A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

making backroom deals because I was scared I couldn’t win in open court.  The people of Jackson County want to know that they’ve got a strong prosecutor protecting them.  And the truth of it is, the people of this county want something else, too, in case you haven’t noticed -- they want Jason Lightfoot hung by his neck until he’s dead for what he did.  And that’s exactly what I’m prepared to give them.”

Lily had indeed noticed.  And the idea of that frenzy potentially poisoning the jury pool was one of the reasons she had come looking for a deal.   “Now, John Henry, you wouldn’t be using my client to play politics, would you?” she inquired.

“Well, can’t say as I’m proud of it,” the prosecutor replied.  “But then again, look at your client -- at his record.  For most of his life, what has he been but a bum, a drunk, and a drain on society?”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” Lily conceded.

“Sure am sorry you got stuck with the case.”

Lily cocked her head.  “You know, that’s exactly how I felt about it,” she said, “until just now.”  She smiled at him, and the smile was radiant.  “I’ll see you in court, John Henry.”

Then she was gone.  And John Henry frowned.  He had a solid case against the Indian, and he knew it, but it always made him uneasy to go up against Carson Burns’ daughter.  He doubted that she realized it, but even during the year that she had worked for him, after her father had his stroke, there was something about the way she handled herself in a courtroom, a comfort level, an air of assurance she had, that always made him feel, well, inadequate.  It was even worse now that she was on the other side.

. . .

It was a bluff, of course, and Lily would have been the first to admit it.  She had no case.  She had nothing at all.  But his smugness had gotten to her.  If she had to name the biggest reason why she had left the prosecutor’s office for private practice, it was John Henry Morgan.

She exited the courthouse and walked the short block down Meridian Avenue to Broad Street, which marked the beginning of Port Hancock’s business district.  It didn’t look much like the financial center of a twenty-first century city, filled as it was with block after block of nineteenth-century dwellings, featuring gingerbread facades, Corinthian columns, and old-fashioned porticos, rather than the more typical glass and steel skyscrapers one expected to see, but few in Port Hancock were much bothered about it.  Everyone knew that what went on behind those vintage walls was every bit twenty-first century.

Lily crossed Broad Street, turned left, and headed for a building in the middle of a row of similar buildings, a vintage Victorian rumored to have been a popular brothel in its more illustrious days, but had since been converted to accommodate other kinds of professional services.

With Carson’s assistance, Lily had bought the place after a year of renting it.  She had then kept the two bathrooms and the kitchen more or less intact, but proceeded to turn the first floor -- or parlor floor, as it was referred to, into a reception area, a conference room and a computer room.  The second floor became three offices and a library, and the third floor was used as a storage area that, after only five years, was more than half-filled.

The sign outside the front door said simply: Law Offices.

And just below that, there was a sign that read: Private Investigations.

Three years ago, Lily had given one of her offices, and all that came with it, to Joe Gideon, in exchange for first dibs on his expertise.

Like Lily, Joe had been born and raised in Port Hancock.  And like Lily, Joe had followed in his father’s footsteps, in this case, to the Port Hancock Police Department, rising from officer to detective to sergeant.  Then, after twenty-five years, with one bullet having blown off half his left ear and another having splintered his right shoulder, and amid some serious talk of a promotion to lieutenant, the fifty-year-old came to the conclusion that management didn’t really suit him, and it was time to retire.

“Let’s just say, I want to go out while I’m still mostly in one piece,” he liked to joke, whenever he was asked.

There was a big ceremony, with memorable accolades from the mayor on down, a touching speech from the Chief of Police, and a lot of shoulder pats -- on his left shoulder, of course -- from his fellow officers.  His retirement even made the front page of the local newspaper.  And for a while, the celebrity made him feel pretty special.

But it didn’t take long, barely a matter of spring passing through summer into autumn, for him to realize that, as enticing as it had first seemed, retirement didn’t suit him any better than management.  He wasn’t ready to sit on his back porch for the rest of his life, massaging his shoulder and watching the Canadian geese fly by.  He decided there had to be something he could still contribute, on perhaps a more flexible and less demanding level.  Or maybe it was Beth, his wife, who decided.

In either case, the timing couldn’t have been better for Lily.  Her practice was picking up steam, she and her paralegal were too often working sixty to seventy hours a week, and she needed to add a seasoned investigator to the team, especially one with connections.  Because among the things she had learned from her days in the prosecutor’s office was that you couldn’t always trust the police to get it right.

And for the last three years, whether it was because he knew the Port Hancock Police Department so intimately, or simply because he was a really superb investigator, Joe Gideon had been getting it right.

As if the point needed emphasizing, Lily marched up the front steps of the Victorian, pushed