Chapter 29
Allison
They both nod.
“Okay, Aaron—what’s our narrative?”
He blinks hard, clears his throat. “They don’t have direct proof of quid pro quo. He never said he’d trade his vote for a favor. They have to draw inferences from his behavior. It’s not enough to overcome reasonable doubt.”
I get out of my chair. “Whenever I saw the defense do that, just keep their client silent and argue inferences and the burden of proof, I knew I had a winner. The jury will want more than that. We need a story of our own. With a bad guy.”
I walk over to the space on the wall where Vivian taped up a photo of the chief of staff, a diagonal slash across his face.
“Willoughby, the chief. He’s our villain.
This was all him. His boss was seventy-three, planning to retire soon.
Willoughby wanted to take his seat. So everything that helped Congressman Childress helped him, too.
He was sucking up to lobbyists and special interests because he wanted them to fund his campaign coffer when it came time for him to run.
His boss was an elderly man who wasn’t paying as close attention as he once did to such things, knowing that his time was coming to an end. ”
A smile creeps across Aaron’s face. Vivian has been nodding all along.
“We need a story,” I say. “And every good story has a villain.”
My phone buzzes. Luke’s prosecutor, Bruce Ghadiali. I answer on the second ring.
“Hi, Allison,” he says. “The test results came back.”
I walk out into the hallway. The DNA and print results on the contraband! Took them long enough. But the college baseball season is only just beginning. The timing isn’t terrible. Luke could be reinstated as coach within a week if I can convince Bruce to drop the charges.
“Wanna stop by in person?” he suggests. “Worth a face-to-face.”
Sure it is, from his perspective. He’ll want to find a way that we can quietly dismiss these charges without his office looking bad in the media. I’d probably do the same in his shoes.
“I can come over right now,” I tell him.
I reach Bruce Ghadiali’s office at 26th and California within the hour.
He’s expecting me and extends his hand. He’s one of the principal supervisors in the felony trial division.
As a former prosecutor myself, I know a sup’s life—answering questions constantly, putting out fires, juggling multiple issues and cases at once, and pining for the days when your only job was to try cases and put away bad guys.
Sometimes promotions don’t feel like promotions.
He is in a blue shirt with a navy tie pulled down. His office is standard-issue government, small and square, a cheap wraparound desk, banker’s boxes piled everywhere. The only thing out of place is a Nespresso coffee machine resting atop a file cabinet.
“I wanted to meet first as a courtesy,” he says. “By the way, while you’re here, here are photographs of the inventory from the car. If you want to do a physical inspection, that’s fine—”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Not after the test results, it won’t. But I take the folder and stuff it in my bag.
“So we ran DNA and prints on everything in the bag that contained the drugs and, for that matter, everything in the space beneath the trunk.”
“And…Luke’s prints aren’t on a single thing, right? Not the bag. Not the drugs. Not the tube of lipstick. Nothing at all.”
“That’s right,” he concedes. “You were right.”
“Any hits at all on the database?”
He lets out a large sigh. “One match,” he says. “A match for both DNA and fingerprints. On both the bag and on the lipstick.”
I sit back and suppress a smile. “Anyone I know?”
He thinks about that a moment. “You could say that,” he says, angling his head.
I open my hands. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Bruce. Who’s the lucky person?”
He purses his lips. Leans back in his chair, eyebrows raised.
Every story needs a villain. And in Luke’s case, the villain is…
“You,” says Bruce. “The DNA and prints were a match for you, Allison.”