Malice

by Danielle Steel

  “Do you think there's any reason why she would have shot him, Mr. Wills?” Molly asked politely when he'd regained his composure. She didn't want to get him more upset than he was, but maybe he would have some insight.

  “Money, probably. She probably thought he was leaving everything to her, and even if he didn't have a will, it would all go to her as his only survivor. What she didn't figure, naturally, was that legally she couldn't inherit from him if she killed him. I guess she didn't know that.”

  “Was there much to leave?” Molly asked innocently, not referring to what she had heard from Detective Dooley. “I imagine his share of the law practice must be quite valuable. You're both such respected attorneys.” She knew that he would like that, and he did, he warmed considerably to the subject after that, and told her more than he should have.

  “There's enough. But he owes most of it to me anyway. He always told me he'd leave his share of the practice to me when he died, not that he planned to check out as early as this, poor devil.”

  “Did he leave that in writing?”

  “I don't know. But it was an agreement between us, and I lent him some money from time to time, to help with expenses for Ellen.”

  “What about the house?”

  “He's got a mortgage on it, it's a nice place. But not nice enough to get shot for.”

  “Do you really think a girl her age would shoot her father for a house, Mr. Wills? That sounds a little farfetched, doesn't it?”

  “Maybe not. Maybe she figured it was enough to pay for some fancy eastern college.”

  “Is that what she wanted to do?” Molly sounded surprised. Somehow Grace didn't seem that ambitious, she seemed far more homebound, almost too much so.

  “I don't know what she wanted to do, Doctor. I just know that she killed her father and she ought to pay for it. She sure as hell shouldn't profit from it, the law is right on that score. She won't get a dime of his money now, not the practice, not the house, nothing.” Molly was startled by his venom, and she wondered if his motives were entirely pure, or if in fact he had his own reasons for being pleased that Grace was out of the way now.

  “And who will get it, if she doesn't? Are there other relatives? Did he have other family somewhere?”

  “No, just the girl. But he owed me a lot. I told you, I helped him out whenever I could, and we practiced together for twenty years. You can't just pass over that like it was nothing.”

  “Of course not. I understand completely,” she said soothingly. She understood a lot better than he thought, or wanted her to, and she didn't like it. She thanked him for his time after that, and spent a long time thinking about Grace that night, and when her boyfriend came in from work at the hospital she told him all about it. He was exhausted from a twenty-hour day in the emergency room, which had been an endless parade of gunshot wounds and car accidents, but he listened anyway. Molly was all wound up about the case.

  She and Richard Haverson had lived together for two years, and talked from time to time about getting married, but somehow they never did. But they got on well, and were familiar with each other's work. For both of them, it was the perfect arrangement. And he was as tall and lanky and blond and good-looking as she was.

  “Sounds like the kid is screwed, if you ask me, there's no one to take her part in this, and it sounds like the father's partner wants her out of the way anyway, so he can get whatever money is left. Not a great situation from the sound of it. And if she won't admit that the old man was raping her, then what more can you say?” he said, looking tired, and she sipped coffee and stared at him in frustration.

  “I'm not sure yet. But I'm trying to think of something. I wish I could get her to tell me what really happened. I mean, hell, she didn't just wake up in the middle of the night, find a gun in her hand and decide to shoot him. They found her nightgown torn in half on the floor, but she wouldn't explain that either. All the evidence is there, for God's sake. She just won't help us use it.”

  “You'll get to her eventually,” he said confidently, but this time Molly looked worried. She had never had such a hard time reaching anyone. The girl was completely fossilized into a state of self-destruction. Her parents had all but destroyed her, and she still wouldn't give them up. It was amazing. “I've never seen you lose one yet.” He smiled at her and touched the long blond hair as he went out to the kitchen for a beer. They both worked like demons, but it was a good relationship for both of them, and they were happy with each other.

  And at six o'clock the next morning when they got up, Grace was already on her mind again. On her way to work, Molly glanced at her watch and thought about going back to see her. But there was something else she wanted to do first. She went to her office and made some notes for the file, and then she went to the public defenders’ office at eight-thirty.

  “Is David Glass in yet?” she asked the receptionist. He was the junior attorney on the team, but Molly had worked on two cases with him recently, and she thought he was terrific. He was unorthodox and tough and smart. He was a street kid from New York who had clawed his way out of the ghettos of the South Bronx, and he wasn't going to give in to anyone. But at the same time, he had a heart of gold, and he fought like a lion for his clients. He was exactly what Grace Adams needed.

  “I think he's in the back somewhere,” the receptionist said. She recognized Molly from other cases she'd been on and she waved her back into the inner sanctum.

  Molly wandered the hallways looking for him for a few minutes, and then she found him in the office library, sitting next to a stack of books, sipping a cup of coffee. He looked up as she walked next to him, and smiled when he saw her.

  “Hi, Doc. How's biz?”

  “The usual. How's by you?”

  “I'm still working on getting the latest ax murderers off. You know, same ol same ol’.”

