Blind Conviction (Nate Shepherd Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by Michael Stagg

  “The farm is divided into three distinct properties with the parents’ farm between Archie and Hamish Mack, Your Honor,” I said. “Perhaps if Mr. Mack were restricted to his own property?” I looked at Archie. “If I understand correctly, Mr. Mack will be spending every waking moment between now and the trial in his fields.”

  Archie nodded.

  “Not allowing him to do so will create a significant financial hardship.”

  “Trying to murder someone tends to do that,” said Stritch.

  “Mr. Stritch!” said Judge Wesley.

  “My apologies, Your Honor. If I may—”

  “You may not,” said Judge Wesley. “Bond is set at five hundred thousand dollars. Terms will include restrictions to his home with work privileges which, if I understand you, Mr. Shepherd, will also limit him to his property. Mr. Mack will not be permitted to go to his parents’ family home, come within two hundred feet of Abby Ackerman, or otherwise communicate with her. Is one of the Mack parents here?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “One of them will sign on to their acknowledgment of the no contact provision if the defendant is to be released.”

  I pointed to the back of the courtroom where Mrs. Mack sat next to Cade. “Mrs. Mack is prepared to do so, Judge.”

  Judge Wesley nodded. “The rest will be typical terms, including our electronic monitoring plan which will be conducted according to our standard local procedures. Any questions?”

  “No, Your Honor,” both Stritch and I said.

  “Then we are adjourned.” Judge Wesley nodded and the bailiff called the next case.

  A sheriff’s deputy came over to take Archie back to the jail. Before he did, I said, “Cade will process the paperwork with you and go over the terms. We should have you out by the end of the day.”

  Archie looked stricken. “I don’t have five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You need fifty. And collateral for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t know if I have that either.”

  “Cade will work through it with you.”

  Archie’s face didn’t change as he nodded and the deputy led him away. Cade and Mrs. Mack followed them out.

  I walked out of the courtroom. T. Marvin Stritch walked with me.

  “We have more video,” Stritch said.

  “From the Quarry?”

  “From a gas station right after. It’s damning.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Not the slightest bit of remorse. He’d just smashed his future sister-in-law’s head in and left her to die and he just goes to a gas station and cleans up afterwards as if nothing had happened.”

  “That sounds like a more likely explanation.”

  Stritch blinked. “What does?”

  “That nothing had happened.”

  “I don’t see the evidence that way.”

  “I’m just saying, you keep hearing zebras instead of horses.”

  Stritch stared at me for a moment then shrugged it off. “Speaking of horse power—”

  “Were we?”

  “I have my eye on a Rolls Royce Phantom.”

  “On a prosecutor’s salary?” I remembered his office. “Oh, you mean the car models.”

  “They’re replicas.”

  “I’m sure that’s a very important difference. The meter’s running on my Jeep. I’ll talk to you later. You’ll send me the new video?”

  Stritch smiled. “When the prosecution’s evidence disclosure is due under our local rules, yes.”

  “I see. Thanks for the heads up.”

  “Of course.”

  Stritch turned down the hall toward his office. I went downstairs to go see about Archie’s release.

  It took a few hours, but Cade eventually had Archie processed and out. It turned out he’d been able to come up with the fifty thousand but, when the little equity he had left in the farm, equipment, and harvest wasn’t enough collateral for the rest, his mother stepped in and pledged her retirement account. As we stood in the parking lot, Cade and I both warned him one more time that he was to stay put, work, and avoid any family gathering with Abby or he’d end up right back here. I think he got it.

  Mrs. Mack straightened, gave Archie a look that I’d wager hadn’t changed in thirty-some years, and said, “And you’ll stay away from your brother too. Call your dad or me if you need to change out any of the equipment.”

  Archie pulled down on the brim of his Mack Farms baseball cap and nodded.

  As we watched the two of them drive off together, Cade bunched his shoulders together and then jerked to the side, cracking his back, before he said, “Olivia doesn’t think he did it.”

  “Me either.”

  “Know who did?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What about the Sheriff?”

  “They think they have their man.”

  “You best get cracking then.”

  “Very helpful. You going to the gym later?”

  “Probably not ‘til late tonight.”

  “Do you have to post another bond?”

  Cade shook his head. “I have to collect one.”

  “I take it that's all I want to know about that?”

  “Yep,” was all Cade said.

  “Excellent. Good luck.”

  “Not necessary.”

  The two of us went to our cars. As we separated, he said, “That was good advice about avoiding the brother.” Before I could respond, he climbed into his truck and shut the door.

  I did the same and went back to the office to finish out the day while Cade went…well, I guess it's best all-around that we don't know what Cade went to do.

  EARTH

  11

  A couple of days later, I was sitting at my office conference table with Danny and Olivia.

  “I want to attack Archie’s case a couple of ways,” I said. “I’ll run with the physical evidence—blood, DNA, fingerprints.”

