Bucket List

by Emily James

  Saul straightened up, a white bag in his hand. He set it in his lap. I must have hesitated too long in answering because the look he gave me said he realized it wasn’t as simple a question as it seemed.

  “Small towns tend to be nosy. If gossip were an Olympic sport, we’d take the gold. You don’t have to feel pressured to tell me anything you don’t want to.” He tilted his head to the side. “Though if you’re prescribed a new medication, I would recommend you tell me about any other medication, vitamins, or herbal supplements you might be on.”

  I chuckled. I hadn’t consciously thought about it, but once he acknowledged the small town your-business-is-my-business mentality, I couldn’t help wondering if part of my reticence to discuss it with anyone was that whatever I said would find its way around Fair Haven before I even got home. I could count the number of people I’d confided in on one hand.

  Dr. Horton’s was a bit of a community hub. In the summer, I’d passed by no fewer than four retirees sitting at the patio tables on the sidewalk out front, gossiping and drinking coffee. Saul probably knew more about what went on in this town than almost anyone else, but he seemed more like a bartender who heard it all but kept it to himself. At least he’d never discussed anyone else’s business with me when I came in. Maybe as a pharmacist, he had a greater respect for privacy.

  He held out the bag. “I’ll go over the instructions and side effects with you, but would you let me give you a piece of advice first?”

  The fact that he bothered to ask won my approval. I nodded.

  “If you can do the career you love, you should. Too many people never get that chance.” He pointed with one finger over his shoulder, toward his back. He smiled, but it was the kind people gave when they hoped it would cover up what they were really feeling. “I didn’t.”

  As long as I’d been in Fair Haven, Saul had always worn a back brace and walked with a walker, even before he’d ended up in a wheelchair. He’d also always seemed to enjoy his job. I hadn’t considered that his life had ever been radically different or that he’d once wanted to do something else.

  Most people probably didn’t know how much he still wished he had been able to do that something else. He was a master at small town living. He’d learned how to truly hide what he didn’t want anyone else to know. I bet I wasn’t the only one he’d managed to fool.

  I was a good actress when it came to dealing with witnesses and potential suspects, but I couldn’t maintain a mask like that for the rest of my life.

  More than that, I didn’t want to. “I’m considering going back to practicing law. It’s what I did in DC. But there are…obstacles.”

  “All I’m saying is make sure you do whatever it takes to have no regrets one day,” Saul said.

  He’d hit on exactly what worried me most. Before I gave up on a career as a defense lawyer, I needed to either find a way to make my career as a lawyer work or I needed to find a way to learn to love working at Sugarwood just as much as I loved practicing law.

  Right now, both seemed about as likely as finding a unicorn roaming my sugar bush.

  5

  For the rest of the day and most of the next, I kept expecting to hear from Chief McTavish that he’d charged Clement with Gordon Albright’s murder. Even while I was eating the maple syrup nougat and maple syrup truffles Nancy had created for us to start selling online, and even while I was holding my little godson Noah, my mind kept drifting back to Clement’s case.

  I was out in the bush with Russ overseeing the yearly clean-up of underbrush, fallen branches, and downed trees when my phone rang. I immediately stopped moving. There was a reason we used old-fashioned walkie talkies when working in the sugar bush. Cell phone signals were sporadic and unreliable. If this was Chief McTavish calling to tell me they’d arrested Clement, I didn’t want to miss the call.

  It was Anderson’s number on my screen.

  “I hear you’re trying to muscle in on my business.” His tone started out serious, but he couldn’t hold it together. By the end of the sentence, it was clear he was teasing.

  “That might be true if I wanted to keep the case. You should be paying me a commission for finding you a new client.”

  “What’s the case,” he said, all jocularity gone from his voice.

  I filled him in.

  He whistled. “I heard about a murder at the museum on the radio. They hadn’t released the victim’s name yet. Are you thinking he’s lying about not knowing what happened?”

  I didn’t. As crazy as his story sounded, I believed Clement. He seemed genuinely confused and distraught. Plus, he’d have no reason to lie to me about his guilt or innocence. Confidentiality guaranteed he could tell me exactly how he’d plotted to kill Gordon and then how he’d carried it out, and I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it.

  The only reason I could tell Anderson was that we’d signed a consultancy agreement so that he could pick my brain on cases without violating his own client’s confidentiality. There’d been language in it that allowed me to do the same. I hadn’t thought I’d need to exercise the option so soon.

  “I read up on his medical condition a little, and I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you want to pass this case along to me. He seems like exactly the kind of client you’re willing to defend. If he turns out to be guilty, he’ll want to plead out.”

  Maybe the cases I worked could be more varied than I thought. While it wasn’t common, sometimes people who’d committed a crime did want to confess. I could help those people as well because they weren’t trying to hide their crime. Like Bonnie, Toby’s original owner. I’d negotiated a fair plea deal for her, and I visited her every month. I even brought her pictures of Toby.

  If Clement was willing to make a deal if it turned out he was guilty, then there wasn’t an ethical or moral reason I couldn’t represent him.

