Case Theory: A David Brunelle Legal Thriller Short Story (David Brunelle Legal Thriller Series) Read online

  CASE THEORY

  A David Brunelle Short Story

  by Stephen Penner

  Published by

  Ring of Fire Publishing

  Case Theory

  ©2012 Stephen Penner. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity with real persons or events is purely coincidental. Persons, events, and locations are either the product of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously.

  Cover image by Vladimir Koletic.

  Cover design by Stephen Penner.

  DAVID BRUNELLE LEGAL THRILLERS

  Presumption of Innocence

  Tribal Court

  By Reason of Insanity

  A Prosecutor for the Defense

  Substantial Risk

  Case Theory (Short Story)

  Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Short Story)

  ALSO BY STEPHEN PENNER

  Scottish Rite

  Blood Rite

  Last Rite

  Highland Fling (Short Story)

  Mars Station Alpha

  The Godling Club

  Capital Punishment (Short Story)

  Katie Carpenter, Fourth Grade Genius

  Professor Barrister’s Dinosaur Mysteries

  CASE THEORY

  “He didn’t murder his wife.”

  “Right,” Brunelle replied. “It was his ex-wife. And he murdered her new baby too.”

  William John ‘Billy Jack’ Campbell stood charged with two counts of Aggravated Murder in the First Degree. ‘Aggravated’ meaning death penalty. Like most murderous psychopaths, he lacked the funds to hire an attorney, so he got a public defender. He drew Jessica Edwards, one of the best at the King County Public Defender’s Office. She was young, attractive, smart and ruthless. Good for Campbell. Bad for Brunelle; he was the prosecutor on the case.

  “Look, David,” Edwards tossed back her straight blond hair and leaned onto Brunelle’s desk, a sincerely disarming move—no doubt she’d practiced it for hours. “I can’t tell you everything my client has told me, but I can tell you he’s prepared to plead guilty to Murder One for the child, and Assault One for Jenny.”

  ‘Jenny,’ Brunelle thought, like they were discussing an old friend.

  “That’s a good result for you,” she went on. “You get a murder conviction plus a bunch of prison time for the assault. After all, why would he admit to one murder, but not the other?”

  “You know damn well why.”

  Brunelle spun to his bookshelf and pulled out Title 10 of the Revised Code of Washington, then dropped it open to 10.95.020, the aggravating factors that turn plain old Murder One into Aggravated Murder One.

  “The aggravators in this case,” he recited, “are, first, that he murdered two or more people, and second, that one of the murders was domestic violence. If it’s only one murder, then we lose the first aggravator. And if that one murder is the child, then we lose the second aggravator. The kid wasn’t his, it was her new boyfriend’s, so there’s no family relationship and it’s not D.V.”

  Brunelle folded his hands in summation. “Therefore, your oh-so-repentant client admits to murder—but, not surprisingly, it’s the one murder that saves him from the death penalty.”

  Edwards crossed her arms, a smile curled in the corner of her full lips. “David Brunelle, you are so cynical.”

  “I’m also right.” He clapped the statute book shut. “Sorry, Jess. No deal. Tell it to the jury.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, a challenging gleam in her eye. “Oh, don’t worry. I will. Your case isn’t airtight, you know. The cops botched the scene investigation. You’ve got five bullet wounds between the victims, but forensics only recovered four bullets and casings. The neighbors are all over the map on how many shots and when. And when they nabbed my guy he lawyered up—”

  “When they nabbed your guy,” Brunelle interjected, “he had the gun in his trunk and blood on his clothes. Ballistics matched his gun to the bullets and casings at the scene and the DNA analysis matched the blood to his wife.”

  Brunelle shook his head. “He’s guilty and you know it. Honestly, Jessica, sometimes I don’t know how you do your job.”

