Sense of Deception

  He sighed. There was guilt in that sigh. “Twenty years ago I represented her on a vandalism charge and then on her third DWI charge.”

  My eyes widened. “The one where she served a year in jail?”

  He nodded. “She was actually sentenced to four years, but got out after only fourteen months for good behavior and because of overcrowding.”

  “Still, four years seems kind of harsh for a woman who so obviously needed to be sent to rehab, doesn’t it? I mean, I realize it was her third offense, but she didn’t crash her car or hurt anybody, did she?”

  “No, but back in ’ninety-eight the state wasn’t very sympathetic when it came to addicts. The rule back then was punish the offenders and punish them hard. Four years was honestly the best deal I could get her, Abby. The state minimum both then and now is two years for a third offense, and Skylar was smashed when the officer pulled her over—she blew a point one eight. That’s a full tenth over the legal limit. She’s just damn lucky she didn’t get caught with her kid in the car.”

  “So you know her.”

  He shrugged. “I knew her twenty years ago. I haven’t spoken to her since she fired me back in nineteen ninety-eight, right after the judge threw her a four-year sentence.”

  I tapped the arm of the chair for a moment, letting my intuition flow over Cal’s energy. “Do you remember a few months back when I told you that you and I would be working on a case together? A case involving a woman?”

  An oblique smile crept onto Cal’s lips. “When you did that reading for me at the bureau offices,” he said. “I remember almost every single word of it. Including that part. And it’ll probably please you to know that all that you predicted did come true—except for that one small part. Last night after your husband called and I started making inquiries, and discovered that Skylar Miller was your cellmate, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end.” I said nothing. I wanted to see what Cal was going to conclude from that. “I figured that had to be more than a coincidence, and maybe the powers that be are trying to get a message to me.”

  “She didn’t do it, Cal,” I said firmly.

  He nodded. “I never thought she did.”

  We sat in silence for a few beats with that between us. “If we do nothing, she’ll lose the appeal,” I said softly.

  Cal sighed and his shoulders sagged a little as he glanced briefly at the mountain of manila folders to his left. I knew I was asking him to take a holiday from the work that paid his bills to essentially take over Skylar’s case and prepare an appeal in just ten days. “I’ve seen her attorney in court,” he said. “He’s barely competent.”

  The ether around Cal shifted and I sat forward, reaching for my purse. “I’m pretty sure I can convince her to fire him and hire you,” I said, getting up and turning to leave.

  Cal’s quiet laughter followed me to the door of his office. “How’d you know I’d be so easily convinced?”

  I paused with my hand on the doorknob to look over my shoulder at him. “She’s part of your future, Cal. The same way she’s part of mine.”

  His brow furrowed. “Coming in at this late hour is gonna be a nightmare, Abby. Both legally and procedurally.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “But you think we can save her?”

  I looked past Cal for a moment, staring into space as I felt out the future. “Truthfully? It could go either way. But if we don’t join forces and help her, she’s got no chance. None at all.”

  Cal regarded me solemnly. “Sounds like we don’t have much of a choice, then.”

  “Nope.”

  “Call me after you talk to her.”

  “Thanks, Cal. Really.”

  He nodded and I headed out of his office, glancing at my watch as I exited the suite. It was nearly four o’clock, and time was running short both for the day and for Skylar. My next step involved talking to her, which I hoped to do before the end of the day, if I could make it back to my office and my laptop fast enough.

  I was already somewhat familiar with the new visitation system Travis County had put in place for its inmates and members of the public. No longer could you actually go to the jail and wait behind Plexiglas to lift a phone and talk to an inmate. Travis County had gone high-tech, implementing a videoconference system that was a whole lot like FaceTime.

  I hadn’t used the system, but I’d seen it firsthand because all law enforcement personnel had been given a tutorial just a few weeks earlier when it was first coming on line.

  Access to video chat with a prisoner came from registering with the county, then filling out a simple online form that asked the name of the prisoner, your relationship to them, etc., etc.

  I was already registered as a consultant with the FBI, and that gave me a few extra privileges to boot. I was hoping the special code I’d been given denoting my status would make access to Skylar less of a problem. I doubted that she’d been let out of solitary, which meant that someone (Stern Eyes?) would have to go get her and physically bring her to the videoconference room. Sometimes the COs could give the prisoners in solitary a hard time, and I hoped that Stern Eyes wasn’t going to drag her feet bringing Skylar up.

  I got back to my office about fifteen minutes after I’d left Cal’s, and hopped right online, typing quickly and noting that time wasn’t on my side. It’d take a little while to process my request and have it go through the channels, not to mention getting Skylar to the videoconference room in time to talk to her before the system would be shut down at five thirty. She would actually initiate the call on her end, and I waited in my office from four all the way to five nineteen, pacing and eyeing my computer anxiously.

  Finally, at five twenty, there was a faint tinny ring from my computer and I rushed to sit down and click to accept the call. The black screen pixelated a bit until it settled onto Skylar’s face. She was hovering close to the computer and I could see the dark circles under her eyes the same as the day before; however, today her expression was a bit more curious. “Abby?” she said.

