Substantial Risk (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series Book 5)

by Stephen Penner

But Brunelle knew the secret to getting a witness comfortable: keep asking them questions, and about things they know. They focus on the information, the memories and the responses, and forget that they’re nervous. It just took some of them longer than others. Gillespie looked like he might take a while.

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Gillespie?” Brunelle continued. He moderated his voice into an even, confident cadence, both to offset Gillespie and to encourage him to relax.

  “Uh, I own a business,” he replied. Witnesses usually spent the first few questions wondering why the stupid lawyer was asking question they already knew the answer to. “A club,” he clarified.

  Brunelle nodded. “What’s the name of the club?”

  Gillespie offered a self-conscious grin. “The Cu-CUM-ber Club.”

  Brunelle supposed the jury probably thought it was a vegan co-op. Nope.

  “And what kind of club is it?”

  “Uh,” Gillespie shifted in his seat and rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes darted toward the jury, then up at the judge. He seemed unsure whether he was allowed to really say what kind of club it was. He was in a courtroom after all. “We have lots of things there. Music, drinks, uh… shows. Events.” Another neck rub and glance at the judge. “Education and outreach.”

  Brunelle appreciated Gillespie’s desire to ‘keep it clean.’ Ordinarily that would be appreciated. But it was a homicide trial. Those are never clean. It was time to get dirty.

  “It’s a sex club, right?”

  That caught the jury’s attention. They all looked quickly from Brunelle, the question-asker, to Gillespie, the one who would confirm Brunelle’s admittedly leading inquiry.

  But he didn’t. “Well, no actually.” Gillespie started to seem more comfortable as he discussed his business. “It’s not just a club for people to come and have sex. We have one of the best bars on Capitol Hill, and there’s plenty to do besides sex. In the front area, we have pool tables, darts, there’s even a room off the main floor with flat-screens to watch sports.”

  Brunelle frowned. He hadn’t really noticed the pool tables and flat-screens when he’d been there. He’d been too busy looking at the dead body on the floor. And the photos on the wall.

  But those had been in the back. He needed to lead Gillespie into the back too, and the jury would come along.

  “So people can come to your club and just drink and play pool, right?”

  Gillespie nodded. “Right.”

  “But if they want to do more,” Brunelle continued, “they can do that too, right? There’s a back section, right?’

  Gillespie nodded again. “Uh, right. We do have rooms people can rent.”

  “And the events and shows you mentioned earlier,” Brunelle pressed, “those relate to sex, right?”

  Gillespie thought for a moment. “Not all of them,” he deflected. Then he admitted, “But yes. Most of them, I suppose.”

  “And the—how did you phrase it?—education and outreach pertain to sex as well, right?”

  Again Gillespie considered his answer. “Some of it,” he allowed.

  Brunelle suppressed a frown. This was taking too long. Gillespie had lots of useful information. But titillating sex club or not, the jury was going to get bored with the details of the club’s business model. Especially when the details were needlessly vague.

  Time to cut to the chase.

  “Did any of these events or outreach programs deal with bondage?”

  There was a perceptible reaction throughout the courtroom to this first official use of the term ‘bondage’ in the trial. It would pass, Brunelle knew. By the end of the trial, the jury would probably be as bored with it as they were with everything else in their lives.

  Gillespie shrugged. “I’m sure they did. I don’t keep real close track of the subjects. We have several series of classes, led by outside teachers. That’s not really my area of expertise. I’m a businessman, and that’s one more way to get people in the door.”

  Brunelle nodded. That was a good enough answer. He could get into the specifics of it later. It was time to get into the heart of the case anyway.

  “Did you know Tina Belfair?”

  “Yes,” Gillespie nodded. “I knew Tina for years. She was one of our regulars.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  Gillespie shrugged. “I dunno. She was a friendly type, so we talked sometimes. I didn’t know her that well, I suppose, but I knew she and Michael were a couple. Everybody knew that.”

