Joel Goldman - Stone Cold

“He started pressing me about why did I care so much about what happened to Bonnie, and I guess he figured out from my reaction that we were together.”

“What happened next?” Claire asked.

Alex shook her head, her jaw tight. “He said, ‘How long you been diving into that muff?’ and I told him that I wasn’t going to talk about my relationship with Bonnie. That’s when he pulled out his gun and said that if he couldn’t get to Bonnie, he’d have to settle for me. So I shot him, twice. He fired his gun as he was falling to the floor.” She paused, taking a deep breath, her eyes wet. “I must have been in a state of shock, because the next thing I remember is Rossi yelling at me to put my gun down. I dropped my gun and that’s when Odyessy shot me. I slumped down against the wall and that’s when I realized Odyessy was holding Dwayne’s head in her lap and that he was dead.”

Claire waited a moment. “Is that everything?”

“Yes. Just like I told you every time before.”

Claire glanced at Kate, who had stared at Alex throughout her recitation.

“Oh,” Alex said as she stood, “now you’re asking Kate if I’m telling the truth? Is this trial prep or an inquisition?”

“Alex!” Claire snapped. “You know-”

“That’s okay,” Kate said. “It’s trial prep and, trust me, Ortiz’s cross-examination will be your own personal inquisition. For what it’s worth, I think you’re telling the truth. You’re filled with shame and guilt, but I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

Alex shrugged her shoulders, then let them sag, as if she’d put down a heavy burden, and took a deep breath, letting it out. She stood without saying anything for a moment.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Kate asked.

“For believing me.”

“I told you I was on your side.”

“And now I believe you.”

“At least,” Lou said, “now we know why Ortiz pulled the plea bargain off the table.”

“Except for one thing,” Claire said. “In the bench conference we had Monday morning, he told the judge that he didn’t know where Gloria was or what she was going to say.”

“But he had a good guess, and that means he had to have at least known that she was in the house when Alex shot Dwayne.”

“Or,” Blues said, “that she could have been.”

“What are you getting at?” Claire asked.

“It’s simple. If Ortiz knew she’d been in the house some other time, there was a chance she was there that day. And the closer to the day of the shooting she was there, the more likely she was also there that day.”

“I’m with you,” Lou said. “So who was she hanging out with? Odyessy or Dwayne?”

“My money’s on Dwayne,” Blues said. “Odyessy isn’t much of an attraction.”

“So,” Claire said, “if she was with Dwayne, she probably knows whether he killed Kyrie Chapman and the Hendersons.”

“If you’re right, you better hope Gloria pulled the trigger, because otherwise the jury might just believe her,” Kate said.

“Are you guys trying to freak me out?” Alex asked.

Claire put her arm around Alex. “You know we’re not. We’re just thinking out loud. Same as you would do. Now, go home, have a glass of wine with Bonnie, and get some rest. We’ll see you in the morning.”

Alex didn’t go home. She wasn’t ready to face Bonnie and tell her about Gloria Temple. She needed time to think, to clear her head and decide what to do. She got in her car and drove. She wasn’t going anywhere in particular. She just had to keep moving.

If her defense team didn’t come up with something to discredit Gloria, Alex would have no choice but to take the stand. After hearing Gloria’s testimony, the jury would expect to hear her version, but telling her story wouldn’t be enough even if Kate Scranton believed it. Not if Gloria Temple was a credible witness. Patrick Ortiz would work her over until there was nothing left of her story, her reputation, or her future.

She assumed that Claire would find out whether Ortiz had made a deal with Gloria in exchange for testifying, but that didn’t mean Ortiz would tell her everything about the case against Gloria. Defense lawyers called that prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors called it a reasonable interpretation of the rules.

Blues and Lou had spent months chasing after Gloria without learning anything useful. Now that Gloria had been found, if they had more time, they might discover something to make a liar out of her. But they didn’t have time. Gloria was going to be the first witness in the morning.

Alex knew from years of defending criminals that her clients made a lot of bad decisions when they gave up trying to think of good ones. For the hundredth time since she pulled the trigger and killed Dwayne Reed, she felt a kinship with them. She opened her wallet and took out the scrap of paper with Judge West’s cell phone number on it.

Calling him was a bad decision, but she wouldn’t make it worse by using her own phone. She stopped at a convenience store and bought a cheap prepaid cell phone she could get rid of, making it impossible to trace the call back to her. Judge West answered on the second ring.

“Who the hell is this? How’d you get this number?”

“It’s Alex Stone.”

When he didn’t respond right away, her stomach convulsed and she thought she would throw up.

“This is a bad idea,” he said at last.

“I know and I’m sorry, but I need your help. I’ve got to talk to you about Gloria Temple. She’s the money.”

After another long pause, he said, “I’ve got a horse farm. I look in on the horses around eight o’clock.” He gave her the address and hung up.

Alex decided to pass the time drinking coffee in a downtown diner. Taking a back booth, she opened her phone and found the e-mail Kate had sent with the files from Gloria’s cell phone attached. She downloaded the files and starting working her way through them. The files were lengthy and the screen on her phone was small, making for tedious work.

She couldn’t imagine that Lou and Blues hadn’t already been through the files, but they hadn’t said anything about them. Either they hadn’t found anything or they didn’t want to talk about what they had found. If it was the former, she hoped she’d recognize something that they hadn’t. If it was the latter, she was in for a shock.

By seven thirty, she was jittery from caffeine and cross-eyed from staring at her phone. Gloria’s e-mails covered men, other women, family, being broke, getting high, being homesick, and a litany of other mundane topics, but there was nothing about Dwayne Reed, Wilfred Donaire, Kyrie Chapman, or Jameer Henderson. That was as far as she got before leaving for her meeting with Judge West.

His horse farm wasn’t out in the country. It was tucked away in an undeveloped area east of downtown and surrounded by residential developments. A long and winding narrow driveway kept it hidden from the street. The driveway ended at a white clapboard farmhouse. A dirt track led from the farmhouse to the horse barn. Alex’s headlights picked out the judge’s SUV next to the barn. She followed the track, parking next to his car. Judge West was waiting, holding the reins to a horse in one hand and a lit cigar in the other.

“Are you out of your mind calling me?” he said to her.

She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “Entirely possible, but you’re the one who told me to break the rules.”

He took a sharp draw on his cigar, yelling at her through the smoke. “I didn’t tell you to kill your goddamn client and then call me asking for help in the middle of your goddamn trial, over which I happen to be presiding!”