Silent Witness, page 1
part #2 of Cass Leary Series
Silent Witness
A Cass Leary Legal Thriller
Robin James
Robin James Books
Copyright © 2019 by Robin James Books
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Foreword
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
Epilogue
Up Next for Cass Leary
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About the Author
Also by Robin James
Foreword
This book is the second in the Cass Leary Legal Thriller Series. It has been written with enough background detail so that you may enjoy it as a standalone. However, the series is best enjoyed when read in the following, chronological order.
Book 1 - Burden of Truth
Book 2 - Silent Witness
Book 3 - Devil’s Bargain
Chapter 1
An eerie stillness settled over Finn Lake. Sugary snow fell, brushing against my cheeks as I stepped to the water’s edge. Pure white filled the sky and covered the lake. It was hard to know where one began and the other ended. I took that first, halting step out, waiting to hear the ice break. It didn’t. It wouldn’t. Winter magic. The lake would stay frozen like this for weeks now.
This pureness wouldn’t last though. By morning, ice fishermen would dot the landscape with their tents. Behind me, I heard my brother Matty rummaging through the shed to set up his own. I smiled. He’d been staying with me since Christmas. His wife Tina had thrown him out claiming it was for good. I expected her divorce complaint in my inbox any day now.
Even with all Matty’s family turmoil, things had been peaceful with my family over the last two months. We all spent the holidays together. The last time that happened was before my mother died. Only my father was missing, but that’s what accounted for the peace.
The snow crunched beneath my feet as I trudged up the hill toward the house. Left to his own devices, Matty might tear the shed apart to find what he needed. A small beach chair flew by my head as I approached. I ducked neatly, barely avoiding having it crash against me.
“Do you mind?” I asked. “Joe said he put all the winter stuff in the hall closet upstairs. He didn’t want it to get wet.”
Matty made a noise and let out a stream of obscenities as he crashed into a few more things on his way out of the shed. Before I could get the words out to warn him, he banged his head on the doorframe as he came out. Blood trickled down his forehead as he looked at me with wild eyes.
“Nice work,” I said. “Don’t hurt my door!” But I was still smiling as I walked up to him. I pressed my mitten against the wound as I led him up to the house.
“Joe was supposed to fix the roof on that piece of shit,” Matty said as he took a paper towel from me and planted himself on the living room couch. “We wouldn’t have to worry about anything getting wet out there if …”
“Save it,” I said, pulling the first aid kit out from under the kitchen sink. I tossed a bottle of antibiotic cream at my brother. He caught it one-handed and grumbled some more as I ripped off a wad of paper towels. Regardless of his temper, I was proud of him. Matty had stayed on the wagon all through the holidays, his break-up with Tina, and his current employment status. He’d been working odd jobs around the lake, waiting for a callback at the machine shop in town. Though no one would admit it, I felt fairly certain his layoff had more to do with my choice in clients than anything else.
Late last year, I’d defended the girl accused of murdering the town’s basketball coach and former hero. It had ripped the town apart and things hadn’t completely returned to normal. Maybe they never would. There would always be those who blamed me for busting up a piece of the good ol’ boy network of Delphi, Michigan, population 8953. No matter how far I went, how high I flew, I was still a Leary to the people of this town. Still east-side-of-the-lake trash.
“I’ll take a look at it after my damn head stops bleeding,” he said.
“Good idea. I’ve got to go into the office for a little while. I’ve got a hearing to prep for. And don’t be a baby. It’s barely a scratch.”
His scowl melted me. Matty had been giving me the exact same look since he was a baby. From the time he was six years old on, I’d done most of the mothering in his life. He was twenty-six now, but some things never changed.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked. “I know that look. You’re about to get all weepy on me or something.”
I went up to him and smoothed the wild hairs away from his forehead. He had our mother’s eyes, clear, blue, and mirroring everything he thought. Right now, he was about to flip me off.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s just, for the first time since I came back here, things are starting to feel almost normal.” I’d spent over a decade working for the Thorne Law Group, a high-powered law firm in Chicago. I might be there still if it hadn’t gotten too dangerous. Some of my client’s dealings had landed me in the crosshairs of the FBI. I’d danced with the devil and barely lived to tell the tale. But now I was home.