  “You mean the fun stuff?” said Olivia.

  “Not at all. I’m already used to the science and Sheriff Dushane will be more likely to tell…” I saw her smile behind her sphinx glasses. I sighed. “One point you.”

  “Of many,” she said. “What about us?”

  “I’d like you to dig into motive, Liv. Archie doing it doesn’t make any sense. By all accounts, this is a pretty harmonious family.”

  “It seems that way,” said Danny.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” said Olivia. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Two thoughts. First, dig deeper on the background check on all of the Macks and Abby. See if there are any priors for any of them, any calls, red flags, anything. Nationwide. Then search through the local land records—title work, banking, all that stuff. The land is the biggest asset they have, so it could be the biggest potential motive.”

  Olivia gave me a thumbs up. “So look for any needle in the haystack.”

  “Exactly.” I looked at Danny. “Two things for you. First, do a business records search. I expect they’ve incorporated or done something to run their farm. Let’s start seeing how the operation fits together.”

  “Okay. That shouldn’t take too long.”

  “It won’t. Then I need you to start breaking down the video. All of it. First, follow Abby through the whole thing and log where she is when and in what camera. We know Archie is in there too. Look for him and do the same. Then the same for Hamish.”

  Danny gave me a look that I didn’t think I’d completely earned. Well, maybe a little.

  “Then go over all of it again and look for anyone or anything else that’s significant.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “For anything that’s significant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is what, exactly?”

  “Significant things, I expect.”

  I believe that Danny’s regular church attendance was the only thing that prevented him from swearing at m
e.

  I smiled. “Any questions?”

  There was silence for a bit before Olivia said, “Seems dry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, someone sent Abby down a flight of stairs, smoked her with a blunt instrument, and left her to die. Land use and corporations seems like a pretty dry place to look for a motive for something like that.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Domestic abuse orders? Personal protection proceedings?”

  “Search away. Check any files you need to.”

  “Okay.”

  Olivia and Danny were coordinating their searches between each other when Olivia turned and said, “So what are you going to do?”

  I smiled at Danny.

  “I’m going to track down some more video.”

  I pulled into the Ash County Services parking lot and called the county receptionist. She said Sheriff Dushane would be there any moment. I thanked her and waited for about twenty minutes until Sheriff Dushane rolled up in his patrol Jeep. As he parked, I got out of the car and was halfway to him by the time he opened his door. When he saw me, he sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “Chrissakes, Nate, I haven't even gotten to my office yet.”

  “Where are my manners? It's barely noon!”

  “We’re working splits right now, so I'm actually early.”

  “Right. Got a minute?”

  “For you, yes. To talk about your case, no.”

  “Not exactly the case. But sort of.”

  Sheriff Dushane stared at me for a moment before he shrugged. “I'm at least going to have a cup of coffee first.” He gave me a wave. “Join me. Then I'll kick you out.”

  We went into the office and poured hot coffee into cardboard cups. I dropped a couple of dollars into the can in appreciation.

  “Come on back, big spender,” said Sheriff Dushane, and we went into his office.

  The Sheriff's office was an institutional-looking building that had been built in the 1960s or 70s and shared a look with many Michigan courthouses and patrol buildings—there was a lot of brown metal and tan walls and the occasional orange rail highlight. Sheriff Dushane's office was the biggest one, which really wasn't saying too much. There was room for his desk and two chairs and a computer that looked like an afterthought. I plopped into a chair and sipped the coffee as he logged in to his computer. When it flashed on, I said, “Have you considered you have the wrong guy?”

  “On the Mack case? No.”

  “The victim, Abby, doesn’t think he did it.”

  Sheriff Dushane shrugged. “Domestic cases make for difficult situations.”

  “But she didn’t ID him.”

  “She didn’t need to.”

  “I know Stritch feels that way. He sent me his initial disclosures.”

  “Good for him.”

  “I saw you found blood.”

  “We did.”

  “On the handrail?”

  “Yes.”

  “DNA back yet?”

  “I’m sure Stritch will give it to you when it is.”

  “I didn’t see the warrant to take my client’s blood to match it.”

  “Then you didn’t look very hard. It’s in there.”

  “Were the fingerprints in the same spot as the blood?”

  “That’s in the report.”

  “Is your department going to enhance the Quarry video?”

  “No.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because we already have.”

  “By we, I assume you mean one of your deputies?”

  Sheriff Dushane smiled. “Exactly.”

  “Didn’t seem like a clear ID in the video.”

  Sheriff Dushane shrugged. “How do you think we got the warrant for the blood?”

  “Stritch said there’s more video.”

  “From the Quarry? I haven’t seen it.”

  “No. From somewhere else. A gas station, I think.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “I didn’t. He did.”

  “Then I guess he’ll be getting that to you shortly.”

