Corpus Delicti (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Book 6)

by Stephen Penner

  “Well, maybe not completely dead.” He tried to step back from the edge of Hyperbole Cliff. “But it’s damaged. And…” And what? ‘And you killed her!’? He couldn’t say that. Not credibly.

  Damn it. Not only had he said too much in admitting his case was fatally wounded, the entire conversation was saying too much. He was mad at the conclusion on Linda’s death certificate, and he was taking it out on Edwards.

  Edwards narrowed her eyes. She was also clearly aware of the crowd, like a winning boxer drawing strength from the cheers. “And what?” she demanded.

  Brunelle frowned. Time to dial it down. “And I just wish you hadn’t pushed so hard,” he said quietly. “I gave you her name, and now she’s dead.”

  Brunelle’s suddenly calmer tone seemed, if not to disarm Edwards, to at least confuse her. “So, what? I have blood on my hands, is that it?”

  Brunelle shrugged. “Your words, not mine.”

  So much for dialing it down.

  Edwards didn’t say anything for several seconds, but Brunelle noticed her hands ball into fists at her sides.

  “The only blood,” she snarled, “that I’m going to have on my hands is the blood from your case. Because I’m going to kill it. Expect my motion to dismiss for lack of corpus delicti by the end of the week. It will demolish you.”

  Brunelle grimaced inside. He expected it likely would. But the showman was still aware of the audience. He smiled, seemingly confident. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Edwards returned the smile, her confidence assuredly genuine, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she held his gaze for several challenging seconds. Then she broke off and turned away.

  Brunelle exhaled. He allowed his rushing blood to slow. In his peripheral vision, he noticed the crowd start to dissipate. He decided not to make eye contact with any of them. The show was over. The showman was ready to slip backstage.

  Brunelle walked out of the Pit and started heading toward the elevators when a voice called out behind him.

  “Dave.”

  It was Robyn Dunn. She must have been in the Pit.

  He stopped in his tracks. He took a deep breath to steel himself. Then he turned to face her.

  Damn. She was just as beautiful as ever. Maybe more. Even with the scowl she wore.

  “That was too far, Dave.”

  He didn’t step toward her. They were too far apart for comfortable conversation. They were too far apart, period. But neither of them stepped toward the other.

  “It was true,” he answered.

  But Robyn shook her head. “You don’t accuse a defense attorney of having blood on her hands for doing her job. And you really don’t accuse Jessica Edwards of that.”

  “If the blood stain fits.”

  He didn’t want to argue with her. He wanted to kiss her.

  “You don’t mean that,” she replied.

  He didn’t. He was just angry.

  “I used to respect you,” she said.

  That stung. “Used to?”

  “I still want to.”

  Brunelle thought for a moment, taking the time to drink in her resplendence. “You want me to concede defeat? Is that it? Just let the case be dismissed?”

  Robyn frowned. “No. That’s not worth respecting. I want you to do your job. And do it well. But I also want you to understand that’s exactly what Jessica is doing.” She paused. “I thought you understood that.”

  Of course he understood that. That’s what was pissing him off. Or maybe not.

  Maybe it was Kat, ignoring his request to wait and signing off on ‘accident,’ and he was taking it out on Edwards.

  Maybe it was Edwards, trash-talking him in the Pit, and he was taking it out on Robyn.

  Or maybe it was Robyn, leaving him standing there in the courtroom hallway, his cheek still warm from her goodbye kiss, and he was taking it out on everybody.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then smiled, lighting up her eyes and popping that one beautiful dimple onto her face. “For now. But watch yourself, Mr. B. You’re a better man than what you just did.

  Brunelle didn’t have a reply. He wasn’t sure she was right. Either way, he was getting tired of people expecting more of him.

  “Maybe,” he finally said. Then, with a slight shrug, he added, “Thanks.”

  He turned to walk away, but he expected her to call out after him again.

  She didn’t.

