Jessie Black Box Set 2

by Larry A Winters

  A half-smile twisted Briscoe’s face, but it seemed to hint at barely concealed rage rather than amusement. “Is that what you’re interested in? My med-mal case?”

  “I’m interested in you leaving. Now.”

  “Or what? You’ll call the police?”

  “I’m calling the police either way.”

  Briscoe sat still for a moment. Jessie pressed her lips together, hoping her expression wasn’t betraying her rapidly beating heart. Briscoe rose gracefully from the couch. She headed for the door, which was behind Jessie. Jessie stiffened as the woman came even with her. Briscoe gave off a dangerous vibe, like a jungle cat—beautiful and graceful, but also unpredictable and deadly. Briscoe must have noticed the tensing of Jessie’s muscles. She smirked and met Jessie’s eyes. “You’re scared.”

  “You’re the one who broke into the home of an assistant district attorney. You should be scared.”

  “That sounds almost like a threat.”

  “Take it how you will.”

  With shocking speed, Briscoe pivoted, grabbed one of Jessie’s wrists, and twisted her arm behind her back. Pain raced up her arm. She struggled, but Briscoe’s grip was too strong. The woman jerked her arm upward as far as Jessie’s muscles and bones would allow. Agony made her vision blur. Her suit jacket split with the sound of tearing fabric. She gritted her teeth, waiting for the explosion of breaking bones.

  Then the pressure eased and she felt Briscoe’s breath at her ear. “You want to trade threats, I’ll give you a real one. If I ever find out you’re talking to people about me again—family, ex-boyfriend, anyone—I will come back here. You won’t see me coming. I’ll break this arm and both of your legs, too. And that will just be the warmup.”

  Briscoe let go. Jessie tumbled forward, banging her legs against the coffee table and falling to the floor. She clutched her arm, massaging the muscles. Her gaze locked on the woman looming above her. She braced for another attack—for a second, Briscoe looked angry enough. But then the woman took a breath, straightened her hair, and seemed to regain her composure.

  Even though Jessie’s survival instinct told her to stay on the floor, not say a word, and let the woman leave, the burn of her indignation was too powerful. “You have a temper.” She knew there were tears in her eyes, but didn’t care. “Did Kelly Lee make you angry, too? Did you blow up her car, make it look like an accident?”

  Jessie closed her eyes, bracing herself for a kick or a punch. None came. When she opened her eyes, Briscoe was looking down at her with a thoughtful expression. “I had nothing to do with that accident.”

  “If I find out you did….”

  “More threats from the woman curled up on the floor.” Briscoe let out a musical laugh that might have been charming under different circumstances. “If any bitch had it coming, it was that scumbag lawyer. She cost me everything. And for what? A lousy insurance payout for her deadbeat client and her low-rent law practice? But I didn’t kill her.”

  “You didn’t want revenge?”

  “Hell yeah, I wanted it. Lee ruined my life. She took away my dream. All my years of work. My accomplishments. My avocation. Everything. She left me with no choice but to crawl back to my father and his business, when all I ever wanted was to do my own thing in the real world. The legitimate world. So, did I think about exacting a little revenge? You bet I did. But I wouldn’t have blown her up. I would’ve gotten my hands dirty. I would’ve strapped her to a chair, and gone to work on her with a dull knife. I would’ve made it last days. I would’ve carved her up and emptied her out. There wouldn’t have been a nerve in her body that I didn’t trace with the edge of a scalpel. I would have brought every bit of my medical knowledge to the project. Her car accident robbed me of that opportunity.” Briscoe shrugged. “Lucky for her.”

  “Your bedside manner must have been one of your strongest assets as a doctor.”

  “I’m a surgeon. Bedside manner is optional.”

  “Before the accident, Kelly told me she felt like someone was following her. Was it you? Planning your torture session?”

  Briscoe seemed to hesitate. Then she must have figured there was no harm in the confession. “I followed her. Didn’t have much else to do without a job or a medical license.”

