Nothing But the Truth (19 page)

“I intend to.” Brett was angry and she felt betrayed. Ryan could see it in her eyes.

“I want to nail Edwards and I’m willing to do what I have to in order to accomplish that.” Ryan didn’t want to parse the details, but she was letting Brett know as long as Kenneth told the truth, now and at Ross’s trial, he would be safe from prosecution.

Brett fixed her with an intense gaze. “I understand.”

Back in the room, Ryan tried to focus on Kenneth’s words, but she could barely contain her excitement. Under Paulson’s gentle direction, he revealed how he was arrested by a man, dressed in plainclothes, who said he was DEA agent Richard Emery. The man caught him selling dope and said he could make the case go away if Kenneth would help out with a sting operation they were conducting. Kenneth thought Emery wanted him to assist with an undercover drug buy, but the agent had something different in mind.

“He said the feds were investigating the Dallas County District Attorney’s office.”

Jeff, who had hardly said a word during the entire meeting, snorted. “Really? What for?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Illegal prosecutions or something like that.”

“Or ‘something like that’?”

Paulson shot Jeff a shut up look and resumed control of the interview. “What was your role supposed to be?”

“I was supposed to falsely confess to killing that woman.”

“And then?”

“They would get you for trying to send me away without checking out real proof.”

“Guess that didn’t work out so well.” This time it was Ryan who didn’t hold back.
“Seriously, kid, what were you thinking? You could have gone to prison for the rest of your life.”

“He seemed for real. He showed me his badge. He told me he could nail me on a conspiracy charge. He said that I was facing ten years to life. I can’t do federal time.”

Ryan shook her head at his simplistic summary of the situation. She looked down the table at Brett, willing her to see the sympathy in her eyes. Brett still looked pissed, but her anger was tangled up with shock. She was probably used to her clients lying to her about their involvement in criminal activities. But their lies usually absolved rather than implicated them. Well, Brett might be off the hook soon. If Kenneth’s story checked out, he wouldn’t need a lawyer. At least not for this offense.

Ryan warmed to the thought of being on the same side as Brett. Maybe that dinner wasn’t out of the question. She willed herself to focus. She had to nail this new evidence down before she could contemplate anything else.

“How did you get in touch with Ms. Logan?” The question allowed Ryan to stay focused on Brett.

“I dunno. The guy told me he set up a meeting with her. He said to take my mom and go.”

Paulson took up the questioning again. “What did your mom have to say about all this?”

“She’s thinks I’m kind of a loser anyway.”

Ryan edged in. “That didn’t really answer the question. Did she have any idea what you were really up to?”

“I wasn’t up to anything.” It was the first time Kenneth had exhibited any defensiveness during the long meeting. Brett shot Ryan a cautionary glance, but it was Paulson who interceded.

“We understand. We’re not trying to accuse you of anything. We just need your help. Would you be willing to look at some pictures?”

Ryan held her breath. If Kenneth picked Ross Edwards out of a photo array as the guy who conned him into making a false confession, then she could immediately get a search warrant to rip Edwards’s life completely apart. Not only would the case against him be rock solid, but she would have a choice of other charges to nail him on.

Kenneth nodded his assent at the same moment Brett’s BlackBerry chose to ring loudly enough to wake the dead. Brett reached for the offending noisemaker. “Sorry, I thought I shut it off, but I must have turned the volume up instead during our last break.” She glanced at the screen. “I need to take this. It’s Kenneth’s dad and he’s called about six times since this morning.” Brett stood and walked to a small hallway that led to the bathroom designated for juror use. Ryan was annoyed at the interruption, but apparently not as much as Paulson who glared daggers Brett’s way. Kenneth on the other hand looked positively flummoxed.

Brett returned to the table after a brief moment. “I told him you were okay. That this was all a big mistake, and you would be coming home tonight. We got disconnected after that, so I don’t know how much else he heard. I’ll call him when we’re done here.” She looked at Ryan and Paulson with pointed interest. “Which shouldn’t be too much longer, for today at least. Right?”

