Imperfect Justice

by Cara C. Putman

  Nadine looked overwhelmed by the room and the atmosphere. Emilie tried to see it through the eyes of a first timer instead of someone who appeared in this room in front of this judge multiple times a month. While not as formal as some, there was still a seriousness and heaviness to the room. A clear sense that decisions issued here affected lives long-term.

  The court reporter was positioned next to the judge, as was a bailiff. The line was short, and if everything went well, they’d be in front of the judge in ten or fifteen minutes. Emilie used that time to quietly remind Nadine what to expect. “It’s most important to look at the judge and ignore Reggie when you’re explaining why you need the protective order. I’ll make sure you explain why Jonathan must be included.”

  “If he isn’t, I can’t have the protective order. Reggie will already punish me, but if Jonathan stays with him, I’ll never see my son again.” Nadine’s voice rose, and Emilie placed a calming hand on her.

  “I won’t let that happen.” Emilie kept an eye on the comings and goings, wondering who Reggie had hired to be his attorney. That person could wait until the hearing to file their appearance, keeping her in the dark. Some lawyers found a strategic advantage to the surprise, but the reality was Emilie’s approach to the hearing remained unchanged. She asked the same questions and advised her client in the same way. It was simply a courtesy to be alerted ahead of time and know whether an agreement was possible.

  Reggie stood by himself, a tall and thin man built like a runner. Based on what Nadine had told her, Emilie was careful not to underestimate his strength. He spent a lot of time in a gym, but had a metabolism that didn’t let anything he consumed stick around.

  “Miss Wesley.” Judge Bell’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.

  She startled as she realized the other attorneys were done and had moved aside with their clients. “Your Honor?”

  “We’re ready for you. Is your client with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about her boyfriend?”

  She glanced to where he’d waited. “He was against the wall over there.”

  “Do you see him now?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Take a moment and look for him while I work with the court reporter to wrap up my order from the previous hearing.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” She turned to Nadine. “Stay right here. You’ll be safe with the bailiff in here.” Emilie moved past the bar and into the gallery. A moment later she pushed through the door and into the hallway. He wasn’t waiting there.

  Where had Reggie gone?

  She described him to the deputy waiting in the hallway, but he didn’t remember seeing a man of that description. She then walked to the metal detector and asked the deputies stationed there if they remembered seeing him. As she expected, they didn’t remember him either. After one more pass through the hallways, she returned to the courtroom. A pulse of fear began to build. “Nadine, where’s Jonathan?”

  “With my friend Amy.”

  “Is she someone Reggie would expect to watch your boy?”

  “No. I don’t think he knows who she is. He definitely doesn’t know where she lives. She moved a week ago.”

  “Did you text her about it or communicate in any way that he could read?”

  “Nope. Just calls.”

  “Okay.” Emilie turned to the judge. “I couldn’t find him anywhere, and none of the deputies remember seeing him.”

  “All right.” The judge opened a file, then flipped through the pages. “Are you ready to proceed?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Could I let Nadine call her friend and warn her that Reggie has left? I would feel better if she was alerted to keep Jonathan close.”

  “You may have a minute to make the call.” The judge nodded to Nadine, and she quickly took out her phone and placed the call. After she hung up, the judge looked at Emilie with the faintest hint of a smile. “Ready?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Emilie quickly walked Nadine through the questions. The judge asked a few of her own and then granted the motion.

  “Go check on your boy, and be sure to check with the police in a couple days to determine whether the order has been served on the defendant.” She stamped a sheet and handed it to the clerk. “Because he was here and then left as I called the hearing, I will make this a permanent two-year order with the caveat that he can petition for a hearing at any point. Good luck to you, Miss Hunter.”

  “Thank you.”

  Emilie echoed with her own, “Thank you.” After they were in the hallway, she turned to Nadine. “Any questions?”

  “So I need to ask the police about the protection order?”

  “To ensure it’s been served. That’s technically when it becomes effective. Also, keep a copy with you always. Put one in the diaper bag, one in your purse, and one in your car.”

  “I won’t have a car now.”

  “That’s okay, keep it with you, so it’s always available if you need to show it to police.” She led Nadine back to the front door. “Do you have a way to get to Jonathan?”

  “I’ll take the bus.”

  “No, I’ll take you. Let’s go make sure your little guy is okay.”

  CHAPTER 29

  The doctor anticipates Kinley will be released from the hospital within four or five days.” Nurse Rogers’s words should have been welcome, but when Reid considered how far they were from stopping Robert from taking her home, he couldn’t help being alarmed.

  “Thank you for the update.” He glanced at his calendar, noting all the appointments and meetings filling it. “How long are you on the floor?” He noted the time. Somehow he’d get over there, even if it meant Simone had to cover a meeting. “I’ll come by before you leave.”

  After she hung up, Reid sat there, mind whirling. This was the word he’d waited to receive. Time was slipping away, and he was no closer to doing what Kaylene had asked. How could he wrest custody from Kinley’s father? He hadn’t been an eyewitness to the burgeoning disaster.

