Saving Grace (What Doesn’t Kill You, #1): A Katie Romantic Mystery

Chapter Nineteen

  I dumped my briefcase onto the counsel table with five minutes to spare. Emily looked at me with round blue eyes and raised eyebrows. Her long blonde hair was defying gravity, as usual, in a way that said, “I got up an hour early to sculpt this perfection.” Her nails were bright red, freshly painted. She wore a white blouse with tuxedo pleats under her version of Nick’s navy suit from the day before. She was bold and confident, everything that I was not today.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said before she could ask.

  “You look rode hard and put up wet,” she said.

  “That’s enough, Miss Rodeo Amarillo,” I replied, but without rancor. My friend did not lie. A great outfit couldn’t hide the truth from her.

  Zane was engaged in deep conversation with a woman in the first row of the spectator’s gallery. I studied him critically. He was dressed slightly less offensively today, except for his bright purple tie. He had a matching purple fedora with a zebra-striped hatband sitting in front of him. I grabbed it and stuck it under the table while his eyes were still glued to the breasts in row one.

  The state continued with their witnesses, building the blocks to their case, with Mack still taking the lead and Junie still gazing in awe at her engagement ring. Emily continued propping me up, although I was better than the day before. No egregious malpractice, at least, and that was a miracle.

  We broke for lunch halfway through our allotted time in front of the judge. I remained seated in my chair. A herd of wildebeests stampeded through my brain until a voice interrupted my trance.

  “How do you think we’re doing, counselor?” Zane asked.

  I thought I saw a flash of something in his mouth. Had he been eating chocolate? It looked as if he had something on his teeth. Whatever it was, hopefully it would come off when he ate lunch.

  “Um, everything is fine. No surprises. Just like we expected,” I said. Which was true. It wasn’t my whole truth, but he didn’t need that.

  Emily was standing on the other side of Zane. She drew his attention away from me and said, “It’s going great, Mr. McMillan. Katie is one of the best trial attorneys in the city. Is everything OK, from your perspective ?”

  I was giving Emily a raise when we got back to the office. Just then Zane checked her out, his elevator eyes taking long stops on every floor. I’d get her a spot bonus, too.

  “Nah, I’m good if you guys are good,” Zane said. “Just checking. I’m paying for no surprises,” he said. But he was mumbling, and his voice sounded different. It was an odd statement from an odd man.

  As Emily and I walked off to find ourselves some food, she said, “If Zane doesn’t quit staring at your ass when you stand up, the jurors are going to find him guilty just on general principles of common decency.”

  Ugh. I just wanted this trial to end so I could crawl in a hole and sleep for a week. Or a month. Or a year.

  After lunch, Mack put on the police officer who would testify about the bag of McZillion shoelaces they’d confiscated in the search of Zane’s condo. These shoelaces were the source of Zane’s angst from the day before. I’d researched the legality of the warrant and the resulting search, but I hadn’t had enough time or experience to reach a solid conclusion. Frankly, I had no idea what the right play was here—challenge or not? This was something Zane’s previous firm should have handled weeks ago, months ago, if it was to be done at all. Trial was the wrong place to go on the defensive on this issue, in my opinion, in front of a jury that already didn’t like Zane, if it had any sense. Shannon had agreed with me when I ran it by her. However, if I didn’t raise the objection, I’d risk upsetting my client and lose the right to appeal on the issue.

  Mack offered the search warrant into evidence. It was now or never, decision time. I could feel Emily and Zane watching me. I pictured myself objecting. In my mind’s eye, I saw the jury react, looking at Zane like he was a guilty dog barking. Besides, who the hell else carried around $150 custom-made Nike shoelaces with “McZillion” stitched in real gold thread? We weren’t arguing that the shoelaces belonged to someone else or that he hadn’t tied her up with them, anyway. Our only issue was whether she’d wanted him to.

