Undetermined Death : A Legal Thriller (Ashley Montgomery Book 2)

by Laura Snider

  “Fine,” Katie said. “Whatever.”

  George opened the door and stepped into the room. Rachel was seated at the end of the large conference table. Alone. She wore a sweater with the image of a gray cat in a Santa hat popping out of a stocking. Rachel’s head was down, her hair covering her face. The posture was typical for her, but something was off about the way Rachel was seated.

  Ashley paused the video and studied her client, from her head down to the seat of her chair, which was all Ashley could see of her. Rachel’s facial features were normal considering the situation. Eyes closed, lips pursed. But the arms. They were all wrong. Rachel had them wrapped around herself, crossed and clutching at either side of her hips. Ashley had never seen her client sitting like that. Not once.

  Was she? Ashley thought. No. It couldn’t be.

  Ashley looked at the video’s date and time stamp. It was recorded within an hour and a half of Rachel giving birth. The drive from Brine to Waukee was a good forty minutes. That meant there hadn’t been time for Rachel to receive proper medical treatment. Ashley knew from the medical records that Rachel had some fairly severe vaginal tearing. It took twenty-five stitches to close the wound properly. If this interview occurred before Rachel saw a doctor, then she was literally holding herself together.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Ashley said aloud.

  What the hell was Katie doing? How had she allowed such a thing? But if George’s behavior at the beginning of the interview was any indication, Katie hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter. What were his words? Oh, yes. “I’m the detective.”

  He may not be detective after I’m done with him, Ashley thought as she pressed play again.

  “Rachel,” George said, his voice honey-smooth. “How are you?”

  “I…ummm…” Rachel stammered.

  “Wonderful,” George interrupted. “You’re here willingly, right?” He sank into the chair closest to Rachel.

  Rachel started to lean back, grimaced, then stilled. Movement was obviously painful for her.

  “You, umm, picked me up.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t arrest you and you said you would come.”

  “Yeah.” Rachel’s voice was small, resigned. “I mean I didn’t refuse to come.”

  “So you are here willingly?”

  “I mean, I guess.”

  “You know why you are here, right?”

  Rachel closed her eyes for a long moment, took three deep, steadying breaths, then reopened them. “I think so.”

  “You killed your baby.”

  Rachel fell silent, her eyes darting toward the table. A few minutes passed before she looked up. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “Him? You knew your baby was going to be a boy?”

  Rachel shivered. “I didn’t know until I had him, but I thought he would be a boy.”

  “Why? Are you psychic or something?” Here, George chuckled like a total dick. Ashley wanted to slap him in the face.

  “I’m not psychic.” Rachel swallowed hard. “I’d never want to know the future. There’s no changing it, so what’s the use?”

  “Then why did you think you were having a boy? You didn’t receive prenatal care, did you?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I just had a feeling. A boy would be the worst.”

  George chewed on the end of his pen as though mulling over Rachel’s statement. Then he spoke, louder than earlier. “You said that you didn’t mean to hurt your son. Do you consider murder something other than harm?”

  “I didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Let’s go over the facts here,” George said, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. He leaned back, flipping the pen around his finger. “You checked into a hotel room, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You brought a bottle of vodka and some towels with you, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You intended to have that baby in the hotel room, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You drank vodka while pregnant.” George paused. When Rachel didn’t answer right away, he said, “Isn’t that true?”

  “The vodka was for the pain.”

  “You birthed your baby there in the hotel bathroom, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were alone.” A statement, not a question.

  Ashley made a note of the time stamp on the video. Judges often gave law enforcement a lot of leeway in their interviews, but George was really overstepping.

  “And then you killed him.”

  Rachel shook her head. “I didn’t.”

  “Okay. Then you let him die.”

  “No.” Tears were streaming down Rachel’s face, but she didn’t release her grip on her hips to wipe them away.

  George spent the next hour asking the same question over and over again, but in different ways. He took at least two breaks, getting coffee and using the restroom but offering nothing to Rachel. Katie suggested water once, but George shut her down with, “I’m the detective. I know what I’m doing.”

  It was obvious, at least to Ashley, that he did not. His behavior was borderline torturous. Coercive at best. Ashley didn’t have any children of her own, but women didn’t complain about childbirth for nothing. It was no walk in the park, even with medications and medical assistance. But without either for hours on end, Ashley couldn’t imagine the excruciating pain Rachel had endured.

  It took George one hour and thirty-seven minutes of repeated questioning to finally break Rachel.

  “Can I go?” Rachel asked.

  Her body had begun to quiver. Ashley could see it in her lips and shoulders, a heavy shuddering that rocked her entire body. She looked at the time stamp on the recording again and made a note to reach out to the local hospital, see if she could get a doctor to testify that the girl was in shock or something else that would potentially invalidate Rachel’s eventual confession. Because it was clear that her resolve was breaking. She would soon say anything George wanted so she could get out of that interview room.

  “You could, Rachel, but you aren’t answering my questions truthfully. You can leave as soon as you are honest.”

