Her Deadly Game, page 2
Keera knew almost nothing about the details of Doyle’s case.
“Counsel?” Patel asked, sounding impatient.
Keera rose and tugged at the lapels of her black suit. “Mr. Duggan has been detained,” she said, as if her father had a dental appointment that had run long. “I’ll conduct the cross-examination of Officer Walsh.”
Patel’s lips nearly inched into a grin. Keera clearly wasn’t fooling at least one person in the courtroom. “Proceed,” Patel said.
Officer Walsh looked tightly wound as Keera approached. He expected a confrontation. The prosecuting attorney, also young, inched to the edge of her chair, prepared to stand and defend Walsh with objections and interruptions intended to throw Keera off her game.
They wouldn’t.
Keera approached the podium without notes. She smiled. “Good afternoon, Officer Walsh. How was your lunch?”
Walsh hesitated. “Too short.” His response garnered a few smiles from the jurors.
“You’re tired, I assume, from working the Third Watch last night—the graveyard shift.” Keera knew this because of Walsh’s age—twenty-three. He was years from pulling more reasonable watches. She also knew no officer got used to working the graveyard. Officers had told her their bodies adapted, but their internal clocks longed for normalcy.
“I’m eager to get home and sleep.” Walsh glanced at the jury. His boyish good looks and aw-shucks smile played well.
“I’ll bet it can be difficult to concentrate when your internal clock is thrown off.”
“You get used to it,” Walsh said, cautious, as the young prosecutor had certainly prepped him to be. Keera empathized with her. She was about to lose this case, and her supervising attorney would not be happy.
“You still have your officer’s report?”
“I do.” Walsh held up the multipage document.
“You testified on direct examination that your report was complete, accurate, and honest.”
“Truthful,” Walsh said.
Keera had deliberately misquoted Walsh. “Complete, accurate, and truthful,” she repeated, for the jury’s benefit. Each question was strategic. Keera thought several questions ahead, choosing the next one depending on Walsh’s answer. Walsh had found Doyle asleep behind the wheel of his car on a county road. Doyle had blown a .08 on the Breathalyzer and been charged with drunk driving, his second offense in two years. He faced a $5,000 fine and thirty to 364 days in jail. Patsy had the Breathalyzer test thrown out since Doyle hadn’t been operating the vehicle at the time Walsh confronted him, but the PA chose to move forward with evidence Doyle also failed the field-sobriety test.
“Let’s get to it, then,” Keera said. “At the academy and at roll call before each watch, you are taught that officer safety is priority number one; aren’t you?”
Walsh looked surprised by the question. “Yes.”
“And in keeping with rule number one being your safety, you are taught how to interact with people in all kinds of situations, including a possible DUI stop; correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“Remind me. Your police training at the academy is about seven hundred hours; isn’t it?”
“Seven hundred and twenty.” He smiled.
“Of those seven hundred and twenty hours, how many hours are devoted to pulling someone over for a possible DUI?” Keera knew the answer from a class she took while at the PA’s office, but the answer was better coming from Walsh.
“I don’t know,” Walsh said.
Keera gently pounced. “The class didn’t make much of an impression, then,” she said.
Walsh stumbled to correct his mistake. “It did. I just don’t remember how many hours it was.”
“The DUI class I took at the police academy was two hours. Does that sound about right?”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he agreed, his smile becoming tentative.
“At the academy you’re also taught that approaching a vehicle can be dangerous; correct?”
“It can be, yes.”
“Even more dangerous when you come upon a car at night, on a county road, in pitch-black darkness; correct?”
“I have a lamp I shine through the back windshield,” Walsh said.
“You’re alert, then, maybe even nervous?”
“I’m not nervous. You get used to it,” he said. He thought he had figured out Keera’s next move.
“Really? With all the negative publicity police officers have recently received, you’re not nervous when you approach a car parked along the side of the road, alone, late at night?”
“There are always some nerves, but you deal with them.” Walsh glanced at the prosecutor, who gave him a subtle nod of approval.
“Okay. You’re also taught the person inside the car might be nervous, correct?”
“Correct.”
“A specific protocol exists on how to proceed with a night stop; doesn’t it? You call in the stop and provide your location to police headquarters.”
“Dispatch. Right.”
“You don’t jump out of your car with your gun drawn, do you?”
Walsh chuckled. “No. I check the license plate to determine if the driver has any warrants.”
“Did Clancy Doyle have any warrants?”
“No.”
“Then you jump out?”
“No. You position your vehicle at an angle in case the patrol car were to be rear-ended, it would not strike the parked car. Then you light up the person or persons inside the vehicle to determine if they’re trying to hide or grab anything. Any suspicious activity.”
“You didn’t observe Mr. Doyle doing anything suspicious, did you?”
Another pause. “No.”
“And when you approached Mr. Doyle’s driver’s window and questioned him, he didn’t argue with you, did he?”
“I don’t think he did.”
“If he had argued with you, you would have written it in your complete, accurate, and truthful report, wouldn’t you?”
“He didn’t argue with me,” Walsh said.
