The Ghost Case Posse (eBook)

Joe Greco (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
332 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9798999855015 (ISBN)

Infos

Justice is blind-but vengeance sees all. Jedidiah 'Jed' Bouvier, a weary idealist and recovering alcoholic, is defending Dexter Wayne Jones-the most reviled man in the county. A confirmed serial rapist and suspected murderer who is a copycat of the infamous Golden State Killer, Jones is accused of having slaughtered a family decades earlier. But despite damning evidence, the first trial ended in a hung jury. Jed and his co-counsel, Tara Singh, battled relentless prosecutor Catalina 'Cat' Galvez in the high-stakes retrial, but sinister forces are moving behind the scenes, driven by a ruthless desire for justice that the courts are unable to deliver. Tensions are high as the second jury becomes hopelessly deadlocked, and Jed's neighbor, a hulking ex-cop with a dark secret, seems peculiarly interested in the proceedings. Meanwhile, Jed's girlfriend, a beautiful woman with a stunning secret of her own, mysteriously vanishes. A gripping legal thriller spirals into psychological suspense, as Jed uncovers the true identity of the woman he loves-and the nightmarish truth about delayed justice, retribution, and the price of idealism in a broken system.

Joe Greco grew up in Sacramento, California, graduated from Dartmouth College and Stanford Law School, and embarked on a career as a Silicon Valley litigator. He has practiced law for over forty years and has been writing short fiction and creative nonfiction for the past fifteen years. His stories have been published in many print and online literary magazines. 'The Ghost Case Posse' is his debut novel. Learn more about Joe and his writing at www.jgreco.com.

Textauszug

3

Amy Martin pulled the black Toyota Camry into Jed’s driveway, the headlights shining on the garage door. She looked at him and smiled. “Okay. Chez Bouvier.” She laughed.

Jed smiled. “Hey, thanks for picking me up and driving. This was great.”

“Thanks for dinner,” she said. Their coffee dates after AA meetings had lingered longer and longer. After the last meeting, she’d leaned in and kissed him on the lips when they were saying good-bye.

“No problem.” He looked at her, hesitated, then leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek, then gently on the lips. He looked down.

She giggled. “This would be a helluva lot easier if we were drunk, you know.”

They laughed. Jed leaned over and kissed her again. “Do you want to come in for some vintage ginger ale?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” She turned off the headlights and shut off the motor.

They got out and walked to the house. Jed opened the door, dropped his keys on the kitchen counter, and showed her into the living room.

“Pretty well kept for a guy living alone.” She smiled at him. She was thirty-something, average height, lithe, wearing a sleeveless yellow sundress that showed off her toned arms. Her brown hair was short, tapered to the nape of her neck, and Jed had noticed what appeared to be part of a bright orange tattoo extending under the left strap of the dress on the lower part of her shoulder.

“Is the temp okay in here for you? I can crank the air up if you’re too warm.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, go ahead and have a seat,” Jed said, gesturing toward a white couch. “I’ll fetch the vintage bubbly. Ice?”

“No, I’m a Massachusetts chick; we drink straight up.”

Jed laughed. “Got it.” He’d vaguely noticed her coming to AA meetings for a while before they’d spoken directly to each other. But then she’d sat near him at a meeting, and when she’d smiled at him, he’d immediately noticed stunning blue eyes and a pronounced dimple in her right cheek. After the meeting, she’d approached him, and they’d chatted for a while. He’d noticed her accent and wrongly guessed New York. She’d told him she was from Worcester, Massachusetts, but when he’d asked her to spell it, it didn’t sound at all to him like how she’d pronounced it. When they’d started their coffee dates after subsequent meetings, he’d failed the pronunciation test she gave him every time.

Jed poured a couple of glasses and brought them to the couch. “Cheers,” he said. They clinked glasses.

She sipped the ginger ale as she looked at him with the eyes Jed had tried to describe as ice blue or glacier blue. But he still wasn’t sure that did justice to their alluring color.

“Let’s get it over with,” he said.

“What?”

“You know what. The test, the test.”

She nodded and smiled. “Go.”

“Woo-ster.”

She shook her head. “Wuh-stuh.”

“Woo-stuh.”

“Wuh-stuh. Wuhhhh-stuh. Just like it’s spelled, W-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r. Wuh-stuh.”

“Come on. That’s what I said.”

She leaned toward him. “Forget it. You’re a California tree-huggah. It’s no use.”

“Okay, okay. I guess it’s another one of those things that’d be easier if I was drunk.”

“Yep.”

“At least you haven’t asked me whether I’m related to the Kennedys.”

“Ah, yes. Jackie Bouvier. And now that I think of it—if I’m recalling him correctly—you do look like JFK Jr. did. Tall, dark. And may I say handsome?”

