Accomplice Liability Read online

  ACCOMPLICE

  LIABILITY

  David Brunelle Legal Thriller #7

  STEPHEN PENNER

  Accomplice Liability

  ©2016 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.

  Joy A. Lorton and Lynette Melcher, Editors.

  Cover by Nathan Wampler Book Covers.

  THE DAVID BRUNELLE LEGAL THRILLERS

  Presumption of Innocence

  Tribal Court

  By Reason of Insanity

  A Prosecutor for the Defense

  Substantial Risk

  Corpus Delicti

  Accomplice Liability

  A Lack of Motive

  Missing Witness

  Diminished Capacity

  Short Stories starring David Brunelle

  Case Theory

  Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

  THE TALON WINTER LEGAL THRILLERS

  Winter’s Law

  Winter’s Chance

  Winter’s Reason

  ACCOMPLICE

  LIABILITY

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction

  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

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Testimony of an accomplice, given on behalf of the State, should be subjected to careful examination in light of the other evidence in the case, and should be acted upon with great caution. You should not find the defendant guilty upon such testimony alone unless, after carefully considering the testimony, you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of its truth.

  State of Washington

  Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction 6.05

  “Testimony of an Accomplice”

  Chapter 1

  “Snitches are bitches who end up in ditches.”

  King County homicide D.A. Dave Brunelle lifted his gaze from the dead body behind the gas station to look at his friend, Seattle Police Detective Larry Chen. The cold, night rain cut at Brunelle’s cheeks. “Nice eulogy,” he said.

  Chen shrugged and a dark smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t look up from the corpse lying in the drainage ditch just a few feet below them. “It works as an epitaph too. A lot of people put poems on their gravestones.”

  “Nobody puts anything on their own gravestones,” Brunelle disagreed. “They’re dead. It’s their loved ones who add the poems.”

  Chen finally looked up from the ditch. “I’ll be sure to tell the widow,” he offered. Then he turned and walked back toward the makeshift command center in the gas station parking lot—basically where the first two patrol officers parked their cars next to each other. The vehicles’ emergency lights were still flashing, backlighting Chen’s large frame in red and blue as Brunelle watched him walk back to check in with his officers.

  After a moment, Brunelle looked down again at the murder victim. It seemed doubtful the man had a widow. He was lying face up, one arm under his body, the other raised over his head, and his legs splayed unceremoniously in the wet grass. He was in his early twenties, with long hair, a stubbly face, and a gaunt frame becoming increasingly apparent as the rain soaked his dirty clothes against his body. He didn’t look the part of family man. He was clearly a drug addict. Two years earlier, Brunelle might have guessed methamphetamine, but heroin was back, and with a vengeance. They were scraping O.D.’ed bodies off First Avenue every morning. And Broadway. And Denny.

  But Ditch Boy hadn’t overdosed. Three dark blood stains on his gray hoodie attested to the gunshots that had torn through his chest. The autopsy would say for sure, but Brunelle could guess that at least one of them had perforated a lung. Tough way to go. The lung collapses, then blood fills the chest cavity, crushing the other lung as well.

  Brunelle scanned the crime scene. Or more accurately, the secondary crime scene. The man had been shot elsewhere. Brunelle wasn’t a detective but he’d reviewed enough investigations for charging, defended enough investigations to defense attorneys, and explained enough investigations to juries, that he knew what to look for. They were standing in the heart of Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood, which sounded fancy but was anything but. It wasn’t even on any of the lakes Seattle abutted or surrounded. Instead, it was the lower income neighborhood northeast of the University of Washington, filled with high-density housing, medium-quality bars, and low-profile strip clubs. The gas station was next to an all-night convenience store and directly in front of a hundred-unit apartment complex.

  It was a terrible place to shoot somebody. Some neighborhoods were deserted at night, suburban families getting their beauty rest before another day of school and work. But a gas station next to a convenience store in front of an apartment complex? It was hard to think of any place more likely to be active at night. Shooting a man in the middle of all that would almost certainly be seen by multiple witnesses, even the ask-no-questions types who lived in that particular part of the city. But backing up to the edge of the gas station and quickly rolling the body out of the trunk was exactly the kind of thing the drug addicts and criminals awake that time of night would be happy not to notice.

  And it was more than just the unlikelihood of the location for a murder. The body had obviously not simply fallen where it was shot. His tangled arms and legs attested to that much. Also, there were no footprints anywhere in the wet grass. Instead, there was a wide matted path of wet grass leading from the asphalt under Brunelle’s feet to the ditch under the dead man. Brunelle was certain the man had been murdered somewhere else and rolled down the hillside into the ditch, D.O.A.

