All Day and a Night (41 page)

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Authors: Alafair Burke

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BOOK: All Day and a Night

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“I believe by name, Your Honor.”

“First and last name?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“And if I were to ask Mr. Donovan here what Ms. Landry has said about that conversation, what would he say?”

Linda’s cockiness had convinced her that she could talk an octogenarian judge into the quick, Solomonic conviction on one charge and dismissal of the other, but she didn’t know Judge Gregory like Max did. Max had steered the plea to this judge because he was a former law professor who got his back up when lawyers underestimated him.

“I—I’m not sure that’s for me to speculate.”

“Very well, then. Mr. Donovan, would you care to answer that question?”

“With all due respect,” Linda said, “that’s not the process we agreed to.”

“Ah, but this is my courtroom, and I just asked the defendant a question she won’t answer, but which I expect Mr. Donovan certainly can. Please proceed.”

Max already had the relevant reports in front of him. “In a call from the defendant to Debi Landry that was intercepted by police, Ms. Landry said, quote,
You’re the one who told me that bitch was screwing Tony over. You said something needed to be done
.”

Ellie noticed some of the reporters shifting awkwardly in their seats. The beloved celebrity lawyer had clearly crossed a moral line, if not a legal one.

“Aha,” the judge said. “Ms. Moreland, did the prosecutor misspeak when he said this was a call from you to Landry? Or was this intercepted call different from the ten-minute call you referred to earlier?”

“It was a different call.”

“Can you please stop acting like you’re in a deposition. You’re a good enough lawyer to know what I’m about to ask you next, so go ahead and answer, please.”

“It was a call that I placed to Ms. Landry.”

The judge stared at Linda impatiently.

“I called her because my assistant—in cooperation with police—led me to believe that I was a suspect in the horrific assault against Carrie, so I called Ms. Landry to make sure she was not fabricating some kind of false story in an attempt to garner favor with a prosecutor’s office that would like nothing more than to see me go down.”

“And would you say that Ms. Landry is close to your former client, Mr. Amaro?” Linda started to answer, but the judge immediately realized that his question left too much wiggle room. “For example, if I were to check Mr. Amaro’s visitor logs at the prison, would this person he met in childhood have visited him?”

Ellie could see Linda’s confidence fading. “I’m not certain about that fact specifically, Your Honor, but, yes, I suppose it would be fair to say the two are close.”

“Mr. Donovan, please save me the trouble of having my clerk run the search for me, and tell me what criminal convictions Ms. Landry had prior to any conversations the defendant had with her.”

Ellie noticed that the judge was now referring to Linda as the defendant instead of Ms. Moreland. She watched his frown grow deeper, and more reporters shaking their heads in disgust with each conviction Max rattled off from Debi’s lengthy rap sheet. The picture was clear: Linda was careful to avoid any explicit directives, but she had waved Carrie Blank like a chewtoy in front of an unpredictable offender with a history of violence.

“I’ve heard enough,” Judge Gregory said. “I not only find a factual basis for both counts of the information, but I’ll be writing a letter personally to the state bar association to ensure they receive a transcript of these proceedings. And before the defendant even asks if she can perform her community service through pro bono legal activities, I will answer with a resounding
no
. You will pick up trash or paint over graffiti or whatever else the county conjures for you, just like anyone else. If you ask me, Ms. Moreland, you’re lucky the state didn’t charge you as an accomplice to Ms. Landry’s deeds, but I imagine they concluded that you had successfully abused your legal knowledge to obtain in result what would be unlawful for you to do or ask for directly. I’ll be certain to point that out to the bar as well.”

Max glanced back at Ellie. She tried to suppress a smile that might be construed as vengeful, but she knew her face was filled with pride that Max had found a way to do the right thing.

E
llie knocked on her former apartment door. Jess was pulling on a Pixies T-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower, when he answered.

“Whoa, you’ve gotten skinny,” she said. “Does this mean you’re still dating the vegan?”

“Indeed,” he said, making his way back to the bathroom. Interesting. Jess had a tendency to correct her vocabulary from
dating
to
hooking up
when it came to his romantic life. “Gotta say, I feel good. Skinny like Sid Vicious, but without the heroin.”

“When do I get to meet her?” Out of habit, she walked toward the spot on the kitchen counter where her jar of Nutella had once lived, but then remembered finishing it the last time she was over.

