The judge suddenly appeared from chambers, talking to two city council members.
“Thanks a lot, Edie. I owe you one.” He stood up and squeezed her shoulder.
“Just don’t tell Ryan I told you, okay?”
“No problem, babe.” He left the courtroom, giving tight-lipped smiles at the people he knew without realizing he was doing it. No wonder Patrick wanted to kick Lejeune’s ass. Shep only wondered why the captain hadn’t killed him.
He hoped he would find something to implicate Chad in the homicides. Or maybe he’d get really lucky and Chad Lejeune would walk in on him while he was searching his apartment, and give Shep the chance to finish what Patrick had been about to start.
Big Mike looked earnestly at the officer on the witness stand. “Sergeant, what
first drew your attention to the defendant?”
Ryan was barely listening. She should have been, but Mike was doing a good job, and it was only a bench trial, and a simple case at that. While her headache had finally dissipated, her mind, unfortunately, was still drawn to Chad Lejeune.
Even though she knew he would be here today, she hadn’t been prepared to see him again. It was bad enough she had to watch him on the tape last night. She couldn’t believe he was actually here, in her courthouse, acting as if he had every right to walk around like a normal person.
The more she thought about it, the more she had to know if he was behind the murders. If Chad was the killer, he would probably get the death penalty. It wouldn’t matter that the victims were criminals and he was a lawyer. A rich white boy who murdered a bunch of black folks from the projects would be an automatic jury target regardless.
She just needed to find a way to let Chad catch her alone. If Chad was guilty, he would say something to implicate himself. He was obviously dying to tell her about what he had done. Why else would he have been making the calls to her? If she could get just one witness to overhear him confess, she could get a search warrant. Chad was bound to have something in his apartment that would link him to the murders.
She knew that Shep was on his way there now to look for the videotapes, and wouldn’t have time to search Chad’s whole apartment. And even if Shep did happen to run across something that linked Chad to the murders, he couldn’t use it as evidence without being charged with burglary, not to mention anything he found during the illegal search would be suppressed. No, she had to find a way to legally get the police into Chad’s apartment, and the only thing she could think of was an admission by Chad.
“Did I miss anything?” Mike whispered to her, and Ryan felt guilty because she hadn’t been listening.
“No, you did great,” she whispered back, and patted Mike’s arm.
The defense didn’t put on a case, and while Mike did the closing argument, Ryan wondered how much trouble she would be in if her plan didn’t work out the way she hoped.
The judge called another fifteen minute recess. When he left the bench, Ryan walked over to section C to see if Chad Lejeune was still in court.
She waited at the back of the courtroom, taking stock of the audience. She finally honed in on him. He had the same cocky look on his face, as if the court proceeding was a joke.
“That taste good?” Spence Badon was sitting on the bench in the last row, his arms stretched out along the back of the bench. He stood up and pointed to the thumb she was chewing.
Spence was a big man, tall and broad, somewhere in his late thirties, with a short, military style haircut and a forbidden goatee. He spoke with a slight Cajun dialect, having grown up in Cut Off, a town seventy miles south of New Orleans. He was a country boy at heart, and had been reprimanded more than once for finding new ways to relieve his boredom, both on and off the clock. He always said the city had too many rules, but it paid much better than the Sheriff’s Department back home.
Ryan motioned for him to sit back down, and sat next to him, amazed at her good luck. Of all the people who might have been in this courtroom, law enforcement or otherwise, Spence was the one person she knew would do what she was about to ask, without any questions. She paused for a second, giving herself one opportunity to change her mind. Once she enlisted Spence’s help, there was no backing down.
“Spence, how busy are you right now?”
He looked at his watch. “The judge just took lunch. I’m free for at least an hour. What you got in mind?”
“I need to check something on a defendant in here. I have this feeling that when I leave, he’s going to follow me out.”
“You want me to take care of him?” Spence asked, his eyes lighting up with interest.
Ryan put her hands up, hoping to keep Spence from getting too carried away. The only downside to asking for Spence’s assistance was trying to keep him in check. He was not a man easily controlled. “No, actually, I want him to follow me. I also have this feeling he might say something to implicate himself in a crime.”
“You talking about that Lejeune guy?” Spence nodded in Chad’s direction.
“Does it matter?”
He smiled. “You kidding me? What you want me to do?”
“You need to be close enough to hear what he says so we can use it to get a search warrant, but far enough away that he doesn’t realize you’re listening. Otherwise, he won’t say anything.”
“I’ll blend into the background like a Ninja,” he promised.
Ryan walked to the front of the courtroom, stopping next to the Assistant D.A. handling the case, making sure she glanced back at Chad as she did. “Harry, is Lejeune represented by counsel?”
Harry Stelly looked up. She could see Chad watching intently, the arrogant expression frozen on his face.
“I don’t know, let me check. Hey, Lejeune,” he called across the courtroom.
Chad stared at him condescendingly.
“Where’s your attorney, Lejeune?”
“I won’t be needing one,” Chad answered, displaying an icy smile.
“Oh, okay. We’ll see about that, dude.” Harry turned back to Ryan. “You heard him. Why?”
