He didn’t, of course. He was in some of my other classes, even though he was a grade ahead of me, and I day-dreamed about him constantly. He was even on my same bus on that trip, which was a good 22-hour ride, and I watched him the entire time.
“Well, okay, come on girls. It’s Friday night, let’s do something fun. What do you say we go and get some spaghetti at Cascone’s and go and see a movie. I’ll even invite Axel. He’s coming over tonight, anyhow, I’ll just drag him along. What do you say?”
Abby jumped up and down with joy and Rina managed to drag herself off the floor, where she was perched in front of the television. I looked at her face and saw that she was happy to be going out, too, even though she was trying to hide it. Her arms were crossed in front of her and her face was turned down, but I could see a slight smile.
Things were going to be okay. It might take some time for Rina to truly get over it, but I knew that things were going to be okay.
THAT NIGHT, Axel and I curled up on the love seat under a blanket. We each had a cup of hot tea and a fire was burning in the fireplace. He had his arm around me and my head was on his shoulder. “I had fun tonight,” Axel said. “That restaurant was amazing, mate.”
“It is,” I said. “I’ve always loved their food.” I loved that the restaurant also had a little band playing, with a clarinet player and a drummer and a guitar player. They played standards, which bored the girls but got me going. I told Abby that she should pay attention to the band, because they were playing the kinds of music that she was going to be playing, so she did try to really attend to what they were doing.
Axel kissed me on the forehead and then kissed me on the lips. I sighed, feeling a tingle go through my body, but still feeling terrified.
He smiled. “So, how are things going with that murder case?”
I shrugged. “I can’t talk about that too much, but I think that I’m going in the right direction.”
“What’s the right direction in this case?”
“The direction towards showing that my client did it.” I was lying about that. Actually, with the deposition of Christina and the talk I had with Anita, I was further away from proving to myself that Michael did it. I was being increasingly led in the direction that either Christina or Ava Sanders did it. I didn’t want that to be the case, but it was certainly looking that way.
“What are you going to do if you decide that he did it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I did kinda know. If I figured out what really happened, if the evidence started to point towards Michael, I would give what I had to the prosecutor, even if they didn’t ask for it formally. I would do that anonymously. That was what I decided to do.
But I could only do that if I got the evidence I needed to sabotage him. Thus far, I wasn’t getting that at all.
He stroked my hair and pulled me closer to him. “This fire is nice,” he said.
“It is.” I felt my heart pounding as I put my hand on his firm abdomen. He might have been forty, but he was in amazing shape. I guess it came with the territory of him being a detective. I bowed my head, still feeling frustrated that I was so afraid of going too far with him. Maybe my therapist was right – maybe the reason why I took Michael’s case was that I was going to get some closure from it. If I could have a hand in making sure that he fried, I could finally bury what happened to me in that dorm room and I could move on.
But, at the moment, I wasn’t anywhere near moving on.
“Harper,” he said, taking my hand, his fingers interlacing with mine. “Maybe I better leave. I don’t want to, but, I have to say that just being near you is driving me wild. Don’t worry, though, lass, I’ll be back as often as you need me to come back.”
He smiled and I nodded. I knew that he was going to be back as often I wanted him to come back. I knew that.
We were falling in love. I hoped that I could get over my issues and allow myself to truly love him the way that he deserved.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“So, my wife came in here and spoke with you, didn’t she?” Michael asked me. We were meeting in my office to go over Christina’s testimony as well as Anita’s answers to my questions. I wanted to go over everything with him because I didn’t want him to suspect what I was really doing. As far as he was concerned, I was working on his case in a legitimate way.
“She did.”
“And? What did she say? I need to see those deposition transcripts.”
I leaned back in my chair as I watched him. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted him to know about what Christina said to me. “The deposition transcripts are with the court reporter,” I said.
He got up and paced around. “She tried to throw me under the bus, didn’t she? Didn’t she? That little bitch.”
“No,” I said, knowing that he was going to find out the truth if he got the transcripts and saw that she did just that – throw him under the bus. “But I would like to know about something that she told me. She told me that you were the one who was in the best position to poison your father-in-law because you were the person who refilled his pills. Is that true?”
His face showed a great deal of anger when I said that, and he shook his head. “So, that’s why she wanted me to refill those pills every week. I wondered why.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Christina. When her father had to go on medications for his blood pressure and his diabetes, about a year ago, my wife told me that she wanted me to be in charge of making sure his pills were in those pill boxes. She nagged me about it. Now I see why.” He shook his head. “She wanted me to do that so that she could frame me when she poisoned dad. She wanted to say that only I had the access to my dad’s drink and food because I was the only one who went into dad’s kitchen on a regular basis. I fell for that, too. I fell for that. Goddamn her. Goddamn her.”
I sighed. “Are you saying now that Christina was the one who killed your father?”
