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

  Brunelle couldn’t help but wince. On his previous visits—and certainly when Chen actually accused him of it—he’d considered what it might be like to have sex with a prostitute. He’d found the thought unappealing, for many reasons. But he hadn’t fully realized what it must be like for the women to get into a car with some stranger whose appearance, personality, and hygiene might all be unpleasant, or worse.

  “Yeah,” one of the women replied. “But she’ll be back any second. That guy never lasts.”

  The other women laughed and murmured in knowing agreement. A few moment later, true to prediction, the beat-up pickup truck pulled into the parking lot, driving over the curb as it did so, and came to an abrupt stop near them. The driver was unkempt, with white hair, a yellow-gray beard, and a fat, flushed face.

  Brunelle instinctively looked away, repulsed by the thoughts seeping into his mind against his will. When he turned back, ‘Tina’ was climbing out of the cab, her short skirt riding up to expose her G-string. If she said anything to the john in departure, Brunelle didn’t hear it. She closed the truck door and the truck pulled quickly back onto Aurora Avenue.

  “Hey there, Tina!” said the long and lean woman. “You’re up again.” She pointed at Brunelle. “This guy asked for you special.”

  Brunelle could feel his own face flush, and was glad for the cover the evening darkness gave him. This was not how he’d wanted this to go down. The plan was to find her, slip her the subpoena, and leave. Now he had an audience.

  Jillian/Tina didn’t seem any happier about it. “Oh,” was all she managed to say. That just made it all the more awkward.

  “Uh, my car is over there,” Brunelle tried, nodding toward the back of the lot. It was looking like he’d have to do another fake date. Drive her to a park, give her the subpoena, plus enough cash to keep her pimp from getting curious. The problem was, he hadn’t brought a fistful of cash with him this time, just the subpoena. If he could just get her away from the other women, he could hand her the subpoena and get out of there. She could tell them he’d chickened out or something and they could all laugh at him while he drove away.

  ‘Tina’ didn’t respond. She just stood there, her expression guarded. It got strangely tense as the other women tried to figure out why Tina wasn’t walking to her next trick. Finally, she smiled tightly and said, “Okay.”

  Brunelle breathed a sigh of relief and turned to lead the way to his car. He didn’t want to walk right next to her, although he wasn’t exactly sure why. He decided not to question the instinct; it was likely way too complicated.

  When they got far enough away from the other women, Tina grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “What the hell are you doing here? Do you want to get us both killed?”

  Brunelle very much did not want that. “I just need to give you a subpoena.”

  If Tina had looked surprised to see him when she climbed out of the pickup, she looked absolutely dumbfounded at Brunelle’s comment. “A subpoena?” she whispered. She glanced around frantically. “Are you fucking kidding me? I told you I wouldn’t testify.”

  Brunelle nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I need to give you the subpoena. If I thought you’d come voluntarily, I wouldn’t have to. But I need you to testify and so I need to get you under subpoena.”

  They had stopped well short of his car. And now they were arguing. Not exactly inconspicuous. The three smoking guys were looking at them. And that damn toddler was still screaming. A motel room door opened nearby.

  “And where the hell am I supposed to put your subpoena where my pimp don’t find it?” Tina demanded. “He checks everything.” Then, to make sure Brunelle understood, she patted her crotch and repeated, “Everything.”

  Brunelle lowered his gaze. He hadn’t thought of that. Then again, it really didn’t matter if she kept it, just that he’d given it to her. She could throw it out as soon as he handed it to her. He told her as much.

  “Oh, Okay.” Tina threw her hands up in the air. “I’ll just toss it into the nearest trash can where anyone can find it and show everyone around here that I’m a snitch.”

  Brunelle put out a reassuring hand. “Look, Jillian—“

  “Don’t call me that!” she shouted. “Don’t ever call me that. I’m Tina. When I’m working, I’m Tina.” Then she sighed ever so slightly. “And I’m always working.”

