Talon Winter Legal Thrillers Box Set

by Stephen Penner

  “How do we do that?” Zeke asked.

  “We have to convince them it wasn’t your gun,” Talon said. “It wasn’t your dope. But the problem is, the dope was in your pocket, and the gun was under your seat.”

  “Not my pants,” Zeke repeated.

  Talon pinched the bridge of her nose. “That is not going to work.”

  “What if it’s true?” Zeke asked.

  Talon squinched her face. “You were wearing someone else’s pants? I mean, I could believe a jacket. Maybe a shirt. But pants? Who wears someone else’s pants?”

  “A drug addict,” Zeke answered, “who was so high he had no idea what was going on and just grabbed the first clothes he could find in the apartment he passed out in.”

  Talon thought for a moment. “So, you want me to tell the jury you’re not guilty of drug possession because you’d already smoked all your own crack? Oh, and you were driving DUI, too, by the way.”

  “Shit, I’ll plead to DUI right now,” Zeke laughed. “That’s a fucking misdemeanor.”

  Talon laughed too. “Yeah, I’ll see if the prosecutor will accept a DUI plea in exchange for dismissing the drugs and guns.”

  “Bet he says no,” Zeke opined.

  “She,” Talon corrected. “And yeah, bet so.”

  “I got a lady prosecutor?” Zeke asked.

  “Yeah, and a lady defense attorney,” Talon answered. “And we’re both bitches, so enjoy the show.”

  Zeke leaned back and grinned. “Oh yeah, I can do that.”

  Great, Talon thought. I get to fight against a racist system next to a sexist defendant.

  “Pay attention!” she snapped. “This is serious.”

  “Shit, I know that,” Zeke shot back. “It’s my Black ass on the line, not your White ass. So—“

  “My ass isn’t White,” Talon interrupted. “I’m Native American.”

  Zeke looked surprised. Then she could see him appraising her. Black hair, dark eyes, her cheekbones and skin tone. Like he was trying to see if he believed her. Finally he nodded. “Cool.”

  “Thanks,” Talon said. “I’m glad you approve.”

  “I don’t approve or disapprove,” Zeke said. “I just said ‘cool.’ You’re the one looking for approval.”

  Talon shook her head. “Why don’t we just talk about you and leave me out of it, okay?”

  “Is the prosecutor White?” Zeke asked.

  Talon nodded. “Yeah. Blonde even.”

  “Of course,” Zeke laughed. “And the jury’s gonna be all White too, right?”

  Talon frowned. Probably, she knew. “I don’t know,” she said instead. “But it won’t matter if they’re blue with green stripes if we don’t come up with something to tell them.”

  Zeke nodded, then raised a thoughtful hand to his chin. “This is only Life Without because of my two prior strikes, right? If someone else copped to the drugs and gun, they wouldn’t get life, right?”

  “It depends,” Talon answered. “If they had two strikes, too, then yeah, they would. But if not, then no. The standard range sentence for one count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance is between six to twenty-four months. One count of felon in possession of a firearm is less than a year, even with history.”

  “Oh, he’s got history,” Zeke answered. “But he ain’t got no strikes. Not two of ‘em anyway.”

  “Who?”

  “Jamal Jeffries,” Zeke answered. “He was the one who got us the dope. He was the one who got the car. He was the one who got me in this mess.”

  “Where is he now?” Talon asked, hope sparking inside her.

  Zeke shook his head. “Not sure. He was in here until last week. I saw him in the commissary. He got picked up on an old drug warrant. They offered him three years and he took it. He went out on the chain to Shelton on Tuesday. But I don’t know where he’s going after that.”

  Every defendant who got prison time—more than a year—went first to the Department of Corrections processing facility in Shelton, Washington, less than an hour’s drive south of Tacoma. But Jeffries wouldn’t serve a three-year sentence there. And the prisons he could end up in were spread all over the state, from Clallam Bay on the Olympic Peninsula, to Airway Heights near Spokane, to the moderately famous, or infamous, Walla Walla, home of Washington’s sparsely populated, but not entirely empty, Death Row.