“He was cordial. Polite. Reasonable.”
“I guess so.” Walsh shrugged this off as inconsequential.
“You asked him to exit his vehicle, and he did that with no problem, correct?”
“I don’t recall any problem.”
“You didn’t note any problems in your complete, accurate, and truthful report, did you?”
“No.”
Keera picked up Officer Walsh’s report. “On direct examination you said the first thing you did after ordering Mr. Doyle from his car was put a pen in front of his eyes and ask him to visually track it. Did I read that correctly?”
“You did. And he didn’t.” Another smile for the jurors.
“You didn’t consider the fact that Mr. Doyle had bright lights shining in his eyes on a pitch-black road just seconds before you administered that test, though, did you?”
“Well . . .”
“It’s not in your complete, accurate, and truthful report.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s talk about what else is not in your report . . . and feel free to refer to it. I don’t want to mislead you.” She noticed several jurors suppressing grins. “Mr. Doyle did not have red, bloodshot eyes.”
“No.”
“He did not have glassy eyes.”
“No.”
“His skin was not flushed.”
“I couldn’t really see.”
“It’s not in your report.”
“It’s not.”
“He did not slur his speech.”
“No.”
“He did not stumble, fall over, or lose balance when he exited his car.”
“No.”
“He didn’t throw up or look sick.”
“No.”
“You testified that you considered ‘each piece of evidence’ to conclude my client was drunk. I assume you considered this evidence that indicated Mr. Doyle was not drunk; didn’t you?”
“When I gave him the field sobriety test, he did not step straight.”
“You’re saying Mr. Doyle, who admitted to being nervous, and after you had shone a bright light in his eyes, didn’t step perfectly straight while trying to follow your instructions that he walk heel to toe, with his hands at his side, along an imaginary straight line, on an uneven dirt-and-gravel shoulder?”
Officer Walsh sighed. “He stumbled.”
“But he did follow your instructions correctly, and he did count nine steps, turn, and count exactly nine steps back; didn’t he?” Keera demonstrated the walk.
“He followed the instructions I gave him, but he wove.”
“You considered his accurately following your instructions as evidence he was not drunk; didn’t you?”
“I considered the things he did wrong.”
Keera frowned, as if sorry for what she was about to do. “Then you didn’t consider each piece of evidence, as your report states. You didn’t consider all the evidence that indicated Mr. Doyle was not drunk; did you?”
“I considered everything, but I was focused on the things he did wrong,” Walsh said again, becoming recalcitrant.
Another mistake. “Then leaving out all the evidence you observed indicating Mr. Doyle was not intoxicated was inadvertent and not a deliberate attempt to mislead this court and its jurors?”
“Objection,” the prosecutor said, standing. “Argumentative.”
Patel sighed. “Overruled.”
“I’ll withdraw the question,” Keera said. She didn’t need the answer. “You also wrote in your report the car smelled of alcohol?”
“That’s correct,” Walsh said.
“You didn’t write Mr. Doyle smelled like alcohol.”
“What? I—”
“Was the car drunk?”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“What’s the objection, Counselor?” Patel asked.
“Sarcasm?”
“Overruled.”
“He was the only one in the car,” Walsh said, his tone combative.
“You were taught at the academy, during that two-hour class on DUIs, that alcohol has no smell, weren’t you?”
“I don’t follow.”
“You were taught alcohol has no smell.” It was technically true. If the officer smelled an odor on the driver’s breath, it was the flavoring added to the beverage.
“I know what beer smells like, and he smelled . . . hoppy . . . Like hops.”
“Did the car smell like peanuts?”
Walsh paused. “I don’t recall.”
“My client had a bag of peanuts in the car, didn’t he? It’s in your report.”
“He did.”
“So you smelled peanuts, or maybe hops, but not alcohol, because you were taught at the academy that alcohol has no smell.”
The prosecuting attorney stood. “Objection, Your Honor. The witness said the defendant smelled like beer.”
“I don’t believe he did, Your Honor. Officer Walsh said the witness smelled ‘hoppy.’”
“Overruled,” Patel said.
Keera made a face like Officer Walsh’s answers pained her, but she’d have pity and not embarrass him further. She turned to Judge Patel. The jurist no longer looked as though she was holding back a smile.
Though several jurors did.
Chapter 2
The prosecuting attorney gave her closing argument, and Keera followed with a short summation. Judge Patel moved to adjourn for the day, but the jurors expressed a desire to deliberate, so they wouldn’t have to return in the morning. Patel, knowing what was to come, capitulated. The jury came back with a not-guilty verdict in less than half an hour.
As Keera packed her laptop, Clancy Doyle profusely thanked her. “I’m going to recommend you to all my friends,” he said. “You’re even better than your father.”
“Please don’t,” Keera said.
Doyle looked confused. “I didn’t mean—”
“You dodged a bullet, Mr. Doyle. The officer and the prosecutor were young and inexperienced. They made a lot of mistakes. You may not be so lucky next time. Beyond that, you could hit another car, or someone walking along the road, and you won’t be looking at a DUI. You’ll be looking at vehicular homicide and spending the rest of your years behind bars. Do you really want to do that to your wife and children? Your grandchildren? I noticed neither Dolores nor your children were in court today.” She let the unspoken inference remain that way.
