Kitabı oku: «Claim of Innocence»
Praise for Laura Caldwell’s IZZY MCNEIL novels
Red, White & Dead
“A sizzling roller coaster ride through the streets of Chicago, filled with murder, mystery, sex and heartbreak. These page-turners will have you breathless and panting for more.”
—Shore Magazine
“Chock full of suspense, Red, White & Dead is a riveting mystery of crime, love, and adventure at its best.”
—New York Times bestselling author Gayle Lynds
Red Blooded Murder
“Smart dialogue, captivating images, realistic settings and sexy characters… The pieces of the puzzle come together to reveal the secrets between the sheets that lead Izzy to realize who the killer is.”
—BookReporter.com
“Red Blooded Murder aims for the sweet spot between tough and tender, between thrills and thought—and hits the bull’s-eye. A terrific novel.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
“Izzy is the whole package: feminine and sexy, but also smart, tough and resourceful. She’s no damsel-in-distress from a tawdry bodice ripper; she’s more than a fitting match for any bad guys foolish enough to take her on.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
Red Hot Lies
“Caldwell’s stylish, fast-paced writing grips you and won’t let you go.”
—Edgar Award–winning author David Ellis
“Told mainly from the heroine’s first-person point of view, this beautifully crafted and tightly written story is a fabulous read. It’s very difficult to put down—and the ending is terrific.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Former trial lawyer Caldwell launches a mystery series that weaves the emotional appeal of her chick-lit titles with the blinding speed of her thrillers… Readers will be left looking forward to another heart-pounding ride on Izzy’s silver Vespa.”
—Publishers Weekly
Claim Of Innocence
Laura Caldwell
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Acknowledgments
1
“I zzy,” my friend Maggie said, “I need you to try this murder case with me. Now.”
“What?” I shifted my cell phone to my other ear, not sure I’d heard her right. I had never tried a criminal case before—not even a parking ticket, much less a murder trial.
“Yeah,” she said. “Right now.”
It was a hot August Thursday in Chicago, and I had just left the civil courthouse. I had taken three steps into the Daley Center Plaza, looked up at the massive Picasso sculpture—an odd copper thing that looked half bird, half dog—and I actually said to it, “I’m back.”
I’d argued against a Motion to Dismiss for Maggie. She normally wouldn’t have filed a civil case, but she’d done so as a favor to a relative. I lost the motion, something that would have burned me in days of yore, but instead I was triumphant. Having been out of the law for nearly a year, I’d wondered if I had lost it—lost the ability to argue, to analyze information second-to-second, to change course and make it look like you’d planned it all along. I had worried that perhaps not going to court was like not having sex for a while. At first, you missed it deeply but then it became more difficult to remember what it was like with each passing day. Not that I was having that particular problem.
But really, when I’d seen the burning sun glinting off the Picasso and I stated boldly that I was back in action, I meant it figuratively. I was riding off the fact that although Maggie’s opponent had won the motion, and the complaint temporarily dismissed, Judge Maddux had said, “Nice argument, counsel” to me, his wise, blue eyes sparkling.
Judge Maddux had seen every kind of case in his decades of practice and every kind of lawyer. His job involved watching people duke it out, day after day after day. For him to say “Nice argument” was a victory. It meant I still had it.
As I walked through the plaza, the heat curling my red hair into coils, I had called Maggie. She was about to pick a jury at 26th and Cal on a murder case, so her voice was rushed. “Jesus, I’m glad you called,” she said.
Normally, Maggie Bristol would not have answered her phone right before the start of a criminal trial, even if she was curious about the motion I’d handled for her. But she knew I was nervous to appear in court—something I used to do with such regularity the experience would have barely registered. She was answering, I thought, to see how I was doing.
“It went great!” I said.
I told her then that I was a “lawyer for hire.” Civil or criminal, I said, it didn’t matter. And though I’d only practiced civil before, I was willing to learn anything.
