Owen shot awake at the loud noise, but still impaired by the haze of the deep sleep she’d been rousted from, she was unable to make out the source until she spotted the light flashing from her phone on the nightstand. She grabbed it and squinted to make out the number on the screen. Unknown. Her gut clenched and she answered the call. “Lassiter.”
“Owen, it’s Kira. We’ve got a problem.”
“Hang on.” Owen noted the time—three a.m.—set the phone back on the nightstand, and climbed out of bed. Kira’s ominous tone told her she needed to be a helluva lot more awake than she was right now if she wanted to process whatever news was headed her way. She padded to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked like shit, even for someone rousted from bed in the middle of the night. Dark circles under her eyes, and she was desperately in need of a haircut. She brushed an errant curl off her face and trudged back to the phone, dreading whatever prompted this middle of the night alarm.
“Talk to me. What’s up?”
“Leo Joule was mugged tonight. Last I heard, he was unconscious. The responding officer recognized his name and called to let me know they took him to Parkland. I’m on my way there now.”
Owen was instantly wide-awake. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m not far from you if you want me to swing by and pick you up.”
There wasn’t a trace of anything other than professionalism in Kira’s tone, but Owen felt uncomfortable at Kira’s words, remembering why Kira knew exactly where she lived. They’d only been together a couple of times. They’d had fun and they’d both agreed that was all it would ever be, no matter how many times they repeated it. Owen suspected if she ever wanted more, Kira would probably be game, but she’d avoided going there and she had no intention of changing. She should drive herself tonight, but it was silly to pass up the opportunity to talk to her investigator about what it meant that their star witness had been injured. “Thanks. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Owen strode to her closet and slid several hangers aside until she found the tan suit she liked to wear when she was meeting with witnesses who needed to be put at ease. She paired it with a chocolate brown shirt and hurriedly dressed while her mind whirred with questions. Leo Joule was the only eyewitness who’d seen Fuentes at the house the night Mrs. Adams had been killed. He hadn’t seen the murder take place, but he’d heard the gunshots and then seen Fuentes running away from the house. Owen had serious doubts about whether he’d actually witnessed both things and in what order, but she couldn’t ignore Joule’s steadfast determination about how it had gone down. He was the linchpin of their case and had to be protected at all costs.
Kira was waiting in her Dodge muscle car at the curb in front of Owen’s building and, not for the first time, she had a comment to make about where Owen lived the minute she stepped into the car.
“The valet tried to get me to move until I flashed my badge. I hope your homeowner dues are worth it. I can’t imagine living somewhere where I’d have to wait for some dude in a fancy uniform to fetch my car whenever I wanted to go somewhere.”
“You say that now, but when you’ve worked till midnight and all you want to do is fall into bed, it’s pretty sweet to be able to roll up to the front door and toss your keys at the dude, silly uniform or not.”
“I can think of better things to spend my county paycheck on.”
Owen hid the flicker of annoyance that flared up as Kira needled her, but she couldn’t resist a little push back. “Like this car? Seriously, you spend all day driving around in Dallas traffic. When do you ever get to rev this engine and let it fly the way it was intended?”
Kira laughed. “Point taken. I guess we both like having nice things even if we define them differently.”
“I guess. Tell me what you know about Joule,” she said, glad to have something to talk about besides her wealth. Kira’s curiosity about her personal circumstance was one of the main reasons, besides the fact they worked together, that whatever went on between them would never be more serious than a string of one-night stands. If Kira really wanted to know more about her personal life, she could easily use her investigative skills to find out, and Owen often wondered if she had, but was seeking confirmation from the primary source—her—as to what she’d found. But Owen valued her privacy too much to engage in idle banter about her background. Besides her car and her clothes, the high-rise apartment was the only ostensible luxury she indulged in, and if she had it to do over again, she wouldn’t have ever invited Kira back to her place and risked rousing her suspicion.
“It happened downtown. Beat cop found him passed out in a parking lot, not six feet from his car. There’s a restaurant nearby, but it’s closed, and everyone’s already gone for the night. We’ll get someone out there in the morning to talk to the staff and see if anyone saw anything, and DPD has officers canvassing the area now to see if any of the homeless down there are willing to speak up. Unlikely, but we’re doing whatever we can.”
“What kind of injuries does he have?”
“That’s what’s weird. Looks like someone tried to strangle him. No evidence any other weapon was used. Wallet still in his pocket. I guess someone could’ve scared the perp off while he was in the middle of the holdup, but it seems amateurish to me.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t a robbery. Maybe someone was sending a message.” Owen tapped her fingers against her neck. “Cut off his air to tell him not to talk.”