“Is that the victim with him? She’s his girlfriend, you know.”
Harry pointed to the other side of the room, where a petite red head sat, her face full of bruises, her jaw clenched. A second later Ryan realized the girl’s jaw was wired shut.
“Tell Lejeune the prescriptive period for aggravated rape,” Ryan whispered, referring to the Louisiana term for statute of limitations.
Harry looked at her with confusion. “Crimes with life sentences have no prescription, do they?”
“You just got an A+ in criminal law, now tell it to Chad.”
“Hey, Lejeune,” Harry called across the courtroom again. “Did you know aggravated rape has no prescriptive period? That means we can prosecute you whenever we feel like it, no matter how long ago you raped the girl.” He looked at Ryan. “Is that good?”
She nodded slightly, staring at Chad, who frowned back at her. Several people in the audience were now looking at Chad suspiciously.
Ryan smiled, and then said loud enough for Chad to hear, “If Mr. Lejeune had an attorney, I was going to tell him to get ready to defend against another rape charge. I’ve got a feeling an indictment for a 42 is in his future.”
Harry smiled back at her and then called to Chad, “Man, you really might want to rethink that not needing an attorney thing.” He turned back to Ryan. “You keep adding charges and I’ll keep prosecuting them.”
Ryan knew exactly what Chad would think. She knew how his mind worked. She looked directly at him as she walked out of the courtroom, challenging him. Spence walked out just ahead of her.
Ryan slowly made her way down the hall, in the direction of her own courtroom. She had to give Chad enough time to follow her. Spence had stopped across the hall from Section C, next to a floor-to-ceiling window that was open, but had metal bars to keep people from falling. Or maybe from jumping. Despite the ban on smoking in the building, he lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke
out of the window.
Ryan was halfway back to her own section, thinking the plan was failing, when she got a prickly feeling on the back of her neck. She turned and saw Chad approaching. The hallway was nearly empty. Spence was keeping pace, but true to his word, moved along so casually Chad shouldn’t notice him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Chad asked, looking around quickly.
Ryan fought to keep from shaking. “The question is what have you been doing?”
“Look, bitch, you don’t even know what pain is yet. Don’t fuck with me or you won’t know what hit you this time.”
“You killed those people, didn’t you?” She took a step closer to him, forcing herself into his personal space. “You raped and killed that hooker and her little girl. I know you did, and pretty soon everybody else is going to know too.”
What he did next took her by surprise. His hand shot out and he backhanded her across the mouth. Unprepared for the blow, she fell hard to the floor in the middle of the hallway.
“You know there’s no such thing as rape.” He stood over her, his voice growing louder. “All you bitches like it rough.”
Spence darted over and tackled Chad, smashing Chad’s face into the granite floor. Chad tried to fight back, but Spence was a lot bigger and had Chad face down.
“You like hitting girls, mother fucker?” Spence punched Chad in the kidney. “Why don’t you try hitting a man?” Spence grabbed Chad by the hair and smashed his face into the floor again. Ryan was still down, dazed from the blow, trying to move out of the way.
Three deputies materialized, grabbing Chad, pulling him to his feet. Chad tried to fight them, swinging the cane he had managed to hold on to. The deputies knocked him back to the ground, handcuffing him behind his back, kicking him repeatedly until he finally stopped fighting.
Spence reached for Ryan’s hand, still looking at Chad as if he might hit him again.
“Spence, did you hear what he said?” Ryan reached for Spence’s hand, tucking her shaky legs underneath her to stand back up. “You think it’s probable cause for a warrant?”
“You okay?” Spence helped her up from the ground. “I didn’t think he would hit you. Jesus, your lip is bleeding. I am going to be in deep shit with the captain.” He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and blotted her lip. Ryan was surprised that a man like Spence would have a handkerchief in his pocket.
“Do you think he said enough to get a search warrant?” She swiped the blood off her lip with her tongue. “Was that a confession?”
Spence pressed the handkerchief to her lip. “Keep pressure on that. I’ll get you your warrant, baby.”
The deputies had brought Chad down the hall, where one of them was filling out a report. Ryan started to walk away, feeling relief mixed with just a tad of guilty pleasure.
“Whore,” Chad yelled through a mouth full of blood, trying to get away from the deputies. “I’m not going to jail over one lousy fuck.”
Spence started in Chad’s direction, but a deputy whacked Chad behind his good knee with his baton before Spence made it there. Chad would have been back on the floor if the three deputies hadn’t been holding him up.
“Sounds like a confession to me,” Ryan yelled back to him. “Just remember what you said, Chad, when your cell mate wants you to be his bitch tonight. There’s no such thing as rape.”
“Worthless cunt, I should have killed you when I had the chance.” Chad fell to the ground this time as one of the deputies hit him behind the knee again.
Ryan smiled, flinching slightly from the split lip. Watching Chad get beaten in the hallway was almost worth what she went through with him. Prosecuting him for murder would even things out completely.
When Ryan got back to the courtroom, Mike was packing up the files, a nervous look on his face.
“We got a guilty on the judge trial. And Rick left a message for you to meet him in his office immediately. He said it was important. Hey, your lip is bleeding.”