Since leaving the legal world a year ago, I’d tried many things—part-time assignments from a private investigator named John Mayburn and being a reporter for Trial TV, a legal network. I liked the TV gig until the lead newscaster, my friend Jane Augustine, was killed and I was suspected in her murder. By the time my name was cleared, I wasn’t interested in the spotlight anymore.
So the reporter thing hadn’t worked out, and the work with Mayburn was streaky. Plus, lately it was all surveillance, which was a complete snooze. “I miss the law,” I told Maggie from the plaza. “I want back in.”
Which was when she spoke those words—I need you to try this murder case with me. Now.
I glanced up at the Picasso once more, and I knew my world was about to change. Again.
2
O ver the years, it became disquieting—how easy the killing was, how clean.
He had always lived and worked in an antiseptic environment, distanced from the actual act of ending a life. They were usually killed in the middle of the night. But he never slept on those nights anyway, even though he wasn’t there. He twisted in his bed. The only way he knew when they were dead was when he got the phone call. The person on the line would state simply, “He’s gone.”
He would thank them, hang up and then he would go on, as if he hadn’t just killed someone.
But then he’d reached a point when he wanted to make it real. He wanted to see it.
And so he went to watch. He remembered that he had walked across the yard, toward the house. In the eerie, moonless night it seemed as if he heard a chorus of voices—formless cries, no words, just shouts and calls, echoes that sounded like pain itself.
He had stopped walking then. He listened. Was he really hearing that? Something rose up inside him, choked him. But he gulped it down. And then he kept moving toward the house.
3
A h, 26th and Cal. You could almost smell the place as you neared it—a scent of desperation, of seediness, of excitement.
Other parts of the city now boasted an end-of-the-summer lushness—bushes full and vividly green, flowers bright and bursting from boxes, tree branches draping languidly over the streets. But out here at 26th and Cal, cigarette butts, old newspapers and crushed cans littered the sidewalks, all of them leading to one place.
Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building was actually two buildings mashed together—one old, stately and slightly decrepit, the other a boxy, unimaginative, brownish structure better suited to an office park in the burbs.
The last time I’d been here was as a reporter for Trial TV, covering my first story. Now I flashed my attorney ID to the sheriff and headed toward the elevators, thinking that I liked this feeling better—that of being a lawyer, a participant, not just an observer.
I passed through the utilitarian part of the building into the old section with its black marble columns and brass lamps, the ceiling frescoed in sky-blue and orange. As I neared the elevator banks, my phone vibrated in my bag, and I pulled it out, thinking it was Maggie.
But it was Sam. Sam, who I nearly married a year ago. Sam, the guy I’d happily thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Sam, who had disappeared when we were engaged. Although I eventually understood his reasons, I hadn’t been able to catch up in the aftermath of it all. I wanted more time. He wanted things to be the way they’d been before. We’d finally realized that the pieces of Sam and Izzy, Izzy and Sam no longer fit together.
I looked at the display of the phone, announcing his name. I knew I had to get upstairs. I knew I was involved with someone else now. But I hadn’t talked to Sam in a while. And the fact was, his pull was hard to avoid.
I took a step toward a marble wall and leaned my back on it, answering the phone. “Hey. How are you?”
“Hi, Red Hot.” His nickname for me twinged something inside, some mix of fond longing and gently nagging regrets. We had a minute or two of light, meaningless banter—How are you? Great. Yeah, me, too. Good. Good. Then Sam said, “Can I talk to you about something?”
“Sure, but I’m in the courthouse. About to try a case with Maggie.” I told him quickly about Maggie’s phone call. I told him that Maggie’s grandfather, who was also her law partner, had been working extra hard on the murder case. Martin Bristol, a prosecutor-turned-criminal-lawyer, was in his seventies, but he’d always been the picture of vigor, his white hair full, his skin healthy, still wearing his expensive suits with a confident posture. But that day, Maggie said he’d not only seemed weak but he’d almost fainted. He’d denied anything was wrong, but Maggie sensed differently. And now here I was at 26th and Cal.
