by Dan Decker
“Let’s shoot for this weekend.”
“Sounds great!”
I was glad she at least sounded happy and by the time we disconnected, she no longer sounded worried about me. I had explained it all as just angst about the case and she hadn’t questioned me after that.
Ten minutes later I was done with lunch and heading out to my car when I got a phone call.
It was Stephanie. I felt a little bad taking her call, particularly since I had not mentioned to Britney that Stephanie was working on the opposite side of this case, but this was not the first time Stephanie and I had come in contact through our professional responsibilities and it wouldn’t be the last.
I made a mental note to make sure to mention this to Britney the next time I talked to her so she did not feel like I was keeping something back.
Maybe I should consider driving up to see her tonight.
It would give me an opportunity to take my mind off the case and I could still visit over the weekend as well.
It would be good to see her.
“Mitch, are you at your office?” Stephanie asked.
“I was just leaving but I can wait.”
“I’m going to meet you there in ten minutes. Sound good?”
“Sure thing.”
Glad to have something to do, I went back inside.
“Detective Gray is coming to meet with me,” I said to Ellie as I passed.
“Got it.” Her eyebrows rose, but she did not make a comment.
I was tempted to pace, but I did not want to seem anxious so I sat in my chair and did my best to calm down. A few minutes later, the front door opened and Ellie showed Stephanie into my office.
“I just wanted to give you a heads up about the lip gloss,” she said without preamble after she had taken a seat. “There were fingerprints on it. They belonged to Barbara Howard Smith.”
39
Jun 11 – 3:26 PM
It was the break in the case I had been waiting for and the relief must have shown on my face because Stephanie smiled. It was the sincerest smile I had received from her in the better part of a decade.
“How did you handle the disclosure of the evidence?” I asked.
“I just told the truth. I said that you had thought it insignificant and that it had just slipped your mind after that. That does remind me, I’m going to need the pictures you took.”
“No problem. I’ll get them to you this afternoon. There weren’t any problems with your superiors?”
“The fact you turned over the pistol made them give you a pass. I can’t say it’s gonna be like that when Barbara Howard Smith’s attorney gets ahold of that but that’s a problem for down the road.” She smiled. It was good to see that. I couldn’t remember the last time she had grinned at me like that. “It will be bizarre when Frank Ward calls you as a witness for the prosecution.”
“I’ll be happy to represent.”
That was one court appearance I wanted kept out of the newspapers, but if not, I would make sure to play up the fact I had found the evidence in defense of my client.
“There was nothing on the pistol or the brass,” I said, “but the lip gloss had her fingerprints?”
“You got it. We’ve had her fingerprints all along but didn’t know who they belonged to until you pointed us at Barbara. Her fingerprints were also found in the apartment.” She leaned forward. “Frank knows about this. He’s reviewing it now. I don’t know what he is going to do with this, obviously, but I would say things are looking better for your client.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Is it your official assessment that he had nothing to do with this?”
“I can’t go that far, but at least it’s looking better than it did.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’s innocent after all. That would be a first.”
I wanted to say it wasn’t but let it go.
“Yeah, we’ll see. I shouldn’t hold my breath.”
“That is usually for the best. You never know how things are gonna go.”
After Stephanie had gone, I pulled out my notepad and begin to make a plan for next steps. A little voice in the back of my mind told me that I needed to be careful. I had promised to send Stephanie pictures, but I wanted to consider how to disclose them before sending them over.
I wanted to know my client was in the clear before I turned over any more evidence. I had already done enough for them on this case.
I called up Frank Ward.
“Frank, you got a second?”
“Sure, but I don’t have long. Let’s keep it quick.” His voice was neutral.
“How are things looking?” I decided not to mention Stephanie since she had come to tell me on the down low, rather than in an official capacity.
“We’re still reviewing things. How about this, I’ll call you first thing in the morning?”
“Sure.”
After I hung up, I paced. I had been unable to get a read on him. He had not sounded excited and he had not seemed worried.
I took several deep breaths and drafted the email to Stephanie, only including one picture of the lip gloss. I had others, of course, but would keep those close to the chest for the moment.
After I drafted it I decided to sit on it until the end of the day. She had not been chomping at the bit, it had appeared to just be a routine request to make sure she had all relevant evidence for the case file.
I found myself in the exact same position I had been before her visit, waiting.
I did not like it one bit. I pulled out my phone and called Britney. She answered on the first ring.
“Mitch, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon. Is everything okay?” I was happy to hear how excited she was to hear my voice. A drive up her way would be a good thing.
“I’m coming tonight too. I’ll make it this weekend and tonight. See you in a few hours.”
