For the Defense

by M. J. Rodgers

  A knock came on the door. Gail looked decidedly put out at the interruption. “Come in,” she called out.

  The door popped open and Kelli, the firm’s receptionist, poked her head inside.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Kelli said, oddly out of breath, “but Mr. Knight is waiting at my desk. Do you want me to show him to your office?”

  Diana’s eyes went to her watch. Startled to see the time, she shot to her feet. “No, Kelli. I’ll see him now.” She headed for the door. “We’ll talk later, Gail.”

  “Make that sooner,” Gail said. “You can’t keep me hanging like this.”

  Chuckling at Gail’s frustrated look, Diana followed Kelli toward the reception area. She was looking forward to getting Gail’s opinion on several sticky aspects of the case. Having worked both sides of the legal fence, Gail was a wealth of insight.

  But first Diana had to get things moving on Connie Pearce’s defense, which meant this meeting with the private investigator couldn’t be delayed. Still, the second she saw the man waiting for her, she came to an immediate and startled stop.

  He was in his early thirties, over six feet, wearing a deep-blue, hand-tailored suit that emphasized his wide shoulders and long legs. His thick, dark hair had been sculpted, not cut. His Technicolor blue eyes, wide-screen smile and leading-man features could easily stop a female heart at fifty feet.

  Dear heavens, it was Jack Knight. No wonder Kelli was so breathless. White Knight Investigations had sent her an actor!

  Diana cursed to herself. What in the hell was she going to do now?

  JACK FOLLOWED DIANA as she led the way to her office, his smile broadening. Well, well. The lawyer he’d be working for was a knockout—despite a formless gray business suit and no makeup—and she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. This had to be fate.

  No, not fate, he corrected. Opportunity. He didn’t believe in fate, but he sure as hell believed in opportunity.

  He caught a whiff of her scent, something cool and sweet he couldn’t quite place. She was maybe thirty and at least five-eight. Her gleaming black hair was gathered with a silver clip at the nape of her neck and fell to the middle of her back.

  The way the light caught the curves of her face, highlighted her hair and settled in the soft centers of her eyes was absolutely arresting. She had what in the business was called “screen presence.” He knew stunningly beautiful actresses who worked for years, and for naught, to try to attain what came naturally to Diana Mason, Attorney at Law.

  Jack took a quick look around her small office as they stepped inside. Well-used law books lined the shelves that covered every available inch of wall space. Dozens of pieces of scrap paper stuck out of them marking passages. Several rather high but neat stacks of paper covered the beige metal desk.

  Her functional office confirmed what Jack had already surmised. She was about substance, not show. The only personal touch was the half-dozen pots of geraniums, full of pink blossoms, that adorned the south-facing window-sill.

  He sat in the offered guest chair as she slipped onto the chair behind the desk. Scooting forward to the desk’s edge, she rested her elbows on the small space of available surface and regarded him silently.

  He smiled.

  The expression on her face changed slightly, but not in a way he anticipated. He wasn’t used to this kind of reaction to one of his smiles. The lady was something less than overjoyed to see him.

  Ah, a challenge. Jack loved challenges.

  “Frowns like the one you’re wearing can leave permanent marks on a guy’s delicate ego,” he said projecting the faint hint of pain designed to amuse and maybe even elicit a defensive apology.

  “I was counting on working with your brother, Richard,” she said with such absolute candor and no hint of defensiveness that he almost laughed.

  “Not to worry,” Jack said. “I come with a sixty-day warranty and a money-back guarantee.”

  Her frown did not abate. “Your brother cleared up a very sticky case for me that another investigator had badly bungled. He came through on two other difficult cases as well. I trust Richard.”

  “Really?” Jack said, feigning surprise. “When we were kids, he used to put his spinach on my plate and tell Mom he’d eaten it.”

  “This case demands the best,” she said pointedly.

  He was disappointed that all his efforts to lighten her up weren’t working. A good sense of humor in a woman always added to her sex appeal. Still, he could be serious with her if absolutely necessary.

  “Fortunately for you, the best is here,” he said, straight-faced.

  An eyebrow raised on her forehead. “Are you always this modest?”

  “Modesty is a false cloak when it covers competence, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “If it covers competence,” she said, brutally.

  He leaned forward, the better to emphasize his sincerity. “I understand that relying on a known quantity is always more comfortable. But Richard will not be available for a month. I was given to understand that you need help immediately. At least that’s what my father said when he persuaded me to take this assignment.”

  Actually, he’d talked his dad into giving him this case, but he saw no reason to reveal that part. He’d been warned that Diana would be expecting Richard. Jack had told his dad not to worry. Charming women into accepting him had never been a problem.

  But considering the continuing displeasure on this woman’s face, he was beginning to wonder if he’d spoken too soon.

  “Your brother, David, found a missing witness for me once. I was also quite pleased with his work. Is he available?”

  Jack almost laughed. Next she’d be asking for his father or mother to take her case. What did this woman have against him?

  “I’m the only one who is both available and right for this job,” he said.

