“He went home, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well, we couldn’t prove otherwise.”
“I see,” the defense attorney declared. “So, here we have someone else with means, motive, and opportunity. He’s a demolitions expert. His wife was seeking therapy at Hill House after years of physical abuse, and might well have ended up leaving him, if not pressing criminal charges against him. And no one can vouch for his whereabouts after he left his friends. Don’t you think he deserved a second look, Detective?”
“We didn’t know about the abuse,” Tinker admitted. “There was no insurance policy or anything like that. We checked. The guy seemed all broken up over his wife’s death, so we didn’t see that there was any motive.”
“You mean, he didn’t fit your profile, don’t you?” Dana suggested. “His wife hadn’t had an abortion, he didn’t own an SUV with a military sticker, and he had an alibi for Milton Auerbach’s narrow window of time shortly after midnight.”
“That’s right,” the detective snapped, finally unable to keep the hostility from his voice.
“Thank you,” Dana said, sensing the moment. “I have nothing more.”
With the wisdom that comes from decades on the bench, Abraham Bendali ordered a recess, and no sooner had judge and jury filed out than the courtroom erupted. Angry spectators began to toss heated words at one another. The group from Hill House turned to Frances Stocker, seeking confirmation of the defense’s charge. Reporters dashed out to file new leads for their stories.
Brian Ayres, clearly caught off guard, turned to Dana. “Where did you get that information?” he demanded.
“What information?” Dana asked innocently.
“Don’t play games with me,” he barked, seeing his case suddenly in shambles. “How did you get that stuff on Pauley?”
“The same way you would have if your police department had been doing its job,” she retorted.
“And what about the other thing? Where did that Nevada sticker come from? Was there really a 4Runner parked between Summit and Minor that night?”
At that, Dana shrugged. “Whether it was there that night or some other night, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that your Detective Tinker should have made it his business to find out.”
“Dammit,” he said under his breath.
“I warned you, Dink,” she reminded him. “Rush to judgment, remember? You know me. You should’ve listened.”
NINE
Dinner at the Dunn house was always a boisterous affair, with eight people clamoring for food and attention at the same time. Oblivious to it all on this night, however, Stuart was playing with his food, pushing a stack of fish sticks around a mound of potatoes on his plate, first into a square, then a triangle, and finally being brave enough to try a circle.
“What’s the matter?” his wife asked. “I thought you liked fish sticks and mashed potatoes.”
“It’s the trial,” he mumbled, glancing around the table. Seven pairs of eyes were focused on him. He stuffed a fish stick in his mouth, followed by a bite of potatoes, embarrassed at being caught. “I guess it’s put me a little off my feed.”
His wife nodded. “Not as much fun as you thought it would be?”
Stuart shrugged. “I feel like a piece of taffy, you know. First the prosecutor pulls you in one direction and then, just when you think you’re on firm ground, the defense comes on and pulls you back in the other direction. It’s only three weeks, and I’m already worn out. What a process.”
“It could be worse, dad,” his eleven-year-old said with all the angst of a sixth-grader. “You could be back in school.”
Elise Latham reached Dana at home late on Saturday. “The police came back,” she said.
“What did they want?” the attorney asked.
“I don’t know, they didn’t tell me. They just went to the closet, and took Corey’s seaman’s cap and his windbreaker.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Thank you for calling,” Dana said. She hung up the telephone with a puzzled frown on her face.
“What’s the matter?” Sam asked.
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
Elise hung up the telephone and put on her coat. Then she slipped out the back door, cut through to the alley behind the house, and made her way to the waiting BMW.
“Allison, it’s Julia Campbell,” the voice at the other end of the telephone said.
“Hello,” Allison replied breathlessly. It was a little after eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, and she had just that moment come in from the pasture.
“Well, I know we were supposed to wait until you were finished with your jury duty thing before we got together, but I find myself in need of some advice, and I was hoping you wouldn’t mind my jumping the gun a bit, and calling you now.”
“Not at all. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I’m assuming that you know a good horse vet,” Julia said with a little sigh.
“Sure,” Allison responded. “At least, I think the one I use is pretty good. Why? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. One of my mares is acting funny.”
“Well, his name is Bill Barrett, and he’s in the book, but I don’t know where you’ll be able to reach him today.”
“Oh, that’s right, it’s Sunday. I forgot. Why is it our animals always seem to have a crisis on weekends?”
“He has an emergency number. I can give it to you if you think it’s that serious.”
“That’s just it, I don’t know. She seems fine, and then I saddle her up, and she starts tearing the place apart.” There was a pause. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come take a look at her, would you? Maybe an objective eye would tell me if it’s serious.”
The last thing Allison wanted to do was go out on the one day of the week she reserved for her animals. With a sigh, she reached for a pad and pen on the nightstand. “Sure,” she said. “Tell me where you are.”
An hour later, the two women sat in Julia Campbell’s warm, cheerful kitchen, drinking coffee.
