A/N: Here's where things go a little sideways
They stood together on the trail, still holding on to each other, but any romantic intentions forgotten. "What the hell?" Kurt said.
"Is it...a vehicle of some sort? Headlights?" Diane knew full well it wasn't, unless it was the quietest car in the world, but she was grasping for an explanation, any explanation.
To his credit, Kurt didn't even blink at her nonsensical suggestion. "Maybe. I guess there's only one way to find out." His hands left her waist and he reached for her hand, entwining their fingers together and taking a step towards the light.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? Maybe we should go back." Diane suggested, not moving.
"Don't you want to find your witness?" he asked.
Truth be told, between the moment she and Kurt had just shared, and now the bizarrely glowing trail, Diane had completely forgotten about the witness. Maybe the light, strange though it was, simply came from a flashlight. She huffed out a breath, and allowed Kurt to lead her by the hand further down the path.
Together they negotiated the curve in the trail and then stopped short, jaws dropping at the sight that confronted them.
It was in the middle of the trail, maybe ten feet away from them, man-sized and glowing with an strangely florescent light that was white and yellow and gray all at once, and somehow no colour at all. Simultaneously transparent, and opaque, and some other state of being for which Diane had no words, it emanated emptiness and sorrow like nothing and no one she had ever encountered before.
Floating a couple of inches above the trail, it resembled the crime scene photographs of John Patterson, but achromatic and horribly in motion, complete with a bullet wound where his left temple used to be.
It saw them and drifted closer.
"Oh my god," Diane breathed.
"Is that…" Kurt began, his words trailing off, the question left unvoiced.
The ghost shimmered as it approached, its form wavering in the slight breeze. Its mouth opened and closed as if it was speaking, but no sound emerged.
"Is that..." Kurt tried again, with more success. "Is that John Patterson?"
"I think...it was?"
"Come on," Kurt said abruptly, yanking Diane's hand back toward the way they had come.
"Wait," she said, holding her ground. "He's trying to tell us something."
"He's trying to tell…" Kurt's voice trailed off again, leaving him simply shaking his head in disbelief.
"He might tell us who killed him. Isn't that what they do?" Diane whispered off to her side, not taking her eyes off the apparition in front of her.
"What they do? How the hell do I know what they do?" Kurt hissed back.
"Well, don't you read?" she asked. "A ghost means the deceased has unfinished business, like wanting his killer brought to justice." Somewhere deep inside, Diane was amazed at her own detached calm, but perhaps it was that or run screaming from the woods, and she really didn't want to be that woman.
The ghost swayed and flickered, arms flailing and mouth moving but no sound escaped. "I'm sorry, I don't understand," Diane told it, and its face collapsed in desolation, ghostly tears streaming down its face. The sense of sadness surrounding it increased as if all the joy in the world had died with John Patterson. Diane could feel tears on her own cheeks.
"It's shrinking," Kurt said, his voice rough with unnatural emotion.
And it was. The harder the ghost cried, the smaller and more translucent it became, as if all its energy was being stolen by its grief until it had none leftover to maintain its physical form.
After a minute or so, it was as if it had never been there at all.
"You look exhausted," Will said as he pointedly set a large takeout cup of coffee down on Diane's desk.
Diane yawned as she set down her pen, punctuating her partner's point. "I had an...odd night. I didn't sleep very well. But thank you for that." She was referring sarcastically to the slur on her appearance, but she actually was grateful for the coffee. Picking it up with both hands, she took a careful first sip and then a longer drink when she determined it was of a safe temperature.
Will fell into the chair across from her. "Boy Wonder's case keeping you up at night?"
"Ha!" If only he knew. "Something like that."
He sat up a little straighter. "Why, what's the problem?"
Under the guise of another drink of coffee, Diane considered and then quickly discarded the idea of just telling him the truth. Firstly, she wasn't entirely sure what the truth was. Yes, she and Kurt had seen something strange in the woods last night. But it couldn't have been what they thought it was, and in fact, by the time he had dropped her off at home last night, they had mostly convinced themselves it was some kind of mutual delusion brought on by who knew what. Stress and overwork, aren't those the usual excuses?
