Substantial Risk (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series Book 5)

by Stephen Penner

  “I’m sorry, Michael,” Gillespie said. “I had to call the authorities. There are rules.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Pat,” Michael replied. “I know. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. All mine. Tina’s dead, and it’s all my fault.”

  Brunelle heard Chen’s chair slide backwards as he stood up. “You’re right, Mr. Atkins, it is your fault. You’re under arrest for murder.”

  Brunelle half-expected Michael to protest. Something like, ‘Murder? But I loved her!’ But there was no protest. No words at all. Brunelle listened as Chen fastened on the handcuffs and Patrick Gillespie again said, “I’m sorry, Michael.”

  Chen led Michael out of the room and down the hallway. Brunelle trailed behind, his work there finished.

  “I’ll check in with you later,” Brunelle yelled after the retreating Chen. Chen acknowledged the call with a raise of his hand. Then Brunelle turned and ducked back into the room where the body was found.

  But Kat was gone already.

  So was the body, but he didn’t really care about that. He just wanted to see his girlfriend. He was finally used to that term. ‘Girlfriend.’ Wasn’t that what Master Michael had called Tina? His girlfriend?

  The one remaining forensics officer was taking a few ‘after’ photographs of the room. He stopped to look up at Brunelle, but Brunelle waved him back to his work. It was time for him to go.

  He’d call Kat later and ask her about the autopsy. In the meantime, he could decide whether to tell her what he thought he’d seen in that last photograph: young defense attorney Robyn Dunn’s unique, one-sided dimple, barely visible beneath her studded leather mask.

  Chapter 3

  After a few hours of sleep, Brunelle got to work early and found himself summoned to the office of his boss, the elected prosecutor Matt Duncan. Duncan was on the phone, but not because he wanted to be. It just wouldn’t stop ringing.

  “We’ll review all the evidence,” he was saying, “and make a charging decision based on the facts and the law. Right. Yes. Exactly. Okay, thanks, Ken. I’ll know more later this morning. Bye.”

  Duncan hung up again and shouted out to his secretary, “Hold my calls for a few minutes, Tammy. I need to talk to Dave and figure out what the hell is going on.”

  “CNN is on hold,” Tammy shouted back, “Do you want me to take a message?”

  Duncan thought for a moment, then replied. “Yes. It’s just CNN. Tell them I’m meeting with my top staff regarding the case and we’ll call them back within the hour.”

  Tammy acknowledged the command, then closed her boss’s door so they could have some peace and quiet.

  “Top staff?” Brunelle laughed. “I like that.”

  “Don’t get a big head,” Duncan replied. “It sounded better than I have to talk to the prosecutor who’s gonna get stuck with this case.”

  Brunelle smiled. “Yeah, that does sound less impressive.”

  Duncan shook his head and came out from behind his desk. He and Brunelle sat at the conference table where Duncan preferred to have his conversations with his prosecutors. “The national media is all over this. They’re calling it the Seattle Sex Club Killing. What the hell happened?”

  Brunelle shrugged. “Master Michael got a little careless with his knot-tying and choked out his sub.”

  Duncan just blinked at him several times. “What?”

  Brunelle had to laugh. “Yeah, that was kinda my reaction too,” he said. “Apparently the victim and the killer were boyfriend-girlfriend and into bondage. He tied her up too tight and she choked to death.”

  “Was it intentional?”

  “Didn’t look like it,” Brunelle replied. “I listened to him tell his story to the cops and he sure sounded remorseful.”

  Duncan frowned and looked away. “Damn it,” he finally said.

  “What?” Brunelle wondered what was bothering his boss so much.

  “I’m not looking forward to explaining why we didn’t file charges,” Duncan answered. “Even to CNN.”

  But Brunelle raised his palms. “Well, don’t decline charges just yet. I said he sounded remorseful. That doesn’t mean he truly was. For all we know, he planned the whole thing and was ready for his sob story. Kat—er, the medical examiner—probably hasn’t even done the autopsy yet. Maybe there’s a different cause of death. Maybe he just used the bondage to cover it up. It’s too soon to tell.”

