by Joel Goldman
“Oh,” Alex said, her voice dropping an octave, her shoulders rounding, Meg’s presence in her office a sharp reminder that Robin really was dead.
Meg looked up. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to camp out, but you’re first on my list.”
Alex nodded, hesitating in the doorway for a moment before walking past Meg and settling into her desk chair.
“Shitty way to start the day, huh?” Meg said.
“Not as shitty as it is for Robin’s kids.”
“Amen to that.”
“Did you know Robin?”
Meg shrugged. “Not well. Saw her at meetings, that kind of thing. She was very well regarded. I do know that.”
Alex knew it wasn’t rational, but she couldn’t help but resent Meg’s presence. Not because Meg had said or done anything wrong but because Robin should have been sitting in the chair, not Meg. So she didn’t respond, letting Meg carry their conversation.
Meg cleared her throat. “Look, I don’t like this any better than you do. No, that’s not right. I can’t possibly hate this as much as you do, so I won’t pretend that I do. I’ve been here for less than an hour and already I’ve gotten the wicked-stepmother look from half a dozen people. I get that, and believe it or not, I don’t take it personally. I’m just doing my job, and it will be better for all of us if you mourn Robin without taking it out on me.”
Alex took a breath and let it out, rubbing her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just that this is all pretty fresh.”
“And raw, both of which I realize are horrible understatements.”
“Yeah. So what can I do for you?”
“You’re the senior attorney in the office, been here longer than anyone else now that Robin is gone. I don’t know how long it will take to find her replacement. All I know is that it won’t be me. In the meantime, I could use your support.”
“Sure. I’ll spread the word that you’re not the wicked stepmother.”
Meg smiled as she rose. “Great. How about we have a drink after work one day this week. Maybe do that bonding thing all the management gurus get so mushy about.”
The tightness in Alex’s belly began to ease. “Yeah, sure.”
Meg pointed to the picture of Bonnie on Alex’s desk. “She your other?”
“Yep.”
“Well, lucky you.” She was halfway out the door when she turned around, tossing the file on Alex’s desk. “I found this on Robin’s desk with a Post-it with your name on it. Guess it’s your case.”
Ice shot through Alex’s gut as she read the caption on the file, State v. Jared Bell. She laced her fingers together, afraid she’d shake if she picked it up.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” she said.
Chapter Ten
ROSSI DIDN’T HAVE TO WAIT to be buzzed into the ER at Truman Medical Center. He’d been there often enough to interview witnesses, victims, and suspects that whoever was manning the desk hit the button as soon as they saw him, unlocking the door that led to the trauma unit.
He was on a first-name basis with many of the nurses and doctors, though Bonnie Long insisted on calling him Detective Rossi. He figured it was her way of keeping him at arm’s length, which he knew she would do today once she realized why he was there.
Rossi was convinced that Alex Stone had gotten away with murder. It didn’t matter that she’d been acquitted. That was a long way from being innocent. And it wasn’t just that she’d gotten off. It was that she’d skated on one of his cases, and the combination stuck in his craw like a bone splinter even if the world was a better place without Dwayne Reed in it.
He knew plenty of homicide cops who had a case or two they couldn’t let loose, cases they couldn’t solve or that were solved wrong. His clearance rate was high enough that he’d avoided getting hooked. Dwayne Reed’s case changed that, taking more of his time on and off the job than he’d like to admit.
He’d combed through Reed’s case file half a dozen times over the last year, looking for something, anything that would prove he was right, coming up empty each time. He wasn’t certain what he’d do if he found something, since Alex couldn’t be retried for murder. He knew that the Justice Department had prosecuted people acquitted of murder in state court for civil rights violations. Maybe the U.S. attorney would be interested.
When he’d run into Alex last night at the Zoo, he couldn’t resist picking at the scab again, peddling bullshit about not feeling guilty about the men he’d killed, hoping to make her feel worse. He didn’t expect her to confess over a beer, but when he saw what bad shape she was in, he thought it was worth giving her a push. It wasn’t going to happen then and there, but if he kept poking her, it might happen eventually. At least then he’d know for certain. And when he did, he’d figure out what to do about it.
He decided to take a run at Bonnie Long to gauge any fallout from the Zoo. If Alex was going to confess to anyone, it would be her, and he hoped she would be more likely to talk to him than Alex had been. He would reassure Bonnie that Alex couldn’t be prosecuted and that all he was interested in was the truth. She might go for it and she might not, but he didn’t have a better idea.
Watching Bonnie hustle in and out of treatment rooms, he understood why Alex had gone to such lengths to protect her, certain he would have done the same. Bonnie was simply beautiful, even with blood and vomit staining her white coat and her blond hair unraveling around her face. Rossi couldn’t remember bluer eyes. And he’d seen her inner steel firsthand, which was as attractive as any physical feature.
That she loved Alex was a mystery to him but no greater a mystery than any love between two people. He’d chased after love long enough to know what he didn’t know.
It had been a while since he’d seen Bonnie, and he wasn’t certain she’d remember him. He waited until she was standing at the nurses’ station filling out paperwork before approaching her.