  “And he’ll say it was his drugs and gun?” Talon tried to confirm.

  “He will if you wait a week to talk to him,” Zeke smiled.

  Talon couldn’t give much of a smile in return. She understood what he meant.

  CHAPTER 12

  One of the things Talon missed about her former civil law firm was the sheer number of other attorneys who were always around. She could always walk down the hall and find someone to bounce an idea off of. On the other hand, everyone was really just watching out for themselves, so she had to second-guess any advice she received to see if it was really offered to help, or was tendered in the hope it would make everything blow up in her face so the advisor could crawl over her on the ladder to partner.

  There may not have been a lot of criminal defense attorneys in her office share, but there were two, and she could trust them to tell her the truth.

  “Thanks for letting me run this case past you guys,” she started as she, Greg Olsen, and Trish Feingarten made their way into the conference room all the attorneys shared for client meetings or depositions or whatever might require that kind of setting.

  Olsen plopped in a seat opposite Talon, whiteboard to his back. Feingarten took a seat on the same side of the table, one chair between her and Olsen and her omnipresent cup of tea in her hand. After several weeks of never seeing Feingarten without that mug in her hand—complete with ‘World’s Greatest Mom’ written in childlike script—Talon wondered if she took it home with her too, to shower and sleep with it. On the other hand, good for her for being a good mom, she supposed.

  She was in her late fifties, so her kids were probably in college, a decade or more removed from giving her that cup. She was heavy set and prone to wearing scarves, with shoulder length hair, some brown still left between the streaks of gray. She handled mostly DUIs, since those defendants were usually regular people with regular jobs who could actually pay her. It was a niche practice, filled with technical details about the breath test machine and blood draws, but she’d done well enough. And it left her time to socialize between suppression motions and one-day trials in the misdemeanor courts.

  “Glad to help,” Olsen said, looking to Feingarten for confirmation.

  “Yeah, Greg told me a little bit about the case.” She took a sip of tea. “Sounds pretty interesting.”

  Talon shrugged. “I don’t know about that,” she demurred. “It’s a simple drug possession case, except there’s a gun, too, so he’s looking at life.”

  Another slurp of tea. “Yeah. That’s interesting.”

  “But I have a problem,” Talon said.

  “What’s the problem?” Olsen asked. “I mean, except for the part where your client is guilty. That’s always one of the problems.”

  Talon laughed. “Well, that’s part of it. Or rather, it might be. If he’s guilty. But not if he’s not. But, yeah, he probably is.”

  Feingarten laughed. “I hope that’s not your closing argument.”

  “I hope so too,” Talon replied. “I need a strong, cohesive narrative the jury can believe in.”

  “Do you have that?” Olsen asked.

  “I might,” was the answer.

  “What is it?” Feingarten asked, gesturing at her with her teacup.

  “My client was a victim of circumstances, and the wrong friends,” Talon said. “He was pulled over driving someone else’s car. There happened to be a gun under the seat, but he didn’t know it was there. And there happened to be crack cocaine in his pants pocket, but they weren’t his pants. He’d spent the previous night partying and using drugs and grabbed the wrong pants when he woke up in th
e morning.”

  “Not his pants?” Feingarten asked dubiously.

  “I know,” Talon acknowledged.

  “Do you have anyone who will testify to all that?” Olsen asked. “I mean, besides your client. They won’t believe your client.”

  “No,” Feingarten agreed. “They will definitely not believe him, about that.”

  Talon sighed. “I know,” she said again. “But I do have another witness. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Feingarten asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means my client said a guy he knows will say all that,” Talon explained. “But he told me to give him a week before I contact the guy to make sure he knows what to say.”

  “Ah,” Olsen said.

  Feingarten agreed with a nod and a, “Mm-hm.”

  “So you think your client is going to get word to him about what to say?” Olsen asked.

  “She’s worried her guy is going to tell the other guy what lie to say,” Feingarten clarified. “And she’ll be suborning perjury if she puts him on the stand to say it.”