  I waved. “Hi, Skylar!” I said. “Thanks for accepting the visit.”

  She nodded. “I don’t get much in the way of visits.”

  I glanced at the clock again. We had nine minutes. “Listen, I’m gonna make this really fast because we’re pressed for time, but I want you to do me a huge favor.”

  Skylar studied me. Her expression was wary, but also perhaps slightly amused. “What huge favor can I do for you?”

  “I want you to trust me.”

  Her reaction was surprising. She actually laughed. “Trust you?”

  “Yes. And I realize you don’t know me, Skylar, or have any reason to actually trust me, but I am totally sincere here when I tell you that if you don’t trust me, I don’t think you’re going to make it to the day after your appeal.”

  The humor faded from Skylar’s features. “Even if I do trust you, Abby, I’m probably not going to live beyond the nineteenth.”

  “Skylar,” I said, “do you remember what one of your first questions to me was after I told you that I was psychic?”

  She seemed to think on that for a second. “I asked you if you could see who broke into my house the night Noah died. I wanted to know who it was that killed my son.”

  I closed my eyes and nodded. “Exactly.” Opening them again, I added, “A guilty woman would’ve asked me if she’d win her appeal, or how she could win her appeal. Only an innocent woman asks who the real murderer was.”

  Skylar took that in. “I just want to know before they stick the needle in me, Abby. I want to know who did it, and why.”

  “I know,” I told her, glancing again at the clock. Seven minutes. “Listen, this is the part where trusting me is going to require a pretty big leap of faith, but the way I see it, you don’t have a ton of options left, so I’m just gonna say it. I want you to fire your attorney, and then I
want you to hire Calvin Douglas.”

  Skylar blinked and I could see recognition in her eyes. “Calvin Douglas?”

  “Yep. And, before you ask, yes, he’s the same guy who represented you on the DWI charge.”

  She rolled her eyes and snorted derisively. “The last time he represented me he got me a four-year sentence.”

  I stared at her image in the computer without blinking. “I know. And yet, I still want you to hire him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s the only chance you’ve got. Skylar, I’ve taken a glimpse into your future. It’s as bleak as it comes. And your attorney isn’t helping you in any way.”

  Skylar looked away, thinking, and I glanced again at the clock. We had two minutes. I felt a bit desperate, so I added, “I know you think that might be a rash decision, and I know you probably carry a grudge against Cal, but what I think he might be able to buy you is a little time, Skylar. And I need that time to investigate Noah’s murder.”

  Her head turned sharply and she stared hard at me. “You’re going to investigate?”

  I nodded, holding up the official badge the FBI had given me as their consultant. “On occasion, I work for the Feds,” I confessed. “And my business partner is a PI. I’m very good, and so is she. And we’ve also got an agent currently on vacation who’s willing to help out.”

  Her brow furrowed at the rush of words. “Why are you doing this?”

  I took a deep breath. What reason could I give that she’d believe? Skylar didn’t look like someone who’d been given a whole lot of kindness in her life. I figured the truth was the only thing I had to offer her. “Because I don’t believe you did it. And if you didn’t do it, then I look at you as any other innocent woman who’s about to be murdered. You deserve my very best effort to save your life. It’s just what I do, Skylar. And that’s the truth.”

  She studied me for a moment, as if she could read me the way I could read her. And then, she opened her mouth to speak, but at that exact moment my screen flashed with an error message. It was five thirty and the videoconference had been cut off. “Dammit!” I yelled, standing up and glaring hard at my computer screen. For emphasis I pounded my desk a little with my fist. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” (Ah well, I didn’t need that dollar anyway.)

  “Bad day?” I heard from the doorway.

  I startled. “Oh, hey, Cassidy,” I said to Candice, feeling my cheeks flush. “Didn’t see you there.”

  She leaned against the frame, crossed her arms, and adopted an amused expression. “I’ll bet.”

  I took a deep breath and straightened my shirt, still embarrassed for having been caught midtantrum. “How was your day, dear?”

  Candice chuckled and came into the room to take up a seat across from me. “Better than yours, apparently.”

  I sat down and shut the laptop. “I was talking to Skylar and our call got cut off.”

  Candice flicked her wrist to note the time on her watch. “It’s after five thirty.”

  “Yep.”

  “Is she going to let us help her?”

  “Don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “I gave her a pretty good pitch, though. And I recruited Cal Douglas to represent her, assuming she takes my advice and fires her attorney in the eleventh hour.”

  “She’d be taking a huge risk, Abby. Her current attorney has probably been working on the case for at least a year or two. Possibly longer.”

  “Hey,” we heard from the door again. Candice and I both looked over and saw Oscar there. “Glad I caught you two.”

  I glanced down at Oscar’s empty hands. “No luck with the records guy?”

  Oscar shook his head. “The second I mentioned the name on the file, my buddy handed me back both the pizza and the beer and told me no way. The detective who worked the original case is still around, and he’s some kind of big dog at APD and no one’s willing to cross him. That means any file with his name on it stays put. Especially that one.”

