Hurt (2 page)

“I don’t know—maybe he got tired of running.”

Megan raised one eyebrow at the reply and looked down her glasses at Jamie, a sure sign that she wasn’t happy with the response. Jamie knew that she would hear about that one later. Megan ran a tight ship and made it clear to any law enforcement officer testifying in one of her cases that unless specifically asked to explain something in detail, all answers were to be kept to yes or no. Opinions and speculations could be twisted by defense attorneys, so Assistant District Attorney Riley wanted the facts and only the facts in ‘her courtroom’.

“Upon apprehending Mr. Thompson, did you advise him of his Miranda rights?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And after advising Mr. Thompson of his rights, was he then placed under arrest?”

“Not immediately, no.”

“And why not?”

“There was insufficient evidence to effect an arrest. Running from police officers, while suspicious, is not a crime in and of itself. At that time, our intention was to detain Mr. Thompson as a material witness and determine what, if any, connection he had to the shooting.”

Megan nodded and glanced down at her file again.

“And, Detective Tate, did you search Mr. Thompson before taking him in for questioning?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And what, if anything, did you find in your search of Mr. Thompson.”

“A Berretta 950 twenty-five caliber pistol.”

“And where was this pistol located?”

“In his front pocket.”

Megan walked from the podium and to a table at the front of the judge’s bench and picked up a clear plastic bag containing a small handgun. She stepped to the witness box and presented the bag to Jamie.

“And is this the pistol you located on Mr. Thompson’s person?”

Jamie took the bag from Megan and looked closely at the pistol inside.

“Yes,” she said nodding.

“Your honor,” Megan said, addressing the silver-haired judge presiding over the case, “if it would please the court, the State would like it noted that Detective Tate identified People’s Three as the weapon recovered from the defendant.”

“So noted,” the judge said, nodding slightly. Megan returned the bag to the table and then walked back to the podium.

“And, Detective Tate, what was the caliber of bullet used in the shooting of Ron Butler and Marvin Atkins?”

“Twenty-five caliber,” Jamie answered.

“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions at this time.” With that Megan gathered her file from the podium and walked to the prosecutor’s table.

“Your witness, counselor,” the judge said, motioning to the lanky defense attorney who sat beside Thompson. He rose and walked to the podium that Megan had just vacated. Jamie knew most of the attorneys in town, but was not familiar with this one. Looking at the man with artificially black hair and a bright yellow tie, she wondered if Thompson’s family had brought him in from out of town and then had her question answered when the attorney opened his mouth.

“Thank you, your honor,” he said in a distinctly Northern accent. Pennsylvania maybe, Jamie thought. Or possibly Ohio, given the hoodie that Thompson was wearing on the night of the shooting.

“Officer Tate—”

“Detective,” Jamie interrupted quietly.

“Excuse me?” the attorney asked, drawing back from the podium and narrowing his eyes.

“It’s
Detective
Tate,” Jamie said with an overly sweet smile, ignoring the look that Megan was throwing her way. “Not officer.”

“Of course,” he said. “So,
Detective
Tate you testified that the weapon was located in my client’s front pocket, is that correct?”

Jamie nodded.

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And did Mr. Thompson tell you that the weapon in question belonged to him?”

“No, he did not.”

“In fact, Mr. Thompson has denied that the gun is his all along, is that not correct Detective?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“So, it’s possible, then, the weapon’s owner is someone other than Mr. Thompson?”

“The weapon that Mr. Thompson was in possession of at the time of his arrest? Yes, it’s possible.”

“Right,” the attorney said, drawing out the word as he glanced down at the legal pad he had placed on the podium. “But Mr. Thompson has never admitted that the gun is his, has he Detective?”

“No,” Jamie answered again, shaking her head.

“And in his statement to you, Mr. Thompson advised that he was in between residences at that time and had borrowed clothes from a friend, isn’t that correct Detective?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

The defense attorney nodded and then began to pace behind the podium, looking at the jury as he moved.

