Mistletoe and Murder in Las Vegas (2 page)

Things hadn’t been the same since his promotion. She kept telling herself the disharmony was due to the stressors in his new job. Besides handling his own legal cases, he also managed forty overworked defense lawyers, who jokingly called this department
Lawmageddon
as each juggled over three hundred criminal cases annually, most from Las Vegas, a city with one of highest crime rates in the nation. She’d figured as he grew more comfortable in his new job, their relationship would get back on track. Instead, he seemed more distant and preoccupied. God, she missed being Amanda.

Walking around to the front of his desk, he said, “Judge Fields thinks you’re a good lawyer.”

“Good?” She watched Roger sit on the edge of the desk and adjust a gold cuff link she hadn’t seen before. “I’ve won more cases than any other public defender—”

“Last year, okay. But not the year before, and there’s no final tally for this year, so let’s not play the numbers game.”

She pretended the jab didn’t hurt. “So, let’s see...the DA complained about me to Paul, who talked to Judge Fields, who said I’m a good lawyer...were any other compliments tossed my way?”

Her half-hearted attempt at levity bombed on takeoff. Fighting the urge to clear her throat, she held his gaze for several moments, trying to decipher if the look in his eyes was disappointment or irritation.

“Paul’s concerned that your fixation in this case is undermining your legal representation.”

“He called my defense a
fixation
?”

She stopped herself from adding that Paul’s concern wasn’t about her legal abilities, but that she had embarrassed him. He was all about his reputation as a soon-to-be judge.

“I can’t remember the exact word,” he said dismissively. “You get the gist.”

She caught the familiar scent of his sweet-peppery cologne, the scent conjuring memories of steamy nights in bed...and it saddened her to not remember the last time they had made love.

“The stress of this trial has obviously triggered your dyslexia.” He said it with zero inflection, like a tired bingo caller at the end of his shift. “Which is why you missed the reference in the DA’s discovery the first time you read it.”

After her third grade teacher noticed Joanne occasionally struggling with reading and interpreting numbers, she had been diagnosed with mild dyslexia, which meant her symptoms simmered rather than boiled. Over the years she’d learned coping techniques, such as asking people to repeat instructions or counting on her fingers to keep track of tasks. In the last few years she sometimes used apps on her smartphone and computer that quickly converted text into spoken words.

Roger knew all that. Also knew she managed the symptoms so well that they rarely flared, and only then during times of high stress. But blaming her dyslexia for missing that buried reference was a cheap shot.

Just the way Burnett’s discovery dump had been a cheap shot.

Her insides tightened as she sensed murkier depths to this chat, but the reasoning escaped her. A direct contempt charge was basically about maintaining order in the courtroom—the judge as parent putting the lawyer as child in a time-out for misbehaving. Minor stuff compared to a lawyer violating legal ethics or breaking a law.

“What’s this conversation really about?” she asked quietly.

Roger, his face flushed, paced while jabbering about her being an hour late last spring for a hearing in another judge’s courtroom. “You and I
both
know the stress of that Oliver case triggered your symptoms, one being a lack of directional orientation, which is why you got lost driving and were late. Because of your tardiness he had to reschedule a trial, which resulted in a serious conflict between the defenders’ office and Judge Stein.”

She agreed with him that her dyslexia had surfaced during that time—evidenced by her struggling with directions while driving—but reminded Roger that she had called Judge Stein before the hearing started. “His clerk said the judge’s cases were running late, and if I got there within an hour, no problem.” She paused. “I need a reality check here. If being late caused a serious conflict, why didn’t I hear about it back then?”

“I’ll give you a reality check,” he snapped. “Paul wants you off this case. Bad enough that you disrespected Stein’s courtroom, but calling Judge Fields in the wee hours, at home? Then
willfully
violating his order? You’re out of control, Joanne.”

No, you’re out of control.
Under the eerie-blue fluorescent lights his reddish face appeared almost mauve, and his hard frown cut deep stress lines between his eyebrows. His edginess unnerved and distressed her as she vaguely realized the boyish Jake was no more.

Taking in a slow breath, she refocused her thoughts on Sebastian and tomorrow’s closing argument. A lawyer told stories to the jury throughout a trial, then finally asked them for justice during closing argument. No DNA, photographs or other evidence tied Sebastian to the crime, only that he matched the general description given to police by eyewitnesses. Without her guidance, twelve people might wrongly convict an innocent young man.

