Page 71 of Shadow of Justice
“It means this case is weak. It’s always been weak. I have a box. That’s it. That’s my evidence. I have nothing connecting Jamie Simmons to the actual murder of Ellie Luke. At best, I can prove he’s a creep. Or that he mishandled a corpse. The rest is going to take a leap of faith from all twelve members of that jury and right now, I don’t have a lot of faith in them.”
“I gave you a solid case. If you can’t get a conviction on it, that’s on you.”
“Stop it!” Sam said. “Gus, go back to the office. Or better yet, go home.”
“Or what?” Gus said. Sam’s eyes widened as Gus turned on him. This was the Gus Ritter most other people knew. But it wasn’t the Gus Sam and I knew. I took a breath and a literal step back.
“Gus,” Sam said, his voice low and threatening. “Go home. That’s an order. Get some sleep. Take tomorrow off. You need it.”
“Or. What?”
“You really wanna push me right now?” Sam said, almost shouting.
“Yeah. I think maybe I do. I think somebody should push both of you. I think I’m watching this whole case fall apart right in front of my eyes and I’m the only one who seems to want to do anything about it.”
“I’m doing everything I can,” I shouted. “I got handed a turd, Gus. If they acquit, this isn’t all on me!”
I felt like I was coming unglued. I wasn’t a yeller. I didn’t lose my temper. Not like this. Not like … Gus.
“Mom?”
My heart dropped. Sam turned. Will was in the hallway right behind him. He had his backpack slung over his shoulder
Gus squeezed his eyes shut. His hard expression softened. He looked at me, his eyes pleading. But he didn’t apologize. Neither did I. I waited a beat, then took a step toward him, reaching out. But Gus went stiff. He put a hand up, shook his head, then brushed past Sam and Will and walked out of my office.
I sank slowly into my chair.
“Hey, Will,” Sam said, squeezing my son’s shoulder. Will was only a couple of inches shorter than Sam now.
“They gave us a tour of the City-County Building,” he said. “For my government class. We just got out. I thought I could ride home with you, Mom.”
I’d completely forgotten that was today. “Of course,” I said.
“Is Uncle Gus okay?” he asked.
I met Sam’s eyes. “No,” I said. “He’s upset. This case is … well … it’s upsetting. Hey, kiddo. You mind hanging out with Caro for a few minutes? Let me just finish a few things up and we’ll head home. We can stop and grab some shakes or something from the Scoop Factory on the way.”
“Ice cream before dinner?” Will asked.
I smiled. “Yeah. It feels like an ice-cream-before-dinner kind of day.”
“Cool,” Will said. He gave Sam a knuckle knock as he headed over to Caro’s desk. She’d probably load him up with candy, too. Today, I didn’t care.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“I’m fine.”
“That was … look … I’ll talk to Gus when he cools down. He’s just … this thing has him rattled like I’ve never seen him. He didn’t mean any of that.”
“Really? Because I think he meant all of it. If I’m being honest, so did I.”
I buried my face in my hands. I really needed something more potent than ice cream.
“He blames himself,” Sam said. “That’s guilt you’re hearing. He thinks he overlooked something about Jamie Simmons all those years ago. That he focused too hard on Dane Fischer.”
“Sam, he’s not wrong. And I don’t mean I think this was his fault. The mistakes he made were normal ones. Human ones. And to be honest, relatively small ones. But sure, they added up.”
“I wouldn’t have conducted that investigation any different than Gus did,” Sam said.
