Accused
ACCUSED
MARK GIMENEZ
Navarchus Press
Praise for ACCUSED
Best-seller lists
No. 7, South Africa
No. 8, London Sunday Times hardback
No. 11, Ireland
No. 14, UK paperback
"Some critics are calling the Texas-based lawyer Mark Gimenez 'the next Grisham'—but I think that's far less than fair. This, his fifth novel and the second featuring attorney A. Scott Fenney, shows he's now better than the one-time master of the American courtroom drama. For my money, Grisham has grown stale over the past five years while Gimenez has gone from strength to strength. If you doubt me, sample this cracking thriller which sees Fenney defend his former wife against the allegation that she killed the man she left him for, millionaire golf professional Trey Rawlins… . This is one of the best legal thrillers since Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent in 1987 … Superb."
– Daily Mail (UK)
"Brilliant writing, masterful plot and all the thrill of the courtroom in one. Grisham, step aside."
– City AM (UK)
"Gimenez has set his bloody murder trial Accused against the background of a failed marriage, single-parenting issues and male infidelity… . This mix of family values, sex, sleaze and intrigue holds together in a gripping read with unexpected twists that ranks with anything Grisham has done in years."
– The Times (UK)
"Gimenez writes smart vernacular dialogue, hip and street-wise, with a nice line in social commentary, and his plotting leaves the over-rated John Grisham in his rear-vision mirror."
–The Australian
"Courtroom drama at its finest… . Great ending, too."
– Perth Now (Australia)
"Gimenez's latest novel Accused is classic Grisham at his best."
– Gisborne Herald (New Zealand)
"A great read… . Gimenez is a thriller writer of quality."
– Oamuru Mail (New Zealand)
"You’ll be handcuffed and imprisoned from the first page."
– Joburg.co.za (South Africa)
"If you enjoy suspense and a fast-paced courtroom drama, this one's for you."
– Foschini Club Magazine (South Africa)
"Accused is an engaging and character-led legal thriller. Gimenez's dialogue and prose are as fluid and natural as we've come to expect, and the pacing of the plot will keep pulling you along. When we're finally brought into the court-room, the author actually makes it gripping and tense, even though we've been following Scott and his team's investigation every step of the way. Accused, therefore, offers the reader everything they could want from a thriller, and is a very satisfying read."
– Civilian–Reader (UK)
Gimenez's plots are driven by surprises and twists, while the stakes are much higher than what one can possibly imagine at the beginning of the book. What's more, the Texan lawyer, A Scott Fenney, grips our interest with his mind games, and we are compelled to turn one page after another to discover where the story is headed. Gimenez is in good form in Accused. He is equally good in the companion book, The Color of Law. Unputdownable for those who love the genre."
– The Times of India
LEARN MORE ABOUT MARK GIMENEZ'S BOOKS AT
www.markgimenez.com
Copyright © 2010 by Mark Gimenez
Published by Navarchus Press, LLC
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Navarchus Press, LLC. Published in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-0-9839875-3-6
British Hardback ISBN 978-1-84744-275-8
British C Format ISBN 978-1-84744-276-5
British B Format ISBN 978-0-7515-4224-0
Kindle Edition: 1.00 (9/13/2011)
Ebook conversion: Fowler Digital Services
Rendered by: Ray Fowler
Cover image © Silas Manhood
Cover design: Little, Brown Book Group – Emma Graves
The author—a BOI himself—dedicates this book to the residents of Galveston, Texas, who are working hard to rebuild their great Island after Hurricane Ike.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Map
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FORTY-THREE
FORTY-FOUR
FORTY-FIVE
FORTY-SIX
FORTY-SEVEN
FORTY-EIGHT
FORTY-NINE
FIFTY
FIFTY-ONE
FIFTY-TWO
FIFTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
Books By Mark Gimenez
Praise for Mark's Books
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My sincere thanks to everyone at the Little, Brown Book Group in the UK, as well as everyone at Hachette Livre and Little, Brown in Australia and New Zealand and Penguin Books in South Africa, for making my books best sellers around the world. Also, a special thanks to Joel Tarver at T Squared Design in Houston for my website and email blasts to my readers. And thanks to all the readers who have emailed me about my books. Your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you.
www.markgimenez.com
Innocence: The absence of guilt.
Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Ed.
PROLOGUE
When she opened her eyes, she did not know that her life would never be the same.
All she knew was that her body was shivering violently. She wrapped her arms but felt even colder, almost wet from the sea breeze. The French doors leading to the deck outside stood propped open, and the breeze billowed the sheer curtains. In the vague light, they looked like whitecaps of waves rolling ashore. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 3:45 A.M.
