Defender

by Diana Palmer

  The problem was that there were too many cases for too few employees. It was the same story in any prosecutor’s office, no matter the size. Some cases were plea-bargained, some were continued, many went to trial. Some were won, some were lost, superb arguments notwithstanding. It was a fascinating process to Sari, who’d only studied past cases up until now. The real thing was sometimes gut-wrenching.

  They were prosecuting a case against a young offender who’d murdered his grandparents in a meth-induced haze. He didn’t remember doing it, but his grandparents were still dead. His parents insisted that their son wasn’t capable of murder. The public defender said he could produce witnesses who would swear the boy was with them at the time of the killings. It looked like a lost cause until an unexpected phone call informed the DA that ten thousand dollars had been taken from the old couple, who had hidden it in a shoebox in the closet. A few of the bills dated to the midfifties. Armed with that information, sheriff’s deputies and investigators were sent out to area stores to ask about the odd denominations. Sure enough, a convenience store owner still had two of the bills. They were so unusual that he’d kept them and replaced the bills with newer ones. He gave them to police. He also described the young man who’d paid for a six-pack of beer with them. He matched the description of one of the witnesses who could provide the defendant with an alibi.

  There were two other bills used to pay for a meal at the local fried chicken franchise, where an assistant manager had found the old bills suspicious and called authorities out to make sure they weren’t counterfeit. The deputy who answered the call still had them in his evidence locker.

  One chain linked to another to give the prosecution enough rope to hang the defendant, whose public defender agreed to plead him guilty rather than fight it out in court. Faced with the hard evidence, the witnesses turned state’s evidence in return for reduced sentences. The perpetrator remembered very little of the crime, but his friends gave a complete account of what happened. The young man was distraught, his parents even more so. When he was sentenced, neither of his parents stood by him. His public defender discussed the sentencing with Glory and Sari. He’d been sure that the young man was innocent. It was another hard lesson learned in the public arena of law.

  That case demonstrated to Sari the beauty of cooperation between law enforcement and prosecutors, because neither could have put together the winning case without the other. She learned that she would be required to go to crime scenes when she was prosecuting defendants. One of the local police officers provided her with her own personalized barf bag, to be kept for her first murder case. Considering the very small number of murders in Jacobsville, and Jacobs County itself, in a year, she was more likely to be prosecuting defendants charged with assault, battery, robbery, drug use and distribution, and passing false checks. It was unlikely she’d need a barf bag for those, she thought with a grin.

  But you never knew. After all, there had been at least two notable murders in the past two years—a body found in deplorable condition near a local river, and the murder of the late Betty Leeds. With increased population came increased crime. Sure, she replied. But considering that only five new people had moved into Jacobsville in the past year, that statistic was just a little iffy. The policeman only grinned.

  * * *

  Paul came to supper that Sunday night. He brought a single red rose for Sari and handed it to her with a flourish while Mandy and Merrie hid out in the kitchen to get the meal on the table.

  “It’s lovely,” Sari said, breathless.

  He touched her soft cheek. “I thought one rose conveyed a meaning that was a little different than a huge bouquet.”

  Her heart ran away. “Did you?” she whispered. Her eyes were eating his strong, handsome face.

  He drew her closer. “Yes.” He sounded breathless, too. His eyes were on her softly parted lips. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  His hands came up to frame her oval face. He stared into her blue, blue eyes for a long time, until her heart threatened to beat her to death. He bent his head. His hard mouth brushed over hers slowly, tenderly, parting her lips even more. She heard the intake of his breath as his hands tightened and his mouth came closer, closer…

  “Supper!” Mandy called from the kitchen without opening the door.

  “Oh, damn,” Sari groaned without thinking.

  “Double damn,” Paul added, catching his breath.

  She searched his dark eyes. It was like a beginning, a new start. “I’m hungry,” she managed to say, still vibrating with desire.

