Corpus Delicti (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Book 6) Read online

  CORPUS

  DELICTI

  David Brunelle Legal Thriller #6

  STEPHEN PENNER

  Corpus Delicti

  David Brunelle Legal Thriller #6

  ©2015 Stephen Penner.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred without the express written consent of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity with real persons or events is purely coincidental. Persons, events, and locations are either the product of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously.

  Lynette Melcher, Editor.

  Cover image by Fernando Gregory.

  Cover design by Stephen Penner.

  DAVID BRUNELLE LEGAL THRILLERS

  Presumption of Innocence

  Tribal Court

  By Reason of Insanity

  A Prosecutor for the Defense

  Substantial Risk

  Case Theory (Short Story)

  Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Short Story)

  ALSO BY STEPHEN PENNER

  Scottish Rite

  Blood Rite

  Last Rite

  Highland Fling (Short Story)

  Mars Station Alpha

  The Godling Club

  Capital Punishment (Short Story)

  Katie Carpenter, Fourth Grade Genius

  Professor Barrister’s Dinosaur Mysteries

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  The David Brunelle Legal Thrillers

  About the Author

  CORPUS DELICTI

  corpus delicti. n. (Latin, literally, “body of the crime”)

  1. the substantial and fundamental facts (as, in murder, actual death and its occurrence as a result of criminal agency) necessary to prove the commission of a crime;

  2. colloquial: the body of a murder victim.

  Merriam-Webster Dictionary

  11th Edition

  Chapter 1

  The office of King County homicide prosecutor David Brunelle was silent, save the occasional squeak of a highlighter across a police report and the unrelenting din of the thoughts racing through his mind.

  He was distracting himself with the bad decisions of others in order to avoid consideration of his own mistakes.

  The phone rang.

  His eyes flew to the caller I.D.

  But it wasn’t Kat.

  It was Chen. And Brunelle knew it wasn’t a social call. Seattle P.D. Detective Larry Chen hadn’t been social with him since Brunelle had broken up with Kat Anderson, assistant medical examiner and all around great gal. Ordinarily, Chen probably would have sided with his friend of a dozen years, but it was the way Brunelle had ended the relationship that had angered Chen. By Brunelle not ending it before starting another. And lying about it.

  That new relationship was over too. Dying a sad, pathetic death literally days after Brunelle chose it over his one with Kat. So now he found himself alone, not nearly distracted enough, and picking up the phone to talk to someone who used to be his friend but now pretty much hated him.

  “Brunelle,” he answered the phone with just his surname. He was trying to sound cool and detached, not angry. He wanted Chen to stop being angry, more than anything.

  Well, more than almost anything.

  “Uh, hey, Dave,” Chen started. His voice was the truly cool one. Cool and distant. “I tried calling Fletcher, but he wasn’t in. Nicole said you were available.”

  Brunelle grimaced. Good ol’ Nicole. One part legal secretary, two parts counselor.

  “Nicole was right,” Brunelle answered, trying to sound comfortable. “What can I help you with?”

  There was a pause. Brunelle wondered if it was indicative of Chen being irritated at the suggestion of needing help, or of Chen reconsidering whether he really wanted help if it came from Dave Brunelle.

  “We’ve got a situation down at the station,” Chen finally explained. “It might be a homicide.”

  “Might?” Brunelle repeated. “You don’t know?”

  “Well, it’s kind of hard to tell,” Chen said. “That’s why I’m calling.”

  Brunelle’s eyebrows knitted together. Was this some sort of trick to get him to call Kat? “What does the M.E. say?”

  “The M.E. isn’t involved,” Chen answered.

  That made no sense. “How is the medical examiner not involved? Any time there’s a suspicious death, they take custody of the body.”

  “That’s just it, Dave,” Chen finally explained. “There is no body.”

  Chapter 2

  Seattle P.D. didn’t have just one station, of course. The city was twenty miles north to south, stretched across a collection of hills and peninsulas. Every neighborhood had a precinct, and there were even a couple of police storefronts in the bigger malls. But when Chen had said ‘the station,’ Brunelle knew exactly what he’d meant: the Public Safety Building downtown on 5th Avenue. It was a 14-story, glass-and-steel skyscraper, home to the Seattle Municipal Court, the Seattle City Council, and, on the first floor, the main offices of the Seattle Police Department, complete with holding cells and interrogation rooms. Brunelle met Chen next to Interrogation Room Number 3, presently occupied by a slightly disheveled and extremely frightened young woman.

  “That’s our killer?” Brunelle asked incredulously, jabbing his thumb at the frail woman on the other side of the two-way mirror. “She doesn’t look very murderous.”

  “That’s ‘cause she’s not the killer,” Chen replied brusquely. “She’s a witness.”

  “A witness to the murder?” Brunelle asked. It was good to have an eyewitness to a murder. Not common, but good.

