John Nance: 16 Souls

Crandall ignored him.

“My point, Judith,” Crandall continued, “…is that it does not serve Walters, Wilson, and Crandall well to give Judge Gonzales the chance to show to the world that we are, in fact, the type of unresponsive, elitist fat cats he wrongly represents we are at election time. If we go crying to the appeals court, even if they grant the motion, we look bad.”

“What are you saying?” Judith asked, her voice close to betraying her rising desire to scream.

“I’m saying,” Roger continued, “…as clearly as I can , that the best thing for this law firm is for you to suck it up and defend the guy. Period.”

“How? Would you tell me that? He’s guilty as sin of murder in the second degree. He made a conscious decision. He knew if he did what he did that people would die. It may stink and be unprecedented to be going after an airline pilot making a tough call in flight, but the DA is technically, legally correct.”

“Give Roger an opportunity to explain,” Jenks interjected, earning a none-too-kind sideways glance from his partner over the lack of need for a champion.

Roger Crandall returned his gaze to Judith Winston. “It does not hurt to show that we are lawyers first, and corporate lawyers second, understand? We all took the same bar exam and it had did have a section on criminal law.”

“Dammit, Gonzalez said the same thing, but that does not…”

“You’re perfectly capable of handling this, Judith.”

Just for a second — an interval so short the other two lawyers could not have noticed — Judith felt the full blown emotions of a drowning person, suddenly overwhelmed, her sense of self-esteem flattened by a visceral terror of failure and that same evil little voice somewhere in the back of her consciousness telling her she was faking it and they were going to find out! And just as quickly, as if addressing those very fears, Roger Crandall continued.

“You’re sharp as hell, Judith, or I promise you wouldn’t be here. We’ll get you some help… get you tutored on criminal defense… even get you an experienced second on the case, but in the end, it will help our image to have you rise to this challenge. And, if you lose, well, hell, who could be expected to win something this twisted up? And we might ace it on appeal, you never know. I doubt anyone really wants to put that poor flyboy in prison.”

“Other than our buffoonish DA you mean,” she snapped.

“Go easy on our poor old district attorney,” Jenks chuckled, leaning into the picture again. “Fact is, Grant’s a politician, not a real lawyer, and he’s all wrapped up in running for God.”

Judith’s head snapped forward as the car’s automated system slammed on the brakes to avoid colliding with the pickup that had suddenly stopped in front of her. She forced her mind back to the present, glancing at her watch, relieved to see the traffic jam was finally breaking up ahead.

Finding Marty Mitchell’s address on the northern perimeter of Boulder was almost too easy with the GPS on her phone. Judith parked in front of the house and rang his phone again with the same lack of response. The sun was riding low in the west, but over an hour away from descending below the front range, and the house was bathed in natural light, obscuring whether any lights were on inside. She walked to the front door and rang the bell, hearing the sound echo inside, but nothing stirred. He had talked of owning a very loud dog, but she could hear nothing from within.

Predictably, the doorknob refused to yield to her perfunctory effort to turn it, and she re-closed the screen door and moved to what was probably the living room window, shielding her eyes to peer inside at a well-kept interior, with photos on the coffee table and nothing seemingly out of place.

She pulled out her phone and punched in Marty’s number again, keeping her ear to the window to see if she could hear a ring tone from inside, but there was nothing. Worried about neighbors misunderstanding what she was doing, Judith glanced around before deciding to circle the house, grasping the knob on the backdoor just to make sure all was secure and giving it a shake.

But the backdoor latch had apparently not seated, and without a deadbolt in place, the door suddenly swung open.

Judith moved inside cautiously, calling his name, listening in vain for a response. She checked the two bedrooms, finding the beds made with military precision, the bathroom towels ready for guests. She stopped for a second passing a floor to ceiling mirror and looked at herself, aware of the extra ten pounds she was always fighting to keep off, yet mostly pleased with the trim and disciplined woman she saw. Trim and disciplined was what any professional woman had to be, and the last thing she ever wanted anyone to know was how much effort it took, and how often the polished and unshakeable attorney they saw doubted herself.

The kitchen was neat and clean, except for a closed, half-eaten jar of peanut butter — a spoon set neatly beside it. She almost missed the several envelopes in the middle of the kitchen table. Each had a name on the front of it, but no address, or stamp, or return…

A sudden suspicion gripped her like a rising gorge, a sick feeling that she knew where this was going, where it had to go given what she was seeing. Each envelope was sealed, but she ripped open the first one and removed three pages of printed verbiage, trying to slow her reading to comprehend that it was a goodbye. Essentially a suicide note, with no indication of where or how.

Judith pulled one of the kitchen chairs and sat down hard, her mind racing. She opened the other three envelopes one by one, finding different messages but no additional clues. He had, however dated the signatures, and when she focused on the date, it was the 13th, one day ago.

How the hell can I find where he went? she thought. He could be anywhere! Think, dammit!

Suddenly her plan to help him feel better with a more optimistic assessment of his chances with his upcoming trial seemed so pathetically short of the mark. He’d needed that assurance before, and now…

There was something she was missing. The feeling was practically shouting at her, quite audible over the pounding of her heart and her breathing as she tried to figure out what to do. Calling the police would be essentially useless, or maybe not. She didn’t even know what car he drove, let alone his license plates… but they would.

She placed her cell phone on the table and stared at it, trying to visualize where his phone was, the one she had bought to give him some peace and privacy. That was an iPhone, just like hers. Maybe the cell company could locate it.

Holy crap! I can’t believe I forgot!

She toggled on her phone’s screen and moved to the note page, thumbing through the various things she’d typed until she found the one that mattered: The ID and password for the “Find My iPhone” function. She hadn’t told him about preprogramming it, and in truth, it was because she didn’t trust him. If the court had decided to put an ankle locater on him, she wanted a second way to find him if he fled. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, it would tell her where he was.

Judith worked to control her breathing as she togged on the appropriate app and carefully entered the information. The depiction of a compass rotated back and forth for almost a minute as her heart slowly sank.

It would have been too easy, she concluded, failing to recognize at first when the screen shifted to a map with a little green dot in the middle.

She leaned in, trying to interpret the map and the image. It was apparently a satellite depiction, but she had to zoom in and out several times to finally recognize where his cell phone was claiming to be, and as the recognition dawned, she looked up through the front windows of the house to see the big mountain itself.