  “This guy being a problem, Tina?” That nearby door that had opened had produced two very large men, not necessarily in height, but definitely in muscles. They were both in their early 20s. One wore a tank-top, the other a tight t-shirt. Both modes of dress showed off their massive arms and chests, extensively tattooed and rippling with aggression.

  “Yeah,” Tina answered with an evil smile. “This fucker said he doesn’t have any money on him.”

  The man in the tank-top squared his shoulders to Brunelle and stepped toward him. “I ain’t running no fucking charity, douche bag. You can’t pay, you can’t play.” He looked at Tina. “You already do the date?”

  She shook her head. “No, I was walking to his car when he asked if I’d do it for free this time. He said he could go to the ATM afterwards.”

  Brunelle raised his palms and took a step backward. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, ‘cause you found it,” the main pimp answered. The other one, the one in the t-shirt, stayed back closer to the motel room. Tina stepped over to him and he put his arm round her waist; they watched as Brunelle tried to extricate himself from the situation. “You don’t fuck with T-Jo,” the angry man in Brunelle’s face warned through gritted teeth. “You don’t rip off T-Jo.”

  At least Brunelle would know the name of the man who killed him. Well, his street name anyway. “Look, I wasn’t trying to rip anybody off,” Brunelle insisted. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

  “Misunderstanding?” T-Jo said. “What don’t you understand? You wanna fuck her, you pay her first. Ain’t nothing to misunderstand.”

  “Well, right,” Brunelle replied. “That’s just it. I wasn’t actually trying to, uh, fuck her…”

  T-Jo narrowed his eyes. “You into some kinky shit or something? Man, I don’t care if you wanna suck her toes or have her hit you with a belt or whatever. You fucking pay first. What you do after that, I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Right, right,” Brunelle agreed. He was only a few feet from his car. If he could just end the conversation with all of his bones unbroken. “Sure. Like I said, just a misunderstanding. I’ll just be going. Sorry about all this. Really. Sorry.”

  But before he could turn away, T-Jo grabbed his arm. “Wait a second. You aren’t into that shit. That ain’t why you’re here.” He looked Brunelle up and down. “You one of those fucking do-gooders from that church, ain’t ya? Trying to talk my girls outta making a good living for themselves.”

  There was so much wrong with that statement. He wasn’t a do-gooder. He definitely wasn’t from any church. And there was no way Tina was a making a good living—she was giving all her money to T-Jo in exchange for a motel room and some drugs. So Brunelle provided the only rational response, given the situation.

  “Yes,” he lied. “That’s it exactly. Sorry to waste everyone’s time. I’ll just leave now and never come back.”

  Brunelle slipped his arm out of T-Jo’s grip and turned to walk, as quickly as he could without actually running, to his car. He thought he’d pulled off the escape. But just as he reached the vehicle, T-Jo grabbed his arm again—twisting it behind his back and driving his face into the car door.

  “Now you listen up and you listen good,” T-Jo growled in his ear. “You leave my girls alone. You leave all these girls alone. They don’t want your help, man. I give ‘em a place to stay and food to eat. That’s better than most of their parents ever did for ‘em. And what the fuck are you offering? A fucking prayer card and a care package with some soap? You gonna let her sleep at your house? You gonna let her meet your fucking kids? I don’t think
so.” He pushed Brunelle’s face back against the car window. “So you get the fuck out of here and never, ever fucking come back. And consider yourself lucky you didn’t end up with a bullet in your ass.”

  Brunelle nodded but didn’t say anything. Discretion was the better part of valor, or something like that. Shutting up was the most likely chance of getting out of there without further injury. T-Jo released his arm and shoved him one last time into the car door. Brunelle kept his eyes down and scrambled into his car as fast as he could. He tore out of the parking lot even faster and was a good three miles up Aurora Avenue before he felt his pulse start to slow.

  Chapter 30

  In a profession like trial lawyer, which involved a unique blend of intimate public speaking and subtle salesmanship, there were certain advantages to being a man or woman, depending on the type of case and the role of the lawyer. If you’re charged with a sex offense, you might want a female attorney at your side; just a subtle suggestion that you’re not a complete reprobate.