“Hi, Doc. Remember me?”
Bonnie looked up from her clipboard. “Of course, Detective Rossi. What can I do for you?”
Rossi looked at the doctors and nurses walking past them. “Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?”
Bonnie’s hand drifted to her throat. “Is Alex . . .”
Rossi raised his hand. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s happened. I just need to talk with you—in private.”
Bonnie swallowed and nodded. “Very well.”
She led him out of the ER, down a hallway to a small, windowless office furnished with a desk and two chairs.
“Your office?” Rossi asked.
“No. Just a spare. What’s going on?”
“How’s Alex doing?”
Bonnie folded her arms across her chest. “Detective Rossi, you wouldn’t come here to ask me about Alex unless you had reason to think she wasn’t doing fine, so get to the point. I’ve got patients waiting.”
“Fair enough. I ran into her last night at the Zoo—that’s a bar—”
“Downtown, I know. We go there sometimes.”
“Right. Anyway, she looked like hell. This whole thing with Dwayne Reed is really tearing her up.”
“Stop right there, Detective Rossi. When Alex came home last night, she told me how you treated her. I insisted she file a complaint against you for harassment, but that’s not her way of doing things. However, it’s very much my way, so if you bother either one of us again, you’ll know what to expect.”
Rossi had expected Bonnie to push back, but the threat of a complaint against him wasn’t going to stop him. If she filed one, he’d just add it to his collection.
“Let me ask you something, Doc, just hypothetically. Suppose you got a patient in here, say, a little girl, nine or ten years old, and she’s got a broken arm and burn marks on her leg. You ask the mom how she got hurt and the mom tells you the little girl fell down the stairs and stood too close to the heater. Now, you know that’s bullshit. You know that child’s been abused. What would you do?”
“I’d report it to the authoritie
s as I’m required to do under the law, and I’ve done that many times,” Bonnie said with a self-assured shrug.
“But this time, the authorities investigate and decide that there’s not enough evidence of abuse to prosecute. What would you do then? Would you throw up your hands and say too bad, so sad, the system sucks and there’s nothing I can do about it? Or would you keep pushing because you’re convinced you’re right and no matter how little or low the victim is or how high or loved the perpetrator is, you know what’s right?”
Bonnie blinked, looking past Rossi for a way around his question. Sensing her reluctance, he pressed.
“C’mon, Doc. We’re talking a little girl here, and there’s no one but you to protect her. Everyone else is saying it’s over, move on. Next case. What are you gonna do?”
She raised her palm. “I’m a trauma doctor. I see people every day who are so badly injured there’s nothing I can do to help them. That doesn’t stop me from trying, but I’ve learned there are some things I can’t fix.”
“But you try anyway, and I’ll bet you don’t give up too easy.”
Bonnie’s mouth twitched and she shivered for an instant before regaining her footing. “The problem with your analogy is that there’s nothing more I should do about Alex because she’s innocent.”
“The judge acquitted her because the prosecutor blew the case. That’s not the same as being innocent.”
“I don’t care about any of that. I know Alex. She would never murder anyone.”
Rossi shrugged. “You know what they say about love being blind.”
“Why should I even consider the possibility that Alex is guilty? What do you know that the judge didn’t know and that I don’t know?”
“Did you ever see a movie called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?
“No.”
“Too bad. It’s a great flick. Lee Marvin plays this psychopathic cowboy gunslinger who calls Jimmy Stewart out in the street so he can gun him down in a fair fight. But it’s not a fair fight because Stewart is a tinhorn lawyer and he’s no match for Lee Marvin, but he’s got a gun and he goes out there anyway. John Wayne is watching from an alley where nobody can see him and he’s got his rifle on Marvin. In the instant that Marvin and Stewart draw their guns and fire, John Wayne shoots Lee Marvin. Marvin is dead when he hits the ground. Everybody thinks Jimmy Stewart killed him and Stewart becomes a hero, the man who shot Liberty Valance.”
Bonnie shook her head. “I don’t like Westerns and I don’t get your point.”
“Dwayne Reed was a thug. He’d been carrying a gun since he got off his mother’s breast. Alex was no match for him. If he’d had a gun, there’s no way Alex could have beaten him. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight.”
Bonnie turned away from him, not responding.
Rossi didn’t let up. “Tell me you haven’t wondered about that. Tell me you haven’t doubted Alex’s story even a little. Tell me you aren’t at least a little afraid that she’s lied to you all along?”
Bonnie faced him, her face hot and trembling, biting off her words. “Tell me, Detective Rossi, that you haven’t wondered what it’s like to love someone, to trust her with your life and your future. Tell me you aren’t at least a little afraid that you’ll never know what that’s like. And then tell me you don’t have anything better to do than trying to ruin all of that for Alex and me.”
“You said it yourself, Doc. Some patients are hurt so bad they can’t be fixed. Same thing for relationships. If that turns out to be the case for you and Alex, it’ll be on her, not me.” He took a business card from his wallet, tucking it in a side pocket of her white coat. “You ever want to talk to me, give me a call. My cell number is on the card.”
“You go to hell!”