He raised a brow. “You know what Granny Leary would say. Quick, two Hail Marys and an Our Father or you’ll jinx us.”
I grabbed my coat off the hook by the door and slid the strap of my leather messenger bag over my shoulder. “Shows how much you know. It was five Glory Bes.”
Matty sat back and put his feet up on the coffee table. Two brown chunks of ice slid off the tread of his boots. He at least had the decency to wipe it with the paper towel before steam came out of my ears.
My phone buzzed as a text came through from Miranda, my secretary. I’d left my phone on the coffee table about two inches from Matty’s boot sludge.
“Told ya,” Matty said. “That’s probably hell breaking loose right now.”
“Shh,” I said. “You’re the jinx.” I was only able to read three words of Miranda’s text from the home screen before the message disappeared. “Better call Detective …”
I picked up the phone to unlock it and read the rest of it. Call Detective who? Other than a few speeding tickets, I mercifully didn’t have any criminal cases for the time being. I’d asked to be taken off the court-appointed list after the Coach Drazdowski trial in November. My civil docket was keeping me more than busy these days.
“I’m tellin’ ya,” Matty said, smiling. “You’re teasing the devil.” He managed a fairly accurate impression of our grandmother’s thick Irish brogue as he recited her favorite saying. Bridget Leary was also convinced each and every one of us was headed straight for hell. Some days, I thought she might be right.
I pulled up my contacts, ready to just call Miranda back. Better to have a heads-up about what detective needed my attention than to just dive right in. I never got the chance. Instead, my phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize. It was a 734 area code though.
“Cass Leary,” I said, bracing for the answer. It was probably just Matty’s superstition getting under my skin. Still, a shadow fell across my heart in the time it took for the caller to take a breath.
She was crying. No. More like screaming. Her voice was so loud, Matty heard it all even though I didn’t have the phone on speaker.
“Help me! Please. They’re here. They’re saying ... God!”
“Whoa,” I said. “Just hold on. Slow down. I don’t know what …” I meant to ask who it was. Something was happening in my brain. It was as if I were on a time delay. The woman on the other end of the phone kept screaming. She was frantic. Frenzied. Panting. But time caught up with me and I recognized the voice with cold clarity.
Vangie. It was my little sister Vangie. And she was scared to death.
“Help me,” she screamed. “Oh God. Help me!”
Chapter 2
“Vangie?” I asked, trying to keep my own voice calm. “Vangie, are you hurt? What’s the matter? Where are you calling from?”
It didn’t make sense. After the Drazdowski trial, Vangie had gone back to Indianapolis. She’d been a key witness for me, laying her personal life wide open to save my client. Without her, an innocent girl would be serving life in prison for a murder she didn’t commit.
But now Vangie was screaming. She was terrified. I tried to calm my brain. No. Vangie was safe. She’d gone back home. She had a good job there, tending bar at an upscale restaurant. We’d seen her for two days at Christmas just a few weeks ago. She shouldn’t be calling from a 734 area code.
There was shouting on the other end of the phone. Two deep male voices.
Matty was off the couch. He’d heard enough to know something was very wrong. I put a hand up to quiet him.
“Cass,” she screamed. “You have to ... I didn’t …”
I took a breath and realized I was trying to will my sister into doing the same thing from the other end of the phone.
“Vangie, I need you to calm down and tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”
She sobbed into the phone. I heard more shouting and then some pounding, like running footsteps. Matty pulled on my arm.
“I can’t ... just sit down,” I ordered my brother. My heart flipped. Then, from the other line I heard one of those deep voices again.
“Ma’am, put the phone down. Put your hands up.” A cold chill went through me. He sounded like a cop.
“Vangie, goddammit! What’s going on?”
She cried again and I heard more running. A door slammed. “Cass,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what’s happening. They just showed up here. They’re going through everything. Hey, that’s my purse!”
“Who is it?”
“Ma’am, I’m going to count to three.” I heard the man’s voice again. “And I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Jesus, Vangie, is that a cop?”
“This is my sister!” Vangie screamed. “She’s a lawyer. She’s my lawyer. You can’t do any of this. Tell me what’s going on! I didn’t do anything.”
“Vangie,” I said, trying to make my voice steady. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. I don’t know what the hell is going on over there, but you need to shut up right now. I mean it. Are you under arrest? Have they read you your rights?”
