Corpus Delicti (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Book 6)

by Stephen Penner

  The metal gate opened with a creak, and he made the short walk to the porch in just a few strides. The porch’s wood was warped and weak-feeling. He opened the screen door enough to knock on the front door and stepped back to be visible through the peephole. As he waited for the door to open, he noticed absently that the ‘6’ nailed to the peeling siding was more rusted than its address-number counterparts.

  After a few moments, the front door opened with a thunk that shook the screen. It was dark inside, but Brunelle could see the face of the woman who hid most of herself behind the door. She was older than him, but probably not as old as she looked, with creased wrinkles and puffy eyes. His sentimental side suggested the eyes were puffy from crying. His cynical side guessed it was alcohol. His realist side knew it was both, and they were related.

  “Mrs. Corrigan?” he started. “My name is David Brunelle. I’m a prosecutor with the King County Prosecutor’s Office. I’d like to talk with you about Amy.”

  If he’d come a few weeks earlier, Mrs. Corrigan likely would have asked if Amy had been arrested again, or even more likely would have washed her hands of whatever trouble her daughter had gotten herself into again. But it wasn’t a few weeks earlier, and Mrs. Corrigan knew something was wrong, even if she didn’t exactly know—or wouldn’t admit to herself—what it was.

  “Is she okay?” the woman asked, opening the door enough to reveal a heavy-set frame in old clothes in front of an untidy living room lit only by a television screen.

  Brunelle shook his head slightly. “No,” he answered. “May I come in?”

  Mrs. Corrigan hesitated only long enough to let Brunelle’s response sink in, then she opened the door fully and stepped aside. She nodded at him to come inside, but couldn’t quite find her voice. Brunelle opened the screen and walked into the home, overcoming his reluctance at both the setting and the circumstances.

  The interior of the home held that level of unpleasantness that happens when the residents spent too much time there and had too few visitors. The shades were drawn, filtering even further what little light the Seattle sky allowed. There were old dinner plates and half-filled glasses on top of the magazines and newspapers that covered the coffee table. And there was a distinct smell of dog that was discernable even over the stench of cigarette smoke. He looked around and identified the least dirty-looking chair.

  “May I sit down?” he asked.

  “Of course, of course,” Mrs. Corrigan replied, her voice returning to her, thanks to the distraction that small courtesies provide. “I’ll go get Howard.”

  Brunelle nodded and sat down. He was glad both of Amy’s parents were there. He didn’t want to do this twice.

  Howard was a reflection of his wife. He was overweight, most of it in his gut, with an irregularly balding hairline and tired jowls. His eyes held not the sadness of a fearful mother, but the hopelessness of a failed father. He held out a meaty hand. “I’m Howard Corrigan. Mary says you’re from the prosecutor’s office. She says you have some news about Amy.”

  Brunelle stood up to shake the man’s hand. “I think I do,” he answered. “But it’s not good news. That’s why I’m here.”

  Howard grimaced, but shrugged. He sat down on the couch, and his wife sat next to him, not even bothering to clear the cushion of the debris there. “We haven’t heard from her for two weeks,” Howard said. “We figured we’d hear from the cops soon, to identify the body.”

  Brunelle was struck by the resignation in Howard Corrigan’s voice. He wasn’t angry or scared. Just tired, exhausted by life.

  “I didn’t expect a prosecutor,” Howard continued. “Do they send you guys now? Are you gonna take us to identify her body?”

  Brunelle grimaced himself, then leaned forward and clasped his hands. “We don’t have a body for you to identify,” he admitted. “But I do think she’s dead. In fact, I think she was murdered.”

  “Of course she was murdered,” Howard suddenly snapped. “She wasn’t gonna survive that lifestyle.” Then his face turned from almost angry to almost puzzled. “Wait, how do you know she was murdered if you don’t have her body?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Brunelle answered. “She’s gone missing, but her body hasn’t been found. If I’m going to seek murder charges without a body, I need as much information as possible about what Amy would do if she were still alive.”

  Howard cocked his head askance. Mary added her own quizzical expression.

