The Prosecutor
“So,” Penny said. “Let’s talk about this video.”
Zachary held up a hand and gave a subtle nudge of his chin in Emma’s direction. “Is this appropriate?”
“She’s my intern.”
Her intern. Funny.
“Say what?”
“She’s a law student who knows this case better than anyone. Trust me, in her first year at Northwestern she knows more about the law than the two of us combined did as first years. Suck it up. She’s staying.”
Obviously amused by his sister’s antics, he cracked a wide grin. Emma cut her gaze to Penny, then back to Zachary before biting her lip. Down deep, the warrior in her wanted to join the fray, but watching these two hammer away at each other would be just as much fun.
“You were saying about the video? I need a copy, of course.”
“Of course.” She pulled her phone, hit the screen a couple of times and stuck it back in her purse. “On its way. I’m planning on filing a PCR.” Penny turned to Emma. “Post-conviction relief.” Emma nodded and Penny went back to her brother. “A video like this, you know we’ll get our hearing based on newly discovered evidence.”
He shrugged. “No judge in Cook County will vacate a sentence in the murder of a cop’s daughter without something better than that video. And hello? Did the detective not have brain cancer? How do we know disease hadn’t brought on hallucinations?”
“Please, Zachary. You’ll need to try harder than that.” Penny stood and adjusted the hem of her jacket. “Anyway, I only stopped to see which lucky prosecutor would face me in court. Now that I know, I’m off to make notes on this new evidence. Better start thinking about the State’s reply, big brother. See you at dinner on Saturday.” She gave him a finger wave. “Toodles. Love you.”
Emma sat speechless as Penny strode from the office. Her attorney was one crazy chick, which might not be a good thing, considering that Brian’s freedom rested in her hands. But Penny had something. Maybe it was her brash attitude or her willingness to take a chance on Brian, but whatever it was, Emma liked it. A lot.
From his desk chair, Zachary snorted. “She’s nuts. Get used to it.”
Emma stood. “Maybe so, but I like her spunk.”
“She has plenty of that.”
Before she turned for the door, Emma stared down at him. “My brother is innocent.”
“He was convicted by a jury of his peers.”
“And juries never make mistakes?”
No answer. It didn’t matter. “I’ve studied the evidence,” she continued. “The public defender blew this one. I can promise you my brother didn’t strangle anyone. I’d know.”
According to the prosecution’s theory, Brian had left Magic—the nightclub—to meet the victim in the alley beside it. After he murdered her, apparently using the belt from her jacket, he supposedly went back into the club and partied for another hour.
“Were you with him that night?”
“No. But I know my brother. He stole four dollars from my wallet when he was twelve. An hour later the guilt drove him mad and he confessed.”
Zachary shrugged. “He was twelve. He’s a man now. People change.”
“Not my brother. He was living at home with my mother at the time of the murder. Want to know why?”
“Is it relevant to my case?”
“My brother is in prison. Everything is relevant.”
Zachary tapped his fingers on the desk. “I’ll bite. Why was he living at home?”
“Because our father died ten years ago and I’d moved out. He didn’t want our mother to be alone. He had a good job and could have easily afforded to be on his own, but he couldn’t stand the idea of his mother being by herself. That’s not a man who commits murder.”
Emma stopped talking. The past year had taught her the value of silence. Silence offered that perfect span of time when each person decided who would flinch. She stared down at Zachary Hennings.
A fine-looking man she desperately hoped would flinch.
Finally, he stood. He was a good six inches taller than she was, but she held her ground and kept her head high. “No offense, Ms. Sinclair, but you’re far from impartial and the daughter of a good cop is dead. Any one of us, given the right circumstances, has the capability to commit murder.”
“Not my brother, Mr. Hennings. You’ll see.” She turned to leave.
“It’s Zac. My father is Mr. Hennings. And I can tell you I’ll study the case file. I love to win, but I have no interest in keeping an innocent man in prison. That being said, twelve reasonable people heard evidence and decided his fate. I’m not going to go screaming to the judge that it was a mistake. Prove it to me and we’ll take it from there.”
Chapter Two
In the beat-up hallway outside Zac’s office, Emma spotted Penny waiting for her. The moment she got close, Penny headed for the elevator, the two of them moving at a steady clip.
