One Little Secret

by Eliza Lentzski

  It was quite possible that the land had been used for target practice in the years between the graduation party and when we’d inspected the land, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence to have found the can.

  “Landon could have been the one who shot Bloom, not Kennedy,” Ryan pointed out. “He could have pulled the trigger both times, Miller. He’s a smart kid; getting Kennedy to call from a landline,” he cited as example.

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “We need Kennedy’s journals. I know her mom doesn’t want us reading them, but we’ve waited as long as we can. We need to get a search warrant for the Petersiks’ house so we can confiscate those diaries.”

  “Let me worry about that; it’s supposed to be your day off,” Ryan said. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Try to enjoy the rest of your day off.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I returned sourly. I stabbed my finger against the phone screen to end the call.

  “When you didn’t come back,” I heard Julia’s carefully clipped tone, “I got worried.”

  I whipped my head in the direction of her voice. She’d noiselessly approached me. Her purse hung over her shoulder. I wondered if she’d already paid our bill or if she just hadn’t wanted to leave her bag unattended at the table.

  “I’m sorry,” I exhaled.

  “Stop with the apologies already, Cassidy,” she frowned. Her tone curled with annoyance. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “This is totally selfish of me to ask. I need you to defend Landon Tauer.”

  She looked at me quizzically. “The suspect in your double murder case?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “He didn’t do it. And the public defender assigned to him is probably going to be some snot-nosed kid straight out of law school.”

  “Why are you so convinced he didn’t kill that girl?”

  “Don’t you ever get a gut feeling with a client?” I asked. “Like, you can just tell that they’re innocent?”

  “Sometimes, sure. But I put in the same amount of effort, regardless of if I think the person committed the crime or not.”

  “He didn’t do it,” I said with conviction. “There’s absolutely no motive.”

  “What about love?” Julia posed.

  “Love?” I echoed.

  “Women fear being murdered by their dates; men fear ridicule. What if this boy professed his love to Kennedy? What if he killed her after she rejected him?” she proposed. “The headlines are filled with young men doing far worse after being slighted by a girl.”

  “I don’t have any proof,” I admitted. “Nothing to convince a court of law, at least. But I don’t have any proof that he did it, either. All we have is a gun that’s registered to his dad. There’s no prints, no blood, no DNA, no clothing fragments. Nothing puts him in that car with her.”

  Julia looked thoughtful. “I’m surprised the D.A. is pushing the case forward. They typically like slam dunk cases.”

  “It’s definitely not one of those. Kennedy’s parents have been riding the D.A.’s office pretty hard. And if they can connect Landon to my cold case, that’s two crimes for the price of one.”

  I also suspected that Chase Trask’s parents had been pushing the District Attorney for a swift conviction to clear up any suspicion that their son had somehow been involved.

  I could see her hesitate. “Is this retribution for Halloween?” she asked.

  “Please, Julia,” I implored. “This is what you do. Landon is the exact reason why you became a public defender. Just a working-class kid who has had a string of bad luck. The system is going to chew him up if we don’t do something to stop it.”

  She sighed. I almost had her convinced.

  “He’s only being charged with Kennedy’s death right now,” I noted. “But if he’s found guilty, you can bet they’ll find a way to pin the other death on him as well.”

  Julia’s shoulders dropped. “Fine. Yes. I’ll defend this boy.”

  I grabbed her by the hips and pressed an overly aggressive kiss to her painted mouth. She initially stiffened, but eventually melted into the embrace. When our mouths parted, she remained close. Her fingers gripped the front of my flannel shirt.

  She pressed a gentle kiss to my mouth. “Landon Tauer is extremely lucky to have you in his corner.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Boxes filled with spiral-bound notebooks were waiting for me on my desk when I returned to work the next day. I found a yellow sticky note from Detective Ryan at the top of the stack: Don’t say I never got you anything.

