“Hey, we’ve got to go,” Michael said, popping his head into her office. “Jean-Luc is being arraigned in an hour.”
Maggie looked up, startled. “Sorry! I lost track of time.” She grabbed her bag and followed Michael to the elevator.
Jean-Luc LeRoi, professional hockey goalie and notorious bad boy, had been accused of sexual assault by a woman he’d met after a game one night about a month earlier. The previous night, he’d been arrested at his hotel and was at Manhattan Central Booking awaiting arraignment before a judge. He’d contacted Michael immediately. Michael met with Jean-Luc at the jail, advising him to keep quiet and wait for the judge.
Now the District Attorney apparently felt there was enough evidence to proceed with charges against the star known as The King. LeRoi’s handlers met Michael and Maggie outside the courtroom.
“No worries,” Michael assured them. “The judge will outline the charges, ask for a plea, and set bond. With these charges, you’re probably looking at about $50,000. That’s what I told him last night. Hopefully we’ll have him out by dinner time.”
Maggie stayed with Jean-Luc’s manager while Michael appeared before the judge alongside the hockey star. The judge sifted through a stack of paperwork. “Mr. LeRoi, you’re being accused of sexual assault. Do you understand the charges against you?”
“Yes, your honor,” Jean-Luc replied in his thick French Canadian accent.
“And do you have a plea?”
“Your honor, my client would like to enter a plea of not guilty,” Michael answered.
“Noted. The court will set bond for Mr. LeRoi in the amount of $50,000. Mr. LeRoi, you will immediately surrender your passport. You are not to have any contact with the victim. Mr. Rannigan, can I rely on you to keep your client in line?”
“Absolutely, your honor. My client intends to fully cooperate with the court and so prove his innocence.”
An hour later, Jean-Luc emerged from the holding area, meeting Michael and Maggie along with the rest of his entourage. He shook hands with Michael.
“Thank you so much,” he said. “What a terrible place.” He turned to Maggie. “And thank you, mademoiselle,” he said, his eyes resting briefly on her breasts before traveling down her body and back up again.
Maggie clenched her teeth together and said nothing. Jean-Luc LeRoi came off as a man who was impressed with himself. He was tall, with longish blond hair and pale blue eyes. He was clearly accustomed to being the center of attention.
“Okay, so go home, Jean-Luc. Stay in for a while. The media will be everywhere looking for you to fuck up. So don’t. You hear what I’m saying?” Michael advised his client.
“Oui, I understand,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I will be a good boy.”
“Good. We’ll meet next week and start on depositions,” Michael said. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will look forward to it,” Jean-Luc said, his eyes once again on Maggie’s breasts.
On the ride back to the office, Maggie shivered. “That guy gives me the creeps,” she told Michael. “Seriously, he’s not right.”
Michael chuckled. “Aw, he’s okay. You know what happens to professional athletes. They go out, meet a girl, it’s consensual, and then afterwards it’s not. It’s always a shake-down.”
Maggie crossed her arms and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Three days later they were seated at the small conference table in Michael’s office preparing for the deposition that Jean-Luc would be giving the following morning. Documents were spread before Michael and Maggie as they speculated the types of questions that would be asked. Their client truculently refused to stay seated, choosing instead to pace between the windows and the table, answering their queries with insolence and irritation. “This whole thing is stupid!” he said.
“Jean-Luc, the charges against you are very serious. You could do significant jail time, spend the rest of your life as a registered sex offender,” Michael cautioned. “You’re paying me a lot of money to ensure that you’re ready to face the questions you’re going to have to answer.” Maggie shot him a look and he rolled his eyes.
She watched the hockey pro as he moved around the office. He was handsome, tall and athletic, with Gallic features. If you weren’t aware of his nasty temperament, you’d find him attractive, she thought. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was dangerous.
LeRoi moved back to the table and sulkily flopped into his chair. “Do you have nothing here to drink except water?” he whined.
“I’ll call my assistant to bring you something,” Michael said, picking up his phone.
“I can get it,” Maggie volunteered, happy for an excuse to get away from their client for a moment.
Michael smiled slightly. “Thanks, Mags.”
As she walked past Jean-Luc, she suddenly jerked to a stop. There was the sound of fabric ripping. She turned and glared at the hockey player, who’d grabbed the hem of her skirt.
“Oops,” he said, grinning like a school boy. Maggie turned her glare toward Michael before leaving the room.
As the door closed, Michael stared down at his notes while he stroked his chin and shifted his jaw before looking back at Jean-Luc. “I will say this one time.” His voice was intensely quiet. “Do not ever touch my staff again. Because the minute you do, I will quit your case and do what I can to see that your ass rots in jail.” LeRoi looked at him in surprise. “Am I making myself clear? No language barrier giving us problems here?”
Maggie returned with a can of ginger ale and a glass. Michael took them from her and walked her back to the door. “Thanks again, Mags. Why don’t you go work on that other matter?” Maggie frowned at him questioningly. “Don’t ever meet with this guy by yourself,” he said quietly.
