The weekend came and went, and still Lawrence’s words echoed in Kelly’s thoughts. During their division’s regular Monday morning meeting, she couldn’t help sneaking glances in Spencer’s direction and wondering if she’d been unfair to him. He wasn’t an innocent victim, but maybe he wasn’t quite the villain she’d made him out to be either.
“Dee Roberts wants to plead guilty and cut a deal with the D.A.’s office,” Angelina cut into Kelly’s thoughts. “I’m inclined to respect her wishes.”
“But you can’t,” Kelly blurted out. When everyone, including Spencer, turned to stare at her, she explained, “She didn’t do it.”
Dee Roberts, a housewife, had been arrested a few days ago and promptly charged with murdering her husband, George Roberts, a well known political analyst. Because of George’s fame, the case had already garnered a lot of media attention, and everyone had made up their mind that Dee was guilty. But Kelly wasn’t convinced.
“How can she not have done it?” Duke shot Kelly an incredulous look. “Everything points to her. She called the police on herself, the police found her soaked in blood, holding the knife and seated right next to George’s body. Worse, her neighbor saw her arriving at the house at nine-fifteen which is right in the neighborhood of George’s time of death. And to top it off, Dee confessed. If that doesn’t scream guilty, then I don’t know what does.”
Kelly opened her mouth to defend her position but before she could say a word, Russell cut in with, “And don’t say she doesn’t have motive.” The man’s brown eyes swept over the occupants of the conference table as he explained, “I did some research on Mr. George. And the picture that the media is giving of this nice, religious, family-man is utter bullshit. Word on the street is that Dearest Georgie was an undercover abuser and perv. Not only did he use Dee as his personal punching bag but she was also his goodie bag.”
Angelina frowned. “Goodie bag?”
“Yeah.” Russell nodded. “If one of his friends pleased him enough, he was allowed to have a go at Dee.”
For a second, Kelly didn’t realize what Russell meant. When she finally understood, her top lip curled upwards in a sneer. “Disgusting.”
“If you ask me, we should be giving the woman a medal for getting rid of that scum,” Russell said, “not trying to send her to jail.”
“That would be nice - if she did it,” Kelly insisted, “but she didn’t.”
“What’s your proof?” Duke prodded.
“Her eyes,” Kelly said. “I saw it in her eyes.”
Both Russell and Duke burst into laughter and a small smile crooked the side of Angelina’s mouth. Spencer was the only one who didn’t show any signs of amusement, but that was probably because he wasn’t even listening to her. He was more interested in the photos he was studying.
“I’m serious you guys.” Kelly knew that she sounded ridiculous, but she’d spent so much time with cons that her instincts were now sharply honed. She couldn’t quite explain it, but she could tell with almost one-hundred percent accuracy when someone was guilty or lying. And Dee Roberts wasn’t ringing any of her ‘guilt’ alarms. “She didn’t do it.”
“I’m sorry, Kelly,” Angelina said, an indulgent smile on her face. “But eyes are not evidence. And Dee already confessed-”
“She didn’t do it,” Spencer cut Angelina off mid-sentence.
Though Kelly had said the same thing, Spencer’s pronouncement left more of an impact. Shocked eyes zeroed in on him as Angelina asked, “How do you figure?”
“The crime scene!” Spencer said.
Everyone grabbed their tablets to view the photos. Kelly didn’t see anything newer than what she’d already seen. George was on the floor with several stab wounds and a knife lodged in his chest.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who didn’t see what Spencer was talking about because Angelina said, “I’m looking at these and I don’t see anything that proves Dee didn’t do it.”
“Don’t just look. Observe. George’s watch.” Spencer drew their attention to it.
“Nothing new there,” Duke said. “It’s broken.”
“It is,” Spencer agreed. “But look at the time.”
Everyone squinted to take a better look at the watch.
“Eight forty fiv… oh!” Russell gasped. His shocked gaze swung to meet Spencer’s. “She couldn’t have done it.”
When everyone else seemed confused, Spencer explained, “I bet that watch broke when George fell and that his real time of death is eight-forty-five. According to the neighbor, Dee got to the house at nine-fifteen, which is thirty full minutes after George died.”
“Ah!” Angelina, Duke and Kelly gasped as they finally got it.
