A truck pulled up alongside the road, and Louisa hopped in. “Where to?” the trucker asked.
“I’m going to California,” she said. “Where are we now?” She knew that she was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, but she hadn’t paid attention to the cities as they passed on by. She slept a lot when she was given rides, because these rides were the only chance she had to fall asleep. She did notice that the terrain was looking slightly different than before – there were more buttes and fewer mountains. Either way, the scenery was gorgeous - mountains that went on for miles, covered with green grass and tall pine trees. Now she was seeing the red buttes, some that seemed to form natural arches, but most of them flat on top. Some of them were in formations that almost looked like a modern artist sculpted them, and these fascinated Louisa to no end.
“We’re in Utah. Just passed Moab awhile back.”
Moab was a Biblical name that Louisa knew well. He was born of incest, the incest between Lot and his oldest daughter. She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about Moab and how he was born. It reminded her too much of her own father and the child that he fathered with her. The child that she didn’t ever get to know, because she gave him up for adoption some 18 years earlier. She had to do it, of course – she was carrying her father’s child. She would never tell her father’s secret, either. He didn’t even have to threaten her to make her keep the secret – she kept the secret because she loved him still.
Louisa was presently thirty-eight, but knew that she looked much older than her age. Years of drinking, drugging and sleeping around aged her tremendously. She spent her entire life trying to forget what her father used to do to her, trying to forget that dirty secret, that dirty seed that he had planted in her. Even now, when she saw him, she put what he did to her right out of her mind. All that she could see was a handsome man, in his late fifties, with slightly greying hair and a still-fit body. She didn’t see him as the man who deflowered her, when she was only 12, and who continued to do unspeakable things to her until the day she left the house at age 22, for her first job at a veterinary office.
“Where’d you say you were goin’?” the trucker asked me.
“San Diego, California,” she said.
“You on the run?”
“No,” she said, wondering why he was thinking that. “Why do you ask that?”
He shrugged. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Of course not. I’m at your mercy, I’m not going to say nothing about what you want to do.” Louisa wasn’t about to protest anything. This guy was doing her a solid. Hopefully she could ride all the way to California with him.
“I’m going to Vegas,” he said. “Lost Wages. Not to gamble, but I gotta drop off this shipment at a furniture store there. After that, I gotta be in Texas. So, I can take you as far as Vegas, then I gotta let you go.”
Louisa nodded. Vegas was good enough. She could surely find somebody in Vegas who could take her the rest of the way. “Thanks for letting me ride with you,” she said. “I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
The trucker shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care. I could use the company, to be honest. I pick up hitchhikers a lot for that reason. It gets goddamn boring driving by yourself all the damned time. So, you’re not on the run, yet you’re hitchhiking. What’s your story?”
Was she running? She was sorta on the run from Reverend John, but, really, she had been on the run her entire life. Always running from her past. From her feelings. From her insecurities and her inadequacies and her inability to get away from her perverted feelings about women. There was just no running from those things, though. The old saying was true – wherever you go, there you are. “No story.” She looked out the window, fascinated with the red buttes. “No story at all.”
That was a lie. But she wasn’t about to tell the truth to this stranger.
She couldn’t even admit the truth to herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Heather’s plea bargain was set for 9 AM, and I ate breakfast that morning very slowly and deliberately. Axel had been over the night before, and I made dinner for him and the girls, and everybody had a great time. He even indicated that he wanted to spend the night, but no way was I ready for that, especially when I had the two girls there, so he left at 10 last night.
Rina and Abby ate their breakfast with me. The two girls were quiet, because they could see that I was lost in thought.
“Aunt Harper,” Abby said. “I like Axel. I think that he’s cute and seems very nice.”
“Mm hm,” I mumbled, looking at my bowl of oatmeal. I had a pit in my stomach, a huge pit that was the size of a softball. Heather was going to plead to 20 years, and that was the worst possible outcome.
Maybe this was my karma for John Robinson. I got him off, and now I was suffering by seeing an innocent person go to prison. Then I immediately felt guilty for thinking that. It’s not about you, Harper. Her going to prison isn’t about you. It wasn’t, of course. She was innocent, yet she was going to prison anyhow. It happened all the time – I knew that it did. It didn’t make things any easier, though. To know that your client is innocent, and not be able to do anything to save her – that was a fate worse than death for me.
“What’s going on, Aunt Harper?” Rina asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. I could feel the dark pincers of depression squeeze my insides, and I felt slightly panicky. I couldn’t get down again. Not when I had two girls relying on me to be mentally healthy. Not when I had a full docket of other clients who were relying on me. I wasn’t going to have Heather’s case to worry about after today, but I had a dozen other criminal cases on my roster, and I had to keep on going for them. For the girls and for the people who relied on me, I had to keep going.
Rina sighed. “Well, we’re ready for school.” They picked up their backpacks and I looked up.