Her eyes widened and he winked at her. “Go on home, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Chapter 39
Michael sat back and watched as Maggie interviewed the alleged victim in the LeRoi case. They’d decided that this particular deposition required a gentle touch. Seated at a conference table in the offices of the District Attorney, Maggie smiled kindly at Rebecca Savage, a slight young woman with dark hair and brown eyes.
“I’m Maggie Flynn. Michael and I represent Jean-Luc LeRoi. I need to ask a few questions. May I call you Rebecca?”
The young woman blinked and looked to Rance Stockwell who was representing the citizens of the city in the high-profile case. Rance patted her hand and she nodded slightly, crossing her arms to hold herself around the middle.
Maggie quietly continued. “Tell me how you came to meet Jean-Luc, Rebecca.”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “I went to a hockey game with some friends. I don’t really follow sports, it was just something to do.” Maggie nodded encouragingly. “After the game, we went down to the ice. One of my friends wanted to get some autographs. Well, this player started talking to us. He ended up inviting us to meet him and some of the others at a bar. It was there that I met Jean-Luc, I mean, Mr. LeRoi. He seemed really nice and I thought he was cute.”
“So on the night of March 8, you met Jean-Luc. You thought he was nice and cute,” Maggie clarified. “When did you go out with him by yourself?”
“That was the next night,” Rebecca said. “We’d spent some time talking and he asked me out.”
“And where did you go?”
Rebecca looked to Rance again, who nodded. “I met him at his hotel. We were supposed to go out for dinner, but we ended up ordering from room service.”
“Why did you do that?”
“He said that going out would be a lot of trouble. Fans are always bothering him. He said we’d have a better time if we stayed in the hotel.”
Maggie smiled kindly. “And what happened from there?”
“Well, after dinner, we...I mean he...” She breathed out deeply and looked down at the table. “He raped me.”
“Rebecca, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to be more spe
cific than that. What exactly are you alleging that Jean-Luc did?”
The young woman blushed deeply and a lone tear rolled down her cheek. “He tore my dress. He bent me over the table. He ripped my underwear. He shoved his penis into my vagina. He didn’t stop until he came.”
Maggie considered her words thoughtfully. Michael silently urged her to ask the right questions. “Okay, Rebecca, moving back in time a little... What happened between dinner and the alleged attack? Before all that... Did you kiss him?” Rebecca nodded silently. “So you did kiss him. Was it willingly that you kissed him?”
“Yes,” the young woman whispered.
Maggie nodded encouragingly. “So on this date, you kissed a man you found attractive. Did you allow him to touch you?”
“Yes,” she said again.
“And where did you let him touch you?”
“He, um, grabbed my breasts,” she answered, blushing again. “And he...he put his hand between my legs.”
Rance patted her hand again. “You’re doing fine,” he whispered.
Maggie nodded. “So just to clarify... You were on a date with a man you liked. You kissed him because you wanted to. You allowed him to fondle your breasts and to touch your vagina with his hand.”
Rebecca nodded, more tears rolling down her face.
“Could it be that Jean-Luc believed that you desired to have intercourse with him? After all, you kissed him, you let him put his hands on you.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Rance said. “Do we have everything we need here?”
“I have one more matter that I’d like to explore,” Maggie answered. “Now Rebecca, in the lab work from the rape kit, along with various DNA material, there were traces of nonoxynol-9. That’s a spermicide.” Maggie looked expectantly at the young woman. “Can you think of how spermicide came to be there? Did you use some sort of birth control substance? Did Jean-Luc?”
“No. I have no idea why that was there. Maybe there was some mix-up at the lab,” she said, her steady gaze focused on the table in front of her.
Maggie smiled gently. “Alright, Rebecca. Thank you for your cooperation.” She looked to Rance. “Thanks.”
Michael wondered about Maggie’s silence on the way back to the office. “Are you okay, Mags? You’re kind of quiet.”
“That was awful,” she answered. “Everything about that was awful.”
He frowned in surprise. “What do you mean? You were great.”
“I mean,” she turned to look at him, “I feel like I just man-handled that girl.”
“What are you talking about? Just like you said, she was willing the whole way. She probably just changed her mind afterward.”
“I hate the way I feel right now,” Maggie said, shaking her head.
* * *
It was the third week of June when the trial finally began, a full two weeks later than originally planned due to scheduling issues. Joining Michael at the defense table were Maggie and Stan. He’d decided against taking Amy due to his client’s tendency to be an ass.
At first things seemed to be going well, but it soon became clear that Jean-Luc LeRoi did not make a sympathetic defendant. He often slouched in his seat and he smirked during testimony from law enforcement. They’d decided against having him testify, but his demeanor in the courtroom garnered disapproving glances from many of the jurors.
One day after a particularly rough session of testimony, Michael called a brief meeting after court recessed for the day. “We’re missing something,” he said. “If we don’t find it, we’re going to lose this case.”
“Would that be such a tragedy?” Maggie asked quietly.
Michael glared at her. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“Well, as it happens,” Maggie returned, “I’m working on something.”
“Would you care to share with the class?” Michael asked icily.
She shook her head. “I’ll let you know if it pans out.”
* * *
Later that week, Maggie knocked on Michael’s door. “I think I have something,” she said.
