“And I haven’t been paid at all,” Curt pointed out.
Talon confirmed that with a nod. “I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass, Luke,” she told him. “I don’t care the way you care, or the way your parents care. And yeah, I get paid to do this job. But I do it because I care about people like you. People getting railroaded because more powerful people need a conviction. If the jury says ‘guilty’, they will have forgotten about you before the ink dries on the headline they were chasing. But you? No, it’s real for you. If they say ‘guilty’, then you’re going away forever. That’s not right. And I care about that, no matter how much I do or don’t get paid.”
Luke thought for a moment. “Good for you, I guess. But it doesn’t seem to matter. You just lost all those motions. We’re screwed, right? Maybe my parents should just save their money and let me get convicted.”
“Your parents would spend every cent they have if it meant you get out of jail again,” Talon said.
Luke cocked his head at that, and for the first time in a long time, Talon saw a small spark in his eye.
“Maybe that’s what they should use the money for,” he said. “To get me out of jail.”
“They’re trying,” Curt put in. “That’s why they hired Talon.”
“No, no.” Luke shook his head. “I don’t mean pay a lawyer to get me off. I mean pay a bail bond company to get me out. What’s my bail again?”
“Two million,” Talon answered. “I’m confident your parents don’t have two million dollars.”
“But they only need ten percent, right?” Luke’s face lit up. “So, what’s that, like twenty thousand, right?”
“Two hundred thousand,” Talon corrected. “That’s still a lot of money. And they don’t get it back. A rich guy posts two million, he gets it all back, so long as he goes to court every day. But if a poor guy needs to borrow it from a bail bond company, he pays ten percent to them and never gets that back. The bail bond company posts the two million for him, and then they get it back when the case is over. That two hundred grand is free money for them.”
“Unless I take off,” Luke suggested, a smile creeping onto his face for the first time Talon could remember.
“Even then,” Talon answered. “That’s what bounty hunters are. They work for bail bond companies and they’re authorized to hunt you down and arrest you. They turn you over to the authorities and the bond company gets their two mil back.”
“Unless they can’t find me,” Luke persisted.
“They’ll find you,” Talon assured him. “Most of them are national companies. They have offices, and bounty hunters, in every state.”
“What about Canada?” Luke proposed. “One of the guys in here, he said I should go to Canada.”
Talon didn’t have an immediate response. “Canada?”
“Yeah, Canada,” Luke confirmed. “They can’t extradite me from Canada, right?”
Talon laughed slightly. “If there’s one country the U.S can extradite from, it’s Canada. But….”
“But what?” Luke asked.
“Yeah,” Curt joined in. “But what?”
Talon thought for a moment before she answered. She wanted to be careful. And she wanted to be right.
“Canada won’t extradite you for felony murder,” she realized. “They abolished felony murder years ago. And you can’t extradite from one country to another unless both countries have the same crime.”
Luke’s face lit up. “So, it would work? If I can post bail, I just have to get to Canada? That’s like, what, a three-hour drive?”
“Four, with traffic,” Talon answered, but her mind wasn’t really focused on the drive time.
“So, let’s do that,” Luke urged. “Tell my parents to stop paying you and figure out a way to post my bail. Then I drive to Canada and I’m free.”
Talon frowned. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” Luke asked. “Seems pretty simple to me.”
Curt nodded. “It does seem pretty simple.”
“They could still extradite you on the robbery,” Talon explained.
“Can I get life in prison for robbery?” Luke asked.
Talon shook her head. “No. You’d be looking at eight to ten years. Maybe another five if Miguel really had a gun, but there’s no evidence of that. So, yeah, eight to ten.”
“And I’d get time off for good behavior, right?” Luke pressed.
Talon nodded again. “Yeah. One third. So, you’d really only serve like six or seven years. You’d be twenty-five when you got out.”
Luke slapped the table. “Let’s do that, then! Easy.”