  God, he missed her.

  Chapter 20

  A few nights later found Brunelle sitting at his desk well after hours, the sky dark outside his windows and his face lit by the pale glow of his computer monitor.

  He’d said goodnight to the parade of other employees going home for the night. The legal assistants leaving right at 5:00, followed closely by the majority of attorneys ready to call it a day. Then the handful of prosecutors who were currently in trial, staying late to call witnesses and prepare for the next day. Finally, the cleaning staff, wishing him a good night even though he was still sitting at his desk in his full suit. He hadn’t even loosened his tie. His attention was directed squarely at his computer screen.

  In anticipation of Edwards’ motion to dismiss, he decided to go over all the police reports again, everything he had, to get straight in his head how he was going to show the judge—and, eventually, the jury—that Amy Corrigan had in fact been murdered.

  That was going to be the thrust of Edwards’ brief. How can Kenny Brown be convicted of murder if there’s no proof anyone is actually dead? And if he can’t be convicted—if, as the legal standard will be, no reasonable jury could find that Brown had murdered someone—then the judge should dismiss the case prior to trial. No one should have to sit through a trial where the jury couldn’t possibly find him guilty.

  The response, the only response, was that there was enough evidence to allow a jury to infer she was dead. They might not—and that was another problem he’d be facing if he won the motion—but they should be allowed the opportunity. His legal argument would focus on an appeal to the judge that she shouldn’t take the case away from the jury. But he was going to need an emotional argument to get over the hump.

  That meant humanizing and presenting Amy Corrigan in a way that the judge would not only agree that there was sufficient evidence to allow the jury to consider the case, but she would want them to. For Amy’s sake.

  Brunelle started where a prosecutor might naturally start: Amy’s criminal history. He pulled the paperwork for her prior convictions and ordered the reports for every time she’d been arrested or charged. It was a lot. She’d been arrested more than a dozen times. Mostly misdemeanors: petty theft, possession of drug paraphernalia, prostitution. Lots of prostitution arrests. Only a few were charged. Generally, his office tried to avoid re-victimizing women who were beaten by pimps to have sex with johns. But the cops couldn’t always look the other way, and sometimes the best way to get someone to a safe place for the night was to book them into the jail.

  It was a sad story. Reading the police report narratives in order revealed a young woman who’d gone from troubled and fiery to drug-addicted and broken. Initial contacts usually ended in some sort of resisting-arrest scenario, either running from the cops, or trying to kick them in the crotch. By the end, they were ending with a heroin needle in her purse and an inability to carry on a coherent conversation.

  Poor Amy.

  Poor Lydia.

  Brunelle split the reports into those before and those after her daughter’s birth. There was a cause for hope in those first few after Lydia was born. Amy insisting she was trying to get out of the business, showing the cops that she was clean, no drugs in her purse or her bloodstream. But, eventually, it crashed even harder. The drugs went from marijuana to crack to heroin. The times between arrests became shorter. But even in the last of them, her lifestyle and drug addiction beginning to overcome her completely, she was cognizant of her daughter.

  The last report before her d
isappearance—her death, Brunelle reminded himself—actually carried a heart-breaking trace of hope. She’d been picked up for prostitution loitering. The cop who’d made the arrest called for another unit to do the transport to the jail. That second officer’s report was understandably short, just a paragraph. After all, the only thing he did was drive her five blocks to the jail. But that just made the quote stand out all the more amid the few short lines the cop bothered to document:

  I was dispatched to Occidental Park to transport a suspect to the jail. Upon arrival, I took custody of the subject, CORRIGAN/AMY. I did not ask her any questions during the transport but when we arrived she made the following spontaneous statement: “This is the last time Lydia’s mommy is going to get arrested for this.” I made no response and escorted her directly to the sallyport for processing.