“I’ll get started on the petition,” Penny said. “What’s your schedule the next couple days?”
“I have a class in the morning and then I work tomorrow night. On Saturday, I work at four, but I have all morning and early afternoon open. Sunday I have to study. What do you need?”
“We need to analyze the video and compare what he says to what we know happened around the time of the murder. There has to be something else that will support our case. I think we’ll get our hearing anyway because that video is pretty darn compelling, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more.”
Emma pushed through the lobby door and a burst of cold, early-April wind blew her hair back. Penny remained unruffled, her hair perfectly intact as she whipped through the doorway. Emma would have loved to be that put together, but she didn’t have a sense of fashion so she stuck with the basics of slacks and sweaters. Basics were easy and kept her from looking like a fashion disaster.
Penny stopped on the cement steps of the towering building. Behind them, the early rush of employees leaving for the day funneled by.
“I already have a time line built,” Emma said. “I’ll go through the video and do a second time line with what the detective says. And, oh, I’ll get myself on the list to visit Brian tomorrow. I can squeeze that in before work and show him the two time lines. Maybe he can help.”
“Good. Anything that seems off, note it and I’ll have one of our investigators check it out.”
Investigators. All this time, Emma had been trudging around town, fighting every step of the way, begging every defense lawyer, reporter, blogger, anyone who could help, and finally, finally, someone believed in her. Her breath caught and she smacked a hand against her chest.
Penny drew her eyebrows together, marring her perfect porcelain skin. “You okay?”
Maybe. “You have investigators.”
“The firm does, yes.”
Months of exhaustive, energy-sapping worry erupted into a stream of hysterical laughter. “Investigators.”
Penny’s eyes widened. Poor woman must have thought her client was insane. Emma laughed harder and grabbed her lawyer’s arms. “I’ve been alone with this for so long. No one has helped. No one. Even my mother has been too depressed to lend a hand, and now you tell me you have investigators. And it won’t cost me anything. You have no idea what that means to me.”
Finally, the tears came. A flood of them gushing to the surface and tumbling down her face. God, she was tired. Insanity might not be far behind after all.
Penny stepped an inch closer. “Listen, we’ve got a long road. I’m good, but we’re dealing with the murder of a cop’s daughter. We’re about to climb Everest with no oxygen. Can you make it?”
Emma nodded. This one she knew for sure. “I’ve already climbed to ten thousand feet without oxygen. I’m not stopping now.”
“Good. Then let’s do this. Call me with any updates. I’ve got to go.”
Penny charged down the cement steps and Emma pulled her phone from her jacket pocket. Two missed calls. One from Mom. She dialed. “Hi.”
“Hi. You had a call. That Melody. The one Brian was dating.”
Brian’s old girlfriend—well, she couldn’t really be called a girlfriend. Melody, according to Brian, was more like a friend with benefits. The fact that this friend had called their house on the day an article ran about Brian could not be a coincidence. Particularly since Melody, again according to Brian, had spent a few minutes with him around the time of the murder. He’d left the club and walked Melody to her car around 12:30 a.m. that night. The defense never called Melody as a witness and, with Brian not testifying at trial, Emma assumed this information had been deemed irrelevant. Not that she understood it, but she didn’t understand a lot of the nuances about Brian’s trial.
“What did she want?” Emma asked her mother.
“I don’t know. She started talking, then stopped and said she needed to speak with you.”
“Did she leave a number?”
“Yes.”
Her mother read off the number and Emma repeated it to herself. “Got it.”
She disconnected and entered the number into her phone before she forgot it. Pedestrians continued to stream from the building and she moved to the side. Another gust of wind caught her coat and she yanked the zipper up to shield herself from the cold air. Stepping away from the pedestrian traffic, she pressed the TALK button, heard the phone ring and waited for Melody to pick up.
Brian’s public defender had been no help when it came to Melody. He’d never even pursued her claims because she couldn’t prove that Brian had been with her that night. According to the lawyer, she could be covering for him.
As if a casual friend would risk a perjury charge. Whatever.