  Talon pointed at Feingarten. “Yes. That.”

  Feingarten smiled and waved a hand at her. “Well, don’t worry about it. It’s not your problem.”

  “Suborning perjury isn’t my problem?” Talon questioned.

  “How do you know it’s perjury?” Feingarten asked.

  “We just said it was a lie,” Talon reminded her. “That’s part of our hypothetical. My guy tells the other guy what lie to tell, and I put him on the stand to tell it. Perjury.”

  But Feingarten shook her head. “It’s not suborning perjury unless you know it’s not true. Do you know it’s not true?”

  Talon shrugged. “Do I know? No, I guess not. I mean, I strongly suspect, but I can’t know for sure.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Feingarten said. “You weren’t there. I mean, those weren’t your pants, were they?”

  Talon laughed. “There are so many things wrong with that question,” she said. “But no, they were not my pants.”

  “And it wasn’t your car, was it?” Feingarten followed up.

  “Nope. Not my car,” Talon confirmed.

  “What did your guy tell you when you first met with him?” Olsen asked Talon.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Feingarten interjected. “Client tells you two different things, doesn’t mean you know which is true. He could have been lying either time. No way to tell which. Not unless you were there.” She pointed the mug cup at Talon. “And you weren’t.”

  “That sounds like a good defense when the bar comes after my license,” Talon said. “But I’d like to avoid that conversation.”

  “What did your client say when you first talked to him?” Olsen asked.

  Talon thought for a moment. Then she smiled and nodded. “He said they weren’t his pants.”

  “There you go!” Feingarten laughed. “You’re fine. Go meet with your star witness, guilt-free.”

  But before Talon could respond, Feingarten added, “But bring a witness of your own.”

  “What?” Talon asked. “Why? Who?”

  “Bring a witness of your own,” Feingarten repeated. “An investigator. You’ve got a client who’s probably lying to you and a witness who’s probably lying too. If you lose the case—and I’m sorry, hon, but you’ll probably lose the case—your client will say you put on perjured testimony and claim ineffective assistance of counsel to try to get a new trial. You need a witness to every conversation you have with your client and any witnesses he suggests, just to protect yourself.”

  Talon looked to Olsen. He frowned, but nodded. “I think Trish is right. You might not have to explain things to the Bar, but then again you might. It’s always better to have an investigator anyway, especially on a big case. In fact, I’m kind of surprised you don’t already have one. Isn’t Curt available?”

  “Curt? Available?” Talon repeated distantly. “Uh, yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s available.”

  CHAPTER 13

  After Talon had finished her meeting with Olsen and Feingarten, and after she had spent a fair amount of time in her office trying to come up with an alternative that didn’t involve just ignoring Curt and hiring a different investigator, and after deciding they were both adults and should act that way, Talon went across the hall to offer Curt the job.

  He had an office-share arrangement, too, although it wasn’t as uniform as her all-attorney setup. He shared space with a graphic design company, a C.P.A., and someone who came every day but no one was really sure what he did. There was no receptionist, just a table with business cards. Talon walked straight back to his office, where she found Curt staring at his computer monitor, chin on his fist.

  “Looks like it’s your lucky day, mister,” she said, leaning on the doorframe.

  Curt looked up, but didn’t seem as surprised, or pleased, as she’d expected. Hoped.

  "What?" he asked after a moment.

  Talon suddenly felt ill at ease leaning on the doorframe. She returned to a standard posture. "You said you were looking for cases," she reminded him. "I have a case for you."

  "Oh," Curt said. "Okay. Great. Is it that one from the coffee shop? The, uh, third..."

  "Third striker," Talon confirmed. “Yes.” She was getting annoyed at Curt's lack of excitement. Or even gratitude. "I mean, unless you're not interested."

  That seemed to shake him out of whatever doldrums he was in. "No, no. I'm definitely interested. Always interested in new business. Standard public defense rate?" he inquired. "Send the bill directly to them?"

  Talon nodded. "Yeah, usual drill. None of these guys can afford my fees, let alone yours on top of it."