Ryan hurried across the street to the office, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She thought Rick was going to chide her about the scene with Chad in the courthouse. But when she walked into Rick’s office, he handed her the newspaper. “See this yet?”
Ty Crowley’s by-line was on the front page. She skimmed the story. While Ty was not the most inspired writer, the article was attention-getting. The headline read, “Killer Crush: Bodies Presents for ADA.” The article was detailed, containing nearly all of the information the police had on the case.
“I have a feeling more is going to come out of this.” Rick took the paper back and folded it in half. “The D.A. wants to pull you from the crime scenes. And I know I said you were the front-runner for the Strike Force spot, but this isn’t the right time for you to be handling high-profile cases. Especially if you were to lose and this nut job kills your defendant.”
Ryan felt as if she got punched in the stomach.
“What exactly are you saying, Rick?” She tried to keep her voice even. If you cried in front of the chief, you could never take it back.
“I’m sorry Ryan, but somebody else is getting the Strike Force spot,” he answered. “And Gendusa is being reassigned. I didn’t get to make the call, but I can’t say I vetoed it.”
“Are you moving me out of Trials?” She had a surreal feeling, as if Rick was talking underwater. She would quit rather than be relegated to the ranks of the pencil-pushers and chair-warmers.
“That decision hasn’t been made yet. The D.A. wants to meet with you tomorrow morning to discuss your future placement in this office. And this isn’t any reflection on you. He was really impressed with the death penalty on the 42. Nobody’s trying to push you out.”
“Yeah, I can see how impressed Peter was by his decision to give Strike Force and Gendusa to somebody else.”
Rick shook his head. “As soon as this situation gets resolved, everything will be back to normal. And we’re supposed to be getting a warrant for another Strike Force spot in a couple of months. I know Judge Jackson’s out next week. Why don’t you take some vacation time? I’m sure the police will have caught somebody by the time you come back.”
“And if they haven’t?”
Rick didn’t answer.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And I don’t need any time off, thank you.” She walked out of the office, once again fighting the urge to cry. She would not cry here.
She knew this meant Bo Lambert had beat her. He was going to get the Strike Force spot because some crazy lunatic thought it was funny to kill people and act like he was doing it all for her. She walked back to her office, a sinking feeling washing over her.
For the last four years, her job had defined who she was. She didn’t exactly have a personal life. Very few friends. No husband, no boyfriend. Children nowhere in her near future. Her life revolved around the office. And when she missed out on family functions, she convinced herself the lost time was worth it to keep one step ahead. Somehow, nothing else mattered, not as long as she was at the top.
She deserved that Strike Force spot. She knew she did. If Chad was behind this, she was going to do everything within her power to make sure he got what he deserved.
She sat at her desk and checked the clock to determine how much longer she would have to wait to start drinking at the Hole. Too long. She began looking through her cases scheduled for the week after next, trying to pretend as if everything would be back to normal by then. She got lost in working up the files and jumped when the phone rang. She was surprised to see that more than three hours had flown by. At least it was nearly time for the Hole to open.
“Ryan Murphy, Trials.”
“Are you okay?” Shep asked. “I heard Chad attacked you at court.”
Deflated by Rick’s announcement, she had almost forgotten about the scene in the hallway. “Physically I’m fine.”
“What in God’s name were you thinking, going after Chad by yourself?”
She ignored his
critical tone. “Somebody had to go after him. And I got you a search warrant, didn’t I? Did you find anything at his apartment, at least?”
“We didn’t find anything to connect him to the murders,” he said. “And there were no other tapes of you.” He paused. “I did find a bunch of videos of Chad with other people, though. When I went back with the SID to execute the search warrant, I took the tapes as evidence.”
Chad hadn’t taped her doing anything else. That was some small comfort, even if they didn’t find anything connecting him to the homicides.
Shep wasn’t finished. “A few tapes appeared to be of consensual acts, some even with men. But the rest of the tapes were different. These girls were knocked out, or drugged. If I’m not mistaken, the woman has to be conscious to give consent.”
Ryan held her breath, hoping he wasn’t going to ask her about the tape of her.
After a second, he went on. “At least if we don’t get Chad on the homicides, I’m sure we’ll be able to get him on some of these rapes. One aggravated rape conviction and he’s gone for life. If we can identify the victims, that is.”
Ryan finally exhaled. “Good luck.”
“Well, I was kind of hoping you could help me with that,” he said, and hesitated. Ryan had the feeling she wasn’t going to like what was coming next. “I know this is a lot to ask, but would you want to look at some still pictures from the videos? I wouldn’t ask you to look at the actual tapes, but maybe you’ll recognize somebody from the stills I’m making. Some of the dates on the tapes overlap with the time you were going out with him.”
“Could this day get any fucking worse?” Ryan snapped, and then wished she could take it back. Shep was doing all this to help her.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t want to talk about it now.” She sighed. “I’m going to the Hole the second Dominic unlocks the front door. You can meet me there. If you want to give me a ride home, I guess I could look at the pictures then. You might want to get there as early as possible, because I am without a doubt going to get extremely trashed tonight.”
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