Talon Winter Legal Thrillers Box Set

by Stephen Penner

  But he was interrupted by the ringing of a phone. Talon’s phone. Somewhere under the jury instructions and opening statement. She pushed the pages aside and pulled the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?” she started.

  Then, “What?! Are you fucking kidding me?

  “Calm down.

  “Okay, okay. Shit. Okay.

  “Calm down.

  “I’m on my way.

  “Fifteen minutes. I don’t know. As fast as I can.

  “Okay.

  “Okay.

  “Bye.

  “Shit.”

  She hung up the phone and dropped her head. “Shit,” she whispered one more time.

  “Who was that?” Olsen asked.

  Talon looked up again. “My brother. He just got arrested.”

  CHAPTER 26

  At least Will had had the decency to get arrested just over the border in King County. Rather than possibly run into some other lawyers she might know, or the corrections officers she definitely did know, she drove twenty miles north to the city of Kent. King County was big enough to need two courthouses and two jails. Seattle, twenty miles farther north, housed the original King County Courthouse and the original King County Jail. But offenses and offenders in the southern half of the county were handled at the Regional Justice Center in Kent. Fifteen minutes had been a good estimate. She parked her car in the otherwise abandoned garage fourteen minutes after she hung up with Will. Two minutes later she was walking into the visitor check-in area, which was considerably newer and nicer than at either the Pierce or King County Jails. Five minutes after that, she was in a visitor booth, watching her brother enter from the other side of the glass that separated the inmates from their family and their lawyers. Or both.

  “What the hell?” Talon started as soon as Will sat down. There was a circular metal grate in the glass that allowed sound to pass between them. “I mean, Jesus, Will. Seriously. What the hell?”

  Will shrugged and looked at his sister sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? Yeah, I bet you’re sorry. What the hell happened?”

  “I got busted with some dope,” Will admitted.

  “I told you to stop using, you idiot.”

  “You kicked me out,” Will reminded her.

  “Oh, no. You’re not making this about me, about what I did. I kicked you out because you were using. I warned you, but you kept using.”

  Will looked downward. “It’s not that easy to quit. You don’t just quit because you want to.”

  “You sure as hell don’t quit if you don’t want to,” Talon returned. “You were in prison for eight years. You stopped then.”

  Will laughed. “You don’t think there’s drugs in prison? C’mon, sis. I thought you were smart.”

  That was what Ezekiel Frazier had said to her at their first meeting. She didn’t like it then either.

  “And I knew you weren’t smart,” she cut. “So, what happened? You get pulled over?”

  “Yeah,” Will answered. “I didn’t know the tabs were expired. And I guess I was a little fucked up, so they arrested me for DUI. They found the dope when they searched the car.”

  “DUI is the least of your problems.” Talon shook her head. “You should hope they let you plead to just a DUI.” She thought for a moment. “Shit, with your record, you’re looking at a couple years minimum, even on a simple possession. How much was there? Was it crack, meth, what?”

  “It was crack,” Will admitted. “Just a couple of rocks. I wasn’t dealing, just using.”

  “Were there any scales in the car?” Talon asked. “How much money did you have on you? Did you have any empty baggies or anything they could say was packaging material?”

  She knew the prosecutors would look for ways to raise a simple possession to possession with intent to deliver. That was a Class B felony. The same as actual delivery.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Will assured her. “But there was something else in the car.”

  Talon’s heart dropped. “What?” But she knew the answer.

  “There’s a gun in the trunk.”

  “Shit!” Talon punched the wall. “God damn it, Will. You’re a fucking felon. You’re still on probation. You haven’t been out for two months and you’re rolling with drugs and a gun?”

  “Rolling?” Will managed a laugh. “Man, you sounded really White just then.”

  “Shut up,” Talon barked. “Just shut the hell up. They’re gonna find that gun. And when they do, they’re gonna charge you with a strike, you idiot. You God damned idiot. And you just got out for robbery. This is Strike Two.”

  Will tried a smile. “Good thing you get three, huh?”

  “You’ll get two additional years, flat time, for the gun,” Talon ignored his joke. “Five if they charge you with Possession with Intent. And when you get out, you’ll just do it again and then that’s it. Strike Three. Goodbye.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Will insisted. “I promise, I won’t.”

  “Just like you promised me you weren’t using when I caught you with that skank in my home?” Talon demanded. “You will. God damn it, you will. And you’ll get caught. And…” She lowered her head into her hands.

  Will waited a few moments. Finally, he repeated, “Sorry.”

  Talon looked up. “I don’t care if you’re sorry. Nobody cares if you’re sorry. It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry. Sorry is a sentencing issue. Sorry gets you three-and-a-half years instead of four. Sorry is what you say after you get caught, and convicted, and you’re just hoping you might get out again. But you do this one more fucking time, and it won’t matter how sorry you are. You’re never getting out again. Never. God! You idiot.”

  “I wish you’d stop calling me an idiot,” Will said.

  Talon jumped to her feet. “Then stop acting like one!” She turned away and pinched the bridge of her nose, a deluge of thoughts and feelings pummeling her.

  “Are you gonna help me?” Will asked after several seconds.