  “You stalked her.”

  “Are you going to prosecute me for stalking her now that she’s dead? Is that a good use of the city’s resources?”

  “Maybe.”

  Briscoe smirked. “I doubt it.”

  “You terrorized her. You might not have gotten around to physically torturing her, but by following her, you caused her mental distress. Maybe she was distracted by that when she was driving. Maybe that’s why she got into the car accident. If I can connect those dots, maybe I have a murder case against you.”

  Briscoe’s face lost some of its smugness. “That sounds like a bullshit case.”

  “That’s what lawyers like me do, right?” Jessie rose to her full height, even though moving her body hurt. She met Briscoe’s gaze and didn’t look away. “I put Trevor away for murder. He didn’t pull a trigger, either. What makes you so sure I can’t make a case against you?”

  Briscoe stared at her for a long moment. “You’re tougher than you seem. I’m impressed—a little bit. But don’t push your luck with me.”

  Briscoe turned, opened the door, and left the apartment. Jessie waited until she heard the sound of the woman’s footfalls in the hallway outside. Then she dropped onto the couch, put her head in her hands, and let out a shuddering breath.

  21

  Leary called. He was on his way home and wanted to know if she was in the mood for Chinese. After Vicki Briscoe’s surprise visit, eating was the last thing on Jessie’s mind, but she said yes. At least it would give her a few extra minutes to collect herself before he arrived.

  Later, they ate dinner on the couch. The Chinese food was probably delicious. Jessie forced herself to eat, but could barely taste it. Her stomach churned and her hands were shaking. Could Leary tell? They were sitting on the same couch on which Vicki Briscoe had sat waiting for her in the darkness just hours ago. Right here on this couch, in this room, in her home.

  There was a lot she wanted to talk to Leary about. She wanted to tell him about Briscoe. She wanted to ask him about his visit to Douglas Shaw’s office and why he hid it from her. But she didn’t trust herself to raise either of those topics right now, so she focused on chewing her General Tso’s chicken.

  “Is something wrong?” he said.

  She shook her head, eating.

  He put aside his own food. “You seem … distant.”

  She shrugged. “I’m just thinking about work.” Her usual, go-to excuse.

  “Work, or Kelly Lee?” He sighed. “Emily told me you’re still trying to get the police to investigate the accident. I told you that’s a bad idea, Jessie. The PPD and the DA’s Office—”

  “When did Emily tell you? When the two of you questioned Douglas Shaw?”

  Leary froze. “She told you about that?”

  “Yeah. So I guess it’s okay for you to disregard Warren’s orders, but not me.”

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “You’re trying to investigate, because you know I’m right. There’s more to Kelly’s accident than the police are willing to consider.”

  Leary sighed. “I don’t know. Shaw didn’t strike me as a guilty man trying to hide something.”

  “Who else would steal Kelly’s files?”

  He spread his hands. “How many people did she sue?”

  “Point taken.” Jessie got up. “Do you want a fortune cookie?”

  “Sure.” She handed him one, took one herself, and sat down next to him on the couch. He said, “Jessie, is everything okay? I mean, other than me acting like a hypocrite by doing what I told you not to do?”

  “Yeah.” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t. She was the hypocrite, hiding much more from him than he’d hid from her. But she knew if she told him abou
t Briscoe, he would become even more protective of her. She didn’t need that from him right now. Didn’t want it.

  Her arm still ached from Briscoe’s attack. Poking around the woman’s life had been a mistake. Visiting Trevor Galway in prison, meeting with Lorena Torres of Organized Crime. Jessie should have known that these actions might get back to Briscoe, and that Briscoe would not be happy.

  “You will find treasure in an unexpected place,” Leary said, reading the slip of paper from his cookie. “What’s yours say?”

  She forced a smile and cracked open her fortune cookie. There was no slip of paper. Jessie made a face. “When I was a kid, my friends and I used to joke that if your fortune cookie was empty, you were going to die.”

