Murder Charge (Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Book 9) Read online

  MURDER CHARGE

  A JESSIE BLACK LEGAL THRILLER

  LARRY A. WINTERS

  CONTENTS

  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

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Return of the Prosecutor (Jessie Black Legal Thrillers, Book 10)

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  Books by Larry A. Winters

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2022 by Larry A. Winters

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  1

  The doorbell rang—unusual at this hour. Brooke Sutton, upstairs, paused over her geometry book. The doorbell was followed by someone pounding on the front door. That’s when she knew.

  Her breath stopped. The book slid off her lap, forgotten.

  Her bedroom was directly above the foyer. She heard the front door open, heard her father’s voice: “We’re just about to have dinner—”

  Heard another voice say, “Is Brooke home, Mr. Sutton?”

  The second voice belonged to Wallace Clarke, the man who had invited her to call him Wally when he and his partner, Hugh Griffith, interrogated her at the police station.

  “We’re about to eat,” her father said. Then: “Hey, what are you—”

  Her mother’s voice: “You can’t just barge in here!”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sutton, but we can. See?”

  The sound of rustling paper.

  Then her mother’s voice, at a higher pitch: “What is this?”

  “Hold on,” her father said. “What are you saying—”

  “They’re here to arrest Brooke!” her mother said.

  “You can’t do that.” Her father’s voice, breaking on the last word.

  She heard the detectives’ heavy footsteps as they advanced inside.

  Listening to the confrontation downstairs, she had stopped breathing—easier to hear that way. Now, realizing she had minutes at most, she rolled off her bed.

  The bottom step let out its usual creak as the men mounted the stairs.

  Her mother’s voice: “I’m calling my dad.”

  “We don’t need your father, Marnie.”

  “Obviously we do.”

  Brooke knew if the police had a warrant for her arrest, they also had a warrant to search her room. She looked around, racked her brain. Was there anything she didn’t want them to find?

  “Brooke?” Detective Clarke’s voice came louder now, from the landing. “It’s Wally.”

  Her gaze jumped around the bedroom. She had stopped keeping a diary over a year ago, so no humiliating teenage musings would become public. There were texts on her phone, some social media posts she wished she could take back, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Her phone was the first thing they’d take.

  Laptop? They would take that, too. She sat down at her desk and opened the computer. She had tried to hide her search history using Google’s incognito mode, but now that precaution seemed laughable. How long would it take the police to find everything? Minutes, probably.

  A shadow fell over her as the two detectives strode into her room. Her parents rushed in after them. Her father’s hands were balled into fists. Her mother gripped her iPhone.

  “Hello, Brooke.” The corners of Wallace Clarke’s eyes crinkled, but Brooke had spent enough time with the detective to see through his fake smiles. When he wasn’t pretending to be her friend, his face turned wolfish, mean. Now his gaze went to the laptop in front of her. His partner, Detective Griffith, plucked it off the desk, closed it, and carefully slid it inside a clear plastic bag. Then he reached for her phone.

  “Hey, no—” Brooke tried to grab her phone, but Clarke seized her wrist and held her hand firmly on the surface of her desk. Griffith took the phone off the desk. A pen and a highlighter rolled over the edge.

  “Listen to me, Brooke,” Detective Clarke said. “You’re under arrest.”

  Her wrist started to hurt where he held it. She met his gaze. Friendly Wally was completely gone now. All she saw in the detective’s face was the calm determination of a man doing his work.

  “Stand up.”

  “I didn’t do it.” Her voice quavered.

  Her father said, “She’s just a kid!”

  “Stand up,” Clarke repeated. “We don’t need to use handcuffs unless—”

  “No, listen.” Brooke stood up, but her legs felt unsteady. “Listen. You’re making a mistake. I didn’t—”

  “You have the right to remain silent. And you have the right to an attorney. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Clarke gave her a meaningful look. “Brooke, are you hearing me?”

  His expression sliced through her panic. Stop talking—that’s what he was telling her. She realized it was a small gesture of kindness—maybe the last she would receive from the Philadelphia Police Department. So she listened. She closed her mouth. Clarke nodded.

  “We understand and we’re calling our lawyer right now.” Her mother had her iPhone pressed to her ear. Into the phone, in a trembling voice, she said, “Dad….”

  2

  Jessie Black should have realized something was wrong when she saw his neck.