“Please tell me you have the solution to this cluster-fuck,” he sighed.
Maggie sank into one of the black leather chairs opposite Michael’s desk. “So this spermicide thing has been bothering me. I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer to the question of its origin. HIPAA prevents us from gaining access to private medical records. But it doesn’t cover non-prescription items, right? So I started thinking... If Rebecca used birth control before she went to Jean-Luc’s hotel, it would show that she intended to have sex with him. And maybe she used something over-the-counter.”
Michael nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, so what did you find out?”
“I checked into pharmacies within a small radius of her apartment and her work. Then I visited them, showing her photo to the clerks working there. I got a hit on the third one I tried. The guy recognized her, said she’s there all the time.”
Michael leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers together. “And?”
“And, after a little sweet-talk, I got him to show me surveillance footage from March 9. You can clearly see Rebecca Savage enter the store, go the family planning section, browse for a few minutes, then head to the checkout with a box in her hand.” Maggie waited as that sank in.
“I then got the store manager to pull up the register tape to the corresponding time stamp. We have someone using Rebecca’s debit card to purchase contraceptive sponges. And guess what kind of spermicide is in those sponges?”
Michael nodded. “Nonoxynol-9.”
Maggie shrugged. “So...we have her in a sworn deposition saying that she did not use contraception and clear evidence that on that day, she purchased a product with the exact spermicide found in the lab results.” She sighed. “At the very least, it’s reasonable doubt.”
He gave her a radiant smile. “That’s good work, Mags. Very good work.”
“Then why don’t I feel good about it?” she asked.
Chapter 40
It was two weeks into the trial, the morning of the second Friday. “We’ve got to finish this thing,” Michael said. The delay in the start of the trial had created a time crunch. His vacation was supposed to start Monday and he had a late Saturday flight to the Maldives for a two-week stay in paradise. Maggie had no idea who would be accompanying him on this trip and she hadn’t asked. She’d come to ignore what she couldn’t control.
“We can finish today, don’t you think?” she asked him.
“Yeah, we’ll question our last witnesses this morning. If we play it right, we could do closing before lunch. You and Stan can be on verdict watch, right?” he told them. “I’m going to be sunning my ass in the Indian Ocean.” Michael grinned in anticipation.
Whatever, Maggie thought, sighing. For her last vacation, she’d visited Casey in Rhode Island. She frowned. They had business at hand anyway. She settled in at the defense table and got ready.
Michael started with the clerk from the pharmacy. After asking the appropriate questions, he introduced the security video and the cash register receipt. Maggie risked a glance toward the prosecutor’s table and Rebecca, who had her head down. Maggie dreaded what would come next.
After Rance cross-examined the store clerk, the young man was dismissed and they called Rebecca back to the stand. Maggie took her through all the same questions she’d asked during the deposition. Then it was time to address the video footage.
“During your deposition, I asked if you had any idea where the traces of the spermicide, nonoxynol-9, came from. At the time you told me that you did not.” Maggie fixed her with a pointed look. “Do you have any ideas now?”
Rebecca’s answers had been low to begin with. Now she simply nodded.
“Ms. Savage, you have to speak your responses for the court reporter,” the judge instructed.
“I said, yes.” Her voice quivered.
Maggie stepped closer to the witness stand. “And what would those
ideas be?” she asked quietly.
“I used birth control.”
“Did you use birth control because you believed there was a good chance you’d have sex with Jean-Luc LeRoi that night?” Maggie asked.
“Yes.” Humiliated tears rolled down her cheeks.
Maggie sighed. “Thank you, Rebecca.” She stalked back to the defense table and sank into her chair, feeling nausea in the pit of her stomach.
Rance asked a few questions on the cross-examination, but Maggie knew it didn’t matter. The damage was done. She couldn’t even focus as Michael took the jury through closing arguments. As he’d hoped, the case was handed over to the jury just before the lunch recess.
Michael, Maggie, and Stan lunched at Forlini’s. The men devoured their pasta while Maggie used her fork to push around the salad on her plate. Michael was giving instructions for when the jury returned their verdict.
“Now on the off chance it’s guilty,” he was saying, “we have all the paperwork ready for filing the appeal. You can just fill in the specifics.” He shook his head as he looked out over the dining room. “I just can’t see them coming back with guilty. Your evidence nailed it, Mags.” He grinned at her.
Their phones sounded simultaneously. The text message was from the Clerk of Courts: The jury is ready with a verdict. Maggie glanced at her watch. It had taken them less than three hours.
Michael beamed. “This day keeps getting better,” he said.
The judge entered, everyone was seated, and formalities were followed. The words not guilty rang in Maggie’s ears. There was a flurry of activity as reporters informed their various media outlets. Jean-Luc was released. The jury was dismissed with the court’s thanks before the rest of the room was dismissed. While their client glad-handed Michael and his supporters, Maggie quietly packed up their things.
Outside the courtroom, she watched as Michael and Jean-Luc spoke to reporters. Michael, obviously, was in his element, and she smiled in spite of herself. He’s just irresistibly charming, she mused.
Rannigan's Redemption: Complete Collection Page 18