  One benefit of being a man was that graying hair and a fading bruise on your cheek just made you look wise and tough. Brunelle was able to show up on the morning of trial looking seasoned, rugged, ready for battle. The same gray hair and facial injury would have made Edwards look haggard and potentially abused. Like she’d gone out for a middle-aged roller derby team.

  Still, one person’s rugged was another person’s ugly.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Edwards asked when she saw him. “You look like hell.”

  “My car ran into something,” Brunelle answered as he set his trial briefcase on the table and undid its clasps.

  “What did it run into?” Edwards asked.

  Brunelle extracted his evidence handbook and finally looked at Edwards. He managed a smile. “My face.”

  Edwards raised an eyebrow but before she could ask further, Judge Grissom took the bench.

  “Are we ready to pick the jury?” she inquired as she settled into her judge’s chair.

  Edwards was first to respond. “Yes, Your Honor,” she answered brightly.

  Brunelle looked up at the judge and shrugged. His cheek still stung a little. “Sure, Your Honor. Why not?”

  *

  The thing about jury selection is that it’s really jury de-selection. Potential jurors think they’re going to be affirmatively chosen for the jury but, in fact, the exact opposite is true. Each side gets to strike six potential jurors from the panel, and the first twelve of whoever’s left are the jury. The best way to get out of serving on a jury was to talk a lot during the questioning. Have lots of opinions and you’re sure to make one side or the other not want you on the jury. Don’t like cops? The prosecutor will strike you. Figure a defendant must have done something to get arrested? The defense attorney will strike you.

  As a result, a jury ends up being the twelve people with the least personality, or the best ability to cover it up. A blank slate of retired aviation workers and teachers whose contract pays them even when they’re on jury duty. Twelve people with weak enough opinions that the lawyers think they might be able to persuade them with profound oratory and flashy PowerPoint slides. Twelve people sworn to return ‘a true and proper verdict.’ Twelve people who, once so sworn, and after the lawyers got a quick break to clear their heads and switch gears, were instructed by Judge Grissom, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, please give your attention to Mr. Brunelle who will deliver the opening statement on behalf of the state.”

  Chapter 31

  Brunelle stood up, thanked the judge, and turned his attention to the people in the jury box—ignoring the people in the gallery, and remembering the one person the case was really about.

  “Amy Corrigan,” he began. His voice was a bit scratchy on this first effort, so he repeated himself. “Amy Corrigan. You’re going to hear from a lot of witnesses during this trial, but the one person you won’t hear from is the most important person in the case. Amy Corrigan. Because Amy Corrigan is dead.”

  Brunelle paused just a beat, then pointed at the defense table to say, “And Kenny Brown murdered her.”

  Okay, good start, Brunelle thought. But the jurors already knew that. The judge had told them it was a murder trial. Brown had been identified as the defendant. That meant somebody was dead, and the defendant was accused of making them that way. What they didn’t know was who, or why, or how. Brunelle couldn’t answer the ‘how,’ but he was pretty sure about the ‘why,’ and he was going to hammer on the ‘who.’

  “Before I tell you what happened to Amy the night she was murdered, let me tell you about her before she was murdered. Let me tell you about what she was like when she was alive. Sometimes, here in these nice courtrooms,” he paused to gesture vaguely around the room, “with their polished wood and crisp, new flags, we can forget about the real world. About real people, and the real situations they find themselves in, and the real choices they make.” Another deliberate pause. Then, “And the all too real consequences of those choices.”

  So that completed the set up. Brunelle took a step to the side, signaling a shift in the narrative, and clasped his hands together loosely in front of him.

  “Amy Corrigan,” again with her name, “grew up right here in King County. In SeaTac, just south of Burien and—like everyone else who lived in a town named after an airport—directly in the flight path of SeaTac International Airport. She grew up being able to ignore the monsters looming overhead each day.” Another glance toward Brown. “It was a skill that would serve her well in later life.”

