Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1

by Larry A Winters

  “Yes. But she shot and killed a man. Tyrone Nash, the person she was at the courthouse to prosecute today. Apparently, he surprised her and one of the deputy sheriffs in a men’s room. Nash killed the deputy and attempted to rape Black. She defended herself.”

  The right front wheel of the car bumped up on the curb and Leary’s head smacked painfully against the car’s ceiling. He wrenched the steering wheel to the left, getting all four wheels back onto the street just in time to swerve past a cluster of pedestrians.

  “She’s okay now,” Chancey said.

  “What do you mean, she’s okay?” Leary struggled not to shout. “We need to get her out of there!”

  “And we’re working on that. Listen, there’s something else. I need you to stand down for a little while.”

  Leary gritted his teeth, his hand tightening on the wheel. “What are you talking about? I’m finally close to finding the people involved in this.”

  “The mob?”

  “That’s right,” he said warily.

  “I got a call from Organized Crime a few minutes ago. That’s the other reason I’m calling. They want you to stop poking around Carlo Vitale. They are confident that he is not involved in this incident, and you’re jeopardizing several ongoing operations by throwing your weight around his crew.”

  “I’m not doing anything except asking to talk to the man,” Leary said, frustration making his voice rise again.

  “Let me clarify,” Chancey said, an edge of formality stiffening his tone, “I’m not just relaying information here. I am ordering you to stop looking into Carlo Vitale.”

  “I don’t understand!” He shut his mouth, forced himself to remember who he was talking to. “I mean, with all due respect, Lieutenant, doesn’t today’s incident trump Organized Crime’s ongoing investigations? There are innocent people in danger right now.”

  “I appreciate your input, but my order stands. Stay away from Vitale.”

  Leary pulled the phone away from his face and cursed. Then he said, “Let me show you what I have. This isn’t some wild hunch, it’s solid police work. I’m coming to you now.”

  “No, Detective. That’s not helpful. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  Leary disconnected and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. He would pretend he hadn’t heard the lieutenant’s final words. The truth was, as ready as he’d been a few minutes ago to tell Chancey that his relationship with Jessie was a thing of the past, the feelings that were now overwhelming him were undeniable proof that he’d been full of shit. He floored the accelerator. Whatever Jessie was to him—a “more than professional” relationship, as Chancey had called it, or a thing of the past, as he’d claimed—he needed to help her. Now.

  No more than a second passed before his phone vibrated again. He kept his eyes on the road, ignoring the buzzing, until a voice in his head suggested that the caller might not be Chancey. The caller might be Jessie.

  He swept the phone off of the passenger seat and looked at the screen. Not Jessie.

  “If you’re calling to warn me that I’m wrecking my career, don’t bother,” he said to Isaac Jacoby. “I’ve had enough advice for one day.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and it’s probably better if it stays that way,” Jacoby said. “I’m calling about the gun I found in Tuck’s house.”

  “You found something?”

  “It’s registered to a man named John Horwood.”

  “Criminal record? Some connection to Tuck?”

  “His name popped in our system, but as a victim, not a criminal. He was murdered eleven years ago.”

  “Murder? You were in the Homicide Division back then. Do you remember the case?”

  Jacoby barked a laugh. “I barely remember breakfast. But I pulled the file. A mugging gone wrong, basically. Horwood was walking home from work and got jumped by some scumbags. It didn’t end well for him. The Mantua neighborhood was even worse back then, if you can imagine. That wasn’t the interesting part, though. There are notes in the file about Horwood having a kid. Not his own, apparently, but he was raising a kid, a little boy, who was the son of a prostitute who didn’t want him.”

  Leary tried to make sense of his old mentor’s words. Jacoby clearly saw something significant in these facts. “The kid was Reggie Tuck?”

  “The file calls him Reggie Horwood, but it has to be. Why else would Tuck own the dump all these years later?”

  “So Tuck was raised by this guy Horwood,” Leary said, “and then Horwood is killed by muggers, and Tuck becomes a con artist who targets criminals.” He nodded to himself as he drove, feeling the satisfaction of oddly shaped puzzle pieces clicking together.

