DB01 - Presumption of Innocence

by Stephen Penner

  Then he lowered the phone. “Karpati posted bail. He’s out.”

  He thought for a moment then raised a haunted gaze to Kat. “Lizzy.”

  “Lizzy?” she repeated quizzically. Then her voice hardened. “What about Lizzy?”

  “He knows it was her,” Brunelle explained. “That she’s the one I sent into the jail. He overheard us talking after you testified.”

  Kat stared at him for just a moment, then screamed, “Damn you, David Brunelle!” and ran for the door.

  Brunelle only hesitated for a second before running after her, his hand digging the car keys out of his pocket as he went.

  Chapter 43

  The front door was kicked in, the door frame splintered by the deadbolt. No young accomplice to trick the girl inside into unlocking it.

  Brunelle stepped in carefully and scanned the scene, cursing himself for never buying that gun his detective friends kept telling him he needed, handling the cases he did. “Lizzy?”

  But Kat pushed past him. “I’ll check the bedrooms, you check down here.” She was practically to the top of stairs by the time she finished the sentence. A second later she was out of sight around the corner.

  Brunelle stepped through the house, trying to listen for a clue as to where they might be. There had clearly been a struggle. Drawers pulled open in the kitchen. Someone looking for a knife most likely. But had it been Lizzy for defense, or Karpati for…?

  He shook his head. He needed to stop analyzing it like a crime scene.

  This wasn’t Emily; it was Lizzy.

  “Mmmph!”

  Downstairs. The family room. Brunelle dashed down the stairs and pulled up short at the landing.

  Lizzy was on her stomach, her hands tied behind her, her mouth gagged with a towel. Karpati was kneeling on her back, a steak knife in his hand and a gleam in his eye.

  “Why, hello, Mr. Brunelle. Welcome to my acquittal.”

  Brunelle swallowed hard. Even if he lunged, he could never reach Karpati before he sliced Lizzy’s throat.

  “Acquittal?” Brunelle said. “Looks like count two to me. Attempted Murder.”

  Karpati smiled broadly. “Didn’t you hear Dr. Feelgood today? A second murder proves I’m insane. I get away with murder by committing a new murder. How crazy is that?”

  When Brunelle didn’t respond, Karpati laughed again. “Get it? How crazy is that? Crazy. Get it?”

  Brunelle nodded. He looked at Lizzy. Her eyes pleaded the words her mouth couldn’t. Karpati’s knife was less than an inch from her own carotid artery. Karpati had dispensed with the formality of the bucket. It would be enough just to kill her.

  “Look, Karpati,” Brunelle raised his hands but made a point not to step toward him, lest he get spooked and slash Lizzy’s throat right then and there. “This won’t work. A second crime never excuses the first. We can charge them together, then they’re cross-admissible. Even if we don’t seek death, you’re looking at twenty years mandatory minimum on each count, no good time. That’s forty years. You’re twenty already, so best case is you’re sixty when you get out. But drop the knife and this is only an attempted murder.”

  Karpati shook his head and actually pressed the knife against Lizzy’s throat. She whimpered but couldn’t move away from the blade. “You’re not listening, Brunelle. Murder to get away with murder.” Then Karpati grinned. “And you know the best part?”

  Brunelle shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “What’s the best part?”

  “You picked the victim for me,” Karpati chimed. “This is the bitch you sent into the jail to trick me, right? Your girlfriend’s daughter? Perfect. I mean, I would have been willing to kill any little bitch, but you— You helped me decide exactly which little bitch to filet.”

  Brunelle swallowed again, this time against the bile rising in his throat. “Great.”

  He decided to press on. Lizzy was still alive, that was something. “Listen, Karpati, really. You don’t have to kill her. Let me explain. Dr. Feelgood said it was an irresistible urge. You being here proves that, right? So you don’t actually have to kill her. I stopped you. The end. Attempted murder is as good as actual murder for that.”

  Karpati nodded. “Okay, yeah. I see what you mean. Sure.” He nodded some more and looked down at the helpless girl he was straddling. “There’s just one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to kill her.” A rough laugh and another wide-eyed grin. “Say goodbye to your step-daughter, Brunelle.”

  Two gunshots echoed off the walls. Karpati flew backwards off of Lizzy and Kat stepped out from behind Brunelle, a wisp of smoke trailing up from the muzzle of her .45 semi-auto.

  “God, you lawyers talk a lot.”

  She stepped over and untied her daughter, who clasped her, sobbing.

  Brunelle stepped over to Karpati. One shot to the chest. Potentially survivable. The one that removed the top of his head, not so much.

