Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller)

by Joel Goldman

  The body was five feet below him, faceup and eyes open, head resting near the bank, arms and legs splayed. He focused his light on her neck. The ligature marks Jared had described were easy to see, a purpled narrow band with a pattern he’d seen in other cases where the killer used an electrical extension cord to strangle the victim. There was a cross-shaped abrasion above her left breast as if something had been compressed into the skin, maybe a crucifix.

  Scanning the rest of her body, he didn’t see any obvious defensive wounds, though the water and his distance from the body made it impossible to rule out whether she had struggled against her killer.

  From his vantage point above the body, it appeared that she hadn’t been in the water very long. There was no evidence of decomposition, though he couldn’t tell whether any rigor was present without getting a closer look. He aimed the flashlight at her legs, not finding any signs of lividity in the dependent areas of the body, knowing that the bluish discoloration took six to eight hours to become severe. The coroner was on the way and would give him a better approximation of time of death.

  He took his time examining the bank directly above and to either side of the body, noting the partial footprints pressed into the mud, the rounded edges of shoes climbing the bank easy to pick out. He couldn’t find tracks leading down the bank and into the creek, but the crime scene investigators would find them if they were there.

  “Jared,” Rossi said, “come over here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is there where you climbed down to the water?”

  “Yes, sir. Right here.”

  Rossi let his flashlight play across Jared’s muddy shoes.

  “Those the shoes you were wearing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rossi examined the bank with his flashlight, not finding any evidence of descending footprints. He pointed his flashlight at the body, watching Jared’s reaction.

  “Look at her. Is that the way you found her?”

  “Yes, sir. Just like that,” he said.

  “And then you got down in the water with her?”

  “Just long enough to make sure she was dead.”

  “Did you touch her?”

  He shook his head. “No, sir. No need. I could tell she was dead.”

  “You were right about that. Who is she?”

  Jared pushed away from the creek, stood, and turned, his back to Rossi.

  “I don’t know her name.”

  Rossi fronted him. “But you do know her?”

  “Seen her around.”

  “Here? At Liberty Park?”

  “Some. In town too.”

  “Where?”

  “Over in Northeast. I seen on her on Independence Avenue once or twice, on the street.”

  Independence Avenue was a favorite hangout for prostitutes.

  “You saying she was a hooker?”

  Jared wrapped his arms tight around his middle, tossing his head from side to side. “I’m not saying that. I’m only saying that’s where I seen her.”

  Rossi was feeling the bottle of wine he’d put away before he went to bed, his mouth cottony and his gut swimming in acid. All he wanted was to clear this case, put it on Jared if he was the killer, and go home.

  Jared’s facial muscles were quivering. He looked past Rossi, then at the ground, and then at the stars, repeating the rotation over and over. Rossi doubted Jared’s story about how he’d found the woman, and his body language screamed Crazy—Guilty—Crazy—Guilty, like a flashing neon sign. But none of that was proof.

  He sighed. “What did you do after you found the body?”

  “Went back to my tent and got out of my wet clothes. Then I walked to the pay phone and called 911.”

  “The water isn’t more than a foot deep. How’d you get wet?”

  “Slipped and fell, I guess.”

  Rossi told the paramedics to remain with the body until the crime scene investigators showed up, then motioned to Jared.

  “Let’s go back to your tent, same way we came.”

  Officer Schmitt was still standing outside Jared’s tent.

  “We’ve corralled the campers on both sides of the creek. You can question them soon as you’re ready,” Schmitt said.

  “Is that it? Can I go now?” Jared asked, shifting his feet and glancing in all directions.

  “Take it easy, Jared. I’m talking to Officer Schmitt,” Rossi said.

  “Well, I’m not waitin’ out here. I don’t like all this commotion.”

  He ducked into his tent. Rossi and Schmitt followed him, Schmitt banging his head on a lantern hanging from a hook in the center of the tent ceiling, spraying shadows against the walls.

  There was a sleeping bag on the floor and a coffee can resting on a soiled pillow. Thirty-gallon black trash bags filled to capacity with cans and bottles and tied off at the top lined one side of the tent. A damp pair of shorts and a T-shirt hung from another hook dangling on a sidewall.

  “Why you rushing off?” Rossi asked.

  Jared whirled around. “I showed you the body. Nothing else for me to do. And I don’t like people barging in on me.”

  “Just a couple more questions,” Rossi said, “and we’ll be on our way. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Jared didn’t answer, his Adam’s apple bobbing up down.

  “What’s in those bags? Cans or bottles?”

  Jared swallowed. “Some of both.”

  “You get much for them?”

  He shrugged. “Enough.”

  Rossi pulled the wet shorts off the hook. “This what you were wearing when you found the body?”

  Jared nodded and stepped back, knocking the coffee can over, watches, rings, bracelets, and other jewelry spilling onto the floor. He dropped to his knees, scrambling to shove them back into the can.

  “You have receipts for that stuff?” Rossi asked, taking a step closer, still holding on to the wet shorts.

  Jared sat on his haunches, clutching the can to his chest. “This is my stuff. I found it.”

