Deadly Justice: A Legal Thriller (Tex Hunter Book 4) Read online

  DEADLY

  JUSTICE

  PETER O’MAHONEY

  Deadly Justice: A Legal Thriller

  Peter O’Mahoney

  Copyright © 2020

  Published by Roam Free Publishing

  1st edition.

  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 without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  DEADLY JUSTICE

  TEX HUNTER SERIES BOOK 4

  PETER O’MAHONEY

  Also by Peter O’Mahoney

  *****

  In the Tex Hunter Series:

  Power and Justice

  Faith and Justice

  Corrupt Justice

  Coming soon:

  Saving Justice: Tex Hunter 5

  *****

  In the Jack Valentine Series:

  Gates of Power

  Stolen Power

  *****

  In the Bill Harvey Legal Thriller Series:

  Redeeming Justice

  Fire and Justice

  Will of Justice

  A Time for Justice

  Truth and Justice

  *****

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  THE END

  Author’s Note:

  Bravery is the choice to stand up when everyone else has sat down.

  Chapter 1

  “The court of law is not a court of justice.”

  Criminal defense attorney Tex Hunter hated that quote. He hated the connotation behind it, he hated the way it was delivered, and he particularly hated the person who first said it to him thirty years ago. That man was standing in front of him again. The man was now balder, and heavier, but his demeanor was unmistakable.

  “I have no time for you. Go and buy someone else with your bribes.” Hunter moved past the man in the marbled foyer of the George N. Leighton Criminal Courthouse. The foyer was filled with lawyers, assistants, and defendants hustling past, eager to defend, defeat, or defy the judicial system.

  “I think you’ll have time for me and my sense of justice.” The man called out as Hunter stepped around him. “It’s about your father.”

  Hunter stopped in his tracks. Rick Cowan knew his father’s murder trial, and conviction, well. Most of Chicago did. More than thirty years earlier, Alfred Hunter, a mild-mannered accountant, was arrested for the murder of eight teenage girls, and the ensuing trial etched the Hunter name into the city’s folklore.

  “You look good, Tex. You’re well groomed, you’re obviously keeping fit, and that’s an expensive suit. And it looks like you’ve grown even taller.” Rick Cowan looked up to take in Hunter’s towering figure. “It’s been a while since we talked, maybe a decade or more?”

  “Still not long enough.”

  “We need to talk somewhere in private. I promise I have something that’s worth your time. At least, it’s worth your father’s time. I hear he doesn’t have long left now? I hear that death is about to come knocking.”

  “You have five minutes.” Hunter turned down an adjoining hallway, checked the meeting room schedule, and strode forward. He opened the door to a private room, scanned the area, and waited for Cowan to follow.

  “They say time is the great healer, but I don’t think there’s enough time in the world to heal what happened to you. I couldn’t imagine being a ten-year-old boy and watching my father thrown behind bars. All that hate must’ve been a terrifying experience.” Cowan ambled through the door, rubbing his plump stomach and chewing on a piece of gum. He looked around the small room, shrugged, and kicked a wooden chair out from the table. “It was a horrible childhood you had to endure, but in hindsight, it’s been good for you. Look at you now—a successful lawyer defending justice at every turn, fighting for the little guy, chasing corruption out of this building. I’m sure your killer father is proud.”

  Rick Cowan had been dating Natalie Hunter, the middle child of Alfred and Joan Hunter, when the case became headline news across the country. While Tex Hunter watched the trial as a ten-year-old, his sister Natalie was eighteen and starting to explore her dating options. Unfortunately, a young Rick Cowan was one of them.

  “They’ve been talking about corruption in the news. I’m surprised you’re not leading the story. Whenever I hear someone talk about bribery, I think of you first.” Hunter closed the door. “Your name is never far from the discussions of dishonesty, perversion, or exploitation. So say what you’ve got to say, and stop wasting my time.”

  “I’ve done my time, Tex. I did the crime and I did the time. Nobody’s perfect, and the law has never been on my side. I’m sure you know what that feels like. But I love this courthouse. I love the fact that Al Capone walked in these halls, sat in these rooms, and it’s barely changed since.” Cowan sat down, unbuttoning his suit jacket. He was a short man, and as he entered his fifties, his older suits struggled to fit his expanding waist.

  The internal room had no windows, except for the frosted glass on the door, and the lighting was dim enough to sleep under. The wooden table had seen better days, rings of coffee mug stains covered the edges like the Olympic symbol, the chairs had little padding left, and a musty smell hung in the air.

  “Get to the point, Cowan.”

  “I want your skills.”

  “No chance.”