  I thought of my father, and of all the hard-working officers I’d known in my life. This was ridiculous. I passed the witness without cross-examining him, and without objecting to the evidence. Zane needed to watch less crime drama and have sex with fewer strange women. He was just pissed the cops snagged three thousand dollars’ worth of his booty favors. He stared daggers at me from the other end of the table, and I pretended not to notice.

  The state finished the day and their entire case with Tabitha. When she stepped up to the witness box, I did a double take. The woman—all of twenty-five, maybe—had freckled pale skin and long wavy red hair. A younger version of my mother. Hell, a younger version of me, except with better breasts. The photos in the file hadn’t done the resemblance justice. Apparently McMillan had a type, in sexual partners and lawyers in rape trials.

  I shot a glance at Zane. The daggers were gone. He grinned back at me, exposing a silver grill with “McZ” written in embedded rhinestones. Oh my God. I didn’t grin back.

  “Take that off right now,” I ordered him, trying to whisper. “You look like you’re mocking her. Take it off before the jury sees you.”

  Zane flashed a wide smile at the jury. I watched in horror as the two women nearest us in the front row cringed in disgust. He pulled the grill out of his mouth and set it on the table, then leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. The prosecutor continued his direct exam of Tabitha, unaware of the distracting show my smarmy jerk of a client was putting on for the jury.

  I eyed the grill. No way was I touching that spit-covered metal monstrosity with my bare hands. I grabbed my Clorox Wipes handipack out of my purse, snatched a few out, and used them as a barrier between my skin and Zane’s saliva. I put the grill in the outside pocket of my leather briefcase, then shoved it away from me. I could dry-clean the case later.

  I would have to worry about Zane’s behavior later, too. Right now, my job was to make them forget about him and his vile grill while I handled the cross-examination of Tabitha Brown in such a way that the jurors didn’t think I was a big insensitive meanie.

  This was a challenging prospect, since I had some hard questions to ask her. But I could pass as her older sister, so I’d try to act like one. I channeled my inner loving-while-proving-she’s-a-liar big sister and got to my feet.

  “Ms. Brown, just a few questions. Before we begin, do you need anything? More water? A tissue?” Tabitha’s tears from her direct testimony still lingered in her lashes.

  “No ma’am, thank you.” Her voice was soft, high. Young. Innocent-sounding. She had dressed the part, too, in a Peter Pan-collared navy dress nipped in at her narrow waist with a thin belt in matching fabric. Sunday school teachers, eat your heart out.

  I asked her, “Had you met my client, Zane McMillan, before the night in question?”

  “No, ma’am, I had not.”

  “And you met him at Good Sportz?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “How?”

  “Yes, how did you come to meet him? Did he walk up to you and introduce himself, or did you have mutual friends that introduced you?”

  Some of the story that Zane had told me had come out during the state’s direct examination of Tabitha. All of it had come out in her deposition, which I had read in preparing for trial. Unfortunately, it was my job as defense counsel to make sure the jury heard all of it from the defense’s perspective. Which made me a shitheel.

  “I, uh . . .”

  “I apologize if this gets embarrassing for you, Ms. Brown. I certainly don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I’m going to have to ask you a direct question since you can’t think of an answer for me. So, did you have a note delivered to him with your phone number on it, asking him to text you if he wanted to ‘see some great
tits’?”

  Her voice got softer. “I may have.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did Mr. McMillan text you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you text him a picture of your bare breasts that you took yourself right there in the club?”

  I could barely hear her as she answered. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Brown, but could you speak just a little bit louder, so the jury can hear your answers?”

  She tried. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. Did Mr. McMillan then ask you to meet him in the VIP room?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And when you got there, did he ask you to perform oral sex on him in a private room?”

  She started to cry again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m sorry to make you remember this, Ms. Brown. It can’t be easy talking about what you did.”

  Mack jumped to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. That’s not a question.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Hutchison replied. “Remove that from the record,” he instructed the court reporter.

  I continued, not caring about the objection. The jury had heard me. “So you went into a private room and performed oral sex on a man you’d only just met because you’d texted him a photo of your bare breasts?”