  “Not exactly,” Chen answered. Then the smallest smile crept into the corner of his eye. Whatever else might separate them now, there was still the bond for solving crimes and holding offenders accountable. Justice.

  The detective nodded toward their witness. “It would take too long to explain. Just watch and listen.”

  Then Chen stepped out of the observation room and back into the interrogation. Brunelle got as comfortable as he could in the small, chairless room; he crossed his arms and shifted his weight solidly onto one foot.

  “Sorry about that, Linda,” Chen apologized as he closed the door behind him and sat again at the small table he shared with the young woman. “I had to check in with someone on a different case. Can we just start again from the top?”

  Part of the problem with coming into a story halfway through was not quite knowing the cast of characters or previous scenes. It made listening more than just lis
tening—it was like solving a puzzle. That was part of the fun too.

  “I—I don’t know, Detective Chen,” Linda responded, her voice high and her cadence quick. “I think I said too much already. Can I just go? I really think I better go.”

  But she didn’t make any effort to stand up. She was waiting to be released, like a trained dog in a ‘sit’ command.

  Chen raised a calming hand. “You’re safe here, Linda. No one’s going to charge you with anything…”

  Brunelle raised an eyebrow. That was a prosecutorial decision. He didn’t appreciate Chen writing checks on his account. On the other hand, despite their recent tension, he still trusted Chen. It just whetted Brunelle’s appetite for the puzzle.

  “…and no one will know what you said. It’s just for me. It’s just for Amy.”

  That raised two questions for Brunelle. Obviously, who was Amy? And less obviously, but perhaps even more importantly, who was she worried was going to find out what she said?

  Chen’s assurance seemed to be working, but it was a little hard to tell. Linda was clearly under the influence of something. She was having trouble sitting still, her eyes were distant but darting, and when she spoke, she spoke fast.

  “If no one’s gonna know what I said, why do I have to say it?”

  A fair question, Brunelle had to agree.

  “No one’s going to know you said it,” Chen repeated, “but I need to know it. I need to find Amy.”

  Linda stared at Chen for several seconds, then started shaking her head a bit too vigorously. “You’re not gonna find Amy.”

  Ah. Brunelle finally understood why he was there. And who Amy was. She was the victim. He decided to remember that name. ‘Amy.’ Too often cases got called by the killer: ‘State v. Smith.’ ‘The Smith case.’ But this one was going to be the Amy case.

  Still, he wondered who the defendant would be. Judging by Linda’s appearance, intoxication, and fearfulness, Brunelle had a guess. Her pimp. And Amy’s too. Puzzle solved.

  “Kenny’s not gonna find out, Linda.” Chen leaned forward onto the table. “I’m gonna book you on soliciting, the D.A.’s gonna close it without charges, and you’ll be out tomorrow morning. You’ll get a night off, and he’ll never know why you were really here.”

  Linda looked down and nodded, slowly this time despite the probable methamphetamine in her system. “I’ll pay for that night off,” she mumbled.

  Brunelle frowned. He knew she was right. All the more reason to hook up this ‘Kenny’ for Amy’s murder ASAP.

  “When was the last time you saw Amy?” Chen asked. Brunelle knew this was for his benefit. Chen had already heard it. That’s why he’d called the D.A.

  Linda hesitated a moment and kept her face lowered, but she answered. “Three weeks ago. She got into a car with Kenny. He was so mad at her. He was already beating on her before he even put her in the car. Somebody else was driving. I don’t know who. But he pushed her in the back seat and climbed in after her, hitting her the whole time.”

  “Why was Kenny hitting her?” Chen followed up.

  “He thought she was holding back on him,” Linda answered. She looked up again. “She wasn’t, though. She gave him everything. She just couldn’t earn that much any more.” Linda frowned as she considered speaking ill of the presumably dead. “It’s harder for some girls to get dates.”

  Dates, Brunelle thought ruefully. Like it was two kids at the malt shop or something.

  “Did Kenny come back?” Chen continued the questioning.

  Linda nodded. “It took a while. I’d done two dates by the time he came back. He was sweaty and his clothes were dirty. One of the girls asked him why and he just punched her in the mouth. I didn’t ask shit. I just got into the next car that pulled up.”

  “Was Amy with him?”

  Linda smiled weakly. “No, Detective Chen. That’s what I told you. That was the last time I seen her. That was last time anyone seen her.”

  Brunelle knew Amy was dead.

  He also knew Kenny murdered her.

  And he knew it would be next to impossible to prove it.

  Chapter 3

  “No body?” Matt Duncan, the elected District Attorney for King County asked Brunelle from across his desk. He pulled off his reading glasses to emphasize his incredulity. “You have no body?”

  Brunelle frowned. That was the problem. “Afraid not,” he admitted. “But I know she’s dead.”

  “Uh-huh.” Duncan set his glasses on his desk. “And how do you know that?”