  Cowan leaned forward, elbows on the table, chewing his gum like a baseball coach. “The thing is, I’ve been hit with a felony drug charge, but I was set up. Some people want to take me out, and I’m cash poor, if you know what I mean. I have one thing left of any value, the club I own, and I’ve already borrowed heavily against it. I have no cash, and this made-up charge is the straw that’ll break the camel’s back. They’ve given me a court-appointed lawyer. Some kid who’s barely out of college. He’s an idiot, inexperienced, and not even interested in what I have to say.”

  Hunter didn’t respond.

  “My club was the target of a drug raid, and they busted in to find a pile of drugs in one of the rooms. I knew nothing about it, but they’ve charged me for it. I don’t know who set me up, but it was someone with links to the Chicago PD. The whole organization is corrupt and they’re trying to bring me down for a death that happened in my club last year. A
girl overdosed in a private room, and they say I’m responsible. They couldn’t nail me for that, so they’re trying a made-up charge to extract their revenge.”

  “I don’t feel sorry for you. You’ve played the game of corruption your entire life, and the game always catches up with people. The collector has come knocking. I don’t want anything to do with your corruption racket.” Hunter sat down on the chair furthest from Cowan.

  “You see, it’s not that simple. I need you to defend me. Whoever set me up has got a vendetta against me. I’ve avoided them so far because I have some people on the inside, including ex-cop John Warden. He’s connected to a lot of people and he’s feeding me information.” Cowan paused, and watched Hunter’s face closely. “And Jerry Schultz is on my side; he’s helping me beat this thing.”

  “Jerry Schultz?”

  “You heard me.” A small grin escaped Cowan’s face when Hunter’s interest was clear. “Your old boss.”

  “And a man that’s as twisted as you. I’m not risking my life for you and I’m steering clear of Schultz. I’m not interested in defending you and I’m not interested in playing your games.”

  “I don’t want to play games. I want to win a court case, and you can help me do that. I’m sure you could.”

  “I’ll make it clear—I don’t work for trash like you. I work for the justice system, not the people that have no regard for it. No amount of money could convince me to work for you.”

  “That’s why I’m not just offering money, Tex. I know you never moved on from what happened to your father. Sure, your life looks great now—nice suits, nice watches, and nice cars—but I know what happened thirty years ago still eats you alive inside. I watched as you took your father’s conviction through every channel of the justice system.” Cowan leaned back in his chair, his grin widening. “But it was a different time. It didn’t matter whether your father was guilty or not, what mattered was what they put in the papers. They stopped a riot by convicting your father. You were still too young to remember it all, but the public outcry at the murders was overwhelming. The public wanted blood, and they got your father.”

  Hunter stood, the chair falling backwards to the floor behind him. Cowan flinched.

  “Sit down, Tex. I don’t want to fight you.” Cowan avoided eye contact. “I have something for you.”

  Hunter remained standing, hands on the table, leaning towards Cowan. “This had better be good or I’m walking straight out of here.”

  “Oh, it’s good, alright.”

  Cowan reached into his inside jacket pocket. He took out a photo, placed it on the table, face down, and slid it across to Hunter.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a photo.”

  Someone knocked on the door to the meeting room. Hunter told them the room was currently occupied.

  “As you know, I was a witness in your father’s case. I was leaned on to ensure your father didn’t go free. It was the late 80s, there was no internet, no flood of information for the public to review. People could get things done by talking to other people, throwing money around, and bribery was rampant. We were all leaned on—cops, politicians, judges, lawyers, and me, one of the witnesses. And because of my involvement with your family, and the case, someone took a liking to me and sent me evidence.”

  Hunter turned over the photo. It was a picture of his family—his father, his mother, and two older siblings—Patrick and Natalie Hunter. “I’ve never seen this photo before.”

  “There’s a lot you haven’t seen.”

  “You could’ve taken this from anywhere. You dated my sister for two years. You had access to my family’s photos. This means nothing.”

  Cowan reached back into his coat pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. It was faded and creased by time, a staple still in the top corner.

  “This is the first page of a missing file about your father’s case.”

  Hunter’s glare was focused on Cowan for a few long moments, before he reached for the piece of paper and unfolded it.

  “Cinco Casino? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “This first page is just the start, and I can guarantee you’ll want to see the whole thing. I’ll give you five days to investigate the Cinco Casino, and then we can talk.” Cowan stood, buttoning his jacket over his stomach. “Defend me against my felony drug charges, and I’ll give you the whole file.”

  “What exactly is this?” Hunter’s eyes stayed on the page.

  “I’ll spell it out for you, Tex—for the last thirty years, I’ve buried information about your father’s trial and conviction.” He nodded to the photo. “And now, I’m using it as payment.”