“You’re kidding?” Sam had always been excited for me when I was doing anything interesting in the legal realm. It was Sam who had reminded me on more than one occasion over the last year that I was a lawyer—that I should make my way back to the law. “This is incredible, Iz,” Sam said. “How do you feel?”
And then, right then, we were back to Sam and Izzy, Izzy and Sam. I told him the thought of being back in a courtroom was making my skin prickle with nerves but how that anxiety was also battling something that felt like pure adrenaline. I told him that adrenaline was something I had feared a little, back in the days when I was representing Pickett Enterprises, a Midwest media conglomeration.
“You’ve always been a thrill seeker,” Sam said. “You jumped in with both feet when Forester starting giving you cases to handle.”
We were silent for a second, and I knew we were remembering Forester Pickett, whom we had both worked for, whom we had both loved and who had been dead almost a year now.
“You didn’t even know what you were doing,” Sam continued, “yet you just charged in there and took on everything.”
“But when I was on trial or negotiating some big contract and the adrenaline would start surging, sometimes it felt like too much. And now…” I thought about trying a case again and I let the adrenaline wash over me. “I like it.”
“You’re using it to fuel you.”
“Exactly.”
This was not a conversation I would have had with Theo, my boyfriend. It was not a conversation I would have had even with Maggie. It felt damned good.
I looked at my watch. “I need to go.”
A pause. “Call me later? I kind of…well, I have some news.”
I felt a sinking in my stomach, for which I didn’t know the reason. “What is it?”
“You’ve got to go. I’ll tell you later.”
“No, now.”
Another pause.
“Seriously,” I said. “You know I hate when people say they want to talk and then don’t tell you what they want to talk about.”
He exhaled loud. I’d heard that exhale many times. I could imagine him closing his green, green eyes as he breathed, maybe running his hands through his blond hair, which would be white-gold now from the summer sun.
“Okay, Iz,” he said. “I know this isn’t the right time for this, but…I’m probably moving out of Chicago.”
“Where? And why?”
But then I knew.
“It’s for Alyssa,” I said, no question mark at the end of that statement. I suddenly knew for certain that this news of his had everything to do with Alyssa, his tiny, blonde, high-school sweetheart. His girlfriend since we’d called off our engagement.
And with that thought, I knew something else, too. “You’re engaged.”
His silence told me I was right.
“Well, congratulations,” I said, as though it didn’t matter, but my stomach felt crimped with pain. “So when is the big date?”
He didn’t say anything for second. Then, “That’s why I had to call you. There’s not going to be a date.”
I felt my forehead crease with confusion. Across the foyer, I saw a sheriff walking toward me with a stern expression. I knew he would tell me to move along. They didn’t like people standing in one place for too long at 26th and Cal.
“There’s not going to be a date,” Sam repeated. “Not if you don’t want there to be.”
4
I got in the elevator with two sullen-looking teenagers. I needed to focus on Maggie’s case and put my game face on. I couldn’t think about my conversation with Sam right now, so I tuned in to the teenagers’ conversation.
“What you got?” one said.
The other shrugged. “Armed robbery. My PD says take the plea.”
“Why you got a public defender if you out on bail?” The first kid sounded indignant. “If you can get bail, you can get a real lawyer.”
The other shook his head. “Nah. My auntie says she won’t pay no more.”
“Damn.” He shook his head.
“Yeah.”
They both looked at me then. I tried to give a hey-there, howdy kind of look, but they weren’t really hey-there, howdy kind of guys. One of the teenagers stared at my hair, the other my breasts. I was wearing a crisp, white suit that I’d thought perfect for a summer day in court, but when I looked down, I realized that one of the buttons of my navy blue blouse had popped open and I was showing cleavage. I grasped the sides of the blouse together with my hand, and when the elevator reached my floor, I dodged out.