“You may. But things didn’t turn out too well for him, so maybe that comparison’s bad luck.”

“A lot about the Kennedys is bad luck. Let’s change the subject.” She sipped her ginger ale.

“Speaking of the subject, I think I owe you an apology because I think I’ve been the one doing most of the talking. And it’s been mostly about the damned case. You probably think I’m a narcissist.”

“Nah. What you do is interesting. Fascinating, really.” She paused. “I guess I haven’t asked you this before, but do you find it tough to defend people like this guy?”

Jed looked at her, shrugged. “Sure. But trials are wars in a sense. Once you pick a side, you gotta fight. Otherwise, you should stay out of the battle.”

She paused, looked away. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Come on. Talk to me about you. You grew up back there? I’m just going to say ‘Massachusetts.’”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

“Your folks still alive?”

“No, no, they’ve passed.”

“We never even talked about why you decided to move out here. You said you do design consulting. Did you get transferred or something?”

“No, I work remotely. I just wanted to do something different. Go see the California that everyone was always talking about.”

Jed smiled. “And you decided to move to Dos Pinos? Did you ever hear of San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara?”

Amy laughed. “A friend of a friend moved out here a couple years ago and really liked it. And it’s a lot more affordable than the fancy places.”

“Okay.” Jed paused. “You know, you’d make a good witness in court. Very concise answers. You certainly don’t go off on tangents.”

“Well, I don’t want to be a witness.” She looked into his eyes, then turned her head slightly. “But I don’t want to lose my mystery either.”

They both laughed.

“But really,” Amy said. “I’m not the one with my name in the newspaper. And besides, those statements you make to the reporters can be pretty mysterious themselves.”

Jed nodded. “Yep. I’m a bit old-fashioned. Don’t like trying my cases in the press. Especially once the trial starts. The reporters aren’t going to help you, and what they write usually just pisses the judge off.”

“So how do you think it went? You think the jury might convict this time?”

“It’s a circumstantial evidence case. There’s no fingerprints and no DNA from the crime scene. And jurors really fixate on that CSI stuff nowadays. The power of TV. But, well, I’ll leave it at that.”

Amy looked away. “You’re talking about the murder scene, right? I mean, the prior rapes—there’s DNA evidence that those happened, right?”

“Well, yeah. And believe me, at least some jurors will be thinking about how they can punish him for those regardless of whether they think there’s reasonable doubt that he committed the murders.”

Amy drank the last of the ginger ale and set the glass on the coffee table. “Yeah, what about that, Jed? What about the rapes? Let’s say you do get this guy off on the murder. How do you feel about that?”

Jed took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked to justify how he could defend people who’d “done it” or who’d done something else equally bad. But he wasn’t thrilled about hearing the question now from the beautiful woman sitting on his couch, the beautiful woman with the cute dimple and those virtually indescribable blue eyes.

Amy reached out and touched his arm. “Hey, listen, I probably shouldn’t even ask you that. You’re just doing your job.”

Jed took a deep breath. “No, no, it’s okay. I’m used to it and it’s a fair question. I know it’s hard for people to accept, but if we’re going to make sure everyone gets a fair trial—I guess I’d call that procedural justice—then, well, we have to live with the outcome if the trial doesn’t turn out like most people think it should have.” He looked down. “And I guess even if the result is just plain wrong any way you cut it, that’s the price we pay. If you want procedural justice, you may have to live with substantive injustice once in a while.” Jed picked up his glass from the coffee table and took a long gulp, not liking the sound of the pat answer he’d given so often in the past.

Amy slid her hand down his arm and squeezed his hand. “Hey, I understand. I get it.”

“And you know, sometimes, sometimes the people I represent didn’t do what they’re charged with. Maybe not that often. Maybe not that often at all. But sometimes. And well . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked at her and thought how delicate her hand felt in his.

She smiled at him, and the dimple appeared.

“My uncle was one of those ‘sometimes,’ Amy.” He looked away. “Still a teenager and he got caught up in something that he never intended to be involved with. I was still a little kid, and back then this county didn’t even have a public defender, so the judge appointed a local lawyer to represent him, and . . .” Jed’s voice trailed off again. “Well, never mind.”

“Hey,” Amy said. “Tell me. I want to understand.”

Jed took a deep breath. “My Uncle Tony was nineteen, seven years younger than my mother. He hadn’t been an angel; that’s for sure. He’d had a few run-ins with the law for petty theft and DUI but had managed to avoid jail time. He was at a party with a friend when the friend’s cousin from Los Angeles said he wanted to go buy more beer. Tony drove the cousin and the friend to a convenience store and waited outside with the friend. The cousin entered the store and came walking out a few minutes later with a case of beer. Well, what Tony and his friend didn’t know was...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.10.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9798999855015 / 9798999855015