IN THE END, they were both right.
Tibbits successfully argued at trial—with Wayne nodding solemn agreement from his chair at the defense table—that while Marie’s recording was very problematic indeed, whatever blunt instrument had bashed in the victims’ skulls had never been found, and furthermore, there was no actual proof he’d shot them full of alcohol at all.
“Known alcoholics and drug users,” he thundered. “Their word against that of an officer of the law.”
Julia, fresh off her own turn on the witness stand, half rose from her seat in the gallery, restrained only by Dom’s firm hand on her arm. What about her own word? Didn’t that count for anything?
Marie’s recording hadn’t been as helpful as they’d hoped. Although Wayne hadn’t denied killing anyone, he’d never actually admitted it either. And the hypodermics and tubing he’d had with him that night had mysteriously disappeared somewhere between Julia’s house and the booking room.
“Palmed ’em to one of his buddies, no doubt,” Ray groused, and Julia was inclined to agree with him.
Tibbits had rolled the dice on taking the case to trial instead of negotiating a plea deal, betting that a jury—the most unpredictable body on earth—wouldn’t be able to stomach the thought of a man of the law locked up with lawbreakers.
Those twelve good men and women deliberated for three days, during which time Julia nearly wore a groove in the kitchen’s floor tiles as she paced—with Jake, puzzled but faithful at her heels—and swore and drank so much coffee that Dom threatened to cut her off.
Beverly and Gregory kept Calvin. “He doesn’t need to see you in this state,” Beverly said.
“Great,” Julia said. “Someone else who knows what’s best for me.”
“I always have,” Beverly responded, ever imperturbable.
Julia supposed she should be grateful when the jury came back with a negligent homicide verdict, rather than convicting Wayne on the mitigated deliberate homicide charge Ray had once faced.
She could tell Claudette was pleased by the twitch of her lips, the quick flick of her gaze that took in Tibbits’s dangerously reddening face.
And yes, the sight of Wayne being led from the courtroom in handcuffs satisfied.
But she knew the drill—a maximum sentence of only twenty years, sure to be argued down by Tibbits at the sentencing hearing, with usually only half that served before moving to probationary status.
“Relax,” Claudette said that evening.
They were in Julia’s kitchen, Dom at the stove, stirring a pot of Sunday sauce that he’d cooked during the interminable wait for a verdict and was reheating. Jake hovered at his heels, his patience rewarded as bits of sausage mysteriously slid from the spoon to floor.
Dom offered Julia a taste and, when she pronounced it satisfactory, dished up bowls of rigatoni and topped them with sauce.
Claudette poured more wine. “There’s still the trial on the fight club charges. They’ll nail him on those for sure—unless he does the smart thing and takes a plea agreement. Even Tibbits knows that’s in his best interest. Turns out plenty of deputies knew about it and were disgusted by it, and now that our boy has been publicly disgraced, they’re willing to testify against him. That blue line isn’t as impermeable as they’d have you think.”
“What about Leslie Harper? Will they ever be able to pin that on him?”
They fell silent, thinking of the woman who’d died just a few feet from where they sat.
“Maybe,” Claudette said finally. “Amanda Pinkham’s doing her best.” She took a bite, then another. “Dom Parrish, so help me God if I weren’t already married and you weren’t wasting time with Julia, I’d sweep you off your feet.”
Dom raised a glass. “That may be the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. Happy to have your whole family over as soon as Julia and I get settled in our new place.”
Claudette gasped. “I didn’t think anything could top this meal, but that news does it. You two are moving in together? It’s about damn time. If I’d have known, I’d have brought champagne!”
Julia tried to play it cool. “Didn’t have much choice. Leslie Harper’s sister sold the house a lot faster than she anticipated.”
“Couldn’t let her and Calvin and this little guy here”—another bit of sausage hit the floor—“end up out on the street,” Dom said. “Besides, it gave me the push I needed to sell my house. That place is full of bad karma. It’s where I lived with Susan and where I nearly lost custody of Elena.”
“Please.” Julia groaned and covered her face with her hands. “Can we never talk about that again? I’m just glad Elena’s forgiven us.”
“So she’ll be living with you too? You’re going to need a lot of room. Have you found a new place?”
Julia looked to Dom. “Have you? He’s the designated house finder. I’m still trying to get caught up at work from all the time I had to take off during the trial.”
“I’ve got a couple of leads. I think you’ll like the ones I’m looking at.”
“Change upon change upon change,” Claudette said. “I was kidding about the champagne, but I’m not now. I just ordered some. We all deserve it.”
“Yes we do. You especially.”
The conversation veered into banality—the weather, plans for the coming summer. Safe topics, salving the pain of the past weeks. But Claudette deserved more. Julia knew her own disappointment in the verdict against Wayne had been both evident and unfair. “You put that asshole behind bars. I’ll be glad when you rack up some new convictions against him.”
“About that,” Claudette began.
The doorbell rang.