And in any case, she didn't need to provide Will with any ammunition for a potential powerplay. She liked Will, enjoyed working with him, considered him a close friend and ally, but it was never wise to underestimate his ambition. She could just imagine him calling up Jonas Stern with the news that Diane was seeing ghosts. Mentor or not, Stern wouldn't hesitate to cut her loose if he thought she was becoming a liability.
No. Will was not an appropriate confidante. She could, however, bring him up-to-date on the more mundane aspects of the case.
"Someone moved the body?" he repeated when she finished. "Why?"
"I don't know why, but that's what Mr. McVeigh believes," she said.
Will leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers together. "No one there but your client and her daughter…"
"As far as we know," Diane interjected. "It would have been easy for someone to be hiding out in those woods. Someone like Arthur Eames for instance."
"So, what, he ran over and moved the body when the wife went inside to call 911? Wouldn't she have noticed?"
"Not necessarily. Not if she was sufficiently panicked."
Will shook his head. "I don't buy it."
"A jury might."
"Maybe. But McVeigh isn't going to testify to that. You're going to lose him, Diane; you better start looking for someone else. Maybe a new expert won't agree with the moved body scenario."
"Kurt is keeping an open mind. If I can place Arthur Eames at the scene, he'll still testify for us."
"You place Arthur Eames at the scene, the SA will drop the charges against your client and no one will have to testify."
Diane inclined her head in agreement. That would certainly be the best case scenario.
Will glanced at his watch and stood. "Gotta go. I'm due in court for the Brazelton hearings. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," Diane repeated dutifully, setting her coffee down and picking her pen up.
"Thanks." Will paused at the door. "Oh, and Diane?"
She looked up to find him smirking at her.
"Kurt?"
Kalinda and Cary arrived for their morning meeting half an hour later. By that point, Diane had picked up her phone to call Kurt, and then set it down again without unlocking it, on three separate occasions. There was no reason to call him; she had no new information; she was not his only client; if he wanted to talk to her, he'd call. She reminded herself again of all the reasons, and they were still all true. The worst part was, she didn't even know why she wanted to talk to him so badly. Was it the case that was troubling her, the strange incident the night before, or did she want to talk to him for reasons of a more personal nature.
Probably it was all three.
In any case, now was not the time to be puzzling it out.
"So, what do you have for me this morning?" she asked. "Cary, did you speak with Mr. Patterson's assistant like I asked?"
"I tried, but she had already left the office for the day when I called, and she wasn't answering her cellphone. I'm going to drop over there today."
Diane nodded. "Kalinda, go with him please. Maybe the assistant knows something that might help us place Arthur Eames at the crime scene. Any luck in finding out whether he owns a gun?"
Kalinda shook her head. "If he does, it's not registered. Sorry."
That was unfortunate, but expected. Murderers normally weren't considerate enough to commit crimes with their own legally registered weapons.
"Okay then. I suppose that brings us to my update." She laid out Kurt's suppositions about the body, carefully leaving out any mention of what occurred after he was finished with the crime scene.
"So, as you can imagine," she finished. "This isn't looking good. We need to place someone else at the scene who could have entered the woods from the backyard to shoot John Patterson and then moved the body while Karen was in the house with Daisy. If we aren't able to do that, it will look like Karen moved it herself to try and make it look like the killer was shooting from deeper within the woods. And if that's what happens, we lose our ballistics expert. If the prosecution finds out we had Kurt McVeigh and he quit, they're going to know there was evidence that convinced him our client was guilty."
"Would he really do that?" Kalinda asked.
"What, quit? I think he would, yes, if he believed Karen was guilty. His values won't allow him to testify in favour of anyone who is guilty."
"Honorable of him," Kalinda said.
"Yes, but not good news for us. So get me something to make him believe in Karen's innocence."
Kalinda nodded and rose to leave, pausing to wait for Cary at the door.
"I'll be right there," he told her, looking back over his shoulder.
After Kalinda closed the door, he turned back to Diane. "Look, I just wanted to tell you that I know Daisy can't be my concern here. What you said yesterday, I heard it loud and clear. I understand, and any...interest...I might have in Daisy won't interfere or be acted on until after the case is over."
"Good," she said firmly.
Cary nodded once, stood, and left without another word.