“No.” Harvey eyed another doughnut. “He was desperate to see his daughter, and the information he gave away seemed to be common knowledge anyway. I understand the desperation to see his only child.”
“Do you know who they’re connected to on the inside?”
“I tailed Miles two days ago, and saw him talking to Pitt.”
“Matthew Pitt?”
“That’s right. They were talking quietly in a bar on Rodeo Drive. It was busy enough for them not to get seen together, but not quiet enough to raise suspicion. It was the perfect cover for an off-the-books chat.”
“So he’s dirty?”
“I don’t know. I’m digging around to try and find that out.”
“Be very careful where you dig. These men have no issue with violence.”
“That’s never stopped me before, Jack. Justice shouldn’t run away from danger.”
“But this is the next level, Harvey. I know you love danger, but this is different. This is like going on a theme park ride and not buckling up. You might get more of a rush, but you might also end up flying into the crowd below. Be careful.”
Harvey looked out to admire the view again, studying the distant horizon. If this was to be one of his last days, then he wanted this to be one of his final memories—sitting in a car, with his good friend, staring at the vast blue ocean.
A moment of real emotion that he didn’t want drowned out by whiskey.
“I’m serious, Bill. Maybe you should leave the Hardgrave murder to the cops, and just focus on your case. That case is taking you close enough to these guys. If they get wind that you’re looking into the Hardgrave murder as well, then they’ll come after you. Hard.”
“Hardgrave was a good man, and he deserves justice. I can’t trust the cops to deliver justice to the murderer.”
“Just… be careful.” There was a high level of fear in Jack’s voice that Harvey hadn’t heard before.
And that alarmed him.
A lot.
Chapter 15
Kate attacked her keyboard with intense vigor, punching in notes while they were fresh in her head. Her investigation skills weren’t as polished as her boss’, but she thrived on the challenge. Being involved in the cases, being part of the action, made her heart pump. It made her feel alive.
She barely stopped tapping the keyboard as Harvey strode back into his office.
“That must have been a long chat with Lewis,” she said, not taking her eyes off the computer screen in front of her.
“It wasn’t just coffee with Lewis; I stopped for a bite of lunch, and then a few doughnuts before I came back here. We don’t have any meetings this afternoon, do we?”
“Nothing on the schedule, boss,” she said, still not taking her eyes away from her work. “How was lunch?”
“Interesting,” Harvey responded, standing in front of her desk. “I had lunch with a detective working the Hardgrave murder.”
“Oh yes.” Kate stopped typing and looked up at Harvey, fluttering her eyelids. “Anything that you wish to share?”
Average grades at school meant Kate never thought she would work in a job that she loved.
Not that she wasn’t smart, she was just too busy boosting her self-esteem by chasing boys. After graduation, she expected that she would spend her life working in a call center, staring at a computer screen, keying personal details into a computer program, allowing the walls of boredom to slowly close in on her. When her first husband swept her off her feet with roses, flashy cars, and expensive restaurants, she thought she had been saved from a life of monotony.
Unfortunately, it was all a show. The man had a few dollars of inheritance, which he blew very quickly, and then never worked a day in his life. He still hadn’t.
The money caused her to overlook a lot of things, but when the glitz and glamour dried up, she was left with a deadbeat that would spend his days playing on his computer, drinking, and smoking. She struggled for years to recapture those fleeting few moments of young love before she kicked him out.
But he did give her the gift of a beautiful son, and for that, she was thankful, even if she had to support him by herself now.
When she attempted to reenter the workforce as a fraught single mother, she never imagined that she would land a job that she loved. She never imagined that she would have that.
“They don’t have any public leads for the Hardgrave murder and the pressure is mounting.” Harvey picked up the postal mail on the edge of Kate’s desk, scanning through the return addresses to determine their possible content. “And the media are getting desperate. They want a lead. They want something on this story. It’s not a good look for the police department when they have a judge murdered in his own home, and they have no one to pin it on. The people want a suspect, and they haven’t fronted one yet.”
“So they have nothing? Not a thing?”
“They have everything they need. I’m just not sure they’re doing what they need to do.” He slowly opened a plain, white envelope with no return address. “They’re currently looking at a few drug connections, which are also connected to our client.”
“Lewis and Miles?”
“That’s right. And it’s obvious that they’re tailing Lewis because as soon as I finished my coffee with him, they called me and offered to buy me lunch. That certainly wasn’t a coincidence.”
He opened the envelope and looked inside.
One photo, nothing more.
No letter. No note.
“Could you help them out with any information?”
“No. Lewis didn’t give me a lot to go on. But I would bet that he has lied so many times that he wouldn’t even know what the truth is anymore. He wouldn’t even know how to tell the truth. What we do know is Lewis was dating Hardgrave’s daughter. Lewis has an alibi for the time of Hardgrave’s death, which coincidently is also the time my client’s apartment was being raided.”
“And Carlos is the alibi?”