  Brunelle lowered his tired jaw into his hand. Amy had been right, but for the wrong reason. He frowned and pulled up her booking photos. Every booking photo she’d ever had taken was in the computer and could be scrolled through with the simple click of the mouse. It was a time-lapse of a ruined life. The first couple of shots were simple enough: a healthy young woman with a scowl on her face and a chip on her shoulder. But clicking the mouse showed Amy’s demise. Her face grew gaunt, her skin leathery, her hair filthy. But the worst was her eyes: angry and defiant at first, but by the end they were dull, unfocused, absent. The result of years of degradation and chemicals.

  Brunelle closed out the booking photo window and leaned back in his chair. He could never call a toddler to say her mommy had stopped visiting her. But Amy’s parents were still available. And he could maybe get that transport officer to testify about Amy’s last official statement to law enforcement. But something was still missing.

  Linda Prescott.

  Not just missing, but lost forever. Her statements to the cops—the ones he’d heard himself through the two-way mirror—were hearsay. She was dead now, and that might open up more possibilities for their admissibility at trial through some hearsay exception, but this was a criminal case. There was no way around the Confrontation Clause. Brown had the right to have the witnesses against him be reallive humans on the witness stand, subject to cross examination by Edwards—not some detective just repeating what Linda had said, then claiming ignorance when pressed as to how in the world she could possibly know what she claimed.

  That was exactly the kind of criminal trials the Confrontation Clause was designed to prevent. No judge would allow Chen to just repeat Prescott’s allegations—that would violate poor Kenny Brown’s constitutional rights. The bastard.

  It was going to be an uphill battle unless Brunelle could figure out a way to make up for the loss of Linda Prescott.

  He clicked his mouse again and re-opened the booking photo window. Amy’s most recent photo—the one where she looked half-dead already—was the default image. He looked at it momentarily, his heart sickening at the sight. Then he clicked all the way back to the first one. That was the woman Kenny Brown killed. Slowly. Mercilessly.

  He needed to be held responsible.

  One way or another.

  Chapter 21

  Edwards’ brief did not in fact arrive by the end of the week. It took until the following Monday for her motion to dismiss to hit Brunelle’s desk. But whatever pleasure Brunelle had taken from Edwards missing her own self-imposed deadline was more than offset by the fact that she had obviously used the extra two days to make her arguments nearly invulnerable.

  The best Brunelle was going to be able to do was create a reasonable suspicion that Amy Corrigan was dead, then ask the judge to let a jury speculate that it was probably her pimp that killed her. A speculation that was undercut by the fact that she could well have been killed by a john—most serial killers preyed on prostitutes because they get in the cars of strange men and aren’t immediately missed when they don’t return—or died from an O.D. anywhere from Seattle to San Diego to Miami without being identified by local law enforcement. Just some Jane Doe cremated by some coroner who had no idea that there was trial going on in the Great Pacific Northwest.

  Brunelle knew it wasn’t enough. He also knew Kenny Brown was guilty. Linda Prescott wasn’t lying; she just couldn’t tell the truth any more.

  He was missing something. He knew that too. And he knew he was going to kick himself when he finally figured it out. He just hoped that kick would come before a judge said, ‘Case dismissed,’ or a jury said, ‘Not guilty.’

  He picked up Edwards’ brief again. A couple dozen pages and filled with case cites and factual summaries he could scarcely contest. And a deftly worded conclusion reminding the court that, despite all sense of justice and decency, the case really wasn’t about Amy Corrigan, it was about Kenneth Brown:

  In summary, the Court must remain mindful that a criminal defendant enjoys numerous Constitutional rights, obtained through the bravery of our Founding Fathers and defended over the course of our nation’s history by equally brave judicial officers against those who might seek convictions, not from evidence, but from expediency and passion. No person should stand trial for a crime the Court knows cannot be proven. This Court has a sacred duty to protect the rights of Mr. Brown and prevent the State, with all its resources, from placing him even once in jeopardy of a criminal conviction and its resultant punishment.

