The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  Hunt and Davenport, Davenport and Hunt – the defence team were lumping them together. And why wouldn't they? Hadn't they paraded around Boston as a pair – Hunt as the ‘King of the Jungle’ and Davenport as the slightly less impressive lion that followed in Hunt's impressive shadow?

  The whole thing had been a mistake, and truth be told, Davenport knew this at some level from the moment his friend first put the idea to him. It had all sounded so easy – and so profitable – which it certainly had been on both counts given his friend's unlimited access to potential clients. But when it came down to it, as vital as such contacts were it was Davenport's genius that created the product – a product so flawless that deal after deal had been executed with optimum client satisfaction and never a sign of a hitch. But there was one. It was not a professional snag but more a personal reservation that gnawed at him deep down in the recesses of his very being. It was the jealousy – that pang of envy he felt every time he executed an ‘exchange’. He'd felt it when he'd delivered his very first ‘package’ to Berlin five years ago, a sensation he'd initially put down to teething pains. But if anything, the desire to covet his creations had grown stronger over the years, culminating in his obsession to secure the child carried by the girl named Sophia.

  He had been foolish – crazy – to think that his friend would not be monitoring his communications. For a long time he had convinced himself that their loyalties sprang out of friendship just as much as they did out of mutual protection and financial gain, but this was tripe and Davenport knew it. And so it had come to this – ‘negotiation’ – or rather, an ‘ultimatum’ put to him by the partner he had referred to as ‘friend’. One child for another – Sophia's baby for the other child, the one he would secure and deliver to the couple in waiting.

  It was a difficult one to justify – no, not difficult, impossible. But despite the fact that he knew how heinous his actions had been, despite the fact that he knew how iniquitous his part of this new deal would prove to be, he also knew he would do it – and quickly, as his friend had demanded, given his window of opportunity was now being dictated not by his friend or the client, but by the child Davenport had created, the one about to be born.

  70

  Lunch had been heated, but not in the way David had anticipated. He had expected Sara and Arthur to be frustrated, even furious, at his opening statement, but like Sienna, they had accepted his decision with a new burst of energy, perhaps relieved to have laid down the challenge – for Hunt and his conceited doctor friend.

  So they had entered the courtroom invigorated, more than ready to start fulfilling David's promises, buoyed by the fact that the DA's first witness was an ally – the lead homicide detective in the investigation, their friend Joe Mannix.

  ‘The Commonwealth calls Boston Police Captain Michael Patrick O'Donnell.’

  David looked at Arthur. There had to be some mistake. David had seen Joe seated on a bench immediately outside the courtroom waiting to be called. He had not spoken to his homicide chief friend as that would have been a serious breach of pre-testimonial protocol, but Joe had gestured at his watch – in indication that when he was done here, they had to talk.

  David was up. ‘Your Honor, according to the District Attorney's witness list, Deputy Superintendent Joseph Mannix was to be called as his first witness. In fact, Captain O'Donnell is not on his list at all.’

  ‘Your Honor,’ Katz did not hesitate. ‘Mr Cavanaugh is correct – but I would like to reassure him that my questions to the Captain are the same I would have asked both Superintendent Mannix and Detective McKay. My decision to call Captain O'Donnell in their stead is fourfold – firstly, because the Captain was first on the scene, secondly, because he was with both Homicide detectives as they carried out their inspection of the crime scene, thirdly, because both Superintendent Mannix and Detective McKay are currently bogged down in a busy investigation involving the recent double homicide in Dorchester, and finally because, in the interest in preventing any wastage of the court's time, I thought it best not to slow these proceedings down with what would inevitably be some arduously repetitive testimony.’

  ‘You're calling Captain O'Donnell with mind to expediency?’ asked Stein, perhaps wondering when the DA had started paying homage to cutting his stage time in the interest of the court.

  Katz nodded. ‘The Captain will be able to give a more efficient overview of both the initial findings at the crime scene and the collection of evidence by the Boston Police Crime Unit technicians.’