Underneath all of Roger’s ladder-climbing, yes-man-to-Paul crap, he knew her moral compass pointed to fair play. Which meant she had a chance to convince him to persuade Paul to keep her on this case for just one more day.

“I realize you must comply with Paul’s decisions because a corporation’s strength, accountability and reputation lie in its chain-of-command.”

“You’re showboating, Joanne. I’m not a jury.” He sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms.

She gave her best I’m-humbled-by-the-truth nod. “Then let’s skip the icing and go right to the cake. I know this case better than anyone. I have spent at least sixty hours conducting interviews, plus reading that pile of...discovery at least twice, some parts more. Since taking this case, I have not gotten lost once while driving, had difficulty telling the time or confused my left hand with my right. Last, I
promise
to abide by Judge Fields’s ruling because I want to work within the system to effect justice for Sebastian.”

“No.”

His short, snappy response took her aback. “No discussion?”

“No.”

The urge to argue was almost overwhelming but she forced herself to stay quiet for a few seconds, determined to hold onto some shred of dignity.

“You’ve already replaced me,” she said tightly.

“I’ve assigned Eddie to do your closing. It’s for the best...you’ve probably lost all credibility with that jury.”

“Eddie can’t litigate his way out of a sandwich wrapper. He pleads out cases and negotiates lousy deals.”

“It’s out of your hands, Joanne.”

“Just…just stop already with the
Joannes
, okay? This conversation is crappy enough without acting as if Amanda died.”

They sat without speaking, the only sounds the murmur of conversations and occasional laughter from other offices. Roger brushed something off his pants, crossed his arms again and met her eyes. That look chilled her to the bone. After all the years she’d known him, it was like staring into the eyes of a stranger.

Dyslexia got a bad rap, but it had some benefits, too. Like being able to read people, which many dyslexics did quite well after years of relying on visual cues to compensate for words. Roger knew this, of course, which was why he held himself stiffly, a bland look on his face.

She still read him loud and clear. The stronger scent of his cologne told her he was sweating from nervousness, and his crossed arms were a defensive shield to hide something or block some kind of perceived attack…she guessed the latter as his hands were fisted, as though steeling himself for an argument.

She couldn’t ignore her own body signals, either. Her heart was racing as if trying to outrun even more bad news...which caught up with her anyway. It was the only logical conclusion to this stupid, painful episode.

“You’re firing me.”

He began talking fast, gesturing. “Paul wants your resignation, effective immediately…”

Paul wants…Paul says…

She scanned the legal documents, calendar, coffee cup on his desk, pausing on a Pelikan fountain pen she’d given him for his birthday two years ago, before moving on to his smartphone that lay screen down. She wondered who had texted him.

Next to the phone was an almond.

Roger was allergic to nuts. She once rushed him to ER after he accidentally ate a dish at a Chinese restaurant that contained crushed Brazil nuts.

She recalled seeing a jar of almonds on someone’s desk this last week…right, that new public defender, Tiffany something. Blonde, slim, with a dazzlingly smile that screamed porcelain caps. She’d started at the PD’s office a few months ago…liked to sprinkle her conversations with French words…

Joanne felt sick to her stomach.

Oh, God. Roger was having an affair…right under her nose.

How dumb could she be to miss the signs? No, correct that. She had seen the evidence, but some part of her refused to believe his late nights at work, or leaving the room to answer his phone or dressing differently meant he was…

Screwing Tiffany.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Tears stung her eyes, but no way in hell would she let the bastard see her cry. Let him see how much she had loved and believed in him…in their relationship…in their future...

Despite her legs feeling as if they’d vaporized from underneath her, she forced herself to stand.

“Joanne? You okay?”

She lurched forward like some kind of robot and jerkily plucked the almond up. Leaning against the desk for support, she stared at the demon nut, the killer piece of evidence, for several long, excruciating seconds.

“What are you doing?” Roger whispered.

Fighting the urge to shove it up your nose.
But with her luck, Eddie the Incompetent would defend her on the attempted murder charge, and she’d end up rearranging books in the prison library for the next twenty years.

So instead of giving into her homicidal desires, she held the almond aloft as if it were Queen Amanda’s miniature sword while she rasped Tiffany’s name, unintelligible as she was gasping for breath while trying to speak…

Overcome by a sudden desire to retch, she swiveled and walked a few steps, grabbed her purse and briefcase and marched out the door.