  Rossi slipped on a pair of latex gloves and crouched on the floor of the tent, eye level with Jared. He felt the outside of the wet shorts he’d removed from the hook, stopping when his fingers pressed against something hard in one of the pockets. When he turned the pocket inside out, a gold cross fell into his palm. Rossi held it up by the corners, seeing at once the similarity with the wound on the victim’s chest.

  “Hey, Jared, where did you find this?”

  Chapter Five

  “ANYTHING ELSE, MS. STONE?” Judge William West asked from the bench.

  Alex Stone thumbed through several pages of notes she’d scribbled on her legal pad.

  “As I said, Your Honor, the police did not have probable cause for entering my client’s home without a search warrant, and therefore any evidence they obtained from that illegal search must be suppressed.”

  Judge West stared at her, his hooded eyes half-hidden, his hands clasped across his broad belly.

  “And as I said, Counsel, do you have anything else that I haven’t heard you repeat three times over the last hour?”

  Alex pursed her lips, fighting the urge to shout, “What difference would it make? We both know that you made up your mind before I said it the first time.” But she couldn’t say a word, not after agreeing to serve her clients up to him for maximum sentences, a deal she’d made in the aftermath of a tragedy for which she took the blame. Now she longed for a way out of a bargain that had come back to haunt her. She turned her head toward her counsel table, where her client, John Atwell, was sitting, wondering if this would be the moment when she found the courage she’d been lacking. When he shook his head, Alex looked back at Judge West.

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “If I may,” Kalena Greene said.

  “You may not,” Judge West answered. “I understand the state’s position. I’ll take the defendant’s motion to suppress under advisement. We’re adjourned.”

  After the judge and his c
ourt reporter left, Atwell rose, briefly leaning in close, whispering to Alex before a sheriff’s deputy took him back to his cell, leaving Alex and Kalena alone.

  “Your client should take the deal we offered him last week,” she told Alex.

  “Why?”

  “Because Atwell is guilty and this is the best deal he’s going to get.”

  “Fifteen years? For a jewelry-store stickup? That’s not much of a deal.”

  “It’s a Class A felony. He could get thirty years or life. And we’ll drop the armed criminal action count. We both know Judge West loves using that to double the sentence. So fifteen years is a bargain.”

  “Fifty percent off,” Alex said. “You must be worried about my motion.”

  “I’m not. We want your guy off the street before he sticks up another jewelry store or assaults another old woman who pisses him off.”

  “The assault happened a year before the jewelry store, but you didn’t charge him. If you had, he wouldn’t have done the robbery.”

  “Except the victim recanted because Atwell was twice her size and she believed him when he said he’d come back and finish the job if she testified against him, but you and I both know he beat the shit out of her and he would have still done the jewelry store, so who are we kidding here?”

  “Knowing and proving are two different things. I thought they taught you that in law school.”

  Alex had been a public defender for fifteen years, long enough to handle a young assistant prosecuting attorney. But Kalena Greene wasn’t a typical newbie. Alex met her during the Dwayne Reed trial a year ago when Kalena’s boss, Tommy Bradshaw, wouldn’t let her do more than escort witnesses to the stand. Since then, Bradshaw had given up trying to hold her back, her unflappable tenacity and innate trial instincts earning her the right to handle cases he usually reserved for more experienced lawyers.

  Alex shared Kalena’s love for the courtroom, but there were differences between them. Alex was white, tall, and athletic, deliciously rugged according to her partner, Bonnie Long. Kalena was African American, slender, slight, and attractive. If she spent time in the gym, it didn’t show. But Alex had seen her in action enough not to mistake softness for weakness.

  “Like I said, you should take the deal.”

  “If Judge West grants my motion, you’ve got no case. Knock it down to five years less time served.”

  “Wild Bill West cutting a defendant a break? That’s what you’re counting on?”

  “The motion is solid. West might deny it, but Atwell will have great grounds for an appeal. You want to tell Tommy Bradshaw that you turned down my offer and blew this case just when he’s given you your wings?”

  Kalena ignored the bait and packed her briefcase. “You want to tell John Boy that he’s going away forever?”

  Alex wanted to say yes, she’d love to tell him that, because everything Kalena said about Atwell was true. He’d been in trouble since he was a teenager. One court-appointed psychologist, noting his disregard for himself and others, persistent anger, arrogance, lying, manipulation, penchant for violence, and lack of remorse or guilt, had diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder.

  Her motion to suppress had been an exercise in mediocrity that belied all her legal skills except for the one she was forcing herself to learn—the ability to do just enough to meet her obligation to her client while ensuring his conviction.

  Ever since she’d won an acquittal for Dwayne Reed only to have him go on a killing spree, she’d promised herself that she would do exactly that rather than allow another monster back on the street. And that’s what she’d done over the last year, leaving a credible paper trail of modest defense motions and driving soft bargains with the assistant prosecuting attorneys on the other side of the table. No one in her office had questioned her, and her clients had accepted her advice that their deals were the best they could get in light of the incriminating evidence.

