Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: A David Brunelle Legal Thriller Short Story (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series)

by Stephen Penner

  He spun her around and wrapped his arm across her throat from behind.

  “Hey Brunelle, you wanna watch me dance with your bitch before I kill you?”

  Brunelle looked up from his knees. His eyes had adjusted enough to notice that the edges of his vision were starting to darken. Tunnel vision. He was losing a lot of blood and clearly going into shock.

  So he wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating when he thought he saw Kat wink at him.

  She was still holding that big bag. Brunelle saw that she was starting to open it. He couldn’t get up and help her, but maybe he could stall long enough for her.

  “Listen, Ruffles…,” he started, then spit out some blood.

  “Rifle,” Carrington snapped.

  “Whatever, Ruffles,” Brunelle said, fighting back a cough. “I’ll make you a deal. You let her go and I let you live.”

  It took Carrington a moment before he started laughing. “I’ll make you a deal, Brunelle. You shut up and I’ll kill you quick.”

  Brunelle coughed out some more blood. “No, you shut up, Ruffles. You’re just a coward. Always have been, always will be.”

  Carrington practically growled in response. “You think I’m gonna fall for that, Brunelle? You think I’m fucking stupid, Brunelle?!”

  “Well, you left your knife in my arm. That was pretty stupid.”

  Brunelle didn’t pull it out though. He knew enough about knife injuries to know the blade was actually slowing the bleeding. He pulled that out, his heart would be pumping blood right into the grass.

  “I don’t need no knife to kill you, Brunelle,” Carrington said. “I’ll snap your fucking neck.”

  Then there was a real snap. A loud crack that came from Kat’s bag. Carrington craned his neck to see what she was doing, and that’s when Kat jabbed the jagged wood of the broken of stiletto heel directly into Carrington’s carotid artery.

  Carrington let out a high pitched scream as Kat twisted the makeshift weapon, then pulled it out again. A spurt of arterial blood spilled onto her blouse before Carrington fell to the ground and started to bleed out.

  Kat rushed to Brunelle. “Are you okay?”

  “I love you,” he replied.

  “You’re delirious,” she said.

  “You just saved my life.”

  “Not yet I didn’t.” She tore off a strip from her skirt and tied a tourniquet at Brunelle’s elbow. “Can you stand up?’

  “He got me in the gut,” Brunelle answered. “But I think so.”

  “Good,” Kat said pulling him to his feet. “I want to get out of here so the paramedics I call for you aren’t tempted to save him before he bleeds out.”

  Carrington was trying to crawl away, but every heart beat sent a gush of blood out through the fingers of the hand that was trying to stanch the flow. He wouldn’t get far, and no one in this neighborhood would help him.

  “He’ll be dead in about five more minutes,” said the medical examiner as she dragged Brunelle’s limping body out of the park.

  When they reached the streetlights, Kat looked down at the splintered heel in her hand.

  “Damn,” she said. “Looks like you got blood on those pretty shoes after all.”

  *

  It was a couple of weeks before Brunelle made it back to Curly’s apartment. He made a point of always returning to the crime scene after each homicide case. There was something unsatisfactory in even a conviction when someone’s life had been taken. A burglary, a robbery, even an assault—there was a victim who could be made whole. Usually. Mostly. But not with a murder. Even if you get the conviction, execute the killer even, the victim is still dead. It always left Brunelle needing a bit more closure.

  So he went back to Curly’s apartment. By himself. He always went by himself, and he didn’t tell anybody at the office. That wasn’t what it was about. It was personal. So it was after hours, but it wasn’t dark yet. He wouldn’t ever be going back to that neighborhood in the dark. The last thing he wanted to do was relive his run-in with Lawrence Carrington.

  He let out an audible yelp when Ginny Flowers suddenly called, “Mr. Brunelle!” from the far side of the parking lot.

  Brunelle turned and relaxed when he saw who it was.