  “No one’s seen her for three weeks now,” Brunelle answered, but he knew the weakness of that response.

  So did Duncan. “She was a hooker, right?”

  “Prostitute,” Brunelle quickly corrected. It seemed more respectful. He’d also heard the term ‘sex worker,’ but that seemed better applied to people who had some nominal choice in the matter. Maybe a high-priced call girl, or the regulated-and-taxed prostitutes in Europe. Not a drug-addicted, pimped-out, street-level prostitute picking up johns down near Occidental Park so she could eat that day. Still, no matter what label he attached to Amy, his answer was the same. “But, yes.”

  Duncan crossed his arms. “How do you know she didn’t just run away? Or went to another town? She could be hooking in Tacoma now. Or Portland. Or L.A. Maybe she went home to Iowa to visit her terminally ill grandmother.”

  Brunelle shook his head. He hadn’t come to his boss’s office completely unprepared. “No, she was born and raised in Seattle. Her mom and dad are local and her grandparents are dead. She lived in an apartment on Yesler, but she missed her rent payment, and none of her neighbors have seen her for three weeks.”

  Duncan frowned, and put his glasses earpiece in his mouth, but he didn’t say anything back. It was a crack in his façade. Duncan was the boss because he was a damn good trial attorney, and an even better politician. But he was also the boss because he cared, passionately. About victims. And about justice.

  “She’s dead, Matt,” Brunelle pressed his advantage. “I know it. And so do you. I know who killed her too. We can’t just let him get away with it.”

  Duncan’s frown deepened, joined by creases in his brow. He tapped his fingers on his desk for a few moments, then released the frown and sighed loudly. “Damn it, Dave. Do you have any idea what kind of circus this could turn into? I don’t want to be answering questions about why we charged someone with murder if the jury is just going to acquit because we can’t even prove she’s dead.”

  Brunelle nodded. “I know, Matt. I know.”

  Duncan stood up and started pacing in front of the picture windows that looked out over downtown Seattle. Brunelle knew that meant he was thinking. Duncan was a thoughtful man. Brunelle felt grateful to work for him. He knew to stay quiet until Duncan was ready to share those thoughts.

  But Brunelle could anticipate them.

  Without turning around from the view of skyscrapers and shipping vessels, Duncan asked the question Brunelle knew was the crux of it all. “Can you prove it?”

  No body.

  A victim who was drug-addicted and transient, in a dangerous occupation that involved getting into the cars of strange men.

  A witness who’d been promised no one would ever know she’d spoken to the authorities.

  A killer who was street-hardened, wasn’t likely to be intimidated by police questioning, and commanded fear and loyalty from those who might have information against him.

  Could he prove it? Brunelle didn’t know. So he avoided the question and answered the more important one.

  “I will.”

  Chapter 4

  2628 S. 138th Street, SeaTac, Washington, 98168.

  It had been easy enough for Brunelle to find Amy’s most recent address. He knew not to look at her driver’s license record—that was for the good, law-abiding people of the world, not drug-addicted, street-level prostitutes. They didn’t stop by the DMV to update their addresses. No, he just looked up her last booking. It was
only two months prior to her murder and included all the information he could possibly want: her real last-known address, phone number (likely disconnected already), height and weight (increasingly thinner every booking, thanks to the heroin or meth or whatever her latest vehicle of escape was), and even her tattoos (a butterfly on her ankle, Chinese characters on the nape of her neck, and the name ‘Lydia’ on her left forearm).

  Probably her mom, Brunelle figured. Or best friend from high school. Maybe even a girlfriend. He’d heard a lot of prostitutes were actually lesbian in their romantic relationships. He could figure why. But, then again, he’d heard a lot of things.

  But Amy’s last-known address was some apartment on Yesler Street in Seattle that she probably shared with three or four other girls. Brunelle didn’t want to visit them. Not in any capacity. He was looking for someone far more important. Not Amy; she was dead. Not her fellow prostitutes; they were as scared of Kenny as Linda was, some of them more so, no doubt. No, Brunelle was looking for the last time Amy’s address didn’t have an apartment number after the street name.

  That’s where he’d find her parents.

  He pulled his rain-gray sedan to a stop across the street from the run-down rambler. Like all the other houses on the street, it was a one-story ranch, with moss on the roof and an overgrown lawn. A chain-link fence separated the yard from the busy road in front and the adjoining lots to either side, a ‘Beware of Dog’ sign hanging crookedly on the gate. Like in most of the Seattle suburbs, there was no sidewalk; the gate just opened up onto the shoulder of the roadway. Brunelle stepped out of his car and looked around for something pleasant to lift the mood of the place. But the sky was overcast, and the air was filled with that cold mist of a rain that most Seattleites don’t even notice any more. He waited for a car to pass, then shoved his hands into his coat pockets and crossed the street.