"I didn't kill my husband. I didn't! This is crazy! They need to be out looking for whoever did!" Karen Patterson slammed her palms down on the small table in the courthouse attorney conference room, and stood up abruptly, sending her wheeled chair flying backwards. Cary started to stand, but Diane held up her hand and shook her head to indicate he should let her handle it.
"Karen," she said, quietly but firmly, approaching her from the right. "Please sit down. I need you to stay calm so we can talk. We can't help you if you don't help us." Gently, she took the younger woman's elbow and eased her back into her seat, then nodded at Cary to continue.
"Mrs. Patterson, we asked you yesterday to come up with a list of people for us to talk to, anyone you could think of who might have had a grudge against your husband, or even the potential for a grudge, or who might know of someone you don't. Do you have any names for us?"
Their client took a deep breath to compose herself, wrapping her arms around her slender abdomen as if to physically hold herself together. "Yes," she said after a moment. "You could talk to our staff at the business. John's assistant's name is Lily O'Donnell. She'll have his calendar; you could see who he met with recently. Also, our partner Arthur Eames could be helpful. He and John have been friends since high school. If anyone knows something about John that I don't, it's one of those two."
Cary notes the names down on his pad. "Anyone else?"
"No…I…no, I can't think of anyone. God, this makes no sense. Everyone loved John; I just can't imagine why anyone would want to kill him. It has to have been an accident, a hunter too close to the house. You'll look into that, won't you? You'll see if anyone saw hunters in the woods that night?"
"Yes, we will, of course," Diane said. "Our investigator is trying to find any witnesses that may have been in the area near the time of the shooting."
"Mrs. Patterson," Cary began, with a quick glance at Diane, who nodded reassuringly, "Just one more thing. I'm sorry to have to ask this, but is there any possibility Mr. Patterson could have been having an affair?"
Their client's eyes widened. "An affair? No, I…no! Where would you have ever gotten that idea? John loved me."
"I'm sure he did," Cary said apologetically. "I just have to ask. We can't afford to leave any unexplored avenues here, is all."
Cary and Diane had agreed on the drive over that it was probably best not to mention Roger MacPhee's suggestion that perhaps the Patterson's were having marital difficulties. Either the client would volunteer that information, or she wouldn't, but either way, they needed more information before confronting her. In addition to having her looking for potential witnesses, Diane had already asked Kalinda to ask some discrete questions of the staff at the Patterson's architecture and interior design business.
"Well, that avenue is a dead end," Karen said, twisting a chunk of her dark curly hair around her fingers. "John was the most loyal person I've ever met. Ask Arthur, he's tell you the same thing. He would never cheat."
"Okay," Cary said, dropping the subject for now, as he and Diane had previously agreed.
"Is my daughter here?" Karen asked. "Have you spoken to her today?"
"I haven't seen her yet, but she was planning on being here," Cary said. "She knows she might need to go out and arrange bond after the hearing. That reminds me of another question though. When we met with Daisy yesterday, she said she was meeting you and your husband at your home that night, so you could all go out for dinner. Is that right?"
"Yes, yes that's correct," Karen said. "John called Daisy at work and asked her to meet us and we'd drive to the restaurant together."
"She said her father had something he wanted to discuss with her, but she didn't know what it was."
"Yes, no, she wouldn't. God. I guess that's all off now anyway." Karen rested her elbow on the table and her forehead on her palm, shaking her head back and forth slowly. "I just can't believe this is happening. It's like a nightmare, only I'm never going to wake up."
Diane exchanged a glance with Cary over their client's head and shrugged her shoulders a little to indicate he should continue with his line of questioning.
"The dinner, Mrs. Patterson. What were you going to discuss with Daisy?"
"Oh. Yes. The land. We were going to tell her we were donating a portion of the land around the house to the Illinois Nature Preservation Society. They're a group dedicated to preserving endangered flora and fauna, protecting the wetlands, that sort of thing."
"I'm familiar with them," Diane said with a small smile. "I've attended a fundraiser or two."
Karen nodded. "I thought your name sounded familiar. I've done a lot of volunteer work with the group. John…John and I both feel…felt…that there is nothing more important than preserving our environment." Tears flooded her eyes as she struggled with the correct verb tenses.
"What brought you to the decision to donate your land, Mrs. Patterson?" Cary asked gently.
"We've struggled for years trying to keep hunters off our land, but it was a losing battle. We knew INPS had resources we did not to erect fencing, and the ability to enforce the laws and impose penalties for poaching. And just generally, the land would be in much better hands with the foundation. They'd protect it and the creatures who live in it, in ways that John and I cannot."