  “And,” Anderson said, “my case load is packed. I can’t take on another client right now. I’m already working evenings and weekends. I don’t even have time to interview candidates for adding another lawyer to the firm.”

  I didn’t want to hand Clement over to a stranger. Most lawyers would think he was lying. Anderson probably only believed his story because I said I did. “If this goes to trial, with all the evidence against him, he’ll need a lawyer who’s great in courtroom. That’s not me.”

  “Since we were both students of your dad, I’m going to consider myself your professional brother and give you some tough love. If you want to be in this career, you have to overcome your problems in the courtroom.”

  This felt eerily familiar to the discussion I’d had with Elise when she wanted me to represent her ex-husband. I’d managed to figure out what happened in that case before I had to go into a courtroom. That wouldn’t always be possible.

  By the wood pile, Russ was sitting on a log, directing the workers. I’d never seen him sit like a foreman rather than working alongside everyone else before. Maybe I should give up the whole lawyer thing and simply take over from Russ. Stacey still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to take the position as assistant manager or not. In fact, she seemed to be actively avoiding the conversation, which made me nervous.

  Saul’s words came back to me. If you can do the career you love, you should. Too many people never get that chance.

  Taking back the duties that Stacey had been handling had shown me how much I didn’t enjoy processing orders and doing payroll. I loved being a lawyer. I didn’t want to reach the end of my life and look back and wonder if I could have done it if I’d tried harder or hadn’t given up so soon.

  Anderson and I had also talked casually about me joining his firm as a partner rather than launching my own. He understood that I’d only be willing to work specific cases, but he’d felt that having the Fitzhenry-Dawes name would be a fair trade off.

  I’d been putting him off because it didn’t seem right to work a case and then hand it off to him for the trial. He’
d end up doing a large portion of the work on my cases if I couldn’t see them through.

  But it also didn’t seem fair to Clement to use him as a test case. It was a bit like learning to walk a tightrope without a net or safety harness. “I’m scared I’ll screw up and he’ll end up in prison because of me.”

  The silence on Anderson’s end stretched.

  My heart rate picked up to the same rate it would if I pulled out to pass a car and only then noticed another vehicle bearing down on me in the other lane. Never show weakness, my dad always said. People respect strength.

  Anderson was such a devotee of my dad’s that I half expected him to quote it to me.

  “That’s the risk we take,” he said softly. “It’s easy when they’re guilty. It’s not so easy with the ones we think are innocent.”

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I had to remember that Anderson admired my dad, but he wasn’t my dad. I’d had to fight to get my dad to view me as a competent equal. Anderson gave me that respect from the start. Granted, a lot of it had been due to my name rather than my abilities, but he’d also seen my investigative and problem-solving skills now as well.

  “Listen,” he continued, “how about this? I’ll be co-counsel with you on this case if you’d like. You take point, but if it looks like you can’t handle it, I’ll be there to step in. Consider me your training wheels.”

  6

  The call I’d been expecting from Chief McTavish finally came in as I was putting together a salad to go with the chicken penne I’d cooked for dinner with Mark. It wasn’t going to be a fancy meal, but I was determined to be able to put together a few simple meals before we got married. When children came along, I didn’t want to raise them entirely on fish and chips dinners from A Salt & Battery.

  “The blood spatter on Dodd’s clothes, skin, and hair was a match for Gordon Albright, and his wife confirmed Albright would have been there under a standing invitation,” McTavish said. “I’m waiting now on the arrest orders. It should be done tonight. I’m sorry this didn’t work out the way you were hoping, but I’m confident he’s our guy.”

  I understood. Clement looked guilty any way you turned it. This wasn’t the first time I’d worked a case that seemed like there was only one possible suspect, though.

  “I’ll be by to talk to him tomorrow.”

  “I was sure you would be.”

  I disconnected with McTavish at the same time as Mark came through the door. The dogs rushed him with their happy wiggles, but I could have sworn Velma looked confused by his lack of take-out bags for her to try to sniff—and steal. Apparently, pasta was much less enticing than French fries because when I’d dropped a piece on the floor earlier, Velma snarfed it up and then spit it back out.

  He did have a sheaf of papers with him.

  I glanced at them sidelong. “What are those?”

  “Pictures of flower options. My mom says you can’t put it off any longer. The florist needs to know.”

  An unpleasant tingle ran from my shoulders to my hands. I knew I eventually had to deal with the flowers, but every time I tried, it brought back memories of my previous case. Even though it hadn’t been intentional, I’d gotten a person killed because of flowers. Elise had forgiven me, but forgiving myself was turning out to be harder than I’d expected.

  “We’ll save the plants until after we eat at least.” Mark shrugged off his coat. “You look frustrated. Is it from making dinner? Should I have brought take-out after all?”

  I swallowed down a snort. Sugarwood’s resident baker Nancy, my friend Mandy, and Mark’s mom had all been taking turns giving me cooking lessons. Mark and I had a for-fun wager going about which of them I’d drive to quitting first.

