Murder Casts Its Spell

by Margaret C. Morse

  He clamped on to Keegan's shoulder. "I've got plenty."

  Still holding Keegan's sleeve, I tightened my grip. If only I could transfer hope and strength to him—but I wasn't a magician. I knew when I let go he'd belong to the cops. Lawyer words came out instead of words of comfort. "Listen to me. Keep your mouth shut. Don't say a word."

  I released him and pointed a finger in Snyder's face. "He's invoking his right to remain silent and wants a lawyer."

  "You're my lawyer." Keegan's voice was stretched thin.

  It was my turn to swallow a bitter pill. "I can't. I'm not death-qualified. I'll let your family know they need to hire someone. I'll stand in until they get a death penalty lawyer."

  At my mention of the death penalty, Keegan's face froze in its grimace. He had shut himself off from me. Snyder and the cop propelled him out of the building.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MONDAY LATE AFTERNOON

  As I drove up to my office, I braked hard when a woman darted in front of me and ran into the park across the street. She stood on the grass and shook her fist at a gray-haired man hunched under a paloverde tree. He shuffled away, pursued by her shrieks. A flutter inched down my back when I recognized Ernie, the circus clown turned homeless wanderer who had put a spell on me.

  Located only five minutes from downtown, this neighborhood did attract street people. I didn't want to meet Ernie again and experience his whacked-out power. The out-of-control feeling from his spell haunted me.

  Keegan's arrest gave me enough to worry about. Before I left the court parking lot, I'd messaged Detective Snyder and repeated that Keegan should not be interviewed without his attorney present. The thought of another lawyer on Keegan's murder case made me clench the steering wheel and grit my teeth.

  I had to manipulate events so that I would end up working on Keegan's case. In aid of this idea, I'd talked with Paul Flynn, Keegan's older brother, and suggested the family hire my old friend from law school, Chris Rollins, who was well known for his successful handling of murder clients, most recently the Central Avenue Slasher. I was confidant I could persuade Chris to let me work with him. Whomever the Flynn family hired, I'd make a pitch to be part of Keegan's defense team. While I waited to hear from the Flynns, I needed to brief my partners, Bear and Maxy, about Keegan's arrest.

  I parked in the driveway on the side of the office and noted my partners' cars, Bear's SUV and Maxy's royal blue Lexus, were both tucked in the small back lot. Before I left my car, I checked the rearview mirror to see if Ernie was around. At 5:30, the sun sent out long shadows. When I didn't see Ernie, I entered the back door of the bungalow we'd converted into offices. In the kitchen, with its white cabinets and gray linoleum, I inhaled the aroma from Maxy's chugging espresso machine. She must be planning to work late. I heard her murmur from the open door of the first office on the left, "I have the way out." When she wanted to, she could put a warm, honey tone in her voice that could sweet-talk anybody into anything.

  To the right, Bear's voice rose and fell through his closed door. He'd been obsessively rehearsing the opening for his abused-wife-who-almost-killed-her-husband trial next week. A country and Western song accompanied him, "Baby, no way you should've left me today." Bear favored honky-tonk during domestic violence cases. Although at first I complained about the music, I eventually found myself humming along.

  I pounded on Bear's door until he stopped talking and turned off the next song, "Time You Paid the Dues."

  "I need you now!" I shouted. "Emergency meeting!"

  Maxy must have heard because she followed me. In my office, a dark cherry desk faced the door. Behind it, diplomas and certificates informed visitors I was a lawyer with a background in social work. Two red leather client chairs sat at slight angles to each other. On the wall left of the desk hung an Ansel Adams black-and-white photo of the Snake River circling away from the Grand Tetons. When I was stuck for ideas, I relied on its clear lines to clarify my thoughts.

  As I plopped into my desk chair, Maxy sat daintily. Just under five feet, she weighed less than one hundred pounds, every inch steely muscle from years of ballerina training. She wore her black hair in the sharp lines of a pixie cut.

  "What?" She sipped coffee from a china mug.

  Bear lumbered in with his clumsy, almost shuffling gait. A big man, his curly hair and chin goatee the color of cinnamon, he'd rolled back the sleeves of his rumpled dress shirt. His tie dangled askew.

