“Since we were both students of your dad, I’m going to consider myself your professional brother and give you some tough love. If you want to be in this career, you have to overcome your problems in the courtroom.”
This felt eerily familiar to the discussion I’d had with Elise when she wanted me to represent her ex-husband. I’d managed to figure out what happened in that case before I had to go into a courtroom. That wouldn’t always be possible.
By the wood pile, Russ was sitting on a log, directing the workers. I’d never seen him sit like a foreman rather than working alongside everyone else before. Maybe I should give up the whole lawyer thing and simply take over from Russ. Stacey still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to take the position as assistant manager or not. In fact, she seemed to be actively avoiding the conversation, which made me nervous.
Saul’s words came back to me. If you can do the career you love, you should. Too many people never get that chance.
Taking back the duties that Stacey had been handling had shown me how much I didn’t enjoy processing orders and doing payroll. I loved being a lawyer. I didn’t want to reach the end of my life and look back and wonder if I could have done it if I’d tried harder or hadn’t given up so soon.
Anderson and I had also talked casually about me joining his firm as a partner rather than launching my own. He understood that I’d only be willing to work specific cases, but he’d felt that having the Fitzhenry-Dawes name would be a fair tradeoff.
I’d been putting him off because it didn’t seem right to work a case and then hand it off to him for the trial. He’d end up doing a large portion of the work on my cases if I couldn’t see them through.
But it also didn’t seem fair to Clement to use him as a test case. It was a bit like learning to walk a tightrope without a net or safety harness. “I’m scared I’ll screw up and he’ll end up in prison because of me.”
The silence on Anderson’s end stretched.
My heart rate picked up to the same rate it would if I pulled out to pass a car and only then noticed another vehicle bearing down on me in the other lane. Never show weakness, my dad always said. People respect strength.
Anderson was such a devotee of my dad’s that I half expected him to quote it to me.
“That’s the risk we take,” he said softly. “It’s easy when they’re guilty. It’s not so easy with the ones we think are innocent.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I had to remember that Anderson admired my dad, but he wasn’t my dad. I’d had to fight to get my dad to view me as a competent equal. Anderson gave me that respect from the start. Granted, a lot of it had been due to my name rather than my abilities, but he’d also seen my investigative and problem-solving skills now as well.
“Listen,” he continued, “how about this? I’ll be co-counsel with you on this case if you’d like. You take point, but if it looks like you can’t handle it, I’ll be there to step in. Consider me your training wheels.”
6
The call I’d been expecting from Chief McTavish finally came in as I was putting together a salad to go with the chicken penne I’d cooked for dinner with Mark. It wasn’t going to be a fancy meal, but I was determined to be able to put together a few simple meals before we got married. When children came along, I didn’t want to raise them entirely on fish and chips dinners from A Salt & Battery.
“The blood spatter on Dodd’s clothes, skin, and hair was a match for Gordon Albright, and his wife confirmed that Albright would have been there under a standing invitation,” McTavish said. “I’m waiting now on the arrest orders. It should be done tonight. I’m sorry this didn’t work out the way you were hoping, but I’m confident he’s our guy.”
I understood. Clement looked guilty any way you turned it. This wasn’t the first time I’d worked a case that seemed like there was only one possible suspect, though.
“I’ll be by to talk to him tomorrow.”
“I was sure you would be.”
I disconnected with McTavish at the same time as Mark came through the door. The dogs rushed him with their happy wiggles, but I could have sworn Velma looked confused by his lack of take-out bags for her to try to sniff—and steal. Apparently, pasta was much less enticing than French fries because when I’d dropped a piece on the floor earlier, Velma snarfed it up and then spit it back out.
He did have a sheaf of papers with him.
I glanced at them sidelong. “What are those?”
“Pictures of flower options. My mom says you can’t put it off any longer. The florist needs to know.”
An unpleasant tingle ran from my shoulders to my hands. I knew I eventually had to deal with the flowers, but every time I tried, it brought back memories of my previous case. Even though it hadn’t been intentional, I’d gotten a person killed because of flowers. Elise had forgiven me, but forgiving myself was turning out to be harder than I’d expected.
“We’ll save the plants until after we eat, at least.” Mark shrugged off his coat. “You look frustrated. Is it from making dinner? Should I have brought take-out after all?”
I swallowed down a snort. Sugarwood’s resident baker Nancy, my friend Mandy, and Mark’s mom had all been taking turns giving me cooking lessons. Mark and I had a for-fun wager going about which of them I’d drive to quitting first.
“I almost wish that were the case. McTavish is arresting Clement Dodd.”
Mark gathered up utensils and plates while I carried the salad to the table. “I’m not surprised. You’ll see it when you get the report, but it was a straightforward autopsy. Cause of death was blunt force trauma. He had defensive wounds on his hands and arms, and nothing out of the ordinary in his stomach or on the toxicology screening. You might want to consider handing the case off to someone else. Based on what I saw, Dodd is guilty.”
I went back for the bowl of chicken penne and plunked it down on the table. Mark rarely drew conclusions from his autopsies. He felt his role was to present the evidence, explain his results in court, and allow the lawyers to draw arguments and conclusions from it all. For him to make a statement like that, it must really look like there wasn’t another solution. And he’d seen the crime scene. I still hadn’t. I wouldn’t receive pictures until I got the discovery package from the prosecution.
I dropped into my chair. “I tried to pass the case off to Anderson already. He wouldn’t take it.”
I recounted our conversation to Mark, and then he said grace over the food before we dug in. My pasta came out a little soggy, but otherwise, it wasn’t half bad.
“I think Anderson’s right that you should try going to court,” Mark said once he’d polished off half his plate. “This is a good case to do it on because…” He gave me a don’t-get-mad look. “Even your parents couldn’t win this one.”
I wanted to argue with him, but unless my parents found a procedural technicality that would call for a mistrial—and with Chief McTavish in charge, I doubted there’d been one—the case did look impossible. Clement’s insomnia made it unbelievable that someone else could have sneaked into the house with an already-dead Gordon Albright. And not only sneaked in. They would have had to splatter Gordon’s blood all over Clement without him noticing.
“The only other person in the house was his wife. Do you think a woman would have been capable of inflicting the wounds on Gordon?”
Mark shook his head. “Not a woman of Darlene Dodd’s size. She wouldn’t be able to create the force needed. Albright had wood fragments from the bucket in his wounds. It was swung so hard the bucket’s basically held together by the metal bands at this point.”
It was stupid to mourn for my bucket when a man had lost his life, but I couldn’t help it. I also couldn’t help wishing for the impossible. “I don’t want Clement to be guilty. He’s a nice man.”
“I remember you telling me how much you enjoyed meeting him the first time.”
No he might not be guilty. No there’s always a chance. Mark wasn’t a pessimist, but he was realistic. He wouldn’t want to build up false hopes in me.
Clement’s apparent guilt did seem to make this the perfect test case for me. A hopeless case meant I couldn’t screw it up. A client who was likely guilty but didn’t want to hide his guilt and hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone meant I could defend him in good conscience.