“The Beretta 950, that’s a small weapon, is it not Detective?”

“I suppose.”

“It weighs less than a pound, does it not Detective?”

“I’ve never really taken the time to weigh a Beretta 950,” Jamie answered. She had an idea of where the attorney was going with his line of questioning and glanced over at Megan, who gave Jamie the slightest of nods. “But, yes, I’d say that’s about right. Give or take.”

“Give or take,” the attorney repeated. “So, in your professional opinion, isn’t it possible then that the
true
owner of the weapon left it in the clothing and Mr. Thompson, simply borrowing clothes from a friend days after the shooting, had no idea that the gun was in his front pocket?”

“No,” Jamie responded.

The attorney turned swiftly from the jury to face Jamie.

“No? That’s rather presumptuous of you, don’t you think
Detective
?”

“No. In my professional opinion, it is
not
possible that Mr. Thompson would be unaware of the weapon in his pocket.”

The attorney crossed his arms and snorted. Jamie couldn’t help but think the man had seen one too many episodes of
Ally McBeal
. Well, she thought, probably more like
Matlock
. He didn’t really seem like a Calista Flockhart kinda guy.

“So, you don’t see
any
way that this small pistol, weighing less than a pound, could have already been in the pocket of the hoodie when my client, unaware of its existence, borrowed the clothes from someone he thought was a friend?”

Jamie shook her head.
I knew it,
Jamie thought, the attorney’s last question confirming her suspicion that the out of state attorney had not taken the time to read her report on Thompson’s arrest. More than likely, he had relied on an assistant to do it for him and was simply working off those notes.

“No.”

“And why is this that?” he drawled, asking the question that Jamie hoped he would.

“It was in his jeans,” she answered.

“What?” The attorney stopped and looked at Jamie and then down at his legal pad.

“As I noted in my report, at the time Mr. Thompson was taken in for questioning, the pistol was found in the right front pocket of his blue jeans. Mr. Thompson denied ownership of the pistol and further stated he didn’t know whose pants he was wearing.” Jamie shook her head. “Even if Mr. Thompson didn’t know who the jeans belonged to, I can see no way that he would be unaware of a pistol in the pocket when he put them on. It wasn’t that big a pair of pants.” She paused and turned her head to look at the jury before continuing. “I can tell if I’ve left a set of car keys in a pair of jeans when I put them on, so I—in my professional opinion—don’t see how he would have been able to
not
notice a gun in his pocket.”

The attorney stared at Jamie for a moment and then looked back down at his legal pad. He looked back up at Jamie and, twisting his lips, nodded his head.

“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.” The attorney turned from the podium and walked back to the defendant’s table, glaring at both Thompson and the young assistant seated next to him.

“Does the State wish to re-direct?”

“No, your honor,” Megan answered the judge, briefly standing as she spoke and then sitting back down.

“Detective, you are free to go,” the judge said, motioning to Jamie.

“Thank you, your honor,” Jamie responded as she rose from the witness stand. She smiled and, suppressing the urge to wink at Thompson as she walked across the courtroom, she exited from a side door.

She saw her partner sitting on a bench in the hallway outside the courtroom and headed in his direction. He looked up from his cell phone and favored Jamie with his trademark sardonic smile as she approached.

Greg Samuels had been Jamie’s partner at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department since she had transferred from patrol to investigations several years before. When she had first met the man with thinning gray hair and a propensity to do things ‘old school’, she had anticipated there would issues between them. During her five years on the road, Jamie had run into the ‘good ole boy’ attitude more than a few times, so she had been pleasantly surprised to find that for Samuels, having a female partner—not to mention one who was a lesbian—was not something that had even come up as a topic of conversation between them. She quickly discovered that in Greg Samuels’ world there were just two kinds of people—good cops and bad cops. Period. They had a good, if sometimes fractious relationship, and Jamie considered him to be a friend as well as a partner.