  There was someone that Kaylene might have confided in that he hadn’t considered: Grandma. A spry ninety, maybe she’d been invited to their home more regularly. Maybe she’d seen or heard something that could help. He picked up his phone and called.

  “Hello?” Grandma’s voice had a tremulous quality to it, the lone sign age was catching up to her.

  “Hey, Grandma.”

  “Reid.” Her voice brightened, a reminder he should call more often.

  “I’ve been thinking about Kaylene.”

  “It’s all so terrible.”

  “Yes.” Grief filled the silence, thick and heavy. He cleared his throat. “I just wondered . . . You’ve been with their family more often than I have the past few years. Did you have any idea there was trouble?”

  “I don’t know . . . it seemed okay.” She sighed, a wealth of unsaid words. “I guess I didn’t really know anything. The Kaylene I raised never would have done the terrible things the news says.”

  “How did she and Robert get along?”

  “Fair enough.” She clicked her tongue. “My generation tends to leave well enough alone, and Kaylene never complained.”

  “Maybe she should have.”

  “Maybe. But if someone doesn’t say there’s a problem, how are we to know?”

  “I wonder what we missed.”

  “We can torment ourselves or accept the fact there’s nothing we can do.”

  That’s what dogged him. He could still do something for Kinley. “She asked me to care for her girls.”

  “When did she do that?”

  “In a letter I found this week. She wrote it a couple months ago.”

  Grandma snorted, actually snorted. “Then you don’t know if she still meant it.”

  “Maybe, but what if she did? She left it with me last month, but it was sealed in a box of her stuff. I’ve learned that the doctors expect to release Kinley this week. Why would Kaylene ask me to protect her girls if they didn’t need it?”


  “Because she had a bad day or a bad week.” Grandma sighed. “You wouldn’t understand, never having married, but even the best marriage has seasons where the partners can’t stand each other.”

  “Not you and Grandpa.”

  She snorted again. Grandma was getting sassy. “You know better than that. You lived with us long enough to see good and bad.”

  It had never seemed that bad to him . . . though there were the early days when the addition of two grandchildren to their household had added layers of stress. Even as a six-year-old, he’d noticed that. But once they reached a détente—an acceptance of their new reality—it had seemed good. “It only seemed that way when you taught me piano in the camper.”

  “That was crazy.” She sighed. “We were careful to explain to Kaylene when she married that we aren’t a place to complain. We’ll pray with you. We’ll encourage you. We will not allow bad-mouthing of your spouse. Your grandpa was firm on this and I agreed.” She sighed again. “Your grandpa had such wisdom. Said it was important to remind young married folks that once they were married they’re a unit and need to make their marriage covenant inviolable.”

  “But what if Kaylene needed us?”

  “Then she needed to ask.”

  “As long as it wasn’t to complain about Robert?”

  “That’s about the scope of it. However, I made it clear to her if he ever hit her, she was to come immediately. I don’t care what your grandpa said, some things are never acceptable.”

  Reid rubbed his forehead as he considered what she’d said. While it made sense, he wondered if somehow Kaylene had become isolated and believed she couldn’t ask even family for help. That was a situation that shouldn’t have existed. “You never noticed anything?”

  “Well, I didn’t like the way Robert always talked down to your sister. She couldn’t do much right in his eyes. Kaylene was brilliant, top of her class in college, and then she married him and it was like all her oomph disappeared. He doted on those girls though. They hung the moon as far as he was concerned.”

  “So you were never worried?”

  “No.” She was silent a moment. “Now, before you depress me completely, tell me about your world.”

  Reid told her a few stories about Brandon’s kids and his work. Then she filled him in on the latest high school musical she and a girlfriend had attended. The call reminded him how unique his grandma was. He hoped to be as active and independent at her age.

  He promised to touch base with her before too much time passed and then hung up, tapping his phone against his chin.

  Grandma hadn’t had the information he’d hoped for, but maybe the call would get her thinking and prompt long-forgotten memories to surface.

  He was too much younger than Kaylene to know her friends, but maybe he could figure out who she talked to. He pulled Emilie’s information up on his phone, then pressed send, while he ignored the voice telling him it was just an excuse to contact her. At least he hadn’t called her as often as she entered his thoughts.

  “Hello?” Her voice brought a warmth that was unexplainable and unexpected.

  “Hey, this is Reid.”

  He heard a rustling, like she was settling back. “What’s up?”

  “I got a call from my friend at the hospital, and Kinley could be released this week.”

  Emilie blew out a breath. “We expected it to come.” She paused. “So, as early as Friday. We don’t have enough evidence.”

  “Is there anything we can do to stop her release?”

  “I’m reaching out to some of Kaydence’s friends from social media, but the girl I’ve talked with wouldn’t tell me anything helpful. The investigating detective didn’t have what I wanted either, though the police report is here now.” She sighed and he could hear pages rustling. “There’s not much here we didn’t already know.”

  “That’s a lot that isn’t what we need. Have you seen the 911 calls anywhere?”