Ryan started to reply, but Kenneth interrupted her, turning to Brett. “Ms. Logan?”

“Yes?”

“My dad is dead.”

She’d been saving the bottle for a special occasion. Brett read the label out loud despite the fact she was completely alone in her apartment. “Chateau Lafite Rothschild Paullic.”
Who says special occasions have to be celebrations? Surely, finding out you’ve been duped into helping a client make a false confession was an occasion worthy of fine wine.
She poured a healthy glass and surveyed her apartment. It was a wreck and so was she. She had used her last bit of energy to toss her heels to the side of the tiny foyer. Her hose and suit jacket lay in a heap on top of them.

Brett shoved a stack of papers off her couch, ignoring Tony’s voice in her head cautioning her not to get his carefully arranged work out of order. She couldn’t care less about being organized, about working at all. All she wanted was to drink away any ability to think.

The expensive wine didn’t work. Brett’s mind swirled with the revelations of the day. She was used to hearing lies from her clients: I didn’t do it; I didn’t know what they were really up to; I didn’t intend to…fill in the blank. A client confessing to a murder he hadn’t even remotely been involved in was a once in a lifetime occurrence.
Thank god.
Brett swallowed another deep draught of the fancy wine as if it could wash away the bad taste left behind from the things she had said in support of her client’s lie.

She recalled watching Kenneth pick Ross Edwards, without hesitation, out of a photo array, the last shades of her disbelief fading as his finger jabbed at the smiling face of the man who duped him into confessing and duped her into taking the case. Not only had Kenneth lied to her about having anything to do with the death of Mary Dinelli, but Ryan believed the man who had pressed Kenneth into duplicity had had direct communication with Brett, posing as Kenneth’s father.

Kenneth’s revelation that his father had died when he was a small child, led to a barrage of questions, all directed at Brett. Caught up in the moment, both detectives and prosecutors had honed in on every detail of every e-mail and phone call Brett had shared with the voice posing as Kenneth’s father. They hadn’t asked for access to her cell phone and e-mail accounts, but Brett figured the request would come soon.

As for Kenneth, he professed no knowledge of any contact between Edwards and Brett. He said he was told to take his mom and meet with Brett. He had been given a time, a place, and a story to tell. He did what he was told and expected his reward to come in the form of avoiding responsibility for a drug deal gone bad.

The prosecution team abandoned their pursuit of a polygraph, presumably because they were hearing what they wanted. Armed with probable cause to believe Ross Edwards was not only guilty of obstructing the investigation of Mary Dinelli’s murder, but now most certainly guilty of the murder itself, they rushed to prepare a motion to hold Edwards’s bond insufficient and, for the second time in the investigation of this case, an application for a search warrant for Edwards’s apartment, phone records, and e-mail accounts. Brett’s instincts told her it wouldn’t be long before they came knocking at her door for follow-up. The prospect drove her to pour another glass of wine.

*

Ryan rarely participated in search and seizure operations, but she wouldn’t have missed this one for anything. She wanted to look Edwards in the face and see if Ross was still smiling when they took him back into custody and uncovered his elaborate, albeit stupid, scheme. She wanted him to know she was on to him, could see through his charade, and wouldn’t hesitate to send him to a gurney with a needle waiting.

What she hadn’t expected and didn’t want, was the crush of press waiting when she stepped out of Edwards’s apartment. She was used to talking to the press about the status and outcomes of cases, but the contact usually came through a phone call, not the flash of camera bulbs and rolling video cameras in her face.
Leonard.
She knew he had to be behind this. She had called him on the way to Edwards’s place to brief him on the situation, and she had done so because she believed he might be approached by the press for a statement. He had obviously decided to turn Edwards’s arrest into a political gambit for his chosen candidate.