  The warmth drained from her expression. “My job?” she demanded sharply. “My job? My job is damage control. By the time I get the case, the crime is already committed. I can’t undo that. And neither can you. Don’t think your job is all halos and rainbows. A horrible, violent thing has happened. In response, you want to inflict even more violence. Jenny Campbell and her child are dead. And if you get your way Billy Jack will be dead too. But you know what? Jenny and her baby will still be dead. And then you’ll forget all about them while you work on your next case.”

  She drew herself up. “I’m the one who’s trying keep more violence and pain from being inflicted. I’ve told you he didn’t kill his ex-wife, and he didn’t. But you don’t care what I say because you’ve already made up your mind after reading a couple of police reports. You’re the one who wants to execute a man for something he didn’t do. My God, what could be worse than that? Billy Jack acted out of rage, but you’re acting for a paycheck. So let me ask you, Mr. High-and-Mighty Prosecutor, how do you sleep at night?”

  Brunelle was taken aback. “Fine,” he sputtered. “I sleep fine.”

  Then he pointed to the door. “You know your way out.”

  Brunelle waited until he heard the outer door close, then he grabbed the phone.

  “Detective Chen,” answered the voice on the other end.

  “Larry, this is Brunelle. I need to see the crime scene.”

  “Sure.” A pause. “Which one?”

  “The candy bar shoplift from last Thursday,” Brunelle spat. “Which scene do you think? The Campbell double murder. The defense attorney’s got an angle and I need to shut it down. Now.”

  “Okay, okay,” Chen succumbed. “The crime-scene tape is still up. I’ll need to tag along.”

  “That’s why I called.” Brunelle relaxed a bit and offered a joke. “We both know you can’t trust a lawyer at a crime scene.”

  Chen laughed, then asked, “When do you want to go?”

  “How about right now?”

  The detective considered. “Sure. Why not? You know where it is?”

  “I’ll find it.” Brunelle’s finger was already on the ‘incident address’ listed at the top of the police report. “Ten minutes?”

  “Make it fifteen,” Chen countered. “I’ll be driving the speed limit.”

  *

  6422 Pacific Way slouched on the main drag between downtown and the industrial south end. It was one of dozens of cracker-box shacks that housed the mill and foundry and railroad workers from the area’s better days. Its gray paint was badly peeling, the small wooden porch was half rotted through, and the grass had long ago surrendered to weeds.

  “Pride of ownership,” Brunelle quipped to himself as he ducked under the crime-scene tape.

  Chen was already inside.

  “I thought you said ten minutes,” he chided when Brunelle entered.

  “I thought you said you were driving the speed limit,” he retorted.

  The interior was as hopeless as the exterior. Brunelle had stepped directly into the miniscule living room. The kitchen was a vinyl-floored corner to the left and the bathroom and bedroom were visible down a passageway to the right. Judging by the exterior dimensions, that was probably all there was to the house. An old sofa, a scratched coffee table and a rickety entertainment center to
ok up most of the living room. A folding card table and two plastic patio chairs were pushed against the far wall: the dining room.

  “So is this how it looked that night?” Brunelle gazed around trying to look for details he didn’t know from the reports.

  “Pretty much,” Chen nodded, “except for the bullet-ridden corpses.”

  “Oh, very sensitive.” Brunelle pointed to where a large swath of carpet had been cut away near the dining room, exposing the cement sub-floor. “That where the ex-wife was found?”

  “Yeah,” Chen stepped over. “Forensics took it for DNA analysis.”

  “Bet the blood’s hers,” Brunelle joked darkly.

  “Yeah, judging by the dead body on top.” Chen shrugged. “Standard procedure.”

  “Where was the kid?” Brunelle asked.

  Chen pointed. “On the couch. Two shots, through and through. The bullets were recovered from the wood frame.”

  The bullets. Brunelle frowned, remembering why he’d come.

  “So how many bullets were recovered?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

  “Four. Two from the couch, one from the wall over there.” Chen pointed to the hole in the wall next to the missing carpet.

