In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(6)

Cerrabone stated his appearance. Mairs looked to Berkshire, who was whispering to his daughter. “Counselor, are you joining us this morning?”

Berkshire straightened. “Indeed, Your Honor. Atticus Berkshire for the defendant, Angela Margaret Collins.”

Mairs picked up the certification and folded her hair behind her ear. It flowed gently to her shoulders, as black as her judicial robe.

“Your Honor,” Berkshire started. “If I may—”

Mairs raised a hand but did not look up, turning over the pages and setting them on her desk as she read through the document. When she’d finished, she gathered the pages and tapped them on her desk to even them. “I’ve read the certification. Anything else to add?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Berkshire said.

“From the State,” Mairs interrupted. “Anything else to add from the State?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Cerrabone said. “It has come to the State’s attention that in addition to what is set forth in the certification, the defendant and the deceased were involved in a contentious civil divorce that was set to go to trial next month after a failed mediation.”

Cerrabone could have elaborated, but Tracy knew he preferred not to try his cases in the press. Berkshire had no such qualms.

“A civil divorce my client initiated after years of mental and physical cruelty,” Berkshire said, becoming animated. “The shooting took place in Mrs. Collins’s residence after the deceased had moved out and had no legal right to be there. In fact, she had obtained a restraining order.”

“There you have it,” Kins whispered to Tracy. “Self-defense. He was attacking with his back to her.”

“Save your arguments, Counselor,” Mairs said. “I find that there’s probable cause to detain the defendant. Do you wish to be heard on bail or defer to the arraignment?”

“The defense wishes to be heard,” Berkshire said.

“The State objects to bail,” Cerrabone said. “This is a murder case.”

“This is a self-defense case,” Berkshire said.

Mairs lifted a palm as if to say “Have at it” and sat back in her chair.

“As the State well knows,” Berkshire said, “every person in the state of Washington is entitled to bail. Mrs. Collins has not been convicted of any crime, let alone been charged. She is innocent until proven guilty, and that presumption of innocence applies here. The only issues here are Mrs. Collins’s ties to the community, whether she is a flight risk, and her criminal history, with which I will start. The defendant has never had so much as a parking ticket. She has been an upstanding member of the community. She has a seventeen-year-old son who lives with her, as well as parents who live in the area. She is far from a flight risk. We would ask that the court release Mrs. Collins on personal recognizance.”

Mairs looked to Cerrabone.

“Your Honor,” he said, “Mrs. Collins purchased a handgun while the couple was in the midst of a contentious divorce that was approaching trial. She admitted in a 911 call that she shot her husband. She also admitted that she called her attorney. When officers arrived at the home, she again admitted to shooting her husband, and she asked to be read her Miranda rights. All of this is evidence of someone operating with all of her faculties, and possibly evidence of premeditation. As for self-defense . . . she shot Timothy Collins in the back.”

“She bought the gun because of a long history of physical and verbal abuse by her former husband,” Berkshire said, not waiting to be asked to respond, “including the night of the shooting. And she asked for her Miranda rights at her attorney’s instruction.”

Mairs sat forward. She’d clearly made up her mind, and she was ready to get on with it. “I don’t believe the defendant is a flight risk, nor do I believe she is a danger to the community. I am going to order that she surrender her passport and any weapons she possesses. The defendant will be placed on home confinement with an ankle monitor. Bail will be set at two million dollars.”

“May I be heard on the amount of bail?” Berkshire said.

“No.”

“Your Honor—”

“It’s a murder case, Counselor. Bail will remain at two million dollars. Madame Clerk, call the next case.”

Berkshire took another moment to speak softly to his daughter before she departed. Angela Collins would be taken back to jail, processed, fitted with an ankle monitor, and released, assuming she could come up with a couple hundred thousand dollars and a bail bondsman willing to cover the difference. That likely meant signing over a deed of trust on the house to the bail bondsman, or borrowing from her father.

Tracy and Kins followed Cerrabone out of the courtroom and into the hall. “I have another hearing. I’ll call you later,” Cerrabone said.

As the prosecutor departed, Tracy made her way outside the courthouse with Kins. On a Friday afternoon, Third Avenue was already congested. The commute home was likely going to be a bitch. She and Dan O’Leary, the man she’d been dating a year, had no chance of easily getting out of Seattle on their drive south to Stoneridge, a small town on the Columbia River.

“I’m sorry to be bailing on you,” Tracy said to Kins as they walked up the hill to the Justice Center. She and Dan were attending a funeral—for the father of Jenny Almond. Jenny had been the only other woman in Tracy’s Academy class.