The Simple Truth Read Online Free Page A

The Simple Truth
Book: The Simple Truth Read Online Free
Author: David Baldacci
Tags: Fiction, General, FIC000000
Pages:
Go to
stomach as curdled milk, only no amount of Pepto-Bismol could right the discomfort.
    Rider touched a hand to his face as his thoughts now drifted back to the early seventies, a time of chaos in the military, the country, the world. Everybody blaming everybody else for everything that had ever gone wrong in the history of the universe. Rufus Harms had sounded bitter over the phone, but he
had
killed that little girl. Brutally. Right in front of her family. Crushed her neck in a few seconds, before anyone could even attempt to stop him.
    On Harms’s behalf, Rider had negotiated a pretrial agreement, but then, under the rules of military law, he had the right to attempt to beat that deal in the sentencing phase. The defendant would either receive the punishment in the pre-trial agreement, or the one meted out by the judge or by the members — the military counterpart of a jury — whichever involved less prison time. Harms’s words gnawed at the lawyer, though, for Rider had been persuaded at the time not to put on much of a case at the sentencing phase. He had agreed with the prosecutor not to bring in any witnesses from outside the area who could attest to Harms’s character and so forth. He had also agreed to rely on stipulations from the official record instead of attempting to find fresh evidence and witnesses.
    That was not exactly playing by the rules, because a defendant’s right to beat the deal was not supposed to be waived or bargained away in any substantive manner. But without Rider working behind the scenes like that, the prosecutor would have gone for the death penalty, and with those facts, he probably would have gotten it. It mattered little that the murder had happened so quickly that proving premeditation would have been very difficult. The cold body of a child could derail the most logical of legal analyses.
    The bald truth was nobody cared about Rufus Harms. He was a black man who had spent most of his Army career locked in the stockade. His senseless murder of a child certainly had not improved his standing in the eyes of the military. Such a man was not entitled to justice, many had felt, unless it was swift, painful, and lethal. And maybe Rider was one of those who felt that way. So he hadn’t exactly practiced the scorched-earth policy in his defense of the man, but Rider had gotten Rufus Harms life. That was the best any lawyer could have done.
    So what could Rufus want to see him about? he wondered.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    As John Fiske rose from the counsel’s table he glanced over at his opponent, Paul Williams. The young assistant commonwealth attorney, or ACA, had just finished confidently stating the particulars of his motion. Fiske whispered,
“Your ass is grass, Paulie. You messed up.”
    When Fiske turned to face Judge Walters, his manner was one of subdued excitement. Fiske was broad-shouldered, though at six feet he was a couple of inches shorter than his younger brother. And unlike Michael Fiske, his features were far from classically handsome. He had chubby cheeks, a too-sharp chin and a twice-broken nose, one time from high school wrestling, the other time a carryover from his cop days. However, Fiske’s black hair was swept over his forehead in an unkempt manner that somehow managed to be attractive and intimate, and his brown eyes housed an intense core.
    “Your Honor, in the interest of not wasting the court’s time, I would like to make an offer in open court to the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office regarding its motion. If they agree to withdraw with prejudice and contribute one thousand dollars to the public defender’s fund, I will withdraw my response, not file for sanctions and we can all go home.”
    Paul Williams leaped to his feet so quickly his eyeglasses fell off and hit the table.
“Your Honor, this is outrageous!”
    Judge Walters looked over his crowded courtroom, silently contemplated his equally bulging docket and flicked a weary hand at both
Go to

Readers choose

Jane Feather

Haifaa Al Mansour

Zoe Winters

K. Sterling

T. Eric Bakutis

Marina Myles

Tracy Krimmer