  “Shit,” I said, then glared at Candice when she arched an eyebrow at me. Opening the drawer to my desk, I lifted out a roll of quarters I kept there for swearing emergencies and slapped it on top of the desk blotter to show her I had the money to cover myself. Turning back to Oscar, I said, “Why would it be ‘especially that one’?”

  Oscar came into the room and took the seat next to Candice. “Think about it, Cooper. Miller’s appeal is in two weeks. No way this close to the finish line does APD want any of what’s in that folder leaked out to maybe throw the case open again.”

  I frowned. “So how do we get a copy of the murder file?”

  “Skylar’s initial legal team would’ve kept a copy,” Candice said.

  “Her original attorney was court appointed,” I said, remembering from one of the articles covering the case that Texas didn’t use public defenders. Instead it rotated through a list of defense attorneys and appointed cases to whoever was next on the list.

  In theory it was a great thing for the accused, because they often got a seasoned attorney well practiced in the art of defense litigation. In practice it had its shortcomings, especially when one of the smaller firms drew a short straw for a big case, because, since there was no money in it for them, they had to continue to work their other cases at the same time, and that meant that they typically put in the least amount of effort necessary to get the court-appointed job done.

  I suspected, given what I’d read in the coverage of Skylar’s initial trial, that this was exactly what’d happened in her case.

  Candice pulled out her phone and said, “Do you remember the name?”

  “Whitaker,” I said, scrolling through my memory banks. “First name I believe was John.”

  Both Oscar and I waited while Candice tapped at her phone. She made a face and said, “John Whitaker, the attorney who defended Skylar Miller in the murder of her son, was struck head-on in a collision with a tractor-trailer on Route Three Sixty in the early hours of September second, two thousand eight.”

  My jaw dropped. “He’s dead?”

  Candice scrolled a little farther down the article before she replied. “Quite,” she said with a frown.

  “So what happened to his files?” I asked next.

  Candice continued to tap at her screen. “He didn’t have a law partner,” she said. “Which means his practice was probably shut down and the legal files put into storage or destroyed.”

  “So there’s no copy other than the one the cops have of Noah’s murder?”

  “The attorney handling her appeal should have a copy,” Candice said.

  It was my turn to grimace. “You mean the one I just asked her to fire?”

  Candice rolled her eyes. “You have the best timing. Still, if she requests the file, her old lawyer has to hand it over.”

  “Right away?” I asked hopefully.

  “Well, she is pressed for time,” Candice said. “But if she’s firing him after he’s been fighting for her for a couple of years, then he could drag his feet if he wanted to.”

  “We need to see what’s in that file as soon as possible,” I said. Holding up the folder of printouts of the articles I’d looked up, I added, “All I’ve got is what I printed off from online.”

  “There’s always the county clerk,” Oscar volunteered. “They keep a copy of the transcripts, photos, and motions for the judge. We could have them make us a copy.”

  Both Candice and I groaned. “That’ll take longer than Skylar has,” I said. It was true. I knew from experience that the typical turnaround time for court docs from old cases was at least two weeks.

  “At some point we’re going to have to interview the lead detective on the case,” Oscar said.

  “Who is it?” Candice asked him.

  “Ray Dioli.”

  “Oh, God. Him? That man’s a first-class asshole.”

 
“So you know him,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Yep. He and I got into it when I went down to APD to give my statement about Dr. Robinowitz.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, remembering Candice telling me about the incident involving the statement she’d had to give APD about the murder of a man from out of town. She’d been scheduled to meet with a Detective Grayson, whom I knew and liked, but Dioli had pulled some weight and he’d interviewed Candice for what should have been nothing more than a courtesy call, just to wrap up the case. In a move that surprised everybody, Dioli had grilled Candice for hours and hours until she’d finally thrown in the towel and called her attorney. It’d taken a couple of added phone calls from the upper echelon of the FBI to the upper echelon of APD to get Dioli to back off. “He’s that guy?”

  “I guess,” Oscar said, looking discouraged. Turning to Candice, he said, “He was really that bad?”

  “Worse,” she told him. “Well, if you guys meet with him, leave my name out of it. I’m pretty sure he won’t give you anything if he hears I’m working with you on this.”

  I sat back in the chair and frowned, trying to think of a solution. “Okay, then. Here’s what we’ll do. Oscar, call this Detective Dioli and see if he’ll meet with us, and in the meantime, I’ll put in a call to the office of the lawyer currently representing Skylar and see if I can’t convince him that I want to assist with the appeal. I’ll tell him that I met Skylar in the county lockup—there for unrelated reasons—and that I volunteered as an investigator to look into her case. Maybe he’ll give me a peek at her file out of the goodness of his heart.”

  Both Candice and Oscar eyed me with unveiled skepticism. “Riiiiight,” Candice said. “That’ll work.”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  Candice pursed her lips. “Not at the moment.”

  “Thought so,” I said, getting up to reach for my purse, as there was nothing more we could do for Skylar at the moment. “So, for now, that’s our game plan.”

  * * *

  Dutch beat me home from the office, which was unexpected. As I came through the door, I spied him on the couch, wearing boxer shorts and not much else. Oh, except for the single rose clutched in his teeth and the winning smile he was trying to curl around the thorny stem.