Black Mark: A BRAND NEW totally gripping crime thriller full of twists by Paul Spencer

Author:Paul Spencer [Spencer, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books - crime, thrillers & mysteries
Published: 2024-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR

Discovery arrived almost two weeks later, on a Thursday morning. Tony was already there when I arrived at Casey’s office to help review it. There was a stack of documents on the table, close to two feet high. Casey had a smaller pile in front of her. She looked up as I walked in.

“Morning, Mick. I’ve got something to show you.”

She stood and made her way to the copy room, opened the door, then gestured inside. A small folding table had been wedged in between the printer and supply cabinet, with a battered black office chair parked by it.

“It’s your new office. What do you think?”

The table was barely four feet wide and the chair looked like it had been pulled out of a dumpster.

“Wow. I’m overcome with excitement.”

Casey laughed. “It’s not the executive suite, but it’s all the space I have. Now that discovery is in, you’re going to be working here full time until we’re done with the trial. You’ll need a desk, and that’s the best I can do.”

Back when I’d had my own practice, I’d rented a suite of office space. My desk had views out over the river and to Mount Hood beyond. Now I’d be squeezing into a makeshift workspace in a closet.

“I’ll make it work,” I said.

Casey sat back down at the conference table. “Great. Right, let’s review what they sent us.”

I took a seat. Casey gestured at the stack of paperwork.

“We’re not going through all of this today. But I pulled a few things from the response summary that you should see.

“First and foremost, they refused our request for material relating to Elliott’s arrest. There’s no video, no arrest report, nothing. We got the arresting officers’ names and records. That’s it. They claim this case is about who killed Betts, and since Betts was already dead when Elliott was arrested, anything related to the arrest is irrelevant.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “We’re going to move to compel, right?”

“Of course. In fact, that’s your first job. Get me legal authority to back us up. I’ve got the basics on discovery being broad and that pretty much everything is allowable. I need a specific argument that the material is discoverable because it’s relevant to the defense theory of the case.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. What’s next?”

Casey waved a binder at me. “We’ve got the pathologist’s report. It puts the time of death as between noon and midnight on Friday, June 14. That’s the night you guys went to the awards dinner, right?”

“It is. I picked Elliott up at his place around seven and dropped him off around eleven.”

“I don’t suppose you know where he was the rest of the time?”

“Not specifically. When I asked him, he basically said he was either at work or at home all week. We can check the details with him.”

“Okay. Speaking of Elliott, next on the list is his criminal record. It’s included in discovery under exhibits that may be introduced at trial. I want to exclude it as irrelevant, so that’s another legal research task for you, Mick.

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