  “Huh.” Brunelle shoved his hands in pockets. He looked over to Kat and Lizzy, still embracing, then back at what was left of Arpad Karpati. “I guess I won’t be giving that closing argument on Monday after all.”

  Epilogue

  “Holly pled guilty, huh?”

  Chen was sprawled out in one of Brunelle’s office chairs, gazing out the window at the sun setting over Elliot Bay.

  “Yep,” Brunelle confirmed. “As soon as she heard Karpati was dead, she insisted on pleading. We actually reduced the charge to conspiracy to commit murder. Saved her some time.”

  Chen turned back to Brunelle. “Why’d you do that?”

  Brunelle shrugged. “She was a victim too. No way she participates in that murder without Karpati controlling her. She seemed truly remorseful, In fact, she could barely get through the guilty plea because she was sobbing so hard.”

  Chen nodded. “Well, that’s probably a good thing.”

  Brunelle returned the nod. “Yeah, she’ll have to live with Emily’s death for the rest of her life. There’s more than one type of punishment.”

  Chen frowned thoughtfully. “You think so?”

  Just then, there was a rap on Brunelle’s door frame. It was Kat, dressed for a night on the town. “Ready for the ballet, David?”

  “Ballet?” Chen laughed.

  Brunelle shrugged. “I rest my case.”

  THE END

  Don’t miss the next David Brunelle legal thriller!

  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?

  Chapter 1

  “Don’t you hate it when the victim kinda deserved it?”

  Seattle Police detective Larry Chen crossed his thick arms under his police-issue raincoat and looked to his friend for a reply. Dave Brunelle, King County homicide prosecutor, didn’t look up from the dead body splayed at their feet. Instead he nodded and pushed his hands deeper into his own raincoat—thrown on at one in the morning when he got Chen’s call.

  “Just try not to say that on the stand,” he said.

  The murder victim was a man, late forties, overweight, and most definitely dead. His blood glistened black in the cracks between the cobblestones of Founder’s Park in Seattle’s Pioneer Square district. He was on his back, arms sprawled, shirt cut away by the same paramedics who left behind the adhesive chest pads they’d used to attempt resuscitation despite the multiple stab wounds to his chest. The rain was coating his face in droplets that trickled int
o his ear and the folds of his neck. He lay at the base of the plaza’s 56-foot totem pole, like an offering to the spirits represented in the carvings, their faces made all the more grotesque by the forensic team’s floodlights and the red and blue strobe of the cop cars clogging the narrow streets surrounding the square.

  “So why did he deserve it?” Brunelle asked, more concerned with the potential jury nullification issues than the justness of the man’s death. “Was it self defense?”

  “No,” Chen was quick to answer. “Witnesses said there was an argument, but nothing physical until the killer pulled out the knife and stuck it into our guy’s chest.”

  Chen extracted his notebook from his damp pocket. “It’s not what he did. It’s who he was.”

  Brunelle finally looked up from the corpse. “Who was he?”

  “George Traver,” Chen read from the latest page of his running notebook. “Child molester. Registered sex offender. Failed to update his registration six months ago. Last known address was a trailer down near Tacoma. Had a warrant out for that, plus two more for shoplifting and drunk in public.”

  “Ah,” replied Brunelle, wiping some rain from his nose. “Still, not exactly worthy of a knife in the chest.”

  “He was the suspect in two more child luring and indecent exposure cases.”

  “Okay,” Brunelle agreed. “That might do it. Kind of a community service killing, huh?”

  “Exactly,” Chen confirmed.

  Brunelle peered around the plaza. It was almost closing time. Intoxicated gawkers stumbled past the crime scene tape trying to get a glimpse of what lay at the base of the totem pole. “So where was he living?”

  “He was homeless,” Chen answered. “Sleeping on benches downtown mostly.”

  “Probably why he didn’t register,” Brunelle observed.

  “Probably,” Chen agreed, “although they’re allowed to register as ‘homeless.’”

  Brunelle frowned. “I always thought that was stupid. It kind of defeats the purpose”

  “Sure does.”

  “So, who’s our suspect?” Brunelle asked. He needed a suspect before he could get involved. Unsolved would mean no defendant to charge. “Another homeless guy?”

  “Nope, the homeless guys liked him,” Chen answered. “I sent two patrol guys to interview some of them. Most scattered, but the few who stayed said ol’ George here was a great guy. Salt of the earth.”

  “I’m sure,” Brunelle scoffed. “What’s the suspect description?”

  Chen looked down at his notepad. “Male, twenty-something, Hispanic or Native.”

  “Wow, not very helpful,” Brunelle observed. “That describes about twenty-five percent of the people in Pioneer Square tonight.”

  “Maybe,” Chen shrugged, “if you include Hispanics. But if you limit it to Natives, then it’s probably one, maybe two percent.”

