Trial and Terror by ADAM L PENENBERG Read Free Book Online Page A

an escapade she since regretted. Not sex, since that hadn’t happened. Just the drunken closeness and the sober avoidance that followed.
    Brockton swaggered closer. “Free tonight?”
    Summer yawned. “Sure, Brockton, after I visit my shrink, refill my Prozac prescription, and slit my wrists.”
    Brockton laughed. “Ooh. Bitchy women make me hard.” He peered through the bars at SK. “But don’t you think you should save it for the prosecution?”
    Summer pretended to ignore him until she spotted Levi pushing through the unruly media. Brockton said, “Later,” winked, and wandered off.
    “Where were you?” Summer asked.
    “Sorry. I overslept,” Levi whispered, cramming his shoulder against hers. “My daughter was up all night with the flu. Didn’t you get my text?”
    Summer lied. “I forgot my phone,” she said. Actually she had left it home to prevent Marsalis from tracking her. “I’m just glad you’re here. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep the hounds at bay.”
    “Do you mean that guy you were talking to—or the press?” came a tart drawl from behind.
    Summer turned to see SK eyeballing her. She was wearing a tank top that displayed freckled, muscular arms. Her hair, rust-colored and dirty, hung to her nape. “Let them take their video. I want everyone to see this.”
    “I would strongly advise against that,” Levi said. “People see this on the six o’clock news, it’ll stick in their minds. Could taint a jury pool, plus damage public perception.”
    “Who the hell are you?” SK asked. “My lawyer?”
    “She is,” Levi pointed to Summer. “I’m her boss.”
    “Public defenders?”
    “Yup.”
    “You’re fired.”
    It took Summer a few seconds to realize SK wasn’t kidding.
    Levi shrugged and, reluctantly, slid to the side. Then, media delirium: popping flashes, the whir of advancing cameras, the press hollering questions.
    From across the room there was the urgent thwack of a gavel. Angiers hustled over from the bench. “Bailiffs! Get this horde out of here. Now!”
    The bailiffs moved quickly, rounding up the protesting news hawkers and bullying them to the exit.
    Angiers stood alone in the press box. “Freedom of the press does not mean you can come in here and disrupt my court. If any of you step inside these doors ever again, I’ll hold you in contempt!”
    After the last journalist funneled out the door, the judge calmed. “I believe it is time for the Stephanie Killington case.”
    He took his place on the bench, a bailiff unlatched the cage door, and Summer followed Levi to a section of the visitors’ gallery roped off for attorneys. The bailiff led SK by the elbow, maneuvered her to a spot in front of the judge. Raines, whom Summer hadn’t seen come in, planted himself a few steps away.
    Angiers flipped open SK’s file and skimmed the evidence, the police and medical examiner reports. He looked up. “Ms. Killington. Have you hired an attorney?”
    SK glowered at Angiers. “No.”
    “Can you afford a private attorney?”
    “All my money is tied up in the Women’s Center. I have no savings of my own.”
    Angiers nodded. “If you are willing to sign an affidavit stating this to be the case, the court will provide you with representation.”
    “No way, Judge. No public defender.”
    Summer looked to Levi for answers. He didn’t have any.
    Angiers massaged his neck. “Let me get this straight. You do not have funds available for a private attorney, yet you refuse a free one?”
    “You got it.”
    “Please tell me you’re not thinking of representing yourself.”
    “I’m not thinking of representing myself.”
    “Good,” Angiers said. “Better to leave it to the professionals. So, what do you plan on doing for a defense?”
    “Before I answer that, Judge, I have to inform the court that I’m being held in a cell a cockroach wouldn’t call home. There’s no sink, the toilet doesn’t flush, it smells bad, real bad, Your Honor, and there