  Sarah, Stanley, and I worked around the clock to decipher Kennedy Petersik’s looping handwriting. We scanned through junior high anxieties about acne and body image, first crushes and first dates, the excitement of getting a scholarship to Pius, the nervousness about fitting in. Stanley even had a few guest appearances in the journal as her mentor to help her through that first uncomfortable year of high school.

  Collectively, they provided a window into a young woman’s life and her desire to belong, but the entries ended months before her high school graduation. After her excitement about being accepted into college at St. Olaf, the writing had abruptly stopped. I’d been so hopeful that the journals would open up the case for us, but instead they were yet another dead end.

  More troubling, the trial against Landon Tauer seemed to be moving in hyper-drive. He’d remained in police custody until his court hearing, and once he’d entered a plea of Not Guilty, jury selection had almost immediately taken place. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, but this seemed without precedent. The timing of the trial could work in Landon’s favor, however. With a quick start, it gave the State less time to put together its case.

  Because Landon’s bail had been set so high—the D.A.’s office had convinced the judge during the bail hearing that Landon was a flight risk—Julia had to convene with her client in his holding cell at the county jail across the street from the district court house.

  I wasn’t able to accompany her during these meetings. It wouldn’t have been professional or ethical for one of the detectives assigned to the Petersik case to be present in those preparatory meetings. Instead, I waited across the street in front of the twenty-four story Hennepin County Government Center with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  I jumped up from my concrete bench when I spotted Julia exiting the county jail. The weather had started to take a turn toward winter temperatures, so a dark blue trench coat covered her pencil skirt and blouse. Her long, lean legs stuck out from the bottom of the jacket to fill respectably high heels that clicked against the pavement as she crossed the busy intersection to meet me.

  Julia welcomed my presence with a kiss to my cheek before accepting one of the proffered coffee cups.

  “How’s Landon doing?” I asked.

  “Nervous, but that’s to be expected.”

  I waited patiently while Julia rubbed away the lipsticked evidence of her kiss from my cheek.

  Her painted mouth somehow always matched her outfit, yet I was certain she only owned one shade of lipstick. I couldn’t pull off wearing more makeup beyond a layer of mascara on my upper lids. Any time I tried, I only ended up looking like a clown.

  “Are you still considering not letting him take the witness stand?” I asked.

  She’d filled me in on few details and strategies she intended to follow over shared takeout in her office. I occupied a precarious position; by day I was gathering evidence for the State. At night, I was a sounding board for Julia as she prepared to go to trial.

  “It’s very unusual these days to allow your client to be grilled in such a high-profile case,” she told me. “Landon is emotional. I’m sure you’ve seen it. And that can only hurt him in the eyes of a jury.”

  “You don’t think a jury would sympathize with him?” I questioned.

  “Just the opposite,” she opined. “If he’s too emotional, too lovesick over Kennedy’s death, the prosecution could twist that as evide
nce that he was prone to fits of passion that might have resulted in him killing Kennedy if she rejected him. And if he’s too stoical about her death, then he’s a sociopath.”

  I cringed at the final words. “Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.”

  Julia nodded. “Precisely.” She took a few more sips of her coffee before discarding the cardboard cup into a nearby garbage can.

  Julia stood beside me and stared up at the skyscraper that housed the county courthouse. “It’s almost show time,” she announced.

  “Are you sure having me in there isn’t going to be a distraction?” I momentarily worried.

  Julia arched an eyebrow. “You’re not planning on theatrics, are you?”

  “No, of course not,” I readily dismissed. “But I’m, like, on the opposing team.”

  “I see it much differently than you do, dear. I see you as neutral. You do the leg work, you find the clues, you gather the facts. It’s up to the prosecution and the defense to prove that the evidence you’ve assembled proves what our respective side is arguing.”

  She grabbed my arm and we started up the steps to the twin government towers. “You’re like … a prep cook,” she continued with her analogy. “You set everything out, get all of the ingredients ready. And it’s my job as the chef de cuisine to do something with those ingredients.”