  "What's up?" His gruff voice made listeners sit up and take notice.

  I delivered the bad news straight up, the way I liked to get it. "The victim, Felicia

  Morlatti, didn't show up for Keegan's hearing. We waited for over an hour. The next thing I know, the cops arrested Keegan for her murder."

  They gaped at me.

  Bear recovered first. "How did she die?"

  "I don't know any details. The cops weren't sharing."

  "Did you see this coming?" Maxy scowled at me.

  "I don't expect people I know to kill their ex-lovers. After they broke up, Keegan and Felicia had issues but nothing violent. What about you, Maxy? You've been working closely with him."

  She deposited the china cup on my desk and flexed her dainty fingers. "He tried to get along with Felicia, but she knew how to push his buttons."

  Bear put his hands on my desk and leaned across it. "Who's representing Keegan on the murder charge?"

  "I called his brother Paul and told him the family needs to hire someone who's death-qualified." I kept my hand close to the phone so I could snatch it up for news about Keegan's case. "I recommended they hire Chris Rollins."

  "Him!" Maxy glared, her blue eyes ice sharp.

  Chilled by her opposition, I looked at Bear for his reaction.

  He rubbed at his goatee as he sank into the chair. "All in all, a reasonable choice."

  I usually enjoyed it when my partners disagreed because I learned both sides of an issue from their different takes. For some reason I'd never figured out, Maxy bristled at the mention of Chris, while Bear stayed mellow. I hadn't seen much of Chris, one of my best friends in law school, for about a year. When I broke up with Eduardo, I'd concentrated on work and cut myself off from friends, so Chris and I had some catching up to do. My partners had supported me during what Bear called, "Petra's multi-textured healing process."

  I focused on them. "Paul thinks his family would want to hire a lawyer who was also a wizard."

  "Bear's a more reasonable choice. He's as death-qualified as they come, even if he's not a wizard." Maxy swiveled in her chair, her whole body pointing at him.

  I tried not to let annoyance at Maxy show in my voice. Hadn't she heard me say the Flynns wanted one of their own kind for a lawyer? "I suggested Bear, but Paul is sure the family will want to hire a wizard like Chris."

  "I've got jury selection for poor little Stella next week." Bear's face assumed the sad-dog look that always accompanied his discussion of a wronged female client.

  I turned to him. "If they wanted to hire you, I could cover while you're in trial. If they hire Chris, I'm going to do my best to get him to agree to let me work on the case."

  "And since when has Chris been an associate of this firm?" Maxy swung her right foot, clad in a red spike heel.

  Bear loosened his tie two more notches. "It's not impossible that some arrangement could be worked out for you and Chris to collaborate."

  I concentrated on Maxy, who seemed determined to raise obstacles. "This is not about personalities. It's about ability. I know you dislike Chris, but you can't argue that he's not an excellent attorney. And, I'd be more valuable to the firm if I were death-qualified and could handle capital cases." I needed to second chair a death penalty case to complete my qualifications.

  Her foot stopped swinging. "It is about personalities. His. And I don't dislike him. I dislike what he does to you. He gets you involved in messes, like Rogers."

  I wondered if she was jealous that Chris had referred cases like Rogers to me
and not her. "I got a 'not guilty' in Rogers."

  "After months of back-breaking work. Not to mention the turmoil in your personal life."

  Eduardo. Once again, I experienced that jolt of dislocation at his loss. It was a low blow from Maxy to drag in my ex-boyfriend. "Eduardo left because I wouldn't move to Chile with him—not because I had a challenging case."

  Bear lumbered to his feet and hovered over us. "What doesn't destroy us makes us stronger."

  The phone buzzed, relieving me of the thorny topic of Eduardo. I pushed the button for the speaker when Detective Snyder introduced himself.

  His voice was level and calm. "Your client invoked his rights very strongly. We're not questioning him. He has night court at four a.m. Murder first degree." He disconnected.