Kira narrowed her eyes. “Seriously? You think Fuentes has the kind of pull to get someone to threaten a witness? I find that highly unlikely.”
Owen didn’t bother arguing the point. There would be plenty of time to figure out what the evidence meant when they had more evidence to sort through, but she had a nagging suspicion the harm that had come to Joule tonight was not the result of a simple robbery gone wrong. “I want a guard on his room. Someone from the sheriff’s department. Around the clock.”
“Already in motion. DPD is going to have a fit about that.”
Owen knew that was right, but since DPD officers themselves were witnesses in her case, she didn’t want them in the position of guarding her key witness in the event the defense attorney tried to claim Joule’s favorable testimony was payback for being protected.
“Here we are,” Kira announced, pulling her car right up to the emergency room door. She rolled down her window and flashed her badge at the security guard standing in the drive and he motioned to the parking for the emergency vehicles. “See,” she said, “that’s respect.”
Owen didn’t take the bait. She followed Kira into the ER, willing to let her wave her badge around to get them access. She had a badge too, but she preferred to use it only when absolutely necessary rather than advertise her authority. People were generally more willing to reveal things in casual conversation than they were when they thought they were on the record.
A few minutes later, they were in front of a room in the ER guarded by a woman she recognized from the courthouse. She scanned her name badge. “Deputy Franco, how are you doing tonight?”
“Good, Ms. Lassiter, Ms. Vaughn. All quiet so far.”
“Is he awake yet?”
“He wasn’t a minute ago. The doctor is in with him now.” Franco stepped to the side “I’ll make sure no one disturbs you if you’d like to talk to him.”
Owen nodded and stepped through the door with Kira right behind. Joule and the doctor were the only ones in the room, and to her relief, Joule was awake. He didn’t look great, though. “Mr. Joule, I came as soon as I heard.”
He looked confused for a moment and the doctor took the opportunity to interject. “I’m Dr. Elias. Are you family?”
Owen felt Kira start to reach for the damn badge again, and she made a slicing motion with her hand to get her to stop. “No, we’ve been working together, and I heard from a mutual friend that he’s been hurt. Is he okay?”
Dr. Elias glanced at Joule who nodded. “He will be. It’s hard to assess the damage to his trachea, but he shouldn’t talk for a while. Other than that, he should recover fully.”
“That’s great news,” Owen said, but she filed away the fact that Joule’s only significant injury might be to his ability to speak. “May we have a moment alone?”
Dr. Elias studied them both and turned to Joule. “If it’s okay with you, but only for a few minutes. You need to rest.” He pointed at a pad of paper and pen on the tray next to Joule’s bed. “Use that to communicate. I don’t want him talking right now. He may be a little confused. He was out for a while. Please do keep your visit short.”
Owen waited until the doctor was out of sight and the door closed before launching into her first question. “Did you see who did this to you?”
Joule shook his head immediately. Owen wanted to ask him if he was sure but decided not to press right now. She had a bunch of questions about exactly what had gone down, but she’d let Kira break down all the details, and she nodded in her direction to indicate she should get started.
“I’m sorry to bother you about details when you’re probably in pain,” Kira said, “But your memory is likely as fresh as it will be right now. Do you have any idea what time you were attacked?”
Joule scrunched his forehead, picked up the pen, and started writing furiously on the pad. As the moments ticked by it became clear he was giving more detail than had been requested. When he finally handed them the pad, she and Kira studied the words.
Just got off work. Bar next to Simply Thai. Would’ve been about midnight. Grabbed from behind. Tried to tell him to take my cash but couldn’t get the words out. Everything went black and I woke up in the ambulance.
A complete story and it was completely useless. “Did anyone leave the bar with you? Someone who might have seen what happened?”
Joule shook his head.
“Any idea who might have done this?” Kira asked.
Again, with the head shake. This interview was going nowhere, and Owen was getting frustrated. She pulled Kira off to the side. “Contact the bar and the restaurant and see if they have any security cameras that might have caught what happened and seize the footage. If they want a warrant, let me know, but you should be able to get them to comply without one. Interview all of the employees who were working tonight—you know the drill. If you need help, let me know and I’ll get Rivera to assign another investigator to help out. I know DPD is going to be doing a lot of the same stuff, but I wanted to hear the unvarnished version. Understood?”
“Absolutely.” Kira jerked her chin at Joule, who appeared to be slipping back into sleep. “We done here?”
“I don’t think he’s got anything useful to add.”
“Great, I’ll drop you off and get started.”
“I can find my own way home.”
“Nope, I’m headed that direction anyway.”
Back in the car, Kira cleared her throat a few times in a way that Owen recognized as a prelude to an uncomfortable question. “If there’s something you want to know, just ask.”