  Brunelle nodded. That was fine. It didn’t really hurt his case any. And besides, it was true. Move on.

  “Were you working the night Tina died?”

  Gillespie started to answer, but the reply got stuck in his throat. “Yes,” he croaked after a moment.

  “And did you see her that night?”

  Gillespie nodded, as he recalled. “Yes. I saw her in the main room. I didn't see Michael.” Gillespie nodded toward Atkins. “But I knew he was around somewhere. They were always together.”

  Brunelle frowned internally. One more piece of information that fit the defense narrative better than it fit his. But he could work with it. “Did she seem in good spirits?”

  Gillespie thought for a moment. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Sure. Nothing special, but she wasn't down or anything. She seemed to be having a good time.”

  Brunelle nodded. Small detail but important. She wasn't depressed or suicidal or anything. She didn't have a death wish.

  “When was the next time you saw Tina?”

  This response didn't just get caught in Gillespie’s throat. It choked him and made him tear up. “When she was...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. “When Michael came and got me.”

  The craft of direct examination was preparing a series of questions and leading the witness logically through the script. The art of direct examination was knowing when to deviate from the script. Brunelle had planned to have Gillespie describe Tina. But he would get back to that.

  “Could you describe Mr. Atkins’ appearance and demeanor when he came and found you?”

  It was a natural enough question. The next logical one really, given Gillespie’s preceding response. That was why Brunelle had gone off script. Jurors, like everyone else, best understood things they already expected to hear. When answers are anticipated, actual responses become confirmations of already held opinions. People love having their own opinions and expectations validated, even to the extent that most people ignore data that doesn't fit their preconceived notions. Being a trial attorney is about convincing people you're right; it's about letting them suspect you're right and confirming it.

  “Michael was really upset,” Gillespie recalled. “Almost hysterical. He came running into the main room and grabbed me by my shirt and said, 'I think I killed Tina.'“

  Another important part of being a trial attorney was paying close attention to the words people used.

  “What did he say?” Brunelle asked, even though he’d heard Gillespie response perfectly well. The jury needed to hear it again.

  Gillespie squirmed a bit in his seat, obviously uncomfortable at doing anything to hurt his friend's case. But Jacobsen didn't object, so Gillespie had to answer. “He said, 'I think I killed Tina.'“

  Gillespie likely didn't fully understand the significance of that statement. The jury likely didn't either. So Brunelle explained it.

  “He said, 'I think I killed Tina,’” Brunelle confirmed, “not 'I think Tina's dead'?”

  Gillespie paused before answering. He looked over to Atkins, as did everyone else in the courtroom, including all the jurors and even Judge Quinn. Then everyone looked back to Gillespie. “Uh, yeah. I think so. I’m not really sure. But something like that.”

  Brunelle nodded. He’d figured Gillespie would back away from the ‘killed Tina’ statement. That’s why he’d confrmed it with him first. But Atkins’ friend backing off the statement just proved two things: it hurt Atkins, and it was true.

  Tha
t would have been a good note to end the direct on, but there was still the issue of Tina’s body. It wasn’t as compelling, but it was expected, and jurors hold it against the prosecution—as they should, given the burden of proof—if they don’t hear the whole story. So Brunelle decided to be quick and dirty with Tina’s remains. So to speak.

  “Did you see Tina’s body that night?”

  Gillespie grimaced. “Yes,” he recalled, obviously unpleasantly.

  “Could you please describe what you saw and what you did?”

  The question called for a narrative response—normally objectionable, but Jacobsen didn’t seem to be the objecting type. That was nice for just then, but Brunelle hoped he’d end up being more unreasonable later in the trial. The one time the jury doesn’t hold it against the prosecutor if they don’t hear the whole story, is when they don’t hear it because the defense attorney objected.