Minutes later, as she stumbled through the building lobby and felt the cold linoleum through the bottom of her stockinged feet, she realized she had forgotten to put on her shoes.

Pushing open the glass door of the building, she sucked in the brisk November air, determined to make it to her car before she had a massive breakdown.

Walking down the sidewalk, the world blurry through her tears, she held her head high. A five-two woman who didn’t need any damn heels to walk tall.

“
H
ey
, girl, it’s your taxi driver calling.” Gloria was talking fast and loud, which she did whenever she was overly enthusiastic. “I’m picking you up to take you to meet...
your new landlords
!”

Joanne took another bite of yesterday’s Thanksgiving pecan pie topped with chocolate ice cream, wishing she’d let the call roll over to voice mail. Since moving into her parents’ guest room three weeks and one day ago, her eleven-year-old Dodge’s transmission had gone south, so Gloria announced she would be Joanne’s taxi-driver, which she appreciated. Problem was, her friend decided her new role included making life decisions for Joanne, too.

Of course, she could have avoided the whole taxi-driver-life-decision-maker muddle if she hadn’t lied to her parents about her car problems. But after it sat out front leaking transmission fluid for weeks, they would realize she was too broke to get it fixed. Which would open the dialogue where she tearfully admitted blowing her savings on that vacation to Costa Rica which she paid for entirely because Roger had blown
his
savings on a flashy red 1957 Porsche with “whisky tan” leather interior.

At which point her parents would insist on paying the estimated two to three thousand Neon repair, which she could not let them do. Since her dad’s minor stroke five years ago, he had cut back his class load at the university and her mom’s party-event business was barely in the red. Joanne worried they would dip into money they were saving for a device to strengthen her dad’s weakened left arm. Things like dictation software and audio books replaced typing and propping open physical books, but no gadget could replace his hands cooking or holding his wife.

So Joanne had made up a story about loaning her car to Selena, a lawyer pal with two small children. Meanwhile, her Neon sat in a guest parking spot at Gloria’s apartment building.

“Jo, did you hear me?” In Gloria’s Brooklyn accent it sounded like
Jo-di’ja-heah-me
?

“You’re my best friend...” How to politely say
but not my zookeeper
?

“We’re practically
goombare
.”

Goombare—
pronounced goom-barr-eh—meant family, so to be practically
goombare
was a heartfelt compliment, one her friend had given before. Joanne’s current irritation aside, the feeling was mutual. She felt closer to Gloria than she did to her own sister, the perfectly perfect Shannon who had married the rich doctor husband, a fact her mother repeated a lot lately. Subtext:
You should get Roger back because he could be rich someday, too
.

As if Joanne, also a lawyer, could never be rich on her own. She loved her mom, but that 1950s mentality was driving her to eat.

She swirled her fork in a puddle of melted ice cream. “I’m not ready to meet any potential landlords. I’m still in my pajamas.”

“It’s almost noon.”

“I’m a slow dresser.”

“Everything’s gonna be okay, Jo. I promise you.”

Oh, how she hoped that were true. “Thanks.”

In some ways she and Gloria were like twins separated at birth. Internal twins, because on the outside they looked like total strangers. Gloria wore make-up like a diva, could bench press a hundred pounds, and loved heart-wrenching, romantic movies, especially if they starred Ryan Gosling. Joanne had a “so what?” approach to beauty products, figured pushing a cart while grocery shopping burned plenty of calories and kept getting Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds confused.

But Gloria and Joanne shared a passion for the law, valued loyalty and liked to talk almost as much as they liked to eat. Except Gloria, a five-nine bundle of nervous energy, never showed it.

“So, these landlords,” Gloria continued, “are a husband-wife PI team, Kimberly Chandler and Hal Fossen. They’re renting out the unit behind their agency, which back in the day was a one-person law office-apartment, and the best part is...drumroll, please...it’s a t
en-minute walk
to the courthouses. Exactly what you’ve been looking for, Jo!”

“I’m afraid to ask, but here goes...how much?”

Not so long ago, downtown Vegas rents were cheap because nobody wanted to live in its drug-ridden, crime-infested neighborhoods. Then a group of entrepreneurs re-created downtown into a trendy business-arts district that realtors hawked as “metropolitan luxury.” Boutique art galleries, hip restaurants...and sticker-shock rents.

