Robert Browne - Trial Junkies

"Do you think they're accurate?"

"I know some of them are. For a while it was enough to make me wonder if my instincts about Ronnie were completely wrong. That maybe she isn't the sweet little girl we once loved."

His words reflected the very same thoughts Hutch had been struggling with for months now. He understood the pain Matt had to be going through.

"Is that why you've been scarce, lately?"

Matt shook his head again. "Like I told you, I've been out of town on assignment. Our foreign guy quit and my editor didn't want to use a stringer. So he tagged me to fill in. Spent a month in Somalia and three weeks in Tehran."

"Jesus."

"Tell me about it. That blog is sounding pretty good right now." He paused. "Anyway, I just got back and when I talked to our crime guy about the trial, it was pretty depressing."

"The new leaks?"

He nodded. "Some we haven't been able to corroborate and some we have."

"Like what?"

"Did you know that Ronnie was arrested before?"

Hutch was surprised. "When?"

"Few years back. When she was living in Arizona."

"Arizona?"

Matt smiled. "See what happens when you disappear for nearly a decade? She married some biker yahoo she met in a bar here. Can't remember his name. Anyway, they moved to his home town, and three years into the marriage, Sedona police arrested her for spousal battery. You'll read all about it in tomorrow's Post."

Hutch's surprise deepened. "You're sure about this?"

Matt nodded. "Saw the police report myself. She divorced the guy two months later and Chicago PD didn't catch it until they ran a search for priors under her married name."

"Wouldn't they have done that right up front?"

"Apparently some bureaucrat fucked up and they missed it the first time out. Turns out she caught her ex in bed with another woman and went after him with a butcher knife. He got it away from her, but she smacked him pretty good a couple times before the girlfriend pulled her off him."

Hutch said nothing. The kernel of doubt he'd carried with him since Ronnie's little show and tell was starting to waver and fade. Quickly.

He took another sip of his root beer. "What else do they have?"

"A custody battle, that's what. Ronnie has a five-year-old kid and the ex wants him back. Claims she's too unstable to raise him."

Hutch nodded. "I've seen the kid. He's with his grandmother. Ronnie tried to use him to pull me to the dark side." He paused. "But what does any of this have to do with killing Jenny?"

"The assault against her husband doesn't, but the police and DA's office think it demonstrates Ronnie's propensity for violence. Even so, it won't be used in court."

"Why not?"

"It's what they call a prior bad act-just like the thing with her mother. In the state of Illinois, the prosecution can't use it unless the defense opens the door during testimony-and that isn't likely to happen." He paused. "But it doesn't matter. They won't need it."

"Why not?"

"Because they can still use the custody battle. That's where motivation comes in."

"I don't understand," Hutch said.

Was this the why that he had been waiting for?

Matt finally picked up his beer and took a long sip. Then he set the glass down, wiped a trace of foam from a corner of his mouth and said, "Jenny's law firm was representing Ronnie's ex."

"That doesn't make any sense," Hutch said. "Jenny knew Ronnie. Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

Matt shook his head. "Not really. Jenny worked for Treacher and Pine, one of the oldest and largest law firms in Chicago. She was a senior associate in the corporate law division. Handled fraud cases, real estate, things like that."

"And?"

"Family court matters are handled by an entirely different set of lawyers over there. They're not even on the same floor, and they don't cross-pollinate."

"So no conflict," Hutch said.

"Not in the court's eyes. But according to the prosecution's theory of events, that didn't keep Ronnie from thinking Jenny had some kind of pull."

Hutch waited as Matt took another sip of his beer.

"You remember she told us about bumping into Jenny at the Godwyn Theater? Talked about Andy trying to get that screenplay to you?"

Hutch nodded.

"Well, turns out that's not the only thing they talked about. Ronnie brought up the custody case, and apparently Jenny wasn't even aware it existed until Ronnie confronted her."

"Confronted?"

"That's how Jenny's boss characterized it in his witness statement. He says Jenny called him right after the encounter to let him know about it. Wanted everything above board."

"That's our Jenny," Hutch said.

"The boss says he wasn't concerned about it until things started getting a little hairy."

"In what way?"

"Those phone calls you heard about? The ADA says that was Ronnie calling Jenny's office, demanding that she use her influence to get her ex to back off. Most of the calls were fielded by a secretary, who tried to explain that Jenny had nothing to do with the case, but apparently it got pretty nasty. Ronnie didn't take kindly to being ignored."

"She told me she didn't make those calls."

"Well they're saying she did, and they're claiming it's enough to show frame of mind. Their theory is that Ronnie was so afraid of losing her kid, she must have cracked-and Jenny got the brunt of it."

Hutch couldn't help seeing the irony here. The very thing Ronnie claimed was her reason for not killing Jenny was the prosecutor's idea of a perfectly plausible motive.

And Hutch didn't disagree. Yet even with all this evidence, Matt still seemed to be leaning toward Ronnie's innocence.

"I don't get it," Hutch said. "You tell me you're not willing to go as far as saying Ronnie's guilty, but this all sounds pretty convincing to me."

"Because I still can't believe it. I can't believe Ronnie would do something so drastic."

"Maybe you need to readjust your thinking."

Matt shook his head. "You haven't been around her in years. But I have. Seen her several times-even had a little thing with her after her divorce."

"Seriously?"

He shrugged. "Didn't last long. I was on the tail end of my first marriage and things happened. But we both quickly realized it was a mistake. We're better friends than lovers." He paused. "But you get that close to someone, you start to know how her mind works. What she's capable of."

Hutch had to admit this was true. Despite the distance between he and Jenny he'd felt the same way about her.

"And I have to tell you," Matt continued, "I meant what I said outside the station house. Ronnie isn't capable of hurting anyone ."

"I think her ex-husband would disagree."

"That was an anomaly. And her ex is a scumbag, so who knows how much of what he told the cops was the truth? Ronnie says it's mostly bullshit."

Hutch had been staring at his half-empty glass and looked up sharply. "You spoke to her about this?"

Matt nodded.

"When?"

Matt seemed uncomfortable under Hutch's gaze. "I went out to the jail a couple days back, but in the interests of full disclosure, I've gotta tell you we've been in contact ever since she was arrested."

Full disclosure? What was going on here?

It took Hutch all of about fifteen seconds to put it together.

"Jesus Christ," he said. "You guys have been tag teaming me from the start."

"She didn't do it, Hutch. I know in my gut she didn't do it. I only told you all this stuff because Ronnie wants you to know exactly where things stand."

"Oh, really?" Hutch was incensed. "So I sat in that interview room, Ronnie crying about wanting somebody to believe in her-and there you were all the time. Talk about bullshit ."