Justice Denied - A Harper Ross Legal Thriller

by Rachel Sinclair

  She faced me and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. “I just do. He never looks at me and he never talks to me. He’s like dating this older girl who’s in the seventh grade, but I hear that they don’t like each other any more.” She shrugged. “So I guess that there’s hope.”

  “There’s no hope,” Rina said. “No hope at all.”

  “Rina,” I said in a stern voice. “That’s enough.”

  I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that Rina was sitting in the back, crossing her arms and looking out the window with a pissed-off look on her face.

  We arrived at our house and Rina ran out of the car, up the stairs to the front door, and went in the door and slammed it behind her. Abby and I walked into the house, Abby holding my hand and leaning her head on my shoulder. I let go of her hand and put my arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Abby, for not telling you earlier about John Robinson.”

  “That’s okay, Aunt Harper,” she said. “But tell me that’s not the only reason why we are with you. Tell me that’s not the only reason why you wanted us.” She hung her head and I saw tears were threatening to flow.

  “Of course not, Buttercup,” I said. “You girls are here because I love you both. Rina will realize that too, again.”

  “I know,” she said. “Rina will get over it.”

  I sighed.

  I certainly hoped that she did. I couldn’t take much more stress.

  Seventeen

  Christina Sanders was scheduled for a deposition this afternoon, and I had to prepare for it. There was something that I was going to have to uncover from her and I had to get her under oath. I knew that she didn’t want to come and answer questions from me, but there wasn’t a thing that she could do about it. She couldn’t quash the subpoena that I issued for her deposition, because she was going to be a witness.

  She arrived in my office right at 3. Her blonde hair was newly cut into a sharp bob, and she was wearing a fur-lined trench coat over a green dress with a pair of Gucci gold pumps on her feet. She looked effortlessly chic and incredibly thin. I couldn’t believe that Michael actually called her fat and “Miss Piggy,” and got away with it. It told me everything that I needed to know about her self-esteem that she would allow her husband to say such awful things to her, right in front of everyone.

  Not to mention the fact that she was as far from fat and being “Miss Piggy” as anybody could possibly be. The woman probably weighed 120 lbs, even though she was a good 5’7”.

  “Okay,” she said, coming in the door. “Let’s just get this over with.” She looked around. “Where is my husband? Isn’t he supposed to be here?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s only me and your attorney. Would you like a cup of coffee or a bottle of water?”

  “I’ll take a whiskey if you got it. Straight up.” She didn’t smile, so I didn’t know if she was serious or not.

  “I don’t have whiskey here,” I said.

  “Why? Don’t you drink? Michael said that you were quite the drinker in college. I figured you would have a fully-stocked bar around here somewhere.”

  I cleared my throat. “No,” I said. “I don’t drink. Not anymore.”

  She snorted and took off her coat. “Oh, God, how do you get through the day if you don’t drink?”

  I suddenly realized two things - that wailing she did for the judge when we went into court for the exhumation was all an act. I also had the feeling that Christina wasn’t the duped wife I thought that she was.

  I also suddenly felt compassion for Christina. She was talking just like I used to. Like her, I used to never be able to imagine a day when I didn’t take a drink. And, even now, I craved liquor like I craved sunlight. I could never touch it again for just that reason. “It’s difficult, believe me.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I do believe you.” She looked at her watch. “Where is that goddamn Ryan? He’s always late.” John Ryan was Christina Sanders’ attorney. “Yeah, go ahead and give me some boring water or iced tea or whatever you got.”

  I went to my mini-fridge and got her a water bottle and I handed it to her.

  She took it without a word of thanks and looked at her watch again. “How long is this going to take?”

  “About two hours.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ms. Ross, I have five kids. Five. Couldn’t you have scheduled this damned thing a bit earlier?” She got out her phone. “Yeah, Hayley. You’re going to have to pick up all the kids today. Sorry about that.” She nodded her head. “I’ll see you when I get home.” She looked at me. “My nanny. I’m sure you know about that. You have two of your own, don’t you?” She narrowed her eyes. “I hear you’re watching two girls who were orphaned by your scumbag client. That true?”

  “That’s really none of your business.”

  She snorted again. “Oh, but it is. It is. You see, I don’t want the same thing to happen here. I don’t want my husband to walk out of that courtroom a free man. I hope that I’ve made myself perfectly clear.”

  I sat down, wondering what her game was. “I don’t understand?”

  “Oh, I think you do. Perfectly.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you ever question why it was that Michael would come to you, of all people in the world? Out of all the attorneys in the world, he chooses you of all people?”

  Did she know my history with Michael? I just stared at her, wondering how much she knew. Suddenly, Christina Sanders was much more interesting to me then I ever thought she would be. “No, why? Why did he choose me?”

