Page 41 of Falling for Roxanne

“My mind is made up, Cath,” I said.

“You know I’m on your side, right?”

“I know. Love you,” I said and hung up.

CHAPTER 23

HAMILTON

One thing I noticed right away was that Roxanne spoke to the new paralegal we hired, Marta, a lot more than she spoke directly to me. Sure, partly she was bringing her up to speed on the case as we barreled toward trial next week. But sometimes it seemed like she was using Marta as a go-between instead of talking to me directly. Once she said, “Marta, I think we’re finished with these files for the moment, but I don’t know what Mr. Bell thinks.” As if she couldn’t just ask me if I was ready to move on.

It was a little frustrating but adding a third person to our meetings about the upcoming trial was constructive in that I was more careful not to say anything personal, anything belying our strictly professional relationship in front of Marta. Marta, a newly divorced mom who must not be given the impression that I meddled with the interns or something shady like that.

I also noticed that Roxanne stopped asking how Colin was and didn’t say a single word that wasn’t solely relevant to the Daniel Garza retrial. When I mentioned ordering in for lunch one day, she just shook her head. She didn’t look as pale as before when she’d had food poisoning, but she was still distracted, less energetic than I was used to seeing her. If I was worried, it was only as her boss, as someone who worked with her and noticed she seemed like she wasn’t quite herself.

On Friday, I got a fax—talk about old-school, but the DA’s office didn’t have the commitment to modern tech that I did in private practice. The DA sent through a copy of a petition for continuance to postpone the trial and the names of two last-minute law enforcement witnesses they were adding to the case. I swore. I wanted to dial up that sneaky bastard and tell him his Hail Mary play wasn’t going to save his office or the police department from not only an overturned conviction but also extensive internal affairs investigation on the grounds of corruption.

I wanted to shout at the DA and ask if he’d dug up some more people who were fucking the detective on the case who were willing to perjure themselves. But I restrained myself. I was a professional. I sat down, went over the documents and started taking notes on my objections to these developments. I could file a countermotion and get the continuance dismissed on the grounds of further violating Garza’s rights by postponing. It was just a headache and more red tape. The witnesses would have to be vetted and their depositions examined in detail. I had to formulate a line of cross-examination for them and figure out what sort of surprise the DA’s office was cooking up.

I buzzed Marta and Roxanne and brought them up to date on the latest twist. I set Marta to work on the countermotion and turned to Roxanne.

“I’ll have to work tomorrow to get the new witness information sorted. Do you have time to come in and assist?” I asked her.

“I can do that. What time?”

“Ten will be early enough.” I said. “I’d like to hear your take on the situation, and I could use a hand going over their information since it’s so close to the trial itself.”

“Does this kind of thing happen very often? With the DA’s office pulling a last-minute switch?” she asked.

“It’s very unusual. He must be panicking, pulling in anything he can to try and counter the testimony from Pansy Lestrade. He tried everything he could to make that inadmissible and the judge shut him down. But you can never, ever assume a judge is on your side. It’s a recipe for disaster. The majority of the ones I’ve dealt with are very fair and impartial even in cases where one side or the other has been obnoxious in court or tried to be unnecessarily obstructive. You’re not going to find anyone sitting the bench who’s going to favor an attorney or a defendant. No matter how much you want to believe in the John Grisham mythos.”

We finished up for the day and I went home to spend my evening with my son and put Roxanne out of my head. The next day, while my sister took the kids to a park, I headed in to work. I’d done some preliminary background the night before after Colin was asleep, but we had a lot to cover on these cops who were going to testify. I got started and was deep into a background check on both men—one of whom had domestic violence charges in his past and the other who wasn’t even assigned to Garza’s case and could only testify to things he may have noticed in passing at the police station.

When Roxanne walked in wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt with her hair back in a ponytail and a cup of herbal tea in her hand, I lost my train of thought. She had never looked more beautiful, face scrubbed clean and wearing her most comfortable clothes, far more casual than when I saw her in the office. She looked so much like herself, so temporarily at ease, that it was breathtaking. I had to swallow the words I wanted to say, how I wanted to tell her that she looked so beautiful exactly as she was at that moment.

“Thanks for coming in this morning. I thought this room might be good luck after how it worked out with Pansy. If you think we need more room we can go to the conference room,” I said. “So far, Sgt. Fox has been charged with domestic dispute five times in three years and the charges were dropped four of those times, and he was acquitted due to,” I cleared my throat pointedly, “Misplaced evidence, last month on the latest charge.”

Roxanne sat down across from me at the small table in the deposition room and took out her laptop.

“So, one of them beats up his wife and owes the department a favor for getting him off the charges. What about the other one?” she said incisively. “Let me guess, he’s a bystander who claims to have heard a casual confession from Garza?”

“Close,” I said, impressed by her intuition about the situation. “Lt. Carbone wasn’t on the Garza case and wasn’t even scheduled to work while Garza was being detained, but he covered someone else’s shift and saw the guy in passing. He claims that Garza was bragging to the detective about how he was going to get away with it and go free.”

“Get away with what? Being not guilty on all charges? Being framed by a corrupt and lackadaisical law enforcement agency? I’ve been to a police station. It’s very intimidating and oppressive. Even though I was there on official business, I felt cowed by it and barely wanted to speak. I doubt that anyone who’d been arrested would be boasting loudly about anything---it’s more of a sit quietly and hang your head scenario. And I’ve spoken to Garza’s family and seen video of him. That seems very out of character for him, especially since his tox screen showed that he wasn’t under the influence of anything. I mean, if he was high or drunk he might act out like that, but it’s sketchy at best.”

“That’s what I was thinking. So, if you’ll look at Fox’s case activity for the last six weeks—who he’s worked with, which cases he’s been assigned to, that kind of thing, and any background you can get on his wife who’s named as alleged victim in the case from last month. I’ll focus on Carbone and his vivid imagination. Maybe he gets grandiose when he’s been drinking or has a score to settle with someone. I need something I can pin him down with on the stand, something to shock him into reacting.”

“I understand,” she said.

We settled down to work, each of us buried in our laptop screens, occasionally reaching for a file or sheet of paper from the table between us. After a couple of hours, she stepped out to make a phone call and when she came back in, she had that look in her eyes, the cat that ate the canary.

“What?” I asked.

“I just got confirmation that Fox and his wife are estranged, and they’ve lived apart since his last arrest. He was staying at a motel, but only last week he changed his address with personnel. He’s living in a rented house owned by none other than our illustrious detective on the Garza case.”

“So, he’s a slum lord as well as a dirty cop, a loan shark and blackmailer.”

“That would make a great dating profile,” she said. “We should post one for him after this case is over,” she laughed.

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