She got out of bed—the tile floor felt damp beneath her feet, as if it had rained in—and went over to shut the doors, but the scent of the sea lured her outside. She parted the curtains and stepped out onto the deck. The house stood on tall stilts like an eight-legged white flamingo perched among the sand dunes; the second-story deck overlooked the secluded stretch of Galveston beach and the Gulf of Mexico beyond. She walked to the far railing where she could see the last ripples of high tide dying out just feet from the house. She inhaled the sea and tasted
the salt in the air. She often woke and came out here in these quiet hours when the moon offered the only light, when all color was washed out by the night, when her world was painted only in shades of gray.
She lived her life in shades of gray.
She gazed out at the twinkling lights of the offshore drilling platforms dotting the distant horizon; she liked to think they were the lights of Cancún. She had often imagined taking the yacht straight across the Gulf the seven hundred fifty miles to Cancún—and never returning. Maybe one day she would.
Maybe. One day.
The breeze blew her short nightgown tight against her lean body; the silk seemed to stick to her skin. She clutched herself again. It was early June, and the night temperature had not dipped below eighty, but she had still caught a chill. A big wave splashed ashore, and the sea spray hit her. She licked the wet from her lips then reached up and wiped her face; she could not see the dark streaks down her cheeks that her hands had left in their wake, but her face now felt even wetter. She touched her cheeks again then looked down at her hands. Her palms were shiny with a wetness that was dark in the moonlight, dark and wet like …
She turned and ran back inside. She fought her way through the curtains then slapped her hands against the wall until she found the light switch—the stark white bedroom was suddenly ablaze with incandescent light. The shades of gray were gone. Her world was now painted bright red: red on the white bed sheets … red footprints on the white tile floor leading from the bed out to the deck where she had stepped … red handprints on the white wall where she had searched for the light switch … red on the white curtains where she had fought through them … red on her white nightgown … and red on her. Bright red. Blood red. His blood. She stood drenched in his blood. And he lay on the bed with a knife in his chest.
Rebecca Fenney screamed.
ONE
Three hours later and three hundred miles to the north, Scott Fenney stood drenched in sweat. The sun had just risen that Friday morning, only the fifth day of June, but the temperature was already pushing ninety. It was going to be a hot summer.
The traffic light changed, and he jogged across Mockingbird Lane. He was running the streets of Highland Park. He ran five miles every morning, before the town came alive, when the roads were still free of foreign automobiles and the air still free of exhaust fumes, when the only sounds were birds chirping in the tall oak trees that shaded the broad avenues and the only sights were other white men waging war against middle age in running shoes. Scott was only thirty-eight, so he could still avoid such a daily confrontation with his future. But he could not avoid a daily confrontation with his past.
He ran past the lot where the small rent house he had grown up in had once stood, home to mother and son, the poor kid on the block. He ran past the Highland Park football stadium where he had been a high school hero under the bright Friday night lights and the SMU stadium where he had become a college legend on a glorious Saturday afternoon in the fall of his twenty-first year. He ran past the law school where he had graduated first in his class then had struck out for downtown Dallas to find his fortune in the law. He ran past the country club where lush green fairways bathed in a soft shower from low sprinklers, an exclusive golf course that would soon welcome the wealthiest white men in Dallas just as it had once welcomed him. He ran past the mansion he had once called home.
He was now the poor lawyer on the block.
It had been two years since that life had become his past. He had not mourned the loss of his partnership at the Ford Stevens law firm or the money that had come with being a successful lawyer or the things that money had bought—the home, the club, the car … okay, he did miss the car; it was a red Ferrari 360 Modena that could do zero to sixty in 4.5 seconds. But he had what money could not buy and what no one could foreclose, repossess, or otherwise take from him by legal process. He had his daughters. So while his morning run reminded him of the past, he did not long for the past. He had gotten over his past.
Except Rebecca.
She had not screamed or cursed or said goodbye. She had just left. She wanted nothing from him and took nothing—not her community property or her clothes or her child. After eleven years of marriage, she had just wanted out. So twenty-two months and eight days ago, she had walked out of their house and marriage and left town with the twenty-six-year-old assistant golf pro at the club. Scott blamed himself. If only he had been more attentive to her needs, more thoughtful toward her, more caring toward her, more … something. Whatever it was that a woman needed from a man. What she had needed from him. He had not given her what she had needed, so she had found it with another man. In another man's bed.
