Dead Wrong

by Janice Kay Johnson

  "Detective Patton actually put in a word for me."

  Will watched his mother's face.

  "She helped me get a job when I got out. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have stayed in Elk Springs." He laughed. "Big favor, huh? God, I wish she hadn't done me any favor."

  Meg bent her head.

  "…I could show what a good employee I was. Then maybe a car dealer would hire me. Detective Patton…"

  There was a pause.

  "Detective Patton?" Trina's voice prompted.

  "She knew someone at the Subaru dealership. She said she'd talk to him."

  His mother's little protégé. Sick with anger, Will wanted to punch his fist into the wall. He wanted to force her to look at him. He wanted to see on her face that she knew what she'd done.

  Right that moment, he hated his mother.

  "After you got off work that day, what did you do?" Trina asked on the tape.

  Will closed his eyes. God. Mendoza was going to talk about that day. About how Gilly…

  No! Everything in him rebelled. She wouldn't have done that.

  "I was about to go when I saw this girl come in."

  Rigid, Will listened as Mendoza talked about guys hitting on her, and about his own noble intervention.

  "She was really tossing 'em back, so I ordered some food. She slowed down a little and ate some chicken wings."

  Abruptly, Trina reached out and hit Stop. She looked at him and said, "You don't want to hear the rest of this."

  "You mean, him claiming Gilly agreed to a quick one with him?" he said, deliberately crude.

  "He's…more explicit here than he was on the stand."

  The deep core of rage imbued his voice. "You're worried about my tender feelings?"

  "You don't want to hear this," she repeated.

  The face his mother raised to him was stricken. "I didn't think. Trina's right. I'll tell you the gist of it. I promise."

  "I have a right to hear what he says."

  "No. You really don't."

  "It's been six years."

  His mother said, "Does it matter how long it's been? I sometimes think your grief is as raw as it was the day Gilly's body was found."

  "I listened to him in court."

  "This is…" Trina hesitated.

  "What? What is it you don't want me to hear?"

  God help him, he'd swear that was pity in her eyes.

  "What really happened."

  "Then you believed him?" his mother asked, sounding eager.

  Trina Giallombardo was still watching Will when she gave a brief, almost reluctant nod. "If he wasn't telling the truth, he's the best liar I've ever met."

  Will uttered an obscenity.

  Her pity vanished, and her gaze became cool. "Fine. Listen. Just listen." She hit Play.

  Into the silence came Ricky Mendoza's voice. "All of a sudden she stood up and said, 'You wanna screw?'"

  CHAPTER SIX

  "WILL. Good to see you." Louis Fein, the elected head of the Butte County prosecutor's office, looked up from the paperwork spread on his desk. Unlike in a larger office, here the D.A. took a caseload and did more than play politics. His office showed it—except for two chairs for visitors, nearly every square inch was piled with books and files, presumably overflow from a row of beige metal file cabinets. A television and VCR on a rolling cart were squeezed between his desk and an overflowing bookcase.

  With the build of a runner and a head of close-cropped iron-gray curls, Louis Fein was a career prosecutor—fifty-two years old, he'd admitted, and had been in the D.A.'s office for all but three years when he'd quit in hopes of making better money, tried private practice and hated it. "I couldn't think like a defense attorney. I kept looking for ways to nail this bastard instead of getting him off. Finally, I begged for my old job back. Then I figured if I was going to be here, I might as well run the show."

  Now Will clasped his hand. "Good to be here."

  "Don't want to throw you in too quick, but can you take a look at this interview? Cop wants to file, I'm not so sure."

  Will drew up a chair while Fein put the tape in the VCR and hit Play. A familiar scene flickered to life, the poor quality of the videotape reducing dramatic value. They watched in silence as a balding detective interviewed the father of a six-year-old who had somehow gotten shut out of his house late at night on an isolated ranch and frozen to death. The detective thought Dad had locked him out for punishment; Dad claimed the kid must have sneaked out. Mom was distraught and not talking.