  “If I can establish,” Brunelle explained, “what she would do if she were alive, and then show that she’s not doing it, that would be some evidence that she’s not alive anymore.”

  The parents’ expressions changed. Brunelle mistook it for incredulity.

  “I know it’s thin,” he defended, “but it may be all I have. Can you think of anything significant that might have changed in the last few weeks?”

  Mary shook her head. “It’s not thin,” she said.

  “That’s how we knew she was gone too,” Howard confirmed.

  It was Brunelle’s turn to look confused. “I don’t understand.”

  Mary smiled weakly then looked down the hallway toward the back of the house. “Lydia!” she called out. “Come here, honey.”

  Brunelle remembered the tattoo from Amy’s booking info. “Who’s Lydia?” he asked.

  A two-year-old girl toddled into the living room, her hair in pigtails, her pink shirt dirty and stained. She didn’t have any pants on over her diaper.

  “Lydia is Amy’s daughter,” Mary introduced the child. “And she hasn’t seen her mommy in two weeks.”

  “Amy might stop visiting her tired, old, nagging parents,” Howard said, “but she’d never stop seeing her daughter. When she missed her weekly visit with Lydia, we knew something was wrong. When she missed the next one, well…” but he trailed off, unable to finish the thought aloud.

  Mary scooped up Lydia and sat her on her large lap. “Can you do anything, Mr. Brunelle?” Mary asked. “Can you get justice for Lydia’s mommy?”

  Brunelle looked at the innocent young girl staring at him with wide, brown eyes. Then he swallowed the unexpected lump in his throat. “I can try.”

  Chapter 5

  Brunelle pulled away from the house and switched on his windshield wipers against the misty drizzle that had developed while he was inside the Corrigans’ home. He’d stayed longer than he’d wanted—or at least longer than he’d planned. Once he’d gotten what he needed—a reason he could feel confident Amy Corrigan was dead—he couldn’t help but stay a bit longer and play dollies with that little reason. Lydia had jumped off her grandma’s lap and run to fetch her favorite doll, a raggedy thing with pink yarn hair and a yellow dress.

  Brunelle shook his head slightly and turned on his headlights, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Ah, Seattle.

  Why did he stay and play with some little girl he’d never met before? She wasn’t his kid. He didn’t have kids. If her own dad wasn’t around, why should Brunelle care enough to play with Miss Flopsy-Curls or whatever the doll’s name was? How could he possibly care about someone else’s kid?

  And, in his mind’s eye, he suddenly saw the face of Lizzy Anderson, Kat’s daughter.

  Damn.

  Yeah, how could he possibly care about someone else’s kid?

  Brunelle shook his head again and reached for his cell phone. He knew it was against Washington State law to talk on a cell phone while driving. He also knew the loophole in that law. He was a lawyer, after all. The drafters didn’t want to outlaw the hands-free devices car companies were starting to put in their vehicles, so they only made it illegal if the driver spoke into a cell phone while holding it to his ear. So he just turned the volume up and held the phone in front of his mouth.

  “Detective Chen.”

  “Larry, it’s Brunelle,” he said as me merged back onto I-5 north. “Do it.”

  There was a pause. A tired, pregnant pause. Finally, a sigh. Then, “Do what, Dave?”

/>   “Arrest him.”

  “Arrest who?”

  Brunelle could still see Lizzy’s face in his mind, but it faded away as he remembered Lydia’s huge brown eyes looking up innocently at this unknown man who’d been kind enough to play with her for even a few minutes.

  “The pimp,” Brunelle answered. “Kenny What’s-his-name. Amy Corrigan’s killer. Arrest him. I’m going to charge him with murder.”

  Chapter 6

  Kenneth Wayne Brown.

  Kenny the Pimp.

  Murderer.

  Brunelle watched through the same two-way mirror as before. Chen pushed Kenny into the plastic chair in the interrogation room and shut the door. It was gonna be two against one; Chen and fellow detective Julia Montero. Obviously, Kenny hated women, so no better way to antagonize him than to put a woman in a position of power over him. Piss him off. Because pissed-off people made bad decisions—like agreeing to talk to the police.

