Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken (24 page)

“What? No, that’s not possible,” he said in a loud, strained voice.

“Keep your voice down,” Larry warned him.

Nick gave no indication that he’d heard. He grabbed Sasha’s right arm. “That can’t be right,” he insisted.

Sasha placed her hand over his.

“Nick, I was there. I saw it for myself. There was no hammer in your toolbox,” she said as gently as she could manage in the face of his idiocy.

He looked at her, puzzled. “It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t use ...” he stopped midsentence.

“You didn’t use what, son?” Larry asked.

Nick bit his lip.

“Nick?” Sasha prompted him.

“Sorry,” he said, slowly, “I’m trying to think. I haven’t used my hammer in several days and I don’t always lock my truck when it’s in my driveway or the garage. Someone must have stolen my hammer.”

Larry and Sasha exchanged a look.

“When’s the last time you opened your tool box?” Sasha asked.

“Let’s see. I did a walkthrough of a job site with the general contractor on Wednesday, so I didn’t need it then. On Tuesday, I was waiting for a materials delivery,” he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he thought back further. Finally, he said, “Last Friday. I was installing wainscoting in a dining room in Aspinwall.”

“So your hammer could have gone missing at any point in the past seven days?” Sasha asked.

“It had to have,” Nick said forcefully.

The three of them looked at one another wordlessly.

Nick broke the silence.

“I’m being framed.”

CHAPTER 40

Caroline hesitated on the sidewalk, her hand on the door. She exhaled, pushed the door inward, and stepped inside as bells jangled overhead to announce her arrival.

To her right, sat a coffee shop. The heady scent of roasted coffee beans and the clatter of dishes drifted out through the entrance. Directly in front of her, at the end of a short hallway, a stairwell led to the second floor and, according to a discreet brass sign, The Law Offices of Sasha McCandless, P.C.

Caroline gripped the handrail and started up the stairs.

She’d fully planned to drive straight home and climb into her bed when she’d left the office. But, after she’d exited the garage, she’d turned left instead of right and then had just flowed with the light, late-morning traffic until she’d reached Bigelow Boulevard. Almost without realizing it, she’d ended up, not in Upper St. Clair, but in Shadyside.

She’d pulled into a metered spot on Ellsworth Avenue and fed a handful of quarters into the parking meter. As she’d walked the block and a half, the autumn sun and the brilliant blue sky had barely registered through her trouble and worry. Not until she’d stood in front of the building that housed Sasha’s legal office had she admitted to herself that it had been her destination all along.

The stairs dumped her out in the second-floor hallway, which was lined with three doors along each side. The first door on the right had a brass nameplate that matched the sign at the bottom of the stairs.

Caroline braced herself then rapped on the door. Her heart fluttered in her chest. No response.

She waited a moment. Then she knocked again, harder this time. Directly behind her, the first door on the left swung open.

Caroline turned to see a slim African-American woman standing in the doorway. She was not young, not old. She looked familiar, but Caroline couldn’t place her.

“Sasha’s not in, Mrs. Masters,” the woman said, gesturing toward the other door.

Caroline searched her memory but found no name to attach to the woman.

“Please, call me Caroline,” she said with a weak smile.

The woman arched a brow and waited. Finally, she said, “Naya Andrews.”

Caroline nodded. Of course. The former litigation legal assistant with the take-no-prisoners attitude.

“Please forgive me, Naya. I have a great deal on my mind, and your name escaped me. How do you like it here—working for Sasha?”

Caroline realized she was prattling; her nerves were getting the better of her.

Naya blinked, then said, “It’s great. Like I said, though, she’s out of the office this morning.”

Caroline tugged on the straps over her left shoulder, hugging the supple, green leather bag to her body.

“When do you expect her back?” she asked.

Naya shrugged. “She’s in a client meeting. She’s going straight to court from there, so not until lunchtime, at the earliest.”

 Caroline checked her watch. It was after eleven.

“I’ll wait.”

“Why don’t you get a bite in the coffee shop downstairs?” Naya suggested. “They have great salads. I’ll tell Sasha you’re here when she gets in.”