  Duncan nodded and his spirits visibly lifted. “Okay, okay. Good point.” Then his mouth twisted in thought. “When’s the autopsy?”

  Brunelle wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “Uh, I’m not sure. Sometime this morning. I doubt she’s started yet.”

  “Good,” Duncan replied. “Call your girlfriend and tell her to wait until you get there. I want you to observe the autopsy and make sure she looks for signs of foul play.”

  Brunelle laughed. “Did you really just say, ‘foul play’?”

  Duncan grinned. “I’m old school. So sue me. Some guy chokes his girlfriend to death, I want to file charges. I don’t care if it was some sick sex game. You don’t kill people. Not in my county.”

  “Atta boy, Matt,” Brunelle offered. “Don’t let a little thing like kinky sex between consenting adults get between you and a murder charge.”

  But Duncan shook his head. “I don’t want a murder charge. I want a murder conviction. Under the court rules, we can hold this guy seventy-two hours before we have to charge him or let him go. Go to the autopsy, then call the lead detective and tell him to look for anything to suggest these two were having problems. Friends, family, fellow perverts. Whatever. Then we staff this thing tomorrow afternoon and make a decision. I can hold off the media until then.”

  “Staff it?” Brunelle asked. Staffing it meant a conference table surrounded by senior prosecutors, debating and deciding what to do with the case. Brunelle hated staffings. He got paid to make decisions; he didn’t need other people’s opinions getting in his way.

  “Absolutely,” Duncan replied. “If I’m going to go on camera to explain what we’re doing with this case, it’s damn well going to be after we’ve discussed every possible contingency.”

  Brunelle nodded, but didn’t reply. He knew better than to argue, because he knew Duncan was probably right.

  “It’ll be you and me,” Duncan went on, a thoughtful finger raised to his lips. “And Fletcher and Jurgens.” He thought for a minute. “And Yamata. I want her here too.”

  “Michelle Yamata?” Brunelle questioned. He liked her well enough, but still thought of her as a junior prosecutor. “Isn’t she kinda new for this?”

  Duncan shrugged, but smiled. “You tried a homicide with her. You said she did a good job. And she did a good job handling your cases when you took that leave of absence.”

  Brunelle frowned. That was all true.

  “Besides,” Duncan ignored the frown, “we need her.”

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. “We do?”

  “Yes,” Duncan replied. “Before we make a decision on this one, I want to hear what a woman thinks about the whole thing.”

  Brunelle nodded. Good idea. Which reminded him. “Speaking of which, I better get going.” He stood up to leave. “I’ll go see what our lady medical examiner thinks about it.”

  Chapter 4

  “Lady medical examiner?” Kat repeated back with a tight laugh. “It sounds like the girls teams at a high school. The Lady Vikings or something.”

  Brunelle laughed. “I don’t think there were lady Vikings,” he said. “I mean, if there were any female Vikings, they probably weren’t very ladylike.”

  “Still,” Kat crossed her arms and leaned against the examining table which was awaiting the remains of Christina Belfair, “you don’t call the women in your office ‘lady prosecutors.’”

  “Prosecutrix,” Brunelle offered.

  “Excuse me?” Kat laughed at the word. “Prosecutrix? That’s not a real word.”

  But Brunelle smiled and nodded. “Oh yes it is. O
r it was. You see it in old case opinions sometimes. It’s kind of a cool word.”

  Kat lowered her eyelids. “Sounds kinda dirty.”

  Brunelle offered an inappropriate leer. “I know.”

  Kat laughed at his exaggerated expression. “Well, then I wanna be a medical examintrix, or something.”

  Brunelle laughed. “Or something,” he said. “Okay. I bet we can come up with a title that ends in –trix.”

  Kat didn’t laugh in response. Instead she sized up her boyfriend for moment. “Oh yeah?”