  Brunelle knew he had nothing on Kenny. Or next to nothing. A missing prostitute, a suspicious friend, and a lonely toddler. That wasn’t likely to add up to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But despite the courts’ best efforts in the half-century since Miranda v. Arizona, the vast majority of suspects still made statements even after the cops told them they probably shouldn’t. People commit crimes because they calculate they can probably get away with it. It takes some time for that calculation to fade, even after an arrest. People spend their lives talking their way out of things, whether with their parents, their teachers, or their significant others. The hubris we all succumb to sometimes leads suspects to think they can explain it all away, never realizing the only reason the cops want to bother talking to them is because they probably don’t have enough evidence without the confession.

  Kenny was a pimp. He made his living by convincing women to have sex with strangers and then give him all the money. Anybody who could do that could trick a couple of cops, right?

  Of course, he couldn’t punch the cops up for talking back to him. Brunelle allowed a small grin as the show started.

  “You know why you’re here, Kenneth,” Montero started. It wasn’t a question. It also wasn’t the name he liked to use. ‘Kenneth.’ Like she was his mom, or his teacher. It was designed to irritate. Like a grain of sand inside an oyster. Hopefully, it would lead to the pearl of a confession.

  “It’s Kenny,” he took the bait. Chen had undone his handcuffs, so he rubbed his wrists slightly as he replied. Then he smirked. “You’re Julia, right?”

  He could provoke too.

  “That’s Detective Montero,” Chen leaned his large frame onto the small Formica table between him and his subject. “Show some respect.”

  But Montero eased her partner back into his seat with a gentle hand. “I can take care of myself, Larry.”

  Kenny’s distasteful smile broadened. He looked her up and down. “I bet you can.”

  Montero was attractive enough, with long wavy brown hair and the athletic figure of a cop. But in her 30s, she was a little old for the streets. Brunelle knew half the prostitutes out there any more were in their early teens, well under the age of consent.

  “Check yourself, Kenneth,” she replied with her own grin. “I’m not some runaway looking for a roof and some food.”

  “See now,” Kenny replied. “You get me. I just help those girls out. I’m a Good Samaritan.”

  “Good Samaritan?” Chen scoffed. “That’s rich.”

  “Look, man.” Kenny leaned back in his cheap plastic chair. “I don’t find these girls, they find me. They’re usually running from way worse than anything I could do to them. Abusive fathers, drunk mothers, horny uncles. I give them a place to live and a way to earn a living. That’s why so many of them come to me.”

  “But you’ve got one less girl than you used to, huh, Kenny?” Chen narrowed his eyes at the pimp.

  Kenny narrowed his own eyes. “Girls come and go, man.”

  Chen didn’t reply right away. Moreno stepped into the breach. “You know that’s not how it works, Kenny. And so do we.”

  Kenney didn’t answer, but he did cross his arms. Discomfort.

  “They come because you go get them,” Moreno went on. “You find the runaways at the bus shelter, or the food bank, or just near some alley trying to score their next hit. You offer them a place to stay and some drugs. Food, too, if they care enough about eating. Then you introduce them to some of your more experienced girls who tell them there’s a way they can make money. A lot of it. At first they’re not sure, but they see all the money, and the other girls seem okay with it, so finally they agree. And you let them keep fifty percent—at first. That’s a lot. A new girl can make five or six hundred bucks a day that way. That buys a lot of meth, or heroin, or whatever they’re using. Both, probably. Maybe crack. But then you start demanding all of it. After all, you’re paying for the hotel room. And you’re the one who knows the dealers. You can kick them out any minute. Cut them off from their drugs and the roof over their heads.”

  Kenny frowned and shook his head. “They can leave whenever they want.”

  Moreno shook her head back at him. “Everybody knows that isn’t true. The reason you found them in the first place is because they’re runaways. The last place they want to go is back home. If they’re gonna get molested by some disgusting drunk old man, at least it won’t be their step-dad, or their uncle, or their drug-addicted mom’s latest boyfriend.”