Excitement bubbled inside Kelly. See, she was right.
However, a moment later, Angelina burst her bubble. “That might be enough for reasonable doubt but it doesn’t exonerate Dee.”
“Then this might,” Spencer said. “Look at the area around George. No signs of a struggle apart from the broken glass and spilled brandy next to him. There were no marks on Dee either, which means the two didn’t have a physical altercation. How did she get to him?”
“She stabbed him when he wasn’t looking,” Duke offered helpfully.
“Look at the stab wounds. They’re all located around his upper chest,” Spencer countered. “Now consider Dee’s height. She’s just under five feet tall against George’s six-three. If she stabbed George, she would’ve had to lift her arm and he would’ve seen it coming. At the very least, he would’ve lifted his arm to defend himself against the first stab. But he has no injuries on his arms, which likely means someone taller than Dee stabbed him…”
This must’ve been how John Watson felt whenever he watched Sherlock Holmes mind at work. Kelly was beyond impressed with Spencer’s powers of deduction. He’d managed to prove Dee’s innocence with real evidence when Kelly only had her instincts to go on. Impressive! Now she understood how he’d managed to solve her case in just under a month when her father had been working on it for over a year.
Spencer finished, “… I think the daughter, Tessa, did it.”
And just like that Kelly’s awe vanished. Had this man not learnt his lesson? There he went, accusing another innocent person. Kelly pushed out an annoyed breath. “Tessa didn’t do it either.”
Spencer’s eyes locked with hers. “I think she did it, and Dee’s taking the blame to protect her.”
“No, she didn’t,” Kelly insisted, her stare as unwavering as her tone.
“How did you figure that?” Angelina cut into their stare match. She turned to Kelly first, “Why do you think Tessa didn’t do it? And please don’t say anything to do with eyes.”
Well, that narrowed Kelly’s options. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and find a way to convince her colleagues with proof they could accept. Finally, she said, “When Angelina and I went to see Dee in lockup, I stayed outside with Tessa. We talked a little bit, and she was genuinely worried about her mother. She kept on saying that her mother was innocent and that her mother wouldn’t survive prison. She was genuinely worried.”
Angelina arched her eyebrows. “That doesn’t say innocent to me.”
“It does to me.” Kelly knew her logic was shaky at best, but she knew no other way to explain her instincts. “Usually, if you’re trying to pin your crime on someone, you don’t constantly claim they’re innocent or worry about their health. Tessa loves her mother too much to let her take the blame for her.”
The looks that everyone gave Kelly made it clear that her arguments hadn’t moved them.
Angelina turned to Spencer. “Why do you say Tessa did it?”
“One – she’s got motive,” he said. “Men like George tend to abuse everyone in the family. I bet if Russell looks hard enough, he’ll find evidence that she was a victim too.”
“I’ve already got it,” Russell chimed in. “When she was younger, teacher’s called Social Services on George because Tessa showed signs of abuse. However, George used his connections to quash the investigation. Then there are the reports by neighbors of her running away after numerous screaming matches… Yeah, Spencer’s right.”
“I thought so.” Spencer’s knowing smile sent immediate annoyance rushing through Kelly. He continued, “Two - she has no alibi. She claims to have been at her apartment during the murder. But a witness saw her visiting her family home at around seven.”
“She said she left through the back door at seven-thirty,” Kelly defended the girl.
“What she said and what she actually did could be two very different things.” Spencer added, “There’s no way to confirm that she actually left when she said she did. Plus, her own apartment building conveniently doesn’t have any surveillance to prove that she was there when she claims to have been there. Then let’s not forget the bandage that I saw covering her right temple. Looks like somebody hit her… and who do we know who hits people around her?”
“Georgie!” Duke piped in enthusiastically.
“There’s no proof that Tessa did it,” Kelly insisted.
“That’s because no one’s questioned or investigated her,” Spencer countered. “Maybe she had a fight with her father. Maybe he hit her. Maybe she got so angry that she decided she’d had enough and stabbed him. She’s certainly tall enough to have caught him unawares. Maybe she left after stabbing him, Dee came in, saw what happened and came to the same conclusion I did. But she went a step further and took the blame so her daughter wouldn’t go to prison. Maybe that’s why Dee insists on pleading guilty even when it’s obvious that she didn’t do it.”