“Not easy,” Talon said. “And not simple. It’s way more complicated than that. Even if your parents could scrape up enough money to pay a bonding company.”
“Why?” Luke demanded.
Talon sighed. She turned to her investigator. “Why don’t you go use the bathroom or something, Curt?”
“But I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” he protested.
“Irrelevant,” Talon replied.
But Curt tipped his head to side. “I don’t understand.”
Talon rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to give you a nickel and tell you to go to the movies? Geez, just get out of the room. Tell the guard you have to pee. I don’t need a witness for this.”
“Oh.” Curt nodded. “Got it.”
He started to stand up, but Talon stopped him. “Actually, I do need a witness for this first part.” She turned back to her client. “Luke, I cannot advise you to flee. Leaving the jurisdiction after posting bail is a felony and I can’t advise you to commit a crime. I also can’t advise you to violate the conditions of your release, which include appearing for every court date and accepting the judgment of the court, whatever that might end up being."
She turned back to Curt. “Okay, you can go now. And don’t hurry.”
Curt gave her a thumbs-up and a wink. “Number two. Got it.”
Talon rolled her eyes again and waited while Curt exited the room and asked the guard for directions to the nearest bathroom. Once the door was closed again behind him, Talon looked across the jail table at Luke.
“I can’t advise you to flee,” she repeated, “but if you did, it would be smart.”
“So, that’s what we’re gonna do?” Luke confirmed.
It was tempting. The chessboard had fallen over and all of Talon’s pieces were on the floor. No, it was worse. The board was still very much in place, but Cecilia had captured all of her pieces. It was tempting to grab the board and throw it across the room.
But Talon shook her head. “No, Luke. It’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” Luke asked.
“Because your parents don’t have two hundred thousand dollars,” Talon answered. “And even if they did, the bonding company would want them to put up everything else they own as collateral, in case you took off. Because, Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Everyone knows you’re gonna take off, Luke,” she explained. “Even the jailhouse lawyers in here are giving you that advice. That’s why your bail is so high. And no bonding company is going to risk two million dollars on you. Not when you can drive to Canada in an afternoon. Everybody knows that’s the smart play here. And that’s why you’re stuck in here.”
Luke’s expression dropped. “But if I can’t run, what am I going to do?’
“Fight,” Talon answered. “Those are two options, right? Fight or flight. And you can’t flee. So, you have to fight.”
Luke dropped his eyes to the floor. “But I’m gonna lose.”
Talon wasn’t allowed to promise a specific result. It was against the ethical rules. And it was also against reality. No one could guarantee what a jury would do. But she needed Luke on board. She needed him to have some hope, other than a pipe dream of a road trip across the northern border. And there were no witnesses.
She reached across the table and took his hand. “No. We’re going to win. I prom
ise.”
CHAPTER 33
There weren’t supposed to be surprises in chess. Not for the master. Not for the winner. The other side was supposed to be surprised when everything the master expected to happen unfolded. But Talon had been surprised. And she wasn’t finished being surprised.
Some surprises were good, like when a new client burst through the door wanting to hire you. Some surprises were bad, like when the judge denied all of your motions to compel the discovery you needed to properly defend your client. And some surprises were just, well, surprising.
“Lieutenant Johnson from the Tacoma Police Department is here to see you.”
Talon just stared at the speaker on her desk phone, unsure if she’d heard Hannah correctly.
“Lieutenant Johnson? Are you sure?”
Talon could hear Hannah ask the visitor his name again, and the response. “Yep,” Hannah said. “Lieutenant Johnson. He has another delivery for you.”
Talon wondered why the Lieutenant had stopped by unannounced. And she tried to keep herself from hoping that delivery was what she hoped it was. “I’ll be right there.”
She stood up from her desk and made her way out to the lobby, adopting a tough, ‘this had better be worth it’ expression and gait. But when she reached the lobby, it was clear it was very much worth it.