  Talon raised her eyes again and turned back to him. “You mean, like, defend you? I don’t know, Will. I don’t know if I can do that. I’m too close. I don’t think I’d be the best attorney for you.”

  Will cast his eyes down again. “No, that’s cool. I bet they got some good public defenders up here in King. I’ll be good.”

  Talon sat down again. “I don’t know. Maybe I can. I just...” Then she remembered, “Damn it, I start a trial tomorrow. I don’t have time for this right now.”

  Will nodded. “Sure. I get it. You’re busy. You were always busy being successful and not getting arrested for stupid shit like me.”

  Talon looked at her little brother. She wanted to strangle him and hug him at the same time. She fought back the lump in her throat.

  “Hey, that trial?” Will ventured. “Is that the one you were telling me about? Where maybe the appellate court might strike down the Three Strikes Law? That could help me, couldn’t it?”

  Talon just stared at her brother through the jail glass.

  “That could help me, right?” Will repeated.

  “Yeah, that could help you,” Talon confirmed. “But only if I lose.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The show must go on. And trials were definitely shows. Arrested brother or not, Talon had a job to do, and a place to be at 9:00 a.m. sharp the next morning. She arrived at 8:30.

  Alcott didn’t enter the courtroom until 8:47. That told Talon two things. First, Alcott planned to arrive just fifteen minutes early, not thirty. Second, she was late.

  Talon knew the corrections officers were unlikely to bring Zeke until just before the judge took the bench at 9:00, in order to minimize, if not completely eliminate, her ability to speak to her client before things got started. That gave Talon ten minutes or so to talk with Alcott.

  Under just about any other circumstances, she would have had no desire to speak with Laura Alcott. Entitled princesses weren’t her crowd. But she had a job to do. And part of
that job started when Alcott broke the plane of the courtroom door.

  Every presenter needs to know her audience. That could be difficult enough for a presenter with only one audience. But the thing about trial work was, there were at least four different audiences: the jury, the judge, the client, and opposing counsel. There could be more, depending on who was seated in the audience, and why. And all of them except the jury had the ability to interact back at the presenter, not merely listening, but also absorbing, challenging, even attacking the presentation. It was a fluid dynamic. Woe be to the trial attorney who read from a script rather than from the faces of her audiences.

  Opposing counsel was perhaps the most challenging. Not every trial attorney realized opposing counsel was an audience. Fewer realized they were a target, to be measured, manipulated, and moved.

  “Hey, Laura,” Talon started. First name. Unexpectedly friendly. Not disarming—Alcott didn’t trust her enough to be disarmed—but disconcerting.

  Alcott narrowed her eyes at Talon as she set her briefcase on the prosecution table and started to extract her materials. “Good morning, Talon.”

  Formality in response to familiarity. Perfect.

  Another probe. “This should be interesting this morning,” Talon said. “I always love talking to potential jurors.”

  Alcott’s eyes stayed narrowed. She pulled more from her briefcase. “Sure. I guess.”

  Noncommittal when uncertain.

  “I wonder if they’ll agree,” Talon went on, “that life in prison is too much for drug possession.”

  That got a reaction. “You can’t tell them that,” Alcott protested. “They don’t get to know the possible punishment.”

  Talon knew that was the general rule. But she wanted to see how easily she could push Alcott off-script.

  “Why not?” Talon asked.

  Alcott considered for a moment. “It’s not relevant,” she asserted.

  Talon chuckled. “Oh, Laura. It’s the only thing that’s relevant.”

  The corrections officers entered then, three minutes before nine. A small mercy. Just enough time to talk to make sure Zeke felt like he didn’t get enough time to talk.

  He was dressed for court, in a suit that Talon had borrowed from the public defender’s office. They kept a closet of court clothes for their clients. Jurors weren’t allowed to see that a defendant was in custody. Street clothes and no restraints. The idea was that the jurors might have trouble maintaining the presumption of innocence if they saw that the judge thought there was enough evidence to hold the defendant pending trial. And that was probably true. But they usually thought he was guilty anyway, and the guards posted at every door probably gave it away.

  “Hey, Talon,” Zeke said as he sat down next to her and the corrections officer removed his handcuffs. Just because the jury didn’t get to see them didn’t mean they were going to transport a Third Striker without handcuffs on between the jail and the courtroom.

  “Hey, Zeke,” she returned the greeting. Then, once the cuffs were removed and the guard had stepped out of earshot—or whisper-shot anyway. “We only have a minute or two before the judge comes out, so listen up. We’re picking the jury this morning. The most important part of this case is the fact that you’re looking at life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” Zeke replied.

  “Right,” Talon acknowledged. “But I don’t get to tell the jurors either.”

  Zeke’s eyebrows knitted together. “Really? You’re kidding, right?”

  “Afraid not,” Talon answered. “But they also don’t get to hear you have two prior strikes, so it’s not all bad.”

  “Is there any way to tell them I’m facing life,” Zeke asked, “without telling them what my priors are?”

  Talon nodded and smiled. “Of course there is.”

