Nothing But the Truth (15 page)

“I suppose this note trumps that?”

Joyce slid a few pieces of paper across the counter. “I don’t really see how you reading something can constitute ‘action’ on my part. Especially not if you read it quickly.”

Brett complied, relying on her memory to capture anything of consequence. She skimmed the three stapled pages quickly then nodded to Joyce who slipped the report back in the file and into the filing cabinet before anyone else could notice. The only additional clue she’d gleaned from the full report versus the probable cause affidavit she read a few days before was the fact that the investigation began with a tip from an anonymous caller reporting prostitution of a different kind than was found when Ann was arrested. According to the caller, the location where Ann was arrested was hosting a wild sex party, not prostitution per se. Brett filed the piece of information away, certain it had some significance.

“Hey, girl, I was hoping I would find you here.”

Brett nearly jumped out of her skin, but quickly recovered and gave Jake Simmons a hug. She mouthed a quick thanks to Joyce then steered Jake out of the intake office and into the central area of the eleventh floor. Once they were standing close to the windows that faced downtown Dallas, she finally asked him what he had managed to find out about the Edwards case.

“I hate to disappoint you, but not much.” Jake shook his head. “I reached out to an old buddy of mine with a solid contact on the Richardson PD. They’re buttoned up like a virgin’s wedding dress on this one. Apparently, Mr. Duncan himself warned them he would crucify them in the press if they had any leaks. What’s in the papers is carefully crafted to reveal all they want to let out pretrial.”

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry, Brett. It’s obvious Duncan wants this case sewn up tight. The guy at Richardson made some comment to my buddy about how he wasn’t going to risk his job to keep the DA’s office from acting hastily. There may be something exculpatory there, but you’re going to need to get to someone closer to the case to get your hands on it.”

Brett grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Jake, I think that was exactly what I was hoping to hear.”

Jake looked puzzled, but returned her smile. “I don’t see how it’s much help, but let me know if I can do anything else.”

“I will.” As he walked toward the elevators, she had a sudden thought. “Hey, wait up!” Brett pulled him to the side. “I do want something else.” She tore a scrap of paper from a notebook and scrawled out the address she’d memorized from the grand jury notes she’d just reviewed. “Here, can you check out this address? Talk to any witnesses about a prostitution ring that might be operating there?” At his puzzled look, she realized he thought they were still talking about the Edwards case. “Sorry, different case entirely. Oh, and keep track of your time so you can bill me. Case reference: Rawlings.” He nodded and promised to call her with whatever information he found.

As Brett watched him walk toward the elevators, she had already shifted gears back to the Edwards case, and she was considering the logistics of setting up a meeting with the police and Kenneth Phillips. As if on cue, Ryan Foster appeared.

“Did you and Brian enjoy dinner at Five Sixty?”

The question was such a non sequitur to the thoughts of murder and punishment floating around in her head, Brett stumbled her response. “What? Huh? Dinner? Oh yeah, dinner was great. Too bad you couldn’t join us.”
Us? You mean you.
No way would she have wanted to share a meal with Ryan only to have her brother drooling over her ascent to a powerful office.

“I wish I could have,” Ryan replied and the emphasis on each word signaled she meant it. Brett wondered what a quiet dinner with Ryan would be like. She didn’t look like the type to enjoy the decadence of an expensive restaurant. She didn’t look like she enjoyed much at all beyond the thrill she seemed to get from working harder than anyone else in the office. Brett wanted to find out for herself if she could witness Ryan in a pleasurable moment and spontaneously decided to seize the opportunity. “Care to join me for dinner, maybe this Friday? I can’t promise Five Sixty on short notice, but I know a bunch of good places.”

Did she just ask me out? On a date?
Ryan was tempted to run full tilt back to her office to avoid having to figure out what just happened, let alone figure out how to respond. In her panic, she nearly missed Brett’s next words.

“Just two attorneys swapping war stories and fundamental ideas about our system of justice. You could look at it as a great opportunity for opposition research.”

Ryan let out her pent up breath. Not a date after all. Kind of a pseudo business dinner. She could do that. Couldn’t she? “Friday sounds great.”

Brett handed her a card. “Here’s my e-mail. Shoot me your address and I’ll pick you up. I’ll make a reservation, but nothing too dressy.”

Ryan shook her head. For some reason she couldn’t articulate, she didn’t want Brett to see her drab house. Nor did she want to cede control of the evening by not having her own transportation. “Since dinner’s your treat, I’ll pick you up. I’ll e-mail you, and you can reply with your address.”

“Deal.” Brett started to walk toward the elevators, then she realized she should take advantage of this friendly moment to talk to Ryan about Kenneth Phillips. Since Jake hadn’t been able to turn up any more information on the Edwards case, she may as well go ahead and confront the situation. She turned back. “Ryan?”

“Yes?”

“Turns out I do have some information on the Edwards case. Do you want me to talk to you or Jeff about it?”

What the hell?
Ryan didn’t know what to say in response. Did Brett just ask her out to pave the way toward a good deal for her new client, Ross Edwards? Ryan had talked to Edwards’s current attorney, Luke Tyson just yesterday and didn’t get a whiff from him that he was about to be fired. Maybe he didn’t have a clue. Trial was just a couple of weeks away. Ryan doubted Judge Langston would take kindly to a motion to substitute counsel. Those usually came with a request for continuance, which was even more unwelcome in Langston’s court.

Ryan wanted the dinner with Brett, but she wanted straight answers more. If Brett were playing her, she could save them both some trouble.
Only one way to find out.
“Are you signing on to represent Ross Edwards?”

Brett was surprised by the question, but quickly realized she shouldn’t be. Her sniffing around could definitely be construed as a stealthy takeover approach. She usually did like to do some checking around when a potential client who was already represented contacted her about representation. Potential clients who wanted to shed their current counsel often painted their lawyers as incompetent fools. Sometimes they were right, but more often a mix of unrealistic expectations and differing communication styles was the real problem. So Ryan thought she was after Edwards as a client. Brett could only imagine she was freaking out at the thought of having her nice neat trial timeline disrupted by the introduction of a new defense attorney.
Well, she’s in for a surprise.

“No. I’m not representing Edwards. But I do represent a person of interest.”

“A person of interest?”

“You’re probably going to want to sit down for this.”

She shouldn’t have made a date she knew she would have to break. Brett shook her head at her lapse in judgment. Inviting Ryan to dinner was a stupid move, even if a Friday dinner would have held a lot more promise than lunch in a busy diner. The rear table at this greasy spoon was not at all what she had envisioned when she first asked Ryan to join her for a meal, but it was where they ended up after Brett revealed the reason she needed to talk to Ryan in private about the Edwards case. She knew as soon as she told Ryan all about Kenneth Phillips, there would be absolutely no chance they would be having a nice romantic dinner anywhere.

Ryan pushed her fork around a plate of fruit and cottage cheese. Not very appetizing, in Brett’s opinion, and based on the amount left on Ryan’s plate, she felt the same. Brett couldn’t blame her for losing the desire to eat. If she were on the other side, finding out her rock solid case was falling apart, she might have left some fries uneaten. As it was, all that was left on her plate was a small dab of ketchup.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just tell me this the other day in my office.”

Ryan’s annoyance was palpable, further ruining any of Brett’s imaginings about what a real date with her would be like.

“You’ve never done any defense work, have you?”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything. I was merely checking in with you about your perspective. I have a duty to my client to make sure that I don’t reveal their confidences before I have their permission and before it’s appropriate to do so. You’re not bound by those same restrictions. I’m guessing you never have been.”

Ryan appeared to relax, but only slightly. “I did my first internship at this office and I’ve been here ever since.” She shrugged. “I don’t think I could do what you do. Don’t think I would care to.”

As much as she wanted to discuss how they were going to deal with Kenneth, Brett couldn’t resist following the thread of philosophical difference. “What if someone you loved was accused of a crime? Would you want them to hire an advocate, or just show up at the nearest police station and hope for fairness and mercy?”

Ryan considered Brett’s question. It wasn’t a fresh hypothetical. All criminal law attorneys had considered what they would do themselves if the cops came knocking, but any thoughts Ryan had ever had on the issue were fleeting. The only relative of hers that would even think to contact her if in trouble was her aunt, and Aunt Eunice was tucked away from all such troubles at the Pine Grove nursing home. The very idea of Aunt Eunice violating the law was laughable.

“My aunt is my only living relative, and it’s pretty unlikely she’ll ever need counsel.”

“What about you?”

Ryan stiffened. “What about me?”

“What if you found yourself in trouble?”

“Are you implying something?” Ryan punctuated her remark with a slight smile she didn’t feel and forced her tone to remain even. What was Brett implying? Ryan had only one secret, and it was so neatly tucked away in its own compartment of her being that she didn’t even consider it a part of the professional self she regarded as the whole of who she was.

“Don’t be silly.” Brett laughed. “I doubt we’ll ever see you, Miss Law and Order, on trial, but don’t tell me you’ve never considered what you might do if you were ever, let’s say, mistakenly arrested.”

“I haven’t. I suppose if such an unfortunate event ever occurs, I’ll figure out what to do. Now, can we resume discussing what to do about your client?”

“Sure. As I said, I represent someone who wants to come forward with information about the death of Mary Dinelli. I believe the information this person has may change your view of the individual who is currently charged.”

“Name?”

“I’ll let them tell you themselves, but before I bring this individual in, I need to know if you might be willing to take the death penalty off the table.”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

“I know you’re not likely to, but I know that you can.”

Ryan’s curiosity took hold, but she peppered her response with contingencies. “If your client has solid information that leads to a conviction without putting the taxpayers through the expense of a trial then I will consider a sentence that is something less than the death penalty. Just consider, not promise.”

Brett knew Ryan had just made a big concession. She thought about Kenneth’s whipped demeanor, so out of place for someone so young. Since she didn’t know much about the evidence to begin with, Brett found it difficult to assess whether Kenneth’s version of the crime was more egregious than whatever Ryan already thought. Taking him in, rather than having him show up at police headquarters, was certainly the better option. At least if she was there, she could stop the interview if things got nasty.

“Fair enough. I’ll call you this afternoon to arrange a meeting.”

“Actually, you should just come in this afternoon. I’m deep into trial prep. The faster you bring whoever this is in, the more likely I am to throw you a bone for saving me some time.”

Brett shook her head. She had to have a long and detailed conversation with Kenneth about his rights before she brought him in to face Ryan. “Tomorrow. We’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Nine a.m. Meet me at the DA workroom.” Ryan stood and grabbed her separate check. “See you then.” She stalked off and their “date” ended as abruptly as it had begun.

*

Ryan engaged every ounce of restraint she had to walk slowly away from Brett. She wanted to run back to the courthouse, away from the distraction of Brett’s vivacious charm and beauty, to think through the revelation Brett had shared. At the same time, she wanted to forget the case and enjoy sharing a meal with Brett. The latter wish might have been possible an hour ago, when they weren’t working in direct opposition, but now even an innocent dinner would have the appearance of impropriety.

She shrugged away the thought. She had no business socializing with Brett or anyone else for that matter. Not only did she have full slate at the office, she had a heavy schedule of pre-campaign appearances, and now her slam dunk, high profile case was about to be riddled with holes. She needed to focus on damage control.