“Well, that didn’t take too long,” Samuels said, rising from the bench.

“Nah,” she answered and then stretched her arms over her head. “Anything going on?” Jamie motioned to the phone in Samuels’ hand.

He shook his head.

“Just talking to Miranda. She’s got tickets to the Vandy game this weekend that she’s not going to be able to use and wanted to know if either of us wanted them.”

“She okay?” Jamie asked, thinking that there had to be something going on for the young, attractive doctor to miss a home game at her alma mater. Miranda Samuels was only a couple years removed from medical school and had several friends still attending Vanderbilt University. Greg Samuels complained about a lot of things, and his daughter’s frequent trips back and forth between Chattanooga and Nashville after working long hours at one of the local hospitals was high on his list.

“Yeah,” Samuels said. “They’re short-staffed this weekend at the hospital, so she’s not going to be able to get off. I can’t, I’ve already got plans. I told Gaines from the gang unit I’d help him finish that deck he’s building onto the back of his house.”

“I wouldn’t mind spending the weekend in Nashville, but you know I could care less about football. Find out who they’re playing and I’ll ask Nicole. That’s more her thing.”

Samuels nodded and began texting as they started walking down the hallway toward the elevators.

“You know if you do go, she’s not going to want to go to the Johnny Cash museum again.”

Jamie flashed a grin at Samuels as she pressed the elevator button. Jamie’s love for the Man in Black was only paralleled by Nicole’s hatred of all things country music.

“You let me handle that, partner,” she said as the elevator doors opened. “I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

Chapter Three

“Okay, I’ll have your salads and drinks right out,” the perky waitress in a bright red shirt said, smiling at Nicole and her grandmother before turning and heading toward the kitchen.

After several failed seating attempts, the pair had finally settled on the corner booth at Mario’s Pizza and Subs. It was, the older woman had declared, the only available seat not situated directly under an air conditioning vent. Not really believing that her grandmother was likely to “catch her death” from the cool air blowing out of the vents, Nicole had nonetheless humored the petite eighty year-old, who had a proclivity for dying her hair jet-black and wearing pastel-colored pants suits, until an appropriate seat was eventually located.

Like many restaurants in the area, Mario’s was family owned and operated. One of the largest metro areas in the state of Tennessee, Chattanooga prided itself on maintaining that delicate balance between local flavor and big city living. There were several big chain restaurants in the area that happily catered to the area’s many tourists, but Nicole preferred to frequent locally owned businesses. While Nicole would have rather gone to one of the many barbeque restaurants that dotted the riverfront area, she knew her grandmother wouldn’t be up for anything too rich, so had decided on the pizza place where she and Jamie sometimes met for lunch.

“So, your new doctor seemed nice,” Nicole remarked. “I was surprised by how young he is, though.”

“He is, but I don’t think his age really matters so long as knows what he’s doing. Besides, I’d much rather have a handsome young man feel me up instead of one of those wrinkled old bald-headed bastards.”

“Nana!”

“Well it’s true. Believe me, honey, you don’t get to my age without taking time to appreciate a good-looking man.”

Since suffering a stroke three years ago, Nicole’s grandmother had developed a habit of saying whatever came to mind, whenever it came to mind. It was difficult to say whether the often off-color and sometimes just plain rude comments the elderly woman frequently made were a direct result of some damage caused by the stroke, or if she had simply grown old enough to no longer give a damn. Nicole often thought the later was, in fact, the case.

“Well, Nana…” Nicole began but was interrupted by the waitress coming back to the table to drop off their drinks and salads.

“Thank you,” her grandmother said to the waitress. “Well, Nana what?” she asked, turning back to Nicole as the waitress left the table.

“Nothing. Is there anything that you need while we’re out today? We can stop and do some shopping after lunch, if you’d like.”

“Before you take me back to the prison, you mean?”

And here we go…

Nicole sighed at her grandmother’s words. This was not the first time she’d had this particular conversation with the elderly woman, and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.