The Best Lawyer (Cass Leary Legal Thriller #15)

Chapter 1

She rose to my level, murderous intent settling into her cold, dark eyes.

I froze, daring only to steal a glance at the fuzzy-headed baby sleeping beneath her feet.

I quickly met her stare dead on, answering her unspoken challenge.

A line from a movie burst into my head. I set my jaw into a hard line and took a breath.

“Get away from her, you bi—!”

“Ba-GAWK!”

She spread her black wings and launched herself from her perch atop the metal cage, flying over my head as a spray of straw and hemp chips covered the ground between us.

“Sorry,” Eric called out. He stood in the doorway of the chicken coop. He held a small rake in his gloved hand, his face covered with an N95 mask. He overshot his mark by a few inches when he tossed out the pile of winter bedding. I waved the flying dust from my face, grateful for my own mask.

A tiny chirp drew my attention. Four black chicks rose from their oblivious slumber, finally disturbed by the ruckus. A whoosh of air hit my cheek as Zelda came down and landed on my shoulder. I was grateful for the protection of my hoodie as she curled her talons and found her balance.

“I don’t know,” I said to Eric. “She’s been eyeing those babies all morning. What if she never accepts them?”

Zelda, our gray and white Easter Egger hen, had emerged as the flock leader after staging a coup against our larger black Australorp.

Until yesterday morning, she’d coasted on sheer bravado, having been the final hen from last spring’s flock to lay an egg.

But she produced a well-formed green beauty and screeched to wake the dead until Eric and I climbed up to see it.

“She just needs time,” Eric said as he jumped down from the coop. I stood in the center of the run, a giant black garbage tote beside me. Eric raked more of the winter coop bedding into it. I chanced a look into the tote and scrunched my nose.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that,” I said.

In the last nine months, I’d gotten an education about chicken husbandry.

We used the “deep litter” method over the winter, allowing the chicken’s own droppings to help insulate them against the harsh Michigan weather.

They formed their own greenhouse gases. An ecological marvel, I still couldn’t shake the fact that I now led a life where I routinely mucked out chicken poop.

“Black gold!” Eric proclaimed. “Nothing better on earth to fertilize the garden.”

“All you,” I said as Eric hoisted the tote and dumped it out into the bed of his brand-new four-wheeler. He’d taken to our mini-farm life like a natural. I had to admit, even covered in chicken dust, he cut a handsome figure in his faded jeans, muck boots, and flannel shirt.

“Ba-Gawk!” Zelda squawked in my ear, then hopped off my shoulder, ready to stare down the new chicks again.

Two days out of the brooder, we separated them from the six older birds with the use of my dog Mabry’s old crate.

There, the rest of the flock could acclimate themselves to the smell and presence of the babies without hurting them.

“You be nice,” I admonished her. “It’s not too late for you to be a meat bird, Zelda.”

“Don’t you listen to her,” Eric said, reaching down to pick her up and hold her against his chest. He was the only human Zelda would allow to hold her like that.

She let me pet her and scratch her belly, but if I tried to handle her, she’d scream and run.

“She’ll be fine. Just need another two weeks or so for them to grow enough to hold their own. ”

“You better be right,” I said. Though I didn’t want to admit it, I’d grown pretty attached to this new group of chicks. Last year, we’d started out with a flock of eight but lost two over the winter. Replacing them with four was perfect chicken math.

“That’s about the last of it,” Eric said, putting Zelda down. I swear that bird looked smug as she hopped on the ladder and strutted into the coop to inspect Eric’s work. “I just want to pull the tarp off the roof of the run. They’ll be glad to have the sun shining down on them again.”

“So will I,” I said. This had been a particularly brutal winter, with significant snowfall starting at the end of October and barely letting up until February.

But spring was fully in the air now. We’d had a, hopefully, final thaw last week.

It broke the ice on the lake. The open water glimmered like diamonds now.

“I need a shower,” Eric said as he finished dumping the last of the compost.

“When are you leaving?” I asked. He had taken a job as a background investigator for the Feds.

Though part time, it took him out of town several days each month.

But he seemed to enjoy the work and much of it he could do from home.

Not a bad gig, when your office overlooked Finn Lake on one side and the wooded hill leading up to the coop on the other.

“Things got pushed back,” he said. “I’m heading up to Traverse City Monday morning. You wanna come with me? We can make a mini vacation out of it.”

Though tempting, I had a mound of work of my own waiting for me at the office.

Tori, my sister-in-law and best associate attorney, had left to give birth to my newest nephew two months ago.

I’d picked up her workload until I could find a permanent replacement.

I kept things in the family though. My niece, Emma, would be ready to take the bar exam in about four months.

I hoped by the end of the year she’d get her license and agree to stick around for a while. Though I didn’t want to pressure her.

“I wish I could,” I said, peeling off my mask.

I leaned down to get closer to the chicks.

After hopping around to watch Eric for a few minutes, three out of four of them were already falling back asleep on their feet.

“One of Tori’s probate cases is headed to trial next week. I’ve got to get up to speed.”

“A long one?” Eric asked.

“Should only take half a day,” I said. “But they’re a consistent client and have generated a ton of referrals over the years. I need a seamless transition for them.”