  Translation, Ashley thought, you won’t get medical treatment until you tell me what I want to hear.

  “Okay.” Rachel’s voice was small. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Oh no, Rachel. Not what I want you to say. All I want is the truth. And the truth is that you killed your newborn son, didn’t you?”

  Ashley rolled her eyes. It was a law enforcement trick used by many older officers to say, all I want is the truth, and then follow it with the “truth” they wanted to hear. Asking for the “truth” was only for the benefit of the recording. He didn’t want that. Rachel had already tried to give it to him. What he wanted was a confession. It was bullshit. If it wasn’t overstepping the line, it was certainly toeing up to it.

  “Umm hmmm.”

  “Is that a yes?” George’s tone was laced with an excitement that was unusual for him. His expression was full of anticipation. He turned and looked back at Katie with a wink, a way of saying, I’ve got her. Are you taking notes?

  Ashley hated everything about the interview, but she would love to see Katie’s expression in that moment. Her eyes were probably alight with fury, lips dipped into a firm who the fuck do you think you are scowl.

  “You washed your baby off, right? There in the hotel bathtub?”

  Tears leaked from Rachel’s eyes, falling onto the table. “Yes. He was covered in blood.”

  “He cried, didn’t he?”

  A long pause.

  “Didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you placed him face down in the bathtub, didn’t you?”

  Rachel didn’t answer aloud at first, but she did shake her head. A small, nearly imperceptible gesture. Something George, who didn’t want to hear anything other than what he had expected to hear, wouldn’t ever notice. But Ashley did. She noted the time
stamp. It would be something she’d point out to the jury if she was unsuccessful in suppressing the video.

  George slammed his hands down on the table. “Didn’t you!”

  Rachel pressed her lips together so firmly they turned white.

  “Didn’t you!” George shot out of his seat, surging toward her. “Answer my question or so help me…”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, flinching back, then crying out in pain from the movement.

  “George!” Katie hissed.

  The video footage jostled around as Katie stood and moved between George and Rachel. Ashley couldn’t see Rachel anymore, only George’s face twisted with fury. His expression was wild, mean.

  “Stop this now…”

  The recording went black, cutting Katie off mid-sentence. She had turned off the camera. Ashley wondered what had happened next. She would need to ask Rachel, and then address it in Katie’s follow-up deposition. But that would come later. It was tertiary to the other information clearly contained in the video. The coerciveness of it.

  Ashley popped the video out and put it back in its sleeve. She’d have Elena make a copy of it when she came in. It would be evidence for the suppression hearing. But first, she needed to draft the motion. She opened a word document and started doing just that.

  Rachel’s video “confession” would not come into evidence. Ashley felt sure of it. It was coerced. All of it. She hoped Judge Ahrenson would feel the same. If he didn’t, and the jury heard that confession, Rachel was likely sunk. They’d launch an appeal, but only after Rachel spent several years in prison would they have an opportunity for a second bite at the apple. If they ever did get a second chance.

  15

  Katie

  65 days before trial

  The wind whipped at Katie’s cheeks as she made her way to City Hall, a few blocks north of the police station. It was early November, usually pretty mild in Iowa, but this year winter was well on its way.

  Kate pulled up her coat collar, trying to cover the lower part of her face. She picked up her pace and headed for the side entrance of City Hall off Main Street. Few people knew about the entrance because it required a keycard. Katie, as a law enforcement officer, had one of the few keycards, handed out just in case someone in the east part of the building needed emergency assistance. She’d never used it for that purpose. There hadn’t been cause to. Which she supposed was a good thing.

  She waved her keycard in front of the reader. It beeped from red to green and she quickly opened the door, ducking out of the cold.

  “Katie,” a familiar voice said. “A little early for our meeting, aren’t you?”

  Katie looked up to connect with the penetrating blue-eyed gaze of none other than Forest Parker. As George had suggested, she’d scheduled a 12:30 meeting with him to discuss, and hopefully smooth over, his hatred of law enforcement. She didn’t know how, exactly, she was going to achieve her goal, but she knew it wouldn’t be by flirting her way into Forest’s good graces, as George had suggested. Her job may be on the line, but she wasn’t going to barter her dignity for it.

  “I, umm…” Katie had planned to go to the county recorder’s office for a copy of Rachel’s birth certificate before meeting with Forest.

  “Eager to see me, I suppose.” Forest looked pointedly at his wristwatch. “I guess I have time for you now.”

  A retort formed in Katie’s mind, but she didn’t lend it voice. She was there for diplomatic reasons, not to add fuel to the fire.

  “And using the employee entrance. How very…” He hesitated for a dramatically pregnant pause, tapping his index finger against his chin. “Entitled of you.”

  Katie narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust herself to speak. If she did, she’d say something like, “Entitled? Maybe you should check the Burberry tag on your coat before you start throwing around accusations.” Because Forest was the son of an Iowa senator. A corporate farm family. Money and politics came as a silver spoon placed directly into his mouth.