  Chapter 2

  Tex Hunter had lived his life as a defender, an enforcer, an investigator, a determined rebel. Life had handed him challenges, many roadblocks, but his path was unavoidable, born out of a childhood woven with pain. Agony was a friend he knew well, and it was in her arms he found comfort. As the son of a convicted killer, his youth was littered with abuse, doubts, and often, outright hatred.

  Along the journey through three decades, he’d found the odd clue, a moment of question, a small sliver of hope, that might overthrow his father’s guilty verdict. At the same time, he had a suspicion that even with the right evidence, he was fighting a lost cause, he was merely a pawn in the larger game, kidding himself along a futile crusade. The tension between these options kept him awake many nights, often sending him to the closest bar for a moment of respite from the constant questions in his mind.

  He walked in a daze, hands wrapped around the warmth of his takeaway coffee, facing the breeze as it blew along the Chicago Riverwalk. Nestled in between the towering skyscrapers of Chicago, the walk was an escape for the city dwellers, a place where the overworked and overpaid could escape to reflect on the beauty of their modern city. Once the edge of a bustling shipping channel, the redesigned Riverwalk had transformed the Chicago River into a playground for the city’s inhabitants, with touches of nature, art, and restaurants sprinkled along the foreshore.

  “You know his reputation, Tex. Everyone knows the reputation of Rick Cowan.” His Assistant, Esther Wright, walked beside him, one hand in her coat pocket, the other holding onto a takeaway coffee cup. “He was a media darling for years, always doing controversial interviews on the morning shows, until all the drama with the dead stripper in his club last year. Remember two witnesses went missing before charges could be filed? The case against him couldn’t even get off the ground and he never saw a day in court.”

  “I remember it well.” Hunter squinted as he looked up, the morning light reflecting off the buildings that seemed to reach for the sky. “I know what I’m getting myself in for.”

  “Then why take the case?”

  Hunter didn’t respond. He continued walking forward, head down, avoiding eye contact. He couldn’t hide anything from his assistant. She could read him like an open book.

  “What does he have on you?” Esther kept pace next to her boss. “This is about your family again, isn’t it?”

  Hunter stopped. He didn’t want to let Esther know about the file, he didn’t want to explain the possibility, but there was no way he could keep it from her. The tall blonde knew him better than anyone, understanding the subtle differences between his various stoic looks.

  “Cowan said…” Hunter paused and looked down the river before turning back to Esther. A riverboat full of tourists edged past, their cameras pointed to the towering skyscrapers. “He said he has a file on my father’s case, and the file may have information proving his innocence.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Hunter nodded in response.

  “But why would Rick Cowan have it?”

  “That’s the same question I’ve been asking.” Hunter turned and continued walking. “Thirty years ago, Cowan was the only witness who testified for the defense. Nobody wanted to be associated with my father, not even his best friends, but Cowan sat on the stand and said there was n
o way my father could’ve killed those girls. He appeared on my family’s side. And at the time, he was.”

  Hunter looked over his shoulder. There were enough people walking along the shore for it to feel busy, but not enough to make it feel crowded. There were office workers taking the scenic route to work, tour groups being instructed to stare at the architecturally designed buildings, and joggers filling the air with sweat and steam. One person in the crowd caught Hunter’s eye. The person stopped when he stopped.

  “Isn’t there another way you could get your hands on the file?” Esther pressed. “Couldn’t you get an investigator to break into his property and go through his things? He must have the file somewhere close.”

  “Cowan isn’t stupid. He’ll be prepared for that. But you’re right, as always. It’s worth a shot, at least.”

  “Things have just started to calm down after our last case, and now you want to take on a high-profile client? I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I was starting to enjoy having time after work for my hobbies. I’ve been painting, playing the piano, and reading again. Work isn’t everything, you know? There’s more to life than just your office and the courthouse.”

  The man following them was dressed in black, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and despite the overcast weather, he was also wearing sunglasses. Six-foot-five, at least. At first glance he looked of Pacific Islander heritage. Perhaps Samoan. Hunter had him in his peripheral vision, keeping an eye on him.

  “Cowan gave me the name of an organization, Cinco Casino. I made some calls, did some digging, and followed a few leads. It was an underground casino in the 80s. Specialized in illegal poker games for regular Joes to blow their weekly paychecks. The name of the casino isn’t listed once in any of the police or court documents in my father’s case. From what I could find, the timeframe and locations fit, and the organization had enough connections to be a part of it all. Cinco Casino had a reputation for harshly dealing with people that didn’t pay, there were even rumors of missing bodies buried in the woods. I don’t trust Cowan, not one bit, but it looks like the information may help my father’s case. Cowan is broke, he has debts running into the millions, and he needs a lawyer. I’m his last hope.”