  Brunelle felt the blush that Kat could always evoke in him rise into cheeks. But he could still function. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

  Then Kat pushed herself off the metal table and stepped over to Brunelle. She grabbed his tie, but instead of tightening it like a leash, she wrapped it loosely around her wrist. “And what if that’s not what I want, Mr. Brunelle?” she purred.

  Brunelle might have blushed again, except his blood was rushing in the exact opposite direction.

  “Ahem,” coughed the technician who was rolling in the body for the autopsy. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “Here’s your next one, doctor.”

  Nothing breaks the mood quite like a dead body. Kat let go of Brunelle’s tie and got back to business. She unzipped the body bag, then she and the technician lifted the remains from the gurney to the examining table. All of the clothes—and restraints—were still on.

  “You gonna watch from in here?” Kat asked.

  Brunelle shook his head. He was used to the smell, but that didn’t mean he liked it. “No. Duncan said I had to watch, but he didn’t say I had to be in the room.” He jerked a thumb toward the large window on the opposite wall. “I’ll watch from the observation room. Grab a cup a coffee and admire your skills.”

  Kat looked at him over her shoulder, which only accentuated those curves of hers he liked so much, “You sure it’s my skills you’ll be admiring?”

  “I didn’t say that was all I’d be admiring.” He actually kissed her on the cheek in front of the technician—a rare public display of affection for him—and turned toward the observation room. Kat covered her cheek with a gloved hand and watched after him, shaking her head, but smiling.

  * * *

  A little less than an hour later, Kat came into the observation room to join Brunelle. The autopsy was finished and Brunelle poured her a cup of coffee while she pulled off and discarded her gloves in the bio-hazard bin.

  “Definitely asphyxiation,” Kat reported as she took the steaming mug from Brunelle. “Mostly strangulation, but the gag in her mouth didn’t help matters.”

  “All the rope and shit probably didn’t help matters either,” Brunelle opined.

  “Yes and no,” Kat answered. “The arm-sleeve actually probably helped a bit. You put your arms back like that and it really opens your airways.”

  Brunelle nodded. He liked that she knew things he didn’t know she knew. He wondered if it was purely medical knowledge.

  “And the collar may actually have helped too,” Kat added.

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. “Collar?”

  Kat laughed at his eyebrow. “Yes. A nice leather one. Full inch wide. It even had a nametag that said ‘Precious.’”

  “A nametag?” Brunelle confirmed. “Like a dog?”

  Kat shook her head. “No, like a submissive. And like I said, it may have helped. The rope was too constrictive, but the collar was rigid. It probably kept the rope from choking her out right away. In a way, that’s sort of what killed her.”

  Brunelle cocked his head. “How do you mean?”

  “The open airways from the arm-sleeve and the protection from strangulation from the collar delayed and disguised her respiratory distress. She was probably fine when the gag went in, but by the time she couldn’t get enough air, she couldn’t say anything.”

  Brunelle frowned and set down his coffee. “Well, that sucks.”

  Kat nodded, but drank from hers. “That would be a scary way to go.”

  But Brunelle shook his head. “No, I mean it sucks for me. I don’t know what to do with Master Michael. He killed his girlfriend, but you’re telling me it was an accident.”

  Kat raised a finger. “I never said it was an accident. And accident is when a construction crane falls on you. This was homicide. She died because of what another person did to her.”

  Brunelle took some solace in that answer, but not much. “Well, it doesn’t sound like there was any intent, so it wasn’t murder.”

  “There’s no intent when a drunk driver kills grandma in the crosswalk,” Kat retorted, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not a crime.”

  Brunelle chewed his own cheek for a moment, then leaned forward and kissed Kat’s cheek again. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

  Chapter 5

  “Manslaughter?” Joe Fletcher practically spat from his seat across Duncan’s conference table. “That’s chicken shit, Brunelle. Either charge murder or don’t charge anything.”