  Trials were trickier because there was an audience—judge, jury, and prosecutor—for everything she did. Every objection she made or ignored, every question she asked or avoided, every witness she chose to call, and every opening statement and closing argument she made had to be carefully calibrated to meet the constitutional standard of an adequate defense.

  She’d tried half a dozen cases in the last twelve months, losing all of them. That wasn’t an unusual track record for a PD, and none of the lawyers in the Public Defender’s office appellate division had filed a motion for a new trial on the grounds that she’d failed to provide an adequate defense. The strength of the evidence against her clients had insulated her against critical scrutiny.

  A few judges had raised their eyebrows when she’d let something slide, but she ignored them just as she ignored the occasional smirks from the assistant prosecutors, who were happy to reap the benefits. She glossed over any worry about her professional reputation or regret at her ethical lapses with memories of the innocent people Dwayne Reed had slaughtered and her determination to save others from the same fate. She accepted the irony that the images that woke her during the night also got her through the night, allowing her to forgive herself for what she’d done to her clients.

  Atwell’s case was different. There was no doubt that he was guilty, but there was substantial doubt about whether the search that resulted in the discovery of crucial incriminating evidence was legal. If she did her job, she had a great chance of winning—and losing again. She was straddling a line, a balancing act that threatened to rip her apart, leaving her wondering if she could turn her back on another client for the greater good.

  She’d managed to write a subpar motion, gritting her teeth as she typed because it would have been so easy to write a great motion, but going on the record in open court proved more difficult than she had imagined, as she slammed the police and prosecutors for their callous disregard of John Atwell’s constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure. She didn’t know whether it was because her client was watching or because of her ingrained courtroom combativeness or because she finally remembered that she’d become a public defender because there was honor in protecting the individual against the state when life and liberty were at stake. And it felt fantastic.

  “My client understands the risks.”

  Kalena snapped her briefcase shut. “Good, because I’m not waiting for the judge’s ruling. Today is Tuesday, September fourteenth. Mark it in your calendar, because when the sun goes down, the offer goes away forever, and so does John Boy.”

  Alex thought back to her conversation the week before when she told Atwell about the prosecutor’s deal.

  “What are my chances?” Atwell asked.

  “Better than fifty-fifty,” she said.

  She didn’t tell him that those were his chances in front of any judge but Wild Bill West, who applied his own brand of hang-the-bastard justice, making the odds in his court a hundred percent against Atwell. Alex knew that because the judge had persuaded Alex to join his private crusade after Dwayne Reed was acquitted, Alex agreeing to make it easy for the judge to throw the book at her most vicious clients, meeting with him after hours at his ranch to orchestrate the outcomes of her clients’ cases.

  “If I say no, can I change my mind later on?” Atwell asked.

  “As long as the prosecutor doesn’t change her mind.”

  “What happened in your case? Did they offer you a deal?”

  Alex had killed Dwayne Reed while he was out on bail. She was charged with murder and acquitted, which gave her more street cred with her clients than she ever could have imagined.

  “Doesn’t matter. Every case is different.”

  Atwell thought for a moment. “Will the judge decide at the hearing?”

  “No. He always takes these motions under advisement and rules later.”

  “Then there’s no downside to going through with the hearing. I want to have a look at him. Get a feel for him.”

  They hadn’t discussed the plea bargain again. When the
hearing was over, Atwell whispered in her ear.

  “The judge looked at me like I was roadkill he wanted to back up and drive over again. Tell the prosecutor I’ll take the fifteen. That asshole is going to hang me.”

  If Alex ignored her client’s instructions, he’d be convicted and never heard from again. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have to worry about his future victims for fifteen years. And, she realized, she’d reclaim a part of herself she’d given away too easily.

  “Hey, Alex,” Kalena said, bringing her back to the moment. “What’s it going to be, fifteen years or roll the dice with Wild Bill? I’ve got another hearing in twenty minutes.”

  Alex smiled. “Fair enough. We’ll take the deal.”

  Kalena tilted her head up. “Really? Just like that?”

  Alex shrugged. “You saw my client whispering to me. He thinks Judge West doesn’t like him.”

  “Then why all the dancing around about fifty-percent discounts and five years less time served?”

  “I was hoping there was some wiggle room, but you made it clear to me that there wasn’t.”

  Kalena studied her for a moment. “Yeah. I guess I did, didn’t I? I’ll let the court know and get a hearing scheduled to enter the guilty plea. And, by the way, you really brought your A game today. I was impressed.”

  Alex smiled as Kalena left, then lingered alone in the courtroom, a place that had been her cathedral until she’d lost her faith in a system that too often got it wrong. It wasn’t that countless guilty people went free, though some would in any system. It was the innocent victims of crimes she had hoped she would prevent by making certain that the worst of the worst didn’t get the chance to commit them. If she could save one life, it would be worth the violation of her oath as a lawyer. Or so she’d kept telling herself until now. When faced with the choice in John Atwell’s case of doing her job or abandoning her client, she’d stepped back across the line to the side where a criminal defense lawyer belonged.

  Judge West opened the door from his office to the courtroom.

  “Alex.”

  She turned toward him. “Yes, Your Honor?”