  "Okay, great," Curt said. He pulled a notebook out of his desk drawer. "So what are we doing first? Witness interviews? Tracking someone down?"

  "A little bit of both," Talon answered. "We need to do a witness interview, but he's in DOC custody. Last I heard he was still getting processed at Shelton. I don't know where he ended up, or if he's even left yet."

  Curt's mood brightened again with a task placed before him. He placed his hands over his keyboard. "Do you have a full name and date of birth?"

  "I do," Talon answered, and she provided him both.

  A few keystrokes and mouse-clicks later, Curt announced, "Found him!" Then with a lopsided frown, he added, "Good news, bad news."

  Talon frowned slightly as well. "What?"

  "The good news," Curt explained, "is that he's made it out of Shelton and is already at his destination facility. The bad news is, it's Walla Walla. That is literally the prison farthest away from Tacoma. Boise is closer to it than we are."

  Talon pursed her lips as she considered the information.

  "Is this witness important?" Curt asked.

  Talon nodded. "Yeah," and she explained why, including the need for an investigator/witness of her own.

  "Well, crap," he said. But then he shook his head vigorously. "No, no, no. You know what? It's fine. I'm your investigator on this case. I will take care of everything. I'll contact the prison, I'll make the travel arrangements, everything. That's my job: witness interviews and logistics. Yours is evidence rules and testimony. I got this."

  "But—" Talon started to protest, but Curt cut her off.

  "Nuh-uh-uh-uh." He waved his hand at her. "Email me your schedule for the next two weeks and I will take care of everything else."

  Talon smiled. She remembered why she liked working with Curt. "Okay, deal."

  But when she was on her way back to her own office, she started to have second thoughts about leaving absolutely everything to Curt, even the travel arrangements. She wasn't looking forward to a five-hour drive to Walla Walla with Curt.

  But when she checked in with him the next morning, it was even worse.

  "You booked a flight?" Talon asked the next day when Curt told her the travel he'd arranged. "To Walla Walla? What is that, like a ten-minute flight? Oh my God, it'll take longer to get through security."<
br />
  Curt fought to maintain the smile he'd coupled with his announcement of the plans he'd made. "It’s a fifty-four-minute flight," he defended. "I didn't think you'd want to make small talk for the five hours it takes to drive there."

  Talon thought for a moment. "Okay, fine,” she agreed. Then, “I'll meet you at the gate."

  Curt opened his mouth, as if to protest, perhaps suggest they carpool the twenty miles from Tacoma to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. But he closed it again. A simple nod. "Right. The gate."

  "And you got separate hotel rooms, right?" Talon asked.

  Curt couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, yes. Whatever else you might be, Talon, you're not subtle."

  CHAPTER 14

  The flight wasn’t as bad as Talon had feared. Curt had been right about how terrible five hours in the car would have been. Between parking, security, walking to the gate, preboarding, boarding, stowing carry-ons, and preflight announcements, there was no time for small talk until they were lifting off the runway. And by then Talon had her earbuds in and her case file open. She was sitting next to Curt, but she might as well have been on the other side of the plane.

  Until she found something in the reports that caught her attention.

  “Hey.” She bumped his arm as she pulled an earbud out of her head and pointed at her copy of the reports. “Did you see this?”

  Curt had also been reviewing the reports, but a different part of them. He squinted at the page Talon was indicating. “The property sheets? Yeah, I saw them.”

  "Look at item number fifty-seven." Talon pointed at the entry on the property log.

  Curt leaned forward and read the entry aloud. "Possible latent print. From item number four. NCV."

  "Item number four is the gun," Talon pointed out. "They got a fingerprint off the gun." She quickly flipped the pages of the reports that filled her discovery binder. "There's no fingerprint report in here. I would have noticed that."

  Curt squinted at the property sheet. "That's probably because they couldn't compare it to anything." He tapped a finger on the entry. "I think 'NCV' means 'no comparison value.' It was probably a partial print or too smeared, so it was worthless for comparison to any known suspect."