Battles shut the door, resisting her urge to call him an arrogant shit before she did, and made her way back behind her desk. On the wall, next to a framed Indian tapestry she’d picked up on a trip to Mumbai—“Join the Navy, See the World!”—hung her two Defense Counsel of the Year certificates. She’d worked hard for the acknowledgments, but Cho was right, the Trejo case could significantly improve her resume, not that she’d admit it to Cho. Cho was the only prosecutor to have beaten her, twice. She’d never beaten him. And while this one might be tough, she loved a challenge.
She left the fluorescent lights off, went back to her closet, and quickly changed into her uniform and black boots. She sat and went through the research she’d conducted over the weekend. Trejo faced a potentially long imprisonment. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, were Trejo to receive a general court-martial, a military judge or a jury could impose a sentence well in excess of ten years—the maximum civilian penalty. Given the current political climate since the Black Lives Matter movement, and given that Trejo had not stopped his vehicle, he was ripe for being made an example.
And that was what bothered Battles. Trejo didn’t strike her as particularly dumb, or devious. He also had a wife to consider. So why’d he run? Trejo wasn’t saying. He’d stuck to his story that he wasn’t there, hadn’t been in Seattle. He said the videotape that SPD had showed him wasn’t of him. Maybe it wasn’t. Since Battles hadn’t seen it, she had no reason to doubt her client. She suspected command would call an Article 32 hearing, probably sooner rather than later. If Trejo wasn’t in Seattle, the defense was simple. If he was, she’d need mitigating arguments—D’Andre Miller was hurrying to get home and not paying attention. It was dark out. Miller stepped off the curb without looking, leaving Trejo little chance to stop before striking him. Miller might not have even been in the crosswalk. Any number of things could have happened to explain the accident.
But not to explain the fact that Trejo had fled—if he’d fled.
Someone knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she said.
“Lieutenant, may I have a word?”
Rebecca Stanley, Leah’s officer in charge, or OIC, entered. Battles stood but resisted the urge to salute; the Navy was less formal than other branches of the military. A salute was only exchanged outdoors. However, Stanley had just recently been assigned to Kitsap and was a bit more formal than Leah’s prior OIC. Battles didn’t want to appear disrespectful, which was why she’d stood.
“Please,” Battles said.
Stanley closed Leah’s office door, turning gingerly to do so. It was a poorly kept secret at Kitsap that Stanley had injured her back while serving at a base in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she’d been assigned to help process the plethora of claims filed by Afghani civilians who’d suffered property damage or had lost loved ones during the United States’s military mission. During one of those nights, Stanley’s base had taken mortar fire, which wasn’t unusual, though this time the accuracy of the attack had been. A mortar hit Stanley’s room, throwing her from her bed and into a wall. She’d suffered a broken back and had to have several of her vertebrae fused.
Stanley looked up at the bank of unused overhead lights. “Is it always this dark in here?”
“I like to think of it as mood lighting,” Battles said.
Stanley gave a polite smile and slowly lowered herself into one of the two cloth chairs. Battles sat behind her desk.
“The probable cause hearing has caused a bit of a stir around here this morning,” Stanley said, getting right to the point.
“Thought it might.”
“You met with Trejo?” she asked, her dark eyes fluctuating between dull and unexpressive, and piercing. She folded her dark hair behind her ears.
“Not to any great degree,” Battles said, still positioning to get the case. “I got his call Thursday night. The King County Jail was on my way home from working out so I stopped off and told everybody he wasn’t talking and to not even try.” She shrugged, trying to make it appear as no big deal.
“I’m told NCIS is investigating the allegations, but there isn’t a lot to do—no witnesses, a couple of videotapes. Forensics on the car are apparently inconsequential. I’m also told by senior trial counsel that the Navy will take jurisdiction.”
“He indicated that at the hearing. I figured we would . . . under the circumstances.”
“Trejo say whether or not he wanted civilian counsel?”
“He didn’t, but I don’t see how he’s going to afford civilian counsel.”
“And the videotape, what did he have to say about it?”
“He says it’s not him.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Not yet.”
Stanley put her hands together, as if about to say grace at dinner. “Well, that brings it back to us.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“You want this case.”
It wasn’t a question. “I do.”
“It has all the appearances of a dead-bang loser, unless Trejo is telling the truth and he isn’t on the tape.”
“Perhaps.”
“You think you’re up to it?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ve heard Cho has been assigned to prosecute Trejo.”
Battles knew he’d been in her office for a reason. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“He’s never lost a felony case.”
“There’s always a first time.” Battles sat back. “I’ll go through the evidence and see how strong it is. If it’s as strong as represented, Trejo might have to plea.”
Stanley stood. “Sounds like you have it under control. Be sure you do.”
“Captain?” Battles asked, puzzled by Stanley’s comment.
Stanley braced her arms on the back of the chair and slightly pitched toward Battles. “Command is going to be watching this one closely, Lee. Cutting to the chase, it’s ugly. If Trejo ran down that kid and fled, it’s not going to paint the Navy in a very favorable light, and if the video is as damning as the police department contends, and Trejo won’t own up to it . . .” She let that thought linger. “So make sure he understands the gravity of the crime and the gravity of the current political climate—were he to choose to fight the charges.”
PART 2
TWO WEEKS LATER
CHAPTER 17
The odds hadn’t been great, but that hadn’t eased Tracy’s disappointment. She wrapped the pregnancy stick in toilet tissue and discarded it in the garbage pail next to her empty prescription bottle of Clomid. Her fourteen days were up. She felt like an expired carton of milk. Dr. Kramer said she could still get pregnant, that the drug would remain in her system for a while, but he didn’t sound optimistic when he said it.
Neither was she.