Jess emerged from the bathroom, running some kind of muddy substance through his hair. “You free tonight?”

“Seriously?”

“Sure, why not? If she doesn’t like you, I’m going to have to kick her to the curb, so better sooner than later.”

“As if anyone doesn’t like the Hatchers.”

“Where’s Max?” Jess had referred to Max as “Captain America” until two weeks ago. The name change was probably as close as Jess would get to an express endorsement.

“DA happy hour. Should be called DA
unhappy
hour, if you ask me. Bunch of people worried about how their conduct will look if photographs turn up at their judicial confirmation hearings.”

“Ah, and yet when I take you to my hangouts, you’re afraid to go in the bathroom because you’re likely to see something you’ll have to call in.”

“Goldilocks, forever searching for a bar that’s just right. You said you got the paperwork from the management company?”

“Right there on the coffee trunk, awaiting your signature.”

Two weeks ago, Ellie had asked Jess to see if there was a way for her to legally transfer the apartment’s lease into his name.

“Got a pen?” She removed the documents from the mailing envelope. Jess had already signed.

“You sure about this?” he asked, handing her one from a kitchen drawer. “I mean, you know I would always give it up if you needed it back, but, still . . .”

She signed her name and handed him the agreement. “I’m absolutely positive.”

She only needed one home, and it was no longer here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A
ll Day and a Night
is my tenth novel, which means it likely contains the millionth word I have written with the support and guidance of my wonderful editor, Jennifer Barth, and agent, Philip Spitzer. I have never been much of a team player, but these two pros have taught me what a difference the right combination of bright minds and good hearts can make.

Rounding out the team are Lukas Ortiz and Lucas Hunt at the Spitzer Literary Agency; Amy Baker, Jonathan Burnham, Ed Cohen, Heather Drucker, Michael Morrison, Katie O’Callaghan, Katy Schneider, Leah Wasielewski, David Watson, and Lydia Weaver at Harper; and Angus Cargill at Faber and Faber. Offering quiet but helpful publishing-related whispers from the sidelines are Anne-Lise Spitzer and Richard Rhorer.

That’s more than enough with the sports analogies, but I also owe a big thank you to NYPD Lieutenant Lucas Miller, Dr. David Newman, and Nic Wolff for their helpful expertise. Any mistakes are mine, but I will still try to blame them on you. For helping me keep it real from the minute I decided to try to write about New York, I will always remember and cherish retired NYPD Sergeant Edward Devlin.

Thank you to the readers who go the extra mile, serving as the online Kitchen Cabinet. You named Carrie’s fictional neighborhood and some of its institutions. Though I can’t thank each of you individually, you may recognize a few character names that I randomly selected from your membership. All the lamentation about changes in publishing can make it hard to focus on the work and craft of writing a book. I try to block out the noise, tell the best story I can, and hope it works. Knowing that I’ve got a few readers cheering me on (oops, sports again) helps me do that. If you’re reading this and want to meet a pretty darn likable group of booklovers, pop in at
https://www.facebook.com/alafairburkebooks
and
www.twitter.com/alafairburke
.

Finally, I am thankful, as always, to my family, friends, and mostly my husband, Sean, for . . . everything.

This novel is a fictional account of one fictional case involving one fictional wrongful conviction claim. I.e., it’s made up. To learn more about the causes of wrongful convictions and the more than three hundred exonerations that have been made through post-conviction DNA testing, a good starting place is with the Innocence Project.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALAFAIR BURKE
is the bestselling author of nine previous novels, including the stand-alones
Long Gone
and
If You Were Here
, as well as the Ellie Hatcher series:
Never Tell
,
212
,
Angel’s Tip
, and
Dead Connection
. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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ALSO BY ALAFAIR BURKE

Long Gone
If You Were Here

THE ELLIE HATCHER SERIES

Dead Connection
Angel’s Tip
212
Never Tell

THE SAMANTHA KINCAID SERIES

Judgment Calls
Missing Justice
Close Case

CREDITS

Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

Cover photograph © Charlie Bennet/ImageBrief.com

COPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A
LL DAY AND A NIGHT
. Copyright © 2014 by Alafair Burke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition JUNE 2014 ISBN 9780062208408

ISBN 978-0-06-220838-5

14 15 16 17 18
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada