An Insignificant Case, page 9
* * *
Three hours after Charlie met with Bridget Fournier, two of the detectives who were working the sex trafficking case drove Bridget to Guido’s farm. They followed Charlie into the yard and parked next to him when he stopped in front of the barn.
When Charlie got out of his car, he looked for Gary and Bob. When he didn’t see them, he thought they might be in the barn watching Guido paint, but Guido was alone. Bridget and the detectives followed Charlie into the barn.
“Hey, Guido,” Charlie said. “How is the painting going?”
Guido frowned. “I am being defeated by the light. Try as I may, I cannot get the correct effect of the sun as it is setting.” Guido shrugged. “It is a challenge that I must rise to.”
“This is Bridget Fournier. You probably recognize her from the arraignment in your case.”
“A pleasure, Miss Fournier. Are you French? I have never painted scenes from France, but I intend to expand my horizons someday.”
“My ancestors were from Aix-en-Provence.”
“Ah! Have you been there?”
Bridget nodded. “I spent a semester in France during my junior year in college.”
“Bien!” Guido said with a smile.
“So, Guido,” Charlie said, “we’re here because we’re worried about you. Your farmhouse and your studio were searched, and so was my office. Bridget and I are certain that the people who searched were looking for the items you took from Miss Hall’s safe, and we’re worried that you’re in danger as long as you have these items.”
Guido opened his mouth to reply, but he didn’t. Instead, he shifted his eyes toward the entrance to the barn. Charlie turned his head and saw three masked men armed with automatic weapons.
Charlie’s adrenaline kicked in, and everything moved in slow motion. One of the detectives swiveled toward the front of the barn and drew his gun. Several gunshots echoed through the barn, and the detective staggered and fell. The second detective fired a shot that hit one of the gunmen in the leg before the other two killed him.
Bridget froze. One of the armed men raised his weapon and pointed the barrel at her. Charlie picked up Bridget and dove behind the stack of hay bales on which Guido’s paints rested. They hit the ground just as several paint cans exploded, spraying them with a rainbow-colored cloud. The gunman walked toward the bales. Charlie covered Bridget with his body. The gunman looked down at Charlie, and their eyes locked. The killer aimed at Charlie’s head.
On a few occasions, Charlie had wondered how he would feel at the moment he died. It was probably the adrenaline working, but now that his death was imminent, he was perfectly calm.
This is it, he thought as he gave himself over to death. Then two explosions rocked the barn. The gunman arched backward, and his weapon flew from his hand. There were several more explosions. Then there was no noise at all.
“You can come out now, Charlie,” Gary Schwartz said. “These fuckers are down.”
Charlie felt Bridget’s breasts pushing into him, and he realized that he was pressed against her. He flushed and rolled off. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
Bridget didn’t answer. She seemed dazed. Charlie weighed over two hundred pounds, and he’d fallen on her. He helped Bridget to her feet. She looked down at her clothes. They were spattered with paint, and straw was stuck to her suit in places.
“How you doin’, Charlie?” Bob Malone asked. He and Gary were carrying sawed-off shotguns.
“I’m alive, thanks to you two.”
“Sorry we were late to the party,” Bob said. “We were bored, so we decided to take a beer break when we saw you and your friends drive up. We’re allergic to cops, so we made ourselves scarce until we heard the gunshots.”
Charlie stared at the carnage. The man who was going to shoot Charlie and Bridget was sprawled on the barn floor. Part of his head had disappeared. A second killer had a gaping wound in his chest. The third hit man had been shot by one of the detectives. He was alive, but his breathing was ragged.
Charlie bent over and threw up. Bridget helped him sit on a hay bale and gave him a handkerchief he used to wipe his mouth.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
“Don’t be. I’d be dead if you hadn’t tossed me over the hay bales.” Bridget took out her phone.
“Who are you calling?” Charlie asked.
“We need an ambulance, a crew from the crime lab, and homicide detectives.”
Charlie looked alarmed. “What about my friends? I don’t want them to get in trouble.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you hired them to protect Mr. Sabatini?”
“Yes.”
“Then they did their jobs, and they saved our lives too. No one is going to come after them.”
“Gary will see to your man until the ambulance arrives,” Bob said. “He was a medic in the marines.”
Bridget started making calls, and Charlie noticed Guido. He had a wide smile on his face, and he was working on his painting.
“What the fuck, Guido? Were you just standing there while everyone was shooting?”
Guido shrugged. “God protects me.”
“Are you an idiot? You could have been killed.”
“Not while I have the items from the safe. No one shot at me.”
“That’s because they wanted you alive so they could torture you to force you to tell them where you hid the stuff you took from the safe. If you give the items to Miss Fournier, no one will have a reason to hurt you, and you can paint in peace.”
Bridget turned toward Guido. “Mr. Sabatini, do you have a list with the names of men who had sex with women at Leon Golden’s estate and a film of one of these girls being murdered?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“That’s evidence that can put evil men behind bars. Don’t you think God would want you to help me punish these men for what they did?”
“The ways of the Lord are mysterious. I don’t know why he has saved me, but I believe it is because I have kept the items from the safe.”
Charlie could see that Bridget was getting frustrated.
“You know I can have you locked up for obstructing my investigation?” she said.
“Do what you think is right,” Guido said.
“That’s not going to work, Bridget,” Charlie said. “Guido will sit in your jail cell until hell freezes over.”
Bridget sighed. “You’re right.” She turned to Guido. “At least let me put you somewhere where you’ll be safe.”
“I am perfectly safe here.”
“Will you be okay with my leaving people to protect you?”
Guido shrugged. “Do as you wish. As long as they do not interfere with my painting, I don’t care.”
Bridget shook her head. Then she went over to the wounded detective and stayed with him. When she heard sirens, she walked into the yard. Two ambulances followed by a marked and an unmarked police car stopped in front of her. Charlie watched her talk to the officers, detectives, and medics. A minute later, the medics carried the wounded detective and gunman to different ambulances.
Bridget walked over to Bob and Gary. “One of the officers was upset about the sawed-offs. I told him you two saved my life and no one could touch you. But they do need your statements. Would you be willing to tell one of the detectives what happened? I was on my back, staring at the ceiling, and I have no idea.”
“No problem,” Gary said.
Bridget led the two Barbarians over to a man who was standing next to the unmarked car and introduced them. Then she walked back to Charlie.
“I told the lead detective what I knew. I also said that we were really shaken up. He’s going to let us give a full statement tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”
“You bet.”
“I came with the detectives, so I don’t have a way to get back to town. Could you give me a lift?”
“Definitely.”
Bridget looked embarrassed. “In all the excitement, I never thanked you for saving my life. You were very brave.”
Charlie turned red. “Brave is when you know what’s going on, you weigh your options, and do the right thing. Honestly, Bridget, I can’t even remember what I did. I just reacted.”
Bridget smiled. “Don’t get all modest on me, Charlie. A coward would have saved himself. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Charlie’s flush deepened.
“Hey,” Bridget said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Do you think that’s a normal reaction after what we went through?”
Charlie smiled. “I don’t know what you’ve been through in your life, but this is my first time being attacked by homicidal assassins, so I can’t answer your question. But I could go for a stack of pancakes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Charlie drove to a restaurant that served breakfast all day. Bridget was quiet during the ride, and Charlie didn’t feel much like talking either. When they parked, Bridget got out and looked down at her paint-spattered clothes.
“God, I look like a piece of abstract art.”
Charlie laughed and took off his suit jacket. “Put this on and only the bottom of your skirt will show.”
“Sir Walter Raleigh would be proud of you,” she said as she slipped on the jacket.
Charlie and Bridget ordered pancakes, bacon, and coffee.
“The people behind the attack at the farm must be desperate if they’re willing to attack a DA and police detectives,” Charlie said when the waitress left with their order.
“What Guido has must be dynamite,” Bridget agreed. “Do you have any idea how we can convince him to turn it over?”
Charlie shook his head. “The guy’s a space cadet.”
“Or a really cool customer. He was right, you know. Those hit men never took a shot at him.”
“Something just occurred to me,” Charlie said. “Those killers showing up at his farm just when we did. Was that a coincidence, or did they know you were coming?”
“How would they know?”
“Did you tell anyone we were meeting at the coffee shop?”
“I mentioned it to Nick DeCastro, the head of the unit, because you said you had info about our sex trafficking case. And one of the detectives could have said something.”
The waitress brought their coffee, and Charlie and Bridget stopped talking. While the waitress set out their napkins, forks, spoons, and knives, Bridget thought about the attack. It was an act of desperation, and that gave her an idea.
“Did you grow up in Oregon?” Charlie asked when the waitress left, anxious to talk about anything that would create distance from the terrible events in the barn.
“No, Chicago,” Bridget answered.
“How did you get out here?”
“I applied to law schools on the West Coast, and Lewis & Clark offered me a scholarship. What about you?”
“I’m a third-generation Oregonian. Did you always want to be a prosecutor?”
“Oh yes. My folks owned a grocery store in a dangerous area—lots of drugs, lots of guns, lots of wrecked lives. They were robbed so many times that they sold it. I was old enough to understand how awful that decision had been for them, and I’ve wanted to put bad guys away since I was a little girl.”
Charlie smiled. “You seem to be living your dream. None of the defense attorneys I know want to lock horns with you.”
Bridget laughed. “You didn’t do so badly.”
Charlie blushed. “I got lucky.”
“You destroyed my arresting officer. That had nothing to do with luck.”
Charlie’s blush deepened. “He shouldn’t have lied.”
“Too true. I was really pissed. He lied to me from the get-go, and we had a long talk after the case ended.”
“Oh, I thought you were mad at me because the judge granted my motion.”
“I’m sorry you thought that. I was never mad at you.”
Before Charlie could say that he was glad, the waitress brought their order, and they both dug in, grateful that the act of eating kept the horror of the shoot-out at bay.