“I wouldn’t have thought that before, but now that I know that he was poisoned and my wife is pointing her finger at me, I do. I think that she did it. She poisoned him and then she hired somebody to shoot him. Guess he wasn’t dying fast enough for her.”
“Why do you think that she did it?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Dad was abusing her, he had a different family, and her mother was wanting to divorce him but that would mean giving her half her fortune. And she hates me, too. She hates me, so she did all this and then framed me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about your father’s different family? About your wife’s sexual abuse? Why did I have to hear all of this from Anita?”
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think that it was relevant. I thought that some random intruder killed dad, so I didn’t think that you needed to know that. I didn’t want to drag dad’s name through the mud like that. I really loved that man.”
I leaned forward. Bastard is lying to me again. There was something else up his sleeve. I didn’t believe, for one second, that he neglected to tell me about the other family because he cared about his father and didn’t want to drag his good name through the mud. He probably never did anything altruistically in his life – why start now?
“You have to start telling me the truth,” I said. I wanted to threaten him with withdrawing from his case. That was my usual method of dealing with lying clients. That made them straighten up and fly right. But I wasn’t going to dangle that particular stick over this guy – I was too afraid that he would just say “okay” to me and I would have to withdraw. I had to see this through.
“Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I don’t know. I just think that you’re lying.”
He looked pained. “All right, yes, I’m lying. The fact of the matter is, I didn’t know about all that. I didn’t know about it until I read about it in the paper. My wife never told me that. I didn’t want you to know just how bad our marriage has been. I mean, this was a huge thing, and I was compl
etely out of the loop about it.”
“Why did you care what I think about your marriage?”
He shrugged. “I guess I thought that you might have suspected me more if you knew that my wife and I barely spoke to one another and we haven’t spoken to one another for several years. We’ve gone to the weekly dinners with her parents and…”
“You insulted her right in front of her father. I’ve been told that by two different people. I was also told that Judge Sanders had you followed and found evidence that you were sleeping with Ariel Winthrop. I know that you were sleeping with Kayla Stone. I’m sure that there were others you were sleeping with, too. I was told that Judge Sanders and you had words about that – that he was going to tell Christina about it.”
I didn’t quite tell him that Christina knew all about the affairs, anyhow. She knew everything about him. I guessed that he didn’t know how much she knew.
He furrowed his brow. “Yes, that was true. He did threaten me. But so what? I wasn’t going to kill him for that.”
“Maybe you did want to kill him. If Christina divorced you, you were going to lose everything. I’m subpoenaing your bank accounts and all your other accounts, and I think that I’m going to see a pattern – she’s worth a lot, and you’re not worth squat. She told me that she had an air-tight prenuptial agreement. I’m going to get a copy of that, too. I think that you had motive to kill your father-in-law, if you thought that he was going to tell Christina about your affairs and you didn’t want that to happen.”
He stood up. “Go ahead. Get the prenuptial agreement and our records. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“You don’t? Are you telling that I’m wrong? That she doesn’t hold the purse strings? Where will you be if she decides to divorce you?”
“I don’t have to put up with this,” he said. “You work for me, lady. Let’s get this straight.”
Oh no he didn’t. He didn’t just disrespect me like that. “You do have to put up with this, and listen, the prosecutor is going to ask you that question. She’s going to ask you about your relationship with your father-in-law and she’s going to ask you about whether or not your father-in-law was threatening you with telling your wife about your affairs. That gives you motive to kill him.”
He rolled his eyes. “If I killed him, why would I call the police when I found my father? I mean, really. Think about that.”
“Reverse psychology. That’s simple enough to explain away.”
“You think I did it. You’re my attorney and you think that I’m guilty.”
Actually, that wasn’t true. I still had it in my head that either Christina or Ava did it. Maybe they were in cahoots and they did it together. But it was still in the back of my mind that Michael might have done it.
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that you did it. But you have to realize one thing – the prosecutor is going to present arguments that show that you’re guilty. You need to know what those arguments are going to be. That’s why I need to prepare you and I need to get straight answers.”
“Well, I didn’t do it. I think that the way that we should go with this, to put doubt in the jury’s mind, is show that Christina did it. Or mom did it. I think that they did it, anyhow, especially since I guess Christina threw me under the bus. That makes me suspicious, to say the very least. Show that she had motive to kill dad, and mom really had motive to kill dad, and that will put doubt into the jury’s mind that I did it.”
This guy was making me sick. Here he was, trying to get me to blame the murder on his wife and mother-in-law. Maybe he was right about that, but it still made me sick. I didn’t want to do that.
“Well, I need to keep on doing my due diligence,” I said. “I need to get your mistress, Kayla Stone in here next. I need to speak with her.”
He stood up. “No. I forbid you to do that.”
“What do you mean? As I said, she’s your alibi. You were with her at the time of the murder. She’s the only person who can testify that you were nowhere near the house when your father was shot.”
“No. No means no. I won’t let you speak with her.”