  “How long have you worked at your family’s private investigation firm?”

  He pitied anyone who got drilled by this lawyer while in a courtroom. Thankful he wasn’t sitting in the witness box, he avoided answering her sticky question by asking one in return.

  “Do you think that my father would risk our firm’s forty-year reputation for excellence by sending you someone who couldn’t handle the job?”

  Jack was well aware Diana had hired White Knight Investigations half a dozen times during the past two years. She’d come back because she’d been satisfied. Yes, she trusted Richard and David. But Jack also felt certain that she trusted their firm.

  “You used to be an actor,” she said. Her tone was almost an accusation.

  Ah, so that was the problem. She’d seen him on TV and was mixing up the character he’d played with the man he was. A common failing. Still, he would have thought someone with her obvious smarts would have hesitated before making such an assumption.

  “I used to be a very good actor,” he corrected. “I’m very good at whatever I put my mind to, Diana. I have a strong sense that you are as well.”

  He knew no one was immune to a compliment, as long as it was delivered with sincerity. Knowing when to mix a compliment with a first name had become second nature to him. The timing on these two had been right. Now he waited to see how well the combination had worked.

  And waited.

  She finally extracted a form from her middle desk drawer and slid it toward him. “This is our standard contract and confidentiality statement. Please initial beneath each clause, sign your full name at the bottom and we’ll get started.”

  Jack told himself he hadn’t really doubted the outcome of this conversation. Nonetheless, he was relieved to hear her confirming words.

  Scanning the contents of the two-part form she’d handed him, he noted that the confidentiality statement demanded absolute secrecy from him. It also warned that if he were to repeat anything about this case to an unauthorized party, he would be subjected to all the legal racks and thumbscrews at Diana Mason’s disposal. He had not a doubt that she’d be happy to apply them, too.r />
  Jack took a pen out of his shirt pocket, initialed where she’d indicated, signed his name and passed the document back to her.

  “I understand your client is charged with murder,” he said.

  “First degree,” she said slipping the confidentiality statement into the fairly thin folder in front of her. “This is a court assigned defense.”

  She pulled a stack of blank forms from her desk. “I’ll need your time and expenses recorded daily and turned in weekly on these.”

  Damn, he hated paperwork. Dutifully taking the stack of forms she handed him, he decided to let Harry, the clerk at the firm, do this part for him.

  “Does court assigned mean that you’re acting like a public defender?” he asked.

  A new frown appeared on her forehead. “Don’t tell me this is your first criminal defense case?”

  “If you don’t want me to tell you that then I definitely won’t,” he said and sent her one of his most engaging smiles.

  She shook her head, clearly not engaged. “When there are more cases than there are public defenders to handle them, a judge drafts the services of lawyers from legal firms in the area to represent a defendant. We’re paid by the state, not by the client.”

  “When were you drafted into service?”

  “I got the case two weeks ago in a workload shuffle. But the court assigned Connie Pearce’s defense to another lawyer at this firm ten months ago.”

  “Connie Pearce?” Jack repeated. “Isn’t she the kindergarten teacher who killed her lover?”

  “That’s what all the banner headlines proclaimed last year.”

  “I remember hearing about that case.”

  “You and nearly everyone else in this county. Getting a panel of jurors that hasn’t heard wasn’t easy.”

  “She was supposed to have hit him with her car,” Jack said as the details began to come back to him. “There were a couple of eyewitnesses.”

  “Are you having second thoughts about accepting this assignment?”

  He smiled into the serious look on her face. “On the contrary. I love being on the side of the underdog.”

  The tenseness in her shoulders seemed to increase with his assurance.

  “Well, then you’re going to be ecstatic working this case,” she said. “The victim’s father suffered a fatal heart attack after witnessing his son’s death. The victim’s mother is one of our most prominent and politically connected superior court judges.”

  “And this prominent, politically connected judge is out for blood,” he guessed.

  “The Honorable Barbara Weaton insists she’s simply out for justice, but you can be sure she’s not going to take kindly to anyone who is trying to help the woman charged with her son’s murder.”

  He pointed to the thin folder in front of her. “Is that what the other lawyer has done?”

  She gave the folder a quick glance. “Over the past ten months.”

  Despite the evenness of her tone, Jack knew she wasn’t only unhappy about the thinness of the folder in front of her. She was angry.

  “Why didn’t this lawyer do anything?” he asked.

  “Earl Payman said Connie wouldn’t speak to him. Or anyone else.”

  “That sounds like a symptom of shock to me. Why didn’t he think of that?”

  “He brought in a psychologist to examine her a week after her arrest. She wouldn’t talk to him, either. The psychologist said he couldn’t testify to whether she was legally sane or not. Earl decided the safest thing for him was to plead her not guilty and let a jury convict or acquit her.”

  “He did nothing else in the intervening nine and a half months?”

  “He played a lot of golf with the two senior partners at this firm.”

  Although Diana’s voice remained calm, there was enough contempt in her expression to have sent the incompetent, golf-playing Earl into lockup for life.