  “Me, too.” He drew in a steadying breath and caught her small hand tight in his big one. “I guess dessert has to wait for a bit, then,” he mused, drawing her toward the kitchen.

  She laughed. Life was sweet.

  * * *

  It was a riotous meal. Mandy had fixed homemade chili and Mexican corn bread.

  Paul hardly knew what he was eating. His eyes barely left Sari’s flushed face for a single minute. He felt, as she did, the newness of a relationship based on truth, not secrets.

  She smiled at him with her heart in her eyes. “Any luck tracking down Morris?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Just rumors. He went to Mexico to join the Zetas. He signed on with the revolutionaries in Syria. Stuff like that. If you want my guess,” he added, sipping his second cup of coffee, “he’s somewhere close by, hiding out from the people who hired him.”

  “You think he’ll try again?” Merrie asked worriedly.

  “He might,” Paul said honestly. “But if he does, he’ll be in custody before he raises the gun again. I’m not kidding. Eb Scott has some top secret surveillance equipment that his men are using. It’s cutting-edge technology. Believe me, Morris won’t get a third chance.”

  “That makes me feel so much better,” Sari said. She smiled sheepishly. “I’m not usually a nervous person. But it’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

  “I know it has,” Paul said, his eyes encompassing all three women. “But the worst is over. I promise you.” He looked straight at Sari. “Things are going to be sweet from now on.”

  “Sweet,” Sari repeated, lost in his penetrating gaze.

  “Very,” he said huskily.

  She nodded. “Very.”

  “Uh, Sari,” Merrie said in a teasing tone, “that’s the seventh teaspoon of sugar you’ve put in that coffee.”

  “Teaspoon,” she parroted, still lost in Paul’s eyes. Then she realized what her sister had said. She hesitated, glanced at her sister and then looked at her cup. She grimaced. “Mandy, do you think I could have a fresh cup of coffee?”

  Mandy laughed. “Sure, if you promise to let me put the sugar in it.”

  Merrie grinned. Sari looked sheepish. Paul laughed.

  “If you want to sweeten that coffee, just put a finger in it,” Paul said softly. “You’re so sweet you don’t need extra.”

  “Awwwww,” Mandy and Merrie said together.

  “Cut it out,” Sari muttered, flushing.

  “Oh, someone called about the probate of the will,” Mandy told Sari as she put the coffee at her place. “He says it will only take another week or so. He wants you to call him.”

  “Tomorrow,” Sari said, distracted, her mind only on Paul.

  “He appointed her executrix, since Mr. Darwin didn’t specify one in his will,” Mandy explained to Paul. “Since she’s the eldest.”

  “Most of what he has will be impounded,” Paul volunteered. He hated sounding so happy about it. He’d been beaming all day, since Jon had told him what the government intended to do about Grayling’s money. “Sorry,” he told the women. “He entered into a conspiracy with Betty Leeds to defraud a bank and use it to launder money from organized crime. The Treasury Department will be able to trace his transactions
, and we’ll be looking for links to organized crime contacts who participated in the money laundering. Hopefully, we’ll be able to close down some of the illegal activities that provided the money.”

  “What sort of activities?” Merrie asked.

  “The usual. Gambling, prostitution, extortion. There’s a laundry list of crimes.”

  “I still don’t understand why Daddy wasn’t satisfied with what our mother left him,” Sari said sadly. “He had more than enough already.”

  “Not quite enough to support his habit.” Paul hesitated when they looked surprised. He hadn’t shared this finding with them. He grimaced. “Okay. He was addicted to heroin. He used all the time. His habit amounted to thousands of dollars a day.”

  Sari gasped. So did Merrie.

  “In addition to the narcotics use, there was a lesion in his brain,” Paul added. “It was found during the autopsy. Dr. Coltrain said it helped explain, along with the narcotics addiction, his episodes of violence. But what killed him was a heart attack. Not really too surprising, considering the amount of drugs he was using,” he added quietly.