  She crossed her arms. “Take a wild guess. I’ll put it this way. My husband is broke. Broke. I’ve been very careful to keep our finances separate. I know the drill, unlike my mother, who was stupid enough to take her inheritance and put it into joint assets. I haven’t done that. I came into this marriage with a lot of money and I’m leaving it with just as much. So I hold the purse strings. I paid your fee, Ms. Ross. He doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. I told him that he had to hire you or go with a Public Defender.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why hire me? Why did you want me?”

  She smiled. “I know what happened with you and Michael and Jim in college. My husband has been very open about just what a scum he was. He told me all about it after my father was found dead. He was very concerned that this stuff was going to get out, anyhow, with the media, so he wanted me to know. The second he told me about what he did to you, I knew that you were the one I wanted to represent him.”

  My wheels were turning. I wasn’t quite sure how to take Christina. She obviously wasn’t the fool that I thought that she was. She wasn’t the wet blanket, the doormat, that Anita portrayed her as. She was a cunning woman. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It might be that she killed her father, framed Michael, and hired me, knowing that I was going to want to sink her husband.

  She wasn’t far wrong about that. But I had to get at the truth.

  “Why? You know about his raping me, and you wanted to hire me. Why?”

  “You know why.” She raised an eyebrow. “My husband is guilty. He’s guilty, and I wanted to give you the satisfaction of making sure he got his just desserts in this case.”

  My heart started to palpitate as I watched this woman. The inescapable conclusion was that she killed her father, framed her husband, and then enlisted me to make sure he went to prison and not her. Either that, or she was covering for her mother.

  “Ms. Sanders,” I said.

  “Please, call me Christina.”

  “Christina. I think that you know better than that. You know that I can’t just throw this case if he didn’t actually kill your father. I’m ethically bound to give him the best defense that I possibly can.”

  “Ethical shmethical,” she said. “I’m telling you that he did it. Now, you just have to figure out how to make sure he fries for it.”

  “Well, nevertheless, I need to go forward with this deposition.”

  “Go ahead, ask away. As soon as my attorney gets here, we can g
et the show on the road. Where is the court reporter, anyhow?”

  “She’s running late, too.”

  “How convenient.” She smiled. “May I smoke?”

  I didn’t want her to, but I nodded my head.

  She lit up, her fingers elegantly holding the end of the cigarette. She raised her face to the ceiling, smoke billowing out of her red lipsticked mouth.

  She watched me. “You know that I’m right,” she said. “You know that you smell blood in the water. What’s so hilarious is that my husband has no idea why I wanted you so much to be his attorney. He didn’t want to hire you. No way. I told him that it was you or nobody.”

  “How is he broke? I don’t quite understand?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Guess mistresses cost a lot of money to keep. Well, that and the fact that he likes the cards a bit too much. God knows he has no interest in our kids. Or me, for that matter.” She looked sad, just briefly, but only briefly, because she was soon back to smiling.

  Just then, her attorney came in the door. The court reporter was right behind him.

  “Party’s over,” Christina whispered to me. “Hello, John,” she said. “Let’s get the show on the road.”

  We went into our conference room and set up. The court reporter got out her machine and prepared to type. “I’m terribly sorry I was late,” she said. “I wanted to call, but I forgot my phone at home. You probably think that I’m so unprofessional.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  Christina raised her eyebrows. “You were late and so was my attorney, and you guys ended up walking in at the exact same time. Admit it, you’re sleeping together.”

  She smiled wickedly, and I suddenly knew that I was starting to really like this woman.

  John Ryan rolled his eyes. “That’s enough of that. Ms. Ross, are you ready?”

  “I am,” I said. I fidgeted in my seat, wondering if I really wanted to still drag Christina through the mud. I strongly suspected that she killed her father, but I really didn’t want to see her punished for it. I wanted to see Michael punished for it, whether he did it or not.

  “Please state your name for the record.”

  “Christina Sanders.”

  “Ms. Sanders, do you understand that you will be put under oath, and, just like in a courtroom, you must tell the truth under penalty of perjury?”

  “Yes, I’ve done these before.”

  “Then do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do.”

  We went through preliminary questions about her age, her relation to the victim, her relation to the defendant, and other such sundry items.

  I then decided to get into the meat of the matter.

  “Ms. Sanders, are you aware that your father, Robert Sanders, was being poisoned?”

  “I do now.”

  “What do you mean, you do now?”

  “I guess that you had his body exhumed and the medical examiner did his thing and he found poison in my dad’s system.” She looked down at her hands, and, again, I saw a look of sadness cross her face, then vanish. When she looked up again, she, once again, looked impassive.

  “Were you aware that your father was having health problems in the last month of his life?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course I was. I went to the doctor’s office with him every time. They could never find anything wrong with him, so they sent him home. He got weaker and weaker and sicker and sicker and, somehow, nobody even thought to look for poison in his system.” She looked annoyed. “That doctor is next on my list. I’ve already filed a lawsuit against him. A malpractice lawsuit.”

  “Who had access to your father’s food and drink?”

  “Me, Anita Gonzalez, my mother and Michael Reynolds. And my kids, I guess. We all went to visit there every Sunday.”

