The defense had made Laura the subject of the trial. Nothing Blighe tried could turn the focus back to the accused.
Her objections were overruled by the judge, whose obvious bias oozed from his pores. His ‘boys will be boys’ attitude twisted her stomach.
In her summation she’d stood and given it one last shot. “Your Honor. While my learned colleague”—a term that meant anything but learned—“has portrayed this as the victim’s fault, this is a sixteen-year-old, naïve girl, who repeatedly tried to get away from the accused who screamed ‘no’ until the accused put his hand over her mouth, pinched her nose, and rendered her unconscious. A young girl who trusted a classmate and then was viciously raped. She did everything she could to tell this … this predator she was not a willing participant. Yet the accused refused to listen to her pleas. Your Honor, the facts speak for themselves. The accused is guilty of not only assault, but rape. The evidence presented is clear.”
The judge waved his hand at Blighe, frowning. “Ms. Blighe, please take your seat and save your arguments for your appeal. The facts, as you say, are not clear. This girl went willingly with the accused to a bedroom. She was at a party and had been drinking. Despite her protests and tears, there is reasonable doubt in this case, and I find the accused not guilty.”
The judge rose and left the courtroom. Blighe put her head in her hands, strands of short blond hair slipping free and hanging in her face. She breathed deeply, but her muscles were tense and her head throbbed. This was not justice, far from it. Predators like the accused should not be allowed back on the street. She had missed something. Could she have presented the case differently? Not with this judge. His decision was made before court started. If the court system didn’t protect young girls, then who would? This was her worst defeat in five years as a crown prosecutor.
As a victim of a stalker, she knew firsthand the terror a male could bring into the life of a female. She still had nightmares about Jeter Wolfe. Eventually, he’d left her alone and found other victims. But those events changed her life. Already divorced, her ex-husband had petitioned the court for sole custody of their two children, citing that Blighe’s job as a crown prosecutor had put the children’s lives at risk. Blighe hadn’t had the heart to fight in court. She’d installed a security system in her house, purchased a gun, and practiced multiple times a week. Months of self-defense courses had her prepared for an assault. But it was no way to live, always on edge, not trusting anyone.
Two months ago, outside a courtroom, a man put his hand on her shoulder. With her new instincts from self-defense training, she’d grabbed his wrist, bent it back, and had him on his knees screaming. The man was searching for courtroom 202. She profusely apologized. She had mixed emotions. First, she’d responded to a threat with decisiveness and had protected herself. But the man’s screams brought attention in the hallway. Court security had raced toward her until she waved them off.
If the courts couldn’t protect young girls, who would? Being a skilled prosecutor wasn’t enough.
She slid her tailored jacket off her chair, draped it over her arm, grabbed her files, and headed back to her office. Tonight’s workout would be intense—there was a lot of stress to release.
Chapter Five
After Brad’s fiancée was killed in his house by Jeter Wolfe in July, Brad demolished the house and sold the lot. Now he lived with Lobo on a farm west of the city. The house was seventy or eighty years old and under a thousand square feet.
Brad changed into an insulated gray Calgary Police Service sweatsuit, a fleece jacket, a watch cap, and his favorite white North Star sneakers with three red lines up the sides and a good grip for running in snow and on ice. He slid on his black leather gloves, then he and Lobo followed their familiar path down the lane from the farmhouse and into the forested hill toward Bearspaw Dam. Several times he hit a patch of ice and fought for balance. Fortunately, he didn’t crash onto the ice or into a tree. Lobo raced ahead, sniffing for squirrels, checking out piles of crap, probably from coyotes, and tracking other scents only he could smell.
They took a break at the bottom of the hill. Lobo sprinted to the river and tentatively placed a paw in the water. He withdrew it quickly, then bent over and drank. He tested the water again, then lay down under a tree.
Brad stretched beside Lobo and worked out the problems with the murder of the dealer. On the one hand, a dealer getting killed was not a newsworthy event, and it was a low priority for Homicide. But since there were no active cases to occupy his time, he’d keep busy with this one. The method of killing was unusual. Stabbings weren’t uncommon, but few were fatal. This was different. A single stab through the heart. Precise, no hesitation, and life threatening. Not a fluke or a lucky cut, but planned and deliberate. Not a frenzy or spur of the moment. Planned, targeted, and executed. But nothing in the dealer’s history suggested he’d be targeted like this.
He thought of the stabbing two months ago that had occurred in Vic Park as well. A dealer named Billy Tuck. Interestingly, he’d also had cash on him when he was recovered on the sidewalk. At twenty years old, Tuck also had a lengthy rap sheet with minimal time served. The unique method of the stabbing connected the two cases firmly in Brad’s mind, though Tuck’s death hadn’t been as clean.
One thing stood out. Despite numerous charges and convictions, both dealers, Billy Tuck and Vito Sotelo, had spent less
