Winter's Law

by Penner, Stephen

  “Yeah,” she agreed, in a consciously pleasant tone. “Sure looks like it. Speaking of which, how’s Laurie?”

  Curt wasn’t really a ‘poker face’ kind of guy, but he made no effort to conceal his surprise at Talon’s question.

  “Uh, well, wow,” he sputtered. “Uh, yeah, well, that didn’t really work out so well. It went downhill pretty fast after the coffee shop. I didn’t see her again after that night.”

  “Oh.” Talon tried to sound disappointed, but not too disappointed—not too interested. “That’s too bad.”

  Curt shrugged and flashed that boyish grin of his. “Yeah, well, live and learn, I guess. Apparently, you’re not supposed to agree when your date says another woman is attractive.”

  Talon had to try even harder not to react to that statement. Luckily, the waitress arrived just then to take their orders.

  “Hi, I’m Kelly,” the young woman announced cheerily, her energy not yet drained from a long night of patrons having more fun than her. “I’ll be your waitress tonight. Have you folks decided on anything yet?”

  Curt nodded. “I’ll take the chicken sandwich, no mayo, with fries and a Coke.”

  Kelly dutifully recorded the order on her notepad. “And for you, ma’am?”

  Talon decided to ignore the age implications of being called ‘ma’am.’ She forced a smile and handed her menu to Kelly. “I’ll take the Caesar salad, please. And a water.”

  Kelly took down Talon’s order as well and disappeared with the menus.

  “So,” Talon jumped in, eager to avoid the topic they’d stumbled into, “what did you think of Daggett?”

  Curt thought for a moment, apparently also willing to talk shop. “He seemed pretty credible. He didn’t seem like he had an axe to grind. It happened a long time ago. I think the jury will believe him.”

  Talon agreed with that assessment. “Yeah, but is that a good thing or not?”

  “Depends on whether it hurts us or helps us,” Curt replied.

  “He only saw one person,” Talon recalled.

  “So that’s good,” Curt said. “It corroborates Michael’s story that he stayed in the car.”

  “Of course, it could have been Ricky who stayed in the car,” Talon considered. “And anyway, the jury only gets to hear Michael’s version if I put him on the stand.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Curt asked.

  Before Talon could respond, Kelly returned with their drinks and a wide smile. A moment later, she was gone again and Talon took a sip of water.

  “If I put him on the stand,” Talon explained, “then that puts him at the scene of the murder. Right now, all they have is the ballistics match.”

  “And Daggett,” Curt pointed out.

  “Maybe,” Talon replied. “He saw a young Black male. So what? That could have been anyone. I only put Michael on the stand if Quinlan’s able to put Michael there and I have to explain why.”

  “And that he didn’t do anything,” Curt added.

  “Right.”

  Curt took a drink from his own glass, then frowned. “Did Daggett say he saw a gun?”

  Talon tried to remember. “I, I’m not sure.”

  Curt slapped the table. “Damn it. I forgot to ask him that. I got so caught up on how many people he saw, I forgot to ask if he ever saw a gun.”

  “Crap,” Talon agreed. “We should know that.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter?” Curt tried. “I mean we know the victim was shot, so there had to be a gun.”

  But Talon shook her head. “Yeah, but even if there was only one person outside of the car, the shot could have come from inside the car. If Daggett testifies there was one guy outside the car, but he didn’t have a gun, then I can’t put Michael on the stand to say he stayed in the car. That makes him the shooter.”

  “Shit.” Curt punched the table again. “We have to go back and ask him.”

  Talon wasn’t so sure. “Maybe, maybe not. It would signal to him that we made a mistake, that we’re sloppy. He seemed to like us. I don’t want to undercut our credibility with him. I want him to think we’re confident in our case.”

  Curt didn’t immediately reply as he considered Talon’s argument.

  “Besides,” Talon added, “we might not like the answer. It might be better to leave it alone, rather than get him to thinking about it. The logical assumption is that the guy outside the car had the gun. Quinlan isn’t too sharp. He might forget to ask about that. No need to draw Daggett’s attention to it.”