  Brunelle mentally tensed, awaiting the possible objection from Edwards. But she was too good of a trial lawyer to take the bait. Some defense attorneys objected during prosecution openings just to disrupt the rhythm, but Brunelle’s experience had been that whatever benefit there may have been in that, it was usually outweighed by the irritation felt by jurors at having their attention interrupted. ‘Just wait your turn’ was the expression most jurors wore after the second or third such objection. Brunelle was testing her with the ‘monster’ comment. He wanted to see how far he could push. Pretty far, apparently, but that just meant Edwards was that confident in her own opening statement.

  “Amy was like anyone else,” Brunelle continued. “She struggled to make her way in the world as she grew up, rebelling against parents and experimenting with what the world had to offer, good and bad.”

  Brunelle wasn’t sure how much she had rebelled, actually, but ending up a drug-addicted prostitute probably wasn’t on her parents’ short list of life wishes for their daughter.

  “Eventually she found her way to the defendant, Kenneth Brown.” Another glance toward the defense table, except this time, everyone in the room did it. Brown looked up from his legal pad long enough to recognize the mention of his name, then looked down again. Edwards had cleaned him up really well. He was in a dark suit, white shirt, muted tie. Fresh haircut and no jewelry. No one would ever guess he was a pimp and a murderer. Brunelle frowned at the sight.

  “He offered her a job,” Brunelle turned back to the jury and continued. “And a place to stay. But there was a catch. There’s always a catch. She had to give all her money to Mr. Brown, and she stayed where he said. And did whatever he said.”

  Edwards stood up at that. “Objection, Your Honor.”

  Brunelle’s eyebrows knitted together. He looked up at Judge Grissom. He hadn’t used any inflammatory language and had avoided the word ‘pimp,’ rather artfully, he thought. “What’s the objection, Your Honor?”

  Grissom looked down at Edwards. “The objection, counselor?”

  Edwards hesitated. “Could I be heard outside the presence of the jury?”

  Brunelle suppressed an eye roll. He was wrong about her not wanting to interrupt his flow. Nothing could be more disruptive than to stop his presentation and take the jury back to the jury room for five or ten minutes while the attorneys argued over his choice of words.

  “I would object to that, Your Honor,” Brunelle said.
“I’m in the middle of my opening statement. I believe I know what Ms. Edwards’ concern is, and I can tell the court I have no intention of going there.”

  “That’s just it, Your Honor,” Edwards replied. “I think he already has.”

  Brunelle closed his eyes for a moment in frustration, but then caught himself—he was still in front of the jury. Frustration suggested weakness, a lack of confidence in his case. He took a deep breath and tried to radiate calm confidence as he awaited the judge’s decision.

  Grissom’s expression twisted as she weighed the importance of reining Brunelle in from a fatal mistake against the professionalism of allowing an attorney to do their job unimpeded. Finally, she motioned for the attorneys to come forward. “Sidebar,” she announced.

  Brunelle shrugged inside. That was probably the best compromise. Admonishment with minimal interruption. He and Edwards stepped up to the edge of the bench, and Grissom leaned down to whisper at them.

  “You’re getting awfully close to telling the jury he’s a pimp,” Grissom whispered, anticipating Edwards’ complaint.

  “He all but did it,” Edwards added. “Telling them she had to give all her money to him.”

  But Brunelle disagreed. “It could be a sweatshop, or housecleaning, or a meat-packing factory. Anything underground. Anything where she’s being taken advantage of.”

  “I let the monsters comments go,” Edwards said.

  “Your fault, not mine,” Brunelle responded.

  “Don’t.” Grissom halted the bickering, giving both of them a hard glare. “Mr. Brunelle, you’re getting very close to stepping over the line. Be careful. You cross it, and I won’t hesitate to declare a mistrial.”

  “And I’ll file the motion to dismiss for misconduct before her gavel falls,” Edwards threatened.

  Brunelle smiled coldly at the apparent double team. He’d won the objection after all. He just needed to be careful.

  “Understood, Your Honor,” he whispered to Grissom. He ignored Edwards’ comment. “May I continue now?”