Guilty as Sin Read Online Free PDF
Author: Tami Hoag
heavier and heavier.
He always stated his Big Rule to his clients with a bluff sense of worldly wisdom, as if to tell them they might as well not even try to keep the truth from him because he could smell a lie like stink on shit. Most of them fell for it. Most of them were doofus losers who wouldn't have needed his help if they'd had two brain cells to rub together. But the Big Rule had a big catch-22, and he knew it.
If Garrett Wright was guilty, then he was guilty of horrible things, and lying would surely be the least of them.
"That's a pretty lame story," Cameron said as he and Ellen walked toward the security door at the end of the hall. "You might think a professor could come up with something more compelling."
"Maybe that's his angle. It's so weak we're supposed to believe it couldn't be anything but the truth."
The door swung open. Nodding to the officer, they took a right and started down the stairs. Cameron glanced at his watch and grimaced. "Oh, man, I'm late. I've got to run," he said. "I told Fred Nelson I'd meet with him at four-thirty. He wants to talk dispo on that trucker from Canada. Will you need me later?"
"I don't think so. Phoebe is typing up the complaint even as we speak."
Ellen watched him bolt down the stairs two at a time with the grace of Baryshnikov. She followed, all but dragging her feet, the weight of the day bearing down on her.
Rudy had handed the case to her—or dumped it on her. She still wasn't sure which, still wasn't sure who had manipulated whom in that meeting. The self-preservationist in her told her she didn't want within five miles of this case. It had the smell of bad meat, looked to be rife with booby traps, and the media would scrutinize her every move. Harris College students with picket signs had already begun protesting Wright's arrest on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. But her sense of justice told her that if Josh Kirkwood and his parents and Megan O'Malley were to get any justice at all, she would have to be the one to prosecute the case. That was a fact that had nothing to do with ego. She was, flat out, the best of the five prosecutors in the Park County attorney's office.
And so, she would clean up the tag-end stuff she had on her schedule, shift newer cases to Quentin Adler, and hope he could bungle his way through them without completely screwing up. And she would concentrate on putting Dr. Garrett Wright in prison.
No reporters were waiting to ambush her in the lobby of the law-enforcement center. Mitch Holt had banished them from his wing of Deer Lake 's City Center . The lovely new brick building housed the city jail and police department in one-half of its two-story V-shape and the city government offices in the other.
The atrium at the apex of the V would be lousy with reporters. That was the scene of their last great spectacle related to the case: a live interview with an outraged Paul Kirkwood. Josh's father had been livid at Mitch's request that he come in to be fingerprinted, even though the request had been more than reasonable. It would have been within Mitch's power to haul Kirkwood in as a suspect at that point. Paul had failed to inform the police that he had once owned the van belonging to suspect and convicted pedophile Olie Swain, had in fact denied knowledge of any such van after a witness had come forward to say she may have seen Josh getting into a vehicle of that description on the night of his disappearance.
That still bothered Ellen, like a sliver she couldn't quite get at just beneath her skin. Why lie about the van? Why deny he had sold it to Olie Swain when the proof was right there in the DMV records?
Unfortunately, Olie wasn't around to help solve the mystery. Facing certain prison time on parole violations, to say nothing of the possible charges regarding Josh's disappearance, Swain had committed suicide while in custody. The BCA had gone over his van with
He always stated his Big Rule to his clients with a bluff sense of worldly wisdom, as if to tell them they might as well not even try to keep the truth from him because he could smell a lie like stink on shit. Most of them fell for it. Most of them were doofus losers who wouldn't have needed his help if they'd had two brain cells to rub together. But the Big Rule had a big catch-22, and he knew it.
If Garrett Wright was guilty, then he was guilty of horrible things, and lying would surely be the least of them.
"That's a pretty lame story," Cameron said as he and Ellen walked toward the security door at the end of the hall. "You might think a professor could come up with something more compelling."
"Maybe that's his angle. It's so weak we're supposed to believe it couldn't be anything but the truth."
The door swung open. Nodding to the officer, they took a right and started down the stairs. Cameron glanced at his watch and grimaced. "Oh, man, I'm late. I've got to run," he said. "I told Fred Nelson I'd meet with him at four-thirty. He wants to talk dispo on that trucker from Canada. Will you need me later?"
"I don't think so. Phoebe is typing up the complaint even as we speak."
Ellen watched him bolt down the stairs two at a time with the grace of Baryshnikov. She followed, all but dragging her feet, the weight of the day bearing down on her.
Rudy had handed the case to her—or dumped it on her. She still wasn't sure which, still wasn't sure who had manipulated whom in that meeting. The self-preservationist in her told her she didn't want within five miles of this case. It had the smell of bad meat, looked to be rife with booby traps, and the media would scrutinize her every move. Harris College students with picket signs had already begun protesting Wright's arrest on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. But her sense of justice told her that if Josh Kirkwood and his parents and Megan O'Malley were to get any justice at all, she would have to be the one to prosecute the case. That was a fact that had nothing to do with ego. She was, flat out, the best of the five prosecutors in the Park County attorney's office.
And so, she would clean up the tag-end stuff she had on her schedule, shift newer cases to Quentin Adler, and hope he could bungle his way through them without completely screwing up. And she would concentrate on putting Dr. Garrett Wright in prison.
No reporters were waiting to ambush her in the lobby of the law-enforcement center. Mitch Holt had banished them from his wing of Deer Lake 's City Center . The lovely new brick building housed the city jail and police department in one-half of its two-story V-shape and the city government offices in the other.
The atrium at the apex of the V would be lousy with reporters. That was the scene of their last great spectacle related to the case: a live interview with an outraged Paul Kirkwood. Josh's father had been livid at Mitch's request that he come in to be fingerprinted, even though the request had been more than reasonable. It would have been within Mitch's power to haul Kirkwood in as a suspect at that point. Paul had failed to inform the police that he had once owned the van belonging to suspect and convicted pedophile Olie Swain, had in fact denied knowledge of any such van after a witness had come forward to say she may have seen Josh getting into a vehicle of that description on the night of his disappearance.
That still bothered Ellen, like a sliver she couldn't quite get at just beneath her skin. Why lie about the van? Why deny he had sold it to Olie Swain when the proof was right there in the DMV records?
Unfortunately, Olie wasn't around to help solve the mystery. Facing certain prison time on parole violations, to say nothing of the possible charges regarding Josh's disappearance, Swain had committed suicide while in custody. The BCA had gone over his van with
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