  “But we need to know,” Curt countered. “Regardless of whether Quinlan remembers to ask, we still should know. We can’t go into a trial and not have every fact tied down.”

  “It was over two decades ago,” Talon countered. “We’re not going to get every fact tied down. But we don’t have to. That’s the prosecutor’s job. It’s good if the facts are in doubt.”

  Curt wasn’t convinced. “It’s better if we know. We don’t have to tell Quinlan, but we should know what happened. If we don’t go back to Daggett, then we better remember to ask Oliphant.”

  Talon had forgotten about Oliphant. “Well, yeah. Uh, I guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Well, if Oliphant says the guy outside had the gun,” Curt reasoned, “then we can stop there. Even if Daggett disagrees, we can explain it away because it was dark and he probably just didn’t see it. He won’t say there was no gun, just that he didn’t see it.”

  Talon couldn’t disagree. Nevertheless, she said, “Well, maybe we should go back and talk to Daggett…”

  Curt looked at her for a beat, then hung his head. “Shit, Talon. I’m sorry. I really screwed that up. I can’t believe I forgot to ask him about the gun. It’s a fucking shooting and I didn’t ask about the gun.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask either,” Talon pointed out. She didn’t like seeing Curt beating himself up. “It’s my case after all.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the investigator,” Curt argued. “You’re the courtroom person. I’m supposed to get you the information you need to shine in front of the jury.”

  Talon liked the idea of shining. “No, it’s on both of us. We’re a team.”

  Curt shrugged. “Yeah, but if we’re going to stay a team, I can’t mess up stuff like this. I mean, you’re going to have other cases, other investigators. If you can’t rely on me to do a good job, you’ll start using a different investigator. You’ll have to, for your clients’ sake.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Talon that she’d have other cases with other investigators. This was her only case. And she was getting quite used to working with Curt.

  “I think you’re doing fine,” she assured him.

  Another shrug. “Yeah, but there are some damn good investigators out there. People with lots of experience, on both sides. Former cops who really know how to work up a case.”

  Talon tried to bolster Curt’s confidence. “Yeah, well, cops suck, right? That’s why we’re doing defense work.”

  But Curt raised a hand. “Careful,” he said. “Cops are like anybody else. There are good ones and bad ones. In fact…” He hesitated, then admitted, “In fact, I was almost a cop.”

  Talon was picking up her glass for another drink, but she set it right back down again. “What? You were? You never told me that.”

  Curt shrugged again and offered a faint grin. “I don’t talk much about it.”

  “Too late,” Talon declared. She rolled her hand at him. “Spill.”

  Curt sighed, then leaned back and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Okay. I was a criminal justice major in college. I knew I wanted to do something in that area. In fact, I thought I wanted to be a cop, so I applied to every department in the county. Eventually I got hired on as a cadet with Fircrest P.D.”

  “Fircrest? Nice,” Talon interjected. “Quiet suburb. Country club. Good place to start.”

  “Right.” Curt nodded. “That’s what I thought too. But even with the job lined up, you can’t be a cop in Washingt
on unless you graduate from the Basic Law Enforcement Academy up in Burien. So I did classes during the day in Burien, and ride-alongs at night in Fircrest. I wasn’t the top of my class, but I did well enough and everything was on track.”

  “So what happened?” Talon asked as she reached for her glass again.

  Curt laughed a little. “Life happened. My mom got sick. Really sick. Leukemia. Late stage.”

  “Oh, no,” Talon offered. “I’m sorry.” And she was. That was terrible news.

  But Curt just shrugged. “It happens. She was old. In fact, she was retired and living in Arizona. The doctors gave her about two months to live. It just so happened, those were the last two months of the academy. I had to choose between finishing out my classes or taking care of my dying mother. Not much of a choice really, when you think about it.”

  “So you quit the academy?”

