Review: Leave the Law to Lawyers
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2013
As a licensed Private Investigator and a Certified Legal Assistant I worked for a lot of different law firms over.my career of forty years. Much of my time was spent interviewing persons of interest, diagraming.and photographing scenes, collecting evidence, locating witnesses and doing research.CASE THEORY was an interesting read for me. Interesting to note that in Seattle an Assistant District attorney would be acting as his own investigator on a capital murder case.The tension in this case involves a Washington State Penal Code that determines when the required elements for a death penalty are met in murder cases.Will ADA Brunell be able to find evidence to prove two counts of aggravated murder against Billy Jack Campbell?  Or will Public Defender Jessie Edwards prove her case that he cannot be sentenced to death since their was no aggravated murder involved due to the fact that the child he murdered was not his own child.The public defender believes that she can still raise reasonable doubts in the jurors minds over the fact that Jenny Campbell received five bullet wounds but only four bullets and shell casings were recovered.ADA. Brunelle and Det. Chen meet at the scene to go over every possible shooting scenario trying to explain where the fifth.round and shell casing might have been fired and possibly be recovered.  They were unable to solve the mystery.Brunelle interviewed Officer Dixon, the first officer on the scene, who kept the log book noting every person who entered and exited the crime scene. Officer Dixon, a rookie, stated that he parked behind Sgt. Norquist's car in the driveway.Brunelle then interviewed Sgt. Norquist who said that he arrived at the same time other patrol units were responding. Indicating that he was not the first to arrive.The coroner was the next person to be interviewed. Brunelle wanted specific facts concerning the exact angles of bullet entry in the female victims body. Armed with this information, he calls Det. Chen with a plan.At the scene again Brunelle notices that the bookshelf is missing a few books as well as the stone bookend at one end of the shelf. He is so focused on this new discovery that he fails to notice Sgt. Norquist standing a few feet away wearing two guns on his belt. His service pistol and a revolver.Brunelle and Norquist.enter into a discussion about where the fifth bullet and shell casing might be found. Brunelle offered the theory that the perpetrator shot Ms. Campbell when she was on the porch and the bullet passed through her leg, the casing bounced into the street. Norquist immediately replied "I like it."Anymore and I would be writing a spoiler.The ending answers all the questions about the law and "who done it".I really enjoyed Stephen Penner's work and I will be ordering ALL of his books knowing they will be as good or even better than this story. I wish I could give this one more than a 5 star rating.  It is a great short story.