It Should Be a Crime (23 page)

Parker told Erin she would be right down, then glanced in the mirror and ran her hands through her unruly hair. Straightening her shirt and smoothing out the wrinkles in her pants, she smiled at herself before she turned to head downstairs. She took the steps two at a time, not caring if she looked like she was skipping with excitement. As she reached the bottom of the staircase, she saw Skye Keaton waiting for her in the foyer, balancing a pizza box on the fingers of her right hand. Parker lurched to a stop.

“Skye! What the hell are you doing here?” Parker stayed on the last step.

“Helluva greeting for someone with dinner on board.” Skye smiled as if Parker’s visceral reaction had no effect. Shoving the pizza box toward Parker, she said, “I brought your favorite.”

Parker was furious, but fought down her emotions. She had no desire to let Skye see she could still have such a strong impact on her. Coupled with her anger was piercing disappointment at seeing Skye instead of Morgan. Imagining Morgan and then seeing Skye instead left her reeling with feelings she put aside to examine later. She struggled for an even tone. “Skye, you don’t know me well enough to know what my favorite anything is. Now, take yourself and your pizza and leave.”

“I see you’re going to need a little more time to come around.” Skye spoke as if Parker had merely said, “I’m in the middle of something, can you come back later?” Setting the pizza box on a table in the entryway, Skye leaned toward Parker and hugged her. “I’ll check in with you later. After all, we’ll have lots of opportunities to see each other now since you’ve managed to get a gig working on my biggest case.” Turning toward the door, she called over her shoulder, “Enjoy the pizza!”

Parker watched her leave, unable to move from where she was rooted on the stairs. Erin poked her head in the foyer and, seeing the pizza box and Parker standing alone, asked, “Is everything okay?”

Parker started to answer, when the doorbell rang.

“Don’t answer.”

Erin stared at her, trying to decipher her strange behavior. “Parker, what’s wrong?”

The doorbell rang again.

“Nothing. Don’t answer. She’ll go away.”

A fist pounded on the heavy wooden door and Erin looked back and forth between the door and Parker, trying to decide what to do. A voice yelling from the other side made the decision clear.

“Parker, open the door!” The voice was loud, male, and Dex’s. Parker moved past Erin and opened the door herself.

“What took you so long? I know it’s a big house, but I swear I was standing out here forever.” Spying the pizza box, he asked, “Was the chick who just left the pizza delivery person? She was hot. What kind did you get?”

Parker almost closed the door right in his face but instead resigned herself to having to explain. “You dope. She wasn’t a pizza delivery person. She was Skye Keaton. Great powers of observation you have.” Ignoring the shocked look on his face, she said, “And I wager the pizza is from Campasis, all the way, well done.” It was still her favorite and of course Skye would remember. For all their differences, Parker had to concede Skye was a stellar detective with amazing powers of observation and ability to memorize detail, though Parker wasn’t particularly impressed Skye remembered her favorite kind of pizza.

“Well, we may as well eat while you tell me what’s going on.” He picked up the pizza box and waited for Parker to follow him to the kitchen. Erin followed along and joined them at the table. Dex grabbed a slice of pizza and nodded toward Parker, urging her to start talking.

“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why she showed up here tonight.” Parker didn’t feel like getting into the fact Skye had asked her out this morning. “Asked” wasn’t the word for it anyway. She had more like ordered Parker to go out with her. Her authoritarian ways had always been a source of contention in both their personal and professional lives. Parker often told Skye she needed someone much more pliant, someone who actually liked being bossed around. Skye’s consistent reply had been that it wouldn’t be as much fun if the other person gave in without a fight. Funny, Parker thought, for someone who professed to like a good fight, Skye sure had caved when Parker asked her to fight for what was right.
It may be she just likes to fight.
Parker rolled the revelation around in her mind and decided the assessment fit. Skye liked conflict, and she and Parker had been consumed with it when they were together. The heat of their conflict inflamed both passion and anger by turns, but at the end of the day, Parker decided she craved the consistency of compromise.

