Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense (17 page)

* * * * *

“Damn.” Later Tony leaned back in his desk chair and closed his eyes. How had he missed the inconsistencies in Bill Claxton’s testimony when he’d first gone through the transcript from Ezra’s original trial?

Kristine looked up from whatever it was she was doing on her laptop computer. “What’s wrong?”

“Something here doesn’t make sense. I’m going to have to go talk to this guy who impeached Ezra’s alibi five years ago before I decide whether I want to put him on the stand at the retrial.”

“Why go to him? Why not just depose him here?”

When she uncrossed her legs, Tony tried not to think about the fact she was naked except for the oversize sweatshirt that matched the pants he wore.

“Because Bill Claxton, the witness in question, is in Starke, doing ten to twenty at the Raiford Penitentiary for grand theft auto. It seems he got caught running a chop shop a couple of years ago.”

She smiled. “I’d think the man’s character would be fairly easy to impugn.”

“Yeah. But I don’t want to leave anything to chance. If I’d been more concerned with justice and less with furthering my own career at the time his mother told me what she’d done, Ezra would be a free man by now.”

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up. You had no way of knowing Ezra’s mother would die before you came back to Tampa.” Setting the laptop on the sofa, Kristine moved behind Tony’s chair and rested her hands on his shoulders.

God, but she had dynamite legs. And an uncanny ability to make him obsess about how easy it would be to loosen the drawstring of his sweats, lift her onto his lap, and bury his cock deep inside her.

He sighed and leaned back, needing the human connection she offered. “No, but that doesn’t make me feel less responsible, or any less angry that Wells is insisting on trying Ezra again. I should at least have gotten someone to take the woman’s affidavit, as soon as she told me she’d helped to set Ezra up.”

“Couldn’t you put yourself on the witness stand and testify as to what the woman told you?”

Tony shook his head. “If I were Wells, I’d object.”

“On what grounds?”

“Hearsay.”

“What about arguing deathbed confession?”

“That might work, except that Marva Jean didn’t know she was dying when she told me her story, and what she said had nothing to do with the circumstances of her death.”

Kristine sighed. “You have a point. Is Mr. Wells going to handle the prosecution himself, or has he assigned it to Andi or one of the other senior prosecutors?” She turned him around in his chair and started massaging his chest, working knots out of his pecs.

“He hasn’t assigned the case, as far as I know. My guess is, he’ll prosecute himself if he’s sure of winning, give it to somebody else if it looks as if the State’s going to lose.”

“You two hate each other, don’t you?”

Tony shrugged. “Harper Wells isn’t one of my favorite people. He’s the consummate political animal, and I’m not into politics. I wouldn’t say I hate him, though.”

“He seems out to get you.” Kristine paused, as if deciding whether to say more. “He makes it clear he doesn’t think much of your methods of defense,” she finally added.

“You’re a master of understatement, honey. Ever since I won a couple of cases against him when I first got out of law school, he’s had it in for me. The man can’t stand to lose. At one time or another, he’s done everything from trying to catch me tampering with judges and juries to hinting I should be skinned alive for daring to rise above my humble roots.”

“Humble roots?” Kristine smiled, and she spread her arms wide as if to encompass the pricey trappings in Tony’s even pricier condo. “You?”

He should tell her the whole story now, he knew. But he couldn’t, yet, not when she seemed inclined to consider that his defending the occasional sociopath didn’t necessarily paint him with his nefarious clients’ stripes.

He’d just introduced her to sex. Their relationship was new, fragile. Tony told himself he needed time to develop a strong foundation for the long-term partnership he had in mind. He’d wait until he was certain he’d won that crucial battle. Then, after he was certain she loved him for the man he had become, he’d spring the news that his old man had been a convicted murderer.

While hesitant to own up to having had a murderer for a father, Tony had no problem admitting to the humble part of his beginnings. “I spent my childhood in migrant camps and foster homes, Krissy. Went to college on a baseball scholarship and worked my way through law school. That’s no secret. I’m certain your father’s old friend has told you by now that I’m not fit to kiss your feet, much less the more interesting parts of you.”

He loved the way she blushed when he reached around and stroked her pussy, and her nervous little laugh when she plopped herself onto his lap and traced the seam of his lips with her tongue.

“He did, but I disagree, Counselor. You can kiss any part of me you want to, any time, “ she whispered next to his ear.

If only.

If only he didn’t have to prepare for Ezra’s trial, he’d scoop her up and take her back to bed. As it was, he couldn’t resist lifting the oversize sweatshirt she had on and burying his face between her firm, full breasts. While he still could, he pulled her shirt back down and set her on her feet.

“Hold onto those thoughts ‘til later, honey. I’ll feast on every square inch of you and love it. Go on, now. Finish finding those precedents you were looking for, and let me start piecing together Ezra’s defense.”

If Tony could be as positive Kristine would grant him a lifetime of her love as he was that he’d succeed in righting the injustice done to one poor soul in the name of upholding the law, he’d be a happy man.

* * * * *

After an hour’s search for an elusive snippet of decade-old trial testimony Andi needed, Kristine paused and watched Tony.

Why, she wondered, had he neglected to mention his father’s encounter with the criminal justice system at the same time he’d told her about losing his parents and growing up in poverty? It hurt to realize she hadn’t impacted Tony’s emotions enough for him to share that undoubtedly painful piece of history that had shaped his life.

He flipped through a hefty file, apparently saw something pertinent and made brief notes on the yellow pad he’d positioned near his left hand. She doubted the sound of a dozen screaming sirens could pierce his concentration. He made a perfect picture of complete absorption.

She wasn’t. Niggling doubts ate at her discipline, making her lose her train of thought as she tried to organize evidence and precedents she’d be presenting against Kenny Rich at his trial. She looked at the screen on her computer and deleted the last entry she’d made.