  “You’d need a warrant to take it from the station itself, though.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I didn’t see one filed.”

  “Well, you did miss the one for the blood.”

  “You wouldn’t need one for the video from one of your eye-in-the-sky units though.”

  “No, we wouldn’t.”

  “I imagine you might want to post one near an event like a Big Luke concert.”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

  “And it seems to me that a complex at the corner of Century and Stone that has a gas station, a liquor store, and a Taco Bell all in one location would be a likely spot.”

  “It does sound like the Holy Trinity of late-night trouble.”

  “So I think I’d like to make a public records request for the footage from your eye-in-the-sky unit at that location from the night of the concert.”

  “I’m sure the video elves would be happy to take your FOIA request.”

  “Down the hall?”

  “Second window on the left.”

  I stood. “I’d say thanks, but I don’t think you did anything.”

  Sheriff Dushane lifted his cup. “I provided good company and coffee.”

  “I suppose so.” I lifted my own back. “Thanks.”

  “See you around, Nate. Say ‘hi’ to your dad.”

  “I will.”

  “When you do see it, Nate? The video?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s your guy. And he acts guilty.”

  “Huh. Not a crime to gas up a car, Sheriff.”

  “No. But I’d be interested in why he was hiding a bloody bandage.”

  “I guess we’ll see then.”

  “I guess we will.”

  “You’re not sitting on anything else?”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “That’s my answer though.”

  I’d really gotten as much from him as I could expect. “Thanks for seeing me, Sheriff. Keep an eye out for the real attacker.”

  “We think we have him.”

  “I know. Still.”

  “Bye, Nate.”

  I left.

  12

  I was driving back to my office when my phone buzzed. Olivia. I hit the console and put her on speaker.

  “Miss me?”

  “Never,” she replied. “Are you still at the Sheriff’s?”

  “Just left. Why?

  “It would’ve made things easier is all.”

  “Did you find something already?”

  “I’m not sure. I started with a criminal background check, police reports, that sort of thing.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, not an ‘uh-oh.’ More of a ‘hmm.’”

  “This conversation has devolved.”

  “So let me finish. I didn’t find any criminal convictions on anyone in the family, no indications of domestic abuse of any kind going in any direction.”

  “No indicators that Archie had a history of violence?”

  “Right.”

  “So why talk to the Sheriff?”

  “About four years ago, they filed a police report about vandalism on the farm.”

  “They? Meaning the whole family?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what’s hard for me to tell. If I’m reading this right, they claim that someone snuck onto their farm while they were out of town and applied fertilizer to their crops without their permission.”

  I thought I misheard her. “They applied fertilizer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t that help?”

  “That’s what I thought, but I’m not a farmer. I thought if you were still there you could ask Dushane.”

  “Huh. Anything ever come of it?”

  “Not that I
can see.”

  “I’ll ask Archie about it. Anything else?”

  “Besides eliminating a criminal history for everyone involved and finding that the Macks were the apparent victim of an ambiguous crime? No, I haven’t done anything else this morning.”

  “Well, I have this friend of mine who says that you have to push yourself, so let’s get at it.”

  “‘Let’s?’ As in ‘let us’?”

  “I’m traversing the county in search of justice as we speak.” I thought for a second. “I’ll give Archie a call and see what he can tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  We hung up.

  I told the phone to call Archie Mack. After asking me if I wanted to call Angie McVeigh then Archer, Elaine, I realized I’d entered him into my contacts as Archibald Mack.

  It took me two cursing miles to figure it out, but the phone eventually rang.

  A woman's voice answered. “Hello?”

  I had no confidence that my virtual, cloud-based assistant had dialed the right number. “I’m sorry, I was trying to reach Archie Mack.”

  “Oh, Mr. Shepherd, this is Susanna Mack. Archie’s in the field. He’ll be out there all day. He doesn’t come in at all during the day given…given what’s going on. Can I help you with something?”

  She probably could but my conversation with her wasn’t protected, so I didn’t want to say too much. “No, Mrs. Mack, I need to speak to Archie. When do you think is a good time?”

  Mrs. Mack chuckled. “We’re farmers, Mr. Shepherd. Probably about half an hour after the sun sets. You know, I was just over here putting together some dinner for when he gets in. Why don’t you stop in?”

  “No, really, that’s okay.”

  “Are you married, Mr. Shepherd?”

  I paused. “No.”

  “Then I’d be willing to bet that nothing you could make tonight will be as good as my baked chicken.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it could.”

  “Then come up here and eat and ask Archie your questions.”

  I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at the farm and see Archie’s setup there. Baked chicken put it over the edge. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  “Perfect,” Susanna Mack said. “We'll see you tonight.”

  We hung up. I rarely felt like city folk, but knowing that I’d have to check my phone to find out what time the sun set, well, that seemed like a personal failure.