  “Mr. Brunelle!” Ginny practically ran to him and started shaking his hand profusely. Brunelle was pretty sure she was high. “Mr. Brunelle, I just want to thank you for dismissing the case against me.”

  Brunelle extracted his hand. “Of course, Ms. Flowers. I’m sorry for what you had to go through.”

  She waved away the suggestion. “Oh, no. No worries, Brunelle. No worries at all. It all worked out in the end.”

  Then she looked around, a wild-eyed scan of the area. “So why are you even here, Mr. Brunelle? The case is over.”

  “It sure is, Ms. Flowers.” He tried to look her in the eye, but she couldn’t stay still.

  Brunelle sighed. “Can I give you a lift somewhere, Ms. Flowers? Maybe the mission? Or a recovery center?”

  Ginny Flowers cocked her head as she processed the information. Then she got it. “Oh no, no, Mr. Brunelle. No. I’m good. Really. I’m real good. I’m gonna be all right.”

  She started to back away. “Well, goodbye, Mr. Brunelle,” she said, then she turned and starting walking away in earnest. “Thanks again.”

  Brunelle grimaced. He wondered whether he’d be looking at Ginny Flowers’ autopsy photos the next week. He looked down as his scuffed wingtips. Then he kicked a stone into Curly Hastings’s apartment door, turned on his worn heel and walked away.

  THE END

  The following is an excerpt from PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE, the first of the full-length novels featuring David Brunelle:

  Chapter 1

  ‘Don’t go inside. Call 911 and wait for the police.’

  Brunelle examined the note taped to the impressive front door of the Montgomerys’ suburban home. Its neatly penned letters were bathed in the red and blue strobe of the cop cars the neighbors never thought they’d see in their subdivision.

  “The parents went inside, didn’t they?” Brunelle asked without taking his eyes from the warning.

  “Of course they did,” answered Detective Chen. “The poor fools. Now they’ll never get that sight out of their heads.”

  Brunelle shook his head. “That’s too bad,” he said. “You and I get paid to forget, at least once the case is over. Forget and move on to the next one.”

  Chen put a hand on Brunelle’s shoulder. “You’re gonna have trouble forgetting this one, Dave.”

  Brunelle frowned. He was a prosecutor with the King County Prosecutor’s Office. He’d been there nearly twenty years, working his way up from shoplifting, through drug possession and burglary, to robberies and assaults, and finally homicides. He’d tried over a hundred cases and handled literally thousands more. He had to forget the details of each, at least a little bit, to be able to prosecute the next. He didn’t want to get his facts mixed up in front of a jury.

  But Larry Chen had been a Seattle Police officer for going on thirty years. He’d worked his way up from beat cop, to sergeant, to detective. From property crimes, through drugs and vice, to special assaults, and finally major crimes and homicides. Brunelle only saw the cases the cops could solve, but Chen saw all the ones the criminals committed. If Chen thought it was bad, it was bad.

  Brunelle pushed the door open.

  It was worse.

  Hanging from the balcony banister at the top of the sweeping staircase that framed the palatial foyer, blocking what would otherwise have been, as designed, a breathtaking view of the perfectly decorated and immaculately clean home, was the upside-down and very lifeless body of thirteen-year-old Emily Montgomery.

  “Fuck,” exhaled Brunelle, the dead girl’s lifeless eyes swinging grotesquely only a few feet from his own.

  “Exactly,” agreed Chen.

  “Okay!” called out a woman from the other side of the entryway. “You can let her down now.”

&
nbsp; Brunelle watched as two patrol officers on the balcony slowly began to release the rope holding the victim aloft by her ankles. The woman who had called out to the officers stepped over to guide the body to the floor with latex-gloved hands.

  Brunelle had never seen her before.

  “Dave Brunelle, assistant district attorney,” Chen commenced the introductions. “This is Kat Anderson, our new assistant medical examiner.”

  Kat was already kneeling next to body, checking for signs of rigor. She looked up long enough to offer the quickest of hellos, then set back to her examination.

