed to be gone now. Jessie needed to change that, and quickly.

  “I’m going to talk to them.”

  The cop standing at her side, a detective named Leo Ferguson who specialized in corruption investigations, looked like he might object. But when he turned to speak, something in her expression must have stopped him. “Okay.”

  Jessie entered the interrogation room. “Hello, Micah.” She shook the lawyer’s hand, then sat down. She did not offer her hand to Dax even though the woman’s wrists were no longer shackled. She barely managed a polite, “Judge Dax.”

  The woman’s eyes flared with anger. “I hope you realize you are going to regret this day for the rest of your life.”

  Burnside squeezed his client’s arm. “Cynthia, I know how frustrating this situation must feel, but it would be better if you let me do the talking.”

  “I’m a judge and a lawyer,” Dax snapped at him. “You can trust me not to say anything I shouldn't.”

  Burnside did not look convinced, but he nodded. “Of course.”

  Jessie leaned forward. “You may be a judge and a lawyer, but this is a criminal matter. My territory.”

  Dax sneered. “She’s trying to intimidate me,” she said to Burnside.

  Burnside watched Jessie carefully. “Or bait you into saying something—”

  “I get it,” Dax cut him off. To Jessie, she said, “I’m going to walk out of here in time for my dinner reservation. You, on the other hand, will walk out of here without a job.”

  “Do you think so?” Jessie said.

  Dax crossed her arms. “I know so. Whatever evidence you think you have—”

  “We have an email exchange between you and one of the attorneys for Boffo Products Corporation. We also have financial statements showing the transfer of money from an account held by one of Boffo’s subsidiaries to an account you maintain offshore.” Working from the materials Leary’s contact had provided, Detective Ferguson had built a file with impressive speed.

  Dax’s lips pressed together. A look of fear touched her features.

  “Are you familiar with Section 4701 of the Pennsylvania Criminal Code?” Jessie said. “’A person is guilty of bribery if he offers, confers or agrees to confer upon another, or solicits, accepts or agrees to accept from another: (1) any pecuniary benefit as consideration for the decision, opinion, recommendation, vote or other exercise of discretion as a public servant, party official or voter by the recipient; (2) any benefit as consideration for the decision, vote, recommendation or other exercise of official discretion by the recipient in a judicial, administrative or legislative proceeding; or (3) any benefit as consideration for a violation of a known legal duty as public servant or party official.’ Sound familiar? That’s a third degree felony, Judge Dax.”

  Burnside cleared his throat loudly. “Remember, you don’t have to say anything.”

  Dax ignored him. Her glare seemed to bore into Jessie. “What does that mean, a third degree felony? Are you saying I could go to prison?”

  “Up to seven years, and I’ll make sure you serve every minute of it. How old will you be in seven years? What will you have missed out on?”

  “I can’t go to prison—”

  Burnside spoke over his client. “You obviously want something, Jessie, so why don’t we cut to the chase?”

  “I want Douglas Shaw.”

  “Let me speak privately with my client.”

  “Fine.” Jessie rose from her chair. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  Jessie left the interrogation room feeling confident. When she returned exactly ten minutes later, she felt even better. Dax had lost what was left of her composure. Her face was drawn, her hair was disheveled, and her eyes looked haunted.

  “My client is prepared to testify that Douglas Shaw bribed her to rule in his company’s favor in the case of Rowland v. Boffo Products Corporation. In exchange, you agree to recommend a fine but no prison time.”

  “You mean Douglas Shaw’s company,” Jessie said.

  “No.” Burnside leaned forward. “I mean Douglas Shaw. He handled the deal himself, and personally met with Cynthia. I trust you understand the value of her testimony now. No prison time.”

  “I can’t agree to that. I can recommend a four year sentence instead of the maximum,” Jessie said.

  “Two,” Burnside said.

  Jessie paused. “I can recommend two, but your client’s going to need to give me more than a bribery case against Shaw.”

  Burnside and Dax exchanged a confused look. “More?” Burnside said.

  “Did Shaw have Kelly Lee killed?” Jessie said.

  Dax’s eyes popped wide, as did her lawyer’s, and both of their jaws dropped. It would have been comical in different circumstances. Then Burnside laughed quietly to himself. “I was wondering why we were talking to a homicide prosecutor. Now I understand.”

  “Kelly Lee died in a car accident,” Dax said. “Is this some kind of joke?” She looked genuinely incredulous.

  “When you met with him, Shaw didn’t say anything to you to suggest he may have had a hand in the accident?”

  “That’s insane—”

  “Think,” Jessie said. “Try to remember everything he said to you. The way he said it. Looking back, did he ever give you cause to suspect that Kelly Lee’s accident might have been intentional?”

  Dax shrugged helplessly. “No. I mean, he bribed me. Why would he kill her when he knew he was going to win?”

  “Why seek a settlement if he already knew he would win?” Jessie shot back.

