Burden of Proof

by Tina Glasneck

  Also by Tina Glasneck

  Dragons Series

  A Dragon's Desire

  A Dragon's Heart

  A Dragon's Destiny

  The Dragons Series: Origins

  A Dragon's Awakening

  The Spark Before Dying

  Angels Cry: A Det. Peter Lazarus Case

  Deadly Sins: A Xandy Caras Mystery

  Burden of Proof: An Emili Jones Paralegal Mystery

  Sticks & Stones: A Det. Damien Scott Mystery

  Foul Play: A Det. Damien Scott Mystery

  Standalone

  7 Twisted Fairy Tales

  Watch for more at Tina Glasneck’s site.

  Burden of Proof

  An Emili Jones Paralegal Mystery

  Tina Glasneck

  Burden of Proof ©2017. All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction and produced from the dark imagination of its author. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Thank you for valuing the copyright of this work. No part of this story may be reproduced without expressed permission by its author. Your support helps to keep these stories coming. Rocket and Spot thank you, as do I.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  How had I been so naive and not seen it coming?

  The still, humid air hung while sweat rolled down my brow. I stared straight ahead at the oblong grave.

  Covered in blood, as if I’d dived into a swine’s carcass headfirst, the red mess seeped through my clothes, saturating my exposed and unexposed brown skin. My breath ragged, shivers coursed through me, rippling like waves in a shallow lake.

  Crazy as a chameleon, hidden under layers of cordialness, under terse smiles, and haunted eyes. Never circumspect, never caring, never second-guessing. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. I never understood which monster I was chasing--or was I really just trying to understand the colorful kaleidoscope of justice.

  The sour bitterness of panic covered my tongue. My heart hammered against my ribs as if a snare drum beat within.

  With my keys gripped in my hand and the shotgun’s barrel at my back, the wrong move could mean either life or sure death.

  2

  I’m a mess.

  My crusted eyes cracked open at hearing my middle-aged mom’s footsteps outside my bedroom door. The wooden floor creaked with each shift of her weight, no matter how great or small.

  “Get up Emili,” she shouted on the other side of my closed bedroom door, “or you’re going to be late.”

  I still had cotton mouth from last night’s pity party, attended by my newest of best friends, Jack Daniels and Jim Bean. We’d had a swell ole’ time in my tiny and untidy childhood room, which resembled more of a college student’s than a well-adjusted woman. Posters from then-popular bands hung on the walls, stuffed animals sat on shelves and my wedding picture, in a broken crystal frame, rested near my bed.

  Like every morning, I picked up and gazed at the image. He’d been dashing, dressed in his Army Dress Greens, alongside of me in my off-the-rack white knit summer dress. And at that moment, we’d been happy. I slammed the picture down. Today, I didn’t need to think about relationship mistakes. Instead, I needed to figure out a way to prepare for the only call I’d gotten since posting my resume and applying for jobs.

  I didn’t want to think about it, and I surely didn’t want to blabber during my interview that I was out of touch, had no up-to-date work experience, was separated, living with my mom, and unemployed. Yep, that's me.

  And I’m still trying to figure it all out.

  Maybe that’s my problem, at least one of several.

  Yanking the thrift store tag off of the ill-fitting black slacks and blouse, I eased into them. They were to be my costume, as if playing a game of dress up or preparing for a role in the theater, like I’d often done over the years. I stuffed my wide size 10s into black pumps, fluffed my hair, pulled my silver chain free from my locks, and took a deep breath. I couldn’t be late for my one chance.

  A blue sky accompanied me on my drive to the law office not far from my mother’s one story ranch home. Set in the more historical part of the city, not far from the Jefferson Hotel, on Franklin Street, I reveled in the budding tall trees that seemed to tower over even the tallest of renovated buildings. High skyscrapers hosted college student dorms in the distance, and while traffic moved eastward up and down the sometime hilly road, I pulled to the curb and parked.

  Checking the time, I’d arrived too early. Twenty-five minutes too early to be precise. Army habits die hard when it comes to punctuality. Seated behind the wheel of my mother’s older model station wagon, I took in my surroundings. I spied college students and professionals intermingling while mail carriers on bikes zoomed past pedestrians waiting for the city bus’s arrival.

  The beautiful stone-faced buildings were an array of architecture. They each screamed their history, and a part of me wished only to explore all the nooks and crannies with my camera; to take sepia pictures and maybe one day have them in a gallery. Transforming each of them into a story-everything could tell a story, I knew. Often it just took the effort and time to find the thread, the narrative that would pull it all together.

