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The Dead Woman's Verdict
The Dead Woman's Verdict
Author: Perfect Timing

Chapter 1

Author: Perfect Timing
"Your Honor, did the court misspeak?"

Defense counsel was on his feet again. "My client has a full alibi, and the district attorney's office has already withdrawn the murder count against her."

I looked up.

My eyes settled on Marina Harrow at the defense table.

She sat slouched and bored, like none of this had anything to do with her.

Her eyes and brows resembled someone.

I'd seen that face in the photograph Grandpa had been touching for fifty years.

I repeated the ruling.

"Having weighed the evidence submitted by both sides, this court denies the defense motion for dismissal."

The gallery erupted.

Nothing in the file put Marina at the scene, and nothing gave her a reason to be there.

Even the district attorney had given up on the count, which made today's release a formality everyone had come to watch.

The ease went out of Marina's face.

She glanced at me.

Contempt came into her voice.

"Guys who claw their way up out of nothing always have something to prove. Mr. Dorsey, my grandmother didn't hire you to sit there breathing."

Alan Dorsey wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"Your Honor, on the evidence as disclosed, my client..."

I cut him off.

"This court has read every page filed by the prosecution and the defense in this matter.

"The motion is denied."

Before I finished speaking, the deputy beside Marina had her wrists back in cuffs.

Her expression changed completely.

Nothing was easy about it now.

She slammed her palm against the glass partition and screamed, "Do you have any idea who my grandmother is?"

I raised my eyes without hurrying.

"This is a courtroom. The evidence decides, and a person who does wrong answers for it."

Through her face I could almost see Evelyn Harrow as she'd looked fifty years ago.

"Your grandmother is no exception to that."

I brought down the gavel.

"Trial will commence in three days on the murder charge against the defendant.

"The district attorney's office will be ready."

Marina's face flushed as the deputies took her out, and she was still arrogant on her way through the door.

"My grandmother is Evelyn Harrow. She's a legend in this state.

"My grandfather is a famous philanthropist.

"You're some small-time judge. You have no idea what the Harrow name means in Port Halcyon."

Of course I knew.

Evelyn Harrow.

A legend of the Dunstone bar, a defense attorney who had never lost.

The name every law student in the state measured themselves against.

In all her years in practice, not one case had gone against her.

She was also a liar.

She'd faked her own death to pin the word wife-killer on Grandpa, and she'd left him wearing it for fifty years.

This one strike of the gavel was something Grandpa had waited far too long to hear.

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  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 7

    Only then did something move in Evelyn's face.Her eyes went wet."Walter, it wasn't me. It was Victor. He forced me back then."I'd been drinking that night and it happened, and afterward he told me that if I didn't go along with it he'd report the whole thing and have me taken away."She grabbed at Grandpa's hand. "I had no choice, Walter. There was nothing I could do.""You lying witch. You're the one who said a divorce would finish your career. You're the one who said the house and the money were Walter's and you'd walk out of that marriage with nothing. That's why you invented the funeral."And don't you dare say I seduced you. If you hadn't wanted it, could I have done any of it alone? Now it's out and you want to hand them my body instead. Don't hold your breath, Evelyn."The couple who'd spent thirty years being photographed together were tearing at each other in the middle of the courtroom.I stood next to Grandpa and watched the two of them come apart.The reporters

  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 6

    The camera flashes didn't let up.Evelyn, who had never once lost her composure in public, put a hand up to hide her face."It's the same name, that's all. That woman isn't me."Then another man got up out of the gallery.His hair was snow white and his suit was cut to the inch.Victor Harrow.He and Grandpa had come up together from boys.When there was no food in Victor's house, Grandpa took it out of his own mouth and carried it over.When Victor nearly died out in the hills, Grandpa went in after him and half killed himself getting him back.And at the end of it, Victor got himself between Evelyn and her husband, and the two of them spent his whole life for him.Victor looked at him with open disgust."Sir, Evelyn and I have been married for decades, and we grew up in this city. Whatever happened in whatever town you came out of, you've got the wrong woman. If you're short on money, ask us honestly and we may help you. But if this is a shakedown, understand that the Harr

  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 5

    Marina still hadn't grasped a thing.She was shouting. "It's you. You set me up. That little nobody was nothing, she was nothing. My grandmother will get me out of this."I looked at Evelyn, collapsed in her chair.No.Marina would wait forever.I brought the gavel down once.The courtroom went quiet.I stood, came down from the bench, and took off my robe."There's one more matter to be heard in this courtroom today."It's a case that runs fifty years."And I've never believed justice fails to arrive. Only that it can arrive very late.""A fifty-year-old case? Wouldn't the statute have run twice over?""What kind of case makes a judge take off his robe first?""Now I'm curious. Fifty years back the forensics were garbage. There were a lot of bad convictions."I went on."It begins in a farming town called Pinebarrow."A man there was accused of murdering his wife."The evidence never closed, but with everything weighed against him, he was sentenced to twenty years."

  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 4

    From the second I walked in, the comments in the stream didn't stop."Why is that snake back? Wasn't he suspended? Of course he is. The rules bend one direction for guys like him. Somebody upstairs is holding the ladder.""What did he mean by that? Is there something about Marina's case we don't know?""There's nothing. He went looking for trouble from the start. I can't wait to watch Evelyn wipe the floor with him."I took the bench again.Evelyn Harrow at the defense table, Marina Harrow beside her.Grandpa had sat behind a table like that once.He'd had no one. Nobody believed him, and nobody stood up to argue for him.All he ever did was say it again and again. "I'm innocent. I didn't kill anybody. I didn't kill my wife."The clerk finished the instructions, and we went back on the record.Evelyn rose without hurrying.She took the case apart with real skill.On her account, everything done to Chloe Rhodes, from the first blow to the last, belonged to the other four def

  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 3

    Evelyn Harrow knew exactly how to use what she had.By the next morning, a full campaign against me was underway.They started with where I'd come from and where I'd gone to school, and they turned all of it inside out.Then they went back through every ruling I'd ever signed.Former defendants surfaced out of nowhere to say I'd ignored the law and decided their cases on a whim.I'd never seen anything online build that fast."He's thirty and he's already on the felony bench. Nobody moves that fast without someone above him pulling. And out of some mountain town, too. Families that have had money for four generations can't get a kid onto that bench, and he managed it.""Why are almost all of these judges men? They protect each other and they pick women to make examples of. The victim in this case was a woman, and he's letting his own feelings run the courtroom.""Same. He's the one who ruled on Marina, right? He's jealous of what her family has and he's punishing her for it. Th

  • The Dead Woman's Verdict   Chapter 2

    I'd barely come off the bench when Chief Judge Raymond Porter walked into my chambers without knocking."Look at what you've done."He tossed a tablet onto my desk.On the screen, Evelyn Harrow was announcing that she'd be coming out of retirement to represent Marina herself."As a matter of principle, I've practiced for decades because I believe the law exists to keep innocent people from being buried by an accusation. As a matter of family, Marina is my only granddaughter. I know her character, and neither the physical evidence nor the timeline puts her anywhere near that house."At the end of the clip, Evelyn looked straight into the camera.Something sharp moved behind those gentle eyes."I started out with nothing and no name either. So I'll offer one piece of advice to the young. Guard your reputation. One wrong step, and what's under you isn't a stair."That last part was for me.Online, opinion had already gone one way."Evelyn Harrow is a legend. Any case she takes,

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