  “That’s easy,” Burnside said. “Shaw would require a nondisclosure agreement as part of the settlement. A gag order. Believe me, I work with these rich business owners all the time. Shutting the Rowlands up would be just as valuable—maybe more valuable—than winning at trial.”

  Jessie nodded. Burnside was right. Bribing the judge made sense. Pushing for a settlement made sense. Killing Kelly Lee didn’t.

  “Do we have a deal here or not?” Burnside said.

  “I’ll think about it.” Jessie stood up. The room suddenly seemed smaller, the walls closing in. She headed out of the interrogation room, ignoring Burnside’s complaints.

  “Get what you needed?” Detective Ferguson said.

  Jessie didn’t answer him. She still had no evidence against Shaw, and if she didn’t find some immediately, Warren was going to shut her down. Heading for the exit, she pulled her phone from her bag and called Vicki Briscoe.

  “You better be calling me with progress on getting my license reinstated.”

  Jessie quickly brought her up to speed on Leary’s meeting with Alphonse Fulmer. “He’s confident Fulmer’s story was bogus. Now all we need to do is prove it.”

  “And you’ll be able to do that?”

  “Leary is the best detective I know.”

  “Good.”

  “But now it’s your turn to help me again. Where else did Kelly go? Who else did she talk to?”

  Briscoe’s sigh carried across the phone line. “Where should
I pick you up?”

  36

  Inside a coffee shop near the police station, Jessie ordered a hot cup of coffee, took it to a table near the window, and warmed herself up while she stared out at the street. The sky was overcast, and the clouds looked ready to dump torrents of rain onto the city. Jessie’s focus shifted from the darkening view to her reflection in the glass. She looked defeated.

  Had she been wrong this whole time? Had Kelly’s death really been exactly what it appeared? An accident?

  After Judge Dax’s interrogation, she could almost believe that. Douglas Shaw did not have a particularly strong motive to kill the lawyer, and based on everything she’d learned about the man, he didn’t strike her as the kind of maniac who would kill without a good motive.

  But then she thought about what Emily Graham had told her she’d learned from the lead AID investigator about the accident. Ross Reid had found a brick by the driver’s seat, but no brick missing from the wall of the building at the accident site.

  It wasn’t an accident. You missed something. That’s all.

  Maybe Shaw had a motive she didn’t know about yet. Or maybe Shaw had not orchestrated the accident, but someone else had. As a personal injury lawyer—and one who apparently had no moral compunctions about bending the law—Kelly had probably angered a lot of people.

  She’d certainly angered Vicki Briscoe.

  Jessie felt a chill. If there was one person who had a motive to kill Kelly, it was Briscoe. Briscoe also had means and opportunity—the classic homicide investigation trifecta. Why had Jessie ruled her out as a suspect? Because she was too vicious to have killed Kelly by staging a car accident? Because Jessie believed her when she claimed she would want to kill her slowly, torturing her first?

  Suddenly, with Shaw looking less like a killer, Jessie started to question the prudence of driving around the city with Briscoe. She looked at her phone. She’d already called Briscoe, and she was on her way here to pick her up. There was still time to call back, though, make up some excuse so she could think this through….

  No. Even if Briscoe was behind the murder—maybe especially if she was—Jessie’s best chance at finding the killer was to continue Vicki Briscoe’s tour of the days leading up to the accident.

  Jessie drank two more cups of coffee and watched the sky fill with even more ominous-looking clouds. A clap of thunder sounded in the distance. She was taking the first sip of her fourth cup when Vicki Briscoe called her. “I’m a block away. Meet me outside.”

  Briscoe’s Mercedes pulled to the curb. Jessie got in. Briscoe flashed her a half-smile, then pulled onto the street and drove.

  “Looks like it’s about to rain,” Jessie said.

  “What’s the next step?”

  “You tell me. Where else did Kelly go when you were following her?”

  Briscoe navigated through traffic. “No. I meant what’s the next step in getting my medical license back? You said that detective found out Fulmer’s claims were lies. Where do we go from there?”

  “We don’t have actual evidence yet, but we’re working on it.”

  Briscoe took her eyes off the road and gave Jessie an angry look. “You better not be fucking with me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “This detective is real?”

  “He’s real.” She almost added that he was her boyfriend but stopped herself. The less personal information she shared with Briscoe, the better.

  Briscoe’s gaze jumped from Jessie to the road and back. Her expression softened. “You don’t look so good.”

  “It hasn’t been a good day.”

  “No?”

  Jessie sighed. “I thought I was closer to proving that Kelly was murdered, and finding her killer, but now … I don’t know. My theory doesn’t make as much sense as I thought it did.”

  “The toy guy?”

  “Douglas Shaw. I was so sure he was behind Kelly’s death.”

  Briscoe turned a corner, passing a group of people with umbrellas. “Of course he did it. He had her office and her apartment searched, right? He stole her files.”

  Had Jessie told Briscoe about the stolen files? She couldn’t remember, and now she felt a creeping sense of paranoia. “He was going to win the case Kelly brought against him, and he knew it. It was fixed. He bribed the judge.”