“That’s right. But I don’t think they were really together at the time. They’re both sticking to the story that they were at a diner having lunch, but it clearly isn’t true.”
“Did you tell the detectives that?”
Slowly, Harvey removed the photo from the envelope.
“I would never jeopardize my client’s case. If it comes out in court that they weren’t together, then that’s another thing. Let’s hope that the prosecution doesn’t push that line of questioning too far because it wouldn’t look good for Carlos if he’s caught lying along with Lewis. They might as well call him guilty now if that happens.”
“But you think one of them is involved in the Hardgrave murder?”
“I’m not sure…” Harvey’s focus had turned to the letter.
He removed the photo and stared at it—a color 4x6 inch photo of their office front door.
Slowly, he turned around and looked at the door. “When did this letter arrive?”
“Just this morning,” Kate responded. “The letter came in with all the others. What is it?”
“A photo.”
“Of?”
“Our office.”
“And that’s it? No other letter inside?”
He looked again inside the envelope. “Nothing.”
“No return address?” Kate questioned.
He stared at the front door. “Kate, you need to take a few days off.”
“No,” she argued. “I want to come in. I want to help with these cases.”
“No.” He shook his head while the thoughts raced through it.
“I promise I’ll be careful, Bill. I’ll lock the doors, keep an eye out for anything unusual.”
He stared at her, his eyes narrowing as he stared down at the person who knew him the best. “I’m not risking you for this case.”
“Sorry, boss, but that’s not your choice.”
Chapter 16
After checking the adjoining parking lot for any sign of activity, Harvey returned to his office, fli
pping through paperwork; ticking boxes, signing his name where appropriate.
The photo was a clear threat.
He had dug too far into the world of the drug dealers, and now they knew about Kate. He couldn’t risk her. His heart wouldn’t take it.
When it was only his neck on the line, he was comfortable. If his time had come, then he could accept that. But when the threat came against one of the few people he really cared about, his attitude changed.
“Bill?” Kate entered his office quietly, a file against her chest. “I’ve been thinking about that photo.”
“Go on.”
“Maybe I dug a little too deep with Michelle—”
“No. Kate, this isn’t about you. This isn’t about what you’ve done. We’re dealing with some very evil people, and they don’t play nicely. It’s nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. Don’t blame yourself for this.”
“Thanks, Bill.” Kate gently sat down on a chair in the spacious, well-lit office. “We know why Lewis would want Hardgrave dead—”
“Why?” Harvey steered his attention away from the paperwork.
“Because he’s dating his daughter, and he’s a big-name drug dealer. That lines up for me. Every judge in this country is concerned about his or her reputation and having a daughter that’s addicted to drugs is one thing… but having a daughter addicted to drugs and dating a drug baron, that’s another thing altogether. I bet that Judge Hardgrave was pushing to have Lewis locked up, and Lewis wouldn’t have liked that at all.”
“Hardly a motive that would convict a man of murder.”
“But it’s a start. And look, I’m the secretary, you’re the lawyer, if I come up with the theories, you can prove them.” Kate smiled cheekily. “That’s how teams work.”
“We’re a good team,” Harvey agreed.
“I’ll tell you something about Carlos,” Kate stated firmly. “He looks off.”
“Off?”
“Yeah, like something isn’t right in his head. He looks like he could easily kill someone. He just has that look in his eyes, Bill. That creepy, faraway look. I have seen it before, and I know that working in this office, I’ll see it again. He looks off.”
“He might have been in the past, Kate,” Harvey said, again in agreement. “He was heavily involved in the drug trade. That was his life, and I’m sure that he has seen death many times before. But he changed. He went to prison, and he changed. He has been doing good recently, Kate. He has been helping drug addicts reform, and he’s doing it all without a dollar of payment. That’s not the behavior of a killer. That’s a man who has recognized he has sinned and is trying to right the wrongs of his past. He’s after redemption for that pain he caused.”
“Maybe he’s just doing the good deeds because of his guilt.”
“Maybe. Regardless of the reason that he’s doing it, he’s still doing good. He’s still making a change in the world. And I truly think he wants to do good in this world and leave his mark. I think he wants to be remembered for making the world a better place, not for being a part of the drug trade. He’s creating his legacy.”
“You’ve been wrong before.” Kate smiled, knowing that Harvey hated that line.
“Once,” he stated firmly. “And you’ve never let me forget it. What have you found out about Michelle?”
Kate flipped open the file in her hands, reviewing the notes. “I did everything quietly, like you said. First, I did lots of online research, and I found her social media accounts, which included lots of photos. She has an account with all the big social media sites, and makes a lot of comments on some blog posts.”
“And?”
“Most of her photos on social media are of her alone—a lot of selfies. On her Facebook account, she posts lots of tough quotes, like this one: I don’t need anybody. The strongest look after themselves. Or this one: Sometimes, it’s better to be alone. Then nobody can hurt you. There were lots of quotes like this posted on her accounts.”
“Sounds like somebody that has been hurt in the past.”