“Good,” I said without enthusiasm. I tried to fight back tears, mainly because I didn’t want the girls to be concerned about me. They were both so sensitive to my moods, I guessed because they were always looking out and making sure that I wasn’t going to lose my shit the way that the Browns did.
Rina bowed her head. “Let’s go, then,” she said. “We’re going to be late.”
“Okay.” I picked up my car keys, leaving the half-eaten oatmeal on the table. “Sophia can get that.”
We all headed to my SUV.
I dropped them off at their school, and headed to court.
I felt like I was heading to my own execution.
I GOT TO COURT, and immediately saw Heather. She was sitting behind the court area, looking at her black nails. She was back to wearing her high-heeled boots, but she was also wearing a pair of black dress slacks and a button-down blue shirt. Her long hair was piled up in a bun, and her makeup was relatively toned down. She still had on deep-red lipstick, however.
She saw me come in and looked at me briefly, and then looked away.
I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. “You ready for this?”
She shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“I haven’t had the chance to go over with you how this works,” I began.
“What’s there to know? I go up there, say I want to plead guilty, and that’s that. Right?”
“Well, no,” I said. “There’s more to it than that.”
She shrugged and looked at the wall.
“Heather,” I said. “What I’m going to do is ask you to state the facts to the judge about the case. You have to admit to the court that you killed your mother, and that you didn’t have a defense for it. You’re going to have to tell the court how you killed your mother, and what day you did it. That’s what is called laying down a factual basis for your plea.”
Heather didn’t react. She continued to look at the wall.
“Heather,” I said. “Did you hear me?”
She shrugged.
I sighed and looked around. “Vince will be here any moment. Are you ready for this?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t like this, either. I feel like I let you down. I feel like…”
“Don’t give me that bullshit. After today, you’re going to go on. You have your two girls, your home, your television, your hot shower, your soft bed, your computer, your phone and everything else. I’m gonna have nothing. Nothing but a tiny little cage, cold showers with large men, and crappy food. I’m probably gonna have the living shit beaten out of me every single fucking day in there, because I weigh a buck ten, and everybody else is going to be a lot bigger than me. I’m gonna have nothing.”
She crossed her arms and looked at the wall again, her face turned away from me.
I tried to put my arm around her again, but she shrugged it off.
Vince came in, his file in his hand. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
I nodded my head. “Heather,” I said. “It’s time.”
We both stood up, and Heather stiffened her back so that she pranced to the front of the court. She was going out by showing the prosecutor that she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t ever going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he beat her.
Judge Reiner was on the bench. “All rise,” the bailiff said, even though the three of us were the only ones in the courtroom, and we were all already standing. “The court calls the case of State v. Morrison.”
“You may be seated,” Judge Reiner said, and all of us sat down at the tables in front of the bench. “As I understand it, the parties have reached an agreement on this case. Am I correct about this?”
I sighed, my heart heavy. It was heavier than it had ever been. “Yes, you’re honor,” I said. “We have.”
“Okay, then,” he said. “Make your record.”
I nudged Heather. “Go ahead and have a seat up there,” I said, pointing to the seat next to the judge’s bench.
Heather went up and sat down.
“Please state your name for the record.”
“My name is Heather Morrison,” she said.
“Ms. Morrison,” Judge Reiner said, “your given name is what is required, please.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Heath Morrison. My name is Heath Morrison.”
“Ms. Morrison,” I said. “Do you understand that you are accepting a plea agreement from the state?”
“Yes.”
“You understand that if you accept this plea agreement that your case is final? In other words, you would not be entitled to an appeal?”
“Yes.”
“Has anybody coerced you into taking this plea agreement?”
“No.”
“Are you of sound mind and body?”
“Yes.”
“Are you currently under the influence of alcohol or drugs?”
“No.” Heather shifted in her seat.
“You are currently 18 years old, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Take me back to the night of June 19, 2016.” I read from the statement of information. “Isn’t it true that you and your mother had a fight that night?”
“Yes,” she said, looking down at the table in front of her. She clasped her hands in front of her.
“Did you kill your mother that night?”
“Yes.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. She pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling.
“How did you kill your mother?”
“I took out a pocket knife out of my pocket and I stabbed her in the neck.”
I paced back and forth in front of Heather. I took a deep breath. “And you had no affirmative defense, is that correct?”
She furrowed her brows. “I’m sorry?”
“You have no affirmative defense for killing your mother, is that correct?”
“Affirmative defense?”
“Yes. You had no legal justification for killing her?”
“She was coming at me with a butcher knife and she was going to kill me first. I had to do it, or I was going to be chopped hamburger on the floor.” She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, and I smiled.
“Ms. Ross,” Judge Reiner said. “Please approach. You too, Vince.”
