Page 4 of Rekindled

“I think under the circumstances, it’s best if you don’t. My parents are light sleepers, and I want them to like you.”

He shrugged. “It’s only a few days. I guess it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But you’re going to owe me when we get back to Seattle.”

She chose to avoid addressing his innuendo, and instead pointed to the room at the end of the hall. “That’s the guest bathroom. I’ll meet you back in the living room once you’re finished.”

Molly turned and headed back down the hall. She hoped everyone could get along for the duration of their stay. The last thing she needed was her parents and Rick to hate each other. It would keep her from focusing on her true task for being in Bayfield—finding out the truth about Spencer Conrad.

* * *

Spencer watchedthe brown-haired man in the orange jumpsuit sitting across from him in the county jail. The man was obviously suffering from narcotics withdrawal. He was sweating profusely, his eyes were darting everywhere, and he was sporadically twitching and scratching his tattooed skin.

Compassionately, Spencer pushed a bottle of water towards the inmate. “Here, this should help some.”

The man gave him a surprised look as he reached out and yanked the bottle towards him. “So, how are you going to get me out of here?”

“I need you to give me a detailed account of that day, Mr. Burke. This is my third trip to see you, and you still haven’t told me where you were when the robbery happened. If you could just give me your alibi, we could build a defense around that,” Spencer explained to his client, Daryl Burke.

“Like I told you and the cops, I let Joe Gunders borrow my truck that night. I had no idea what he had planned, and I wasn’t involved.”

“I understand that, but the jury is going to want to know what you were doing during the time of the robbery. There’s even a possibility I can get this thrown out before it goes to trial if I can prove you weren’t there.”

Daryl shrugged. “That’s the problem; you won’t be able to. And even if you could, what I was doing wasn’t exactly legal. It would just get me into a whole other set of problems.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that? I need you to tell me, so I can figure out the best way to defend you.”

The other man crossed his arms and eyed Spencer skeptically. “This isn’t my first time down this road. My last attorney messed me over bad. I ended up doing a whole year for a simple bar fight.”

“Mr. Burke, I’ve read your entire file,” Spencer said, patting the folder in front of him. “I’m aware of what happened to you three years ago. Let me make one thing clear, I’m nothing like your last public defender. I care more about my clients than getting my cases closed. If you work with me, I will do my very best to help you.”

“Fine,” Daryl said as he leaned forward onto the table. “But I’m telling you, it’s just going to make everything harder. I was with a woman friend of mine that evening.”

Spencer jotted down the information. “This can help. I just need you to tell me her name and where to find her. Once I get her statement on the record, I can present it to the district attorney along with a request for dismissal.”

“Yea, so that’s where we run into a problem,” Daryl stated as he cracked his knuckles. “She’s not going to want to go on the record. She’s skittish of cops and lawyers because of her job.”

“What does she do exactly?” Spencer probed. “Maybe we can figure something out.”

Daryl’s brows came together in a furrow as he rolled his shoulders. “She’s a hooker. I’m one of her regulars down at the Sundance Hotel.”

“Oh, well…” Spencer thought about their options for a few moments, then said, “We could have her give her statement, but leave out the part of what she does for a living. They just need to know where you were. She can verify it wasn’t at the robbery. It could still work. Do you have a cell phone number for her?”

Daryl shook his head. “No, she hates them. Thinks the government is listening through them. She usually works the corner by the hotel most nights. Her name’s Trixie.”

“What does she look like?”

“Brown, curly hair and a big rack. She’s also got a butterfly tattoo on her lower back, but that probably won’t help you find her.”

Spencer internally cringed at the description of the woman. It wouldn’t be his first time tracking down someone on the seedy east side of town.

“Okay, Daryl, that should do it for now,” Spencer stated as he put away his notepad and files. “I’m going to work on this over the next couple of days.” He stood to his feet and gave his client a nod. “I’ll come back when I have some news.”

As Spencer headed back to his office to check in and make a few calls, he mulled over the other three cases he was working on. He had two narcotics cases, one possession and one dealing, and a felony battery case. He was making good headway on the dealing case, as his client was willing to trade supplier information in order to get his charges pled down to misdemeanors, but the possession was harder since the college kid didn’t have anything to trade. He was just stupid enough to get caught buying illegal prescription drugs. Since it was a first offense, Spencer hoped the district attorney would be willing to offer rehab with probation.

The most difficult of the three though, was going to be the battery case. It was his client’s third offense, and the district attorney already made it clear there wasn’t going to be any deals. He wanted the guy to go away for a long time. When Spencer got back to the office, he needed to make some calls to see if he could locate any witnesses that could prove the other guy provoked the fight in the parking lot of the smoke shop. Of course, the cops didn’t take the time to interview anyone, but Spencer was great at finding overlooked witnesses.

Spencer walked into the Public Defenders Bayfield downtown office. He weaved through the cubicles until he reached the hallway that led to his office. Just as he came around the corner, he overheard his assistant, Jane, talking to one of the paralegals named Allison. He stopped moving and felt his stomach tighten as they mentioned a name he hadn’t heard in nearly a decade.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw Molly Price at the coffee shop this morning,” Allison stated. “I mean, she’s got to be back in town for the class reunion, right?”

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