The wheels started to turn in my head. “I am going to speak with her. I am going to get her on the record. She will appear for a deposition. I might work for you, but the trial strategy is going to be all me. I’m the lawyer, you’re the client, and you’re going to do things the way that I say. I hope that I’ve made myself perfectly clear.”
“If you call her in for a deposition, then I swear to God, I will fire you.” He crossed his arms and glared at me and I felt a chill. I felt the same type of chill that I felt way back when. Every time I saw him on campus after the rape, I felt sick and I felt a chill running up and down my spine. Now, the way that he looked at me, I felt that same type of cold, prickly feeling.
Like I was looking into the eyes of evil.
I stood up. “You go right ahead.” I raised my eyebrows, knowing that he was stuck. He was broke and Christina was paying my fee. I would imagine that she also had paid his bond, which meant that she could call it in at any time. He would spend the pre-trial process in jail in that case, and he would have to get a Public Defender to take his case.
The Public Defender attorneys were excellent attorneys – they were dedicated to their jobs, they were knowledgeable and experienced. I knew this about the PD office, but I doubted that Michael did. He probably had the same type of view of the PD’s office that many people did – that those attorneys were overworked and underpaid and didn’t do a good job.
They were overworked and underpaid, but they were dedicated and excellent attorneys. I doubted that Michael knew this, though.
At that, he stormed out the door.
“Pearl,” I said, calling her into the office. “I need for you do something for me. And I need it ASAP.”
She popped her head in. “What’s that, Harper?”
“Get Kayla Stone in here for a deposition. You need to get that subpoena out for her today. Get it out, have it served, before something happens and she disappears.”
“On it,” she said.
I suddenly felt out of sorts. There was something about Kayla Stone that made Michael nervous. I didn’t know what it was, but I was sure as Hell going to find out. I was nervous because I was afraid that Michael was going to make her somehow disappear from the jurisdiction.
Maybe that was the missing piece of the puzzle.
I hoped that I was getting close.
CHAPTER TWENTY
That night, I started to feel weird again. Not quite as weird as before, but I had a sudden burst of energy. I lay in my bed, tossing and turning, not feeling tired, even though it was 3 AM. My thoughts weren’t jumbled, but I had a sudden sense of clarity in my brain.
I knew that I was going to win this case, and, by winning, I really meant losing. I was going to figure out what was going on, and I was going to do it before the case was tried.
I sat up straight in my bed and I heard a voice. “You’re missing a case that’s pending in front of Judge Sanders,” the voice said. “A very important case.”
I was hallucinating. I knew that I was. But I knew that this voice was coming from inside my own head. There was something in my subconscious that was shouting at me. There was something that I was missing. Some case that I was missing.
I didn’t know what it was, though. Something was telling me that the missing puzzle piece was going to be found in all the cases that were pending before the judge. I didn’t know if Michael was going to be involved with that case, though. I didn’t want to let go of my belief that Michael did it, so I didn’t want to go that route. If the person who killed the judge was somebody who was involved in a case in front of him, then that probably pointed the evidence back away from Michael.
I sighed and went back over all the cases that were pending. I had looked over these cases and looked over them, and nothing was popping out at me. There were companies that stood to lose quite a bit in front of the judge, and
that was a good place to go, but, yet, I didn’t quite have a good hunch about any of them. None of them.
“What case?” I asked nobody in particular. “What case? Please tell me. I need to know which case? There are so many of them. I don’t know how I’m supposed to prove that anybody on this list would have killed him.”
“Environmental issues,” said the voice. “Lots of people getting sick. Follow the money.”
Environmental issues. Lots of people getting sick. Follow the money.
I sighed. What did any of this mean? The only possible case that I saw that was pending in front of the judge that had to do with the environment was the case of the plant that exploded. That case had nothing to do with making people sick, though.
There obviously was something else.
I sighed. I was going to have to do research on this issue. I might as well, I thought. I certainly wasn’t tired. I was wide awake. I was feeling strange, too. I got frightened that I was going to get as weird as I did before. That day when I was feeling out of sorts, and I wanted to do nothing more than spend, spend, spend on stupid things that I had never spent money on before. I was going to have to see a doctor if I felt this way for a long period of time.
I sat down in front of my computer. I was going to have to look for information about environmental issues and people getting sick. There were companies all over the country who were doing this. I knew this to be true. Erin Brockovich was a true story, after all. But the thing of it was, I was going to have to find out a company who was doing this that was based in the Kansas City area.
Or maybe not. Maybe a subsidiary company was poisoning people. Maybe the parent company was based here in Kansas City. That would make things much more complicated.
This was going to be a needle in the haystack. There was a case that was brewing out there, not yet filed, but brewing. Maybe a class-action. I knew that those class-actions took a long time to be brought before a court. They took a long time before they were even filed. They were a lot of work, trying to get the class together and certified and find victims that were flung around the country and even the world.
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