“That’s a lot of maybes to be throwing around,” Kelly retorted. “And it’s not enough to prove that Tessa is guilty.”
“But it’s certainly more than ‘I saw it in her eyes’,” Spencer countered.
Was that sarcasm? Had he just mocked her? Like a bomb, Kelly’s anger exploded.
“You haven’t learnt anything, have you?” Red hot rage pulsing through her nerves, she bit out, “You’re still the guy who has no problems throwing someone under the bus based on flimsy and faulty evidence. This is your thing, isn’t it? You get off on railroading people, don’t you?”
Hurt flashed in Spencer’s gaze but he didn’t say anything.
Kelly continued, “I can’t believe I thought you’d changed-”
“Kelly,” Angelina cut her off mid-rant. “This isn’t about you or your situation.”
Angelina’s interruption was enough to yank Kelly into the real world where she and Spencer were not the only ones at the conference table. Everyone was looking at her like she’d grown two heads, like she was the crazy one. Embarrassed heat flushed up her face. Even if she was angry, she wouldn’t have blown up like that.
“And Spencer’s right,” Angelina went on. “His theory has more meat than yours. Tessa may be our culprit. However, that still doesn’t change our case.”
“How do you figure that?” Spencer said, his tone more subdued than it’d been a moment ago. “All we have to do is prove Dee isn’t guilty then point the D.A’s office to the real killer.”
“You haven’t met Dee, have you?” Angelina eyed him. “If Tessa really did this, she won’t withdraw her confession.”
“We can convince her,” Spencer said, earning himself a glare from Kelly.
Angelina shook her head. “If we push her, she’ll simply switch lawyers.”
By the time the meeting ended, the team had decided that they would try convincing Dee to change her plea. But none of them held hope of that happening.
If only they would listen to her, Kelly fumed as she sat at her desk, then they could have a way to change Dee’s plea. If they convinced Dee that Tess was innocent too, she wouldn’t feel like falling on her own sword. But of course no one was listening to her.
Ugh! Kelly wished she had more evidence to back up her claim that Tessa was innocent, or that she had Spencer’s quick tongue so she could get her colleagues to trust her instincts. God, he was annoying. She was still seething when Spencer suddenly showed up at the junior associate’s office. Her annoyance immediately shot up several notches.
“Russell, I noticed several pill-bottles in the master bathroom’s medicine cabinet,” Spencer said as he stood at the doorway. “Whose are they?”
Kelly’s interest was immediately peaked. Why was he looking into the medicine cabinet?
“Most of them are George’s prescriptions,” Russell answered.
“What for?”
“Mm.” Russell shifted through some documents. “High blood pressure and severe headaches.”
“Hmm.” Spencer stared at the floor, mulling over Russell’s words.
Kelly couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking. She itched to ask him why he was interested in George’s medical problems, but she was also so angry at him for not getting on the ‘Tess is innocent’ wagon with her that she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
When Spencer finally looked up, it was to ask, “Do we have an autopsy report on George’s cause of death?”
“Isn’t the cause of death clear? Murder by stabbing,” Russell said. When Spencer didn’t respond, he sighed. “They’ve only done a preliminary examination. George’s mother doesn’t want a full autopsy so she’s been on the medical examiner’s case. He’s been mulling it over.”
“Well, tell him to stop mulling and just do it,” Spencer instructed. “And make it a rush autopsy.”
Why was he asking for a rush autopsy? George had clearly been stabbed. Or did he want more proof that George had been stabbed by someone taller than Dee and thus forcing Dee to acknowledge that she wasn’t the murderer? That would be so like Spencer. And here Kelly was feeling sorry for him just because his godfather had strummed her heartstrings with a sob story.
What a gullible fool she was!
Yeah, maybe a bad guy had killed his parents, but that didn’t give him license to step on everyone just because of his past. Bastard!
* * * * *
AS IT TURNED out, the autopsy Spencer ordered was the key to proving that Kelly was right; Dee wasn’t the murderer, and neither was Tessa.
Actually, no one was.