  The rain picked up as Brunelle ruminated over the remains of yet another stranger. The drops stung his face and his scalp started to get wet as his short hair became saturated. He was warm enough in his lined raincoat—a necessity in Seattle—but he had refused to get one of those fedora-like rain hats. It wasn’t 1950 any more. And as he pushed through his mid-40s toward his late-40s, he wasn’t looking for anything that made him feel, or look, even older than he was. Besides, it was just a little rain. Cold rain. In the middle of the night. He pulled his coat tighter, then slicked his hand over his head, squeegee-style. He was drenched.

  So too was the dead heroin addict. Brunelle wondered whether the rain might not impact the investigation. Was there some piece of vital forensic evidence that was being washed away, forever lost into the mud beneath the body?
But he supposed that was unlikely. Any bullets that had lodged in the body weren’t going anywhere. They would be extracted at autopsy. And a little rain wasn’t going to wash away the blood stained into his clothes. Besides, it was pretty obvious whose blood it was. If there had been a struggle, there might be assailant DNA under his fingernails, but the whole point of shooting someone was to avoid a struggle. The only thing likely under the victim’s fingernails was dirt. It wasn’t a forensics case. They were going to need witnesses.

  Somebody shot the man. Gunshots are loud. Somebody heard them.

  People don’t usually shoot people for no reason. There was likely an argument. Somebody heard that too.

  Drug addicts usually hung out in packs. Somebody knew the victim. Somebody knew his enemies.

  Dead bodies were heavy. Even an emaciated heroin addict would still be well over a hundred pounds. Somebody helped the killer dispose of the body.

  And there was blood wherever he was shot and in whatever vehicle was used to transport the body. Somebody saw the blood. Somebody cleaned it up.

  Chen walked back up to Brunelle. “The patrol guys interviewed everybody,” the detective announced. “They talked to the clerk who found the body when he was taking the trash to the dumpster. A couple customers who were inside the store when he came running back in. Even the crazy homeless lady on the corner. But nobody saw anything.”

  Brunelle frowned, and not just because of the trickle of cold water that ran down the back of his neck. “No. Somebody saw something. We need to find those somebodies.”

  Chapter 2

  The door to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office was just a little bit too heavy. It took Brunelle some effort to pull the door through the loud metallic clank of its latching mechanism. It was as if the door were asking, ‘Are you really sure you want to be here?’ Brunelle wasn’t sure, in fact, but Chen had called him from the autopsy and told him to come down right away.

  Brunelle hadn’t questioned the request. He trusted Chen. But on his way over, he wondered what was so special about this autopsy that the D.A. needed to attend. Three shots to the torso. What was left to wonder about it? Brunelle had guessed it was a perforated lung, but a nick to the heart would be just as possible and just as deadly. And it wouldn’t impact the case at all.

  There was a small squawk-box in the lobby, next to the elevator to the upper floors that held the offices and examining rooms. Brunelle was familiar with the place. Intimately familiar. Which was another reason he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of visiting the M.E.’s office. But he was a professional. They both were. And there was work to do.

  But he still hoped the assistant M.E. doing the autopsy was anyone but Kat Anderson, his ex-G.F.

  There was no receptionist, just the squawk-box. He pressed the button and spoke. “Hello. This is Dave Brunelle, from the prosecutor’s office. I’m supposed to meet Detective Larry Chen here.”

  After a few moments, there was a staticky, unintelligible response, and the elevator door dinged open. Brunelle knew the drill. He stepped into the elevator and pressed ‘2.’ The examining rooms. The elevator lurched and shuddered and then opened again to reveal the sturdy frame of Det. Chen, and the wiry figure of Dr. Jeremy Albrecht, another of the assistant M.E.s who worked for the office.

  Brunelle was glad to extend his hand in greeting as he stepped off the elevator. “Dr. Albrecht. Good to see you again.”

  But Albrecht raised his own hands to display the blue latex gloves still covering them. “I don’t think you want to shake my hand right now, Dave. We just finished the autopsy. “

  “Damn,” Brunelle replied. “I missed all the fun.”

  In truth, he didn’t mind missing yet another dissection, but he was a little irritated at rushing down there for no reason apparently.

  “No, you missed the incisions,” Chen answered. “But the fun stuff was on the outside anyway.”

  Brunelle frowned, confused, but Chen grabbed him by the arm and started toward the examining rooms. “Come on. I wanted you to see this for yourself. “

  Brunelle allowed himself to be led down the hallway, but instinctively looked at Chen’s hand to see if it too was gloved. He’d just had that suit dry-cleaned. But, mercifully, there was no blue glove.

  The body was still on the examining table, naked and purply pale. An M.E. technician—like a nurse, but for dead people—was already sewing up the stomach. Brunelle knew they had piled all of the organs inside the stomach cavity, even the brain, before sewing it up. He didn’t need to know it; he just did. Like a lot of messed-up things he knew after working twenty years in the criminal justice system.

