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As soon as I reached the end of the hallway, I pounded on the captain’s office window.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Crawford?” the captain growled as he walked around his desk and unlocked his glass door. He put both hands on his hips.
“I need to speak to the officer in Laura Stevens’s case,” I said. The words left my mouth before I had even processed them or considered what I was getting myself into. She had told me to leave. She was going to represent herself.
Of all the stupid, arrogant, stubborn things she could do, this would be the worst one.
He tilted his head. “Who?”
“The woman you arrested last night on armed robbery.”
“Oh, well, are you representing her?”
I hesitated. It would be a lie to say I was, but I knew as a lawyer, I couldn’t sit around and watch her go to prison for ten years. She couldn’t even make it through one night without a bruise on her face. And was she even serious about the other girl looking worse than her? Unbelievable.
“I’ll be assisting her case.”
“Fine. Give me a minute.”
He returned to his desk and searched through a pile of yellow file folders on his desk. “Here we go.” He handed a thin file to me.
“Thank you.” I hesitated before leaving. It would take twenty minutes to drive back to my office and review the file. Then, I’d probably have to come back here to interview the officer. “Is there a room I could use to look this over?”
The captain frowned and narrowed his eyes, as though he was asking, ‘are you serious?’.
I shrugged and smirked, hoping it came across as sheepish rather than impatient.
“Here,” he said, and rose from his chair. “You can use my desk. I need a break anyway.”
“Thank you, captain. I won’t be long.”
He grunted and mumbled something, but I didn’t make it out. I doubted he had intended me to hear it, anyway.
Settling in at his desk, I leafed through the few sheets of paper in last night’s incident report. There wasn’t much there. Nothing had been reported stolen, only an armed robbery attempt. One of the men reported she had used a Glock 22. The only people named in the report were Officer Tom Brennon and the owner of the house, Giancarlo Rossi. According to Rossi, Officer Brennon disarmed the perpetrator shortly after she demanded Rossi hand over twenty thousand dollars from his safe.
She wore no mask and had been tipped off by her father who did odd jobs for Rossi. So, according to Rossi, she had planned to rob him that night.
Her father had not been named as an accomplice, only an innocent bystander.
The gun had no fingerprints on it, but they claimed she had worn gloves. There was no mention of where the gloves were, as they were not included on the list of evidence.
The only evidence was the testimony of a police officer and some rich bastard. But I’d been in the system long enough to know it would be enough for a conviction.
Flipping to the last page, I noted it was nearly blank, with only a name and a phone number. I copied it onto my phone, making a note to call it later.
The first step was to build a defense for Laura. I needed to get her father on board to corroborate Laura’s version of events. But even if he agreed, as I’d mentioned to Laura, his statement would look biased compared to testimony from a police officer.
The best strategy would be to poke holes in the officer’s testimony. Pick away at it until there was reasonable doubt.
Rising from the desk, I walked down the hallway to the front desk. “I need to speak with Officer Brennon.”
She didn’t ask for my name. She probably already knew who I was. Most people in town were familiar with my family.
Or maybe the captain had mentioned it to her. She looked at an office down the hallway.
“He’s not here.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Where can I find him?”