  “Want a case?”

  “Are you assigning them now?” He looked amused. He was shorter than she was, and he had dark brown eyes and curly black hair, and in his own way, he was nice-looking. What he had most of all was personality, which overcame any shortcomings he might have had in terms of looking like Clark Gable. He had sex appeal too. And from the way his eyes danced when he talked to her, it was obvious that he liked Molly. “When did they let you start dishing out cases?”

  “Okay, okay. I just wanted to know if you were up for one. I'm working on it, and they're going to assign a P.D. today. I'd really like to work on it with you.”

  “I'm flattered. How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough. Possibly murder one. Could even be the death penalty. A seventeen-year-old girl shot her father.”

  “Nice. I always love cases like that. What did she do? Take his head off with a shotgun, or have her boyfriend do it for her?” He had seen plenty of ugliness in New York, out here, though, things were a lot tamer.

  “Nothing quite so picturesque.” She looked at him with a worried frown, thinking of Grace. “It's complicated. Can we go talk somewhere?”

  “Sure.” He looked intrigued. “If you're willing to stand on my shoulders, we can go talk in my office.” His cubicle was barely bigger than his desk, but at least it had a door and some privacy, and she followed him there, as he juggled his books and his coffee. “So what's the story?” he asked as she sat in the room's only extra chair and sighed. She really wanted him to take it. And for the moment, Grace was doing absolutely nothing to help herself. She really needed someone as good as David.

  “She shot him at slightly less than two-inch range with a handgun that she says she ‘found in her hand,’ and then it went off, and she shot him. According to her, for no reason in the world. They were just one happy family, except for the fact that they'd buried her mother that day. Other than that, no problems.”

  “Is she sane?” He looked interested, but only mildly. Most of all, he loved a challenge. And he liked kids in particular. All of which was why Molly wanted him to take the case. He was the only chance Grace had. Without him, she
was lost, if she even cared. But Molly cared, a lot, she wasn't sure why, but she did. Maybe because Grace seemed so beaten and so helpless. She had already given up everything, all hope, even her own life seemed unimportant to her. And Molly wanted to change that.

  “She's sane,” Molly confirmed to him, “deeply depressed and not without neurosis, but I think for good reason. I think he was abusing her, sexually and otherwise.” She described the kind of internal damage and bruises they had found, and her state of mind when Molly saw her. “She swears he never touched her. I don't believe her. I think he raped her that night, and I think he'd done it before, maybe even for a long time, and maybe without her mother there, she'd lost her only protection and she panicked. He did it again, and this time she lost it and shot him. He had to be right on top of her for her to shoot him at that range. Think of it, if he'd been lying on top of her, raping her, and she had the gun, it would have been just that kind of range when she shot him.”

  “Has anyone else thought of that?” He was intrigued now. “What do the cops think?”

  “That's the problem. They don't want to hear it. Her father was Mr. Perfect Community Loved by Everyone Attorney. No one wants to believe that the guy might have been sleeping with his own daughter, or worse, forcing her. Maybe he held the gun on her, for all we know, and she got it away from him. But something has gone on in that girl's life, and she just won't tell me. She has no friends, no life outside of school. No one seems to know much of anything about her. She went to school, and she went home, and took care of her dying mother. The mother died a few days ago, and now the father's gone, and that's it. No relatives, no friends, just an entire town who swears the guy is the most decent man they ever knew and couldn't possibly have hurt his daughter.”

  “And you don't believe them? Why not?” After working two cases with her, he had learned to trust her instincts.

  “Because she won't tell me anything, and I know she's lying. She's terrified. And she's still defending him, as though he's going to come back from the dead and get her.”

  “She won't say anything?”

  “Not really. She is frozen in pain, it's written all over her. Something terrible has happened to that girl, and she won't give it up.”

  “Not yet,” he smiled at her, “but she will. I know you better than that. It's early days yet.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we don't have much time. The arraignment is today, and they're going to assign a P.D. to her case this morning.”

  “No family attorney, or associate of her old man to take care of it for her? I would think someone would turn up.” He looked surprised as the young doctor shook her head.

  “His law partner claims that he was just too close to her father to want to defend her, since she's the killer. He also says there's no money left, because of the mother's illness. Just the house, and the law practice. And he might just inherit all of it, now that she can't, and he claims her father owed him quite a bit of money. He's not offering ten cents to help in her defense, which is why I came to see you. I don't like the guy, and I don't trust him. He portrays the deceased as a saint, and claims he will never forgive the daughter for what she did. He thinks she ought to get the death penalty for it.”

  “At seventeen? Nice guy.” He looked seriously intrigued now.

  “And what does our girl say to all this? Does she know this guy won't help her, and may even take everything her father had, against his supposed debts?”

  “Not really. But she seems ready to go down in flames for the cause, as long as she keeps her mouth shut. I think she is deluding herself that she owes that to her parents.”