  “Guy’s name was Derrick Shanborn,” Chen informed Brunelle. “Pretty easy I.D. He still had his wallet on him. Suspended driver’s license, Subway punch card, and a fortune cookie fortune that said, ‘Better days are just around the corner.’“

  Brunelle ignored the irony of the fortune. “So it wasn’t a robbery,” he remarked, almost absently.

  “Yeah, this guy doesn’t look like he had anything to rob him of anyway,” Chen replied.

  Brunelle just shrugged. He’d figured as much while Mr. Derrick Shanborn was still in the ditch. “So what was so interesting,” Brunelle asked, “that it pulled me away from all the paper I was planning on pushing this morning? Did he die of something other than the bullets through his chest?”

  “Oh, no,” Dr. Albrecht replied quickly. “He definitely died from those gunshot wounds. Perforated a lung, nicked the heart, and shredded the aorta. Completely unsurvivable.”

  “Good,” Brunelle said. Then, realizing how that sounded, even among professionals, he clarified, “I mean, I’m glad there are no surprises there.”

  “Nope, no surprises there,” Dr. Albrecht confirmed. “The surprises are elsewhere.”

  The doctor pointed to the leathery skin of the corpse’s thighs, then gestured to the scab-covered forearms, and finally he used a gloved hand to pull apart the dead man’s toes. The technician didn’t even seem to notice as she continued sewing the stomach shut with twine.

  Brunelle squinted between the splayed toes, then glanced at the arms and legs. “Injection tracks,” Brunelle recognized. “I’m not seeing the surprise.”

  “That’s why I wanted you to see them in person,” Chen said. “Their condition probably won’t show up in the photographs.”

  “Condition?” Brunelle leaned down to squint even harder at the lines of red and black dots on the dead man’s arms. “What condition?”

  “Healed,” Dr. Albrecht answered. “The injection sites are old. The veins in his arms collapsed long ago. The thighs were leathery from all the times he’d shot up there. And the injection sites between the toes really show how bad of addict he was. But he’d kicked it. I can’t find a single injection site that isn’t fully healed. He hadn’t injected a needle into his skin for at least two weeks before he died, probably longer. I’ll send fluid samples to the toxicology lab, but I’ll be stunned if it doesn’t come back one hundred percent clean. Maybe marijuana or alcohol—something you don’t inject—but there won’t be any opiates.”

  Brunelle looked to Chen. “You think he switched to meth or crack? Something you smoke?”

  But Chen shook his head. “It’s possible. But not typical. I mean, he might have been doing that other stuff too, in addition to the heroin, but heroin addicts don’t just stop taking heroin. Heroin withdrawal is some pretty serious shit.”

  Brunelle nodded at that. “But Dr. Albrecht says he did stop.”

  “Correct,” the medical examiner confirmed. “Something got him to stop.”

  “More like someone,” Chen said.

  Brunelle supposed that might be more accurate. Maybe a girl, he thought. Probably a girl. “Any clue who it was?”

  Chen smiled slightly. “Actually, yes.”

  He nodded to Dr. Albrecht who then reached over to the instrument tray next to the examining table. He picked up a ragged business card for Bru
nelle to see.

  Brunelle instinctively reached for it, but Chen grabbed his wrist. “You don’t want to touch that, Dave.”

  Brunelle pulled his arm back. “Right. Because it’s evidence.”

  “Because it was in his underwear,” Chen corrected.

  “And it was damp,” Dr. Albrecht added.

  Brunelle frowned. “Because of the rain?” he hoped.

  “Sure,” Chen offered. “Let’s say it was because of the rain.”

  Brunelle’s middle-aged eyes couldn’t quite make out the lettering on the card. “So what does it say? Is it a rehab clinic or something? “

  “Nope,” Chen answered without even looking at the card. “It says, ‘Detective Tim Jackson, Seattle P.D.’“

  “Jackson?” Brunelle replied. “I know him. Is he doing homicides now?”

  Chen shook his head. “Drugs.”

  Brunelle grimaced. “So why does a dead drug addict have a narcotics detective’s business card in his underwear?” he asked. But it was rhetorical. They both already knew the answer.

  “Because,” Chen said, “this bitch in a ditch really was a snitch.”

  Chapter 3

  “Dead?!”

  Tim Jackson slammed his fists onto his desk and lurched to his feet. “Derrick Shanborn is dead? God damn it! He was almost done. Just one more and he was done. He was going to go to Montana. He had an uncle in Montana.” Jackson dropped his head into his hands. “God damn it.”

  Jackson’s office was small and cramped. A bookshelf full of binders practically blocked off the only pathway behind the file-covered desk. There were two guest chairs but Brunelle and Chen both had to stand because one chair held two stacked file boxes and the other had an open file box with loose papers stacked on top of the files already jammed in to capacity. Brunelle wondered whether all three boxes belonged to the same investigation or if it was a one chair, one case system.