The Edge of Justice by Clinton McKinzie Read Free Book Online

quizzical. “Aren't you the one who was in the news last year? That gang shooting?”
    I feel the blood coming into my face and try not to wince. “I'm afraid so.”
    McGee is not the least bit sympathetic to my discomfort. He chuckles and coughs, saying, “They call him QuickDraw nowadays. . . . Will you eat with us?”
    “I'm sorry, I can't. There are some others waiting for me. But I'd love to interview you sometime, Agent Burns.”
    “I'll think about it,” I say. My face is hot.
    She takes a card from her purse and puts it on the table in front of me. Then without pause she turns again to McGee.
    “Let me ask you quickly, Ross, what did you think of the closing today?”
    “In general . . . it was well done, lass.”
    “I saw you talking with the prosecutor. What was your role there?”
    “Just to make sure the prosecution doesn't step in any shit . . . that'll make our shoes stink in the AG's Office . . . when the case comes up on appeal.”
    “Were any issues created?”
    “Of course, my dear. . . . There's always issues. . . . And when there aren't . . . the Public Pretenders will make them up.” He pauses to drag several ragged breaths into his lungs. “Nathan probably stepped in it a few times . . . in an appealable sense. But from what I saw . . . none are likely to stink enough . . . to get the case thrown out.”
    “When did he go too far?”
    McGee counts off on his thick fingers. “When he talked about the community's right for justice and protection . . . when he called this the most horrible of all crimes . . . when he called the defendants cold-blooded animals . . . All of those are technically improper. . . . There's some case law that says . . . the prosecutor can't inflame the passions of the jurors . . . or call the defendants names.”
    “But the defense lawyers called all the witnesses and police liars, and said that Karge was conducting a witch-hunt for political gain.”
    McGee explains, “The prosecution does it, it's potentially reversible error. . . . The defense does it, it doesn't fucking matter. . . . You can't appeal an acquittal, lass. Only a conviction. . . . Those are the rules of the game.”
    “I can't imagine the jury doing anything but finding them guilty of first-degree murder and imposing the death penalty. Can you comment at all, officially or not?”
    “Unofficially and off the record . . . you never know what a jury will do . . . You understand, we're talking about your average . . . to below-average citizen-idiots here. . . . These are the same morons . . . who think reintroducing wolves is a federal plot to steal their land . . . and that Waco was an execution. . . . And any time you try to get twelve people . . . to agree on anything, you're asking for trouble. . . . All too often they'll focus on something . . . that's totally irrelevant. . . . But the town's just as hot . . . to put the Knapps in the fryer as Karge is. . . . People've been saying his predecessor was soft on Shepard's killers . . . letting the punks get away with their lives.” McGee then starts into one of his stories, of which there seem to be thousands, while I signal the waitress for a drink stronger than wine. This one is about a domestic violence case he prosecuted where the victim was well known in the community and not very popular. The jury felt she got exactly what she had coming—a broken jaw courtesy of her drunken husband. They acquitted him. It was later revealed that one of the jurors had smuggled a bottle of whiskey into the deliberations. Instead of deliberating, the jury sat around drinking and talking about what they would have done to the bitch.
    I've never seen my boss speak this much.
    I'm crunching the ice from my drink by the time he's finished the story, unsure and uncaring of the point McGee is trying to make. But Rebecca Hersh has more courtesy. She is still standing by the table, looking attentive.
    After a few other questions, she asks, “Nathan Karge looked