She gave Erin an abbreviated explanation. “Skye used to be my partner on the force. She’s the lead detective on the case we’re working on now. I saw her this morning at the courthouse and she expressed an interest in meeting. I said it wouldn’t be appropriate, but Skye has her own ideas about what’s appropriate and what’s not. I sent her packing.”

Dex interjected, “But not without getting her to leave the pizza—smooth move, Parker.”

Erin sighed. “As usual, your life is way more exciting than mine. I’m on my way over to Bob’s. Mind if I grab a few slices to take with?”

After Erin left Dex casually finished off the pizza. Parker begged off, her stomach shut down after the events of the day.

“So,” Dex asked, “are you going to tell me the real reason Skye was here?”

“Pretty much what I told Erin. If Skye had some other reason for coming here than getting under my skin, I don’t have a clue what it was. I didn’t exactly invite her in for tea and conversation.”

“Weird.”

“Not if you know her. She probably wanted to pump me for information on the defense. Skye’s scruples allow her lots of leeway when she’s working on a case. Speaking of cases, what’s the word on our little side project?”

Dex’s face lit up. “It’s a go. Professor Bradley’s hired an investigator who works with Ray Ramirez’s firm. If the judge denies our motion, Morgan will foot the bill herself. You and I will team up with him to interview witnesses and go through the rest of the evidence. We have our first meeting tomorrow.”

“Piece of cake. Way to go!”

Dex shook his head. “It wasn’t as easy. Professor Bradley required a lot of convincing. You were right. She has a bit of a hang-up about having us former law enforcement types doing the investigating. Has she never worked the other side?”

“No, she hasn’t. But remember, my friend, up until this semester, I never would’ve pictured you working for the defense. Did it ever occur to you her reservations might be because we’re students and this is a high-profile murder case? She might be a little worried about trusting us because of our lack of legal experience.”

Dex threw a pizza crust at her. “There you go. Sticking up for your girlfriend. I knew this is how things would shake out.”

Parker’s mouth fell open and Dex quickly added, “Parker, I was kidding.”

His expression was earnest and Parker rolled his words around in her head. At first she wanted to beat him over the head with the pizza box, but one word in particular gave her pause.
Girlfriend.
She repeated it silently to herself. Despite her growing pessimism about any sort of future with Morgan, she had to admit “girlfriend” had a nice ring.

“Why, if it isn’t Parker Casey. How’re ya doing, girl?”

Jake Simons hadn’t changed one bit since the last time Parker saw him. He was still the same grandfatherly man, dressed in a tan poplin suit, smelling of tobacco and peppermint. Parker speculated he must own at least half a dozen of the same suits, since she had never seen him sporting any other outfit. His close-cropped hair was whiter than she remembered. Parker had known Jake since she graduated from the academy. A former cop himself, he had been a regular fixture at the department, always scouting out leads and keeping up acquaintances with those who had the power and resources to funnel information his way. Parker had had only a few interactions with him and, frankly, she was surprised he remembered her.

“I’m good, Jake, real good. You’ve met Dex?”

Jake nodded toward Dex. “Sure have. He filled me in on the basic details. Ms. Bradley just called to say she was on her way. In the meantime, why don’t we sort through all these papers and let’s see what we have?”

The three settled around the oak table in the small conference room at the Ramirez Law Firm. Ray Ramirez had generously donated the space to the Chavez defense team for a war room. Already the room was covered with flip charts and flow charts detailing strategy for the upcoming trial. Empty food and drink containers filled the trash cans to overflowing. Although the police detectives spent weeks investigating Camille Burke’s death, the fruits of their labor had only recently been released to the defense. The students on the team were appalled to learn how late in the game they might receive this information. Morgan and Ford had explained they’d received some of the information even sooner than the law required. The moment the case was set for trial, the defense team filed discovery motions requesting copies of the evidence against their client as well as any evidence in the possession of the State favorable to Luis’s case. This latter type of evidence was called
Brady
evidence in honor of the Supreme Court case requiring prosecutors to hand exonerating information over to the defense. However, with a few narrow exceptions, the State was not required to hand over most of the evidence requested in a defendant’s discovery motion until moments before they intended to use it. It was not uncommon in the courtroom for crime scene photos to be tossed on the desk of opposing counsel seconds before the prosecutor questioned the witness who had taken the photos.