  “I almost wish that were the case. McTavish is arresting Clement Dodd.”

  Mark gathered up utensils and plates while I carried the salad to the table. “I’m not surprised. You’ll see it when you get the report, but it was a straightforward autopsy. Cause of death was blunt force trauma. He had defensive wounds on his hands and arms, and nothing out of the ordinary in his stomach or on the toxicology screening. You might want to consider handing the case off to someone else. Based on what I saw, Dodd is guilty.”

  I went back for the bowl of chicken penne and plunked it down on the table. Mark rarely drew conclusions from his autopsies. He felt his role was to present the evidence, explain his results in court, and allow the lawyers to draw arguments and conclusions from it all. For him to make a statement like that, it must really look like there wasn’t another solution. And he’d seen the crime scene. I still hadn’t. I wouldn’t receive pictures until I got the discovery package from the prosecution.

  I dropped into my chair. “I tried to pass the case off to Anderson already. He wouldn’t take it.”

  I recounted our conversation to Mark, and then he said grace over the food before we dug in. My pasta came out a little soggy, but otherwise, it wasn’t half bad.

  “I think Anderson’s right that you should try going to court,” Mark said once he’d polished off half his plate. “This is a good case to do it on because…” He gave me a don’t-get-mad look. “Even your parents couldn’t win this one.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but unless my parents found a procedural technicality that would call for a mis-trial—and with Chief McTavish in charge I doubted there’d been one—the case did look impossible. Clement’s insomnia made it unbelievable that someone else could have sneaked into the house with an already-dead Gordon Albright. And not only sneaked in. They would have had to splatter Gordon’s blood all over Clement without him noticing.

  “The only other person in the house was his wife. Do you think a woman would have been capable of inflicting the wounds on Gordon?”

  Mark shook his head. “Not a woman of Darlene Dodd’s size. She wouldn’t be able to create the force needed. Albright had wood fragments from the bucket in his wounds. It was swung so hard the bucket’s basically held together by the metal bands at this point.”

  It was stupid to mourn for my bucket when a man had lost his life, but I couldn’t help it. I also couldn’t help wishing for the impossible. “I don’t want Clement to be guilty. He’s a nice man.”

  “I remember you telling me how much you enjoyed meeting him the first time.”

  No he might not be guilty. No there’s always a chance. Mark wasn’t a pessimist, but he was realistic. He wouldn’t want to build up false hopes in me.

  Clement’s apparent guilt did seem to make this the perfect test case for me. A hopeless case meant I couldn’t screw it up. A client who was likely guilty but didn’t want to hide his guilt and hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone meant I could defend him in good conscience.

  Based on what Clement told me about his medical condition and hallucinating a bear, I’d probably suggest he be evaluated by a forensic mental health professional. That evaluation should open up some possibilities for what we could argue in court even if he had done it.

  I slowly chewed my last bite of chicken. “I have time to decide. The first thing we need to do is get through the bail hearing so Clement can go home.”

  7

  The next morning, when I showed up at the police station to talk to Clement about his bail hearing, Quincey led me down the hallway that went to the cells.

  I’d personally spent some time in the cells last winter, and they weren’t built for hosting guests. I wouldn’t have anywhere to sit. “Why isn’t he being brought up to an interview room to meet with me?”

  “His request. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it happen.” Quincey put an arm in front of my path before we went through the final set of doors. “There’s no one else in the cells right now, so I’ll wait out here to give you privacy. All you need to do is knock.”

  Quincey wasn’t even going to unlock his cell door? That was odd to say the least. It must have been Clement’s request as well. There wasn’t any point in asking Quincey about it. If he hadn’t known why
Clement refused to meet with me in the traditional setting, he wouldn’t know the reasoning behind this choice either.

  I made my way down the walkway between the cells and stopped at the first occupied one. Clement perched on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, and his hands dangling loose. He looked up when I stopped, but he didn’t immediately say anything.

  I hadn’t thought it was possible for Clement to look worse. I’d been wrong. He looked faded, like a black and white picture of himself.

  I wrapped a hand around one of the bars. “How have you been?”

  His shoulders hunched forward. “There’s too much time to think here. At least at home, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d read or Darlene would stay up with me and we’d play a game of chess.”

  “The bail review hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. You should be able to go home then. You’re a well-known and respected member of the community, and you’re not a flight risk. It’s more a formality than anything.”

  The look he gave me was so empty it made me feel as if I was going to be sucked in and forget how to smile, like a black hole of unhappiness. Not that I expected Clement to be happy at all about what had happened—I’d be concerned if he was—but this was a new level of despair from when I’d seen him last time.

  “I can’t go home. Darlene came and saw me last night and we talked. She’s right. If I did this to Gordon, I’m a danger to others.”

  I’d been so focused on Clement’s disease and pitying him that I hadn’t thought about the wider implications of this. If Clement killed Gordon because he’d been hallucinating and thought he was a bear, his wife would be in danger. He could also be a danger to others.