  It was Brunelle’s turn to shrug. “And if we reduce it to Native men with one testicle and a prosthetic elbow, we can really start to narrow it down.”

  Chen cocked his head at his friend. “One testicle?”

  Brunelle threw up his hands. “I’m just saying, you can always narrow it down. Why would you limit the description just to Natives if the witnesses said Native or Hispanic?”

  Chen looked down at the lifeless body before them. “Our victim is Native.”

  Brunelle pursed his lips. “I don’t see why that matters. It’s not like murder stays in one race. If somebody killed you, I wouldn’t assume the murderer was Chinese.”

  Chen smirked. “You should. If I wind up murdered, you can be pretty sure it was my wife.”

  “Oh yeah?” Brunelle laughed.

  “Yeah,” Chen laughed too, but it faded and he shoved his hands in his pockets. He pushed a foot out toward the dead man splayed out at the base of the totem pole. “You gotta know someone to hate them enough to kill them.”

  A set of fingernails dug into Brunelle’s back. “Hey there, Mr. Brunelle,” came a sweet female voice from behind him. Assistant Medical Examiner Kat Anderson had arrived. She pulled her nails down the length of Brunelle’s back as she walked past him. “Long time, no call.”

  Brunelle stiffened at the voice, then relaxed slightly as she passed him and knelt next to the corpse. He knew she was right. “Yeah,” he offered. “Sorry about that. Been busy.”

  She turned and smiled at him. Her smile held warmth, but other thoughts too. “Of course you have. Me too.”

  She returned to her examination of the murder victim. She wore a long raincoat that covered her curves, but the hood was pushed back, leaving her black hair and soft face exposed to the rain. He supposed her knees were getting wet and cold from the rain-drenched cobblestones. He remembered the last time they’d really talked and he regretted not having called her since then. Their last case together had ended badly. Or at least, it had almost ended badly, and he’d been reluctant to draw Kat, or her daughter, into danger again. He knew he’d been distant for the right reasons; he just didn’t know if she knew it.

  “A-hem,” Chen cleared his throat. Then he took Brunelle by the elbow. “Why don’t we step over here and discuss next steps.”

  Brunelle looked up sharply, then nodded. He allowed Chen to lead him toward the street. “Right. Next steps. What are the next steps?”

  “The next steps are you stepping away from her while she does her job,” Chen said. “I thought you two were an item or something, but it sure doesn’t seem like it now.”

  Brunelle shrugged. “I think maybe we were going to be, but I haven’t followed up. I don’t like what happened on the Karpati case. I don’t want to let that happen again.”

  Chen looked over his shoulder at Anderson. She had pulled on her latex gloves and was palpating the corpse’s neck. “I’m pretty sure she can take care of herself.”

  Brunelle looked too. He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Maybe this has more to do with you,” Chen started, but before he could say more, Anderson stood up and stepped over to them.

  “No mysteries here,” she announced as she pulled her gloves off. “Two stab wounds. One to the stomach, ruptured his small intestine. That would have been survivable, with prompt medical intervention, but the second one was directly to his heart. I’ll need to do a full autopsy to determine where exactly it struck, but he was dead as soon as the blade went in.”

  “Sounds intentional,” Brunelle replied.

  “Maybe even premeditated,” Anderson answered. “Murder one?”

  Brunelle allowed a grin. “That’s what we’ll charge. Just don’t let Larry on the stand. He thinks it’s justifiable.”

  Anderson cocked her head at the detective. The motion sent rain drops cascading off her thick hair. Brunelle wished he hadn’t noticed, and pretended the sight didn’t send his heart racing.

  “Justifiable?” she asked.

  Chen shrugged. “Community service killing. Guy was a child molester.”

  Anderson frowned. She looked back at the body. “Did I say murder? I meant suicide. Obvious suicide.”

  Brunelle shook his head and laughed. “Great. Lead detective says it’s justified and the M.E. says it’s suicide. No way I get a conviction now.”

  “Lighten up,” Chen slapped his back. “You need a defendant first anyway. Hopefully one that’s even worse that ol’ George there.”

  Just then a patrol officer hurried over to them. “We located the suspect,” she announced. “Down on Alaska Way. Still had the blood on his hands. They’re taking him to the precinct right now.”

  Chen turned to Brunelle. “You coming to watch the interrogation?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he answered, both relieved and saddened to have an excuse to escape from Kat.

  ###

  …to read the rest, get your copy of Tribal Court today!

  Other David Brunelle Legal Thrillers

  Short Stories, available exclusively for Amazon Kindle

  Beyond A Reasonable Doubt<
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  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.

  Case Theory

  Homicide D.A. 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