“Cass!” Matty shouted. He tried to take the phone from me but I gave him my shoulder and turned my back to him.
“Vangie!” I shouted.
“I know, I know,” she said. “But I need you. Right now!”
“Where are you? Give me an address.”
There was a muffled sound. My blood went cold. It sounded like a struggle. I heard Vangie cry out and a loud crash like the phone hit the floor.
“Goddammit, Cass. What’s going on?” Matt blurted.
“I don’t know. It sounds like ... I think it’s cops.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and strained to hear what was going on from the other end of that phone. In the distance, that deep, muffled voice came through.
“You have the right to remain silent. You may refuse to answer questions. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney …”
I let out a hard sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “She’s being arrested, I think,” I said. Then, I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Somebody pick up this phone!”
There were a few more shouts and some muffled yells. I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked again at the caller ID. Matty followed my line of thinking and grabbed the pen and pad of paper off the fridge. I turned the phone toward him and he wrote down the number, for all the good it would do now.
“Let me talk to my sister,” Vangie’s voice cut through. “I told you. She’s my lawyer. You have to let me talk to her.”
I couldn’t make out what the officer said back. God, I hoped she was cooperating. I loved her more than anything, but my little sister could be a scrapper, especially if she had a beer or two in her. She got that from our father. But it wasn’t even noon and I’d never known Vangie to be a drunk. That said, I’d learned a lot of things about her in the last few months that I’d never known before.
The line went dead.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Call it back,” Matty said. I could have kicked myself for not thinking of it first.
I pressed the redial button and waited. The phone rang, going unanswered. It felt like an eternity. I was just about to click off and try again when finally, someone picked up.
“Hello!” I shouted, not even waiting for a response. “My name is Cassiopeia Leary. I’m an attorney. My sister is Evangeline Anderson. She just called from this number.”
I heard some throat clearing on the other end. Whoever picked up must have muffled his end. He was talking to someone but I couldn’t make it out.
“Ms. Leary?” he said. “This is Detective Brett Carey, Ann Arbor Police Department.”
“Great. Detective Carey. Do you have my sister there? I’d like to talk to her.”
“You’ll need to come here to do that,” he said. “She’s been arrested.”
I knew it. Still, when he said the words, my heart twisted. “I’m sorry. On what charge?”
“She’ll be processed at the Ann Arbor Police Station on East Huron. Are you familiar with it?”
Ann Arbor? What the hell was Vangie doing in Ann Arbor?
“I know it,” I said. “So we’re clear, my sister has requested counsel. I need your word you understand that. I am her counsel. She may not be questioned outside of my presence. I’m holding you personally responsible if …”
“Ms. Leary, you can save it. We’re doing this by the book. You can meet your sister down at the station.”
“Detective,” I said, swallowing hard. I had that time-delay feeling again. “Detective Carey, what is my sister being charged with?”
Carey took a breath. I felt suspended in mid-air. In some detached corner of my brain, I felt like this was my fault. Matty was right. I should have said my five Glory Bes. But as I waited for Carey’s answer, I could feel the bottom dropping out all over again.
“Ms. Leary, your sister’s been charged with double murder.”
Chapter 3
Forty minutes. That’s how long it should have taken me to drive from Delphi to Ann Arbor, Michigan. With Matty driving like a bat out of hell, we were about to make it in half that time. I gripped the dashboard and pressed my feet against the floor as if I could will the car to go even faster. Just as we were about to veer into our exit lane, my phone rang and everything flipped all over again.
“She’s at U of M hospital!” my older brother Joe shouted at me. In the time it took me to grab my purse, Matty had called him and told him what we knew.
“She’s what? How do you know that?”
“I’m still listed as her emergency contact. I just got the call from a nurse there. They took her to the ER. I don’t know anything else. I’m maybe five minutes behind you.”
Once again, Matty could hear everything. He swerved and stayed on the highway until the next exit. A semi behind us laid on his horn. Matty rewarded him with a middle finger and cut him off to get to the off-ramp first. If he didn’t watch it, two more Learys would end up in the ER for Joe to deal with. But we were lucky. Matty parked in a hospital loading zone and we ran for the doors together.
