Year of the Rat (Dom Reilly Mysteries Book 1) by Marshall Thornton

Author:Marshall Thornton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kenmore Books
Published: 2021-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

FEBRUARY 15, 1996—THURSDAY AFTERNOON

Back at the Freedom Agenda, I was heading toward Lydia’s office when Karen stopped me with: “You know a lot of dead people.”

“Do I?”

“That list you gave me, five of them are dead.”

That did make sense. There’s a high mortality rate among drug addicts. “Did you get cause of death on any of them?”

“Three overdoses. One AIDS. And one murder.”

“What about the three living? What did you find on them?”

“I have addresses for Noel Connor and Maria Costello. There’s no death certificate for Melissa Costello, but she also doesn’t seem to live anywhere. I’m thinking homeless?”

“Thanks,” I said. I was about to go into Lydia’s office when I realized something important. “What about Larry Tribble? He’s not dead.”

“Yes, he is.”

“I saw him yesterday. I asked him questions.”

She flipped through some papers in front of her. “He died five years ago. In July of 1991.”

“He’s living in a pink trailer at Happy Acres. On Rhode Island Avenue.”

She looked at her paper again. “Yes. That’s where he was.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to figure that one out.”

“Maybe you interviewed a ghost,” she said dryly.

“Yeah, I kind of doubt that. Thanks.”

Then I brought Danny’s file into Lydia’s office. She practically snatched it out of my hand. I started to leave her alone with it, but she said, “No, no, sit down.”

I took a seat as she scanned the file.

“Did you have trouble getting it?”

“No, he handed it right over.”

“Oh good. I’ll have to send him a thank-you note.”

“I don’t know if I’d bother. He said to call you a bitch.” I hadn’t planned to tell her that, but he was kind of a dick.

Looking up, she said, “Well, now I know how to sign the note.” She went back to reading the file.

“I talked to him a little about the case. Danny was offered voluntary manslaughter. Waterstone was very proud of that.”

“That’s—they couldn’t have offered that. Not for the rape and murder of a teenaged girl,” she said, stating what I’d already assumed. She flipped quickly through the file. “Okay, here. There’s a note that a plea bargain was offered but turned down by the client. It doesn’t say what the offer was though.”

“Will it be in discovery?”

“Probably not. It would have been verbal. I doubt they would have committed an offer that bad to paper. Still, if I were Waterstone, I would have come right back to my office and outlined the deal in a memo just to get it on paper.”

She continued to look through the file. The speed at which she was able to glance at a document and get some sense of what it meant was impressive. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Do you think he lied to me?” I asked. It didn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.

“He’s very concerned about his image.”

“Well, he’s moved up in the world,” I said. “That’s a nice firm he’s working for.”

“Is it? Hmm.” She set the file down. “There’s not much in the file, at all. That alone should justify ineffectiveness of counsel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.