  “And one from Ms. Campbell’s pelvis,” Brunelle concluded. “How many casings?”

  “Four again. Two by the couch, one by the hole in the wall and one by the front door.”

  “So you see my dilemma?”

  Chen scratched the back of his neck. “Not really, no.”

  “Four bullets were recovered. Four casings were recovered. But there are five gunshot wounds between the victims. Two in the kid and three in the mom. Have you seen the coroner’s report?”

  “I haven’t read it yet,” Chen admitted.

  “The mom had a through-and-through in her left thigh, a through-and-through in the chest, and an entrance wound only in her abdomen. That bullet lodged in her pelvis.”

  Chen shrugged. “Hmm,” he offered.

  “Larry,” Brunelle shook his head, “the defense is gonna jump all over you on this. I need to be able to explain to the jury what happened to the missing bullet and casing. Any ideas?”

  “Sure, lots of ideas,” Chen replied cheerily. “That’s my job.”

  “Great. Let’s have one.”

  He pursed his lips in reckless thought. “How about a ricochet?”

  Brunelle crossed his arms incredulously. “Ricochet?”

  “Sure,” Chen tried. “Through and through on the leg, then ricochet and back into the hip.”

  Brunelle rolled his eyes. “Is there anything in this house, anything at all, that’s hard enough to cause that kind of ricochet? And is there anything in here marked up like a bullet ricocheted off of it?”

  Chen pursed his lips. “Um, no.”

  “Well then, that’s a pretty stupid theory,” Brunelle observed.

  “Worked for the J.F.K. investigation,” Chen defended.

  “They didn’t have to put it to a jury,” Brunelle returned. “Especially a jury that watches a bunch of forensic crime shows on T.V. all week.”

  Brunelle sighed. “Don’t just pull something out of the air, Larry. I need something solid, something based on the physical evidence, so the jury will buy it.”

  “Buy it?” Chen laughed.

  “Believe it,” Brunelle corrected. “Come on. Convince me. So I can convince the jury.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Chen offered.

  “You do that. In the meantime,” Brunelle recalled the first officer’s name he’d seen in the reports, “do you know a cop named Andrew Dixon?”

  “Uh, sure,” Chen struggled for a moment at the unexpected change of conversation. “Young guy. Just out of the army.”

  “Have him at my office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “He works graveyard. He’ll just be coming off his shift.”

  “Good,” Brunelle smiled. “He’ll still be up. Eight o’clock. Sharp.”

  *

  The next morning found Brunelle perusing gruesome autopsy photos. A staccato knock woke him from his reverie. He glanced up to see a young, clean shaven, crew cut officer standing at attention in the doorway. His uniform was perfectly pressed, his badge sparkled and he had a highly polished sidearm on each hip. The very model of a modern major general.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” he practically shouted.

  “Officer Dixon?” Brunelle confirmed. Then, waving toward his government-issue guest chairs, “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he barked as he stepped into the office, “but I’d rather stand.”

  Brunelle mentally rolled his eyes. Young officer, fresh out of the academy. First job after a stint in the military. Super-committed. Hyper-polite. Uber-annoying.

  “Suit yourself.” Brunelle slid the case file in front of him and extracted the document which had led to Officer Dixon’s presence in his office that morning. “So you did the crime scene log on the Campbell homicide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Everyone who came in or out of the scene signed in with you, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And your name is first on the log.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay.” Brunelle leaned back, trying to offset Dixon’s formality with a little extra comfort. “Tell me what you saw when you first arrived on scene.”

  “Yes, sir.” He straightened up even more, if that were possible, and looked to the ceiling. “When I arrived at the residence I parked my patrol vehicle behind Sergeant Norquist’s vehicle and stepped out —”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Brunelle held up one hand and grabbed the crime log with the other. “I thought you were first on scene?”

  “No, sir. Sergeant Norquist was there first.”