George’s autopsy revealed that his cause of death was a stroke caused by a brain aneurism. That’s when the real story came out. Yes, Tessa had arrived at the house hours before her mother, and yes, she and her father had had a fight. But it was George who’d hit her, not the other way round. The trophy he’d hit her with, had left a nasty gash at her temple, hence the bandage. Tessa had stormed out of the house right after that, and she could prove it. There’s was CCTV footage proving that at around eight-thirty, she’d visited a doctor-friend of hers to get the wound treated.
Meanwhile at home, George had collapsed because of the stroke sometime between Tessa leaving and her mother coming back home. Dee knew that Tessa had visited their house earlier in the evening. When she entered the living room and saw her dead husband with a bloody trophy beside him and her daughter missing, she’d assumed the worst; that Tessa had finally snapped. She’d wiped down the trophy, hidden it then ran for a kitchen knife. She’d stabbed George’s corpse several times to get blood on her own hands then called the police on herself.
“Thank you so much.” Dee’s grateful gaze switched between Spencer and Angelina, as she and her daughter held on to each other. There were several other people milling around the courtroom, most of them infected by the celebratory mood that accompanied Dee’s release, but Dee only had eyes for her attorneys. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank us.” Angelina smiled. “We just did our job.”
“But I made it so much harder for you.” Dee apologized, “I’m sorry.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Spencer said. “The D.A’s office might have dropped the murder charge but they’ll probably try charging you with desecration of a corpse.”
“Still, that’s much better than being charged for murder.” Dee smiled. “Thank you.”
Kelly, who was standing in the gallery just a foot or so behind the defense’s table, couldn’t help smiling. It was great that her instincts had been vindicated, but greater still was the fact that someone innocent wasn’t going to jail. It was a good day to be a defense attorney.
But even as she smiled, her eyes kept wandering to Spencer. If she’d been the one handling this case, Dee would likely still be locked up. But because of Spencer and his keen observational skills, someone else had been freed. While she’d been boiling with fury and cursing him for not agreeing with her, he’d been looking for evidence to help their client. Now she felt guilty for judging him so harshly.
Should she apologize? Should she not apologize? She wondered as she, Spencer and Angelina walked down the courthouse stairs. She snuck a glance at Spencer but he was fully engrossed in his conversation with Angelina.
“I have to drop by County,” Angelina said. “Hattie Witcher is in there again.”
“What did she do this time?” Spencer asked.
“Threw feces at a Senator because he said something rude about lesbians.” Angelina rolled her eyes.
Spencer burst into laughter. “No, she didn’t.”
Even as she joined her two colleagues in laughter, Kelly couldn’t help watching Spencer. Her heart bumped in her chest. How come she’d never noticed the laugh-lines at the edges of his eyes? Or how his eyes danced when he was amused?
Oh! What the hell was she doing? Was she just admiring him again? Bloody hell! She really needed to stop doing that. She shook her head to clear it of all ‘Spencer is hot’ thoughts.
After Angelina left, Kelly and Spencer headed back to the office. Since Chambers & Quinn was just a few blocks away, they decided to walk.
Is now a good time to apologize for being a bitch yesterday? Kelly wondered as she matched his steps. What if he rubs it in my face? Still, it’s the right thing to do. Stop being so proud.
“Spencer,” she called out just as they stopped at a red-light.
“Yeah?” He turned his head to face her.
“I just-” Her fingers tightened over the strip of her purse. What was it so hard to apologize? She pulled in a deep breath. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For yesterday.” Embarrassed, she looked down at her shoes. “I shouldn’t have come at you like that just because you didn’t agree with me.”
Spencer paused for a long moment then offered her a smile. “It’s okay.”
No, it wasn’t okay. If it was someone else, they probably would’ve called her out for saying such cruel things. But Spencer probably thought he deserved anything she dished out because of their history. And she’d dished out – over and over again, getting meaner and meaner with each new day. Fresh guilt raced through her. Had they changed roles? Was she now the villain in their story?
She didn’t get the chance to answer the question because right then shouts of ‘Stop’ drew her attention, and she turned her head. Before she could even figure out where those shouts were coming from, a man came running towards them. Chasing the man were two uniformed cops.
There was no time to move out of the man’s way. One second she was staring at the running man, and the next he’d bumped into her. The bump was hard enough that Kelly stumbled forward, right into oncoming traffic.
The next moments were a blur. Loud hooting. A car rushing towards her.
Kelly closed her eyes and waited to get hit.