  Oliver Bowers was one of the only lawyers at Hammond Rose & Rivera who still wore a tie to the office every day, regardless of whether he had a client meeting or a court date. The suit jacket might come off on a busy day, draped on the back of a chair, but the tie never moved.

  Today, the top two buttons of his shirt were open, revealing his undershirt and his pale, fleshy throat. His face looked more lined than usual—more weary. And his tie lay on his desk.

  He stared across his desk at her, and his eyes, deep-set in his unfriendly, blunt face, locked solely on Jessie, ignoring her junior associate, Aliyah Allen,
who sat stiffly in the chair beside her.

  A flurry of snowflakes whipped past the windows behind Bowers’s head. The wind made no sound that she could hear. So different from the rattly windows of the DA’s Office, where she used to hear every blast and howl of winter.

  Like all of the office space in the tower occupied by Hammond Rose & Rivera, LLP, Bowers’s corner office was tightly insulated, its temperature perfectly regulated. Except that right now, the air seemed just slightly too warm. And it smelled—a faint odor of liquor.

  “Oliver, have you been drinking?”

  “How is that any of your—” He shook his head and sighed. “A few fingers of bourbon to steady my nerves after Marnie called. My daughter.”

  “Start from the beginning. You said your granddaughter has been accused of murder?”

  “Arrested. They put her in some jail called Riverside. Do you know it? I assume you do.”

  “I know Riverside.”

  “I have a car waiting outside. I want you with me.” His gaze flicked to Aliyah. “Both of you.”

  In her peripheral vision, Jessie saw Aliyah cross her arms over her chest and turn away.

  “Give us a few minutes to get our things,” Jessie said.

  Back in her own office, Jessie glanced at her desk, where a plastic fork jutted from a half-eaten salad next to a sheet of paper covered in notes and numbers. Jessie tossed the remainder of the salad into her trash can but paused over her scribbled notes. Before Bowers had summoned her, she had been focused on her other project—house-hunting. She and Leary had just put in a bid on a house in Devon, a house they could suddenly afford thanks to Jessie’s move from the government sector to the private one. Their real estate agent believed their bid would be accepted. Soon they would be leaving their Center City one-bedroom apartment behind and moving to a three bedroom, two story house in the suburbs. She checked her phone for a message, but saw none. She called Leary.

  “Did Darla call you?” she said, referring to their real estate agent.

  “Hello to you, too.” She sensed a smile in his voice.

  “Sorry. The wait is killing me.”

  “You want to run out for a coffee?” he said.

  “I would like that, but I can’t. I need to go to Riverside.”

  “New case?”

  “I think so.” She pulled on her coat. “I’ll give you the details later.”

  “Don’t forget we have Moreno’s funeral. Assuming you still want to go. I’m not sure it’s a good idea, but—”

  “I still want to go.” Aliyah appeared in her doorway, bundled in a heavy gray coat and hat. Jessie motioned her into the room. “Leary, I need to head over to the jail. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  She put her phone away and looked out her window. From this angle, peering down at the snow-shrouded street below, she could see a long black car idling at the curb. Smoke curled from its exhaust.

  “Bowers hates us,” Aliyah said. “Why did you agree to help him?”

  Jessie took a breath and turned to face Aliyah. The smooth brown skin of the young lawyer’s face was taut, her posture stiff. It was not an unreasonable question. Looking back, Jessie’s response had been impulsive. She had agreed before hearing any of the facts, any of the details of the case. And Aliyah was right that Bowers was no friend to either of them—the senior partner had tried multiple times to kick them out of the firm.

  Who are you kidding? You know exactly why.

  The truth was, Bowers had had her at the word murder.

  She missed being a prosecutor. Sometimes, she woke from dreams in which she still was a prosecutor. Dreams in which the upheavals in her life never occurred.

  The sudden changes had started in November of the previous year, when a politician named Damon Faber seized control of the District Attorney’s Office in an election victory no one had seen coming. Jesus Rivera was ousted from the office he’d held for over a decade, and with him everything Jessie had loved about her job as a homicide prosecutor.

  Then Rivera had offered her an opportunity. He had joined a prestigious law firm called Hammond Rose—now Hammond Rose & Rivera—and he thought she would be a good fit there. So she had crossed to the other side of the courtroom to practice white-collar criminal defense representing rich tax cheats and embezzlers in federal court.