  Katz's argument was strong and David knew the jury would find his objection as to O'Donnell's competency as a witness as an indication that O'Donnell had evidence David wanted to hide. He wanted to call for a recess, or ask for a side bar to argue his case further, but he knew both of these moves would make him look nervous, hesitant, and he could not afford to weaken his position in front of a jury whose loyalties were still being decided. And so, after a slight shake of the head from Arthur, he knew objecting further was pointless, that he had no choice but to withdraw his objection and re-take his seat, knowing the soon-to-be furious Joe Mannix sitting outside the courtroom could be of no help to him now.

  O'Donnell looked flustered. His face was red. David knew this was most likely because the Captain had been called to the stand at the last minute, with Katz instinctively sensing the testimony of a less than cooperative Mannix could backfire at this point. David was confident the DA was unaware of the assistance Joe and Frank were giving the defence team, but he also knew Joe and the Kat had a history almost as combative as the one David had with the conceited DA – and Katz was most likely unwilling to risk a face-off with Joe, given the bullish opening statement David had delivered.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Captain,’ Katz began.

  O'Donnell nodded, catching his breath. ‘I apologise if I am a little late, but I only got word about –’

  ‘That's not a problem,’ Katz cut him off, not wanting the jury to realise just how late a replacement O'Donnell was.

  After getting O'Donnell to give a brief but impressive description of his twenty-five years on the force, the DA began by asking the Captain to tell the court what happened after he responded to Sienna Walker's initial 911 call.

  ‘The call was put through to us at headquarters,’ O'Donnell began. ‘Mrs Walker was clearly very distressed. She said her daughter was missing and that there was a substantial amount of blood in her bedroom, at which point we immediately called for a paramedics team to meet us at the scene.’

  ‘You thought this was an abduction?’

  ‘We made no assumptions until we arrived at the scene, Mr Katz, but that was what the initial information provided to us suggested, yes,’ replied O'Donnell.

  ‘But surely the mention of blood must have concerned you?’

  ‘The whole thing concerned me, Mr Katz, but at this point my priority was getting to the scene as quickly as possible. There was always the possibility that an intruder intent on burglary had entered the house and removed the child from its crib in order to carry out the robbery without the interruption of a baby's crying. This has happened before.’

  ‘So you hoped the child was still in the house or close by somewhere where she might be found and treated for her injuries?’

  O'Donnell hesitated. ‘Yes, that was the first thought that entered my mind.’

  ‘But murder did not?’

  O'Donnell paused once again. He sensed the DA was using him for effect and he didn't want a bar of it. ‘Once again, Mr Katz, I reserved an opinion as to the child's whereabouts or status until I got to the scene.’

  The DA smiled in acquiescence. ‘A police officer with an open mind,’ he said.

  But an increasingly frustrated O'Donnell did not answer, perhaps knowing there was nothing to be gained.

  ‘So you attended the house?’ Katz got his witness back on track.

  ‘Yes,’ replied O'Donnell. ‘I paged our Head of Homicide, Deputy Superintendent Mannix, while we wer
e on route.’

  ‘Excuse me, Captain, but wasn't Superintendent Mannix at a rather extravagant function at Boston's Taj Hotel? A legal fundraiser, I believe, attended by the city's who's who?’

  David felt his temperature rise. The Kat was hedging his bets. Katz knew Joe was an influential member of the police community and, given the suppositions made in David's opening, he was laying down some groundwork just in case David decided to call Joe as a witness for the defence. He was attempting to use Joe's subordinate to paint Joe as conceited and incompetent – but David suspected a loyal O'Donnell would have none of it.

  ‘I believe Deputy Superintendent Mannix was at the fundraiser, yes,’ said an obviously uncomfortable O'Donnell. ‘But that is not the type of thing he would normally –’

  ‘And this fundraiser,’ the Kat cut him off yet again, ‘I believe it was the same one attended by Mr Cavanaugh and other members of the defence team. In fact I think the Deputy Superintendent was on their table.’

  Stein looked at David, expecting him to object, but David sensed he had an ally in O'Donnell – and that any objection would look better coming from him.