Lieutenant Johnson raised up another heavy-looking box of papers. “I heard you lost the first copy,” he said, his biceps straining against the weight of the box. “I brought you a replacement.”
Talon was pleased. Grateful, even, But suspicious.
“Did Fassbinder send you?” She crossed her arms. “Or Thompson? Who sent you?”
Johnson lowered the box again and smiled slightly. “I sent myself, ma’am. I heard what happened. Or at least the result of it. You lost the papers I delivered to you. But my job was to make sure you got those documents. If that means I have to bring you a replacement, well, I don’t mind a field trip. It’s good for an old man to get out.”
Johnson looked to be in his early fifties and fit. He was hardly old, and he certainly didn’t seem to need the exercise.
Talon nodded at the box. “So, that’s exactly what you brought me before?”
Johnson nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Page for page.” He paused. “Actually, I think there might be something extra in it this time. Something the lawyers may not have known to include.”
Talon narrowed her eyes. “I’m a lawyer, too, you know.”
“I do know,” Johnson confirmed. “And that’s why it’s included this time.”
“What is it?” Talon asked.
But instead of answering, Lt. Johnson asked her, “Have you ever been to Birchwood?”
Talon took a moment, then shook her head. “Is that a bar?”
Johnson laughed politely. “No, ma’am. It’s a town. Sleepy little place on your way up to White Pass. One gas station, two bars, and three cops.”
“Sorry.” Talon shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
“Well, I’m not surprised,” Johnson replied. “It’s not really the kind of place you go to. It’s more the kind of place you leave from. If you know what I mean.”
Talon thought for a moment. “I don’t think I do.”
Johnson smiled, but more to himself than her. He set the box down on the floor. “Just so you know, Ms. Winter, not all cops like all other cops, at least not just because they’re cops. One bad apple doesn’t just ruin the barrel. It ruins the reputation of the barrel. And the reputation of all the other barrels too.”
Talon took a beat. “Now, I definitely don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“I think you’ll figure it out.” Johnson smiled at her. “That’s your reputation. I expect you’ll live up to it.
CHAPTER 34
Talon wasn’t entirely sure what her reputation really was, but she knew one thing: she wasn’t a quitter. She wasn’t just going to let Cecilia chase her few remaining pieces around the chessboard. Not when Johnson had given her a piece to move into play. If she could find it.
There were hundreds of pages in the replacement box, and Talon hadn’t had time to study them all so that she could easily identify whatever had been added. But at the very end—and she was smart enough to check there first to see if anything had been added—she found a single piece of paper bearing the seal of The Town of Birchfield, Washington.
It was just a letter to Tacoma P.D. confirming that Dickerson had worked as a police officer in their three-officer department for approximately one year. The end date was shortly before Dickerson joined Tacoma P.D. The letter didn’t include anything more than name, rank, and employment dates. It wasn’t a letter of recommendation, just a verification of employment. And that was suspicious enough for Talon.
She still had a copy of the public records request she’d sent to Tacoma P.D. on her computer. The thieves hadn’t deleted that. It was a small matter to change the name and address of the recipient, and the date range for the records. The ask was the same: Any and all records regarding Todd Dickerson, including but not limited to his personnel records and any investigation by internal affairs.
She gave the public records request to Hannah to file, then returned her attention to the replacement records. There wasn’t much of use, but at least she had something. She might be able to bootstrap Dickerson’s general zealousness into an itchy trigger finger, and his social media photos of a probable date with a white supremacist as a motive for shooting Miguel. She couldn’t count on getting anything back from The Town of Birchfield prior to the commencement of trial. And if she did get a response, it was likely to be the same sort of blacked-out pages she’d received from Tacoma. She didn’t let herself dare wish for better.
But when the envelope from Birchfield arrived just five business days later, and when she saw that it was a thick packet of papers, not a one-page denial of her request, she let herself feel a small glimmer of hope.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ the saying went. ‘You just might get it.’