  “All rise!” the bailiff called out as Judge Haroldson strode into the courtroom with noticeably more vigor than he was known for any more. Nothing like presiding over a guaranteed conviction to put the spring in a judge’s step. Well, almost guaranteed.

  “Are the parties ready on the matter of State of Washington versus Ezekiel Frazier?” he asked.

  Alcott confirmed her readiness first, followed by Talon.

  “Good, good,” Haroldson said. “Is there anything to discuss before we bring in the prospective jurors for questioning?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Alcott spoke up. “There is.”

  Talon smiled inside. Alcott took the bait, just like Talon figured she would. If Talon had asked permission to discuss the possible sentence with the jurors, the judge would have denied it out of hand. Asking permission was a tacit admission that you needed it. But the other side trying to prevent you from doing something? Well, that was different in kind.

  “It has come to my attention,” Alcott looked sideways toward the defense table, “that defense counsel intends to tell the jurors that her client is facing a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged. We would ask the Court to prohibit any such statements or questioning.”

  Haroldson frowned at Talon. “Is that true, counsel?”

  Talon nodded. “Yes, Your Honor. I think it’s important that the jurors know what the result of their verdict would be. We inform jurors on death penalty cases of the possible sentence to see if they can impose. Life without parole is its own type of death sentence.”

  “We inform jurors about the death penalty to make sure they’re willing to impose it,” Alcott interjected.

  “We still inform them,” Talon pointed out.

  Haroldson shook his head. “In death penalty cases, the jury is the one who decides whether to impose death. In this case, I will decide what the sentence is, not them.”

  Talon shook her head right back at him. “With all due respect, Your Honor, no you won’t. You’ll have no discretion at all. The sentence is mandatory. The jury’s verdict controls your sentence. That means they would be imposing the sentence, for all practical purposes.”

  “Perhaps all practical purposes,” Haroldson conceded. “But not all legal purposes. The law is often impractical.”

  ‘Impractical’, Talon thought. My client’s life is ‘impractical.’

  “I won’t let you tell the jurors what the possible sentences are,” Haroldson ruled, just as Talon expected.

  “Understood, Your Honor,” she said. “I won’t tell them what the sentence will be.”

  Alcott threw another glance at Talon, seemingly surprised at Talon’s easy concession. Before Alcott could have time to try to figure out why, Talon knew to bring up some other issue. Any other issue.

  “Could I go first, Your Honor?” she asked.

  That took Alcott’s focus off whatever she was trying to figure out. “What?! No, Your Honor. I object. The State always goes first.”

  Haroldson was about to agree with Alcott, so Talon jumped in. “Okay. That’s fine, Your Honor. Never mind.”

  Haroldson narrowed his eyes at Talon, clearly wondering what her game was. “Anything else, Ms. Winter?”

  Talon smiled slightly and shook her head. “No, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  The judge looked to the prosecutor. “Ms. Alcott?”

  If she’d had anything else she wanted to bring up, she’d forgotten it. “Uh, no, Your Honor.”

  Haroldson looked to his bailiff. “Bring in the jurors,” he barked. He’d already lost his jolly.

  A few minutes later, forty prospective jurors were led into the courtroom by the bailiff. They were arranged in the gallery benches, ten per row, murmuring to each other as they tried to find the right place to sit, even as they tried to be respectfully quiet of the court and the seriousness of the situation. Which the judge had just forbidden anyone from telling them.

  Once they were seated, the judge welcomed them, swore them in to answer any questions truthfully, and read them some preliminary instructions. It was a criminal case. The
defendant was charged with unlawful possession of a controlled substance, while armed with a firearm. Twelve of them would be selected for the jury, plus two alternate jurors in case anyone got sick or otherwise couldn’t proceed over the course of the trial. And the attorneys would be asking questions, not to pry into their personal lives, but to test their qualifications as jurors. That last one would be the first of many lies they would be told over the course of the trial.

  When Haroldson finished his introductory remarks, he introduced Alcott as the prosecutor and she began her first round of questioning.

  “Good morning, everyone,” she started, evoking a return ‘Good morning’ from at least half of the jurors. Jurors always liked prosecutors. The ones who were there had actually answered their jury summons. That meant they were rule-followers, and a prosecutor was the ultimate rule-enforcer. “I’d like to start by asking, how many of you have prior jury experience?”

  And she was off. Talon had minimal interest in prior jury experience, unless somebody admitted to being the one holdout who refused to convict. She could use somebody like that. But jurors usually said their prior experience was fine, and they weren’t allowed to tell their prior verdicts anyway. It was a tired line of questioning, designed to get them talking, but of little practical value.

  Alcott followed that with another tired analogy. “If you wake in the morning and there’s suddenly snow on the ground, can you conclude it snowed overnight, even though you didn’t see it?” Of course. The idea was, the State might not be able to prove every last detail, but you can draw inferences from other evidence. One guy suggested it could have been a snow machine, but generally, they agreed that it would be reasonable to conclude it had snowed.

  Whatever.

  After a review of the difference between proof beyond a reasonable doubt and proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, Alcott had used up her time for her first round, and it was finally Talon’s turn.

  She had tired old lines of questioning too. But hers would actually lead to some valuable discussion.