  Will thought the father was lying, too, but he said finally, "We need more than a suspicion. Keep pushing. I'd ask if he'd sit for a lie detector. Make him sweat. Give her a few days, then talk to her, too. Are there any other kids in the home?"

  They talked about it some more before Louis Fein nodded. "I'm wondering if you'd take Hamilton's place on the countywide child-death review team. No one else in the office has any special experience in child homicide prosecution."

  The team, he explained, was comprised of social service workers, doctors, someone from the child protective agency, cops from Elk Springs PD and the sheriff's department, and an assistant D.A. "It doesn't take that much time. You review any reports from hospitals relating to the death of a child. We have our share of child abuse, but most deaths are accidents."

  "I wouldn't mind," Will said. He'd been the lead prosecutor in a trial that had gotten nationwide attention. A plastic surgeon had become angry with his sick, screaming eighteen-month-old son and thrown him, then tried to cover up with an elaborate scenario involving the kid climbing onto a dresser that fell on top of him. Will had had a hell of a time persuading the head of the child prosecution section to let him file. The surgeon served on half a dozen charity boards, dined with the mayor and had backed the district attorney in her last run for office. But Will's gut told him the guy had lost it. That was tragic, but what had aroused his determination to see the guy in jail was the coldblooded way he'd tried to cover up what he did.

  That trial alone had gotten him tagged in Portland as the guy for high-profile child abuse cases. They were never easy to do; he hated looking at photos of dead or injured children, but winning those cases made him feel good. Prosecuting, you could end up focusing on winning, not justice. But when a child was the victim, you never forgot the human side.

  "Good," Fein said. "Say, let's walk down to the courthouse. I'll introduce you around. Not that you're an unknown in these parts."

  "My name is known. I'm not."

  Will hoped he didn't sound too short, but he didn't like the implication that all Pattons came out of the same pod. He didn't want to trade on the Patton name, but he also knew it gave him an automatic edge with judges and cops. How could it not when his father was the sheriff and his aunt was the Elk Springs police chief?

  His boss slapped him on the back. "That'll change fast now that you're onboard."

  The courthouse was imposing, built in the fifties with the standard sweep of granite stairs—a bitch when they were icy, Louis Fein told him—and marble columns. The sheriff's department and prosecutors had moved a few years back to a modern complex only a block from the courthouse. As the two men walked, both wearing long wool coats and leather gloves, Fein said, "I assume your mother is keeping you apprised on the Owen murder."

  Will's stomach lurched at the reminder. "Yes."

  The older man said, "I prosecuted Ricardo Mendoza."

  Surprised, Will turned his head. Funny how he could have forgotten that. He'd been so focused on the defendant, he'd hardly noticed anything else.

  "Right. I remember."

  "This makes me think."

  Everybody was so damn quick to think, considering the case had looked open and shut six years ago. Had everybody but him been at a different trial? Seen a different defendant?

  "You know Detective Giallombardo went to talk to Mendoza yesterday."

  Fein raised scant eyebrows. "No. No, I didn't."

  "Mom's idea."

&nbs
p; "I assumed she'd go herself."

  "She wanted a fresh perspective, she said."

  They started up the steps, rock salt crunching underfoot. "What did he say?"

  "He repeated the story he told at trial."

  Fein glanced at him, catching something in his tone. "Nothing new?"

  Reluctantly, Will said, "Details."

  The truth was, Giallombardo was right—Mendoza had been more forthcoming. Or else he'd used the last six years to embroider his story. Which it was depended on who you asked. Will believed in the embroidery theory. He wanted to believe in it.

  The only part that shook him was Trina Giallombardo's doubt. His mother he could ignore. She'd never bought Mendoza's guilt. But Trina had gone over to Salem without prejudice, and what Mendoza told her had the ring of truth to her.

  "Serial killers are the best liars," she'd admitted. "I know that. Maybe he was playing me like a fiddle. I can't swear he wasn't. But…"

  The way her voice trailed off told its own story. She didn't think he was playing her. She'd believed him.