  Brunelle really didn’t like Fletcher. He never really had, but they’d basically been able to avoid each other over the years. Different divisions, different assignments, different cases. He was a good attorney, had a lot of experience, and won most of his cases. He was just a jerk.

  “It’s not chicken shit,” Brunelle replied evenly, “to charge the proper crime. Manslaughter in the first degree fits the best.”

  But Fletcher shook his head exaggeratedly. “No, manslaughter is when you point a gun at your buddy’s face, you think it’s unloaded so you pull the trigger, and you blow his brains all over your wall. That’s manslaughter. This is two perverts. Either he wanted her dead and used the bondage stuff to cover it up, or she just struggled too much and ended up dead.”

  Brunelle didn’t immediately reply. He had also considered that angle. Sticks and stones break my bones, but whips and chains cover up premeditation.

  The rest of the room also considered Fletcher’s summation. Duncan was sitting in the corner, leaning away from the table, hand over his mouth in concentration. Yamata was sitting at the table, hands folded, the junior member of the team apparently waiting her turn. And Paul Jurgens’ large frame creaked in his chair as he leaned forward, breathing audibly, to join the conversation.

  “Dave,” Jurgens started with a wheeze. He was the oldest one in the room, balding, and way too overweight. He’d been at the office before even Duncan, but with no political or leadership aspirations, he had settled in trying major crimes and being asked his opinion. He was pretty jaded anymore, but he carried it in an affable way. “Did your detective find anything to suggest premeditation? Problems in the relationship? Financial difficulties? Another woman? Any texts or emails or new life insurance policies?”

  And that was why Fletcher was wrong. “No.” Brunelle shook his head. “Nothing. All indications are they were a happy couple.”

  “Except for the rope around her throat,” Fletcher scoffed.

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Yamata piped in. “Probably just the opposite.”

  Fletcher raised an eyebrow at the attractive prosecutor. “You into that shit too?”

  Yamata grinned. “Don’t even think it, Joe. You’d be the one in handcuffs.”

  Duncan leaned forward and coughed loudly. “All right, all right. I understand there’s a sexual component to this homicide, but let’s keep it professional. No one wants to get sued.”

  Brunelle smiled and looked at Yamata, who had to grin too. She’d been a lawyer with a civil firm before she sued the firm for sexual discrimination. The rumor mill had turned that into a suit for sexual harassment and half the prosecutor’s office was scared to say boo to her. Brunelle would have given Fletcher credit for not being afraid of her, but really he was just dense. But Duncan was right to keep the off-color remarks to a minimum. There would be enough of those as the case progressed.

  “Fine,” Yamata acquiesced. “My point is, there seems to be no eviden
ce of intent to harm and plenty of evidence that their activities were… consensual. I don’t see us being able to prove murder.”

  “So chalk it up as a freak accident,” Fletcher said. “And I do mean freak. Isn’t there something about assumption of risk? You let some pervert tie you up like that you might end up dead. This probably happens all the time.”

  Brunelle shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’ve got national media crawling up our asses. If this happened a lot, we’d all know about it.”

  Duncan nodded. “Everybody from our local affiliates to CNN wants an interview. Once we make our decision, we better be able to explain it in a simple sound bite. I don’t want to get into the complexities of this kind of weird sexual relationship.”

  “But that’s the problem,” Yamata said. “The complexities drive the decision. As much I hate to admit it, Fletcher kind of has a point.”

  Fletcher crossed his arms and nodded. “Of course I do.”

  Yamata shook her head. “You don’t even know your point.”

  Fletcher’s smug smile faded. “Yes, I do,” he insisted unconvincingly.

  “What’s his point?” Brunelle asked Yamata.

  “To the extent that our victim consented to the restraints,” Yamata said, “it will be hard to show any criminal liability by the defendant.”

  “He’s not a defendant yet,” Jurgens interrupted. “He’s only a defendant if we charge him. Let’s call him the suspect.”

  “Let’s call him the killer,” Brunelle retorted. “Tina’s dead because Master Michael killed her. She doesn’t die without his actions.”