  Briscoe let out a short, approving laugh. “Smart man. I wish I could go back in time and do that for my case.”

  “That’s not how the legal system is supposed to work, Vicki.”

  “The legal system doesn’t work.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m going to do everything I can to make it right. You have my word on that.” Jessie hesitated, then decided to take a chance. “You think I’m wrong about Shaw? I mean, there was the brick.”

  “Exactly,” Briscoe said. “The brick on the gas pedal.”

  I definitely never told her about the brick. She’d only learned about it recently herself, from Graham.

  Jessie glanced as nonchalantly as possible out the passenger-side window. Could she open the door and jump out? Not without killing herself. Briscoe was driving too fast, racing through the city now that she’d found a path through traffic.

  “Can you pull over?” Jessie said.

  “Now?”

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  “Can’t you hold it in for five minutes? Are you a three-year-old?”

  “Okay.” Jessie chewed her lip. She didn't want to push too hard and arouse Briscoe’s suspicions, but she had to do something. “Let me check in with Leary, see if he’s made any more progress on your case.”

  “Good idea.”

  Jessie pulled out her phone and called Leary, but when he picked up, she realized she didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m just calling to check on the Briscoe matter. Have you found anything solid that shows Fulmer was lying about not giving informed consent?”

  “You know I’ve been tied up with other things,” Leary said. He paused, then added, “You’re calling me in front of her, aren’t you?” he said, understanding.

  “Alright,” she said. Her heartbeat raced as she struggled to think of something to say—something that Briscoe wouldn’t notice but that would clue Leary into the danger she was in. Then it came to her—their joke from the other night. “When you have a chance, can you stop by the grocery store?”

  “Grocery store?”

  “We need tomatoes.”

  Silence on his end of the line. Please, please let him understand.

  “Uh, okay, I guess I can stop for groceries.”

  Vicki Briscoe had pulled her gaze from the street and was watching her. She couldn’t risk saying more. “Thanks.” She ended the call and put away her phone.

  “Tomatoes?” Briscoe said. “I thought this guy was a detective.”

  “He’s also my … uh … roommate. I remembered we need—”

  “Shit,” Briscoe said. Her stare seemed to harden.

  Leary might not have understood Jessie’s coded language, but apparently Briscoe had.

  “Stop the car, Vicki.”

  “What gave me away?” She seemed to think about it, and then her face lit with understanding. “The brick.”

  “Let me out of the car.”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” Briscoe increased the vehicle’s speed.

  Jessie studied her determined face. “You killed her? All this time, it was you?”

  Briscoe kept her gaze straight ahead, but Jessie could tell she wasn’t focused on the road. She was thinking.

  “You aimed her car at a wall and used the brick to weigh down the gas pedal?”

  Still no response.

  “What about her case files?” Jessie said. “Did Shaw’s goons steal those? Or was it you?”

  Finally, Briscoe turned to face her. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Her eyes seemed to search Jessie’s.

  “I want to know the truth.”

&nbs
p; She let out a bitter laugh. “That’s your problem. I gave you Shaw. I practically giftwrapped him for you. But could you get him arrested for Lee’s murder? No. The police have barely even investigated him.”

  “Shaw didn’t kill her.” Jessie felt sick. “He didn’t even steal her files. That was all you.”

  “This doesn’t need to end badly. We can help each other. Put me on a witness stand. I’ll testify against Shaw. I’ll say I saw him tampering with Lee’s car. And I won’t be alone. I can bring a few other witnesses who saw the same thing. Just tell me how many you need.”

  “Witnesses from your dad’s gang?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Justice matters. You killed Kelly. You’re going to be in the courtroom, alright, but you’ll be sitting at the defense table, not the witness stand.”

  “Justice?” Anger flashed in Briscoe’s eyes. “Kelly Lee was a scumbag lawyer who cheated insurance companies and ruined careers. Douglas Shaw is a rich bastard who values money more than children’s safety and thinks he’s above the law. I was a straight-A student my whole life, even though my parents were criminals. I grew up among drug dealers and kidnappers and rapists and killers, and even with all that crap in my life, I still excelled in school, got into college, got into med school. Do you know how hard it is to get into medical school? And it isn’t exactly easy once you’re there, either. It took everything I had to make it through that program. But I did it. So I could help people. So I could make a difference. And you want to punish me?”

  “None of that gives you the right to kill.”

  “I’m giving you one chance here, Jessie.”

  “No.”

  Briscoe let out a sigh. Her expression was one of sadness, as if Jessie had let her down. “You know, I was really starting to like you.”

  “Vicki, if you voluntarily place yourself in police custody and make a full confession—”

  Briscoe’s hand lashed out and jabbed Jessie with a black device. Pain erupted in Jessie’s side and vibrated through her body. Her jaws locked and her body went rigid. Taser, she realized. While they had been talking, Vicki must have reached into a pocket.