Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1

by Larry A Winters

  After a pause, Warren said, “That’s a nice story.”

  “It’s the truth. Just trust me on this.”

  “I do. I will. But not for much longer. You need to wrap this mess up, and quickly. Do you hear me?”

  She did. Loud and clear.

  22

  Jessie didn’t look at the Manpower file until she was back in her apartment. Then she sat on the couch with the hard copy printouts, a legal pad, and a pen, curled her legs under her, and prepared to dive in. Leary pulled his button-down shirt out of his pants and took it off. He was wearing a plain white tee shirt underneath that hugged his toned torso. Her gaze tracked him and she suddenly found it impossible to focus on the documents.

  “I need to do some work, okay?” she said. “You can watch TV in the bedroom if you want, or surf the web.”

  She wondered if this was how other people in the crime fighting profession acted—honey, why don’t you keep yourself busy while I look at this grisly evidence—of if she was just hopelessly bad at this.

  “Shouldn’t we eat first?” Leary said. He had watched her set up her working space on the couch with a wry smile, but now he looked serious. “You might lose your appetite if the messages are as unpleasant as Graham implied. I could order Chinese.”

  Jessie was starting to wish he hadn’t come home with her. It was an ungenerous thought, and brought an immediate rush of guilt, but it was the truth. She was used to being alone, working when she wanted to work and eating when she wanted to eat, without having another person distracting her. She looked up, trying to think of a polite way to ask him to leave, and was caught off guard by the feeling of affection elicited by the sight of his eyes, his stare—tender, protective, and intense all at the same time. All of a sudden she didn’t want him to leave at all.

  Clearly, this whole relationship thing is going to take some getting used to.

  “Good idea,” she said. “I could go for some General Tso. An egg roll, too.” She thought for a second. “And wonton soup.”

  He laughed softly. “Getting shot at makes you hungry, right? I’ve experienced it. Something about coming close to death, facing it. It can awaken … uh … other appetites, too.” His gaze dropped to her body.

  She smiled back. “Maybe later. Let’s just stick with food for now.”

  “Got it.”

  He took his cell phone into the kitchenette and called in their order. Jessie took advantage of the moment to flip through the pages in the file, not reading anything yet, but trying to see the big picture. The messages varied in length, from a couple of words to walls of text that went on for pages. She didn’t do a count, but figured there had to be twenty, maybe twenty-five individual messages to and from True_Man and Russell Lanford (alias Betaloser). All of them sent within a span of a few days just prior to the Stevens Academy shooting. The last line of the last message, sent from True_Man to Russell on the morning of the shooting, caught her eye: Make sure you kill them all.

  Nice. She closed the file. Leary was right. If she read the messages now, she might lose her appetite. She didn’t want that to happen. She was really looking forward to that eggroll in particular. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of it.

  Leary came back into the room. “Food should be here in twenty minutes. You sure you don’t want to … do that other thing?” He flashed a mischievous smile.

  Jessie looked at his eyes again, deep and blue, and the way his toned arms extended from the sleeves of his tee shirt. The tattoo on his left bicep was on full display.

  What the hell? she thought. Why not?

  In bed, she realized he’d been right about the “other appetites,” too. She attacked him with a vigor that surprised both of them. Wrapping her legs around his hard body. Thrusting her hips. Gripping his hair as she kissed him deeply. By the time they were done, they were both totally spent and totally satisfied. Her toes actually curled as a final wave of pleasure rolled through her.

  “Wow,” she said. Her voice was breathy. “Maybe I should put myself in danger more often.”

  He propped his chin on his hand and studied her. His expression turned serious again. “Don’t say that. You could have been killed today. It’s not a joke.”

  “I know.” She reached out and touched the firm muscles of his arm. “Thanks for suggesting this. It was wonderful. Sometimes I forget to be a person as well as a prosecutor.”

  His smile returned. “Anytime.”

  The doorbell chimed. A few minutes later the apartment filled with the aroma of fresh Chinese food. The True_Man file waited on the couch, untouched.

  But not for long. No matter how enjoyable sex and food might be, she was still an assistant district attorney, and her work could only wait for so long before she itched to do it.

  “You want to watch a show in the bedroom while I read through the file?” She put their leftovers in the fridge, stuffed the garbage into the trashcan under the sink. “Should only take me an hour or so.”

  “Actually,” Leary said, “I was thinking we could review the file together. I can help you.”

  She felt some of the glow of a great evening fade. “Leary, we talked about this.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not a PPD homicide detective anymore. I promise you I’m not trying to insert myself into the investigation. I’m just saying, I’m here, right? And I have the experience, the expertise. Why not look at the messages together? It won’t go farther than that.”

  She watched his face warily. There was a note of pleading in his tone—not quite desperation, but a close cousin of it—that she didn’t like at all. She wished he found his new career more fulfilling. She didn’t want their relationship to become a substitute for the job he’d given up. She couldn’t allow that to happen. “I don’t know….”

  “I just want to help,” he said.

  She sighed. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to get his thoughts on the messages, as long as that was as far as it went. She was a lawyer, not a detective. Leary might well catch something she missed.