  “But you’re first on the crime log,” Brunelle argued.

  “Yes, sir. When I arrived I checked in with Sergeant Norquist, who was on the front porch. He told me it was a homicide scene and tasked me with the crime scene log. I put my name first because I started the log.”

  “Why not put Sergeant Norquist down first?”

  “He didn’t check in with me, sir, I checked in with him. My task was to log in the people who arrived after I started the log.”

  Brunelle wiped a hand down his face. “So Sergeant Norquist was first on scene.”

  “I believe so, sir.” The officer almost shrugged, but his posture wouldn’t quite allow it. “He was there before me.”

  Brunelle tried to salvage what had become a complete waste of time. “Did you ever go inside?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you at least write a report?”

  Dixon shifted his weight. “Uh, no, sir. All I did was the crime scene log. No need for a report.”

  “Says you,” Brunelle shot. “I didn’t know you weren’t first on scene until just now. If you’d done a report I’d have known that and not wasted the last four minutes of my life.”

  Dixon straightened up again. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  Brunelle calmed down a bit. “Please do a supplemental report. Better late than never.”

  “If you think it’s necessary, sir.”

  “Of course I think it’s necessary!” Brunelle snapped. “This is a death penalty case! Everything is necessary. If you think this is bad, wait until the defense attorney rips you apart for not even doing a report until the prosecutor told you to. By the time she’s done the jury will think you shot the victims. So do the damned report and don’t leave anything out!”

  Dixon was taken aback, but tried not to let it show. “Yes, sir,” he finally stammered.

  Brunelle turned back to his autopsy photos. Dixon didn’t leave.

  Brunelle looked up.

  “Sir?” Dixon offered. “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt the case for you. This was a terrible crime and the accused deserves whatever punishment you can secure.” He patted one of his two pistols. “This is my army sidearm. I got permission to wear it fro
m my lieutenant. I can’t keep it loaded of course—the department has to be able to count our bullets after every shift. But I wear it anyway to remind me how serious life can be. It’s one thing to kill a man in the battlefield. It’s another to kill and woman and child in their home. I’ll do the supplemental report immediately. If there’s anything else I can do, I’ll do that too.”

  Brunelle’s scowl melted into a resigned grimace. “No, there’s nothing else, officer,” he sighed sighed. “Unless you can order Sergeant Norquist down here right now.”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t worry.” Brunelle picked up the phone. “I know a detective who can help me. Thanks, officer, that’ll be all.”

  Dixon disappeared into the hallway just as Chen picked up.

  “Oui, mon capitan?” He had caller I.D.

  “Sergeant Norquist,” Brunelle declared enigmatically.

  “Good man,” was the reply. “What about him?”

  “I need to talk with him. Can you get him here today?”

  “Probably. What time?”

  “How about right after lunch?”

  “Will do.”

  Brunelle thanked Chen and then contemplated how much damn time he wasted in his job.

  *

  After lunch Brunelle pulled out the file again and waited for Sergeant Norquist to arrive. And waited. And waited. Finally at quarter to two, he lumbered through Brunelle’s door and threw himself down in the nearest chair.

  “You rang?” he huffed genially.

  Everything about him screamed ‘six months to retirement.’ Late 50s, short, overweight, balding white hair, thick white mustache. He looked like Santa’s bodyguard.

  Brunelle couldn’t suppress a smile. “Sergeant Norquist, I presume?”

  “At your service, m’lord,” he panted with a flourish of his right hand. “How may I assist thee?”

  So Brunelle explained why he wanted to talk to him. He reminded him of the incident. He explained the issue with the missing bullet. And he stressed the importance of the integrity of the crime scene during the initial investigation. Norquist got it. Brunelle knew he would.

  “So I need you to convince the jury that the scene was locked down from the moment the first officer arrived.”

  “That makes complete sense,” Norquist nodded affably, “but I don’t think I was the first officer on scene.”