  It was in my nature to argue differently or at least show a heavy dose of skepticism, but Julia’s confidence in her statement had me saving my reservations to myself.

  “Trust me, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “I’m very good at what I do.”

  Julia breezed into the front lobby of the district court building like she’d done it a thousand times before. I stood a few feet behind to admire the vastness of the glass atrium and the large center fountain that could have doubled as an Olympic-sized pool. In the background, a metal detector periodically beeped with the entrance of each new visitor.

  “Good morning, Rodrigo,” Julia greeted the police officer in charge of the metal detector and bag check. She removed her jacket and tossed her leather satchel onto the conveyor belt.

  I didn’t know the cop, but he could have been about my age. His face broke into a broad, boyish smile when he saw my girlfriend.

  “Julia! It’s been a minute.” He leaned against the side of the free-standing metal detector.

  “I know,” she returned his smile. “I keep settling out of court lately. It’s terrible.”

  “It’s only terrible because your smile hasn’t been around,” he returned.

  I watched Julia’s bag go through the x-ray machine without his notice. She could have been smuggling drugs and explosives into the building and no one would have stopped her.

  Julia laughed affably at his compliment and retrieved her unexamined bag from the end of the conveyor belt.

  Rodrigo’s smile vanished when he looked at me, next in line. His features returned to the flat boredom of doing and saying the same things over and over again.

  “Personal belongings on the conveyor belt. Make sure there’s nothing in your pockets. No cell phones, food, or drink admitted.”

  I tossed my bag that contained my wallet and badge onto the conveyer belt. My pockets were empty as I walked through the metal detector, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. I still beeped.

  “Anything in your pockets, ma’am? Any large jewelry or belt buckles?” Rodrigo asked in an emotionless drone.

  “Schrapnel.”

  “Say that again?” he asked.

  “There’s metal fragments from a dirty bomb lodged in my back,” I explained. “Better get your magic wand.”

  The bored look on Rodrigo’s face was replaced with interest as he grabbed the black and yellow handheld metal detector and rounded the conveyor belt to meet me on the other side.

  I raised my arms above my head without having to be asked.

  Rodrigo waved the wand in front of my torso and down the front of my legs. It remained silent until he reached my back. He pulled the wand back and forth; it clicked and beeped like I was radioactive each time it passed my back.

  “Are you gonna have to strip search me?” I meant the question as a joke, but I couldn’t deny the acrid notes that crept into my tone.

  “Rodrigo, Detective Miller is with me,” Julia chimed in. “I can vouch for her.”

  “Detective?” Between Julia’s approval, my job title, and the metal in my back, Rodrigo’s head looked ready to spin off into space. Plus, a line had begun to form behind me of others waiting to gain entrance to the government building. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  I grabbed my bag from the end of the conveyor belt and took Julia’s hand in mine. I gave her arm a slight tug until her hip collided with mine. Her face drew just close enough with the movement for me to kiss her soundly in the lips.

  I heard Julia’s intake of air. “Detective,” she murmured against my mouth.

  I knew I’d hear complaints about PDAs in her place of work or how I’d smudged her perfectly applied lipstick.

  “Come on, Hero,” she sighed instead. When she didn’t drop my hand, but instead only held it tighter, my insides crowed in victory.

  + + +

  I had had the opportunity to observe Julia in a courtroom on three previous occasions. The first as City Attorney when a bar owner in Embarrass had alleged that David Addams had unfairly targeted his bar. The second as a defense lawyer on her father’s behalf, and the third when she and her father had fought over custody of her mother. I’d been in awe—hypnotized each time—regardless of my skin in the game or the trials’ outcomes.

  Just as I couldn’t conceive of being anything other than a police officer, I similarly couldn’t imagine Julia without a courtroom. The environment suited her nearly as well as her grey pencil skirt and buttoned-up blouse. She stalked purposefully and in control at the front of the courtroom. Thin carpeting silenced her high heels, but my brain supplied its own soundtrack. Her voice, cool and confident, curled around the space. Her carriage, erect and defiant, captured the undivided attention of everyone in the room—judge and jury included.