  “You can help me tonight, offer some thoughts on these private messages. But that’s where it ends.”

  “Deal,” he said.

  They sat on the couch together and began going through the pages, each of them reading quietly. It was actually kind of nice, except for the hateful, murderous content of the messages themselves.

  “Jesus,” Leary said at one point. She didn’t ask him which part of the message he was responding to. It was all bad.

  For example, True_Man wrote: I get that it won’t be easy finding out the code to your dad’s gun safe, but you can do it. Call the safe company. Pretend to be your dad and you forgot your combination. Give them the safe’s serial number, any other info they ask for. They’ll give you the code and bingo. Guns. Think of the bullets hitting those bitches. Imagine their screams.

  Russell’s response: You really think that will work? The company will give me the code to the safe, just like that?

  And True_Man: Happens all the time. Don’t wait. Do it today. The sooner you call, the sooner you can walk through the gate of your school, onto the field where the sluts are practicing their teasing little slut moves, and put them down like the vermin they are.

  That explained how Russell gained access to the gun safe. One mystery solved. It also showed the critical role True_Man had played in the shooting, safely hidden behind his screen.

  “There really is a conspiracy case here,” Leary said. “They’re planning the crime together, step by step.”

  “Unfortunately, without True_Man’s identity, there’s no one to file charges against.”

  “Don’t give up yet.” He tapped the stack of print-outs. “There’s a lot of paper here. A lot of words. Maybe his identity is right here in front of us.”

  Jessie shook her head. “I think this guy’s way too smart to identify himself to Russell, even in a private message.”

  “Too smart to do it on purpose,” Leary said. “But sometimes people slip up.
Look here.” He pointed to the message she’d just read. “Look what he wrote. ‘Walk through the gate of your school.’ How does True_Man know Stevens Academy has a gate? Maybe he’s local. Maybe he’s here in Philly.”

  Jessie was skeptical. “You’re deducing that from one detail he could have gotten from a Google street view?”

  “I’m not saying I’d put True_Man in Philly based solely on one detail. My point is there may be other details in here, words or phrases pointing toward the same conclusion. One local detail might have come from a Google search. Ten and it’s looking a lot more likely the guy lives in or close to Philadelphia. So, reading through these messages, one thing we should be asking is whether there are more details pointing toward a likelihood of local knowledge.”

  She smiled at him, still not fully convinced, but appreciative of his help. “You’re sexy when you go into detective mode.”

  “Oh yeah?” He arched a brow.

  “Like a man on a mission.”

  The lighter mood was a nice break from the grim reading, but it didn’t last long. Soon enough, their heads were filled with True_Man’s voice again—one of the most hateful, most evil she’d ever encountered.

  “Look at this,” he said, pointing at another message. “Betaloser says, ‘How will I get away after?’ and True_Man says, ‘There will be more of an impact, more of a legacy, if you don’t. Have you heard of suicide by cop?’”

  “Sick bastard,” Jessie said.

  “Right, but look what comes next. Russell says he might not be ready to die, but doesn’t want to go to prison either. And True_Man says, ‘Isn’t there a SEPTA station right by the school? Maybe you could disappear into the tunnels, get some distance, and then pop out in a random part of the city and make your escape.’”

  “He knew about the subway entrance,” Jessie said.

  “And he referred to it as a ‘SEPTA station,’ like a local would. Convinced yet?”

  “Getting there.”

  They flipped more pages.

  True_Man: You need to make sure all the girls are there. You’ll only have one chance at these sluts, so you need to wipe them all out in one go, the whole squad. If you get there and not every bitch is at practice—if someone’s sick or whatever—just turn around and go home. Don’t take SEPTA. Not with a bag full of guns. Just catch a taxi.

  Betaloser: Makes sense.

  “Another reference to SEPTA,” Jessie said.

  “I’m telling you, True_Man knows Philly.”

  The thought made Jessie shiver. “Okay, let’s go with that assumption, for the time being. It still doesn’t tell us who he is. There are a lot of people in this city.”

  “True,” Leary said. “But there may be other clues in these messages.” He started flipping pages again.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  He looked at her, and appeared genuinely surprised. “You’re not?”

  “Well,” she hedged, “I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘enjoy.’”

  He cracked a smile. “Come on, Jessie. Sex, Chinese takeout, and crime-solving? This is our best date yet.”

  She had to laugh. “This is why we desperately need that Caribbean vacation.”

  His expression turned pensive as he turned back to the documents—his analytical mind taking over, she thought. “Why is this guy doing this?” he mused aloud. “What’s his end game? Just to kill a bunch of random cheerleaders? Can someone’s hatred be that strong?”

  Jessie thought of something. “What if he’s interested in these cheerleaders in particular? These girls. What if they’re not random?” She tapped the stack of paper. “More than once, True_Man emphasizes that Russell needs to kill all of the girls on the squad. He wants these girls dead, specifically.”

  “Or maybe,” Leary said, “one of those girls, specifically. He can’t name her, because that would be suspicious and it wouldn’t fit the story he’s selling Russell about making some kind of men’s rights statement. But what if that’s what all of this really is—just an elaborate cover for the murder of one girl?”