  Will could even see why. Mendoza sounded sincere on the tape. Will had asked his mother for a copy of the transcript of the trial so he could read it again. Memory wasn't always reliable. He wanted to see in black and white what Mendoza had actually said then. He wanted to catch the scumbag in a lie.

  "He's still claiming to be innocent," Will told Fein. "Nobody would be listening to him if it weren't for Amy's murder."

  "Crap." Fein's voice echoed as they entered the marble-floored foyer. He shook his head. "That's an ugly one. Must hit close to home for you."

  "You could say that."

  Fein raised his voice, which bounced in the huge, high-ceilinged foyer. "Martha! Come meet my new boy."

  Martha was a court reporter. In rapid succession Will met bailiffs, judges, clerks and public defenders. Too many of them greeted him with some variation along the lines of, "The sheriff's boy, huh? You're smart to come home."

  Did everyone in town think he'd come home to Elk Springs to trade on his parents' reputations? Maybe they assumed he couldn't make it out in the wide world. Will curbed his growing irritation. He grinned like a country bumpkin, shook hands and hoped the defense attorneys, at least, believed the current line. He'd get some easy convictions before they wised up.

  A young blond public defender flirted outrageously and slipped him her phone number on the back of her card. Fein watched with amusement.

  On the walk back, he said, "Now why is it that Ms. Harris has never given me her cell phone number?"

  "Could be she was afraid you'd use it," Will said with a straight face.

  Fein gave a hearty laugh. "Could be. Could be. What about you? Do you intend to?" His tone was one of idle curiosity, not judgment.

  Nonetheless, Will shook his head. "I'd like to get my footing first. See how she handles herself in court. How often I'm likely to face her. Dating someone on the opposition…that can be awkward."

  Fein nodded, and Will had the sense that he was pleased. Will was a little disconcerted to realize he hadn't felt any stir of interest in Caroline Harris, even though she presumably had brains and was of a physical type that usually attracted him. Maybe he just felt too unsettled right now to be interested even in a casual relationship. He'd dated Amy Owen's friend Karin twice that first week in Elk Springs and found her nice enough, but during the second evening he found his mind wandering. He'd have rather been sharing a pizza, beer and some good conversation with Travis.

  Since Amy's murder, he found himself shying from the very idea of seeing a woman who reminded him of Gillian. A couple of the worst crime scene photos would shuttle before his mind's eye in the space of time it took him to blink. A private PowerPoint presentation, he thought now, wryly. A form of aversion training. The pretty blonde wouldn't look as pretty dead.

  Back in the office, he was handed a pile of folders and videotapes. "Damn glad you're here," a couple of his fellow assistant D.A.s told him with fervency.

  Only one seemed to regard him with wariness if not outright hostility. Mark Gage was a couple years older than Will and currently, he gathered, the star trial lawyer on the team.

  "Got to say, Mark Gage is damn good at grabbing the jury's attention," Fein had said, when talking about the other assistant D.A.s. "He's more likely to go for emotional punch than he is to help the jury really understand the law, but you can't argue with success."

  Although he wanted to, Will diagnosed.

  Will guessed Gage saw him as a threat to his standing in the small D.A.'s office. Only time would decide whether they could be barely civil colleagues or friends.

  During what would otherwise have been his lunch hour, Will left to attend the service for Amy. The church was crowded, and he caught a glimpse of damn near everyone he'd known in high school, some of whom he hadn't seen in years. But he sat in the back and avoided talking to anyone, including his mother who stood by the doors scanning the crowd.

  Amy had been Catholic and the service was far more formal than Gillian's had been, but Will couldn't take his eyes from the altar dominated by a gleaming coffin that looked too much like the one in which Gilly had been buried. He was intensely grateful at the end to mumur his sympathies to her parents and flee to the office. Thank God he felt obligated to get back to work. If he'd gone home, he'd have lost himself in the grief and in his rage.