Emma didn’t want to revisit her frustrations with Bri’s public defender. Unless she could prove his incompetence, it was best left alone. Instead, she’d remind herself that she now had Hennings and Solomon on her side.
“Melody? It’s Emma Sinclair.”
“Hi, Emma. Thanks for calling me back.”
“Sure. What can I help you with?”
“How’s Brian?”
He’s in prison. “He’s holding up.”
“I saw the article in the paper.”
“They did a nice job.” She wasn’t about to give an outsider too much information.
“Is there anything I can do to help? I told the prosecution and the defense lawyer that I’d testify. They never contacted me, even after I gave the detectives the receipt from the parking garage.”
Suddenly, all movement around Emma ceased—a huge, jarring halt that caused her body to stiffen. “There was a receipt?”
Breathe. Get loose. Too many hopes had been bludgeoned by the cruelty of injustice and she’d learned to temper her optimism. Whatever this receipt was, it couldn’t have been anything stunning or the public defender—she’d hope—would have uncovered it.
“Yes,” Melody said. “I used a credit card to pay for the garage. It was one of those machines. You stick the ticket in, put your credit card in the slot and you get another ticket that lets you out of the garage. Brian was with me.”
Emma paused a second, let the cold air wash over her while she mentally played find-the-missing-receipt. She’d amassed boxes and boxes of notes on the case and had never heard about a parking receipt. Didn’t mean the thing wasn’t sitting around somewhere, but she would have remembered seeing it. If she’d seen it.
Oh, and she could just hear the prosecutors moaning about how it wouldn’t prove that Brian had been with Melody and unless they had solid proof, Melody could be protecting her lover.
“Unfortunately, none of this proves where Brian was at the time. I’ve hired a new lawyer, though. Can I have her contact you?”
“Yes. I mean, he shouldn’t be in jail. He didn’t do it.”
“I know. I’m not giving up.” She gripped the phone tighter. “Thank you for calling, Melody. I appreciate it. I know Brian will, too.”
Emma hung up and stared at the phone. Now she had a receipt to chase down, another lead to work with. People continued to file out of the building, their voices and footsteps clicking against the cement.
4:40.
By the look of the mountain of files in his office, Zac Hennings would probably still be at his desk. He struck her as the diligent type—a man who’d sit and study his notes, losing all track of time. Maybe she’d march up and demand—no—ask about the receipt. Playing nice with the new prosecutor might get her a little cooperation.
If not, too bad. She wanted answers.
* * *
ALREADY, ZAC HAD DETERMINED one thing. The video had to be deep-sixed. On a decent day, a detective’s deathbed confession was a nightmare scenario. Couple that with Zac’s rabid sister and the persistent Emma Sinclair and he had one hell of a problem. Emma didn’t have his sister’s flashy clothes and sarcastic manner, but she obviously had a quick mind and adjusted to conflict easily. With these two, he’d have his hands full.
First thing was to obtain copies of all the case files and interview the detectives.
Still at his desk, he tapped the screen again and the dying detective’s face appeared. Damn, he looked bad. It could be a major problem in court. Who wouldn’t be sympathetic to someone dying of cancer?
He set the phone down and jotted notes as the now-deceased detective spoke. Witness unsure. Alley dark. Couldn’t positively ID. Showed a six-pack—the old photo lineup where the witness was given photographs of possible suspects and asked if he could identify any of them. In this case, according to the dying detective, the witness thought that maybe Brian Sinclair could be the guy.
All of it should be documented in the case files.
Zac shook his head as the detective confessed to coaxing the witness with leading questions. He had dark hair, right? And a white shirt, correct?
Zac studied the detective’s sallow face, seeking anything that might indicate that brain cancer had caused mental impairment. Outside of the papery, sagging skin that came with chemo treatments, his speech was clear and he seemed rational. Zac checked the date on the bottom of the screen. Six weeks ago. He’d have to research the effects of brain cancer in the weeks prior to death. To refute this evidence, he’d simply need to prove that the man had lost cognitive brain function. In which case, everything on the video would be thrown out.
Problem solved.
Next. Identification of the white shirt worn by the accused might be something for Penny to run with. The murder happened in March. It could have been cold. Did the assailant wear a jacket? That had to have come up in court.
