Nothing But the Truth (17 page)

She shoved it back. “You may get it, but I need to be sure. What’s the worst thing that can happen if you choose to confess your involvement in Mary Dinelli’s death?”

He shrugged.

“Kenneth, I understand that you want to do this, and you need an attorney with you when you do, but I’m not going to be that attorney if I don’t feel like you know what you’re getting yourself into.” She paused. “Now, let’s start with something different. As far as I know, no one suspects you were involved in Dinelli’s death. If you choose to confess, you will probably be taken into custody. What’s the worst thing that can happen to you if you are charged with this murder?”

“The death penalty.”

“That’s correct. I’ll do everything in my power to get you a lesser sentence, and the fact that you are willing to cooperate in the investigation could go a long way to us working out some kind of deal, but the prosecutors are not going to make any offers until they hear what you have to say. Do you understand that even if you cooperate, you could be looking at a life sentence?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to answer all of their questions. If they feel like you’re holding something back, they may end the interview and any chance you have of getting credit for cooperating will be gone.”

“Can’t I just read them what I wrote?” Kenneth pulled the folded, worn paper out of his pocket. Brett recognized it from the first time they had met at her office.

“You may be able to read your statement, but you’ll also have to answer any follow-up questions they want to ask. If you want to talk to me before you answer, you just let me know, and I’ll ask for a break. I know it seems like we’re playing this by ear, but I know what I’m doing. If you want to go this route, this is the way it’s done. We can’t work out any deals in the abstract. We have to give them something solid first. Understood?”

Kenneth nodded. Then, in response to Brett’s penetrating stare, he articulated his answer. “Yes, I understand.”

“Okay, let’s go do this.” Brett stood, picked up the release, and they squeezed their way back out of the small space. She had no real idea if Kenneth understood the enormity of what was about to happen. Kenneth would tell his story, then the prosecutors and most likely the case detectives would ask penetrating questions to determine if he was telling the truth. They would try to trip him up with details, wanting to rule out any inconsistencies that might be exploited later by a good defense lawyer. Brett was used to the freewheeling nature of debriefing sessions, but it was still rare to be taking in a client who was not already in custody or at least charged with something. She hoped she was doing the right thing, but ultimately it wasn’t her decision. She could only provide advice about potential outcomes, offer counsel, and hope her clients knew what they were doing when they ultimately decided on a path to follow. Though it wasn’t in her nature, she trusted Ryan Foster to do that right thing.

*

Ryan turned just in time to see Brett and a young man emerge from the stairwell, and she mentally kicked herself. She had been keeping one eye on the elevator and the other trained on the escalator, but it hadn’t occurred to her they would take the stairs. She moved toward them. “Brett, can I talk to you a moment?”

Brett started at the sound of Ryan’s voice. She knew they were on their way to meet with her, but she hadn’t expected to be greeted in the hallway, and it took her off guard. She motioned Kenneth back through the door that led to the stairwell and whispered. “I’ll be right back.” She took long strides to where Ryan stood. “I thought we were meeting in the courtroom.”

“We are, but I wanted to talk to you first. Alone.” Ryan signaled for Brett to follow her into a corner. Ryan wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, if anything. Mostly she wanted a moment alone with Brett before they entered their adversarial roles. She searched for words that might form a plausible excuse for this moment, but came up virtually empty. She pointed at the stairwell doors. “Was that your client?”

Brett nodded.

“He looks young.”

“He is.”

Ryan took a deep breath. She had to move this along or Jeff and his police escort were going to come looking for them. She didn’t want to though. Brett looked stunning. Her honey brown hair was perfectly coiffed and her lightweight red wool suit was perfectly pressed, absent of any evidence of breakfast residue. She wondered how long this look would last before forces of wind and mishap gave Brett the mussy, but adorable, look Ryan had come to know. She wanted to tell Brett that as fantastic as she looked in this moment, she almost preferred the rumpled version, but she knew the comment would be totally inappropriate. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Brett watched the shifting expressions on Ryan’s face. She looked as though she was dying to say something, and her apparent inability to get the words out was making Brett nervous. Was she walking Kenneth into a hornet’s nest? She decided there was only one way to find out. She placed her hand on Ryan’s arm. “Ryan, is there something you want to tell me?”

Ryan’s pulse raced. Her first instinct was to back away from Brett’s touch, but the melting warmth of her hand caused Ryan’s thoughts to puddle before they could solidify into articulate words.
Damn right there’s something I want to tell you, but I never will.
I want to eat breakfast with you and watch you spill coffee on your snow-white blouse. I want to mess up your hair myself. I want to put wrinkles in your suit.

Ryan willed her decidedly unprofessional thoughts away. She needed to surround herself with other people, and she needed to do it fast. Brett was still standing in front of her waiting for an answer, and Ryan clamped her jaw in fear of the improprieties that might tumble out. Suddenly she realized she did have something she could tell Brett without risking personal or professional compromise. “I wanted to give you the lay of the land before we go in. Jeff and I will be there, of course, along with Detectives Paulson and Harwell from Richardson PD. Judge Langston offered her jury room for the meeting.” Ryan paused. “There’s a chance Mr. Duncan might drop in.”

“The Boss Man taking a personal interest in this case.”

“Absolutely.”

“A little unusual considering he’s retiring. He must really want his protégé to succeed.”

Ryan wasn’t sure how to take Brett’s observation, but she didn’t have time to consider it for long before Jeff’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Are we good to go?”

Brett started to answer, but Ryan held up a hand and responded. “We’ll be right there.” Jeff’s eyes swept slowly over them, then darted around. Ryan stiffened. She knew he had seen Brett’s hand, still on her arm, and she knew he was seeking out Brett’s client. She waved him off and enunciated each word of her command. “We’ll be right there.” When he finally left them, she faced Brett. “You know I can’t promise any particular outcome, but I do promise to hear him out before we make any decisions.”