  My daydream shifted to where I stood allowing patrons to admire my work, photographs that I’d taken all over the world, showing the stories of the people and places.

  I couldn’t help the smile forming on my lips. It felt genuine, like the tickling sea breeze on the Japanese shore. I could almost smell the salty ocean. Those were better days and there was nothing like being behind a camera, capturing it all.

  The sound of a nearby horn cut through my daydream, slamming me back into the reality I longed to keep at bay for a few seconds more.

  But I needed to stay focused. I needed to concentrate on the task at hand; getting a job that could afford me with a life. Let's be honest: How long could I stay like this and not live, let life pass me over, opportunities continue to float by, as I waffled in the sunshine of love long gone? How long could I afford to wallow in self-pity?

  With one last glance into the rear-view mirror, I tried not to rub my eyes and smear the m
ascara I hated to wear. Then I'd look more like a raccoon than a woman desperate for a job.

  "You can do this, Em," I said to my reflection and pasted on a disingenuous smile.

  A receptionist position could open up doors for me in the corporate 500. I’d then be able to find a job anywhere, and I wouldn’t have to smell like alcohol and cigarettes afterwards.

  Grabbing my prepared paperwork, with references, proof of degrees, and limited past work experience, I marched with my shoulders rigid and my back board straight, towards the Queen Anne-styled building, with its brownstone siding.

  Pushing the large and heavy oak door, I gripped my folder tighter, ignoring the rising stickiness on my palms.

  Inside, mahogany wood paneling greeted me, with a large array of colorful and fresh flowers, potpourri scented the air, and the magnificent staircase reminded me of something I'd only seen while watching Titanic.

  "Welcome to Carroll, Carroll, and Hunt," beamed a receptionist, whose desk was situated to the side of the elaborate staircase.

  I bit the inside of my cheeks and proceeded forward, stretching out my over-moist hand. "Yes, um, I'm Emili Jones. I have an appointment with the hiring Manager, Mr. Wills."

  "Please have a seat," she gestured to a waiting room, "and I will let him know that you're here, and early may I add."

  I glanced down at my watch. Fifteen minutes early was considered punctual by my standards. My mother's words seemed to come from nowhere: "You can never miss an opportunity if you're already there," I said, and felt my face turn red. It wasn't my place to chastise the receptionist, but it also wasn't my place to understand why they were hiring a receptionist, when they already had one.

  Seated on a cushioned wood-backed chair, I listened to the water cooler blubbering, and the occasional ringing of the office phone, followed by the receptionist's greeting. I tried not to look at my watch, and instead sought to quash the feeling of buzzards circling — surely this was going to be another interview that I'd die on.

  "Ms. Jones?" An athletic older man, wearing a golf shirt, and who smelled like fresh cigarettes called my name. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Murray, the office manager. We're going to head back to the conference room, and then get started. Mr. Carroll likes to have a say in who all gets hired, so he’ll join us soon."

  "And the other Carroll," I asked, following him up the flight of stairs.

  "That is one question I wouldn't ask."

  His answer piqued my curiosity.

  He motioned for me to enter and then closed the door behind us. I took a seat in another chair, this one fully cushioned.

  "So, tell me about yourself," he began.

  "Murray!" The door swung open and in walked Harry Carroll, at least I assumed so from the image I recalled from my internet search. He stood 6'4", and with a pompadour like hairstyle, his curled hair touching the collar of his shirt, and his angular face clean-shaven. His gaze darted my way, and too quickly landed back on Mr. Will.

  "Sorry to interrupt you two."

  "Harry, this is Emili Jones, who I was telling you about. You asked me to call her in."

  "Yes, yes, I remember. Glad you could come in, late may I add."

  My mouth formed an "o" and I could feel my brow began to crinkle.

  "No Harry, she was downstairs waiting, but I had the legal call with Indara's people."

  "My mistake then," Harry said and smiled. "I hate to cut this interview short Ms. Jones, but we will not be needing you as a receptionist after all."

  With the smile I'd forgotten to wear removed from my face, I simpered, and rose. "Well, thank you for your time."

  "Where are you going?" Harry asked.

  "You said the position is taken."

  "Yes," he paused. And maybe if I knew him better I could have guessed what was going on, but I felt like a minnow out of water.

  "We don't need a receptionist, but a new paralegal."

  "Paralegal?" I asked and cocked my head. Like every professional career, I knew they were the assistants to attorneys or what not, but the ins and outs, well, I didn't have a cold clue.

