Stolen Justice by Robin James

Author:Robin James [James, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robin James Books
Published: 2019-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

“You’re sure that’s all of them?” I asked Tori.

She set up new stacks of paperwork on the conference-room table. Jeanie brought in two separate card tables to hold the rest of the Menzer murder file. The complete trial transcripts had finally come in. Tori was already halfway through indexing those. So far, there was little room for optimism. No new stones to uncover. No earth-shattering revelations from the reams of witness testimony and lukewarm cross-examination from the late Lowell Dushane.

“Ineffective assistance of counsel?” Tori asked. She stood at the end of the conference table, chewing on the end of a pencil. “I mean ... time after time, he just sits there while the state gets everything in unopposed.”

“You’d have to show a reasonable likelihood of a different outcome,” Jeanie said. “Abuse of discretion. All I see here is harmless error, Tori. I’m sorry. But Wray was right. Runyon’s suicide doesn’t cut it. The missing witness statement, if there really was one, doesn’t cut it.”

“But why didn’t Dushane pick up on that back then?” Tori said. “It took us one afternoon combing through and cross-checking these reports.”

I shrugged. “It’s impossible to second guess. For all we know, Dushane did question Runyon about it.”

“Not on the witness stand,” Tori said. “And he made no note of it in his own file.”

Two days ago, Jeanie had procured Lowell Dushane’s own case file from his former law partners. It was a mess of coffee-stained, dog-eared pages. Whatever went on in Dushane’s mind, very little of it made it into the file.

I stood at the board. We had taped 16X20 blow-ups of all the most damning physical evidence side by side.

“We still have no way to discount how Heather’s blood made it in Sean’s car. How his hair winds up in and on the fibers of her shirt. The prosecution’s experts claimed close, intimate contact. I would have pushed them harder on that theory. But Dushane’s failure to do it still doesn’t get us a new trial. We’ll be in front of Judge Castor with this. I know him. We don’t have enough right now.”

On the second board, Tori had taped the worst of the crime scene photos. Jeanie sat beneath the blow-up of Heather Menzer’s shirt. It was open at the collar. The picture was of a high enough resolution I could still read the shirt size slightly obscured behind the sharpie marking with the initial of Heather’s last name. She wore a medium.

“You two should go home for the day,” I said.

“I want to help,” Tori said. “I’ll go insane if I stare at the four walls of my bedroom again tonight. Miranda’s great. But she’s been hovering a lot lately.”

Jeanie caught my gaze. “Have you heard from the hospital?” she asked. “How’s your father?”

“Stable,” Tori said. “Thank God he responded to the IV antibiotics. They say it’s a miracle, but he’s past the current crisis. He’s getting transferred back to Handlon tomorrow morning. I wanted to ask you about that. There’s a chance I might get to see him before he’s discharged.

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