  ‘I don't know where Deputy Superintendent Mannix sat, Mr Katz,’ said O'Donnell, ‘but I heard it was a big event – like you called it, a who's who of Boston.’

  Katz smiled at his witness's answer.

  ‘But I did hear where you sat, Mr Katz – on the head table with some rather influential individuals. So if the Deputy Superintendent wasn't with you he was either in the boondocks or on his way to attend the crime scene I'd paged him to. He's probably the most dedicated cop I know, Mr Katz, which explains why he was at the Walker house within minutes of receiving my page.’

  The room fell silent, the only noise a snicker from the media gallery which David recognised as belonging to Marc Rigotti. And it was enough for Stein to ask the Kat to move on – which the DA proceeded to do – but this time with a change in attitude to his witness, one of directness with a tinge of aggression.

  The next lot of questions were to do with Sienna Walker and how O'Donnell found her when he attended the scene. O'Donnell replied saying Sienna had been cooperative but extremely distressed, so much so that her doctor had administered medication to prevent her from going into shock.

  ‘She was out of it,’ summarised Katz.

  ‘Objection.’ David saw an opening. ‘Captain O'Donnell has just described Mrs Walker as both cooperative and understandably distressed. The decision to sedate her was made by her physician and not by my client.’

  ‘Mr Katz?’ An undecided Stein sought a counterargument.

  ‘Your Honor, what I am trying to establish here is the decision made by the defendant immediately following her daughter's death. Eliza Walker was missing and there was a substantial amount of blood in her bedroom. I would suggest that her mother's decision to allow sedation prevented the police from asking her questions that may have been relevant to finding her child if she had been abducted – a window of time that any investigator knows is vital when it comes to increasing the police's chances of locating the missing victim.’

  Stein considered the DA's reasoning before turning to David. ‘Your objection is overruled, Mr Cavanaugh.’ His eyes returned to Katz. ‘But you're walking a fine line here, Mr Katz.’

  The DA offered an apology before proceeding with aplomb. ‘So you were unable to conduct a satisfying interview with Mrs Walker?’ he said.

  O'Donnell was ready. ‘No, sir, that was not my job at this point. It was the job of Deputy Superintendent Mannix and Detective Frank McKay.’

  ‘And to the best of your knowledge, were they able to interview Mrs Walker in her sedated state?’

  O'Donnell's eyes flicked to the defence table. ‘I don't believe so, but if you –’

  ‘In fact, didn't they arrange for the near catatonic Mrs Walker to be taken to Massachusetts General to be attended to by doctors in the emergency room?’ The Kat cut his witness off for a third time as David felt Sienna shudder beside him.

  ‘I believe so,’ said O'Donnell, ‘but Deputy Superintendent Mannix, who I saw immediately outside this –’

  ‘Asked and answered, thank you, Captain,’ Katz interrupted yet again, before finally changing tack.

  The DA spent the next few minutes getting O'Donnell to describe Sienna's state of dress on the evening in question – to tell the court what she was wearing or, more to the point, what she was not. And once O'Donnell had described her virtually ‘bloodless’ sweater every which way, the DA moved on to the bedroom itself, once again asking the police captain to describe the state of the crime scene, blood spatter by spatter, drop by drop.

  ‘Your Honor,’ the DA continued, ‘at this point I would ask permission to display a series of photographs of the bedroom in question.’

  ‘You want to hand these shots to the jury, Mr Katz?’

  ‘No, Your Honor, I took the liberty of blowing up these images so that the jury would get a better perspective of the details.’

  Once again Stein looked to David, expecting him to object. And this time David obliged.

  ‘Your Honor, there is no evidentiary benefit in displaying these images in cinemascope. Mr Katz is grandstanding. He knows that by exhibiting such images in oversized proportions he is not only unduly influencing the jury but also the impressions of the media, the gallery –’

  Stein held up his hand. ‘I tend to agree with him, Mr Katz,’ he said.