  “And my job at Fircrest,” Curt confirmed. “They couldn’t hold it open for me. And then I moved down to Arizona to take care of my mom.”

  “Couldn’t anyone else do it?” Talon asked. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  Curt offered a pained grin. “I have a brother. He lives in San Diego. But there was no way he was going to do it.”

  “Why not?” Talon inquired. “Job or family or something?”

  “Or something,” Curt answered. He took a drink of his Coke. “I mean he has a job and a family, but that wasn’t it. He could have gotten the time off. And his wife and kids would have been fine with a couple trips to Phoenix to see grandma. No, it was just, well, he wasn’t going to be there for my mom because she wasn’t there for us. He was still pretty angry, pretty bitter.” Curt stared into his glass for a few seconds, then added, “He still is.”

  Talon hesitated for just a moment—that split second assessment of whether a follow-up question shows concern, or is just prying. But Curt brought it up, and Talon wasn't one to favor politeness over directness. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Curt smiled weakly and looked down at the table. “Uh, yeah... So, my dad wasn't exactly the warm and fuzzy type. He was more the angry and yelling type. He never hit us. Well, not really. Not regularly. But he had a temper, and it was never far from the surface. My brother, he was two years older than me, so he got the worst of it. He left home as soon as he turned eighteen, and never looked back.”

  Talon nodded, but didn't interrupt.

  “I thought maybe when our dad died,” Curt continued, “Jake would soften up, a least a little. But that didn't happen. See, our dad was the angry one. The abusive one. The one who yelled, and broke things, and always seemed an inch away from exploding physically. But it was our mom who let it all happen. She never tried to stop him. She just let it happen. Then afterward, she'd blame us. Tell us how hard our dad worked for us, how much stress he was under. And tell us whatever we had done to make him get angry.”

  Curt shrugged again and took another sip of soda. “So when my mom got sick, Jake didn't want to hear about it. 'She was never there for us,' he said, 'so why should we be there for her?'“

  Talon thought for moment. “That’s actually a fair question. Why should you?”

  Curt looked up and then smiled weakly. “I'm not my brother. He dealt with it his way, but that's his way, not mine. But like I said, Dad was scary and angry and we were always afraid he was going to beat us. But he didn’t. Not like his dad. His dad beat the shit out of him on a regular basis. So, say what you want about him, he broke that cycle. Jake doesn't hit his kids and if I ever have kids, they won't have to be afraid of me either.”

  Talon’s expression softened. She could imagine Curt as a father: a baby in his arms, playing catch in the backyard, running alongside a teetering bicycle. And one thing she couldn't imagine was him being abusive.

  “I can't blame my mother for being as afraid of him as we were,” Curt continued. “And I don't blame my brother for staying angry. But I wasn't going to let my mother die alone. Like I said, easy decision.”

  “Wow.” Talon shook her head. “You must hate your brother now.”

  Curt's eyebrows shot up. “Hate? No. Of course not. I love him.”

  “But he ruined your dream.”

  “Dream?” Curt laughed. “No. Being a cop wasn't a dream. It was a plan. But you can make new plans.”

  He picked up his drink and leaned back. “I'm not one of those people who thinks things happen for a reason. It's pretty hard to think that after you work a couple of child sex cases. When I first went to Arizona, I figured I'd just re-enroll in the academy when I got back to Tacoma, but when it was all over, I decided to take a break and think about what I wanted to do with my life. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to do something to help people, so I gave up on the cop thing and decided to become a private investigator.”

  Talon cocked her head. “But cops help people.”

  Curt shrugged. “Kinda. Cops enforce rules. Sometimes that helps people. Maybe even most of the time. But putting a drug addict in jail doesn't help anyone. That's a real person. You’re just enforcing a rule because somebody else thinks it should be the rule. We used to put people in jail for smoking pot. Now you can buy it on every street corner in Washington. Rules change, there are always people who need help.”