“It’s listed as thirteen hundred a month, but Kimberly told me she set it high on purpose to attract the right kinda person, not some partying
cuginette
.”

“A what?”

“One of those
Saturday Night Fever
chicks with teased hair, sprayed-on clothes and a need to party hardy. It’s a metaphor thing.”

“How much lower do you think she’ll go?”

“Eight.”

She felt a spark of hope. “For an office-apartment
downtown
? That’s a steal!”

“Actually,” Gloria continued, “she said nine thousand, but I’m sure you can talk her down to eight, ʼspecially as it’s on the small side. Which is why they’re moving. Baby number two’s on the way and they need a bigger place.”

Asking for a discount on top of a discount made her uncomfortable, but she’d think about that later. The lump-sum payment from the defender’s office would fund her new law practice and personal expenses for three or so months, five if she lived on Ramen and had no personal life, so bringing in clients was her number one priority. A challenge as Vegas had more criminal lawyers than slot machines, but her rep as a star public defender should be in her favor.

“Jo, I, uh, didn’t want them to rent the place to somebody else before you saw it…so I kinda told her you’d sign the lease today.”

“We need to talk.” She took a fortifying bite of bite of drippy ice cream and pie. Her friend had stepped over the line, but at the same time Joanne was intrigued. And scared.

“You sound pissed.”

“A little, yes,” she said around the mouthful.

“Verbal commitments from third parties aren’t legally binding.”

Joanne swallowed while rolling her eyes. Only thing worse than know-it-all lawyers were know-it-all legal investigators.

“Here’s the deal,” she said, pushing aside the plate. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since Jamoke.”
Jamoke
being their code word for Roger, easier to say than scum-sucking dog-liar cheat. “But you can’t keep telling people what I want. Or what I’ll do.
Especially
without talking to me first.”

“You don’t like the place, we walk.”

“Right.” She paused. “But my point is, you need to stop making decisions without consulting me first—”

“But you needed that speeding ticket case, Jo. Plus he paid you three-fifty,
cash
. Come tax time, you’ll thank me.”

That speeding ticket had been her only case since being on her own, thanks to Gloria, who also told the guy the retainer was three-fifty if he paid cash, four if he wrote a check.

“I needed it, that’s for sure. More than the money, it felt great to be a lawyer again. But let’s keep it to you
referring
clients, not negotiating deals on my behalf, okay? The attorney licensing agency tends to get cranky with lawyers whose clients know they’re clients before the lawyer does.”

“I hear ya,” Gloria said softly. “No more negotiating. Sorry about telling Kimberly you’d sign that lease, too.”

Sometimes her friend reminded her of a cannoli—hard shell on the outside, sweet and soft on the inside. Which made her a dynamite investigator, too. Many times Joanne had watched Gloria not take shit from thugs, while also earning their respect. And at the other end of the spectrum, she had a marvelously light, yet honest, approach with timid and fearful witnesses, who entrusted her with stories that sometimes broke cases wide open.

It was the middle ground of life that Gloria often struggled with...the everyday, sometimes boring place where most of the world lived.

“Guess I’ve been worried about you,” Gloria said. “Like this twenty-four-seven pajama thing.”

“That’s because my casual clothes are still at Jamoke’s. He left another message with my mom that the house is available whenever I wish to pick up my things...God, I dread walking in and seeing Tiffanyisms everywhere...Eiffel Tower posters...the entire DVD collection of
How I Met Your Mother
...teeth whitener strips.”

“Forget about her. Screw your old clothes, too. Say yes the next time your mom wants to take you shopping...she’s a mother, y’know. She wants to do things for you.”

“Including put me on a grapefruit diet and have me wear
push-up bras,
which would make a D-cup girl like me look like an explosion at Hoover Dam. Not for my career or health but to
Get Roger Back
. It’s like the feminist movement never happened.”

“Yeah, she’s too hung up on you and Jamoke reuniting, but she’s got some feminism goin’ on...like starting that party business after her travel agency tanked. Lots of people fall down and stay there. Not your mom. Hafta admire that.”

Rosemary Galvin, fifty-seven, still fit into her size-six wedding dress, knew more make-up tricks than Mrs. Houdini, and prepared dishes like braised squab with
foie-gras
hollandaise for Thanksgiving rather than a traditional turkey. Guidelines for living her sister Shannon employed religiously, and Joanne ignored. But then, Shannon ended up marrying a wealthy physician and living in a home out of
Architectural Digest
while Joanne was camping out in her parents’ guest room testing new flavors of Ben and Jerry’s.