She stormed out of the room. Rossi gave her a moment before following, satisfied he’d shaken Alex and Bonnie’s tree. Now all he had to do was wait and see what fell out of it.
Chapter Eleven
ALEX STARED AT JARED BELL’S FILE, her neck and back stiffening, afraid that if she picked it up, she would be shaking hands with the devil. She could have her secretary return it to Meg Adler with a note that she was too busy to handle the case. She could try swapping it with a colleague for another case. Or she could do what she knew she had to do not only because of Judge West but because it was her job—suck it up and pick it up.
At this early stage, there would be only two documents in the file, the probable cause statement, written by the investigating police detective, and the complaint, filed by an assistant prosecuting attorney. The two documents went together, the probable cause statement forming the basis for the complaint.
She’d never gotten these documents before her client’s initial appearance in court, which was also where she usually met her client for the first time. In a high-profile case, she might meet her client at the jail before the initial appearance, but even then, she wouldn’t have the probable cause statement and the complaint. So how did she end up with the file now?
Meg Adler had told her that she found the file on Robin Norris’s desk bearing a Post-it note with Alex’s name on it. It was possible that Robin had learned about the case yesterday, requested the file in advance of Jared’s initial appearance, decided to assign the case to Alex, and told Judge West of her decision, but three things bothered her about that sequence of events. She’d never known Robin to do something like that before. The Post-it note wasn’t on the file when Meg gave it to her. And Robin was dead.
Alex shook her head, warding off paranoid conspiracy theories. Meg had no reason to make up the story about the Post-it note. And Robin worked hard to maintain good relations with the prosecutor’s office, the police, and the court. Someone in the prosecutor’s office could have given her a courtesy call, telling her about Jared’s case, trading an early copy of the file for a favor in another case. Robin could have reviewed the file and decided that Alex should handle it and told Judge West in order to expedite matters at the initial appearance.
Alex couldn’t say for certain that something like that had never happened before because Robin didn’t tell her how she handled each and every case. Nor would Alex have expected her to do so, but there was one way to find out if that was what had happened this time.
She called Robin’s secretary, Patty, who maintained a master calendar for all the cases in the office. Patty protected her turf so well that people in the office compared her to the Hand of the King in Game of Thrones.
“Patty, it’s Alex.”
“Oh, my God, Alex. This can’t be real, it just can’t.”
Alex waited for Patty to compose herself. “I know. It’s awful, but I need you to do something for me.”
Patty sniffled and cleared her throat. “Sure. What is it?”
“I’ve got a new file for a client named Jared Bell. I need to know when his first appearance is scheduled.”
“Hang on. Let me check. . . . Well, that’s weird. It’s not on the calendar. You know that I enter all relevant dates before I give a new file to Robin.”
“Did you give this file to her?”
“You said the defendant’s name is Jared Bell, right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t remember seeing that file at all. What are you doing with it?”
“Meg Adler gave it to me. She said she found it on Robin’s desk this morning with a Post-it that had my name on it and assumed that Robin had assigned the case to me.”
“Well, I don’t have any record of it, but I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, so maybe it came in after I left. This is how stuff falls through the cracks. Whoever took that file off my desk should have known better, Robin included. Meg should have given the file to me first.”
“I guess you’ll have to train her.”
“Don’t think I won’t. Let me check on the initial appearance and get back to you,” Patty said and hung up.
Alex didn’t think her problems with Jared’s case could get any worse, but they did whe
n she opened the file and began reading the probable cause statement. The first line read, I, Detective Hank Rossi, #4278, knowing that false statements on this form are punishable by law, state that the facts contained herein are true.
“Shit!” Alex said, slamming the file onto her desk.
Another dance with Rossi was the last thing she needed, especially after what happened at the Zoo and what happened with Bonnie when she got home. Bonnie took one sniff and ordered both of them into the shower. Afterward, wrapped in their robes, they sat on the bedroom floor drinking wine and ruffling their dog Quincy’s fur. Bonnie waited until Alex had finished her glass of wine.
“Okay, give. What terrible thing happened today?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“Yes, but you smelled worse. Where did that come from?”
Alex knew that she had to give Bonnie enough of the truth to make sense of her appearance, and that meant telling her she’d been to the judge’s ranch. She’d never told Bonnie about her visits to the ranch, claiming she was meeting a witness in one of her cases.
“I was in Judge West’s court today. He was going on and on about his damn horses and how wonderful they are and I was trying to be polite so I said that I’d love to see them sometime. And he said what about tonight, and what was I going to do? Of course, if I’d known he was going to ask me to help him muck out the stables, I would have come up with an excuse. But I wasn’t quick enough.”
“You’re kidding! He made you shovel horseshit?”
“Well, he didn’t make me. I just couldn’t figure out how to say no. Except for the smell, it wasn’t that bad. I needed the exercise, and who wouldn’t want to help a horse?”
“That explains the smell, but it doesn’t explain why you looked so beat-up when you walked through the door.”
Alex dropped her chin to her chest and sighed. “No, it doesn’t.”
Bonnie draped her arm over Alex’s shoulder and pulled her close. “Come on. Out with it.”