40
Jun 12 – 7:06 AM
I turned on the radio while driving into work to listen to the news, wondering if there might be an update on my client’s case, but there was no mention of it. I was the first to arrive at the office so I was able to work without distractions.
There were no emails from Frank Ward and I had no messages, despite leaving early the day before. I was glad I had taken a break, because it had been good to see Britney to get my mind off the case for a little bit.
The drive had given me a fresh perspective on the situation.
I planned on things not going the way I wanted.
I hadn’t called Timothy to tell him about the development because I still had no official word. It seemed better to wait until I knew for sure so I didn’t have to take anything back.
Stephanie had acted as if she expected my client to have all charges dismissed, but it was a long way from the detective’s office to that of the district attorney.
Despite the lack of updates, I was able to start working on another case.
My desk phone rang and since Ellie was not around, I decided to answer, even though it still was not yet 8:00 AM.
“Mitch,” Winston said, “I’ve got a full workup on Barbara Howard Smith and let me tell you it is colorful.”
“Any firearms training?”
“No, but she has certainly run with questionable people.”
“Any connections to a hitman?”
“I’m sure we could find them if we look hard enough. She’s been everywhere and done lots of things. You’ll want to read some of her social media posts. A real wildcat, that one.”
“I saw some of that. Send it all over. I want to review it, first thing.”
“Will do.” I had not told him about the lip gloss, and felt a little shy about disclosing my mistake.
“How’s the check into Cynthia coming?”
“I hope to have more for you by the end of the day.”
I thought about telling him to put it on hold but decided against it. It was bolstering to think my client might be done with this case today but nothing was official.
/> It was a little after 10:00 AM when I finished up a memo for another case. By that time the information from Winston was sitting in my email so I turned my attention to the file for Barbara Howard Smith. She had dropped out of high school, but had gotten her GED and gone to a local community college in Minnesota. After a couple years she had dropped out of that too and had not had a permanent address for ten years. There was not much of a paper trail in between, but Winston had expended considerable effort going over every social media post and had reconstructed some of what she had done during that time. Mostly, it was the string of men she had been involved with that was interesting. Some were rough and all looked like the type I usually represented.
Bingo.
One of these would know somebody who could have helped out Barbara.
The one thing I could not understand was why Barbara’s lip gloss was found in the apartment. I had not yet received a full workup of all the fingerprints that had been lifted from the murder scene. The preliminary hearing was coming up and the prosecutor sometimes liked to wait until they absolutely had to disclose information.
I wondered if they had found Barbara’s fingerprints.
After I completed my review of the file I tried to imagine Barbara shooting Gordon and I just could not do it. She didn’t seem to have the discipline necessary to run her life, much less learn to shoot.
Where did Ron find her anyway?
Timothy had said she was a client, but unless Barbara was an executive for a large company—a thought that seemed ridiculous—he had met her somewhere else. Her husband was a high school teacher, so that wasn’t the connection either.
While it was an interesting question, it was probably superfluous to the matter at hand.
If Barbara was involved, the more likely explanation was a hitman.
Would she have gone along if she had hired a hitman? Maybe the lip gloss had been dropped before the murder.
She could have used her relationship with Gordon to get into the apartment and then let the man do his work.
That seemed like a plausible scenario.
I pulled up my computer and begin drafting out how I thought this could play out, my alternate theory of the case, finally.
Hopefully, I can just abandon this file when I get a call from Frank Ward.
Barbara buzzed up to Gordon sometime before midnight. She had a man with her who she claimed to be a friend. She just wanted to talk with Gordon, hoping to convince him to not tell her husband.
Perhaps Barbara had felt bad about what she had planned and wanted to first see if she could talk sense to him, when she had been unable to do so, her friend had taken care of the problem for good.
It would explain the lip gloss, Barbara had likely dropped it during the social part of the encounter because she was so nervous and had not realized what she had done.
It would also explain why the brass had been wiped clean and the pistol had been hidden in the couch. They had framed Timothy. Barbara wouldn’t have any qualms about framing him.
I liked it.
I reviewed what I had written, then decided to wait before going through the evidence to fit it all in.
Hopefully, by this afternoon all charges against Timothy would be dropped and my representation of him would be over.
The only question left is how much do I tell Timothy about what I did to get him off?
Ellie knocked at my door. She looked like she had seen a ghost. “Have you seen the news?”
“No.”
“Come here.”
I went to her desk where she turned around her monitor. There was a giant headline. “New Suspects Charged in Murder of Gordon Howard.”
“Great!” I said as I begin to scan the rest of the article.
“No,” she said shaking her head, “not great.”
I was already there.
In addition to charging Timothy, they were now charging Ron Cooper and Barbara Howard Smith with murder as well. The charges had been amended to include conspiracy.
All three were charged with capital murder.
