Talon Winter Legal Thrillers Box Set

by Stephen Penner

  She grabbed his hand. His really big hand. “I hope they got it right.”

  “Me too,” Zeke replied. He tried to smile, but it burnt out.

  “Now, remember,” Talon warned him. “If they find you guilty of the drugs, that doesn’t mean they found you guilty of the gun too. It’s only life if they say yes to the gun. So don’t panic if they say guilty to unlawful possession of a controlled substance.”

  Zeke laughed lightly at that. “I don’t panic. I know what I’m facing. I’ve known it since that lady cop pulled that gun out from under the driver’s seat.”

  Talon frowned. He was right. And she hadn’t stopped it.

  The door to the hallway opened and in walked Marshall Lenox, followed by Curt, Olsen, and even Feingarten. Talon was ambivalent. She appreciated the support, but she didn’t need that many witnesses to her failure. She just hoped her entire career wouldn’t end up being defined by ‘Not my pants.’

  “All rise!” the bailiff called out. “The Pierce County Superior Court is now in session, the Honorable Arthur Haroldson presiding.”

  “Please be seated,” the judge instructed as he, too, sat down on the bench. “The jury has informed us they have a verdict. Does either party have anything to address before we bring them in?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Alcott practically chirped. The confidence of the previous afternoon had grown, both in amount and irritatingness.

  “No, Your Honor,” Talon agreed. She just wanted to get it over with.

  The bailiff went to fetch the jurors, and the long slow ballet of announcing a verdict began.

  First, the jurors walked in and took their positions in the jury box. The foreperson would be holding the verdict form, so both sides could see who the foreperson was and guess whether it was a good thing or a bad thing for their side. It turned out to be Juror #5, a non-descript middle-aged White man. Talon figured that probably didn’t mean much, but probably wasn’t great either.

  Next, the judge would instruct all but the foreperson to sit and then inquire, “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” the foreperson answered.

  “Please hand your verdict forms to the bailiff,” Judge Haroldson instructed.

  The bailiff would then take the forms and walk back over to the judge, who would read them to himself. Now, the jury knew the verdict, and the judge knew the verdict, and the bailiff probably knew the verdict from sneaking a peek at the verdict form as it made its way jury box to judge’s bench, but the lawyers still didn’t.

  The lawyers would try to read the judge’s face for clues. That would fail because judges know lawyers do that and have learned how to keep a poker face for the few seconds between reading the verdict to themselves and reading it aloud to the courtroom.

  And even then, the judge went through the entire caption before finally getting to the word, or words, that everyone cared about.

  “In the matter of the State of Washington versus Ezekiel Frazier…” Judge Haroldson began, pausing between each phrase, “we the jury… find the defendant… Ezekiel Frazier…” he paused one more time, then sighed, “not guilty of the crime of unlawful possession of a controlled substance.”

  Talon’s ears began ringing. Her hands filled with needles. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest. She turned to Zeke, who picked her up off the ground in a huge bear hug.

  Haroldson didn’t read the special verdict because they hadn’t reached it. Didn’t matter if it was his gun if it wasn’t his drugs.

  Instead, Haroldson began to thank the jury for their service, and other formalities. Talon didn’t listen. It didn’t matter. The corrections officers would still have to take Zeke back to the jail, but only to follow protocols for processing him out. He was a free man.

  The next several minutes flew by, almost like scenery from a train. Alcott stormed out of the courtroom. Zeke practically broke her hand shaking it before the corrections officers finally escorted him out. The bailiff took the jurors back to the jury room to debrief them and give them their ‘Thank You for Serving’ certificates. Marshall, and Curt, and Olsen, and Feingarten congratulated her. And Talon just stood there, almost dumbfounded, as the last echo of the verdict finally died out in the empty courtroom.

  She’d done it. She’d saved a man’s life.