* * *
Charlie dropped Bridget at her condo in Southeast Portland and drove home. As soon as he was in his apartment, he stripped off his dirty clothes and headed for the shower. While the hot water pounded down on him, he smiled as he thought about their meal at the restaurant. Bridget had put away a stack of pancakes smothered in maple syrup, and four strips of bacon. Most of the women he dated asked if their food was gluten-free, wouldn’t touch a slice of bacon with a ten-foot pole, and barely touched what the waiter brought because they were watching their figure.
Before their ordeal, Charlie had a pretty negative opinion of the prosecutor. He’d seen her the way most of the defense bar did—a rigid, hard-nosed DA who lacked a sense of humor. He still didn’t think she’d cut him a break, despite what they’d gone through together, but she seemed less like a killing machine now that he’d spent some time with her. And he was definitely relieved that her anger in Peter Easley’s case was aimed at her witness and not at him.
Charlie toweled off and dressed in sweats. Then he got a beer and sat on his sofa and channel surfed, looking for a show that would help him forget his near-death experience.
* * *
Bridget Fournier’s condo was close enough to the Willamette River and high enough to give her a view of Portland’s skyline, but she had no interest in the view when she was safely inside.
She took off her paint-stained clothes and dropped them on the floor. Then she walked into her shower. When the hot water poured down on her, she began to shake. She sank down on the floor of the shower and let the water cascade over her as she recalled how close she’d come to dying. If Charlie Webb hadn’t thrown her over the hay bales, she would not exist.
She took deep breaths to calm herself. She was alive. She was not dead. She had survived. She was okay. Thanks to Charlie Webb.
The only other contact she’d had with Charlie had been in the Peter Easley case. Everyone in the office had assured her that he wasn’t too bright and wouldn’t put up much of a fight. But they’d been wrong. Charlie had surprised her by figuring out that her key witness was lying, then proving it in court. Today, he had fooled her again by saving her life when most people in their situation would have saved themselves.
Bridget stopped shaking. She stood up, grabbed the soap, then the shampoo, and scrubbed the horror off her skin and out of her hair. When she was completely clean, she threw on sweats and clean socks. Then she poured a stiff shot of very good scotch she saved for special occasions, having decided that not dying constituted a valid reason for celebrating.
While she sipped her drink, Bridget thought about Charlie. To date, she had not had a successful romantic relationship. There had been close calls—a romance in law school with a boy who couldn’t handle the fact that Bridget was smarter than he was, and a brief fling with a partner in a civil firm. Nothing had stuck.
Bridget liked how humble Charlie had been after saving her life. And if memory served, he hadn’t gloated after beating her in court.
She took another sip of scotch and decided to stop thinking about Charlie Webb. They were on opposite sides of a murder case, and that ruled out any chance of getting to know him better. Assuming that he would want to know her better.
After a while, she focused on an idea she’d gotten while they were eating their pancakes. It wasn’t a great idea, but it might have great results if it worked. She would flesh it out tomorrow. Today, she was going to find the dumbest comedy movie on her television and try to forget the sight of the gun barrel that had come within inches of her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Charlie spent the early part of the next day at police headquarters telling a homicide detective everything he could remember about the shoot-out at Guido’s farm. When he finished, he went to his office.
Elin Crane was sitting on a couch in the reception area. Before he could go to her, his receptionist stood up and stared.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “It was all over the TV and the internet that someone tried to kill you.”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said as several of the lawyers, secretaries, and paralegals in the suite crowded around him and wouldn’t drift off until he assured them that he was in one piece.
Charlie started to talk to Elin, but the receptionist interrupted him.
“Mr. Webb, Mr. Roman called several times. He wanted you to call him as soon as you got in. He said it’s urgent.”
Elin stood up. “Do you have a moment to meet with me?”
“I do, but I have to make a call first. Can you wait?”
“I can come back.”
“No, wait. This won’t take long.”
Charlie shut his office door. He was sure he knew why his cocounsel was calling. He’d acted impulsively when he’d met with Bridget Fournier and asked the DA to come to Sabatini’s farm. It had dawned on him when he was home and safe that he should have called Roman before talking to Bridget.
“The shoot-out is all over the news. Are you okay?” Roman said when they were connected.
“Miraculously, yes.”
“They said that you went to Guido’s farm with Fournier.”
“That’s right.”
“So, the reporters got it right? You took the person in charge of sending our client to death row to talk to him?”
“Uh, well, I had an idea.”
“A fucking bad, awful idea. What were you thinking, and why didn’t you run it by me? That’s what cocounsels are for. We’re supposed to tell you that the idea you thought was so brilliant is really, really stupid.”
“You’re right. I went off half-cocked.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“I thought Bridget could convince Guido to turn over the evidence he took from Hall’s safe, and we could make a deal.”
“Jesus, Charlie. Did you think Fournier would let Guido walk?”
Charlie felt awful. “I guess I didn’t think it through. I was more worried about getting Guido out of danger.”