On the fly, Ryan made a brief statement commending Detectives Paulson and Harwell for developing evidence further supporting the grand jury’s original indictment of Ross Edwards. She told the microphones thrust her way that she looked forward to sharing this new evidence with the jury they planned to empanel in a couple of weeks, and she was confident in a quick and sure guilty verdict. Then she turned to Jeff and told him to get her out of there. She had somewhere else she desperately wanted to be.

*

The steady buzzing of the doorbell streamed under Brett’s subconscious and lapped away at her slumber. She waved her hand, still loosely holding an empty wine glass, in the air as if to ward off the invasion. It didn’t work. Brett set the glass on her coffee table and stood shakily. Her skirt and blouse were wrinkled and she was certain her hair was completely smashed on the left side of her head. She checked her chin for dried drool, but that was as far as she was willing to go after the day she’d had. Whoever was so insistent about seeing her would have to make do with the rumpled version.

Brett squinted at the peephole before opening the door. She wasn’t surprised by the identity of her evening visitor. She opened the door and invited Detective Paulson into her apartment.

“Come in. The place is a mess. Who am I kidding? I’m a mess. Is there some reason this couldn’t wait till tomorrow?” Brett sat back on the couch. Detective Paulson stood before her, but Brett was too tired to care about her significant lack of manners. She didn’t ask her to sit.

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Logan.”

“Call me Brett.” Paulson nodded. “Where’s your partner?”

“He’s logging in evidence at the property room.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but shouldn’t you be helping him?”

Paulson smiled. “May I sit?”

Brett waved at the chair opposite the couch. “Sure. Have a seat.”

Paulson ignored the direction and sat on the couch beside Brett. “Are you okay? You look pretty beat.”

“You sure know how to talk to women.” Brett sized Paulson up. She hadn’t flinched at the remark, and Brett idly wondered if Kim Paulson was family. She certainly was a looker, and she had a way of warming up to whoever was in her current focus. Unlike Ryan Foster, whose sharper edges were generally off-putting.
Generally.
During her last few encounters with Ryan, Brett witnessed a softer side. She had actually seemed to care about the impact of today’s events on Brett. A thought occurred to her. “Did Ryan send you to check on me?”

“Ryan? Oh, you mean Ms. Foster?” Paulson shifted closer. “No, I haven’t talked to her. I took it upon myself to check in on you. I get the impression young Kenneth really sprung a shocker on you today. Plus, I wanted to talk to you more about how Kenneth came to you in the first place. We should have those facts nailed down before we talk to Ross Edwards.”

“I’m fine. Just tired. Do we really need to talk about this tonight? We’ve both had a long day.”

“Mind if I have a glass of that wine?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m happy to go off duty. You’re right. It has been a long day and it’s time to call it quits. So what better way to end the day than a glass of fine vino?” Paulson lifted the bottle, which Brett noticed held barely a full glass. “Nice vintage.”

This woman is full of surprises.
Brett decided Paulson was flirting with her and the thought made her uncomfortable though she couldn’t put her finger on why. Kim Paulson was a beautiful woman, intense and compelling. But something about her was off. Ryan Foster was equally intense, but her presence had the vastly different effect of making Brett want to move closer. Sitting next to Paulson, Brett’s instinct was to find a task to occupy her in some other room in the house. Silly, really. Especially since Paulson was here and Ryan Foster was not. Brett reflected. It had been way too long since she had enjoyed a glass of wine with a beautiful woman. Obviously, her barren personal life affected her perspective.

Brett shook her head. Why was she even thinking about Ryan anyway? Paulson was probably a perfectly great dating prospect, but Brett didn’t trust her own instincts right now. She searched her mind for a polite way to refuse Paulson’s hint for an invitation to stay. The formerly frustrating door buzzer saved the day.

Brett opened the door to the second surprise of the evening. “Ryan?”

Ryan looked over her own shoulder as if Brett’s questioning tone indicated the presence of another person. “Yes, it’s me.” She flashed the quirky smile Brett had become fond of.