Although I was still in the old section of the courthouse, that floor must have been remodeled a few decades ago, and its hallways now bore a staid, uninspired, almost hospitalish look with yellow walls and tan linoleum floors. I searched for Maggie’s courtroom. When I found it and stepped inside, I felt a little deflated. Last year, when I’d been here for Trial TV, the case was on the sixth floor in one of the huge, two-story, oak-clad courtrooms with soaring windows. This courtroom was beige—from the spectators’ benches, which were separated from the rest of the courtroom by a curved wall of beige Plexiglas, to the beige-gray industrial carpet to the beige-ish fabric on the walls to the beige-yellow glow emanating with a faint high pitch from the fluorescent lights. A few small windows at the far side of the benches let in the only other light, which bounced off the Plexiglas, causing the few people sitting there to have to shift around to avoid it.
Maggie was in the front of the courtroom on the other side of the Plexiglas at one of the counsel’s tables. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, and with her curly, chin-length hair, she almost looked like a kid swimming in her too-loose, pin-striped suit. But Maggie certainly didn’t act like a kid in the courtroom. Anyone who thought she did or underestimated her in any way ended up on the losing end of that scuffle.
No one was behind the high, elongated judge’s bench. At another counsel’s table were two women who must have been assistant state’s attorneys—you could tell by the carts next to their tables, which were laden with accordion folders marked First Degree Murder, as if the verdict had already been rendered. The state’s attorneys were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. The room, I realized, was soundproof. The judge probably had to turn on the audio in order for anything to be heard by the viewers.
I walked past the spectator pews and pushed one of the glass double-doors to greet Maggie. The door screeched opened half an inch, then stopped abruptly.
Maggie looked up, then pointed at the other door. I suddenly remembered a law professor Maggie and I had at Loyola Chicago. The professor had stood in front of an Advanced Litigation class and said the most important thing she could teach us, if we planned to practice in Cook County, was Always push the door with the lock. I’d found she was right. At the Daley Center, where most of the larger civil cases were held, there were always double doors. One of them always had a lock on it, and that one was always unlocked. If you pushed the other, you inevitably banged into it and looked like an ass, and in the world of litigation, where confidence was not only prized but required, you didn’t want that.
From what I had learned through Maggie, though, Chicago’s criminal courts didn’t run like anyone else’s, so I hadn’t thought about the door thing. More than anything, though, I was probably just out of practice. I gave Maggie a curt nod to say, I got it, then pushed the correct door and stepped into the courtroom.
The state’s attorneys turned and eyed me. One, I guessed, was in her forties, but her stern expression and steely glare made her seem older. She wore a brown pant-suit and low heels. The woman with her was younger, a brunette with long hair, who was probably a few years out of law school—enough time to give her the assurance to appraise me in the same frank way as her colleague, but with a lot less glare.
Maggie stepped toward me, gesturing toward the woman in brown who had short, frosted hair cut in a no-nonsense fashion and whose only makeup was a slash of maroonish lipstick. “Ellie Whelan,” she said, “and Tania Castle.” She gestured toward the brunette. “This is Izzie McNeil. She’ll be trying the case with us.”
Both the women looked surprised.
“With you and Marty?” Ellie said, referring to Maggie’s grandfather.
Maggie grunted in sort of a half agreement.
“Haven’t I met you?” the brunette said to me, her eyes trailing over my hair, my face.
“Yeah…” Ellie said, doing the same.
I used to have to make occasional TV statements in my former role as an entertainment lawyer for Pickett Enterprises. But after Jane Augustine’s murder last spring, my face had been splashed across the news more than once. Sometimes I still drew glances of recognition from people on the street. The good thing was most couldn’t exactly place me.
I was about to explain, but Maggie said, “Oh, definitely. She’s been on a ton of high-profile cases.” She threw me a glance as if to say, Leave it at that.
I drew Maggie to her table—our counsel’s table, I should say. “Where’s your grandfather?”