“And the decisions are yours to make?”

Ryan knew what she meant. Brett wanted to know who ultimately held sway over her client’s fate. Ryan knew Leonard would want to have input, but he would defer to whatever she recommended as a way of showing his faith in his chosen successor.

“Yes. No matter what happens in there, this is my case and I call the shots.” Translation—she may take the backseat on the debrief session, but when it was over, Ryan would be the one who doled out a plea offer. Ryan knew Brett would read between the lines.

Brett squeezed her arm. “All right then. Let’s get started.”

*

Brett squared herself for the unknown challenges ahead, grateful to Ryan for the small heads up she’d received in the hallway. Any connection Brett felt with Ryan disappeared the moment she walked through the door of Judge Langston’s jury room. Ryan was seated at the farthermost point of the table with Jeff at her side, and she barely glanced up from the papers she was examining to acknowledge their entrance. The two others, whom Brett assumed were the detectives assigned to the Dinelli murder, walked toward her. Brett didn’t recognize the detectives, but one of them obviously already knew Kenneth.

“Well, hello. Kenneth, right? You remember me, don’t you? I’m Detective Kim Paulson.” Paulson moved right up against Kenneth. She shoved her hand out and Kenneth shook it tentatively. Brett found herself inching over as if to shield Kenneth from the detective’s pushy approach. She appraised her from her own superior height. Paulson didn’t have that woken up in the middle of the night, wear your breakfast on your sleeve look that many homicide detectives seemed to perpetuate. Rather, she looked as if she had stepped from the pages of a fashion catalog. Paulson was sharply dressed in a tailored pantsuit and designer boots. Brett guessed the man standing behind her was her partner, but the two couldn’t have looked more different. The larger man definitely looked the part of the overworked veteran peace officer fresh from an all night scene.

Paulson turned her attention to Brett. “You must be Kenneth’s attorney. He caught a case with me last year when I was with vice, but we worked it out without him needing to bother with an attorney.” Despite her friendly smile, Paulson’s tone gave Brett a hint of her disdain for defense attorneys. “I must say I didn’t expect to see him here today.”

Brett didn’t know what to say. When she had asked Kenneth if he had a prior record, he made vague reference to a juvenile drug case from years ago, but he’d said nothing about an arrest within the past year and court records and a background check didn’t reveal any arrests or charges. Apparently, whatever had happened, it had been resolved outside the system. She wondered if Kenneth had served as a confidential informant for Paulson in exchange for the charges being dropped. She could only hope that if things had gone well in that regard, Paulson might be willing to cut Kenneth some slack when it came to the current case.

The debrief started with Ryan making it clear, on the record, that she couldn’t make any promises about the outcome, but that if Kenneth provided her with credible information that helped them close their case, she would give him some consideration. She both read and provided a copy of his constitutional rights and he agreed, in writing, to waive his rights and talk freely. Her words were delivered in crisp, sharp tones, and Brett could tell Kenneth was reasonably intimidated.

Brett told the assembled group that Kenneth would like to begin by reading from his well-worn paper, and Ryan had graciously agreed. The reading was rough, and even though the statement was short, Brett would’ve sworn it took Kenneth an hour to get the words out. Ryan, Jeff, and Detectives Paulson and Harwell then started tossing questions at him, and based on the level of detail, Brett saw no end in sight. She hoped Tony had gotten the text she had managed to type out under the table, asking him to clear her schedule because this session was obviously going to take a lot longer than she had originally thought.

“So  why don’t you describe your partner in crime, this ‘John with no last name’ guy you’re so tight with?”

Detective Harwell fired the hard-edged questions, and Paulson swooped in every so often and tossed a softball Kenneth’s way. Brett was mildly amused at the good cop, bad cop routine and wondered if they drew straws in advance to see who would play which role. While Harwell wielded an accusatory tone, Paulson had a way of lining her questions with references to her prior relationship with Kenneth. “Remember when you helped me out before? I need you to think carefully and tell me everything you saw just like you did then.” Brett started to think that perhaps the good cop thing wasn’t an act. Kim Paulson seemed to have a soft spot for Kenneth, which took her up a notch in Brett’s estimation.

“Like what about him?” Kenneth’s question seemed genuinely curious, but Harwell’s response was volatile.

“Like what the hell do you think?”

Brett caught a glimpse of Paulson squeezing Harwell’s forearm under the table. The burly detective seemed to relax into the touch, and Brett flashed back to her brief contact with Ryan in the hall. The memory was distracting. She wondered what would happen if she touched Ryan outside of this place where their professional roles were so squarely defined. She spared a look at Ryan, hoping for some small connection, even if only a nod to confirm Kenneth was on track for some small measure of mercy, but Ryan’s head was buried in her file, her hand busily scribbling notes. Brett had no idea what she could be writing. It seemed as if the detectives had asked the same ten questions over and over. How did Kenneth know John? What did he look like? Whose idea was it to go to the house? What did the woman in the house look like? Where did they pawn the stolen goods? Who set the fire? How?

Everything Brett had heard, both when she first met with Kenneth in her office and today, convinced her that this wasn’t the traditional capital murder case. Someone who committed arson that resulted in someone’s death could certainly be charged with capital murder, but in this situation the young men had set fire to Mary Dinelli’s house to cover up the woman’s death. She hoped Ryan was listening closely, but she couldn’t tell. Detective Paulson was very attentive though, and Brett decided to focus her attention on bringing the detective around to her way of thinking. She listened to Kenneth’s description and waited for an opportunity to cultivate Paulson’s good will.

“Tall, skinny.”

“Is he white like you or something else?”

“White like me.”