States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

the morning of Monday, August 24th of this year?”

“Yes. We answered the 9-1-1 call from the principal.”

“And what did you find when you arrived?”

“Mr. Sinclair in his office.”

“What condition was Mr. Sinclair in?”

“He was dead. So, not very good.”

A burst of laughter from the gallery.

Garrison bangs the gavel twice. “Order. There will be silence in this court.”

“Please go on, Detective.”

“Mr. Sinclair was behind his desk. He had suffered two gunshot wounds. One to the head, the other to the groin.”

McNeil checks the shopping list of handwritten questions on his legal pad. “Detective, have you brought any photographs of the crime scene with you?

Reilly holds up a manila envelope. “I have.”

“Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”

Garrison nods and McNeil steps forward to hand the photos up to the judge.

I leap to my feet. “Objection, Your Honor. I have not had the chance to review the photographs, nor has counsel laid the proper foundation for their admission into evidence.”

Likely, a baseless objection. Usually crime scene photos are for the jurors, to shock and horrify them into a conviction. These ones must be hideous if McNeil wants the judge to see them at this point. To seal his argument against Zoe’s bail. Still, I have to say something. I can’t sit here like a potted plant doing nothing. I have to make it look like I’m doing something to get Zoe out of jail. So, lack of foundation it is.

McNeil gets out a “Your Honor,” before Garrison cautions him with a raised hand.

Garrison glances at the motley assortment of inmates still in the jury box. “Ms. Locke, there’s no jury here. Save whatever objections you have for trial.”

I lower my eyes in a contrived show of humility.

“Nice try, however, Ms. Locke. I see you haven’t lost your flair for the dramatic.”

Garrison wrinkles his nose at the stack of photos in McNeil’s outstretched hand. “If the top one is anything to go by, those are, indeed, quite stunning. Counsel, please hand the photographs to Ms. Locke to review.”

Shocking is an understatement. In one shot, Sinclair’s lanky frame is sprawled back in a high-backed chair, pants at his ankles, black high tops poking out, arms hanging over the arms of the chair. A hole in his forehead the size of a golf ball crusted with dried blood. Another, a close-up, shows his head leaning against a bookshelf, its final resting place next to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. I gag at another, this one of his groin, a gaping crater where his dick used to be, a fact not shared with the media. Not yet, anyway. When this gets out, it’ll be open season on Zoe.

I return the photographs to McNeil, who hands them to Garrison. Halfway through the stack the judge’s jaw starts to drop, but he catches himself and clenches it shut. His eyes flick to Zoe, resting on her emotionless face for a beat, and back to the photos with a shake of his head.

“Detective, was there anyone else in the office when you arrived?”

“Yes. Mrs. Bannister, the headmistress at St. Paul’s, and a student, Serena Price. Mrs. Bannister said she heard screaming coming from the victim’s office, and went in. She said she found Sinclair dead and Ms. Price screaming.”

“Who called 9-1-1?”

“Mrs. Bannister. She stayed on the line with dispatch until the first uniformed officers arrived.”

“Were there any other people in the vicinity?”

“No. The victim’s office was in a small out-building away from the main building so, fortunately, no one else entered the crime scene.”

“What did you do next?”

“At that point, Detective Sorenson arrived. He had been here, at the courthouse. At a hearing on another case.”

“Go on.”

“The scene was secured, and the school was locked down until it could be swept by SWAT and the bomb squad. They found nothing. Next, we got a warrant to search the premises.”

The warrant must have been Sonny’s doing. Reilly wouldn’t recognize the Fourth Amendment if it slapped him in the face.

“So, you did get a warrant?”

“Actually, my partner, Detective Sorenson was the one to get the warrant. He left the crime scene and got Judge Rodriguez to sign the warrant.”

Of course, he did.

“Why did you need a warrant, Detective?”

I stifle a yawn. Courtroom drama may play well on TV, but in the real world it can be mind-numbingly boring. A litany of procedural details parroted by trained witnesses who know exactly what they’re supposed to say to get what they want—a win for their side.

“We had the school locked down and had verified that we were not dealing with an active shooter situation. Also, the bomb squad came through with sniffer dogs, just in case. We wanted to get a warrant to make sure, if we found any evidence related to the crime, that it would be admissible in court. We needed to search each individual student’s locker, and we weren’t sure who or what we were dealing with.”

Hearing Reilly kissing up to the Court, making out that he’s by the book, makes me sick.

“And what, if anything, did you find?”

“Detective Sorenson found a handgun, a Glock 19 with a silencer attached, hidden in a gym bag in a locker.”

“And in whose locker did you locate the weapon?”

“It was in the defendant’s locker. And it had been fired recently.”

A few onlookers gasp, causing Garrison to bang the gavel again. “Order!”

“Please go on.”

“We located Ms. Slim in her English class, and we put her under arrest.”

“Did you run ballistics on the weapon you found?”

“Yes. The bullets taken from Mr. Sinclair’s body by the medical examiner matched the gun we found in Ms. Slim’s locker. The murder weapon was registered to an Anton Slim, the defendant’s father.”

All eyes are locked on Reilly, as if the litany of damning evidence is totally unrelated to the kid sitting in the box, as if her conviction is a fait accompli. As if she’s not even in the room—at least, until Zoe starts banging her head against the back of the chair in front of hers, slamming her handcuffed wrists on