Again, all this information should be in the case files, which Zac didn’t have. He scooped up his desk phone and dialed his office assistant. “Hey, Beth. Have you seen the files from the Sinclair case yet?”
“I put them in your office. They’re in a box by the corner window.”
On the floor sat one square file box, maybe eleven by thirteen inches. A corner of the lid was torn, as if someone had tried to lift it and it ripped. “That’s it?”
“That’s all that was delivered.”
One box. On a six-month investigation. There should have been stacks and stacks of reports particularly General Progress Reports—GPRs—where detectives recorded notes. Those GPRs were what he needed. Typically handwritten by the detectives, the reports told the story of who said what. Anything on the investigation’s progress should have been documented for use in trial.
So why did Zac only have one small box?
He’d have to track down the old prosecutor—the one who’d been fired by the new State’s Attorney—to see what happened to the rest of the documentation. Yeah, he’ll be more than willing to talk.
Zac stood, grabbed the box and set it on his desk. At least it had some weight to it. Inside he found a few supplementary reports, along with a lineup report. He perused one of the pages for any mention of a white shirt. Nothing. He checked the next page. Nothing.
Not off to a good start. He continued flipping through the files. Nothing about a white shirt. He dropped the stack of papers back in the box and propped his hands on his hips. He’d have to read through every document and study it.
Someone told the detectives that Brian Sinclair was wearing a white shirt that night and it wasn’t their star witness. That guy had only confirmed the shirt’s color. Zac considered the guy’s statement, rolled it around in his mind. Massaged it. What he came up with was that the detectives, in a typically aggressive move, had convinced the witness they had Brian Sinclair dead to rights and all they needed was corroboration on the white shirt.
Which they got. Hello, video. If he couldn’t discredit this sucker, Penny would argue that Sinclair’s constitutional rights under Giglio v. the United States had been violated. In Giglio the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution had to disclose all information related to the credibility of a prosecution witness, including law enforcement officials.
Bottom line, if the cops had pressured the witness into falsely identifying Brian Sinclair, his testimony could be thrown out.
And then they’d be screwed.
* * *
EMMA FOUGHT THE STAMPEDE of people exiting the building and rode the elevator to the eighth floor. As suspected, Zac was still at his desk, his big shoulders hunched over a legal pad as he took notes. A fierce longing—that black emptiness—tore at her. She’d always been drawn to men with big shoulders and the way her smaller body folded into the warmth and security of being held. Pfft. Right now she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out with a man, never mind been held.
Dwelling on it wouldn’t help her. She’d have to do what she always did and keep her focus on Brian. Then she’d pick up the pieces of her life.
She knocked on the open door.
“Enter,” Zac said, his gaze glued to his notes.
“Hello again.”
His head snapped up and a bit of his short blond hair flopped to his forehead. A sudden urge to fix the disturbed strands twitched in her fingers. Wow. Clearly she’d been without male companionship for too long. Even so, this was the man who wanted to keep her brother in prison. She had no business thinking about her hands on him.
“Ms. Sinclair?”
She stepped into the office, keeping back a couple of feet from the desk. “Hi, Zac. And it’s Emma.”
He dropped his pen and reclined in his squeaky chair. “Can I help you with something?”
You sure can. She waggled her phone. “I just took a call from a friend of Brian’s.”
The idea that she should have checked with Penny before talking to the prosecutor flashed through her mind. Maybe she’d been too hasty, but that had never stopped her before. Her brain functioned better this way, always moving and jumping from assignment to assignment. Fighting her brother’s legal battle, until now, had been a solitary endeavor, and she had simply not considered that she had an ally. Next time, she’d consult with Penny. Next time.
She stepped closer to the desk and met Zac’s questioning gaze. “Melody was with my brother around the time of the murder.”
Zac opened his mouth and Emma held up her hand. “Let me finish. I know what Melody says doesn’t prove anything, heard it a hundred times. However, she told me she turned over a receipt from the parking garage near the club.”
“And?”
So smug. “I have boxes and boxes of information regarding my brother’s case. Eighteen to be exact. They’re stacked in my mother’s basement. Three high, six across. I guess you could say I’ve amassed one box for every month since his conviction.”