  “Anyway,” Forest said, motioning for her to follow, “we might as well get this dreaded meeting done and over with.”

  She followed Forest into a small, tastefully furnished office. A mahogany executive desk sat across from two matching chairs. All looked handmade and expensive.

  “Have a seat,” Forest said.

  Katie chose the chair closest to the door.

  Forest started to close his office door, but Katie stopped him. “Leave it open a crack,” she said. She knew better than to be alone with a male politician in his office. The rumors would surely lead to her termination. She vaguely wondered if that was George’s true intention in sending her on this foolhardy errand.

  “Right,” Forest said, shooting Katie an appraising but not altogether nasty look.

  Katie was silent as he sat down and positioned himself behind his desk. Her father—back in his business days—used to tell her that he never spoke first during a negotiation. It showed weakness. But Forest returned the silence. Apparently, his father had taught him the same.

  Katie cleared her throat, reminding herself that her father’s “business tactics” had landed him in a prison cell, so she would serve herself better by following her instincts. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

  “What, exactly, are we meeting for?”

  Over the past few days, Katie had considered the things she would say to Forest. Even practiced some of them in the mirror. But none of them had quite come out right. She had no idea how to reach this man, let alone convince him to stop his full-on assault on the police department.

  “I, umm…”

  Katie cast her gaze around the room, searching for anything that was remotely relatable. Anything that was even close to common ground for the two of them. An enlarged photo of Forest standing shoulder to shoulder with Bill and Hillary Clinton hung next to a framed and unused law degree. Nothing there.

  “You, umm, what?” He was growing impatient.

  Then Katie saw it. A small photograph perched at the corner of Forest’s desk. Katie leaned forward to get a better look. It was Forest, ten or so years younger, and an older man who looked very much the same. He had darker skin than Forest, but they both had the same blue eyes and sharp nose.

  “Is this you?” Katie asked, nodding to the photograph.

  Forest’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. It was the classic deer-in-headlights look.

  “I know this guy,” Katie said, trying to remember where she had seen the man before. Then it clicked. “This is one of Officer Jackie’s victims.”

  Last year, around Christmas, a former Brine police officer named John Jackie was blackmailing potential defendants instead of arresting them. He’d tell them that they wouldn’t be charged if they paid him up front. It was these victims speaking out that led to Officer Jackie’s arrest.

  “Yeah. And he went to prison.” Forest’s voice held a bitter note.

  Katie suddenly understood why Forest was hellbent on punishing the police department. Few of John Jackie’s victims were later charged, because many of them were crimes like operating while intoxicated. Crimes that hinged on the officer’s trustworthiness. But the man standing next to Forest in the photograph had embezzled from the local church. The witnesses were church members. This person, whoever he was to Forest, had been one of the few who was punished. It did seem unfair.

  “I’m sorry,” Katie said. “I remember him well. He was polite, remorseful.” She looked up and met Forest’s stony gaze. “I hope you know that I didn’t want him incarcerated. I didn’t think he deserved it. But the church elders felt otherwise.”

  The edge eased a bit from Forest’s eyes.

  “Who was he to you?”

  Forest didn’t answer. Judging by his reaction thus far, it was a well-kept secret. Maybe he would open up—forge the beginnings of a bond—if she entrusted him with one of her own secrets.

  “My father is in Anamosa Prison.” Katie had to force the words out of her mouth. It was a sec
ret she told only a few people, and nothing felt natural about revealing it to an enemy. But it felt like the only way to take a step toward friendship.

  One of Forest’s heavy eyebrows lifted in intrigue. Encouragement for her to go on. She didn’t know if she was saving the police department or making the biggest mistake of her life. Forest could end up politicizing it, using it against her. Against Chief Carmichael.

  “Why?” It was the first thing Forest had said in a while. His voice had grown heavy, like he had been carrying a heavy burden. One he longed to release.

  “Embezzlement. I was sixteen when it happened. I lost everything, including my mother. She ran off with some guy she met down at the country club. He had no interest in a teenage daughter, so…” She shrugged.

  “You finished high school on your own?”

  Katie nodded. “Then I took the first job I could. One that was the complete opposite of anything my father would ever want me to do. That’s how I ended up as a small-town police officer.”

  A lightbulb ignited behind Forest’s eyes. He leaned forward and said, “You’re Kathleen Machello, aren’t you?”

  Katie nodded. “I changed my name as soon as I turned eighteen. Katie Mickey is close enough to my real name but not too close.”

  A silence descended upon the room. Forest’s expression was unidentifiable. If he had an inclination toward poker, he was probably very good at it.

  Finally, after what felt like forever, Forest leaned forward, casting his voice low, secretive. “Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”

  It was Katie’s turn to quirk an eyebrow.

  “That’s my biological father.” He nodded to the photograph. “I reconnected with him ten years ago.”

  “Biological? You’re adopted?”

  “Yes,” Forest said. “As a baby. My mother died in childbirth and my father was too grief-stricken to raise a baby. So he put me up for adoption.”