“I’d rather not,” Caroline said.

Naya frowned at her but said nothing.

“Please,” Caroline said, her eyes filling with tears, “I really don’t have an appetite and ... I think I need a lawyer.”

Naya looked hard at her for a few seconds, then she stepped to the side and ushered her into the office.

“In that case, come on in and we’ll get a client intake started,” she said, handing Caroline a box of tissues.

CHAPTER 41

Sasha and Larry walked across the lot from the county jail to the Municipal Court building.

Sasha had assumed the preliminary arraignment would be held in the imposing stone castle that housed the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, but Larry had set her straight. Not until the formal arraignment would a criminal defendant, even in a homicide, set foot in the big courthouse. Preliminary arraignments and preliminary hearings were handled by Municipal Court judges, just like traffic citations.

They proceeded without incident through the metal detectors at the entrance of the hulking brick and glass building. Sasha was pleased to see that the members of the bench apparently did not live in fear of her lingerie.

Up three flights, the courtroom of the Honorable Laurel Foster was a bazaar scene. They entered the room and were met by a din of wheedling, peddling, and bargaining, as lawyers tried to hammer out deals before the judge took the bench. It was like an island market after a cruise ship had pulled into port and unloaded a crowd of sunburned tourists. Of course, these vendors weren’t hawking woven blankets, shot glasses, and tchotchkes, but reduced jail sentences, probation, and in-patient treatment programs. The mood struck Sasha as insufficiently somber, given the stakes involved. Larry seemed unperturbed.

She pulled him out into the hallway.

“Walk me through this one more time, please,” she said.

Larry had insisted it would be an easy appearance to wing, but winging it was not her style. Sasha felt jittery. It was her practice to quell her jitters by preparing, preparing some more, and then over-preparing for her courtroom appearances. Unfortunately, she had had neither the time nor the knowledge necessary to adequately rehearse for her criminal court debut.

“It’s like we told Nick. Either Detective Gilbert or some harried assistant district attorney will show up. Most likely, it’ll be an ADA who was hit with a stack of files when he walked in this morning and hasn’t had time to do anything more than glance through them—if that. Whoever it is will read the charges in a bored voice and ask for a high bail amount. There’s not going to be anything dramatic,” Larry assured her. “Municipal Court is all about efficiency; keeping the clogged wheel of justice turning. Stand up, poke Nick to get him to say not guilty, agree to the bail amount, get assigned a preliminary hearing date, and then sit down.”

“Okay. Now, tell me again why the assistant district attorney isn’t going to charge him with first-degree murder?” she asked.

She had reviewed Pennsylvania’s criminal code after her morning run and had read that bail was not an option if the defendant faced charges that carried a life sentence or the death penalty. A first-degree murder conviction would result in a mandatory life sentence.

Larry said, “What’s the upside? From what you’ve told me, they don’t have anything. It’s all conjecture—he was cheating and she asked for a divorce. So what? Half of all marriages end in divorce, not murder. They’ll charge him with criminal homicide, like they did Mr. Lang, and get their ducks in a row. Later, at the formal arraignment, after they’ve had a month, two months to gather evidence, maybe they’ll amend the charges. But now? It’s not worth it.”

He sounded certain. And the district attorney’s office
had
agreed to bail for Greg.

Sasha could feel her jangled nerves begin to unkink.

Then Larry continued, “What you
should
be worrying about is what you’re going to say if the ADA comes charging off the elevator looking for you to make a deal before your case gets called.”

Sasha shook her head. This again. Larry believed the district attorney would offer Nick a deal similar to the one Greg Lang had rejected: plead to voluntary manslaughter and serve a term of seven-and-a-half to ten years. And Larry believed Nick should jump on it.

“You were there, Larry. He has an explanation for everything: his hammer was stolen; he was rescuing that girl. He believes he can explain this away. And, frankly, I think he’s right about being framed,” Sasha said.

Larry shook his head. “So what if he is? If they offer him a deal like they offered Greg, he should take it.”