Maggie’s face grew serious. She glanced over her shoulder at a closed door to the right of the judge’s bench. “He’s in the order room. Said he wanted a little time to himself.” She looked at her watch. “The judge gave us a break. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing.” Maggie called her grandfather by his first name during work hours. Maggie and her grandfather had successfully defended alleged murderers, drug lords and Mafioso. They were both staunch believers in the constitutional tenets that gave every defendant the right to a fair arrest and a fair trial. Those staunch beliefs had made them a hell of a lot of money.
I put my hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait, Mags,” I said, my voice low. “Tell me what’s been going on.”
She blew out a big breath of air, puffing her wheat-blond curly bangs away from her face. “I really don’t know. He’s been working around the clock on this case. Harder than I’ve ever seen him work.”
“That’s saying something. Your grandfather is one of the hardest-working lawyers in town.”
“I know!” She bit her bottom lip. “This case just seemed to grab him from the beginning. He heard about it on the news and told me we had to represent Valerie even though she already had a lawyer.” Maggie named an attorney who was considered excellent. “My grandfather went to the other lawyer and talked her out of the case. And he’s been working on it constantly for the last ten months. I’m talking weekends and nights, even coming into the office in the middle of the night sometimes.” Maggie shook her head. “I think he pushed himself too much, and he’s finally feeling his age.”
“That’s hard.”
Maggie nodded, then shrugged. “So that’s basically it. I was ready to handle the opening arguments today after we picked the jury. And we had all the witnesses divided. But we got here and he started talking to our client, and his knees just buckled. He almost went down. I had to catch him.” More chewing her bottom lip, this time on the corner of it. “It was so sad, Iz. He gave me this look… I can’t describe it, but he looked scared.”
I think we were both scared then. Maggie’s grandfather had always held a tinge of the immortal. He was the patriarch of the family, the patriarch of the firm. No one ever gave thought to him not being around. It was impossible to imagine.
“Shouldn’t he see a doctor?” I asked.
“That’s what I said, but he seemed to recover quickly, and he said he wouldn’t go to the hospital or anything. You know how he is.”
“Yeah. It would be tough to force him.”
“Real tough.”
“Okay,” I said, putting on a brusque voice and standing taller. “Well, before we talk to your grandfather, update me on the case. Who is your client?”
Another exhale from Maggie sent her bangs away from her forehead. She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was near us. The state’s attorneys were on the far side of their table now, one talking on a cell phone, the other paging though a transcript.
“Her name is Valerie Solara,” Maggie said. “She’s charged with killing her friend, Amanda Miller.”
“How did the friend die?”
“Poisoned.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It was put in her food. The state’s theory is that Valerie wanted Amanda out of the way because she was in love with Amanda’s husband, Zavy.”
“Zavy?”
“Short for Xavier.”
“Any proof Valerie did it?”
“The husband will testify Valerie made overtures toward him prior to the murder, which he turned down. A friend of Amanda and Valerie’s will testify that Valerie asked her about poisons. Valerie was the one cooking the food that day with Amanda. It was her recipe, and she was teaching it to Amanda. Toxicology shows the food was deliberately contaminated and that caused Amanda’s death.”
“What does your client say?”
“Not much. Just that she didn’t do it.”
“What do you mean not much? How are we going to mount a defense if she won’t say much?”
“We handle this case the same as any other,” Maggie said. “First, we ask the client what happened. Then the client chooses what to tell us. Usually we don’t even ask the ultimate question about guilt or innocence because we don’t need to know. Our defense is almost always that the state didn’t meet their burden of proof.”
“So you never asked her if she did it or not?”
“She says she didn’t. Told us that first thing.”
“If she didn’t, who did?”
“She hasn’t given us a theory.”
Just then, a sheriff stepped into the courtroom. “All rise!”
The judge—a beefy, gray-haired guy in his early fifties—zipped up his robe over a white shirt and light blue tie as he stepped up to the bench.