“You think this was some kind of warning to Joule—a threat to get him not to testify, don’t you?”
“I have no idea,” Owen said. “But it seems like there’s more to this story than what we see on the surface, so let’s start there. You don’t think it’s odd that he was strangled, that no weapon was used? His wallet was intact, complete with all the cash from his shift. Who mugs a guy with his bare hands and forgets to take the prize? No one, that’s who.”
“You may be right, but maybe someone interrupted the mugger before he could take anything. That makes this different than all the other muggings that have happened lately.”
“Good point. Do what you can to sweet-talk DPD into beefing up the canvass of the neighborhood.”
“Will do. We should be able to drum up some leads tomorrow if there’s any to be found. You want me to go back and talk to Joule, see if his memory improves?”
“Yes. Tomorrow. I have a hunch he knows something, even if he doesn’t remember it.”
Kira pulled into the circle drive in front of her building and her car idled. “I could come up. I mean if you want to talk about the case or…”
Owen recognized the offer for what it was, and for a brief moment, she considered taking Kira up on it. Her mind would be whirring about the case for hours, making sleep elusive. Sex might be exactly what she needed to get out of her head and get a decent night’s sleep, or what was left of it. But this wasn’t some after happy hour interlude. They were both sober and working together on a big case, and Owen didn’t need the distraction of giving in to someone who likely felt more than she did when it came to whatever happened between them, especially when she couldn’t write off her actions to a drunken indiscretion. She put her hand on the door handle. “I’m pretty beat. Let’s talk first thing in the morning.”
“Cool.”
Kira avoided her eyes, which was fine. Owen didn’t need to get caught up in worrying that her investigator was distracted either. She climbed out of the car, nodded to the doorman, and rode the elevator to her apartment. Within moments of entering, she’d hung up her suit and was back in the UT Law T-shirt and plain blue boxers she’d been wearing when Kira had called. She paced the apartment, looking for something out of place she could put right as a symbolic gesture of problem solving, but as usual, everything was in its place, and due to a visit from her housekeeper earlier in the day, it was meticulously clean—exactly the way she liked it.
She settled on a finger of whisky to induce sleep. She poured the Glenmorangie into a short, thick glass and took it with her to bed, where she read her notes about Joule from earlier in the day on her iPad until the words started to swim on the screen. She had no idea how long she’d been asleep when she heard a loud buzzing. This happened before. How did I make it stop? She slapped at her nightstand and knocked over something heavy. Finally, she found the switch for her lamp and turned it on. Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to figure out the buzzing was her phone and the something heavy was the whisky glass she’d knocked to the floor. She stared at the phone, surprised it wasn’t Kira. She answered. “Lassiter.”
“Ms. Lassiter, this is Sergeant Carl Birken down at the Fifth Precinct. Detective Garcia gave me your number. I heard about the witness in the Adams case getting mugged last night.”
“Okay.” Owen rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to sort out why this guy had woken her up at six a.m. to chitchat about a case he wasn’t remotely involved in prosecuting. “And?”
“And,” he cleared this throa,. “we got a tip about it yesterday afternoon. The mugging, I mean.”
She must’ve heard him wrong or she’d lost track of an entire day. He couldn’t have gotten a tip about Joule’s mugging yesterday afternoon since it hadn’t happened until hours later. She cleared her throat and struggled to find clarity from the fog of sleep. “I think you’re mistaken, Sergeant. It happened late last night. Like really late,” she said to emphasize this call was disturbing her much needed rest.
“I know it sounds crazy, but I took the call myself. She, the caller, was very specific about the victim and she described your guy perfectly, but when we asked her his name and how she came by the info, she clammed up. We wrote it off until the mugging showed up on the morning tip sheet. I figured you’d at least want to talk to her. I called Vaughn but had to leave a message and the captain suggested I call you directly.”
Owen was suddenly very awake. “Has anyone followed up with the woman who called in the tip yet?”
“No. We only just connected the dots and figured you might want to handle it personally.”
Owen sighed with relief. “You did the right thing. Send me her contact info.” She clicked off the line, and while she waited for the text to come through, she shot off a message to Kira. Strange new lead. Clear your morning. Meet you at the courthouse in an hour.
It would be a lot easier to have Kira pick her up again, but she needed to start prioritizing boundaries over convenience. She called down to the valet and asked them to have her car ready, and she checked her phone one more time before heading to the shower. She had one unread message from Sergeant Birken. She clicked on the message, poised for the reveal about their mystery witness, and when the name appeared on the screen, the mystery deepened. Summer Byrne—from the jury who’d ruined her perfect streak. What the hell?