Some prosecutors believed the primary reason for sharing evidence before trial was to advance plea negotiations while others held a genuine belief the system worked better when the playing field was leveled, at least to some extent, by sharing the evidence before the start of trial. Gibson rode the fence. She provided more than she had to, but later than many would have. Certainly, it had been clear once Morgan entered the case, that plea deals were out of the question. Morgan had a reputation as a trial lawyer for a reason. She wasn’t afraid to try the tough cases and her appearance in a case usually meant a jury would decide her client’s fate.

The group was reviewing the catalog of evidence in the trial notebooks Gerald had prepared, when Morgan entered the room. She caught Parker’s glance and winced at the well of hurt in her eyes. Morgan willed herself not to respond with anything more than a pleasant smile. She had made peace with her decision that no personal contact was the only way for both of them to emerge unscarred through the gauntlet of emotions laid down by their shared intimacy. Morgan’s plan would sting now but, like ripping off a bandage, the pain would be over quickly. Resigned to her plan, Morgan focused on the purpose of the meeting.

“I’m going to get you started, but then I have to meet with Ford to go over our plan for jury selection.” Morgan flipped through the notebook in front of her. “I’d like you to focus on witnesses. We don’t have the State’s witness list yet, but we can construct a likely list from the individuals identified on the police report. I know we’ve talked about motive and how the State doesn’t have to prove Luis had a motive to kill Camille, but juries want to know the ‘why.’ Chaos isn’t comfortable, and for someone to kill a person for no reason at all, especially when he hasn’t exhibited any violent tendencies in the past, can provide exactly the kind of doubt we can argue is reasonable enough to merit an acquittal.”

Dex chimed in. “So, you want us to find out if someone else had a motive?”

“Precisely,” Morgan answered. “Start with the rest of the staff at the Burke household. Most of them have already been interviewed by the police. Luis says he was working on the plumbing when he heard gunshots. Someone in the house must have seen him working. Then find out who Camille’s friends are and interview them. We know virtually nothing about her other than she was the only daughter in a fabulously wealthy family. Contact as many people as you can and have summaries of your interviews ready by the end of the week.”

“What about character witnesses?” Jake asked. “Would you like us to hold off on that?”

“Go ahead and identify some, but you can wait on those interviews till next week. We’ll use most of the character witnesses for the punishment phase of the trial.” Morgan grinned. “I like to be prepared, but I’m a little superstitious about preparing for a loss.

“I have to run. Any questions?” Seeing there were no questions, Morgan made a hasty exit, avoiding any eye contact with Parker.

*

Parker watched Morgan’s retreat and pondered the coolness of their recent interactions. She couldn’t put her finger on the problem. She didn’t feel any animosity between them, but there was a distinct formality that didn’t usually exist between people who had seen each other naked. Parker realized she had her answer about what Morgan wanted from her. The answer was sex, and she had gotten all she wanted and was ready to move on.
Fine, I can move on too.
Saying it was the easy part.

“Hey, Parker, wake up.” Dex snapped his fingers in her direction. “Any ideas how to find out who Camille’s friends are?”

Parker shook off her malaise and brought her mind back to the task at hand. “Maybe we can get her transcript, talk to her teachers, find out who else was enrolled in her classes.” She paused as a nugget of information struggled its way into her consciousness. “Seems like I talked to someone recently who knew her.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Oh yeah! My roommate, Erin. She was in her undergraduate class. She might have some ideas.”