  “Uh, nice to meet you,” Brunelle stammered. He wondered how someone so pretty had ended up choosing cadaver-carving as a career. “I’m David.”

  Kat glanced up again and smiled. “Got it,” she winked. “I was here when he said it.”

  Brunelle fought back a blush. “Right. So, uh, what did she die of?” he said to change the subject.

  “Well, David Brunelle, assistant district attorney,” Kat said while palpating the tissue around the girl’s neck, “my thirty second diagnosis is cardiac arrest brought on by acute loss of blood.”

  “She bled out?” Brunelle asked doubtfully. He waved a hand around the home’s entryway. “There’s not a drop of blood in here.”

  Kat stuck a gloved finger into the linear wound in the girl’s purple-white neck. “There’s not a drop of blood in here either.”

  ***

  Other David Brunelle Legal Thrillers

  NOVELS

  Presumption of Innocence

  (David Brunelle Legal Thriller #1)

  Homicide prosecutor David Brunelle faces the most difficult case of his career. An innocent young girl is murdered in a heinous, unforgivable way. The only evidence against the killer is the full confession of his accomplice—another young girl he also victimized. But the accomplice is charged with the murder as well, which means she has the right to remain silent. And she’s so scared of the killer, she refuses to take a deal to testify against him. Brunelle can’t just let the murderer walk, but how can he get a conviction when he has no admissible evidence and the killer is protected by the Presumption of Innocence?

  Tribal Court

  (David Brunelle Legal Thriller #2)

  A man is murdered in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. The killer is caught just blocks away, blood still on his hands. When it’s discovered that both killer and victim belong to the same Native American tribe, the tribe asserts jurisdiction and homicide D.A. Dave Brunelle has to prosecute the case in their Tribal Court. It’s bad enough when the defense attorney claims the killing was justified under the ancient custom of ‘blood revenge.’ It gets worse when blood revenge turns into a blood feud. The bodies start piling up and it looks like Brunelle may be next. Can he stay alive long enough to win the case?

  By Reason of Insanity

  (David Brunelle Legal Thriller #3)

  Sometimes the easiest cases are the hardest. The defendant absolutely, positively murdered her own mother. She is also absolutely, positively mentally ill. Homicide prosecutor David Brunelle is tasked with holding her responsible despite the best efforts of her defense team, which includes a psychologist who’s convinced she’s innocent. As the case proceeds, the pressures mount and Brunelle begins to question his own sanity. Will Brunelle crack the case, or will the case crack him?

  A Prosecutor for the Defense

  (David Brunelle Legal Thriller #4)

  Seattle homicide D.A. David Brunelle has spent his entire career prosecuting criminals. But when his girlfriend, medical examiner Kat Anderson, asks him to go to California to defend her ex-husband on a murder charge, he just can’t say no to her. Brunelle has to fight not only his prosecutorial instincts, but also a smooth-talking D.A., an unhelpful detective, and—worst of all—a client who won’t give him a straight answer. As the evidence piles up and the case unfolds, Brunelle waits for the other shoe to drop, but this time the shoe is on the other foot.

  Substantial Risk

  (David Brunelle Legal Thriller #5)

  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.

  SHORT STORIES

  (available exclusively for Amazon Kindle)

  Case Theory

  District attorney David Brunelle has a problem: a woman and her child have been murdered, a killer is in custody, but something doesn’t add up. Namely, the bullets. Either the cops botched the crime scene, or there’s more going on than Brunelle knows. He’ll need to figure it out quick, before the defense attorney walks a murderer out the door.

  About the Author

  Stephen Penner is a prosecuting attorney and author from the Seattle area. He writes a variety of fiction, including thrillers, mysteries, and children’s books.

  His other works include the paranormal mysteries Scottish Rite and Blood Rite, the science fiction thriller Mars Station Alpha, and The Godling Club, a young adult paranormal adventure. He also writes and illustrates the children’s book series Professor Barrister’s Dinosaur Mysteries.

  For more information, please visit his website: www.stephenpenner.com

  www.ringoffirebooks.com