  “Amy who?” Brunelle asked sardonically.

  *

  It was another late night for Brunelle, again wishing goodnight to the departing cleaning staff—who didn’t even start their work until after 5:00 p.m.

  He’d spent the daylight hours distracting himself from Edwards’ brief by busying himself with all of the other tasks and duties from his other cases. Detail stuff. Most of it could have been handled by Nicole or another legal assistant. But he wanted to clear his head and give that missing something a chance to reveal itself to his mind. It didn’t.

  So after Nicole, and Duncan, and everyone else in his office went home for the night, he pulled out Edwards’ brief again and started once more from the top.

  It wasn’t like he had anyone to go home to anyway.

  “Damn,” he exhaled after finishing page ten—or maybe it was page eleven. Either way, he closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t decide which was worse: that his case was so weak, or that he was going to have to research and write a responsive brief. Writing briefs was irritating enough, but it was excruciating when he had no law or facts to support his position.

  He opened his eyes and looked out his window. He didn’t have as good a view as Duncan—he was the boss after all—but his office was high enough up to see the rest of the downtown skyscrapers, their randomly lighted windows bright against the darkened sky. It looked refreshing. And he was definitely burned out.

  “Time for a little walk,” he told himself, and pushed himself up from the desk. “I just need a little fresh air. Then I can get back at it.”

  But he left the brief behind and took his keys with him. He knew himself well enough to know that, once refreshed, he would likely decide to go home after all. Even people who live alone need to sleep. Some fresh air might be just what he needed to crash as soon as he got home and not think about the someones who could have shared his bed that night.

  Chapter 22

  The night was cool, but not too bad. Bracing, Brunelle told himself. Cold enough to be glad he’d pulled on his overcoat, but not so much to make the walk uncomfortable. If anything, it encouraged a brisk pace. And that, in turn, might encourage brisk thoughts.

  Seattle was a lively town. Not one of those Rust-Belt gothams where the downtown emptied out at 5:01 when all the suburbanite office workers fled to the safety of their gated communities miles away from the city denizens they spent the day ignoring and avoiding. The King County Courthouse was on the edge of the older part of downtown, a few blocks up a steep hill from Pioneer Square, once the jumping off point for Klondike gold rushers, and now a jumping off point for well-heeled bar
-hoppers.

  Brunelle avoided the area, though, because he wasn’t looking to drink or socialize. He was looking to think. Cool air and dark skies helped that. So did solitude. The kind of solitude that’s on the edge of other people’s activity. Hearing others wasting their time had the power to motivate. He glanced down James Street toward Pioneer Square, then turned south and headed toward Yesler Street and the no man’s land between Occidental Park and the International District.

  There were still some people about, but they weren’t people likely to bother him. They had their own troubles. Substance abuse and criminal warrants were chief among them. And finding shelter for the night. Luckily, it wasn’t raining, but park benches get cold overnight.

  The anonymity allowed him to descend into his thoughts. He lowered his head and watched his feet consume the sidewalk, almost hypnotizing him with their cadence.

  He knew he was missing something. He’d relied too heavily on Linda Prescott’s expected testimony. So when it disappeared, he felt as if he had nothing less. But he knew that wasn’t accurate. Cases were rarely won or lost on a single witness. The only exception in his experience was when a defendant chose to testify against his attorney’s advice and ended up hanging himself. That occurred more often than Brunelle would have thought, but he knew not to expect anything like that in Brown’s case. Brown wasn’t that stupid. And Edwards wasn’t either.

  So what other evidence was there? Amy hadn’t turned up in the weeks—now months—since her disappearance. She had a daughter, suggesting she wouldn’t have just run off. Her parents thought she was dead. But what else? What else?

  Brunelle shook his head. He’d been through it all already, again and again. But he wasn’t getting anywhere. No convenient bartender or business partner to jump out and save his case this time. He’d have to figure it out himself.