  "Yes, and your training will begin now, if you want the job." He hadn't let go of the gold knob on the conference room door, I noticed, still leaning in the room, in hopes of getting back to something or maybe to get somewhere.

  "Sure!" I exclaimed. I'd do some digging tonight and start cramming like for a test. I'd be able to rock this come tomorrow.

  " You do drive, correct?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good, we have to be in court in fifteen --- no make that now nine minutes, and you'll be driving me there."

  He turned to leave, "And Ms. Jones, we shouldn't be late."

  3

  A number.

  Just a number. The one thing worse than being ignored after death is being reduced to a number — no name, history, characteristics, just a number in a system.

  As I typed the cover letter for correspondence to go to another inmate, I almost couldn’t fathom what it meant to just be a number. The underlying tone of degradation, based on politicized socio-economic problems under the guise of being a suitable solution or option of redemption. Like prior slave schedules of old, the numbers of men and women were marked down; their value and input into a capitalistic system left to empower those that beat the system, and annihilate the strength of those that sought only to live within its confines. Lives were reduced to numerals.

  I tried not to think about the numbers on my grandmother’s wrists. She’d always hidden them under large bracelets, not the etchings of a worldwide atrocity, but the inmate numbers she’d never remembered, as she fluttered from one prison to the next; numbers she etched into her skin over and over until they stayed.

  Mental illness can do that though, strum an imaginary guitar, causing a surge of a beat to illuminate paths unseen by those not insane.

  Murray took a seat on the edge of my desk, breaking my internal struggle.

  “You know, I think you’re going to fit in well here. The only thing you have to do is make sure to know how to parallel park and not get a ticket and you’ll get far.”

  I tried to chuckle. So far, I hadn’t had the chance to do much more. “I think I’m supposed to start shadowing Javier,” I quipped. He was the other paralegal in the office that seemed to flutter around putting out one fire, to then douse out another.

  “Your job is simple, Javier! Make sure I have no surprises.” I could hear Harry’s voice bellow and balloon from his office in the back to my office located at the beginning of the corridor.

  Murray quipped, “I’m not sure that is something that is going to happen, if you listen to their conversation right now.” I looked at Murray, and his salt and pepper mustache quirked upwards, in his gap-toothed grinned.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to be listening to any of that,” I whispered, almost afraid for my words to acknowledge what I was hearing. I felt as if I were intruding, sincere in a world of disingenuousness. Behind my shallow swallow, they’d see that this was too much over my head, but for that, someone would have to truly look.

  This was law, and the lady was often blind, even for those working on her behalf. I swallowed again, trying to clear the lump from my throat.

  “You should have known that the neighbor and his wife were having an affair,” Harry continued. “When I tell you to dig, and investigate, that is what you do. Your job is not to tap dance on a computer, but to get information at the ground level, asking those questions, and ascertaining the truth.”

  “Sir, there was no evidence that pointed to infidelity,” Javier said.

  “Sure there was. You and I both know the prosecution will take a pinhole of space to attack Robert’s credibility.”

  “The email between them seems to imply that he may not have been guilty of the murder, but he was guilty of the--”

  “That is beside the point. I think for you to figure out what I need you to do, you are going to have to experience it from the gr
ound up again. You’re going to be training Emili to bring her up to speed. I need her ready to go within the next six weeks.”

  The implication. College had taught me how to type, but the skill set I needed for this job, I wasn’t too sure. I felt a faint flutter of fear.

  “Don’t worry, Emili,” Murray said. “Javier is good at what he does, and he will make sure you can do this job.”

  “Sure he’s not going to sabotage me, instead? That conversation is not going well.”

  “Javier is a titan when it comes to criminal justice. He’s been reading for the law for the last five years, has prior police experience, and with him the only thing you have to worry about is working too many hours.”

  “So, I can trust him.”

  “Don’t give your trust away so easily. There is still so much more you need to know, but trust him to tell you what you need to do to make this not just a job, but a career. You can do this. You just need to find out why you really want to be here, and it has to be more than just that measly paycheck. If you don’t know that, you’ll burn out.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I hadn’t found it yet, what it meant to be a part of the team. All I knew was that on most days I left feeling drained, and when I came back in and sat at my desk, I wondered where all of my rest had dissipated.

  “Remember, to survive this life, you need to dig deep.”

  After a good ten minutes, and after the office phone started to ring off of the hook, Javier stalked into my office. “Emili, do you have a minute?” His darkened gaze peered at me. I couldn’t tell if there was an ounce of friendliness behind it, but I’m sure I was starting to look like a deer in headlights.