  Faced with the glum reality of her new career, how could she not jump at the chance for a murder trial?

  But she wasn’t sure Aliyah would understand, so she side-stepped the question. “We’re not helping Bowers. We’re helping his granddaughter.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “She’ll be our client. Not him.”

  “I don’t trust him.” Aliyah looked skeptical. “It’s hard to believe you trust him.”

  “You don’t need to trust Bowers. Just trust me. Okay?”

  Aliyah seemed to consider. “I’m trying to.”

  “That’s all I can ask for.”

  They both turned as Jessie’s doorway darkened with Bowers’s stocky frame. He glared at them. “Ready?”

  3

  They rode the elevator down to the lobby and walked out to the street. Snowflakes swirled in the breeze, wetting Jessie’s cheeks. A nondescript Lincoln idled at the curb, exhaust pluming—the car she’d seen from her office window. The driver got out, jogged around the vehicle, and opened the rear door. A wave of warm air billowed from the interior, where two bench seats faced each other. Bowers gestured for Jessie and Aliyah to get in.

  Despite the inviting warmth, Jessie found herself hesitating. She took a breath and forced herself to slide onto one of the seats. The stiff leather crackled beneath her and a smell of pine-scented air freshener filled her nose. A moment later, Aliyah ducked inside, folding her long, reedy figure through the doorway and sitting beside her. Bowers climbed in last and settled heavily onto the seat across from them. The driver slammed the door with a bang.

  The car’s interior was warm, quiet, and shadowy due to the tinted windows.

  Bowers yanked his seatbelt across his chest with a grunt. His thickset body seemed to fill the car, leaving little room for Jessie and Aliyah. A moment later, the driver got behind the wheel, and Bowers said, “Let’s move.” The limo pulled away from the curb.

  Jessie sat back and studied the man across from her. He had put his tie on—neatly knotted—and mustered his usual expression of superiority, but he wasn’t able to completely mask the nervousness below the surface.

  “Have you been to Riverside before?” she asked him gently.

  “Of course not. Do I look like someone who frequents juvenile detention facilities?”

  Jessie heard the word juvenile and winced. “Oliver, Riverside isn’t part of Juvenile Services. It’s an adult facility. No one told you?” Riverside Correctional Facility, part of the city’s prison system, was where adult female inmates were held awaiting trial.

  “Brooke is only fourteen. I didn’t think….” His voice faltered. “Aren’t there special places for minors?”

  “In Pennsylvania, the regular criminal courts have jurisdiction for all murder cases, even where the accused is a child.”

  “No.” Now his mask of confidence was completely gone. He shook his head. “That can’t be right.”

  “Your granddaughter is fourteen?” Aliyah pulled a legal pad from her bag.

  Bowers blinked at her. “What are you doing? Taking notes?”

  “Do you not want me to?”

  “No, it’s … that’s fine.”

  “If Brooke is fourteen,” Jessie said, “we can file a motion to transfer her case to the juvenile system.” She glanced at Aliyah. “I’ll need you to research the law on that, check what the standard is, pull some recent cases. Start putting together an argument.”

  Jessie expected Aliyah to readily agree—research and writing were her strong-suits—but the young woman only stared down at her legal pad.

  “You’re talking abou
t this like it’s an ordinary day at the office,” Bowers said. “This is an emergency. Brooke is in a real jail with adults—killers. We need to do something now.”

  “We will, but we can’t rush it.” Jessie hesitated before saying more, but decided holding back now would accomplish nothing. “Oliver, there’s more at stake here than the dangers of jail. The penalties are different. If Brooke is tried as an adult and found guilty of murder, she’ll face life in prison or the death penalty, but if she’s tried as a minor in the juvenile system, we can get her rehabilitation or therapy instead.”

  Bowers’s face blanched.

  “We’ll only have one shot,” Jessie said. “We need to make the motion as strong as possible. We need to get it right.”

  “Yes, but—” Bowers shook his head as if to clear it. “You’re talking about a guilty verdict. Brooke’s not guilty.”

  “I’m talking about worst case scenario,” Jessie said.

  “Of course.”

  “Maybe, during this drive, you can give us the details. What is your granddaughter’s full name?”

  “Brooke Sutton.”

  “Wait a second.” Aliyah fumbled her legal pad and it fell against her legs. “Sutton? Is this … is this the Shaun Marrow case?”