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“Aha,” Finley said with a nod. She reached for a notepad and pen. “Just how bad is this guy?”
While Jack Finnegan was the very best in his chosen field, Finley had a pretty damned good record herself—on the opposite side of the aisle. She’d worked her entire career until shortly after Derrick’s murder to put away the defendants who had the misfortune of ending up in a courtroom with her. Jack, on the other hand, did all in his power to keep that from happening—which was also why he was so selective about his clients. As often as not, they weren’t exactly innocent or evenparticularly good, but they also weren’t alwaysdirectlyguilty of the charge levied. Sort of like guilty once removed.
Finley wasn’t complaining. After her crash and burn in the courtroom, she’d been on probation with the bar. Not that she’d cared about her career. At that point, she’d wanted to die more than she had wanted anything else. But Jack wasn’t standing for it. He had picked her up from the very bottom and forced her to come to work for him as an investigator.Forcedmight be the wrong choice of words. He’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. He didn’t give a damn, he’d claimed, whether she cared about living or not; he just wanted her to try for her mother’s sake. He had promised Finley that if she couldn’t find her way back, he’d personally put her out of her misery.
Nearly a year later and she was still here, and ending things was only a bad memory.
“Twenty-eight years ago,” Jack said as he leaned against the closed door, “I found myself between a rock and a hard place on a certain case. Raymond Johnson did me a tremendous favor. His son Ray needs me now.”
Johnson.The name sounded vaguely familiar and not in a good way.
“What kind of favor?”
Jack waved a hand. “We don’t need to go there. Suffice to say I feel compelled to do this. His father is an old man. He’s dying. Terminal cancer.” He pressed his lips together, then said, “I really dohaveto do this, Fin.”
“Okay. So what’s the situation with this client?” She propped a hip on her desk and waited.
“You probably remember Lucy Cagle’s murder.”
Wow, now there was a major blast from the past. “Sure. She was a senior over at Harpeth Hall.” Harpeth Hall was one of Nashville’s elite private preparatory schools for girls. Lots of celebrities had attended the school. “They never found her killer, right?”
Finley remembered the way the story had swarmed through the prestigious schools in the area. Though Lucy had lived in Franklin, not so far from Finley’s Belle Meade home, Finley had been a year older, and they had attended different schools. The high-profile murder had been horrifying to all other teens at the time, at least for a little while. Like all else during those challenging years, the awful event had dwindled into the background of the roller-coaster ride of angst and exhilaration. Finley hadn’t kept up with the case during her university years, and by the time she had graduated from law school and started at the DA’s office, the case had been long cold. She did have some recollection of a ten-year anniversary documentary about the case a few years back but nothing else. For a resurrection—what, thirteen years after the event?—there must be new evidence.
Jack shook his head. “In all this time, Metro never even had a real suspect. But last week there was a potential break.” He gestured to his shoulder. “One of those little strappy bags you girls liked to carry back in high school was found at a construction site.”
Finley’s instincts stirred. “They’ve connected the bag to Lucy Cagle?”
“They have. Had her driver’s license inside.”
“How is this find connected to the new client?”
“The construction site was an old warehouse the Johnson family has owned for fifty years. It’s been empty for the past two decades, and the son—our client—finally sold it. There will be new condos there—as soon as this mess is straightened out.”
Finley’s first thought was that any client with half a brain would surely have removed incriminating evidence before selling the property, had he been aware it existed. This was possibly a good sign as regards his innocence.
“Let’s see what this Mr.Johnson has to say,” Finley suggested, standing once more.
Jack nodded and turned to the door, but hesitated. “You know, it’s okay to announce your intentions anytime you like. I really am good with your decision. In fact, if you will recall, it was almost my idea.”
Finley’s old boss, Davidson County district attorney Arthur Briggs, was up for reelection next year. And Jack was right. He was part of the reason she was leaning toward a possible run against Briggs. Though Finley wasn’t so sure she was as good with this new career path as she’d first thought, thus the reluctance to officially announce the intent. At this point, when she considered the idea, she found it difficult to draw in a decent breath.
“I have plenty of time. The sooner I announce I’m running, the more time Briggs will have to render me miserable with his attempts at making me look bad.”
District Attorney Briggs was basically worthless at his job. Successfully prosecuting the bad guys might not happen if not for the ADAs on his staff. Briggs was more interested in making himself look good than in seeing that justice was served. People in Davidson County were not happy with him, but he would do all in his power to see that Finley and anyone else who ran against him looked worse.
The truth and the trouble were, there was plenty of fodder that could be misconstrued where she was concerned.
“You’ll kick his butt,” Jack assured her as he opened the door.
She would certainly try. Maybe. If she didn’t change her mind.
Jack’s office was just two doors down from her own. The offices weren’t laid out in any sort of traditional manner. After Jack’s own fall from grace five or so years ago—he’d lost his twenty-five-year battle with alcohol—he had resurrected his career using this old church. He insisted he’d thought it was a fitting new beginning. And it had worked out, that was for sure. His former office had been in one of Nashville’s premiere buildings downtown, with a slew of other high-profile attorneys, where he had been a senior partner. There had been a whole hostof assistants and other clerical personnel as well as paralegals. In retrospect, maybe all that pressure was part of the reason Jack had fallen off the wagon.
In any event, his career’s resurrection had taken an entirely different route. Low-profile office, fewer clients. He did the work he loved and let the rest go on to attorneys with different aspirations.
For a while, Finley had thought that was what she was doing working with Jack. But then she’d realized if she didn’t step up to make change, change might never happen. Hence, the potential run for Davidson County DA.
Jack waited for Finley to enter his office before him. He was old fashioned that way. No matter that he looked a bit like a rogue with his ponytail and his vintage suits. Finley had decided long ago that Jack liked putting people at ease by coming off as soft and maybe not so sharp. But that was far from accurate. The man was as fierce as they came in a courtroom and possessed a damned-brilliant, razor-sharp mind.