  “Where has Connie Pearce been all this time?” Jack asked.

  “In jail. Earl made no attempt to get her a bail hearing.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “Nearly every day since I got her case. But it wasn’t until late last week that she opened up and told me what happened.”

  “And that’s when you called White Knight Investigations.”

  Diana nodded.

  He was pretty certain he knew why. “Connie Pearce convinced you that she wasn’t the one driving the car that killed Weaton.”

  “No, she was driving the car.”

  “She didn’t see the guy run in front of her car?”

  “She saw him.”

  Jack let his mind quickly dig through the other possibilities. “It was self-defense,” he said as the obvious answer came through. “The guy was coming at her, threatening to do her bodily harm, and the only weapon she had to defend herself was the car.”

  “No,” Diana said. “It wasn’t self-defense.”

  Jack was stymied. He couldn’t think of anything else that made sense. “Okay, I give up. What happened?”

  “Connie Pearce saw Bruce Weaton in front of her car and she hit him.”

  Jack was more confused than ever. “If that’s what she has admitted happened, then what do you need me for?”

  Diana locked eyes with him as she leaned forward in her chair. “I need you to help me get her off.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  JACK STARED at Diana for sixty very long and silent seconds. Did she really have the audacity to ask him to help get a guilty client off?

  He understood that most defense attorneys didn’t care if their clients were guilty. All they cared about was making sure that the accused was tried according to the dictates of the law. Didn’t even matter to them if a guilty client ended up slipping through a legal loophole.

  It mattered to Jack. He was a little disappointed to learn that Diana was proving to be one of those attorneys. His father had given him the impression she had integrity. That was one of the reasons he’d wanted the case. Now he had a strong urge to get up and leave.

  Only the straight, no-holds-barred challenge on her face combined with the total absence of any apology kept him in his chair. A woman who could face him this squarely didn’t strike him as one who would sell out her conscience.

  He wasn’t going anywhere until he learned what the hell was going on.

  “All right,” he said, settling back in his chair, “tell me why you want Connie Pearce to get away with murder.”

  Something that looked suspiciously like surprise flashed across Diana’s face. So, she had expected him to leave. He found that very interesting.

  As she studied him quietly, he returned her assessment, trying to read what thoughts or emotions were going on in that lovely head of hers. But this attorney knew how to keep both well hidden when she wanted to. Damn if she didn’t intrigue him more by the minute.

  Without warning, she got to her feet. “I’d like Connie to tell you the story in her own words.”

  “We’re going to see her now?” he asked.

  “I called early this morning to let her know I’d be stopping by.”

  Diana grabbed her briefcase and headed toward the door, slipping the long strap of her bag over her shoulder without so much as breaking stride.

  “I’ll drive you over,” he said, hurrying to keep up with her. Most men probably found themselves getting lost in this woman’s wake. He had no intention of making the mistake of most men.

  “I have my own car, thank you,” she said.

  “Riding together will give us an opportunity to discuss the case.”

  “I have to pick up my daughter from class and drop her at home before going to see Connie. You can either follow me or meet me at the jail. Up to you.”

  A daughter? Damn. His hopes for something personal developing out of this assignment took an immediate and definitive nosedive.

  Jack was very particular about the women he dated. And one of the things he was most particular about was that they not have any children.<
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  “I’ll follow you,” he said.

  SIZING UP PEOPLE quickly was an essential skill for a trial attorney, one that couldn’t be gleaned from a law book. Diana paid attention to all the signs and made her decisions accordingly.

  Jack’s good looks and background in the entertainment field had prepared her for the kind of man who presented a convincing image, but who couldn’t handle the hard facts of life or come through when it counted.

  She had personal experience with the type. For a brief time in her younger and far-less-wise years, she’d been married to a rock musician.

  But her openly expressed and brutally honest reservations about Jack’s abilities hadn’t seemed to bother him a bit. He’d barely even flinched when she told him she wanted his help in getting her guilty client off.

  This was not going well.

  She had counted on him turning tail and running for the nearest exit. That would have given her the perfect excuse to phone Charles Knight and convince him of the need to free up Richard or David to help her on this case.

  Only Jack hadn’t run. He was hanging in there, even displaying an open mind. Damn him. She needed an investigator with a proven track record, not some TV star who had decided to play at being a private investigator until another role came up.

  She stopped her car in front of the school, feeling the weight of yet another problem she did not have the time to handle. But the moment her daughter opened the passenger door and got in, Diana felt a smile on her lips.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Definitely two of Diana’s favorite words.

  “Hi, Cute Stuff. How did astronomy class go?”

  “The universe is expanding at an ever accelerating rate,” Mel said in her typically matter-of-fact tone as she buckled up. “With all that extra space being created, you’d think we could find a new place to live.”

  Diana checked her mirrors before pulling away from the curb and reentering the stream of traffic. “We’ll resume apartment-hunting tonight after dinner.”

  “You’ve given up on finding us a house?”