  “Sounds like she needs a shrink as much as an attorney.” He smiled at Molly. He liked the idea of working on another case with her. She was great to work with, and now and then he cherished a small hope that a romance would spring up between them, but it never had, and a part of him knew it never would. But it was fun to imagine sometimes. And his hopes never got in the way of their work together.

  “What do you think?” Molly asked him with a worried look.

  “I think she's in big trouble. What are they actually charging her with?”

  “I'm not sure yet. They were talking about murder one, but I think they're having a hard time proving it. There's no real ‘inheritance’ there to provide her with a motive for premeditation, just a house and a pretty good-sized mortgage on it, and the law practice which the partner claims was promised to him anyway.”

  “Yeah, but she didn't necessarily know that. And she didn't necessarily know that she couldn't inherit from her father if she killed him. They could try for murder one, if they really want to.”

  “If she denies any intent to kill him, they might give her a break, and charge her with second-degree,” Molly said hopefully. “It would carry a sentence of fifteen years to life in prison. She could be forty or more by the time she was free again, if she was convicted. But at least it's not the death penalty. They've already said they're going to prosecute her as an adult, and there was some talk about the death penalty. If she'd just tell us what happened, you might even be able to reduce it to manslaughter.”

  “Shit. You really did bring me a peach, didn't you?”

  “Can you get assigned to it?”

  “Maybe. They probably figure it's a loser anyway, with her father so prominent in the community she'll never get a fair trial here. You'd almost have to ask for a change of venue. Actually, I'd like to try it.”

  “Do you want to meet her first?”

  “Are you kidding?” He laughed. “Have you seen what I defend here? I don't need an introduction. I'd just like to know I have a chance. It would be nice if she'd talk to us, and tell us what really happened. If she doesn't, she could be facing a life sentence, or worse. She's got to tell us what happened,” he said earnestly, and Molly nodded.

  “Maybe she will, if she trusts you,” Molly said hopefully. “I was going to go back and see her this afternoon. I still have to finish my evaluation for the department, as to whether or not she's competent to stand trial. But there's really no question of it. I was just dragging my feet a little bit because I wanted to keep seeing her. I think she needs some real live human contact.” Molly looked genuinely worried about her.

  “I'll go over there with you today, if they give me the case. Let me see what I can do first. Call me at lunchtime.” He jotted down Grace's name and the case number, and Molly thanked him before she left. She was immensely relieved to think that he might be Grace's attorney. It was the best thing that could possibly happen to her. If there was any chance of saving her at all, David Glass would find a way to do it.

  Molly didn't have time to call him back until after two o'clock and when she did, he was out of the office. And it was four before she had time to try again, but she was worried about what had happened. She had had a hellish day doing rounds, making evaluations for the courts, and working with a fifteen-year-old who had tried to commit suicide and failed, but left himself a quadriplegic. He had jumped off a bridge into concrete, and in this case the stamina of youth had betrayed him. Even she had to wonder if he wouldn't have been better off dead than spending the next sixty years able only to wiggle his nose and his ears. Even his speech had been affected. She called David again at the end of the day, and apologized for the delay.

  “I just got back myself,” David explained.

  “What did they say?”

  “Good luck. They claim it's open-and-shut. She wanted his money, what little he had, according to them, but she didn't know how badly her mother's illness had eaten up their savings or that she'd never inherit if she killed him. They're holding to the theory that it was premeditated, or at the very least that they had a fight, she got mad, had a tantrum and killed him. According to them, it's all very simple. Murder one, at worst. Murder two, at best. Anywhere from twenty to life, or the death penalty if they get really crazy.”

  “She's just a kid … she's a girl …” Molly had tea
rs in her eyes as she thought of it, and then reproached herself for getting too involved, but she just couldn't help it. There was something so wrong here. “What about the defense?”

  “I just don't know. There's no evidence that he attacked her or endangered her life, unless your rape theories turn out to be correct. Give me a chance, kid. They only assigned me the case two hours ago, and I haven't even met her yet. They postponed the arraignment till I could see her at least. It's at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. I thought I'd go over there at five if I can get out of here by then. Want to come? It might speed things up and break the ice, since she knows you.”

  “I'm not sure she likes me though. I keep pushing her about her father and she doesn't like it.”

  “She's going to like the death penalty even less. I suggest you meet me there at five-thirty. Can you make it?”

  “I'll be there. And David?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for taking it.”

  “We'll do our best. See you at five-thirty at Central.”

  And Molly knew as they hung up that they were not only going to have to do their best, but pray for a miracle, if they were going to help her.

  Chapter 3

  Molly York and David Glass met outside the jail promptly at five-thirty, and went upstairs to see Grace. David had gotten all the reports from the police by then, and Molly had brought her notes and the ones from the hospital to show him. He glanced at them as they rode upstairs, and raised an eyebrow when he saw the pictures.

  “It looks like someone hit her with a baseball bat,” he said as he looked at them, and glanced at Molly.

  “She says nothing happened.” Molly shook her head, and hoped that Grace was willing to open up to David. Her life literally depended on it, and she still wasn't sure that Grace understood that.