He now slept alone. When he slept. The other hours he lay awake and alone, thinking of her and wondering if he would ever again feel the love of a woman lying next to him, holding him, touching him, wanting him. He wanted to love again, to feel the heat of passion again, to experience that special connection—physical and mental—between a man and a woman, when he and she were one. Those moments were the best moments of a man's life. Those were the moments with Rebecca he recalled now.
He longed to share his life with another woman. But he couldn't, not until he understood why his wife had left him. Until he knew what she had needed and how he had failed her. So if he got a second chance at love, he wouldn't fail again. But for now Scott Fenney had no reason to stay in bed each morning.
So he ran.
TWO
Scott entered the small cottage through the back door that led into the kitchen and was greeted by the smell of eggs, chorizo, and coffee. Consuela had already arrived and was cooking breakfast.
"Morning, Consuela."
"Buenos días, Señor Fenney."
Consuela was thirty, round, and Catholic. She wore three crucifixes and kept prayer candles lit on the windowsill. Her husband, Esteban Garcia, dropped her and the baby off each morning on the way to his construction job in Dallas. Little Maria sat in a high chair and smeared mushy food on her face. Scott leaned down to her.
"And how are you this morning, Señorita Maria de la Rosa-Garcia?"
She spit up something green.
"She no like brécol," Consuela said.
"Don't believe I'd like broccoli for breakfast either."
The fifteen-month-old child smiled at Scott as if she understood what he had said. He scrunched up his face and rubbed noses with her—she liked that—and said, "You don't want that yucky broccoli, do you? Tell your madre you want huevos rancheros and chorizo so you can grow big and strong and get a fútbol scholarship."
Her parents were Mexican nationals but she was an American citizen—born in the USA. She raised her arms to him.
"Oh, Uncle Scotty can't play now, honey. I've got to go to work."
He gave the child a kiss on her forehead and a little hug and came away with slimy green broccoli on his cheek. It smelled awful—or maybe it was him. He swiped a sweaty sleeve across his cheek then grabbed a bottled water out of the refrigerator and walked down the hall to his daughters' bedroom. He knocked on the door.
"Come on, girls, I can't be late today. Closing arguments."
The door opened, and his eleven-year-old daughters emerged from a small bedroom cluttered with posters of the Jonas Brothers and a smiling Michael Jordan on the walls, books stacked on shelves and scattered about the floor, clothes hanging over chairs as if one of them—guess who?—could not decide what to wear that day, and a small television with rabbit ears. They had pushed their twin beds together in one corner so they could read together at night. They shared clothes, they brushed each other's hair, they were like sisters—and now the law said they were.
Barbara Boo Fenney was wearing jean shorts, a black T-shirt with white print that read "Obama Ba-Rocks My World," green retro sneakers without socks, and her red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked more like her mother every day, albeit less expensively dressed. Pajamae Jones-Fenney wore a color-coordinated short outfit, matchin
g socks folded down neatly, and black-and-white saddle Oxfords. Her skin was tan and flawless, her hair brown and fluffy and cut in a bob. She too looked more like her mother every day. One girl was the product of his failed marriage, the other of his law practice. Two years before, he had defended Pajamae's mother against a murder charge and won, only to see her die of a heroin overdose two months later. Pajamae had no one except Boo and her mother's lawyer, so he had adopted her.
"Morning, girls."
"Whereas, Mr. Fenney," Pajamae said.
"What's your pulse?" Boo said.
"I didn't check my pulse."
"Do you feel faint or dizzy? Are you experiencing chest pain?"
"No, Boo. I feel fine."
"A. Scott, I still think you should be on a statin."
"I think you should change that T-shirt. The school won't like it."
"I told her, Mr. Fenney. I said, 'Girl, you can't be wearing a T-shirt reminding these rich white folks there's a black man in the White House.' "
The conservative Republicans in town—which is to say, the entire Town of Highland Park—had not gone for Obama. They had hoped that George W. would salve their electoral wounds by coming home to Highland Park, but he had retired to his old stomping grounds in North Dallas instead. Even Dick Cheney had forsaken his former home town for Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But Bush did give the Parkies a consolation prize: the $300 million George W. Bush Presidential Library would be located on the Southern Methodist University campus in Highland Park.
Boo shrugged. "What are they gonna do, suspend me again, on the last day of school?"
She had been suspended earlier in the year for fighting. With a boy. He had called Pajamae "Aunt Jemima" on the playground, so Boo had punched him in the nose and made him cry. She had a heck of a right cross for a girl. Scott had threatened to take the school district to court—and more effectively, the story of a white boy bullying the only black student in school to the newspaper and local television—so the school had dropped the suspension after one day. Now, whenever the principal threatened Boo with disciplinary action for defending her sister against bullies, her standard response was, "Call my lawyer."