“So, then I asked around a few dirty bars in East L.A. that she had checked into on social media, and a few people knew her. I was told that she was a thief, a violent person, and a mean woman. She’s not a nice girl, Bill. Nobody had anything nice to say about her. Not a pretty picture at all. If she were a painting, she would be ‘The Scream’—that’s how bad I think she is.”
“That’s what happens when you spend a decade addicted to drugs. She’s got a long record as well. Lots of pickups for drugs, and petty theft. Lots of minor charges, some stints behind bars, but nothing major. Did you see her in person?”
“Only once. It was just a coincidence, and I didn’t mean to see her, but I was in Walmart, and this skinny woman pushed past everyone in the line, swearing loudly, and yelling that she needed a smoke. Nobody argued with her. I think everyone was scared of her. She even threatened to punch the attendant if she didn’t hurry up.”
“Not a pretty picture at all.”
Kate picked up the L.A. Times from Harvey’s desk and opened it to the social section. “I read this on the way in this morning. Her father got a good write-up in this article about social change. Apparently, before he died, he started a movement called ‘Cake with a Friend’. It was to combat loneliness in the older generation. They must have thought he was very special because there is even a color photo of him. Here, he’s reading calmly in his living room. I want to look that calm when I’m seventy years old.”
She handed the paper across to Harvey, and he rustled through the pages. “That’s a nice photo of Hardgrave. He looks very comfortable in his old age. Calm. Relaxed. Happy.”
“Crazy living room though,” Kate commented on the picture.
“He was always known for being very eccentric. I remember five years ago, he bought a brand-new Aston Martin that was gray in color. Everyone was surprised that he would buy such a plain looking car. One week later, he comes back with the car, and he has had it spray painted bright yellow. The yellowest car I have ever seen. It looked like a long banana.”
Kate smiled at the thought. “But who has a purple armchair in their living room? That’s not eccentric—that’s just bad taste.”
“Purple armchair?”
“That’s right. Look at the color of his armchair in the picture. It’s purple. That’s crazy. It says in the article that he was known for his choice of bright colors all throughout his house.”
“But the chair in the living room is purple…”
“So?”
“Hardgrave was shot on in orange armchair. The blood splatter made it look like a Jackson Pollock painting. Kate, get me the timeframe of the delivery of the new armchair to Hardgrave’s house.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
Harvey didn’t respond.
Instead, he leaned back in his chair, a grin on his face.
Chapter 17
The sweat started to dampen his armpits. Harvey’s fists were held tightly. His jaw was clenched. This was the moment he loved. This was the moment he lived for.
The courtroom was alive with energy, anticipation, and apprehension.
The room was well lit, the pews behind them filled with onlookers, and the tension in the air was palpable. The court clerk stood steady at the head of the room, awaiting the arrival of the judge and jurors; the people that would help decide the fate of Carlos López.
Harvey drew a deep breath, glancing over to the prosecution’s table led by Miss Shannon Chettle. She was busily tidying her desk, disbursing her nerves, distracting herself from the anxiety. She moved a pen holder to the right, the laptop slightly to the left, and rearranged the files on her desk in order. When she caught Harvey grinning at her, she almost cut through him with a death stare.
He understood her nerves. Not many jobs captured this much public attention. One small slip of the tongue and you could find yourself leading the news bulletins. One wrong sentence and all of a sudden, your name is mu
d.
That’s pressure.
“Two minutes,” the court clerk called out, alerting them to the fact that the spectacle was about to begin.
This was it.
His moment.
He had the fate of Carlos López resting in his hands, and if he played his cards well, then the destiny of his client would be changed forever.
“All rise for the honorable Judge Windsor.”
The tall, strong, and dominant figure of Judge Windsor slowly entered the room. He moved with strength, authority, and self-control. He was respected in the legal community as a hard, but fair man.
After Judge Windsor had said his opening remarks, he welcomed the jury to the courtroom. Uneasily, they walked to their seats, a few bumping their legs along the way. They knew that at this point, the eyes of the court were on them. For anyone not used to public performance, that burden could almost melt them into a puddle.
The jurors appeared to be a good group—a solid bunch of working-class citizens. Just what Harvey wanted. He made sure that there were no millionaires, no Hollywood wannabes, and no Beverly Hills snobs in that box. He wanted twelve people that could relate to his client and understand the struggles of a man living in East L.A. He used every objection he had and ended up with the people he wanted.
Surprisingly, the prosecution didn’t dismiss the two jurors with Mexican heritage. Harvey was sure that Chettle would use her objections to knock those two out.
But she didn’t.
And for the life of him, Harvey couldn’t understand why.
Based on the way the jurors with Mexican heritage were assessing Carlos, he could tell that they had already identified with his client. If one of them refused to find Carlos guilty based on their similar upbringings, then he had already won the case. If one person held true in that jury room, for whatever reason, then the case was a mistrial. The prosecution had the option of bringing another case against him, but unless they had new evidence, that was unlikely. All he needed was that one person on the jury, and he already knew his targets.
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