  ‘Your Honor,’ the DA was ready with his counterargument. ‘These images are key to the evidence found at the crime scene and the jury's understanding of it. Might I remind Mr Cavanaugh that it is not the media, nor the gallery, we are interested in here.’

  Bullshit, thought David.

  ‘What I am interested in, Your Honor, is providing the jury with as much information as possible in order for them to make an educated judgment. Yes, the images of little Eliza Walker's bedroom are distressing, but murder is distressing, Your Honor, especially when it involves the slaughter of –’

  ‘Objection!’ David was up again.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Stein, determined to calm things down. ‘That's enough, Mr Katz,’ he said to the DA. ‘You may show your images but I'll shut you down the moment I feel that you've crossed the line from pertinence to performance.’

  ‘I understand, Your Honor,’ said Katz, doing his best impersonation of humble. And then he moved to his desk to retrieve the poster-sized photographs – and David grasped his client's hand tightly under the table, preparing her for what was to come.

  71

  Outside the courtroom Joe Mannix's blood was boiling. He looked at his watch. It was almost three. He had been asked to attend court at one but had seen O'Donnell rushed in before him and it didn't take him long to guess what was happening. He was being bumped for what the DA assumed would be a safer hand to bet on.

  While Joe knew and respected O'Donnell, and was sure the no-bullshit Captain was giving the Kat as good as he was getting, he also knew O'Donnell would answer the questions to the best of his knowledge, which would mean Sienna Walker was coming off as guilty as sin. And there was nothing Joe could do about it. He suspected there was nothing Frank would be able to do about it either, given he assumed the DA was going to bump his partner as well.

  As if on cue the elevator to the eighth floor opened and a somewhat dishevelled Frank McKay stepped out. He was doing that thing he did when he was anxious – running his hand through his thinning grey hair before patting it back into place.

  Joe called him over and was surprised to see that Frank was not in the least bit surprised to see Joe still sitting in the corridor. No doubt word had got out that O'Donnell had been called to court unexpectedly, and Frank would have put two and two together from there.

  ‘We've been recast.’ Joe stood as his friend approached. ‘Apparently the Kat didn't like our audition.’

  Frank caught his breath. ‘I know but to be honest I never made the school play either.
’ He looked at Joe. ‘The Kat did us a favour.’

  Joe glanced up in confusion as a still puffing Frank slipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved his police-issue BlackBerry. ‘Here.’ He held up the screen in front of Joe. ‘Look see.’

  Joe squinted to decipher the writing, expecting to see an email or a text, but all he saw was a number in the ‘calls received’ directory.

  ‘Four ten,’ he said, quoting the area code. ‘Where is …?’ But then it hit him, and he could not help but smile. ‘Vincent De Lorenzo,’ he said, referring to the Baltimore-based truck driver.

  Frank nodded. ‘I just hung up from him. His brother Marco finally called and they talked. Vincent said he was straight up – told his brother that we weren't out to burn him but that he had to contact us because the information he had could help us with a case we were investigating.’

  ‘And Marco?’ asked Joe, praying Vincent De Lorenzo's attempts to convince his brother had worked.

  ‘Marco freaked out. Said the cops were the last people he wanted to talk to. But Vincent said, after a half-hour of cajoling, his brother started to come around, enough for him to agree to think about it and call his brother back within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I know people like Marco, Frank,’ said Joe. ‘He ain't gonna call.’

  ‘I know,’ said Frank, ‘which is why I got an urgent trace on the incoming call.’

  Joe smiled. ‘You know where Marco De Lorenzo was calling from?’

  Frank nodded. ‘He was calling from Lincoln.’

  ‘Marco De Lorenzo's in Nebraska?’ he said, referring to the capital of the Cornhusker State.

  ‘No,’ smiled Frank. ‘He's in Lincoln Massachusetts, the one in Middlesex County.’

  Joe returned the smile. ‘Lincoln's a thirteen mile drive from here, Frank.’

  ‘Just past the Hanscom air force base.’

  ‘We can be there in half an hour,’ said Joe, as they both rushed toward the elevator.