  “Is that helpful?” Jacoby said.

  “Might be. Did the file mention anything mob related?”

  “Why?” Jacoby said, sounding surprised by the question. “You think the thing at the courthouse has something to do with organized crime?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Leary slowed the car as he approached the roadblock at the courthouse. “I’m not done asking questions.”

  24

  Jessie waited while Rodriguez checked in with Courthouse Security. Even in her earliest days as a prosecutor, she had never felt less at ease in a courtroom as she did now. A courtroom was supposed to be a refuge from the chaos and random violence of the real world, a safe place under the control of the rule of law. Right now, she couldn’t imagine feeling less safe.

  “Security wants us to stay here,” Rodriguez said. He put away his phone.

  “Why? Reggie’s life is in danger.”

  “Just find a seat, Jessie. Please.” He averted his gaze. “You’ve been through enough.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” She stepped into his line of sight, forcing him to look at her. “Kenny, I need your help.”

  “You heard me brief Security. They don’t want to risk losing any more lives.”

  She could imagine the impact the deaths of Erlinger and Rais would have on Security, and their reluctance to risk the lives of more deputies and civilians. But all of her instincts told her that hunkering down in this courtroom and waiting to be attacked was the wrong move. And even if it wasn’t, Reggie wasn’t here. “We can’t leave him alone out there.”

  “Tuck’s not a priority. He left, and that was his own stupid decision. We already tried to find him once and you almost got killed. Rais did get killed. No one else is going out there.”

  “I am.”

  She turned to leave, but Rodriguez grabbed her arm. “We both know Tuck’s a gregarious guy. He won’t stay out there all alone for long. He’ll come back to us, if not for safety, then just to have someone to talk to.”

  The thought struck a chord in her brain, and her eyes started to scan the crowded benches before she realized who she was looking for. Shira LaVine, the reporter who’d attempted to interview them before, was nowhere to be seen.

  Would Reggie really be that irresponsible?

  Her gaze continued around the room until it came to rest at the door behind the judge’s bench, which led to a small room where jurors deliberated. Reggie, no stranger to the courtrooms of the CJC, would know that the door led to a relatively safe place where he could speak to an interested reporter without much risk of interruption—by the bad guys or by Jessie.

  Anger gripped her as she started toward the door. Rodriguez saw her and said, “Where are you going?”

  “I think I know where he is.”

  She opened the door, Rodriguez right behind her, and walked quickly to the jury deliberation room. There she found Reggie sitting at the head of a long oval table, his back to a window, leaning back in a swivel chair with his shoes up on the table. Shira LaVine sat in a chair beside him, a notebook and pen in her hands. She was scribbling notes as Reggie held forth. “That’s when I had the idea to hide in the ceiling—”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Rodriguez said.

  Jessie just stared at her witness, unable to
speak. Because of Reggie’s need for attention, his vanity, Mo Rais was dead. She had almost been raped. And she had been forced to kill another person, Tyrone Nash, by shooting him multiple times. All because Reggie wanted to see his name and photo in the Inquirer. Maybe all of the people who dismissed Reggie as a low-life, self-serving criminal were right. Maybe that’s all he was.

  “You mind?” Reggie said to Rodriguez. “We’re in the middle of something here—” His words cut off abruptly as his eyes centered on Jessie. She didn’t know what thoughts went through his mind, but something about her appearance ripped the phony indignation from his face and replaced it with what looked like real concern. His feet dropped from the table and he rocked forward. “What happened to you?”

  “I was attacked. Rais and I. By Tyrone Nash.”

  Reggie stood. LaVine rose from her chair as well and turned to face them, although her expression looked less like concern and more like excitement, the prospect of a real news story bringing a gleam to her eye. Rodriguez must have seen it, too, because he took her by the arm. “No press allowed in here. Let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” LaVine jerked her arm free. “Maybe you haven’t heard of freedom of the press.”