  Murder. A man we'd worked with for years locked up in a cell waiting to die—I knew the state would ask for the death penalty. The current county attorney had been elected on a Get Tough on Wizards platform and always sought the maximum penalty for those with magic power. Wizards Against Injustice frequently picketed his office. Maxy tightened up all over, leaving her face gaunt. Bear shut his eyes and scowled.

  I pictured Keegan in the holding cells for the newly arrested, his hands clamped on the bars. Stress dried up my mouth, as if I'd been talking for hours. I pulled a bottle of water from a desk drawer.

  The phone rang. I recognized Chris Rollins's number and snatched it up. "Did Keegan's family hire you?" We could catch up later.

  Chris's light tenor floated over the line. "His uncle, Ronan Flynn, retained me. He seems to have the idea you'll be working with me."

  "I'm going to be your second chair. It's clearly what your client Keegan Flynn wants."

  "I've never had a second chair. I'm a lone wolf. I do my best when it all depends on me."

  Surprised that he wasn't eager to work with me, I tried not to sound anxious. "Yeah, well, wolves hunt in packs." Maxy and Bear looked at me with raised brows.

  Chris switched to his louder and deeper courtroom voice. "Mr. Flynn hired me. Bringing you in is totally at my discretion."

  I couldn't understand why he was being so oppositional, just like Maxy. "Are you in your office?"

  "It's now also my home."

  What did that mean? Last I heard, he had a pricey house in the suburbs.

  "Stay there. I'm coming over as soon as I get the file together."

  I looked at my colleagues. They did not need to know my future co-counsel was being difficult. "I'm meeting with Chris to iron out a few details."

  CHAPTER THREE

  MONDAY EVENING

  Chris had his office in the wizard ghetto. Through the seventies and eighties, wizard families had taken over the abandoned shops and strip malls on Central Avenue south of the Salt River.

  At the third intersection past the dry riverbed, a kid with a bandana tied around his head came up when I braked. He shook his fingers inches from my windshield. After a clear liquid squirted out, he passed his hand above the glass, leaving it shiny clean. Clutching the dollar I gave him, he darted away and high-fived two of his buddies on the corner.

  I slowed when I reached Master Mind. A parrot tattoo detached from the display window and perched on the shoulder of a teenage girl passing by. She squealed with delight. My ex-boyfriend, Eduardo, and I went to Master Mind two Christmases ago. He got a howling coyote tattoo on his upper arm. I got a crescent moon on my shoulder blade. I never looked at it anymore.

  Over the sign for a former dress shop hung a banner. Wizards Against Injustice! Join the Fight! Inside men and women on folding chairs listened to a speaker who was waving his hands. If the state asked for the death penalty for Keegan, WAI would surely protest.

  Located on the corner of Chris's street, Mother of Mercy 24/7 Counseling and Crisis Center occupied the first half of the block. When Eduardo and I broke up, that's where Keegan took me to meet with one of their spiritual adjustment counselors. I ended up doing a group—Get Over It!— run by Keegan's mother.

  I parked in front of a three-story building. The first floor had offices for a tax accountant, a counselor, and Chris Rollins, attorney-at-law. Except for Chris, the other business owners had always lived above their offices. This tradition of living and working in the same place made the ghetto seem alive, unlike the dead feel of business areas where nobody made their home. Now Chris lived and worked in the same place.

  Light shone behind the shutters of his office. I rehearsed a few snappy phrases to summarize my life for the past year because I planned to reduce the catching up to the bare minimum and get down to business about Keegan. When I pressed on the buzzer, the door disappeared. Chris grinned at me from just inside the threshold as I stepped forward, only to bump into the abruptly rematerialized wood panels.

  While I rubbed my forehead, Chris swung open the door and pulled me into the reception room. His blue Polo shirt had a red insignia, a jagged line across a heart. An inch taller than my five feet eight inches, he stood pretty much eye to eye with me. "Sorry, I thought I'd mastered the door dissolution." After scanning me up and down, he released his grip. "It's been a year since we met."

  Following him into the reception room, I blinked, dazzled by the gleam of the marble floor, alternate diamonds of tan and rust. When he first left the public defender's, his office décor had featured thick rugs, dark wood, and cowboy art.