  Kenny shrugged and looked away. Translation: not my problem.

  “Plus they’ll get some money—at first. More than grandpa ever gave them for shoving his filthy fat hand down her pants. But then you start taking the money too. Some of them are smart enough and stay sober long enough to realize it’s their ass they’re selling, and they don’t need you to sell it. They try to go solo, putting the same ads on the same websites, meeting up at the same no-questions-asked motels by I-5. But you’re not gonna let that happen. If all the girls figure that out, you’re out of business. And you’re not gonna go out of business.”

  Kenny had turned back during Moreno’s speech. He nodded at her and his grin returned. “I ain’t in no business. Some ho wanna sell it on the streets, that ain’t none of my business.”

  “That’s exactly your business,” Chen jumped in.

  Brunelle grimaced. Chen wasn’t a very good ‘bad cop.’ He was too nice a guy in reality. That made Brunelle smile again. Then he remembered that Chen was still mad at him. And why. And about who. His smile faded back into a frown, and he refocused on the exchange on the other side of the glass.

  “Is that what happened to Amy?” Moreno asked. “Did she go renegade?”

  Kenny seemed just barely taken aback by the question. Like he’d remembered something he’d wanted to forget. But he pulled his poker face back on in less than a moment. Or, more accurately, his pimp face.

  “Renegade?” he repeated. “What are you, some kinda Old West sheriff or something?”

  Moreno didn’t take the bait. She was way too experienced to be distracted by some perp.

  “Renegade is your word, Kenneth,” she replied. “I’ve done enough of these cases. We get warrants for your phones, read all your texts. ‘Bitch gone renegade,’” she quoted in a deeper, mock pimp voice. “’Gonna teach that ho a lesson.’ Next thing she knows, your fist is in her eye and her ass is back in your room.”

  Kenny’s expression hardened, but he didn’t say anything. Brunelle figured he was wondering whether they’d already gotten all his text messages, and was trying to remember what he’d said in them. Anything about Amy?

  “So I’ll ask you again,” Moreno leaned on to the table. “Is that what happened to Amy?”

  It was another decision point for Kenny the Pimp. He should have started the interview with a simple, ‘Fuck you. I want a lawyer.’ But he didn’t. He thought he could outsmart the detectives. He had his story set for an interrogation about pimping. He offered girls room and board, and they were generous enough to repay hi
m. How they earned their money was their own business.

  But murder? That was a different matter. Of course, the only reason Kenny would know it was murder was because he’d murdered her. Lawyering up at this point would make him look guilty as hell. Brunelle knew they could never tell the jury that he’d lawyered up. They’d just pretend the interview ended right before the question about Amy. Brunelle knew that detail of criminal procedure. But Kenny didn’t. So he screwed up again. Police work relied heavily on the mistakes of the criminals.

  “Amy who?” he tried. “I don’t know no Amy.”

  Time for a bluff. They hadn’t gotten his phone. Hell, they weren’t even sure the prosecutors would take the case. Brunelle called and said arrest him. All they had was the phone from Kenny’s pocket. It probably had incriminating texts on it, but it would take a warrant—probably more than one—to do a full forensic examination on the phone. They had his texts, they just hadn’t read them yet. But he didn’t know that.

  “We have your texts, Kenny,” Chen practically growled.

  It was a big gamble. The suggestion was that the detectives knew damn well Kenny knew who Amy was. But if Kenny knew he hadn’t texted about her, then he would know they were full of shit. The good news was that everyone—even pimps—texted like crazy any more. And no one—not even pimps—could remember all of their texts.

  After several long seconds of glaring, Kenny gave a far too exaggerated shrug and looked away again. “Yeah, okay, maybe I know an Amy. Shit, I know a lot of girls.”

  Moreno nodded. “I’m sure you do. But how many do you know that have been murdered?”

  Kenny snapped back to stare right into Moreno’s eyes. He held her gaze for several seconds. Then he growled too. “More than you, bitch.”