  Curt leaned forward and shook his head slightly. “No, my brother did me a favor. I'd much rather sit next to a real person and help them get out of trouble, than pretend that person is just a nameless criminal. There are too many people who pretend they're something they're not. I don't want to do that to other people. I just want everyone to be what they really are.”

  Just then Kelly arrived with their meals. “Chicken sandwich for the gentleman.” She set one plate in front of Curt. The other landed in front of Talon. “And a salad for the lady.”

  Talon looked down at her lettuce-and-crouton-covered plate, then up at the man across the table from her. After a moment, she handed the salad back to Kelly. “I've changed my mind,” she said. “I'll take the bacon cheeseburger, please. Extra bacon.”

  Chapter 14

  Part of getting back to the office was going through the mail. There was the usual stuff, mostly junk mail headed straight to the recycling bin. But there was one she couldn’t ignore. The envelope was two inches thick, at least. It wasn’t even really an envelope. It was more like a paper box. The return address was Gardelli, High & Steinmetz. She knew what was inside.

  “I got the interrogatories,” she told Sullivan when he picked up. “There must be a hundred pages of questions here.”

  “A hundred and seven,” Sullivan corrected. “I’ve already looked through my copies. They arrived this morning.”

  “I don’t have time to answer all of these,” Talon protested. “What about the limit? The court rules cap the number of interrogatories at forty. This is way over that.”

  “Well, technically, there are only forty questions,” Sullivan responded. “There are just a lot of sub-questions.”

  “That’s bull,” Talon shot back. “I say we answer the first forty and let them cry about it.”

  “That’s one approach,” Sullivan agreed. “We could also ask the court to strike them completely for exceeding the limit.”

  Talon shook her head. “The judge won’t do that.”

  “No, he won’t,” Sullivan agreed.

  “He’ll just give them leave to exceed the forty-question limit,” Talon knew.

  “Yes, he will,” Sullivan confirmed.

  “Shit,” Talon breathed. “I really don’t have time for this, Stan.”

  “I thought you only had one case,” Sullivan replied. “That should leave you enough time to answer a few questions.”

  “A hundred and seven questions,” Talon corrected, looking at the stack of papers. “And I suppose they’re as personally invasive as possible, right? Every last bit of information about my finances, everything?”

  “You used to do this for a living, right?” Sullivan asked.

  “Yeah,” Ta
lon admitted.

  “Then you know the answer. Every question you ever put to a plaintiff to embarrass and burden them, it’s in there. Hell, they probably took them from your old directory.”

  Talon shook her head at that. “Using my own methods against me. Ugh. And what happens if I just refuse to answer them?”

  “Hm, well, there are probably a few where you can legitimately claim privilege,” Sullivan considered, “but you have to answer the rest. You know that. And if you don’t, they’ll make a motion to dismiss your case for want of prosecution. You can’t risk that. The judge will grant it if you don’t have a good reason not to answer.”

  “Is them being complete dickheads a good reason?”

  Sullivan laughed. “Lawyers suing lawyers. Even the judge is a lawyer. We’re all dickheads.”

  Talon ran a hand through her hair. She was questioning whether the lawsuit was really worth her time any more. She also knew it was normal for plaintiffs to get tired and have second thoughts, and that 107-question interrogatories were designed to increase that fatigue to the breaking point. Still, knowing it didn’t make it any less true.

  “Any new offers on the table?” she asked.

  Sullivan laughed again. “There aren’t even any old offers on the table. We talked about this already. It’s too soon to talk settlement. Unless you want to give up.”

  Talon frowned. She wasn’t a quitter. She was just having a bad run of things. Secret brothers, credible victims, confusing investigators. “No, I don’t want to give up. I just want to win without having to work so hard for it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  Talon nodded to herself. “It’s not.”

  “Good,” Sullivan answered. “You’ve got thirty days to answer those interrogatories. Don’t take a minute less. We’ll schedule a meeting to go over them before we submit them, along with a hundred and eight of our own. Sound good?”