  Jessie nodded. The theory had a kind of logic. “This crime wasn’t about two misogynistic men making a point with violence,” she said, testing the theory by speaking it aloud. “There was another agenda here. A hidden one.”

  “Hidden even from Russell Lanford,” Leary said.

  Jessie could feel the familiar rush of the hunt. The truth was within their grasp. And so was justice. “Russell was a puppet, an unwitting tool, used by True_Man and then thrown away.”

  Leary said, “Did anyone have reason to want any of these cheerleaders dead? Maybe someone at the school? Another student, a parent, a teacher? If we find the person with the motive, maybe we find True_Man.”

  “Let me call Emily.” Jessie picked up her phone. “She oversaw the initial interviews at Stevens Academy. Maybe there’s something in the police reports that seemed irrelevant at the time but means something now, in light of our new theory.”

  “I love when that happens,” Leary said.

  Jessie called Graham and caught her up on their analysis of the evidence and their thoughts. She walked the detective through her reasoning. When she’d laid it all out, she braced herself for skepticism as a response.

  Instead, Graham said, “I like it.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ll go through the reports again. Officers canvassed the school, interviewing students and teachers. Maybe something will pop.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping.”

  23

  Jessie settled into her office the next morning, and, after chugging sixteen ounces of coffee, braced herself to tackle the mountain of backlogged emails that she’d let pile up during the last few busy days. Before she could read the first one, her phone buzzed.

  Turning away from Outlook, she grabbed her phone like a lifeline. Emily Graham.

  “We may have caught another break,” the detective said over the phone.

  “I’m listening.” Jessie felt her heart rate kick up, and it wasn’t because of the massive hit of caffeine she’d just ingested. Well, it wasn’t only because of that.

  “A student at Stevens Academy—a junior named Arabella Minsky—might have information that could be helpful in finding True_Man.”

  Jessie leaned forward in her chair. The DA’s office was quiet at this hour, the hallway outside her open doorway silent. “The police didn’t interview her before?”

  “They did. Uniformed officers, as part of a general canvas. The statement Minsky provided was kind of dismissed as useless at the time, because frankly she came off as a gossip, a teenager looking to add some drama to her life. But now, suspecting True_Man might be local, some of what she said seems more relevant. So I called her back in to talk.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She’s still saying it. She’s here right now, at the Roundhouse, sitting in an interview room with Novak. I thought you’d appreciate a heads-up and a chance to come by and watch.”

  “I do appreciate it.” Jessie was already shutting down her computer. The long queue of emails would have to wait another day.

  Jessie arrived at the Roundhouse ten minutes later and found Graham. The detective let her into an observation room, through which she could observe the interview through one-way glass. The girl, Arabella Minsky, was pretty in a wholesome, girl-next-door kind of way. Blonde, smiley, petite. And young. God, these kids all looked so young, so naively innocent. It only underscored the tragedy.

  Arabella Minsky was cradling a cardboard mug in her hands. Starbucks—probably one of their sticky, sweet concoctions that bore only the slightest connection, if any, to coffee. Jessie could practically smell the syrup through the wall. Novak sat across from her. His phone was on the table. He wasn’t looking at it, but every so often his fingers inched toward it as if he were dying to grab it off the table and check Facebook. Jessie shook her head and couldn’t help smiling. The veteran detective was more addicted to s
ocial media than the teenage girl. She supposed there was a first time for everything.

  The door opened and Graham walked into the interview room. She pulled up a chair and said, “Sorry about the wait. I had to make some calls. I hope my partner here kept you entertained.”

  Arabella Minsky offered a half-hearted smile. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  “So,” Graham went on, “you were telling us about some of the girls on the cheerleading squad. The victims.”

  The girl’s face seemed to light up, and she leaned forward with a conspiratorial expression. She didn’t make any effort to try to look sad or mask her glee in spilling super secret school gossip to her new detective friends. Jessie felt a flash of distaste, but forced herself to dismiss it. Teenagers weren’t fully developed human beings, even though they thought they were. In time, Arabella Minsky would probably mature into a fine, empathetic young woman. In the meantime, if her gossipy nature could help the police find the man who’d helped end the lives of seventeen people, Jessie could cut her some slack.

  “I told the police lots of important stuff before,” the girl said. She pouted. “They didn’t seem very interested.”

  “They were,” Graham said with an assuring voice. “They sent your statement straight to me. I’m the lead detective. We’re all extremely interested in what you have to say.”

  From the look on Arabella’s face, you’d think she’d just won the Mega Millions jackpot. Maybe, in her teenage world where social currency was at least as important as the kind printed on paper, she had.

  “I heard you’re looking for someone now,” Arabella said. “Some guy on the internet who helped Russell.” She shuddered. “So creepy.”

  “It’s an ongoing investigation and we’re exploring numerous leads,” Graham said vaguely. “In your statement, you told the officers that you knew a lot about the victims. That you were close and that we should talk to you if we wanted to know about them.”