  "We've seen each other in court." I'd avoided him because I thought he'd ask me about Eduardo.

  He raised his eyebrows. Thick and straight, and darker than his medium brown hair, they jutted over his eyes and dominated his face. "Doesn't count. The last time we really met was at Fernando's for breakfast. They've been out of business for at least a year."

  "I was busy with the Rogers case. And when I got a 'not guilty,' of course, more clients came in." I heard my voice fade. "Why am I evading you? You've seen me at my worst, which I think would be the day before our first law school final."

  "Going crazy together—those were the good old days."

  I dropped my briefcase on a chair in the reception area. Danish modern, the chair resembled a black soup ladle set on spindly legs.

  "After Eduardo and I broke up, I became a recluse. Lately, I've begun to emerge. You were on the renewal list."

  "But not at the top. Keegan's uncle Ronan Flynn is here. He's leaving, but wants to meet you."

  The man who emerged from Chris's office had dead eyes, the unfocused gaze of someone in shock. At first, he resembled Keegan enough to be his twin, but closer up, I saw his dark hair was longer than Keegan's, the curls loosened into waves. Age showed in the gray at his temples and the wrinkles around his eyes.

  As we shook hands, he looked from me to Chris. "Miss Rakowitz, I want you to work on Keegan's case. He speaks highly of you as his boss. I know he's innocent. Do you know how I know?"

  "He's your nephew?" I guessed.

  Light sparkled in Ronan Flynn's eyes as he straightened his posture. His shoulders, somewhat broader than Keegan's, made him seem like a bulwark—a protective presence. "Keegan would never hurt his son in that way, depriving him of his mother. He had problems with Felicia, but he respected her role as a parent."

  I'd hoped for something with evidentiary value. "Ever since Felicia filed charges against him, as far as I know, Keegan has followed the court order to have no contact with her."

  A frown briefly marred Ronan's face. "I actually met Felicia Morlatti. Around when she and Keegan broke up, I had to take one of the circus performers to emergency. She was the nurse. Pretended she didn't recognize my name."

  "If you know anything about what happened with Felicia, now is a good time to disclose."

  Ronan dropped his gaze and studied Chris's business card. "I wasn't with Keegan last night or this morning, whenever she was killed."

  That wasn't my question. Ronan was as good at using weasel words as Keegan. His shiftiness might have come from knowing, through the family grapevine, that his other nephew, Ira, had been with
the victim and had ended up in a dissociated state. Ira might not have told them he'd called me. "Tell me, Mr. Flynn—"

  He jumped as his phone rang. "What? All right. I'm on my way." He nodded at Chris and me. "Emergency at the circus. They need me. Keegan's father is in Europe searching for talent."

  After Ronan Flynn left, Chris answered the phone on the receptionist's desk, a slab of teak that curved around to meet a bookcase stretching to the ceiling. I recognized his collection of antique law volumes, so at least he'd kept that part of his former décor. While he talked, I picked up my briefcase, noting that the reception area artwork had magic in it—birds and monkeys in a tropical forest disappeared from one picture to reappear in the next.

  Chris hung up the phone and gestured to a door across from his office. I followed him to the conference room, where he flicked his hand at a chair midway around an oval table. The chair rolled back and turned to me invitingly. The conference room had the dark wood and thick carpets of his previous decorating scheme.

  "Your decorator didn't get this far?"

  He nodded his head toward the reception area. "She wanted me to get used to the new look, make sure I could live with it everywhere. It's supposed to be energizing."

  Although I longed to tell him I found the new look manic, I needed to talk about Keegan. But it was only fair to give him a chance to update me about why he no longer lived in suburbia. "Okay, I shared my deepest innermost thoughts with you. Now what's going on? Where are Janna and the kids?"

  "Janna took the kids and is living with her parents in San Diego. She filed for divorce last week."

  He sounded calm, but people develop a glib patter to discuss their heartbreak.

  "I'm sorry. How are you doing?"

  "The good days are bad, and the bad days are terrible." He looked beyond me, squinting into the past. "About a year and a half ago, Janna gave me an ultimatum—stop being a workaholic or she'd walk out. I agreed to get counseling and spend more time at home."