“You probably think I’m a ninny,” Julia said. “Not to think of something so simple as having a burr in the cinch.”
Allison shrugged. “As you said, sometimes it takes an objective eye.”
“Well, I thank you, and the mare thanks you.” Julia got up and poured more coffee. Then she pulled a tin of muffins, a spinach omelet, and a platter of sausages from the oven, and put them on the table.
“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Allison said.
“But I insist,” her hostess declared. “I drag you out on a Sunday, you save me a veterinarian bill, not to mention keeping me from making a complete fool of myself. The least I can do is feed you.”
“In that case,” the author said, “you twisted my arm.”
“So,” Julia said casually, as the food was being devoured, “how’s your trial going?”
Allison rolled her eyes. “Let’s just say, I’d like to be somewhere else. Anywhere else, actually.”
“That bad?”
“Well, that grisly, anyway.”
“Oh my, are you on a murder case?”
“A murder case to end all murder cases, I’m afraid.”
Suddenly, Julia’s eyes popped. “Oh no,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re on the jury in that terrible bombing case.”
“That’s the one,” Allison said.
“Well, you have my deepest sympathy,” Julia declared. “I can imagine, just from the little I’ve been seeing on television and reading in the newspapers, how horrendous it must be.”
“Some of it has been pretty bad,” Allison admitted. “A lot worse than I anticipated.”
“I know you can’t talk about the trial itself, but I’m really surprised you even got on the jury,” Julia said. “I thought that McAuliffe woman was supposed to be so smart. You’d think she would have excused you right off the bat. I don’t know what she could ha
ve been thinking. But you sure found a way to fool her.”
“I did?”
“Well, I mean, I know you. I know what you believe in. And in spite of that, you figured out how to get on that jury.”
“To be honest, I never expected to get on,” Allison said. “I gave both sides plenty of opportunity to kick me off. I was certain one of them would. And I’m as surprised as you are that neither did.”
“Amazing,” Julia murmured. “With all the research they do on prospective jurors these days, and all those high-priced consultants they’re using, I can’t believe McAuliffe didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Well, know that with you on the jury, she would never get an acquittal.”
“Why is that?” Allison asked.
Julia looked puzzled. “I guess I just assumed,” she said. “I mean, of course you’ll vote to convict, won’t you? How could you not? He’s guilty, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know yet,” Allison replied carefully. “Do you?”
“Oh come on,” Julia exclaimed. “From everything we’re hearing about the case, it’s obvious he’s guilty as sin. You can’t have any doubt about that, despite his attorney’s bag of tricks. Besides, you don’t want to send the wrong message, do you?”
“What message is that?” The author knew she was not supposed to discuss anything about the case, but she was intrigued.
“You don’t want people to think that the continued suppression of women is acceptable, do you?” Julia demanded, then dismissed the idea. “No, of course you don’t. You couldn’t possibly. You’re one of us.”
“If by that you mean a committed member of FOCUS, yes I am,” Allison granted.
“Sure you are. And I don’t have to tell you that we’re fighting for our very existence here, and the future of our daughters and our granddaughters. That’s what this election is all about, for heaven’s sake. Making sure we get the proper people into office. People who will make women’s rights a Constitutional protection. But of course, you know that.”
“Yes, I know that,” Allison said. “But what does it have to do with this trial?”
“It’s because you’re somebody,” Julia declared. “And when a somebody speaks, people listen. You’ve just been given the most visible platform in the country, my girl. You have to use it to promote our position. And what could support our position more than the conviction of a terrorist like Corey Latham? Landing on this jury might have been a fluke, but now that you’ve done it, let’s be practical—you’ve got to take advantage of it.”
TEN
They’ve added a witness,” Joan Wills told Dana the next morning.
“Who?”
“Someone named Joshua Clune.”
“Who is he?” Dana inquired.
“Haven’t a clue,” Joan replied with a shrug. “But they’re putting him up first thing.”
“Get Craig Jessup on it immediately,” Dana said, already out the door.
Joshua had never been so scared in his whole life. Not even when that car had plowed into him all those years ago in Wisconsin, and he had been in the hospital for so long, and had ended up with the scar on his face. In fact, he felt a little like that now, like he could see something awful coming, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
He had thought over what Big Dug said about talking to the police for almost a week before he agreed to go. Then he took Big Dug up on his offer to go with him.
“They aren’t going to put me in jail, are they?” he kept asking.
“No, they’re not,” Big Dug assured him. “They’re just going to talk to you, and then take down what you say, that’s all. And it might not end up being important at all.”
So Joshua talked to the police, to a man with gray hair named Tinker. He told him that he had seen the delivery man, but couldn’t identify him.
“He was tall, and he had on a jacket and one of those soft caps.”
“Do you know what time it was that you saw the—uh—the delivery man?” Tinker had asked.
“Well, I know it was after McDonald’s closed,” Joshua remembered. “That’s at eleven.”
