The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (primary phonics txt) 📗

parade before the jury. I’ve digested more pictures of dead bodies than I care to remember, and these gruesome beauties rival the worst of them.

Joe’s participation in these early stages is more observer than attorney. None of the evidence so far implicates Miller, leaving Joe with nothing to challenge on cross-examination. He just sits there, the courtroom’s forgotten man. He is competent, but lacks imagination. A better lawyer would ask questions simply to build a rapport with the jury and establish himself as someone who plays fair with the other side’s witnesses. Not Joe. He allows the prosecution to dominate the room.

Scott’s role as the lead detective on the case presents a quandary. Any other trial, he would be front and center as part of the State’s case. The concern now centers on Tasha. Scott knows her identity—the only potential prosecution witness with knowledge of that closely-guarded secret. If Joe demands the answer of him on cross, Scott will have no choice but to tell the truth. I make the call not to put him on the stand. Softening that decision is that Scott adds little unique value to the meat of our case. His investigation revealed nothing. No one would talk to the police except Tasha. And Tasha can speak for herself.

***

Walking the halls of the courthouse during a lunch recess finds me consumed with thoughts of the trial—the things that happened, the things that didn’t. This focus renders me oblivious to the people I pass, much like when I’m driving and suddenly realize that I have no recollection whatsoever of the past minute or so. I never crash in those situations, protected from disaster by some combination of habit, muscle memory, and subconscious awareness of my surroundings. The same dynamic now operates. I manage to avoid running into people even though I don’t see them.

The shouting of my name from across the hall awakens me from this particular stupor. I calibrate my brain to pinpoint the source of the noise. The results do not compute—Bernard Barton. He walks up to me and starts a conversation.

“Counselor, good to see you.”

He sticks out his hand, daring me to either shake it or not shake it. I’m not sure which. I shake.

I say, “We shouldn’t be talking.”

Because he’s represented by a lawyer, I’m prohibited from having any ex parte communications with him. Barton doesn’t care.

“I’m a lawyer. I know the rules. I can handle you by myself.”

I nod. Sure you can, Bernie. Our eyes lock. I don’t say anything because I don’t have anything to say. Barton wants to chat.

“I’m here handling a matter on the side for an old friend. Feels good to get out of the house. I expect I’ll be right back at it full-time soon enough.”

He sells confidence, but I ain’t buying. God has yet to create the person who is confident in the face of a murder charge. Marsh & McCabe put him on leave when the indictment came down. Yet here he stands, preening for attention. His act may work to seduce young female associates, but I’m unfazed. I’ve prosecuted men much worse than Barton. I’m prosecuting one right now. Barton fancies himself invincible, but tough guys don’t beat up on women.

He asks, “You here with the Miller trial?”

I laugh at his counterfeit smugness and leave him to his games. Walking away, I ruminate on the sisterly connection that now links the two of us together. The thought bothers me more than it should—as though Barton and I stand as mirror images of each other. The idea sticks in my throat and refuses to go down. I want to vomit it out.

***

Trials have a rhythm that builds to a crescendo. No matter how much you prepare, the beat of work rarely relents. Something somewhere always requires your attention.

The Miller trial is no different. Ella and I work together late into the night. My tie long discarded, our shoes strewn across the floor, and the scattered remains of a rushed dinner littering a side table, we sit in my office—me at my desk, her at the conference table—working side-by-side like we have for five years now.

Amber never displayed a single pang of jealousy about her husband working closely with another woman at all hours. The trust is remarkable in hindsight. The sexual abandon unleashed in me by Lara reveals how close to moral anarchy I always stood. Given the right push, I jumped full throttle into the gorge. Sitting next to Ella tonight, I feel like a different man than the one who used to sit next to Ella. Instead of seeing her as a valued colleague, I imagine the sexual relationship between us that never was. She is beautiful.

The fickle trajectory of fate teases me like a court jester. My love life is not my own. It is the product of a predetermined destiny that chucks its meat hooks into my sides and guides me to a slaughter not of my own volition—a dead wife with whom I should have grown old, a clandestine affair with a famous starlet who chose me to give herself to, and a beautiful woman I’m bound to hurt, someone who I could bed tonight, probably this exact moment if I walked over to her right now. That last thought tantalizes. The lust flares up. I push the images away.

Ella catches my stare. She smiles the smile of incipient love—the kind a woman smiles when love is fresh and hopeful, before the hard facts of life whittle the dream down into lukewarm reality. The smile guts me with a jagged-edge machete—the type of tool I used to make trails in the woods where I grew up, the grooves on the edge able to gnaw through the toughest of branches. I break the gaze and pretend to pay attention to my work. Ella asks, “What?” Still smiling that sweet, damnable smile.

I play dumb, “What?”

“Why were you looking at me like that?”

“I was lost in my thoughts.”

“About what?”

“Tasha.”

“Oh.”

The whole tableau