Defensive Wounds by Lisa Black Read Free Book Online Page A

she died, approximately, between five-thirty and”—Theresa thought about the condition of the body—“say, midnight. That doesn’t narrow it down much. These people were all coming, going—”
    â€œLooking forward to relaxing after a busy day of learning how to keep their clients on the street, free to commit more crimes.”
    â€œNot much of a loss, is she?” someone said from behind Theresa.
    Frank groaned inwardly. Sonia Battle.
    Never had a woman been more appropriately named—the Battle part, not Sonia. She’d been Theresa’s college roommate and gone on to become a criminal defense attorney. He knew that Sonia had gone into law because of some incident with her brother, and her passion to help the little guy oppressed by an uncaring, bigoted state had not abated, only grown stronger. Frank and Theresa, of course, were considered agents of this uncaring state.
    Theresa hugged the woman. “Sonia! You were at this thing, too?”
    â€œOf course. You know how dedicated I am to getting my scumbag clients back on the streets.” She glared at Frank.
    â€œPlease sit down.” Theresa retrieved one of the nicely cushioned chairs from the set tables and placed it across from Frank. The hotel would have to adapt.
    Sonia sat. She continued to glare—at him only. She cut his cousin slack, everywhere but in the courtroom.
    Marie Corrigan had, when alive, looked exactly like the kind of person she was—sexy, glitzy, driven, ready to eat men and even other women for breakfast to get what she wanted, without much concern for people’s feelings, the rules of law, or justice. Sonia Battle’s life could also be read from her appearance—weary-faced, with straight hair she didn’t bother to style, round glasses to ease the eyestrain from reading briefs all night instead of going on dates, and a body she didn’t have time to tone underneath the ill-fitting clothes she bought because she couldn’t afford anything more on an Office of the Public Defender salary. Sonia had great concern for people’s feelings (people other than cops and prosecutors, that was), the rules of law, and justice. So much concern that it seemed to eat her alive.
    Theresa asked, “How are you? Did you know Marie?”
    Sonia pressed fleshy lips together. “I knew her. And I know how the cops felt about her. Hell, I know how you felt about her.”
    â€œLast year she practically accused me of planting paint chips from the suspect’s car on the victim’s jeans,” Theresa pointed out. Frank knew that there were more recent—and more virulent—experiences with Marie Corrigan, but if his cousin wasn’t going to mention that to her old buddy, neither would he.
    â€œShe asked if it was a possibility there’d been cross-contamination at the lab, that’s all.”
    â€œNo, she asked, ‘Did you take paint chips from my client’s front bumper and put them in an envelope to indicate you’d found them on a pair of jeans?’ And how did you know about that anyway?”
    â€œI keep up on who’s trying what case and its outcome. We all do. Cleveland’s a small town in a lot of ways, and like any profession, ours can get a bit incestuous. You disliked Marie because she was good at her job—you just won’t admit it.”
    â€œI disliked her because she flat-out lied to juries. She told one that two hundred years of fingerprint analysis should be considered junk science.”
    â€œWell, you can’t prove that there couldn’t be two people with the same fingerprint!”
    â€œNo, and by golly, I can’t understand why we would think that when there’s approximately six hundred billion comparisons done every day across the globe and we still haven’t found two the same—”
    â€œLadies,” Frank interrupted. “Can we talk about Marie Corrigan?”
    Sonia turned to