  Still not hungry, he dumped his brown bag lunch in the trash can and tried to focus on the first of the cases he'd been handed. A bar brawl had left one guy dead, stabbed. An open switchblade had fallen from his hand when he went down, so the guy who stabbed him was claiming self-defense even though one witness said the victim had pulled the switchblade out as he staggered back with the knife in his chest. Will settled back to watch the video of the interview with the ranch hand who had been arrested on the old television set that had already been at home in his office. Unfortunately, the picture had a greenish tinge and peculiar flesh tones he found distracting. He was fiddling with the knobs when someone rapped on the glass inset in the office door.

  Will swiveled in his chair and, as he groped for the remote control, called, "Come in."

  Trina Giallombardo opened the door and entered. His stomach did a dip and roll even as he felt a cramp of…No, damn it, not sexual attraction! Just a strange kind of awareness. Maybe because of who she was, what she knew.

  The dip and roll had to do with the gravity of her expression.

  "Did you make an arrest?" His voice was hoarse.

  She shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I'm just here to bring you the transcript you asked for." She dropped a thick folder wrapped with a rubber band onto his desk. "Did you go to Amy's funeral?"

  Grief punched through his rigid control.

  She must have been able to tell that he didn't want to talk about it because she nodded at the television. "Carlton told me about that one. Are you going for a plea?"

  "We may have to," he said in disgust, finally locating the remote under some papers and hitting Stop. "The one witness who insists the victim hadn't pulled the knife before the assault was drunk. The cops let most of the bar patrons go home without getting their names, so finding more witnesses would be a bitch. This Detective Carlton might as well be the guy's best bud, he's putting so little pressure on him."

  "The thing is, we all knew and hated the victim." She caught his expression. "Yeah, yeah, just because he beat his wife every Saturday night and deliberately hit a guy walking out to his car with his pickup because the guy flirted with the wife doesn't mean anybody on earth had a license to stab him. Still…"

  "You're saying in a cosmic sense he deserved it."

  "Something like that."

  He mulled that over. "Well, that explains this Carlton's incompetence. Maybe he does better when he's really going for the truth."

  "Don't you put a little more heat into your summations when your heart and soul is in a case?"

  "I don't go to trial if my heart and soul i
sn't in it."

  "All cases being equal?"

  Did he hear a note of irony?

  "I agree to a plea if it's not. We can't take them all to trial. You know that."

  "Well, Detective Carlton can't pick and choose."

  With some impatience, Will said, "He can do his job."

  She shook her head. "First day here, and you've already decided Butte County cops are inept. Just out of curiosity, why did you come back to Elk Springs?"

  She'd stung him and surprised him both in a matter of seconds.

  The surprise was what really caught his attention.

  "You know, I think you're the first person who has asked me that." No, the second; Travis had.

  She eyed him warily with those big brown eyes. "Really?"

  A smile that felt more bitter than amused curled his mouth. "Seems everyone thinks I came home to trade on the Patton name."

  She was good at hiding expressions, but not good enough.

  "You did, too." He raised his brows. "Admit it."

  "I wondered if you thought you'd get your judgeship quicker here." She shrugged.

  "I'm not even thirty!" Will protested. "It's a little early to be thinking about a seat on the bench."

  "Then why?"

  "The truth?" He told it. "I don't know. I felt…disconnected. As if I'd left too much behind that was unresolved." And why in hell was he telling her this? He nodded toward the TV. "As for Detective Carlton, I'm not generalizing from his performance to the entire department yet."

  She flushed a little, if he wasn't mistaken. "I shouldn't have said that. I was jumping to conclusions."

  "No, you expected me to be a jackass." He paused a beat. "Care to tell me why?"

  "I like your mother. Every time she mentions you, I see this flash of pain." Trina's voice became wooden. "But I don't know anything about what happened between you, and it's none of my business."

  "No. It's not." He didn't like being reminded that he'd hurt his mother, who would have done anything for him. He stared down the woman who'd taken it upon herself to do just that. "Thank you for bringing this by, Detective Giallombardo."