  “Quiet,” Jessie said. There were two doors in the jury room, the one Jessie and Rodriguez had entered through, and another used by deputies to check on jurors and bring them lunch and snacks. Even over the noise of Rodriguez’s struggle with the reporter, Jessie thought she heard noises. And they were coming from behind the wrong door. “There’s someone coming.”

  Rodriguez turned to look at her with a doubtful expression. “What are you—” LaVine clamped a hand over Rodriguez’s mouth. The noises were louder now. Unmistakable—at least to the people in the room who didn’t have impaired hearing. Jessie stared at LaVine, Rodriguez, and Reggie, and the four of them stood in silence. The sounds of movement, and of men speaking in low, purposeful voices, filtered through the door.

  “The table,” Jessie said. She waited for the others to understand, afraid to speak any more words out loud than necessary. The door’s hinges were visible, meaning it opened inward. They needed to block it, and the table was the only heavy furniture in the room.

  There was a moment of puzzlement. Then everyone moved at once. The table was an old-fashioned, solidly built slab of wood, and even with four people pushing and pulling, it didn’t move easily. Its legs tore gouges in the floor. Seconds slipped by as they wrestled with the thing, each of them trying to keep their grunts and murmurs as quiet as possible. They shoved the table against the door. “That won’t hold them for long,” LaVine said. She gasped for breath.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Reggie started toward the other door, and the courtroom beyond.

  “What makes you think we’ll be safe in there?” LaVine said.

  Rodriguez keyed his shoulder mic. “Control, this is 15. We’ve got a big problem here.”

  The radio crackled. “Go ahead, 15.”

  “We’re in a jury deliberation room on Seven. The intruders are right outside the door. We blocked the door with a table, but—”

  There was another crackle, and a new voice came on the line. It was a voice Jessie did not recognize, and it certainly wasn’t the voice of Control. “This is 33. Listen to me, 15. I have an idea.”

  “Who is that?” Jessie said.

  Rodriguez looked up and met her stare. “It’s Kurt Garrett. He’s an asshole, but....” Rodriguez shrugged. “He’s smart.”

  Garrett’s voice came back. “Are you there, 15?”

  “Yeah,” Rodriguez said, keying his mic. “What’s your idea? You think we should return to the courtroom?”

  “No,” Garrett said. “I think you should break the window.”

  25

  “You want us to do what?” Rodriguez said.

  The sounds on the other side of the door grew louder.

  Reggie, watching her from the other side of the jury deliberation room, raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Why would we break the window? There a fire escape out there or something?”

  Jessie knew there wasn’t. The white concrete tower rose seventeen stories, and its edifice was sheer. “There’s nothing to hold onto at all.”

  “Not true.” Garrett’s voice crackled through Rodriguez’s speaker, and even with the distortion, she could hear the cockiness that obviously rankled Rodriguez. “The side of the building isn’t completely flat. It’s surface is broken by a series of windows and horizontal ledges. One of those ledges is between your window and the matching window on the sixth floor. I’m looking up at it right now.”

  Rodriguez shook his head with frustration. “Stop transmitting, Kurt, I need to talk to Control.”

  “And I’m trying to save your ass. Break the window.”

  Jessie moved to the window and tried to peer down, but the angle prevented her from seeing the surface directly below them. “What can we use to break the glass?”

  “You’re not serious,” LaVine said, casting a skeptical look around the room. Then the door behind her shuddered with a violent bang, rocking the table they’d erected as a barrier.

  Rodriguez’s hand dropped to his holster. He unsnapped it and slowly drew his weapon. His eyes locked on the door. “Get down,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper.

  Jessie realized a moment later that her own hand had reached into her bag, her fingers tightening around the semi-automatic.

  “Oh my God,” LaVine said.

  There was a sound like a thunderclap. A chunk of wood burst from the door and flew across the room. The door buckled but held. Jessie stared at the wall on the other side of the room, where a bullet had punched a hole in the creamy off-white paint.