Eric frowned. “You’ve been taking on a lot more lately. You sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin?”

I went to him. Eric folded an arm around me. He still managed to smell good despite two hours inside the coop.

“It’s temporary,” I said. “Jeanie comes back from Barbados tomorrow. She’ll tackle all the probate and estate work after that until we can find a permanent replacement for Tori.

And though it may not seem like it, business is actually kind of slow at the moment.

Let me just get past this trial next week and I will take some time off. Promise.”

He kissed me on the top of my head, then picked some straw out of my hair. “I’ll hold you to that. I think we both could use some R and R.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” I said. Zelda poked her head out of the coop and let out a sharp squawk.

Eric laughed. “I’ll take that as a sign of approval,” he said. The other five hens strutted up the ladder. Zelda begrudgingly let them pass.

With the chickens properly fed, watered, and with their new bedding in place, they had nothing left to complain about. Eric reached into the crate and removed the heat plate we’d had running since we brought the babies home from the farm store four weeks ago.

“You sure it’s warm enough for them?” I asked. We’d done this before. It turned out I got easily attached to these fuzzy little dinosaur cousins.

“It’s staying above fifty degrees at night for the next week. They’ve got to acclimate. They’ll be okay.”

The littlest of the chicks hopped up and down and scratched her head with her foot. I’d secretly named her Bean.

We left the run, locked it back up and headed down the hill. A shower sounded good to me, too. I peeled off my overalls and hung them on a hook in the garage. Then I kicked off my muck boots and stacked them against the wall. Eric did the same.

Ten minutes later, he emerged freshly scrubbed from the shower. I followed him. Chicken mucking ended up being a good workout. My shoulders and quads burned as I watched bits of straw sluice off me and slide down the drain.

By the time I’d made it back downstairs, Eric was making breakfast. The bacon sizzled in the skillet. He deftly flipped it. My stomach growled. I grabbed some OJ from the fridge. Eric plated our meals and we sat side by side at the kitchen island.

“I talked to Joe,” he said. “He’s got some free time on Thursday afternoon. I should be back by then. We’ll get the dock in. I want to wait to put the boats back in. My luck it will start snowing again the day I do.”

I laughed. That happened almost every year.

Whenever Eric and my brother, Joe, put the boat in, it would either rain or snow no matter how clear the forecast had been the day before.

I was about to say just that when Eric’s cell phone rang.

As he answered his call, I gathered our plates and headed for the sink.

I had just turned on the faucet when Eric frowned. Whoever was on the phone did most of the talking.

“You’re sure?” Eric broke in once. “Yeah. No. I get it.”

I turned and tried to draw his attention. “What’s going on?” I mouthed. Eric turned away from me. He slid off his stool and headed for the French doors leading out to the patio. I slipped our plates into the dishwasher and dried my hands on a towel.

“Wow,” I heard Eric say. He had his back to me. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks for giving me a heads-up.”

He clicked off his call. I headed out to join him. When Eric turned around, his scowl deepened. He blew out a hard breath.

“Eric?” I called to him, my senses pricking. Whatever he’d heard was bad news.

He didn’t answer me right away. Instead, he walked in, sat on the nearest couch and rested his hands on his thighs.

“What is it?” I asked. He raised a brow as he eyed me.

“You better sit,” he said.

A stab of fear went through me. I did a quick mental checklist. Eric was here.

Tori and my brother, Matt, were both supposed to be home with my nephews.

My brother Joe and sister Vangie would both be at work.

My niece, Emma, should be at the office with my manager, Miranda.

Then Jeanie. She was supposed to be on a plane.

“Eric …”

“It’s Katy,” he said. For a split second, the name didn’t register as I was busy ticking off my closest friends and loved ones.

“Katy,” I repeated.

“Katy Leary,” he said. Katy was my brother Joe’s ex-wife. She was technically Katy Loomis now.

My phone rang in the kitchen. Eric’s eyes darted in that direction. I ignored the ringing.

“What, Eric?”

“Something’s happened,” he said. “That was Sheriff Lubell’s clerk on the phone. Tom Loomis is dead. Somebody slit his throat. Katy’s been brought in for questioning. It looks pretty bad, Cass.”

Eric’s words filtered through my brain. Dead. Throat slit. Katy brought in …

My phone started ringing again.

“You better get that,” he said.

Zombie-like, I walked over to my phone. The caller ID came from the Woodbridge County Sheriff’s Department. As I picked up my phone, adrenaline shot through me.

“Cass?” Katy’s breathless voice sounded thin and far away. “Cass? Please! I don’t know what to do! I didn’t know who else to call. They haven’t … they said … Tom … He’s dead, Cass. My God. There was so much blood. They’re saying that I …”

Then my lawyer brain kicked in. I made eye contact with Eric.

“Katy,” I said, conveying as much authority as possible. “I need you to do two things for me. I need you to calm down. And I need you to stop talking. Okay? Not one more word to anybody. Have you been talking to the police?”

Her breath hitched, and then she sobbed. “I just tried to explain.” She choked out her words.

“Not another word,” I said. “I’m on my way.”