Naive Charles Royce (great novels .txt) 📖

there were recordings at all. I’m going to file a motion that the camera be inadmissible as irrelevant to the case.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If it recorded the murder, you need to find it.”

“We’re still working on it, but if it makes it into the trial, it could swing against us. I think the defense would suggest the recordings were part of some Élan company conspiracy in which Lennox could have been involved. It could sway the jury.”

“I heard about that. No evidence. Go on.”

“The only other thing besides presence of the camera, but lack of video evidence, is the absence of a murder weapon. As you know, we’re sure that the knife used to stab Lennox thirty-three times was a knife matching a set found in the apartment. Now, we have a photo of Micah leaving the condo that evening, and he is carrying his bag, his briefcase. Not sure why he’d need that at a formal event, so we checked and double-checked. The DNA from the case showed nothing abnormal. No blood, no hair samples, just Micah’s fingerprints. Plus, witnesses corroborate that he always carried that bag. He considered it his purse. We still think he may have carried the knife with him and disposed of it somewhere along the way to the event. However, the actual knife was not and is not anywhere in the vicinity.”

“Obviously, he’s hidden it somewhere, and CIU is too stupid to know where to look.”

“I’ll pass that information on to them. Now, for the good news. Four-prong attack: motive, opportunity, DNA, and confession.”

“Oh, I like the sound of this.”

“I thought you would. Motive. One, Micah was resentful of Lennox’s affair, as evidenced by witness testimony. Two, a life insurance policy was taken out to the tune of one point five million dollars with Micah as the beneficiary. We will call attention to that number as being exorbitant. Next is opportunity. Micah’s recollection is all over the place, with pretty big omissions, up to almost an hour here and there. Our timeline will show that Micah was the last to see Lennox alive, had ample opportunity to almost kill Lennox, dispose of the murder weapon and anything else linking him to the crime, go to the party, come back to find he hadn’t completed the job, kill Lennox and subsequently try to fool the police into thinking he was trying to save him. We even have a moment we will pull out at trial about the lights being on in the apartment when Micah got home, when he swears he couldn’t see a thing.”

“Like Perry Mason,” Wallace Holcomb says.

Elaine replies with a swift and pointed Shh!, which is barely audible except to her husband.

At this point, Astrid realizes she is divulging way more than she should, but she is enjoying the ego boost from the reactions on Elaine and Wallace’s faces.

“DNA.” Astrid continues. “Lennox’s DNA is all over Micah’s body. It was all tested, and it all points back to Lennox and Micah. No other relevant DNA was found at the scene, not a speck.”

“Not true, they had a housekeeper.”

“Yes, I said relevant. The housekeeper’s DNA was there, and she was taken into consideration. But she was ruled out as a suspect. She was in Cuba with her family at the time. Verified.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Lastly, there’s the confession. Micah has confessed that his so-called ‘life-saving’ techniques ended up killing your son. So even if we get a gullible jury, which Shawn Connelly is known for, and they can’t see the connections with all the evidence we present, we have Micah on criminally negligent homicide, plain and simple. Done. That’s a given. Boom. One to four years.”

“That’s not enough, but I get it. Backup plan. No plea bargain, right?”

“None will be accepted.”

“And if all this goes wrong, we’ll still sue in civil court.” Elaine is somewhat satisfied, yet feels the need to have a backup plan for the backup plan.

“It won’t go wrong.”

C h a p t e r   2 6

“Right. Here’s everything.”

Shawn drops a huge box on the closest desk he can find.

“Get to work,” he says, motioning to the gaggle of paralegals waiting to devour the new discovery files.

The Lyte & Morgan law firm offices are considered by most in the legal world to be “old school,” like the firm itself. Herbert Lyte, the founding partner, is approaching 65 years old, and although he is no longer part of the day-to-day operations of the firm, he still has a solid vision for it. This overarching brand strategy is one of timeless trust, and that philosophy trickles down to who he hires, who he selects as clients, even how the office is decorated.

Even though Shawn’s tastes have evolved to a more streamlined look, he can appreciate the old-school mentality. Being a Harvard graduate, and having grown up with a father who appreciated the classic and timeless, he feels equally at home here as he does in Brooklyn.

The paralegals’ corral is a massive, ornate, hand-carved wooden cylindrical half-wall for which there is one entrance. All the desks are arranged to interact with each other, to foster camaraderie and collaboration. Shawn is enjoying the energy, is fueled by it even.

“Comb through everything you can find, and if you can’t find what you need, find it,” Shawn orders. He chuckles to himself at his repetitive word choices as he walks back to his office.

“I guess that speech makes you one of the finding fathers,” jokes his private investigator, who has been eavesdropping from Shawn’s office. He looks more disheveled than the last time they met.

“Maybe I can find you a shower.” Shawn closes the door to his office.

Dimly lit except for the extraordinary view of the Midtown skyline, the office is encased in floor-to-ceiling walnut built-ins on the remaining three walls. The bookcases are filled with sports memorabilia, countless reference materials, and of course framed photos of any celebrity Shawn could talk into taking a selfie with him.

“I know you have everything under control here,”