41
Jun 12 – 10:30 AM
I didn’t hear the phone ringing as I read through the rest of the article. The prosecution had not said much to the reporter, but the gist was that they believed Timothy, Ron, and Barbara had all done this together. I shook my head in unbelief as I looked at pictures of Ron being led away in handcuffs.
The thought had crossed my mind when I first considered Ron as a possible suspect. It had made me smile when I thought of him getting arrested for the murder his son had been accused of doing, but this was not the moment of victory I had anticipated.
The phone rang again. I barely heard as Ellie answered.
“Hold on one moment.” She put the call on hold. “It’s Timothy. He’s furious. He wants to talk to you.”
“I suppose he does.”
“What do you want me to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, trying to decide if I wanted to talk to him over the phone or invite him into the office. “Probably best to just get it over with.” I jerked my head toward my office. “Send it to me in there.”
I stood as I answered Timothy’s call on the speakerphone.
“Timothy,” I said. “I just saw it. I’m as flabbergasted as you.”
“How could this happen?” Timothy screamed. “We were supposed to be working on a deal. Did you tell them no? Did you go behind my back?”
“I think they found this new information and decided to run with it. Frank probably forgot about the offer.”
Or did not care.
“I don’t like this!”
“I’ll make some calls. Let’s meet this afternoon. Sound good?”
“I’ll be there.” He hung up. I imagined him throwing his phone across the car or his hotel room or wherever he was. I did not blame him. I was furious too.
My phone beeped. It was a message from Stephanie.
“Sorry. I did not expect this. Please believe me.”
I didn’t know what to say so I did not respond. I had forgotten to send the email I had drafted with the picture of the lip gloss, there was no way I was going to send it now.
If they wanted those pictures, I was gonna make them go the formal route. I found the drafted email and deleted it, just so it did not get sent by accident.
To say that I was angry would have been an understatement. I was livid. I had known, of course, that it could go this way. I have even prepared myself for the possibility, but I had assumed Frank would at least do the courtesy of giving me word first, rather than letting me find out on the news. It was one thing to be intellectually prepared, it was quite another to have it happen.
It was a whole different thing to be surprised without warning.
My office phone rang, I picked it up. “What do you want?”
“Easy there,” Ellie said. “I get it but you don’t have to yell at me. I have Winston on the phone for you. Are you ready to talk to him?”
“I’m sorry. Just working through a lot right now.” I took a deep breath. “Go ahead and send him through.” I should not have stomped on Ellie like that, it was one of the few times over the course of her employment that I had. I would have to make it up to her in some way.
“Just saw the news.” Winston said. “What can I do?” I had expected him to comment on either the lip gloss or the deal, but then I remembered that I had kept him out of the loop so he would keep his focus on pushing forward in the investigation, rather than thinking we might be approaching a resolution.
“How did Ron and Barbara meet? Did that come up?”
Winston did not respond right away. “No, it didn’t. I could look into that if you want—I’m happy to do so—but I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
I let out another deep breath, silently, so Winston did not know exactly how angry I was. None of this was on him, and I didn’t want to bite off his head like I had with Ellie. “Yeah, let’s figure that out. If ther
e’s anything that occurs to you, any questions at all about anything, I want you to go down the rabbit hole.” I thought of my partner Veronica. “Within reason, of course. Go down and see if you find anything.”
It was a struggle to not slam the phone down after Winston disconnected, but I somehow managed to do it.
When my phone beeped again, I almost didn’t pick it up because I didn’t want to risk offending Ellie further, but I pushed the button and waited for just a second before talking. “What is it?” I had succeeded in keeping my tone lighter, but I felt as if my voice were infused with anger.
“Frank Ward is here,” Ellie said. “He has some disclosures. Want me to send him in?”
My temper flared and I gripped my phone so hard I was afraid I might break it. I relaxed my hold and knew that Frank would be here to talk about a plea bargain. This time, he would want Timothy to testify against his father and Barbara.
“Yeah, tell him that I will see him, but don’t tell him how long it will be.” I disconnected and belatedly admonished myself for ending the call without waiting for Ellie’s acknowledgment. I made a mental note to apologize to her later for that as well, she was a strong woman, the best secretary I had ever worked with, but she did not take it well when I lost my temper.
I looked around my office to make sure there was not anything sitting out on my desk that I did not want Frank Ward to see, straightening the papers and files I had been reviewing to make certain my notes on Timothy’s case were not laying in the open.
After that I went through several breathing exercises.
This is no big deal. I expected Frank to do this and he did. I have nothing to be angry about.
I let the words soak into my mind until I started to relax.
It was true I had expected something, but the visit from Stephanie had given me hope. Hope that I was about to find a resolution to the matter.
I dialed Ellie. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hang up on you like that.”