“See, the shooter would want to make sure nothing was left behind, especially the bullet because that could be traced back to the gun. That’s why it wasn’t a shot to the head. Most bullets can’t usually penetrate the skull twice to get out again. But a shot to the chest would be very likely to go through and through. So to catch the bullet, just put a few inches of books and a stone bookend behind her back. By the time the bullet hits the stone, it’s lost too much energy to do anything except flatten out and lodge in the last book. Then take the books, bookend and rag and leave. Oh, and the gun.”
Brunelle rubbed his chin as he surveyed the imprint of carnage before him. “The only thing I don’t know is whether it was a revolver and the casing stayed in the gun, or a semi-auto and he just picked up the casing.”
“It was a revolver.”
Brunelle stood up slowly and turned to see Norquist pointing the revolver right at his own heart. Norquist’s personal gun. His traceable duty firearm was still holstered.
Brunelle raised his hands to shoulder height. “I wasn’t quite done. The last part is that the shooter had to have done all that between the time Campbell left and the first officer arrived. Unless…”
“Unless,” Norquist finished, “the shooter was the first officer to arrive.”
Brunelle nodded. Then he had to ask, “Why?”
Norquist’s round face was granite. “Don’t you even realize what you just described? Do you know what I saw when I walked in here? An infant murdered and his mother crippled for life. He didn’t just kill her child, he killed her soul.
“And I knew what would happen. Murder charge for the child, assault charge for the mom. Then he claims temporary insanity and you guys amend the charges down to manslaughter. You and the defense lawyers always work out deals, then you go out and grab a cup of coffee together.”
“Hey,” Brunelle protested. “I’m on your side.”
“No, you’re not,” Norquist practically shouted. “You prosecutors pretend you’re law enforcement like us, but you’re not. You’re lawyers first—just lawyers. The only reason you’re at the prosecutor’s office is you couldn’t get a job with the big corporate firm downtown. So you cut him seven years, he serves four, and he’s out again before the kid would have lost his first tooth.”
He looked down and shook his head slowly. But his gun stayed trained on Brunelle’s heart.
“She was sobbing, ‘I wish he’d killed me too.’ Well, I’ve been around long enough to know that two murders at once means death penalty. I told her I was just going to make her more comfortable, and I propped her up. It was painless for her, especially given all the pain she was in anyway.”
He puffed his chest. “And you guys charged it death penalty, so I was right.”
“Not really,” Brunelle replied, his hands still raised. “You didn’t need to kill her.”
Doubt crept across his features. “What do you mean?”
“He broke into the house to assault her,” Brunelle explained. “That’s a burglary. The legal definition of burglary is when you break into a building to commit any crime, not just theft. You enter a home unlawfully and assault someone, you commit a burglary. And if you murder someone during a burglary, that’s death penalty. As soon as he kicked in the door to assault her, he’d committed a burglary. And as soon as he shot the kid, he was death penalty eligible.”
Norquist’s face grew red behind his white whiskers.
“Leave the law to the lawyers,” Brunelle said.
Norquist shook the gun at him. “You’re in no position to lecture me!” Santa’s bodyguard was rattled. “Anything else you want to say while you still have the chance?”
“Yes.” Brunelle raised his voice and directed it toward the back bedroom. “Any time now, guys!”
Norquist looked over his shoulder, only to see Chen and three patrol officers step out from the back hallway, their own guns drawn and trained on Norquist’s back.
“Forensics is at your house right now, Bob,” Chen almost sighed. “Brunelle got a search warrant signed before coming over here to wait for you.”
Norquist blinked hard, but didn’t lower the gun. “So the radio calls about you meeting Brunelle here, then getting called away…?”
“Contrived,” admitted Chen. “So you’d think Brunelle was here alone.”
Norquist closed his eyes and nodded, slowly. Then, finally, he lowered his gun from Brunelle’s chest. He knelt down, slid the gun to Chen, and put his hands on the back of his head.
Then he said the thing Brunelle figured he’d say, his earlier diatribe notwithstanding. The thing they all say, if they’re smart.
“I want a lawyer.”
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.”
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. “Ri
ght. 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)
Beyond A Reasonable Doubt
A woman is brutally murdered, and it’s district attorney David Brunelle’s job to put the killer away. The defendant fled barefoot, abandoning her shoes in the pool of blood under the victim. It looks like an open-and-shut case, but Brunelle should know better. If he doesn’t figure out the truth—and fast—it’s his blood that might be spilled next.
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
Case Theory: A David Brunelle Legal Thriller Short Story (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series) Page 3
