Interpreting Guilt (Small Town Lawyer Book 3) by Peter Kirkland

Author:Peter Kirkland [Kirkland, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

16

MAY 28, 2021

As we waited in the prison’s security line, Terri and I didn’t speak. We didn’t know who at the prison had leaked our visits to Dabney, and we didn’t want to say anything that our anonymous snitch might overhear.

And in any case, we were in no mood to chat. We were not there with good news.

Soon after we got to the meeting room, a guard brought Maria, let her in, and locked the door.

She was happy to see us. After a little chitchat, I handed her a manila envelope containing a couple of hand-drawn Mother’s Day cards from her grandchildren. She cooed over them and marveled at how good their handwriting was getting.

Then I got down to business. “Look, Maria, we’ve got a big problem.”

Her smile disappeared. “What?”

“I finally got to the last part of the transcript,” I said. “I mean the transcript of your trial. It’s nearly four thousand pages long, and with everything else we’ve had to look into, it took a while. But anyway, I wish you’d told me up front what you testified to in court.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry. I mean the jewelry thing. The— And I’m not talking about what actually happened, okay? I’m not talking about what the truth is. What matters, in terms of what options I have for possibly getting you out of prison, is what evidence we have and what the record is. I mean the record of the case. So I’m just talking about what you said on the stand about taking Mrs. Ludlow’s jewelry.”

She shook her head slowly, looking bewildered. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Uh, I guess it was twenty years ago. Hang on.”

While I was pulling my laptop out of my bag and getting it fired up, Terri talked to Maria about prison life. Half listening, I overheard that she was friendly with a couple of the guards, disliked a few more, and didn’t think much of her new cellmate, who was in for felony check fraud.

“I think they put her with me because she speaks Spanish too. But, you know, you speak English. That doesn’t mean you like everyone else who speaks English.”

Terri laughed and said, “Oh, no, it sure doesn’t.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but here’s what I’m talking about.” I had a PDF of the trial transcript up, day twenty-two of the trial, page 138. I turned my laptop so we could all see it.

I said, “This whole page is what I mean, starting with where the solicitor asks, ‘Looking at Exhibit 387’—which I have in a different file; it’s a photo of some earrings—anyway, he asked, ‘Isn’t it true that you stole this pair of emerald earrings from Mrs. Ludlow?’ And you said, ‘Yes, it’s true.’”

The rest of the page went through the same Q&A about other pieces of jewelry.

“No, no.” She was shaking her head. “This is not—I didn’t say this.”

“Uh, I mean… You know, this might sound weird, but one thing I’ve learned over the years is how much a person’s memory can change.

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.