  “Don’t eat the cookie, then. If you don’t eat the cookie, the fortune doesn’t come true.”

  Jessie scoffed, but she didn’t eat the cookie. “I’ll clean up. You get changed.”

  She waited for Leary to disappear into the bedroom. She could hear him hanging his suit in the closet. She went into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the shower. The sound of pounding water filled the small room.

  She took out her phone and called Graham. “It sounds like you’re in a rain forest,” Graham said.

  “Bathroom. I’m running the shower for cover.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I can’t talk to Leary about this, but I need to talk to someone. My heart is still racing.”

  “What is it?”

  Jessie watched the mirror fog with steam. “Vicki Briscoe found out I was asking questions about her. She came to my home, threatened me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Jessie massaged her arm. It still ached.

  “Did she hurt you?”

  Jessie hesitated. “A little. Only to make a point.”

  “For God’s sake, Jessie.”

  “She just wanted to make sure I know what a badass she is.”

  “Are you going to tell the police?”

  “Other than you? No. I don’t think that’s the right move.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think she had any involvement in Kelly Lee’s accident. She admitted that she had been stalking Kelly, and that she had fantasized about getting some kind of revenge against her. I don’t think she would have admitted those things if she caused the accident.”

  “So what? She broke into your apartment and assaulted you.”

  “She was angry that I visited her ex-boyfriend. The best thing to do is back off. I don’t need anything from her, now that I’m pretty sure she’s not the killer we’re looking for. We’ll go our separate ways. I’m sure one day, her time will come. I’ll leave that to Lorena Torres and the Organized Crime Unit.”

  There was a stretch of silence on the line, with only the steady white noise of the shower. “If she comes back—if she so much as passes you on the street—you let me know, Jessie.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise.”

  “Yes. I promise.”

  22

  With Noah Snyder officially substituted as plaintiffs’ counsel in the case of Rowland v. Boffo Products Corporation, Judge Dax had authorized Snyder to obtain the sealed court files, which included all pleadings filed to date. While technically those documents were confidential, Snyder had ignored the court’s order and immediately sent them to Jessie.

  Now, sitting in her office, she stared through bleary eyes at the documents. Because the trial had been interrupted in its early stages, there wasn’t much here—the complaint, answer, and reply, and the two motions Judge Dax had told her were currently pending before the court—the plaintiff’s motion to certify a class and the defense’s motion for summary judgment. She found Kelly’s brief in support of the motion to certify a class, and Boffo’s brief in opposition. Typically, a reply brief—the movant’s opportunity to address the arguments in the opposition brief—would complete the series, but there was no reply brief. Kelly’s accident must have happened before she could file one.

  The motion for summary judgment had a brief in support by Boffo, a brief in opposition by Kelly, and a reply brief by Boffo.

  Jessie called Snyder, on the off-chance that he’d missed sending her a document. “I don’t see a reply brief for the motion to certify a class.”

  “Maybe Lee didn’t bother with one?” Snyder suggested. “Reply briefs are optional.”

  “Kelly doesn’t strike me as the kind of lawyer to take a shortcut. I think she may have died before she could file a reply.”

  “I guess that means we’ll have to write one. And when I say we, I mean you.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” she said, but Snyder had already disconnected. Great.

  She’d work on a reply brief after she got her arms around the facts and the law. The problem was, the documents she had did not include a lot of information. Probably, Kelly had been holding back, not wanting to give the defense too much advance warning of her legal arguments and factual evidence she planned to use at trial. Also not in the file were the witnesses Kelly planned to call. These would have been produced during the discovery phase of the trial, which had not occurred yet.

  All of that information was presumably in Kelly’s own case file—the one that had vanished from her office along with her other client files.

  Jessie stared at the documents she did have, unsure where to even start. The most immediate threats were the two motions currently pending before the court—the plaintiff’s motion to certify as a class, and the defendant’s motion for a summary judgment dismissing the case. Jessie needed to draft a reply brief, and then help Snyder prepare for a hearing. It was going to take a lot of research into areas of the law Jessie was not familiar with, along with an unhealthy amount of coffee, to even get started.