Doyle looked like he’d been slapped. “I’m going to give up the drinking this time, Keera. I swear it.”
Her father had made similar promises so many times it no longer even angered her. It was just sad. Empty promises only made afternoons like this more painful. “Do me a favor. Don’t lie to yourself. You’re not going to give up drinking.”
“I . . .”
“The next time you drink, do it at home. Or hand the bartender your car keys at the start of the evening and tell him to call you a cab. Put the Uber and Lyft apps on your phone. The cost of a ride will be a small fraction of what you paid my father. And it may save a life. Possibly yours.” She slid her briefcase strap onto her shoulder and stepped past him, carrying her father’s box of binders and documents. “Say hello to Dolores for me.”
Keera put her back to the tall doors and pushed out into the marbled hall. When she turned, Miller Ambrose, her former boss and lover, pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against. He tried to make his presence look like a coincidence, but he was a second too late initiating his first step. He’d been waiting for her. Keera ignored him and walked to the bank of elevators.
“You beating up on the rookies now?” Ambrose said.
“What are you doing here, Miller?”
“Get over yourself. I have a trial down the hall.”
She adjusted the box on her knee to press the elevator button. “Muni court? Is that where the most dangerous offender cases are now being tried?”
Ambrose was a senior attorney in the Most Dangerous Offender Project, or MDOP. In Seattle, a senior prosecutor was sent to the most serious crime scenes to help detectives with evidence issues and provide advice on subpoenas and other legal technicalities. The intent was to eliminate mistakes a good defense attorney could exploit.
“Where are you headed? Maybe we could have a drink, for old times’ sake.”
“That would certainly be like old times,” she said.
An elevator pinged. The doors slid apart. Keera allowed those people inside to exit.
“Is this your career now? DUI cases? Beating up rookie prosecutors and police officers?”
She stepped inside. “Just happened to be walking by, huh?”
“I expected so much more from you.”
Keera spoke as the elevator doors closed. “Really? I always expected so much less from you.”
She sighed and leaned against the back wall. Keera and Ambrose had quietly dated for eight months. Keera had been initially attracted to Ambrose’s legal mind and unwavering self-confidence. At times, he controlled the courtroom more like a judge than an advocate. And Ambrose knew his way around a woman’s body as well as he knew his way around the courtroom, but his self-confidence was narcissism, and too many of their nights had been fueled by alcohol and primal urges—red flags Keera eventually noted. A nightly cocktail before dinner. A good bottle of wine. A port before bed. Keera had no interest in becoming her mother, a drunk’s caretaker. She told Ambrose her concerns. He told her he could stop drinking. But he didn’t. Then came the familiar excuses. He drank to be social, to keep her company, to take the edge off a difficult day. The apologies followed. She’d heard those too.
When she tried to discreetly end their relationship, he became verbally abusive and confrontational. She gave him every opportunity to stop harassing her. When he showed up outside her home, she had the locks changed. When he waited after work to talk to her, she changed parking structures. When he persisted, she threatened to get a restraining order and make his actions public. In this era of the Me Too movement, it would have ended his career. Many said Ambrose would be the next King County prosecuting attorney. Maybe mayor. He backed off, but her caseload changed to prosecuting misdemeanors. Keera had no future in the PA’s office. She languished another month, then tucked her tail between her legs and asked her father for a job. Patrick Duggan & Associates had been a place she had sworn she would never work.
She stepped off the elevator and walked outside. A stiff, warm breeze blew east up James Street from Elliott Bay. The weather had been unseasonably hot for Seattle; meteorologists predicted several more days of temperatures exceeding one hundred degrees. More days in one week than Seattle had recorded in the last one hundred years combined.
By the time she reached Occidental Square, she dripped sweat beneath her suit jacket and was ready to dump her father’s box of binders into a garbage bin. The heat had sent most sane people indoors in search of air-conditioning, the light-blue tables and chairs beneath the trees in the square vacant.
Keera approached the Paddy Wagon, an Irish pub on the first floor of the building her father obtained from a client who couldn’t pay his legal bill some thirty years ago. Having a pub just three floors beneath her alcoholic father was like having a candy store in the same building as an elementary school. Liam called out to her from the pub’s patio, as he usually did.
“Hey, Keera. Stop by for something to eat,” Liam said, his Irish accent lyrical.
She smiled and lifted the box. It seemed to gain weight with each step. “I’m working.”
“All work and no play make for a boring Keera. You have to eat.”
“I’m in trial.” She smiled but hoped her definitive declination would discourage Liam. His persistence was both flattering and annoying.
Keera rested the box on a knee, punched in her secure access code, and stepped inside the lobby to the caged elevator. She dropped the box, shut the gate, and made the sign of the cross before she pushed the third-floor button. No way she was lugging that box up three flights of stairs, no matter how finicky the elevator car could be.