“Really,” Zac said, his voice rising in a mix of wonder and maybe, just maybe, respect.
Not so smug anymore, huh? “I’ve never seen a receipt from a parking garage.”
“With eighteen boxes, you don’t think you could have missed it? And I’m sure you realize that a receipt won’t prove his whereabouts.”
There went the respect. Lawyers. Always vying for the mental edge.
“I do realize that. My concern is why I didn’t know about this receipt and what other information I might not know about. I’d like a copy of the receipt.”
He remained silent, his gaze on hers, measuring, waiting for her to cower.
“Zac, I’m happy to call Penny and make her aware of it. I’m sure you realize that all evidence must be shared with the defense.” For kicks, she grinned at him.
He sat forward, his elbows propped on the desk, all Mr. I-won’t-be-taken-down-by-a-law-student. “You and my sister will get along great.”
“Excellent. I’d like the receipt, please.”
“Sure.” He pointed at the open box on his desk. “It’s probably in here.”
Slowly, she turned toward a brown banker’s box sitting on the desk. The lid was off, but nowhere in sight.
One box.
A small box at that.
“Those are my brother’s files?” She surveyed the office. “Where are the rest of them?”
Zac stood, his tall frame looming over the desk, his focus on the files. “We’ll start with this one.”
A niggling panic curled in Emma’s stomach. “Tell me there’s more than this. Tell me my brother wasn’t convicted of murder based on half a box of files.”
The prosecutor wouldn’t look at her. Not even a glance. He busied himself sifting through the box. Her brother’s freedom rested on the contents of one minuscule box. How dare they. Eighteen months of keeping Brian from descending into emotional hell, eighteen months of her digging in, eighteen months of begging anyone who’d listen for help—it all bubbled inside. Emma locked her jaw and gutted her way through an explosion of anger that singed her. Just burned her alive from inside. These people were so callous.
She grasped the upper part of the box and yanked it toward her. Finally, he looked at her and if his eyes were a bit hard and unyielding, well, too bad. “Tell me there’s more.” But darn it, her voice cracked. Emma Sinclair wasn’t so tough.
He continued to stare, but something flicked in his blue eyes and softened them. “Right now, this is all I have. There’s more. On a six-month investigation, there has to be more.”
“Where is it?”
He propped his hands on his hips and shook his head. Emma folded her arms and waited. She wanted to know where those files were.
“Emma, I’m not about to go into court without every scrap of evidence from the first trial. A young woman is dead and I want her killer locked up, but if your brother is innocent, I’ll be the first one to say so.”
Brief silence filled the room. He hadn’t answered her question about the whereabouts of the rest of the files. She could argue, kick up a fuss about the injustice of it all, but what was the point? All she’d do was alienate the man responsible for keeping her brother in prison. That didn’t seem like a class-A plan.
Plus, for some reason, she believed him. Maybe it was his eyes and the way they snapped from hard to sparkly or the way his confidence displayed strength and a willingness to fight, but above all, Zac Hennings screamed of honor and truth.
Emma imagined that not much rattled him and she suddenly had a keen desire to see him in action, in front of a judge and jury, arguing his cases. Maybe she’d make a research trip to the courthouse and size up the enemy. She’d always believed there were multiple ways to win any brawl. Pinpointing her opponent’s strengths—and weaknesses—was one of them.
Yes, a trip to the courthouse was definitely in her near future.
She shoved the box back at him. “I still want a copy of that receipt. If you don’t have it, I’ll have Melody call her credit card company. Either way, I’m getting that receipt.”
After a long stare, one where the side of his mouth tugged into a brief smile, he dug through the box and pulled out a thick manila envelope. “I should advise you that I’ll have everything copied and sent to Penny’s office. That’s what I should do.”
“But you’re not going to?”
“No. And it’s highly improper. The receipt you want is probably in this envelope. I’ll go through it with you. Document everything. That’s the best I can do.”
* * *
THERE WAS NO DAMN RECEIPT. Zac sat back and watched cute, pain-in-the-butt Emma Sinclair sift through the last stack of papers from the banker’s box. They’d gone through the whole box—not that there was much of it—and nothing.