  She felt a spark of hope when the phone on her desk rang. Maybe it was Snyder, calling to tell her he’d been joking about her doing all the work. But it wasn’t Snyder. It was Warren. She picked up, said, “Hey.”

  “Come to my office.”

  “Everything okay?” His voice sounded tight, clipped, but she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t an effect of his new rising-before-the-dawn morning routine.

  “Now, Jessie.” Not a good sign.

  Was he still angry that she’d gone to Kelly Lee’s apartment? She thought she’d gotten him past that when she’d explained she was just helping Snyder. Walking to his office, she wondered what new thing might have irritated him. Had he somehow found out that Snyder had sent her the pleadings?

  His office door was closed. Definitely not a good sign.

  She knocked, took the half-snarl, half-grunt she heard through the door as an invitation, and went inside.

  The small office was unusually crowded. Warren slouched in his office chair. Standing rigidly behind him was a man in a pristinely pressed police uniform whom she recognized as Captain Henderson, the head of the PPD Homicide Division. In the visitor chairs facing the desk were two people Jessie could recognize even just seeing the backs of their heads. Mark Leary and Emily Graham. They glanced back at her as she closed the door.

  “Well, now we’re all here,” Warren said.

  Jessie shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Nervousness burned through her. “What’s going on?”

  “I told you,” Leary said quickly, before anyone else could respond. “Jessie doesn’t know anything about this. We did it on our own. We didn’t even tell her.”

  Graham remained silent, but glanced at Jessie with an apologetic look.

  “What didn’t you tell me?” Jessie said.

  “Apparently, Douglas Shaw, the president and CEO of the company Kelly Lee was suing, received a visit from Detectives Graham and Leary, who claimed to be there as representatives of the PPD and the DA’s Office,” Warren said. “You can probably imagine the consequences when that happens to a wealthy, powerful person like Shaw.”

  “Angry complaints,” Henderson put in. “Threats. Political pressure.”<
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  “You two had no authority to question Shaw,” Warren said. “Your insubordination has put us in a very uncomfortable position.”

  “Insubordination?” Graham’s voice rose. She looked to Henderson. “Captain, I—”

  “AID closed the case,” Henderson snapped. “The Homicide Division was not supposed to get involved.”

  “All we did was ask a few questions,” Leary said. “We didn’t take him into custody.”

  “It’s my fault,” Jessie spoke up. “I’m the one who wanted to continue investigating Shaw. Emily and Mark were only trying to help. If you’re going to discipline anyone here, it should be me.”

  “That’s not true,” Leary said, leaning forward. He started to stand up.

  “Sit down, Mark.” Jessie felt a flash of anger. She didn’t need Leary to sacrifice his career for her. “This is on me.”

  “Maybe we’ll discipline all three of you,” Warren said.

  “That’s one way to go,” Jessie said. “That might appease Shaw. Or it might not.”

  “But you have a better idea, of course,” Warren said dryly.

  “Tie him to Kelly Lee’s death. Then he and his company go down, and the DA’s Office and PPD are heroes.”

  No one looked impressed by her plan. “The AID investigation found no evidence suggesting that her death was anything but an accident,” Captain Henderson said.

  “The AID investigation missed something,” Jessie said.

  Henderson’s gaze swung to Graham. Graham said, “I think it’s possible that Jessie is right, Captain.”

  Henderson made a noise in his throat. He looked at Warren. “I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I,” Warren said.

  “If I can bring you evidence proving that Kelly Lee was murdered,” Jessie said, “then no one in this room needs to be reprimanded, right?”

  Warren and Henderson exchanged another glance. Warren said, “I can give you a few days. But you better believe this is serious, Jessie. If you don’t come through, we may have to sacrifice all three of your jobs for the good of the PPD and DA’s Office.”