  “Well, the first thing I did,” Gillespie replied, “was ask Michael what happened. Again, he said he thought he’d killed Tina, or she was dead, or something like that. I said, show me where she is, and we went back to one of the private rooms. She was in there, on the floor, not moving. She had a lot of restraints on—rope mostly. I knew Michael had panicked because he hadn’t even cut the ropes off. I checked for a pulse but it was pretty obvious she was dead.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I backed out of there and took Michael to my office. I told one of the waiters to not let anybody in the room, then I called 911.”

  Good enough. Brunelle nodded to his witness. “Thank you, Mr. Gillespie. I have no further questions.”

  Brunelle returned to his seat next to Yamata and Judge Quinn looked to Jacobsen. “Any cross examination?” she asked.

  Jacobsen stood up and straightened his suit coat. “Just briefly. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  The defense attorney stepped around his counsel table and approached the witness.

  “You knew Michael and Tina for several years, correct?” he started.

  Gillespie was eager to agree. “Oh, yes.”

  “And they were a happy couple, isn’t that right?”

  Again, quick agreement. “Absolutely.”

  “In fact, they were devoted to each other, isn’t that true?”

  Brunelle noted that Jacobsen was doing a good job of the leading the witness, the core of cross examination. Don’t ask the witness for an answer. Give him the answer and make him agree with you. Which, it turned out, Gillespie was more than happy to do.

  “Yes,” Gillespie answered dutifully. “They were devoted to each other.”

  “Michael would never have hurt Tina, correct?”

  But Gillespie hesitated. “Uh…”

  “I mean,” Jacobsen interjected, “without Tina’s consent.”

  Gillespie accepted that caveat. “Right. Never without her consent. They had a very good understanding of each other.”

  Jacobsen nodded. He’d gotten what he needed. That’s when the better defense attorneys sit down. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Brunelle suppressed yet another frown. Jacobsen was proving himself to be one of the better defense attorneys.

  “Any redirect?” Quinn asked Brunelle.

  Brunelle stood up to answer. “No, Your Honor.”

  “You may be excused,” the judge told the witness, and Gillespie was only too glad to hurry off the witness stand and toward the door.

  Quinn looked to Brunelle. “You may call your next witness.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Brunelle replied. “The State calls Detective Larry Chen.”

  Chapter 35

  Chen walked through the court room doors and straight to the witness stand. He knew the drill.

  Brunelle stood up and took his place at the bar. He knew the drill too. “Please state your name for the record.”

  “Lawrence Chen.”

  “How are you employed, sir?”

  “I'm a detective with the Seattle Police Department.”

  “How long have you been with the Seattle Police Department?”

  “I've been a cop for over twenty years.”

  It was the same question-and-answer dance they'd done dozens of times before. Each knew what the other would say next. Brunelle had Chen's qualifications memorized. But the jury had just met him, so they had to go through the whole bit. Once more, from the top!

  “How long have you been a detective?”

  “I've been a detective going on eight years now.”

  “Are you assigned to any particular department or division?”

  “I'm assigned to the Homicide Division.”

  “And what are your duties as a detective in the homicide division?”

  “I respond to reports of suspicious deaths and other major crimes.”

  Okay, enough orienting the jury. Time to get to it.

  “Do you remember responding to a report of a suspicious death at the Cu-CUM-ber Club on Twelfth Avenue on Seattle's Capitol Hill?”

  Until then, Chen had been delivering his answers back to Brunelle. But now his answers mattered. He turned to the jury to tell them, “Yes, I did.”

  “And was the deceased eventually identified as Christina Belfair?”

  Chen frowned slightly. Just the right amount to show he'd seen a lot in his career, but he still cared despite it. “Yes.”

  Brunelle nodded and paused. Approximating respect for the dead. Then move on. “Please describe the scene when you first arrived.”