“How soon after?”
Joshua shrugged. “I don’t think I know that. I was asleep. I woke up. I don’t have a watch.”
They talked for a little more than two hours before Tinker thanked him for coming in and told him he didn’t think it would be necessary for him to testify.
“What’s testify?” he asked Big Dug when they were on their way back down to the waterfront.
“It’s when you have to go into the courtroom, and swear to tell the truth, and sit in a chair in front of a whole bunch of people, and you get asked a lot of questions,” his friend told him.
“But then, everyone would know what I did,” Joshua cried, aghast. “They would know I slept at Hill House when I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Well, I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Big Dug said. “Didn’t the policeman say you wouldn’t have to testify?”
He had, but then he had apparently changed his mind, because first thing Saturday morning, two uniformed officers had come looking for him. Without Big Dug there to protect him, they had driven him to the police station, put him in a cell, and left him there for a long time. Finally, he was taken to a room with a table and some chairs and a big mirror in it, and the gray-haired policeman.
“Joshua, we’re going to have to go over your statement again,” Tinker told him.
And they had, for the rest of Saturday, and on into Sunday. They talked endlessly, and they showed him pictures, and then they talked some more, and showed him more pictures, until Joshua wasn’t sure any longer what he had really seen that night at Hill House, or what they told him he had seen.
On Monday morning, they let him shower, and gave him a pair of clean jeans and a shirt to put on, and then took him to the courthouse, and told him to wait. Then a different man had come in and asked him questions, and Joshua answered as best he could remember, but his head began to hurt. The only good thing about the whole weekend, if he could say anything about it was good, was that they brought him whatever he wanted to eat, and there was a bed in the cell where he slept.
But now he was alone and frightened and very confused. He didn’t want to go into the courtroom place they told him about, in front of strange people, and answer any more questions. He wanted to go back to the waterfront and find Big Dug. His friend was sure to be worried about him by now, he’d been gone for such a long time. Joshua wondered suddenly if anyone would think maybe he wasn’t coming back, and take his box and his blanket.
Big Dug had been wrong. The police had put Joshua in jail, after all. They had simply waited until his friend wasn’t there to stop them. And he was worried that they were going to keep him there because now they knew for certain that he had slept at Hill House.
“I’m not sandbagging you,” Brian assured Dana when the defense attorney stormed into his office. “I got word of this witness’s availability exactly five minutes before I sent word to you through Joan. And if you want a continuance before you cross, I won’t oppose it.”
“What’s his testimony?” Dana asked.
“He’s an eyewitness.”
“An eyewitness to what?”
“He can place the defendant at the scene, at the time we believe the bomb was set.”
“If there’s anything,” Dana implored her client just before court was due to convene, “anything at all that, for whatever reason, you didn’t feel able to disclose before, now’s the time to tell me.”
“About what?” Corey asked.
“They’re putting a witness on the stand this morning who can corroborate Milton Auerbach’s testimony. He can put you at Hill House the night before the bombing.”
There was a pause while Corey looked at her with an empty expression in his eyes. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said finally. “I guess I can’t believe, after all these months, that you don’t know that.”
<
br /> Dana sighed. “I had to ask, I had to hear you say it,” she told him. “All right then, let’s go hear what this mystery witness has to say, and hope to hell I’ve got a miracle or two tucked away in some pocket I’ve forgotten about.”
Joshua shuffled to the stand with the aid of a deputy, who placed his left hand on the Bible, and showed him what to do with his right hand. The clerk read the oath, and the deputy nodded.
“I do,” Joshua said, as he had been rehearsed.
Then the deputy sat him down and retreated. Joshua smiled at him, and gave a little wave as the man took a seat at the rear of the courtroom.
“Please state your name and address,” the clerk instructed.
“Joshua Clune,” the witness recited. “I live in Seattle, under the viaduct.”
A murmur rippled through the spectator section, and Dana blinked in surprise.
“A homeless man?” Joan whispered.
“Brian must really be panicking,” Dana whispered back, knowing, as far as most juries were concerned, that homeless people rarely made credible witnesses.
“Joshua,” the prosecutor said kindly, “how long have you lived under the viaduct?”
“As long as I been here,” Joshua replied, smiling broadly. “It’s real nice. I have my own box and my own blanket. That is, I do if someone didn’t take them by now because I been gone so long. And I have good friends, like Big Dug.”
“You said, as long as you’ve been here. How long is that?”
“Well, let’s see,” Joshua replied, scratching a bit at his freshly washed hair. “It must be close on a year now. I think I came in October.” He paused for a moment and then nodded. “It must have been October, ’cause I remember it wasn’t raining yet. It didn’t rain until November.”
Dana quickly scribbled down the words “Big Doug,” and looked up to see that several members of the jury were beginning to smile. She had to admit, with a sinking heart, it was easy to like the young man.
“All right, Joshua,” Brian continued, “tell us about when you got sick.”
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