  “Yes, but I—” Tabitha said.

  “Hold on, Ms. Brown. I only asked a yes or no question.”

  “But—”

  I cut her off. “Did Mr. McMillan ask you to leave Good Sportz with him for the purpose of having sex at your apartment?”

  “Yes, but when I got in the car I sobered up, and I changed my mind.”

  The jury had already heard all about her drug and alcohol use on direct. Now I objected. “Objection, as to everything but ‘yes’ as nonresponsive, Your Honor.”

  Judge Hutchison was agreeable today. “Sustained. Remove that from the record, please.”

  I knew the young woman wouldn’t give me the answer I wanted to my next question, but I asked anyway. The jury needed to see me do it.

  “Ms. Brown, Mr. McMillan couldn’t have sexually assaulted you because you consented to have sex with him at your apartment, isn’t that correct?”

  “No,” she protested, “I—”

  I interrupted her as I walked briskly toward my seat. “No further questions at this time, Your Honor.”

  Mack asked Tabitha a few more questions, then the judge excused her.

  My cross-exam of Tabitha lasted ten minutes. Ten minutes in which I felt like the world’s biggest sleaze, except for maybe my client. Zane deserved a good defense, or at least that was what they taught us in legal ethics class in law school, but I just wished I didn’t have to be the one providing it and putting all this tawdry garbage out into the universe.

  “We’ll reconvene at 9:30 tomorrow. Court is adjourned for today.” The judge banged his gavel and left the courtroom.

  I had managed to complete the whole day without turning into a gargoyle or collapsing into a snoring heap. I had survived Zane’s antics. Hell, I’d made it through two whole days. Two days on emotional empty defending a case I was clueless about for the world’s most obnoxious client. I was whipped.

  My goodbyes were even shorter than the day before. I bolted out of that courthouse and into my Accord, and drove away with my air conditioner cranking full blast. The August heat could wither stronger women than me in an instant, and I was far less than strong right now. I jerked out the bobby pins that had held my hair in its severe knot, snatched a kleenex from the console, and scrubbed my lipstick off. The urge to call my mother was so strong that I had my phone out before it even hit me that speed dial wouldn’t reach her where she was now.

  “Son of a bitch,” I screamed, and pounded the steering wheel. More softly, I repeated it. “Son of a bitch.”

  When I got home, I threw my contaminated briefcase down on the coffee table. Thank God I only had one more day, that I was home now, that I could hide from the eyes of everyone in that courtroom until tomorrow morning.

  I looked at the freezer. I knew what was in it. I wanted what was in it.

  I redirected my thoughts. A good cry might help. Or a hot shower. I should try one of those. Or both.

  Or neither. I opened the freezer and got out the icy-cold bottle of Ketel One. I pulled a can of V-8 out of the pantry. I retrieved a Waterford crystal tumbler and stir stick, thinking maybe my uptown drinking accessories would make me feel less low-class about this. I mixed my concoction, then used antique silver tongs to drop the ice cubes in gently, one at a time so they wouldn’t splash. I took one teensy sip. I’d pace myself, just have one to settle my nerves.

  I sat down on one of my barstools, the kind with the twirly seats. Hands on the black granite countertop, I twisted one way, then the other. I should make myself something to eat, I thought, but I didn’t want to. I could watch TV or read a book, distract my mind from recycling the last two days, before I dove back into prep for day three. I took another sip. And another.

  Tomorrow I’d put on our case, which included a few experts to rebut the state’s conclusion that sex between Tabitha and Zane was nonconsensual. We’d finish with our death blow, testimony from the roommate Sherry. Sherry’s testimony would plant reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds, no matter what I did. I would under no circumstances ever permit Zane, his roving eyes, and his enormous ego on the stand, so I didn’t have to worry about preparing for that.

  Maybe just one more drink. I could do tomorrow in my sleep. Or with a wicked hangover.

  I gave in and poured.

  ~~~