Premeditated Intent: David Brunelle Legal Thrillers Book 13 by Stephen Penner

Author:Stephen Penner [Penner, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

It was bad enough to have lost the suppression hearing. It was going to be a hundred times worse explaining it to the victim family. Maybe more.

“Thank you for meeting with me again,” Brunelle started the meeting.

Probably more.

They were in his office again. It was only the mother, father, and sister this time. No brother, and mercifully no children. But that also meant no chance for a well-timed distraction as he delivered the bad news.

“I just wanted to meet with you to go over a few things and set some expectations,” he continued.

They all nodded along. The anxious energy of their last meeting had been replaced with the subdued numbness of the reality of Amelia’s murder sinking in. That didn’t mean they wanted a conviction any less. If anything, it was the only thing they had to hang on to.

Definitely more.

“As you know, trial starts next week,” Brunelle reminded them, almost certainly unnecessarily. “I’m going to need one of you to testify, right at the beginning, to just sort of establish that Amelia was a real person.”

He was met with puzzled expressions.

“You see, I have to prove that the victim was alive until she was murdered.” It sounded stupid out loud, but a lot of the law was like that. “It’s an element of the offense, so I can’t just pretend we all know it. Someone has to say it.”

“Okay,” Amelia’s father offered. “I can do that.”

“Great,” Brunelle accepted the offer. “That’s great. It’s also an opportunity for us to tell the jury a little bit about her. Not just that she was alive, but that she was a real person, with a real life, a real family, real people who loved her.”

“We did love her,” Amelia’s mother put in. She wasn’t crying, but there was a catch in her voice. “We still do.”

“Of course, of course,” Brunelle responded. “And the jury deserves to hear that. They need to hear that.”

“They will,” the father assured as his ex-wife rubbed his arm in appreciation.

“Okay, great,” Brunelle said. “That’s great.”

Now the hard part. He took a deep breath.

“So, um, the next thing,” he began. “The case is… not quite as strong as when we met previously.”

Eyes narrowed at him.

“What does that mean?” Amelia’s sister asked, her eyes the narrowest as she locked eyes with Brunelle.

“It means,” Brunelle frowned, “we lost some of the evidence.”

“Lost?” Amelia’s father asked. “What do you mean ‘lost’?”

“Like it’s missing from the evidence locker or something?” Amelia’s mother asked. “How could that happen?”

“No, no, not like that.” Brunelle waved that away. “I don’t mean ‘lost’ lost. I mean it was suppressed. The judge ruled that we can’t use it at the trial.”

“What evidence?” Father asked through his clenched jaw. His hands tightened around the arms of his chair.

Brunelle sighed. This wasn’t going to help. “The confession,” he admitted. “And the murder weapon.”

“The confession?” Sister asked.

“And the murder weapon?” Father added.

“What else is there?” Mother asked.

Before Brunelle could attempt to answer that very good question, Father asked an even better question—or at least one Brunelle knew the answer to.

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