  “Who, in your view, would be the person who would be most likely to have poisoned your father?”

  “Michael Reynolds.”

  “And why is this?”

  “Because Michael was the one who administered dad’s pills.”

  My ears perked up. This was one thing that hadn’t yet come up. “Your dad’s pills? What pills were those?”

  “My dad was taking medication for his heart and his diabetes. That was also why he was always drinking health shakes and things like that. Why he only had fruits and vegetables in his fridge at his work. He was trying to get it under control without the pills. But my husband was the one who took care of all of that.”

  “Walk me through this. Your father was staying in the East Wing, correct?”

  “Yes. My mother banished him there after she found out about his other family.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Turns out my father couldn’t keep it in his pants, either. He had a lot in common with my husband in that way.”

  “So he’s staying in the East Wing. He has his own kitchen in the East Wing, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else had regular access to this kitchen?”

  “Nobody. He was the only person who regularly used that kitchen.”

  “Nobody. Nobody ever drank drinks out of his kitchen or ate food out of his kitchen. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Now, tell me about how Michael administered the pills to your father.”

  She shrugged. “My dad didn’t like to bother with such things. I put Michael in charge of making sure that his pills were in their little pill box things that you buy in drugstores. It has little compartments for each day. In my dad’s case, it had compartments for morning and evening for every day.”

  “And how did that give Michael access to your father’s food and drink?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s pretty simple. My mother never went to that other kitchen. Neither did I. Michael did, because that was where we kept the pill boxes that he filled up every week. He had a reason to be in that kitchen. Mom and I didn’t have a reason. So, Michael was the one who was in the best position to put poison in my dad’s food and drink.”

  That was making sense to me. But I wasn’t sold. I still thought that Christina was hiding something. It was all too perfect. If she killed her dad, she framed him perfectly, got the right attorney to represent him and had the right story as to why Michael was the only one who had decent access to Judge Sanders’ food and drink.

  “Do you have a prenuptial agreement with Mr. Reynolds?”

  “What do you think? I kept my maiden name, as you noticed. It’s pretty obvious that I want to really keep things separate from him. So, yes. We do have a prenuptial agreement. If Michael and I divorce, he’s going to get diddly squat. He won’t even get the house, because my father bought that for me before we were married and he made sure that only my name was on the title. All my inheritance money was put into a separate account before we were married, too. I’ve been careful to never put any money into a joint account of any kind.”

  I nodded, thinking that was significant, although I wasn’t quite sure why.

  I cleared my throat. “Ms. Sanders, I need to ask you some delicate questions.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, my father sexually abused me. That was going to be your question, wasn’t it?”

  “It was. When did this abuse occur?”

  She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “When I was 15 years old. It happened only once, though. My mother stopped it after that.”

  That story didn’t quite comport with the story that Anita told me. She indicated that this was an ongoing thing.

  “Only once.” I shook my head. “Would you be surprised if I told you that Anita Gonzalez told me that it happened much more often than one time?”

  “Well, she’s a liar,” Christina said. “She hates me and she obviously wants you to think that I had a reason to kill my father because he was abusing me. She obviously wants to take the attention off my husband. That won’t work, though.” She glared
at me and whispered to her attorney.

  “What about your mother? She found out that your father had an entire other family living in Parkville. Another woman and three kids with her. How did that make you feel?”

  “Like crap. How would you feel? My mother didn’t deserve that treatment. She didn’t deserve that at all. My mother is a good person, and I would really appreciate it if you don’t bring her into this mess. She’s gone through enough.” She raised her eyebrows at me and I got her drift. She wanted to limit the exposure to her mother, because she was determined that her husband was going to pay for this murder. Nobody else but him.

  “Did your mother want to divorce your father?”

  “No, she wanted the other family to move in with us, so she could be a sister wife to my father’s whore.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course she wanted to divorce him. But she couldn’t divorce him, because she was going to have to give him half of her fortune. So, she didn’t divorce him, but banished him to the East Wing.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s how I see it. You have a reason to kill your father. Your mother has a reason to kill your father. The one person in your family that didn’t have a reason to kill your father was Michael Reynolds.” That conclusion was inescapable. I wish that it wasn’t, but it was. Michael had no clear motive for killing the judge. Christina and Ava Sanders both did.

  “Oh, but he did have a motive. He did.”

  She swiveled in her chair as she watched me.

  “What was his motive?”

  She looked down at the table. “You’re just going to have to ask him.”

  “I’m asking you. You indicated that he had a motive. I’m asking you what it is.”

  “This deposition is over,” she said.

  “Ms. Sanders, what, in your view, was your husband’s motive for killing your father?”

  She shrugged. “He’s a bad guy. A bad, violent guy. That’s motive enough.”

  I sighed. “Ms. Sanders, that’s not motive enough. Not under the law.”

  She looked out the window. “You’ll find a motive. You just have to dig a little deeper.”