  The curve of her backside beneath the grey pencil skirt was nearly enough to distract my attention from Julia’s opening statement.

  “Your Honor. Members of the jury,” she began. “Over the next few days, the State is going to tell you all about a young woman named Kennedy Petersik. Devoted daughter. Loving big sister. Top of her class at a prestigious private high school. Academic scholarship at St. Olaf College. Popular. Pretty. Kind.”

  Julia paused to wet her painted lips. “But this trial isn’t about Kennedy Petersik. This trial is about my client, Landon Tauer. So you may be asking yourself, ‘Why would the State spend so much time and energy building up the character and likeability of Miss Petersik?’ And the answer is terribly simple. The State doesn’t have a case. They have what amounts to flimsy and circumstantial evidence which they’ll try to manipulate to accuse my client of an unthinkable act—the murder of an innocent woman.”

  Julia rounded the podium and approached the jurors’ box. “The State is going to make you feel sorry for Kennedy. They’re going to play on your human decency. They’re going to convince you what a tragedy it is that a young, promising life was lost. And they’re not wrong.” Julia’s tone softened in sincerity. “It is a tragedy that Kennedy is no longer with us.”

  After a pregnant pause, Julia continued. “Over the next few days, it’s okay to feel sad about Kennedy Petersik’s death. It’s natural. It’s decent. But what I ask you to do is separate those emotions from the facts. The State has very few, which is why they’ll want you only thinking about Kennedy. We have a gun registered to my client’s father—a gun that he gave to Kennedy at her bequest. Landon’s DNA was not in Kennedy’s car. No blood. No clothing fragments. And no signs of struggle. Nothing suggests that Landon is responsible for Kennedy’s death. But that’s not my job. The State has to convince you—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Lan
don Tauer killed his childhood friend. The motive? Who knows,” she shrugged with a dramatic flair. “I guess we’ll discover together whatever flimsy excuse the State has fabricated for you.”

  I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I should have felt uncomfortable that Julia was essentially bad mouthing my bosses, but I only felt entranced.

  Celeste Rivers was the first expert witness to be called to the stand. Typically she would have been called as a witness for the State to explain some esoteric data or crime lab discoveries, but this case was different. There was no physical evidence to consider. This absence made her the perfect witness for the Defense.

  The pretty crime lab tech wore a light grey pantsuit to court that day. Her hair was pulled back in her usual bun. She looked at ease in the witness box; it made me wonder how often she found herself in that position.

  “Ms. Rivers,” Julia began her questioning, “do you recognize this laptop?”

  She set a slim, silver laptop on the elevated ledge of the witness stand.

  Celeste gave the computer a cursory glance before responding. “Yes. It was recovered from Kennedy Petersik’s dorm room at St. Olaf College.”

  “And can you tell us what you discovered on the laptop?” Julia asked.

  “No.”

  Julia feigned surprise. “No?”

  “I can’t tell you because there was nothing on the laptop—it had been wiped clean. Restored to the default factory settings. We tried to recover the data, but my best guess is it had been remotely wiped.”

  “What reasons would a young woman have to erase the contents of her computer?” Julia inquired. “Certainly a laptop is essential for academic success these days: essays, lecture notes, e-mail.”

  “Objection!” The Assistant D.A. assigned to the case stood up. I didn’t know the woman. Typically I dealt with Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Rudolph. Rudolph was a balding black man with a great barrel chest. He was in charge of the Special Prosecutions Unit under the District of Minnesota’s Criminal Division, which focused on long-term, time intensive investigations. He would have been the prosecutor standing behind the walnut table if Landon had been charged with Michael Bloom’s death. In his place, this Assistant D.A. was a small, mousey woman. She looked sloppy in comparison to Julia’s impeccable wardrobe. I was starting to appreciate why clothes were so important to the work she did.