  Sari sipped her hot coffee quietly. “At least I don’t feel so guilty anymore. We never knew that he used drugs,” she said. “Neither Merrie nor I had ever been around people who were drunk or on drugs. We didn’t even know the signs. When he hit us, we thought he was just angry at things we did. Like not straightening the towels on the racks in our bathrooms, or having the area rugs in our bedrooms less than parallel to the bed.”

  Paul was shocked. “What?”

  Sari looked up. “He was a perfectionist,” she said. “Everything had to be in perfect order, all the time. We were scared not to do what he said.”

  “He was using that belt on them, and I never knew,” Mandy said heavily. “Even with the threats he made to my brother, I would have done something, if I’d known. He made sure I was out of town or away from the house when he did it.”

  “He knew you’d try to protect us,” Merrie said gently.

  “And we never told you, to protect you,” Sari added. “I don’t imagine he used drugs when you were around, either, Paul, because you’d have recognized the signs.”

  “I would have,” he agreed. “Sadly, nobody can stop a madman,” Paul said angrily. “At least, not without the law behind them. And he was rich enough to bypass the law, apparently.”

  “He bought people,” Sari said coldly. “If he couldn’t buy them, he threatened their families. It’s how he kept out of jail for so many years. But drugs… We never knew!”

  “I guess it explains the way he was,” Merrie added. “It doesn’t excuse it, though.”

  “Not a bit,” Mandy muttered. “I guess I was blind, too. But, then, I’d only been around people who smoked weed. My brother did, when I was in grammar school. I remember how he always smelled of it. The smell made me sick.” She smiled wanly. “I guess that’s all that kept me out of trying it, too. That, and the way our mother took care of us. She never put a foot wrong. But my brother stayed in trouble with the law.” She shrugged. “I always wondered if Mr. Darwin knew about him, and that’s why he actually hired me when his wife died. It was leverage he could use, to keep me quiet about his private life.”

  “You didn’t know what he did to us, but we all knew what he did to the horses when he lost his temper with them,” Merrie said, and shivered. “He killed one. We didn’t see it, but the trainer got drunk and told us. It broke his heart. He loved his horses.”

  “After that, he was careful to make sure the horses were put up when Mr. Darwin went to look at them,” Mandy said. “And he made sure that there was no reason to bring one out, where Mr. Darwin might find a reason to get angry and hurt it.”

  “We had a dog, when Merrie was very small,” Sari recalled, her face tautening. “Daddy got mad at us and slammed the dog’s head into the front door.” She closed her eyes in remembered pain. “He laughed.”

  “My God!” Paul burst out. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked Sari.

  “Because if I’d told you, you’d have said something to him and he’d have fired you,” Sari said huskily. “Or he’d have done something worse. People didn’t cross him without consequences, ever!”

  “I had no damned idea!” Paul said angrily.

  “We couldn’t tell you,” Merrie said, backing up her sister. “He’d have known who told you, Paul.” She winced. “We had enough scars already.”

  Paul was remembering what Sari had told him, about the beating that had resulted when Paul resigned his job. He winced.

  “Don’t,” Sari said softly. “It wasn’t your fault, not really. I blamed you, but anything could have set him off.”

  “That’s true,” Merrie agreed. “I guess the drugs explain a lot that puzzled us before. We didn’t know he had a habit.”

  “He never showed it,” Sari said. “Except in sudden bursts of rage. He seemed perfectly sober, except for the headaches and the sweating. He always sweated when he’d used the belt on us. He was sweating the night he came home from Betty Leeds’s house, the night she was killed.”

  “Killed.” Merrie grimaced. “Our father was a murderer,” she added. “What if we’re like that? Like him?”

  “We’re not like that!” Sari interrupted. “He was high on drugs and he wasn’t quite all there mentally, either. Maybe it was the lesion, maybe it was congenital, but he chose his own fate. We’re not like him, Merrie. We’ll never be like him.”