Inwardly, I was doing cartwheels. Heather just blew up her plea. She couldn’t make the factual basis in front of the judge, and that meant that the plea deal couldn’t go through.
“Ms. Ross,” Judge Reiner said. “Did you explain to your client that she was going to have to make a factual basis for this plea deal?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“You do know that I cannot take this plea now. Not when the record shows that Ms. Morrison has an affirmative defense to the homicide?”
“Your honor,” Vince said, “she made the elements on the record. That should be good enough to allow the plea deal to go through.”
“I’m sorry,” Judge Reiner. “I know what you’re saying, but if she has a self-defense claim, and she puts that on the record, then I can’t take the plea. You’re going to have to try it.”
Vince narrowed his eyes and stepped on my foot. Hard. I pursed my lips and looked away.
“Okay,” he said, facing me. “I guess we’re trying this case. You’ll be getting my discovery requests next week. Since we’re on an accelerated schedule, I suggest that we ask the judge right now to expedite the dates that we have to get everything into each other.”
“That sounds good,” I said.
“Thanks a lot,” he said sarcastically and under his breath. “You did that on purpose.”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t,” I said. “You’ll never know.”
“That’s enough,” Judge Reiner said. “We’re trying this case in less than two months, so the two of you will have to get your discovery into one another in three weeks. That means you both have to get a move on.”
“Thank you, your honor,” I said. “I anticipate getting Vince’s witness list by next week, so I can begin scheduling depositions. I will do the same for him.”
I went over to Heather, who was still sitting at the witness stand, not understanding what was going on. “Come on,” I said.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is that bailiff going to put the cuffs on me and take me away? Or do I get sentenced later on? What’s going on?”
“The plea deal collapsed,” I said. “When you told the judge that you had a self-defense claim. He can’t accept the plea deal if you put that on the record.”
“What?” Her eyes got wide. “What the fuck?”
I looked over at the judge, who was smiling and shaking his head. I guessed that he wasn’t in the mood to put Heather in contempt for using foul language in his courtroom. He must have been in a decent mood, because I had seen him put people in jail for less.
“Come with me,” I said.
“No.” She crossed her arms in front of her and glared at me. “I’m not going nowhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Heather,” I said. “There will be no plea deal.”
“Oh, hell no,” she said, looking over at Judge Reiner, who was gathering his files in preparation for going back into his chambers. “Hell, no. I want that plea deal.”
“You’re not going to get it,” I said. “We’re going to try this case.”
“No. We’re not going to try it. We’re going to lose this fucking case, and you’re not going to be the one who’s going to spend the rest of her life in fucking prison. It’s going to be me. It’s going to be my ass who’s going to die in prison. I’ll probably live to be 100 fucking years old, staring at those crazy-ass walls for 24 fucking hours a day. Goddamn it, you promised me. You promised me that I could get out of prison before I’m forty, and now you’re saying that I’m going to grow old and die behind those prison walls.”
“We’re going to try it,” I said. “We have no choice now. That judge won’t take your plea. We have to go forward with a trial.” I smiled and winked. “Buckle up, Buttercup.”
I didn’t know why I was suddenly feeling so light and
free. I only knew that I felt, deep down in my heart, that pleading Heather was the exact wrong thing to do. I knew that as much as I knew anything in my life. And Vince was right – I didn’t have to ask Heather if she had an affirmative defense for killing her mother. I only needed Heather to say on the record that she killed her mother. If I would have stopped there, the plea deal would have went through. Heather would be headed to prison right now.
But I didn’t stop there. I went forward, knowing that Heather was, more likely than not, going to blow up her plea because she would tell the truth.
Vince was right.
I kinda did do that on purpose.
CHAPTER FORTY
“What do you mean, you blew up Heather’s plea?” Axel and I were sitting by a fountain in Loose Park, having met there after he and I both got off of work. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a brown bag, along with a yogurt and a granola bar. I brought Axel the same thing that I was eating, and we sat and ate the food while we watched the ducks and geese swimming around in the lake.
I walked over to the ducks and got some bread crumbs out of a bag and threw the crumbs on the ground. The ducks swarmed to me, their little fat bodies waddling over to me by the hundreds. They looked like a battalion of tiny green and blue soldiers ambling slowly over to me. The geese were more aggressive, their long necks craning, their bills pointed towards the sky.
“I blew it up,” I said. “Heather was adamant she was going to take the plea, and I didn’t want her to. I didn’t really mean to blow it up, but maybe I really did. At any rate, Heather’s case is going to trial, and there’s not much that either of us can do about it at this point.”
“What exactly happens when a plea blows up?”
“The judge won’t accept it. He can never accept any plea agreement unless the defendant can make a factual basis on the record.” I continued to throw out bread crumbs, and the little ducks were quacking with delight. They were fighting over the crumbs, and they were entertaining me to no end.
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 24