I sure fucking hope so, Talon thought as she tore open the envelope.
She’d wished for another chess piece to attack with. Anything. A rook. Maybe a knight. Even a bishop.
What she got was a queen.
Across the top of the document, in all caps, were the words, ‘INTERNAL AFFAIRS INVESTIGATION’, followed by the summary:
Subject: Todd Dickerson
Rank: Police Officer
Allegation: Excessive Force, Racial Bias
Finding: Sustained
Talon’s eyebrows shot up. Her heartbeat raced. Her mouth curled into a smile. “Sustained?” she repeated aloud, as if she herself couldn’t believe it. She looked at the word again and nodded. “Sustained.”
* * *
“So, what was the allegation?’ Curt asked when she grabbed him from his office across the hall and dragged him into hers to tell him about the bombshell development from the sleepy little Town of Birchfield. “What did he do?’
“He beat the shit out of a Hispanic teenager,” Talon smiled ear to ear despite the subject matter. “Some kid caught shoplifting at the only store in town. He was on his way over the pass to Yakima, when they stopped off for some snacks and to use the bathroom. The store owner thought he and his brother looked suspicious, so he called the cops. Well, the town is the size of my office, so the cops responded immediately. Dickerson was the only one on duty and he just went full police brutality on the kid. Put him in a choke hold, threw him to the ground, kicked him, punched him. He really fucked him up.”
“Shit.” Curt shook his head. “So, he’s just a bad cop with a temper problem.”
“No, he’s a racist cop,” Talon said, “with a Hispanic problem. The kid was American, but his parents were born in Guatemala. He had dark skin and was speaking Spanish with his brother. When Dickerson showed up, he just immediately put hands on the kid, then started yelling all these racial slurs. Called him a ‘dirty Mexican’—which wasn’t even the correc
t nationality. Called him a ‘wetback’, and told him to ‘go back to Mexico and make tortillas.’”
“Tortillas?” Curt made a bemused expression.
“I know, right?” Talon agreed. “But it wasn’t funny when it was punctuated with a boot to the face. The kid had to go the hospital. And then Dickerson booked him for shoplifting and resisting arrest.”
“Did he get convicted?” Curt asked.
Talon shook her head. “He didn’t even get charged. The store owner ratted Dickerson out. He called the chief of police and told him what really happened. I mean, even if he did try to steal a candy bar, he didn’t deserve to get beat up and called racist names by a cop.”
“Good for the store owner.” Curt said.
“Definitely,” Talon agreed. “But bad for Birchfield Police Officer Todd Dickerson. The chief made sure the kid was released with no charges filed. Then the mayor reached out to the family and offered to pay the kid’s medical bills.”
“That was nice of them,” Curt observed.
But Talon shrugged it off. “I’m not sure about that. They just didn’t want to get sued. The same way they didn’t want to get sued by Dickerson. They told him to go find another job, but when Tacoma P.D. came asking about him, all they did was confirm his dates of employment. Nothing about why he’d been fired.”
“Real brave,” Curt huffed.
“Cops are weird,” Talon said. “They’re the first ones in on some of the most dangerous stuff that ever happens. Active shooters, you name it. But sometimes, when the brave thing to do is to call out a fellow officer—well, then, bravery can seem pretty scarce.”
Curt thought for a moment, frowning. His expression lightened. “This is huge. Maybe the prosecutor will give you a deal now. There’s no way she wants this to get out.”
But Talon shook her head. “She’s still not going to give me a deal. It’s out of her hands. And anyway, she’s convinced herself she’s in the right. There’s nothing more dangerous than a self-righteous prosecutor. Except maybe a know-it-all judge afraid to cross the prosecutor’s office in an election year. Cecilia will just file another motion to suppress all this Birchwood stuff from the trial. And if we end up in front of Judge Gainsborough again, the motion will be granted.”
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