Would Kenny’s lawyer be working this weekend, putting forth the kind of energy for his client that Tony was expending now for Ezra Ruggles?

“No.” She looked around, searching for the source of that bald reply—then realized she’d spoken aloud.

Tony looked up from his work, his expression puzzled. “No, what, honey?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged.

“Nothing doesn’t make you frown like that. Come on, talk to me.”

“I—I don’t think Tom Fernandez, who’ll be defending the boy I told you about, is putting in the kind of effort you’re expending for Ezra’s retrial.”

He chuckled. “You’re probably right. The public defenders I know have caseloads worse than yours. Are you still agonizing about whether that defendant might not be guilty after all?”

“I guess.”

“Don’t, Krissy. You’ll eat yourself alive if you start second-guessing. Want me to play devil’s advocate, counter your arguments in the case?”

“You’d win.”

“Probably.” He shot her a grin, as if to take the edge off his smug reply. “Maybe I’d make you dig deep enough into the evidence you’ve got in your files to put your doubts to rest.”

“Sure. I already half-believe the defendant’s story. After I listen to you cast doubts on the evidence, I’ll be ready to nominate him for sainthood.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, honey. I’m no magician, just a lawyer.”

“Tony, you could have gotten Ted Bundy off if you’d been defending him.”

He laughed at her mention of the charismatic serial killer who had defended himself unsuccessfully and made news headlines for years while awaiting execution. “I don’t think so. At best, I’d have had him cop an insanity defense and gotten him life without parole in a high-security mental hospital instead of a trip to the electric chair.”

Finally Kristine gave in, presented the state’s case to Tony and listened to his rebuttal of each point she made. She’d been right. Instead of strengthening her resolve to see her defendant convicted on the evidence at hand, this game with Tony had her doubting Kenny’s guilt even more.

“I hate criminal law,” she said, shutting down the laptop and pushing it away as though it were a coiled rattlesnake.

Tony came and sat beside her. He tilted her chin up, forced her to meet his gaze. “Why do it, then?”

“I’ve never thought about doing anything else. After my sister died—”

“You swore you’d make the guys who supplied the stuff that killed her pay?”

The way he phrased it, her motivation for choosing her life’s work sounded pretty lame. But she had to be honest. That had been her only reason for going to work for the state attorney, so she murmured, “Yes.”

“Did some dealer force your sister to take whatever it was that was her recreational drug of choice?”

“No.”

He took her hand, rubbed her palm with his thumb. “Was the drug she overdosed on tainted? Uncut, so she got more than she’d bargained for? Laced with something downright lethal?”

Kristine blinked back tears. “Not that I know of.”

“Did these faceless villains you’re fighting now entice her to start using?”

“No.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she could barely talk. Unable to look Tony in the eye, she focused her gaze on their joined hands. “I did. I let her come with me to a party when she was just fifteen. Some of the kids were smoking pot. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I smoked a joint myself, drank a little beer.” She couldn’t go on, had to let out the anguished sob that tightened her vocal cords.

“How old were you, Krissy?” His soft tone conveyed no condemnation, only concern.

“Seventeen.”

“Kids experiment with booze and pot, honey. Legal or not, it’s been happening since before either of us was born. The kind of party you describe sounds fairly ordinary to me. Nothing you ought to feel guilty over.”

“Maybe not, but Helen met a boy there and started going out with him. He wasn’t just into booze and pot, as you put it. He liked the hard stuff. Cocaine. Ecstasy. Maybe even heroin. I was too busy having fun, myself, to notice Helen had gotten in too deep, until that morning when I walked in her bedroom and found her dead.”

“Krissy, you weren’t your sister’s keeper.”

She shook her head, unwilling to accept the release he offered. “I was two years older. I should have paid more attention, seen what she was doing to herself.”

“What about your parents?”

“Mom had died the year before. She’d always been the one to take care of us, enforce the rules. Daddy was always busy with work.” Kristine thought back to that summer before her world had fallen apart, realized her father had done nothing much but work and grieve. “I guess he let me and Helen do pretty much as we pleased after Mom died.”

Like the courtroom shark he was, Tony snatched the opportunity to capitalize on what she herself had said.

“A kid can’t be held accountable for letting another kid run amok. You don’t need to spend the rest of your life trying to atone for something that wasn’t your fault,” he told her, his tone and manner as persuasive as it had been when he’d addressed Manny Garcia’s jury.

Chapter Fifteen

Kristine wished she could accept Tony’s argument without reserve, but she had blamed herself too long and worked for the past eight years around possibly misplaced beliefs that she couldn’t quite let go. He’d laid doubt in her mind, though—doubt that tortured her more once they’d parted company on Sunday night. Without Tony to distract her, she found herself dwelling on the past, and the conversation they’d had.

Fortunately, Kenny Rich’s trial filled hours during the next days—hours Kristine knew she’d have otherwise spent agonizing. Revisiting that time after her mother’s death but before her entire world had fallen apart.

On Thursday, Kristine left the courtroom at the close of Kenny’s trial. She’d done a fair job of presenting the evidence, but the boy’s own testimony had apparently affected the jury as much as it had raised doubts in her mind at the preliminary hearing.

She was glad he’d been acquitted, yet she felt guilty for being relieved to have lost.

Tony’s advice that she should get out of the prosecution business if she didn’t get an adrenaline rush from the fight rang in her ears. He’d made powerful arguments, arguments that made sense.

She wasn’t convinced she could walk away from her quest to rid Tampa of the scum who made drugs available to anyone with the price of a fix. But she’d lost the fury that had fed her for so long. Anger was a lot easier to let go of than guilt. She couldn’t shake the self-blame that tortured her more, now that she’d let go of the anger that had masked it.