Chasing Shadows. Karen Harper

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      Naples, Florida

      Collier County Courthouse

      2014

      Surely nothing else could go wrong now. As Claire Britten and her client left the courtroom in triumph, she was convinced she was on a roll. She felt like making a fist pump in the air but she kept her cool.

      As a thirtysomething single mother struggling with building a career and coping with a dreadful disease, this high-profile victory had to help. Her interviews and testimony had made all the difference in the trial. A guilty man was going to prison instead of hiding out so he and his family could enjoy a three-million-dollar death settlement. Her current client, Lifeboat Insurance, small as it was, had beaten out the vaunted law firm of Markwood, Benton and Chase. She’d helped to best the best in the business.

      Claire was swept outside with her boss and their lawyer, past the big pillars holding up the shaded, covered walkway. They hit a wave of humidity and reporters, washing toward them in the mid-September afternoon. She fumbled in her purse for her sunglasses amid shouted questions, the thrust of arms with recorders...padded microphones on poles...jostling, shouting...

      Over the crowd noise, her client Fred Myron shouted in her ear. “That fancy defense lawyer’s the one who needs a lifeboat now. I’m going with this for all it’s worth. I see cameras from Ft. Myers, even Orlando! Look at that—CNN!”

      A long pole with a padded microphone brushed Claire’s shoulder and someone shouted, “Ms. Britten, tell us how you first knew the wife and son were lying! Hadn’t Sol Sorento covered his tracks to make everyone think he drowned in Key West? What were the clues he wasn’t dead?”

      “As I testified on the stand,” Claire answered, “Mrs. Sorento and Mario sometimes slipped into the present tense when talking about him. I theorized they knew he was alive and were in contact with him. Then a call they made was traced to the Bahamas where the insurance firm detective took over to locate him.”

      Another voice, a woman’s: “Ms. Britten, can you explain for our viewers what you mean by a forensic autopsy you did on the accused? You’re not a doctor, but that sounds really medical, and you didn’t even have a body to work with.”

      “I am not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist, but a forensic psychologist. A forensic autopsy, which some call a psychological autopsy, means taking apart and studying a person’s life—often their motives and alibi. I do interviews, not interrogations, of those close to the deceased to learn who might be responsible for foul play. Please take a look at my website and...”

      Someone bumped into her from behind, pressing closer. The crowd noise and a small jet going over made her shout to be heard. Oh, it wasn’t a jet but a drone. Could the media be filming from it, or could it belong to security here? Its whine was like a screaming mosquito, and it wasn’t even directly overhead. It seemed to hover above the Sorento defense team. A few others looked up at it, too.

      She asked the reporter, “Can we just step over there a minute in the grass in the shade of the palms?”

      Surely СКАЧАТЬ