  Rodriguez put his gun on the table and grabbed one of the swivel chairs. With a grunt, he hurtled it at the window. The chair struck the glass and dropped to the floor. Aside from a small crack, the window remained in one piece.

  Jessie pulled her gun free of her bag and aimed at the window. She fired three times. The first bullet slammed into the glass and held there, sending jagged tendrils zigzagging away from it. The second bullet punched through. The third brought the window down in a rain of glass. Sounds from the street below filtered through the open window.

  She rushed to the sill. Garrett was right. There was a ledge beneath them. It looked like little more than molding, but if a person could stand on it, it might be possible to move from the window of the seventh floor down to the window of the sixth floor. And from there, to freedom.

  The thought was crazy. She was a lawyer, not a mountain climber. Hell, she was wearing heels.

  She turned and gestured for Rodriguez to key his shoulder mic. She said, “I think you’ve been watching too many movies, Garrett.”

  “You want to get out of there, don’t you?”

  “And your solution is for us to crawl down the side of a skyscraper?” Reggie said, butting in. “I left my suction-cup gloves at home today.”

  “You can lower yourself from the window to the ledge, then to the next window,” Garrett said. “No suction cups required.”

  Reggie looked at Jessie, his eyes pleading. “Please tell me you’re not actually considering this. Oh shit. You are. You are considering this.” He tugged her away from the window. “Listen to me. I know exactly what you’re doing right now, because it’s what every one of my marks did, back when I was scamming people. You’re conning yourself. You’re convincing yourself to do something because you want to believe it’s the right choice, when the rational part of your brain—the smart part—is telling you it’s not. You gotta listen to the smart part of your brain, okay? Not to some crazy ass deputy. Ain’t all the wishful thinking in the world gonna get us safely from this window to any other. We go out there and we are going to fall, Jessie. We are going to fall hard.”

  “He’s right,” Rodriguez said.

  LaVine nodded. “We can’t climb out there.”

  “Hey!” a v
oice called. It took Jessie a second to realize it was coming from outside. She returned to the window and looked down to see another face looking up. He couldn’t be more than ten or fifteen feet away, but the distance looked like miles. And beyond the man’s face, the distance to the street looked dizzying.

  The man squirmed his torso out of the window and raised his arms toward her. “It’s okay!” he called up to her. The wind seemed to whip his voice away, and she shuddered at the thought of how strong it might be as it whistled past the face of the building. “I’m Kurt. Kurt Garrett. Come on—I can help you!”

  There was another blast behind her. She whipped around and saw another chunk of the door burst apart. LaVine screamed and staggered to her knees. She clutched at her neck, where a triangle of wood stuck out of her skin. Blood gushed down her throat and stained her blouse.

  Rodriguez aimed his gun at the door. “Go!” he said. “I’ll hold them off. Get out of here!”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Reggie said. “Let’s just go back to the courtroom.”

  “Look at me!” Garrett called up to her. He thrust himself further out of his window, and Jessie could see his broad shoulders and the muscles of his biceps exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. “If you can climb down to me, I can grab you and pull you into this window. You and Tuck and Rodriguez. Trust me.”

  “He thinks flexing his pecs is gonna convince us to climb down the side of a building?” Reggie said, staring down at the man. “I don’t care if he’s got the upper body strength of a gorilla. If he doesn’t have wings or a jetpack, he’s not going to be able to help us.”

  “Are you sure you can do this, Kurt?” Jessie said. She wasn’t sure if she was really asking him or herself. “If we try this crazy stunt, are you sure you can grab us at the other end?”

  “I’m sure!” His answer came without hesitation, and there was something about his confidence, and the open, determined expression on his face, that made her decision for her.

  She turned to Reggie and placed her bag on the floor. She couldn’t take it with her. It would throw off her balance. She pulled out her wallet and phone and handed them to Reggie. “Can you hold these for me, in your pockets? My suit doesn’t have any.” He nodded grimly, taking the items and stuffing them into two of his pants pockets. Then his gaze fell on the gun she still clutched in her fist.