The courtroom door swung open and a middle-aged man wearing his hair in a short ponytail poked his head out and shouted, “The bailiff said the bus is here.”

“The bus?” Sasha asked, as he pulled his head back in and disappeared into the courtroom.

“The transport vehicle from the prison,” Larry explained. “They drive the defendants across the parking lot. It would be quicker to walk them, but I suppose they have security concerns. Let’s go in and find seats. The session will start soon.”

They fell in with the mass of lawyers streaming into the courtroom. Nick’s case was eighteenth on the list, so they found seats toward the middle of the gallery and settled in.

Larry passed the time receiving visitors. Every third lawyer who passed by stopped to ask about retirement, Bertie, or his canasta game. Sasha gave everyone who stopped a smile and a nod but kept her focus on her notes. Mere formality or not, she did not intend to embarrass herself at her first preliminary arraignment.

The bailiff stood up behind his cheap wood laminate desk and announced, “Okay, boys and girls, take your seats. Judge is on her way.”

The chatter died instantly, and the stragglers hustled to find empty spaces on the rows of long benches, tripping over litigation bags and crawling over their colleagues, so they could sit down, only to pop back up when the judge appeared.

The door from chambers swung open, and several dozen heads turned in expectant unison. But, it was just the judge’s interns. One female, one male. Both impossibly young. They settled in two folding chairs set up alongside the bailiff’s table and powered up their laptops, balancing them on their knees.

A moment later the door opened again. This time, it was not a drill.

“All rise. The Honorable Laurel Foster presiding,” the bailiff intoned in a loud, clear voice.

As one, attorneys stood, shoulders brushing shoulders in the cramped room. Larry pushed himself up with his cane.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” the judge said with a bright smile. “Have a seat, if you were lucky enough to find one.”

As they lowered themselves to the benches, she continued, “Anyone who wants to introduce himself or herself to his or her client, feel free to go back to the holding pen. Attorneys only—no family. Just keep it brief, please.”

A dozen or so lawyers stood and headed for the door. The back rows, packed with a mass of humanity in varying degrees of cleanliness and inappropriate dress, watched them go with naked jealousy. Sasha assumed these were the defendants’ family members. She didn’t see anyone who resembled Nick.

She leaned toward Larry. He shook his head before she had a chance to speak.

“Pfft,” he stage whispered, “don’t even think about it. There’s no privacy. The real skells back there, the career criminals, all have ADAs on speed dial. They’ll listen to your conversation and try to use it to barter their way to a better deal.”

The judge adjusted her square-framed glasses and frowned down at her calendar.

“Well, as is always the case, we’ve got a jam-packed morning. I’m hopeful you fine people have spent your time wisely and we’ll be able to dispose of some of these matters rapidly. All the same, I hope everyone had a hearty breakfast in anticipation of a late lunch.”

The bailiff, who’d been muttering into his phone in a low rumble, slammed down the receiver and approached the bench. He waved a piece of notebook paper at the judge as he neared her.

She covered the microphone with her hand, and he whispered in her ear, showing her the paper. Sasha watched her short, curly hair bob wildly as she nodded her head. It was a quick, annoyed motion. She took the sheet of paper, scowled at it, and then swung the microphone back toward her.

“It appears we’re going to have a special guest star today. The District Attorney herself is going to handle the preliminary arraignment for
The Commonwealth v. Nicholas Costopolous
.”  The judge paused and read from the paper the bailiff had handed her, “So, Attorney McCandless, come on down, you’re our first contestant. Your client’s on his way.”

Sasha’s mouth went dry. She whipped her head around and stared at Larry, whose eyes were wide and puzzled. He opened his palms and shrugged.

They stood and walked to the front of the room. Sasha could barely hear the buzzing crowd over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears. She steadied her hands and placed her legal pad on the table, then she pulled out a chair for Larry. While he lowered himself into it and arranged his cane and his papers, she concentrated on bringing down her heart rate.

“Welcome to Municipal Court, Ms. McCandless,” the judge said. “Good to see you, Larry.”

“Thank you, your honor,” Sasha said.