  She gathered her things and headed out of the courtroom. When she did, the hallway was empty, save a single woman. One of the jurors. An older White woman, with curly gray hair and glasses on a chain.

  “Ms. Winter?” the juror called out. “Do you have a moment?”

  Talon nodded. “Of course. Absolutely. And thank you. Mr. Frazier thanks you too.”

  The juror smiled. “Please tell him good luck for us. And please tell him he should stop using drugs.”

  Talon raised an eyebrow. “Uh, sure. I will. But, I mean, you found him not guilty of the drugs, so…?”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” the juror said. “None of us believed that whole ‘not my pants’ bit. That was ridiculous. And I really didn’t like it when you suggested the police were racists. They were just doing their jobs.”

  “Then why did you acquit him?” Talon asked.

  “Well, it was that other thing you said,” the juror answered. “During jury selection. In fact, I wasn’t sure you were going to say it again in your closing argument, but you did right there at the end. You told us to be careful. And we knew that meant he was looking at some very serious prison time.”

  Talon just nodded. “Oh.”

  “In fact, I happen to know a little bit about the law,” the juror said. “And even though you didn’t say it, I’m thinking the judge wouldn’t let you say it. He didn’t seem to like you very much.”

  Talon just shrugged. She wasn’t supposed to say bad things about judges. Not to jurors anyway. To colleagues over a drink, totally different story.

  “But see,” the juror went on, “we talked about it, and we counted up the crimes that came up, other than the drugs. There was the driving suspended, and there was the stolen car.”

  “Stolen car?” Talon asked.

  “Well, obviously that car was stolen,” the juror said. “I mean, maybe that Bear person stole it—if he even exists.”

  Oh, he exists, Talon thought.

  “But it was stolen, which means Mr. Frazier was driving a stolen car and driving on a suspended license. Also having drugs in his pocket, well, that would be the third crime. Strike Three. And none of us were prepared to send a man to prison for the rest of his life because he had some drugs in his pocket.”

  Talon took a moment to process what she’d just heard. “You acquitted him so he wouldn’t be convicted of Strike Three?” she confirmed. “Because you thought the driving suspended and the stolen car would be the other two strikes?”

  “Exactly,” the juror answered. “We noticed those two crimes weren’t charged. And the only reason we could think of was because they were already convictions. Maybe he pled guilty already, or another jury found him guilty of those. But we didn’t want to be the jury that was responsible for sending a man to prison for the rest of his life.”

  Talon nodded. She didn’t know what else to say. So she thanked her again. “Thank you. And thank you for staying behind to tell me. I, I never would have guessed it.”

  The juror patted her on the arm. “Don’t feel bad, honey. You did a good job with what you had.”

  Talon smiled at the old woman. “Thank you.”

  The juror walked away then. Talon stayed behind. She stood in the hallway for a very long time, lost in her thoughts, even as she didn’t know what to think.

  EPILOGUE

  The Seattle office of the National Appellate Justice Project was on the thirty-third floor of one of the countless glass-and-steel skyscrapers downtown. The conference room, where Talon found herself, had a panoramic view of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains beyond. The conference room itself was outfitted with the latest technical gadgets, and the N.A.J.P. logo was
etched on the glass walls that separated the room from the hallway.

  “These offices are amazing,” she admitted.

  “I told you,” Marshall Lenox replied as he handed her a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “It makes you feel like a real lawyer.”

  Talon nodded. High-rise office, fancy conference room, freshly brewed coffee. It hadn’t been that long since she’d been a civil litigator at Tacoma’s top corporate firm. Of course, Seattle was a lot more of everything than Tacoma.

  She took a sip of her coffee. “Courtrooms make me feel like a real lawyer. Not conference rooms.”

  Marshall frowned slightly. “It’s a very nice conference room,” he observed.

  Talon laughed. “That it is.”

  She decided to change the subject. “Thanks for handling my brother’s case for a few days there. He’s got a real criminal defense attorney now, so I think he’s gonna be okay.”