"So you were going to tell Daisy about the donation at dinner."
"Yes, that's right. It wouldn't have been a surprise; we've discussed it on and off for years, but we wanted to let her know we were going forward with it."
A knock at the door signaled the arrival of the bailiff to escort Karen in the courtroom. "Time for the show," Diane commented, giving the client her most reassuring smile, as Cary gathered up his papers. "We'll see you in there. And don't worry; like we said earlier, this one is quick and easy, and if things go our way, you should be able to go home afterwards."
"Ms. Lockhart, your 3:00 is here." Her executive assistant's tinny voice emerged from her telephone intercom, startling Diane out of her internal rehashing of the morning's hearing. Karen Patterson had been granted bail, but it had been a near thing. Matan Brody wasn't going to cut Cary any slack on this one, not that she'd expected he would, but it would have been nice to have a more junior prosecutor assigned to the case. Of course that had been a pipe dream from the start; Glenn Childs would never assign an inexperienced ADA to such a high-profile case. She only hoped she hadn't made a mistake in not insisting on first-chairing this one personally.
Well, if they lost, at least the client could appeal based on incompetent representation, she thought perversely.
"Send him in, please," she said, pushing the intercom button and then sitting up straighter in her seat and pulling a pad and pen from her drawer.
"Mr. McVeigh, hello," she said as Will's newly discovered ballistics expert entered her office. Dressed in jeans, plaid, and boots, he looked to Diane like he'd be more at home in the wilderness than an upscale Chicago law firm. "Thank you for coming in to meet with me."
"Sure," he said, with a quick nod. In one hand he held a large manila envelope; the other he extended in greeting.
Diane rose and shook his hand firmly before retaking her seat. "So, you've had a chance to look though the file I sent over?"
"I have," he confirmed.
She waited for him to expand on that, but after a few awkward seconds it became clear he wasn't going to. "So…do you have any ideas for me?" she asked.
"I do."
She almost smiled when, again, he failed to elaborate. A man of few words, this Mr. McVeigh. It was a pleasant change from the other men she dealt with, many of whom were in love with the sound of their own voices.
"And they are?" she prompted.
"Before we get into that, I have a question." He leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together in front of him. His steady gaze was almost disconcerting, but she was catching on, she thought, to his method of conversing.
"Okay. What's your question?" she asked.
"She do it?"
She blinked. She had been expecting something related to his fee, travel expenses maybe, or payment terms. "Excuse me?"
"Did she do it? Your client. Is she guilty?"
"Oh, I…I don't know. Is that important?"
"It is."
He had to be kidding, though despite a rather long, pointed look at him, Diane could detect no sign that that was the case. "Well, she says she's innocent, though in my experience, they usually do. I haven't come upon any evidence to suggest she's lying to me, but we're in the early stages yet." She paused, debating with herself whether to even ask before tossing caution to the wind. "Please forgive my impertinence, Mr. McVeigh, but I have to ask: why does it even matter?"
He looked at her, his head tilted quizzically as if trying to decide whether she was a particularly slow child or just pulling his leg. "Because," he said at last, slowly and firmly, "I won't testify if the client is guilty. I won't be party to letting a guilty man or woman go free."
Oh. Well. A man of principle. Diane hadn't met very many of those over the course of her career. Despite the potential for difficulty in employing such an expert witness, she found the whole idea rather intriguing.
She stood and walked over to her window, taking a moment to look out over her city, before turning and resting her hip against the wide window ledge. "So, if I hire you today and a week from now we uncover something that seems to prove my client is guilty, what happens?"
"I decline to continue with the case."
"That's rather inconvenient."
He sat back in his seat, turning slightly to face her straight on. "Lawyers who hire me know what they're getting into, Ms. Lockhart. My rates are set accordingly, and some would say the quality of my work is worth the extra…inconvenience."
"I'm sure." She laughed lightly. "So, assuming Mrs. Patterson doesn't suddenly confess, will you help us out?"
He stood, setting the manila envelope onto the desk in front of him. "My preliminary opinion and a contract for my services. Read it. If you're interested, give me a call."
"I will," she said, taken slightly aback at the suddenness with which the meeting seemed to be coming to an end.
He nodded, and left the office without another word.
"Thank you for coming by, Mr. McVeigh," Diane said to her empty office. "I'm looking forward to working with you. I think."