“The Circuit Court of Cook County is now in session,” the sheriff bellowed, “the Honorable—”
The judge held his hand out to the sheriff and shook his head dismissively. The sheriff looked wounded but clapped his mouth shut.
“Judge Bates,” Maggie whispered. “He hates pomp and circumstance. New sheriff.”
I nodded and turned toward the judge, hands behind my back.
“Counsel, where are we?” the judge said.
Maggie stepped toward the bench and introduced me as another lawyer who would be filing an appearance on behalf of Valerie Solara. That drew a grouchy look from the judge.
“Hold on,” he said. “Let’s get this on the record.” He directed the sheriff to call the court reporter. A few seconds later, she scurried into the room with her machine, and Maggie went through the whole introduction again on the record.
“Fine,” the judge said when she was done, “now you’ve got three lawyers. More than enough to voie dire our jury panels.” The judge looked at the sheriff. “Call ’em in.”
“Excuse me, Judge,” Maggie said, taking a step toward the bench. “If we could have just five more minutes, we’ll be ready.”
Judge Bates sat back in his chair, regarding Maggie with a frown. He looked at the state’s attorneys for their response.
Ellie Whelan stepped forward. “Judge, this has taken too long already. The state is prepared, and we’d like to pick the jury immediately.”
The judge frowned again. I could tell he wanted to deny Maggie’s request, but Martin Bristol carried a lot of weight in Chicago courtrooms, even if he wasn’t present at the moment. “Five minutes,” the judge barked. He looked pointedly at Maggie. “And that’s it.” When the judge had left the bench, Maggie nodded at the door of the order room. “C’mon. Let’s go see how Marty’s doing. It will help that you’re going to try this case. You’re one of his favorites.”
We walked to the door, and Maggie swung it open. Martin Bristol sat at a table, a blank notepad in front of him. He was hunched over in a way I’d never seen before, his skin grayish. When he saw us, he straightened and blinked fast, as if trying to wake himself up.
“Izzy,” he said with a smile that showed still-white teeth. “What are you doing here?”
“Izzy’s looking for work, so I’m going to toss her some scraps.” Maggie shot me a glance. She wanted it to seem as if she was hiring me as a favor, not as a way to save her grandfather.
“I’d really appreciate it,” I said.
“Of course,” Martin said. “Anything for you, Izzy.” His posture slumped again, the weight of his shoulders appearing too much to hold.
“Mr. Bristol, are you all right?”
Maggie took a seat on one side of him. After a moment, I sat on the other side, a respectful distance away.
A moment later, when he’d still said nothing, Maggie put her hand on his arm. “Marty?”
Again, he didn’t respond, just stared at the empty legal pad, his mouth curling into a shell of sadness.
There was a rap on the door and the sheriff stuck his face into the room. “He’s had it,” he said, referring to the judge. “We’re bringing in the prospective jurors now.”
Maggie’s eyes were still on her grandfather. “Izzy and I can handle the voie dire. We may not open until tomorrow, so why don’t you go home?”
He sat up a little. “What have I always told you about jury selection?”
“That it’s the most important part of the trial,” Maggie said, as if by rote.
“Exactly.” He straightened more but didn’t stand.
“I think you should go home. Get some rest.”
His gaze moved to Maggie’s. I thought he would immediately reject the notion, but he only said simply, “Maybe.”
“Let us handle it.” Maggie nodded toward the courtroom. “I’ve already told the judge that Izzy was filing an appearance.”
Again, I waited for swift rejection, but Martin Bristol nodded. “Just this one time.”
“Just this once,” Maggie said softly.
Martin pushed down on the table with his hands, shoving himself to his feet. “I’ll explain to Judge Bates.” He slowly left the room.
Maggie’s round eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, watched him. Then she met my gaze across the table. “You ready for this?”
My pulse quickened. “No.”
“Good,” she said, standing. “Let’s get out there.”