  “He’s gonna go back to prison, isn’t he?” Marshall asked.

  “Probably,” Talon knew. “But who knows? The system is broken. Every now and again it breaks in favor of a defendant.”

  “You can help fix it from here,” Marshall said. “We’re on the front lines of trying to change the law.”

  Talon smiled and took another sip of coffee. She turned to look out again at the water and mountains.

  “Being on the front lines means you fight,” she said. “You get bloody. But you smell the gunpowder and you hear the cries. Once you’ve done that—“

  “There’s no going back,” Marshall finished for her. “You didn’t come here to accept my job offer, did you?”

  Talon turned around. “No. I came to turn it down. I’m a trial lawyer. I need the battle.”

  Marshall frowned again, but nodded. “I knew that,” he claimed. “But I thought I had a chance.”

  Talon smiled and set down her coffee.

  “There’s always a chance,” she said. “Until there isn’t.”

  END

  WINTER’S

  REASON

  Talon Winter Legal Thriller #3

  A person is guilty of murder in the first degree when…

  (c) He or she commits or attempts to commit the crime of robbery, and in the course of such crime, he or she, or another participant, causes the death of any person, other than one of the participants in the crime.

  Revised Code of Washington

  9A.32.030(1)(c)

  CHAPTER 1

  “The worst part of being a criminal defense attorney is the clients.” A pause. “And the prosecutors.” Another pause. “And the cops. Oh, and constantly hustling to make rent.” After a few more seconds, “Did I mention the judges?”

  Talon Winter, criminal defense attorney, looked down at the office receptionist, Hannah Trimble, who was busy typing away at her computer. Talon was leaning on the raised counter that was the front of Hannah’s workspace. It was where they placed business cards for the half-dozen or so lawyers who shared the office space. It was also where new clients would come first when they entered the office “Are you even listening to me?” Talon asked.

  “Are you even talking to me?” Hannah returned without looking up from her screen. “It sounds like you’re just talking to yourself.”

  Talon frowned, but not because Hannah was wrong.

  “Anyway,” Hannah finally looked up, then past Talon toward the front door, “it’s none of those. It’s the clients’ families.”

  Talon turned just in time to see the door burst open and a small crowd of people burst into the lobby.

  “Talon Winter!” one of them yelled out. She was a middle-aged woman with long red hair and a printed floral skirt. “We need to see Talon Winter!”

  The rest of her entourage confirmed the demand with a gaggle of nods and affirmative grunts, along with a murmured repeating of the name. “Talon Winter. Yes, Talon Winter.”

  Talon pushed herself off the counter and stood up tall, her own long black hair draping across the back of her matching black business suit. “I’m Talon Winter.”

  The red-haired woman grabbed Talon by both arms and smiled. “Of course you are,” she half-laughed as she appraised Talon. “We found you. You’re here, just waiting for us. Thank you, Lord.”

  The woman’s grip was tight. The grip of a mother, perfected over years of grabbing runaway children and ending toddler tantrums. A scan of the other faces in the lobby confirmed they were a family. Children of various ages, an adult couple about the same age as the red-haired woman, and in the middle of them all, an elderly woman with gray hair in a braid and wrinkled face, worrying behind thick glasses.

  Talon raised her arms just enough to signal to the woman to release her grip. She did, and Talon pulled at her sleeves to straighten her suitcoat. “What can I do for you?”

  A simple enough question. And while its answer was likely to be complex—they were looking for a lawyer after all—the response Talon received was beyond complex. It was an incoherent cacophony of facts, questions, worry, and fear.

  “It’s Luke!”

  “They arrested him!”

  “He didn’t do anything!”

  “It was the other guy!”

  “He did it!”

  “Luke was just in the car!”

  “He didn’t know what they were doing!”

  “He didn’t know what was going to happen!”

  “He didn’t mean to do it!”

  “They won’t listen!”

  “He’s in jail!”