“She thinks Jamoke fooled around because I was working too much. Didn’t do enough cooking and cleaning.”

“You’re not good at either of those.”

“That fine point aside, more than once Mom has mentioned that a woman is responsible to keep the
home fires burning
…if you get my drift.”

“Probably thinks she’s helping saying stuff like that.”

Irritated her that Gloria was defending her mother, but it wasn’t the first time. Wouldn’t be the last, either. Her friend’s mom died when Gloria was a toddler, which seemed to have left her with a wistful idealism of motherhood.

“Makes me wonder, though, if I didn’t stoke those fires enough. Or well. Guess I thought Jamoke and I were good in that department, occasionally porn-film good, but obviously something was lacking if he fell into lust with Tiffany the Tooth. Maybe it’s a blonde thing.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Jo. Men would lust after a vacuum cleaner if it wore a blonde wig.”

“Maybe I wasn’t...experienced enough. Before Jamoke I had one boyfriend in law school...can’t say we set off any smoke alarms.”

“What’s with the
we
? Maybe you did for him, but he didn’t for you. Bad sex happens.”

“Let’s change the subject before I get more depressed.”

“Okay. See the news last night?”

“No, watched a movie.”

“Another cowboy flick?”

“Western film, yes.”

After discovering a public domain vintage western film site with free downloads, she’d gotten hooked on the world of dusty streets, whistling winds and second chances. Especially second chances. If a notorious gunslinger could find redemption or a female rancher could save her herd of cattle during a blizzard, surely a dispirited defense lawyer could believe in herself again.

“They give me hope,” Joanne admitted.

“Nothin’ wrong with that. Anyway, last night on channel nine, Burnette announced he’s running for governor.”

Joanne snorted a laugh. “Watch out, he’s going to fight even harder and dirtier now to win cases—needs to look like the hero prosecutor for the masses.”

“Especially after he was forced to dismiss Sebastian’s case.”

Joanne smiled. “My sweet revenge.”

On November fifth, after Judge Fields charged Joanne with contempt and sent the jury home, a reporter in the courtroom drove to the neighborhood of a closed-down bar in Henderson, where Sebastian claimed to have been on the night of the crime and Joanne was not allowed to prove. After knocking on doors and asking if anyone had attended Las Vegas High School five or so years before and been friends with Sebastian Vaughn, the reporter found the witness, named Louis, who Joanne pinpointed in discovery. The reporter recorded her interview with Louis, who confirmed being with “Tater,” Sebastian, in the Henderson bar, thirty miles from the scene of the attempted murder. Louis expressed surprise that a reporter was asking him about that night because “I told all this to that investigator from the DA’s office months ago.”

Things escalated quickly after that, culminating with a furious Sam Burnette filing a motion to dismiss the case.

Nevertheless, Joanne’s circumstances didn’t change. Paul Ochs sent her an officious letter, cc’ing Roger, stating that although Sebastian Vaughn’s case had been dismissed, Joanne’s “outrageous and disrespectful behavior” at court destroyed his confidence in her abilities to be a public defender, and therefore her termination remained in effect.

Like she had any desire to return to the tawdry crime scene of Roger and Tiffany’s office romance.

“…your beige pantsuit with the gold buttons would be good to wear today,” Gloria was saying. “Professional, but cute.”

“It might not fit…I’ve gained a few pounds.”

“How ʼbout that maxi dress with the strawberries? Thought I saw it in your closet the other day.”

Then Gloria repeated everything was going to be okay, she’d be there in twenty minutes, and to never forget that believing one is great in bed was half the battle.

A short while later Joanne checked out her reflection in the dresser mirror. Spending hours yesterday in a steamy kitchen had frizzed her corkscrew curls to poodle-fur consistency, which with a touch of shea butter and some serious scrunchie wrangling, she’d coerced into a ringlety top-knot. The dress was a bit tight around her midriff, but pretty, although she had never noticed how the mix of her freckles against the strawberries was almost dizzying.

She had inherited her freckles and red hair from her dad’s side of the family, but their freckles were normal. Hers were ridiculous. As if God got tired of doling them out bit by bit and dumped the rest on her. Then balanced things out by giving her wide-set green eyes and Angelina Jolie-size lips that today she slicked with pink gloss.