  Chen returned the nod, then turned to the jury again. “When I arrived, there were already other units on scene. The first officers who responded to the original call. I don’t get called out until a patrol officer determines a detective is needed. By the time I got there, the scene was locked down, but there were very few patrons left, and the ones who were, didn’t know anything. Or at least that’s what they said.” Chen offered a lopsided smile. “Those are usually the only people willing to stay and wait for the cops.”

  Some of the jurors nodded or chuckled slightly at that observation. Good, thought Brunelle, they liked him. Everybody liked Larry Chen.

  “So what did you do next?” Brunelle asked. He was required by the evidence rules to interrupt a witness’ testimony with the occasional question, lest the witness go too far off course or say something they shouldn’t. But Chen was a professional, so Jacobsen was unlikely to interrupt with an objection, or have any cause to.

  “I located the manager,” Chen answered, “a Mr. Gillespie. He led me back to the room where the body—where Christina was.”

  Good catch, Brunelle thought. Make sure the jury remembers there was a real live person before the defendant killed her. That sometimes got lost in a trial focused on the defendant’s rights, and where the murder victim, by definition, can’t testify.

  “Did you inspect the body at all?” Brunelle asked. But once you’ve reminded the jury that the victim used to be a real person, it was fine to also remind them that she had turned into a ‘body.’

  Chen shook his head. “Not closely. She was clearly deceased. The EMTs had already discontinued revival efforts. We were just waiting for the M.E.—the medical examiner—to show up. So we locked down the room and Mr. Gillespie took me to his office to speak with Mr. Atkins.” Chen turned and nodded toward the defense table. “The defendant.”

  Another good thing to remind the jury of.

  Brunelle nodded. This was where Chen’s testimony was the most valuable. Not his own words, but introducing the defendant’s words.

  “Did Mr. Atkins agree to speak with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you advise him of his constitutional rights before asking him any questions?”

  Chen turned to the jurors for this response. It was for them anyway. If the answer had been ‘no’, the judge never would have allowed any testimony about it in the first place. “Yes,” he answered.

  “Did Mr. Atkins say what happened?”

  Chen looked down for
a moment in thought, then looked up to the jurors. “Yes. He said he killed her.”

  Brunelle smiled inside. If only he could have sat down after that answer, he would have. But Jacobsen was going to get to ask questions next, so he needed to explain a bit more. Be honest with the jury. And candid.

  “Did he provide more information than that?” Brunelle asked.

  “A little bit,” Chen confirmed.

  “What did he say specifically?”

  Chen thought for a moment then turned again to the jury. “He said they were playing a bondage game. He tied her up so she couldn’t really move. Eventually he noticed she was unconscious. He tried to wake her up, but when it appeared she wasn’t breathing, he panicked and ran for help.”

  Brunelle nodded solemnly. Honesty didn't require a complete lack of theater. He knew the answer to his next, and last, question. A small pause, just beyond the question-and-answer tempo he and Chen had established, would ensure the attention of all the jurors. “What was the last thing Mr. Atkins said to you?”

  Chen knew that would be Brunelle's last question. Not because they'd rehearsed it. Because they knew each other. And because it had to be his final answer.

  “The last thing he said was, ‘Tina’s dead,’” Chen turned to the jurors, “’and it’s all my fault.’”

  Brunelle nodded one last time. “No further questions.”

  As he returned to his seat and flashed Jacobsen the briefest of challenging glances. 'Follow that,' it said. Jacobsen stood up and returned his own look. 'Oh, I will.'

  Jacobsen strode confidently to his own spot at the bar. It was two steps closer than Brunelle. Still a respectful distance, but more aggressive. To communicate that he was hostile, because his demeanor was smooth as silk.

  “Mr. Atkins was cooperative, wasn't he, Detective Chen?”

  Chen thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.” He'd testified enough to know short answers were the best answers on cross.

  “He was honest, correct?” Jacobsen continued. “And candid, right?”

  Chen also knew when not to agree. “He answered my questions. I can't say how honest he was. Most people lie to me, at least a little.”