  “Not yet. I keep checking, but I’m almost afraid of what could be recorded.”

  It could help them or prove what the police believed. “Do you think the police would give them to me?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s worth asking. I’m still working on tracking down where she got the gun, and we could try to talk to her counselor. It might work better if you contacted her, since you’re a relative. She’d probably require me to get a subpoena, unless Kaylene went with one from our list of recommendations.” He could hear tapping on a keyboard. “I sent a request to Shannon. I’ll see what she knows.”

  “Sounds like you’re keeping busy, Em.”

  “As much as I can do from here and stay under the radar.”

  “I talked to my grandma. I hoped she knew something that I missed. She didn’t.”

  “We just keep digging. If Robert did anything to Kaylene or the girls, someone knew. We have to find them.”

  Reid stared at his feet thrust out in front of him. A toe was starting to poke through a hole in one sock. “I’m not so sure. My grandma is a great woman, but she made it clear that she and Grandpa told Kaylene not to come to them with problems in her marriage. What if everyone she tried to talk to had the same attitude? It wouldn’t take long before she’d stop trying.”

  “But she didn’t. She came to me professionally, and she wrote a letter to you.”

  “Sure, but she didn’t give me the letter when I could do anything about it. And she didn’t let you actually help her.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. “That’s not true, Reid. I was waiting at court for her.” Her words tumbled out in a rush. “She was trying to get help when the shooting occurred. That’s why I’ll never believe she gave up and took matters into her own hands. She was ready to do what was necessary to break free.”

  “Maybe Robert found out.”

  “He must have.”

  “Grandma did say Robert liked to belittle Kaylene. Maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of her living on her own. If he belittled her in public, what did he do in private?”

  “It was verbal with some physical violence. I had one case this spring where the man got terribly physical and in my face at a hearing. I’d never had a deputy escort me to my car before, and I hope it’s never repeated. There are men who don’t like the idea of losing the control they believe is their right.”

  Reid thought over his interactions with Robert. At the hospital, the man had exercised absolute control over the room. No one could go in or out without his approval. And that was an environment in which he should have little power. What had he been like at home?

  “We should talk to people who worked with him.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Emilie drew the sentence out. “I wish we could locate some of Kaylene’s friends. If she had any.”

  “What do you mean ‘if she had any’?”

  “It’s not unusual for the dominant partner to limit interactions the other can have. He may have tightly controlled who she could see and talk to and how often she could do that. He might have viewed it as an effective way to punish her for perceived violations. Her social media wasn’t helpful, and his was innocuous, other than ignoring her.”

  “Couldn’t we reach out to the people listed as her friends?”

  “We could, but it will take a long time to contact each one individually.”

  “Time we don’t have.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Let me talk to my colleagues again. That might save us some wasted effort.” She paused, and he leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. Her next words made it seem she could read his mind.

  “Don’t give up hope, Reid. We’ll do all we can, but don’t forget the power of asking God for help. He already knows who we need to talk to.” She paused again and then plunged ahead, her words tumbling over each other as if she had to speak them before she lost courage. “Maybe Kaylene was wrong. Maybe her letter was old. Maybe Kinley doesn’t need protection from
her father. We may have to accept the fact she’s okay where she is.”

  Reid felt the pressure build up behind his eyes. He couldn’t accept her words, no matter how much truth might be buried in them. “Someone murdered Kaydence.”

  “Ye-ess.” She dragged the word out, as if she wondered what he meant.

  “Kaylene and Kinley were shot before the police arrived.”

  “Yes.”

  “That means someone killed my niece, and if it wasn’t Kaylene, the person will get away with murder. If that person is my brother-in-law and we don’t fight for Kinley, we’re letting her go home with her sister’s killer.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The lights in the parking lot flickered to life, casting halos around the cars beneath them as Reid pulled into a slot. He was arriving much later than he’d hoped. An emergency meeting had erupted after he talked to Emilie, but at least his team had landed one major prospect. That certainly helped his odds of beating Vincent at this game.

  As he’d headed to his car, Rogers, the nurse, had called again to say he needed to get there immediately because Kinley was beginning to twitch. It sounded like that was a much better sign than it had been when he was a kid who struggled to sit still through long school days. In first grade, it had been a sign of weakness, but tonight he prayed Kinley would twitch to life. The days had been long and worry filled as he’d waited.

  The unknown was whether Robert would be in her room and, if so, what would he do about Reid’s arrival?

  Reid needed to believe they could serve Kinley’s best interests. Robert had done nothing to bring Reid into the information loop or indicate his initial harsh stance would adjust even marginally. Letting Reid become part of Kinley’s life would be akin to admitting he had erred by cutting Reid out of the process.

  That wouldn’t happen.

  Maybe now that Kinley was making her way back, Robert would ignore the previous conversation.

  Reid pushed from his car and slowly walked across the lot to the hospital entrance. He’d go in and match Robert at his own game. He’d take control before Robert could. Walk in like he belonged, like being that little girl’s uncle gave him every right to be there, because it did.