  “He’s just a kid!”

  “He would never do anything like that!”

  “He didn’t know!”

  “He didn’t do it!”

  “You have to help us!”

  “You have to help him!”

  Talon put her hands up at the crowd. “Stop! Stop it,” she instructed. “One at a time.”

  She pointed at the woman who had grabbed her by the arms. “You,” she designated. “Just you talk. What happened? Who’s Luke?”

  The woman’s face fell, her eyes suddenly wet. “Luke is my son.”

  “And he got arrested?” Talon asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?” Talon continued her questioning. It was what she did for a living, after all.

  “Last night,” the woman answered. “But we didn’t find out until this morning.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Like, what jail did he call from?” The woman shook her head slightly. “The Pierce County Jail downtown.”

  “No,” Talon shook her own head, but sharply, once. “Where was he arrested?”

  “At the check-mart over on Thirty-Eighth,” the man from the crowd answered.

  “By the Tacoma Mall,” another voice shouted out.

  “One person,” Talon repeated firmly. She turned back to Luke’s mother. “What happened?”

  The rest of the family stayed quiet, giving the mother the chance to answer, but she shook her head again. “I don’t know what happened,” she admitted, sadness overwhelming her words. “I just know they arrested my boy. And I know he didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Talon frowned slightly. In part out of sympathy, but mostly because she knew it was going to be harder to extract information from someone who was crying.

  “Okay, okay.” Talon was starting to put two and two together, even if Luke’s mom was in denial. It sounded as if Luke had been the wheel man for a robbery, ‘just’ waiting in the car while his accomplice went inside. “So,” she surmised, “your son was arrested for robbery?”

  “No, not robbery.” Luke’s mom grabbed Talon’s arm again, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. “They arrested him for murder.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Murder?” Talon’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes,” Luke’s mother confirmed. “Murder. But he didn’t do anything. It all happened while he was waiting in the car.”

  Talon nodded to herself and appraised the situation in the lobby. It had gotten quieter, but she knew that was t
emporary.

  “This isn’t going to work with everyone chiming in,” she decided. “I’m going to talk with just two of you.” She pointed at Luke’s mother. “You obviously. And...”

  She scanned the crowd. There was the man who had spoken up about it happening at the check-mart, but Talon wasn’t a huge fan of men who spoke up. She pointed at the woman next to him. She was about the same age as the mom. Maybe an aunt, Talon guessed. “And you. Come with me to my office. The rest of you wait here.”

  Mutters of disappointment and acceptance rippled across the lobby as Mom and Probably Aunt stepped forward.

  “Can we get some coffee?” Talon asked Hannah.

  “Probably,” Hannah replied without any effort to get up. “I think there’s some left in the pot in the kitchen.”

  Talon forced a smile. “That’s great, Hannah. Thanks.” Then she signaled for her visitors to follow her. They went directly to her office—do not pass kitchen, do not collect old coffee.

  “Please, sit down.” Talon pointed to the two guest chairs across the desk from her own leather desk chair. “Let’s figure out what’s happening, and more importantly, how I can help you.”

  The two women looked at each other, then back to Talon and nodded as they all took their seats.

  “Let’s start with the basics,” Talon continued. “What are your names and how are you related to Luke?”

  “I’m Mary Zlotnik,” the first woman said. “I’m Luke’s mother.”

  “And I’m Anna Franklin,” answered the second woman. “I’m Luke’s aunt and Mary’s sister-in-law.”

  “She’s married to my brother,” Mary explained unnecessarily. “He’s in the lobby with the rest of the family.”

  Talon nodded, pleased with her instincts. “Okay,” she acknowledged the information. “So, your son’s name is Luke Zlotnik, then?”

  “Yes.” Mary offered a pained nod. “Lucas James Zlotnik. He’s my oldest.”

  “Great,” Talon answered. She didn’t need to know about the other kids. “And he’s been arrested for murder?”