  “Maybe not,” her sister replied, “but it’s not exactly a recommendation, is it? Some nice man wants to marry us and we tell him about Daddy, and he worries that maybe he’ll have children who have a tendency to kill people.”

  “Someone who loves you won’t care about that, honey,” Paul said softly. His eyes turned to Sari. “He won’t care at all about what your father did.”

  Sari flushed with pleasure. The look was as intimate as a touch.

  “He might have killed our mother, too,” Merrie said quietly. “Dr. Coltrain thought he did. He wanted a thorough autopsy, but Daddy had him called out of town and a doctor appointed to do the autopsy who was in Daddy’s pocket.”

  “The only way to find out for sure would be to order an exhumation,” Paul said gently. “That’s pretty drastic.”

  Sari drew in a breath. “Let’s just get through with this investigation before we start looking for more tragedy,” she suggested. “Whatever we do, it won’t bring Mama back.”

  “No,” Merrie agreed. “But the truth should be known.”

  Sari met her eyes. After a minute, she nodded. “Yes. It should.”

  * * *

  After supper, Mandy and Merrie stayed in the kitchen to do the dishes. Or so they said. There were secret smiles as Paul led Sari out of the kitchen by the hand, past the living room and into the garden room. It was too dark to see outside, and the blinds were drawn. There was a love seat and a cushy chair and a coffee table.

  Paul sat down in the cushy chair and pulled Sari gently down into his lap. “And now we can have dessert,” he whispered as his lips parted hers.

  She linked her arms around his neck and gave him her weight. Her eyes closed. Her head fell back against his shoulder with a long, shuddering sigh.

  “Sometimes we get second chances,” he bit off against her eager mouth. His big hands slid up and down her sides, barely brushing her breasts, testing the firm skin over her ribs. She caught her breath.

  “Sometimes…we do,” she said shakily.

  “Slow down, tiger,” he murmured softly as his hands grew bolder. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “No, we haven’t,” she moaned. “They’ll finish the dishes and fix dessert. And then they’ll come looking for us.” She was gasping because his hands had found soft mounded flesh with hard tips and they were busy tak
ing possession of them.

  “They’ll go slow,” he said into her mouth. “We’ll go slow, too, baby. Slow, like honey trickling down a tree trunk… That’s it. Lift up against my hands. I love the way your breasts feel, Isabel. They’re like little apples, round and firm and delicious. I’d give anything to strip you out of that blouse and put my mouth right over the nipples and suckle you, hard.”

  She moaned out loud and arched her back, on fire with the mental images of what he wanted to do swirling in her head. She wanted it, too. Wanted it until it was like thirst after hiking miles and miles through a desert…

  His warm, strong hands went under the blouse, under the lacy little bra. He pushed it up, raised his head to listen for a minute. His eyes slid down to the beautiful, freckled white skin, her rosy nipples pointing hungrily toward his face.

  “Don’t cry out,” he whispered as he bent his head. “They’ll hear.”

  She had to bite her lower lip almost hard enough to draw blood to obey his feverish whisper. Her body arched so violently that she wondered if her spine might snap as she tried to get even closer to that warm, devouring mouth as it began to draw the warm flesh hungrily inside it.

  She whimpered helplessly, shuddering. The pleasure was overwhelming. Her nails dug into the back of his neck, into the thick hair at his nape, as she coaxed him, pleading for more.

  One big hand was under her thigh. It clasped there, hard, and pulled her into the curve of his body, pressing her against a flat stomach with blatant evidence of his arousal.

  “I want to,” she breathed over his head. “I want to…so much!”

  “Me, too,” he murmured roughly against her soft, warm skin. He lifted his head. His dark eyes glittered up into hers as they hung there together in the warm semidarkness of the room. There was just enough light to let him see what he was touching, what he was kissing. “But we can’t, baby,” he added on a harsh breath. “We can’t!”