“That’ll be the champagne. I’ll get it.” Claudette went to the door, and Julia found the slender glasses, a never-used wedding gift from her too-brief marriage to Michael.
“High time we christened these,” she said when Claudette returned.
Dom tried to ease the cork from the bottle, but it flew from his hand and ricocheted off the ceiling, much to Jake’s delight.
“To new beginnings,” he said.
Julia lifted her glass and turned to Claudette, still trying to make up for her earlier recalcitrance. “To our new county prosecutor.”
Julia would never have described Claudette as lighthearted. Yet her smile, as she lifted her glass, was positively mischievous.
“To our new county prosecutor—whoever she, or he, may be.”
Julia quaffed her champagne and topped off everyone’s glasses.
“Oh, it’ll be you. Nobody else stands a chance.”
Claudette stared into her glass, the unnerving smile still on her face.
“I don’t know who it will be. But one thing’s for sure: it won’t be me.”
Dom caught on before Julia. His eyebrows climbed toward hair badly in need of a trim. Julia, though, remained in loyal best-friend mode.
“It has to be you. No matter who they primary you with, you’ll outwork them. Outsmart them.”
Claudette held out her glass for more. She watched the bubbles stream upward toward the surface for an interminable moment. Finally, she took a sip.
“No,” she said. “I won’t. Because I’m not running.”
Julia had always thought spit takes were exaggerated movie-type riffs until she showered Claudette and Dom with the contents of her glass.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She offered the obligatory apology, but as they mopped at themselves with their napkins, laughing, she tugged at Claudette’s sleeve. “Leave it,” she said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Leave it—no way. This is silk!” Claudette thumbed her phone. “There’s got to be something here about how to treat this. Do I just splash it with water? Put salt on it?”
“Dishwashing liquid,” Dom said authoritatively. When both women turned to him, he shrugged. “Susan had an array of silk blouses.”
Claudette went to the sink and busied herself doctoring her blouse.
Julia followed her. “Claudette, what do you mean, you’re not running?”
On the one hand she felt a bolt of relief. Claudette’s job as prosecutor had put them at odds, and facing Claudette across a courtroom was nobody’s idea of fun. But Claudette was her best friend, and she wanted what was best for her.
Which, Claudette proceeded to inform her, was not a permanent spot as the county’s top prosecutor.
“This system is seriously fucked. I was on my way to a plea agreement that would send Belmar to prison on nothing more than circumstantial evidence for a crime he didn’t commit because it would have been so very easy and it’s what everybody expected. The usual suspect, right? And because it would make me look like the kind of hard-ass prosecutor everybody wants to see elected.”
She sat back down and pressed a dish towel to her sopping blouse. She blinked hard and turned her head away. When she faced Julia again, she was dry-eyed.
“I almost stuck with it. The race, I mean. As a giant Fuck you. Because everybody hates the fact that the Black woman put the clean-cut White deputy away, right?”
Julia and Dom nodded reluctant assent. Maybe race wasn’t as much of a factor as Claudette thought—though it probably was—but for sure, nobody liked seeing a rogue cop revealed. It messed with people’s—at least, nice, middle-class White people’s—sense of the natural order of things.
“But there’s a better way.”
The bottle of champagne sat ignored, slowly going flat.
“What way?” Julia and Dom asked simultaneously.
Claudette’s disturbing smile softened. “Leslie Harper’s way.”
Had Julia’s glass not been empty, Claudette and Dom would have received a second shower. “You’re going to be a legislator?”
Claudette leaned back in her chair and roared with laughter.
“Oh hell no. I’d rather prosecute misdemeanors for the rest of my life than join that particular circus. No, this is something I’ve been looking into for a while, first as a legal adviser to Leslie, who was going to be the executive director. Now that she’s gone, I thought, why not do it myself?”
“Do what?”
“Leslie wanted to start a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform. You know, ending prison time for nonviolent crimes. Only misdemeanor charges—or better yet, just tickets—for low-level drug offenses, and no more over-the-top fines and fees.”
Julia shook her head. “It’s a worthy goal. But it’ll take years to accomplish, if it can be accomplished at all. The system is so entrenched.”
“Exactly.” Hard lines furrowed Claudette’s face. “It’s why Ray ended up in jail for every least little thing, which in turn is what made him so believable as a suspect in Billy’s and Miss Mae’s killings. I don’t care if it takes fifty years.” She thought a moment and recalculated. “Well, let’s say twenty. It has to get done.”
“No.” Julia shook her head. “This is crazy. I mean, it’s a great idea. But why don’t you spend a term as prosecutor and then do it? Think of the credibility you’ll have.”
Claudette lifted the champagne bottle to her lips, tilted her head, and chugged the remainder.
“Because that’s the sort of play-it-safe shit that led me to stick with Ray as a suspect. Four years of waiting means four years of more people getting reamed by this bullshit system. I’m starting tomorrow. I’ve already got an office picked out.” She flashed a look of wicked fun toward Julia.
“It’s over Colombia. You can visit whenever you make a coffee run.”