Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  Duarte’s face seemed attentive but skeptical; Paget implored Caroline to move on. ‘But let us assume for the moment,’ she continued, ‘as you cannot assume under the law, that someone murdered Ricardo Arias.

  ‘If so, why Christopher Paget?

  ‘The prosecution’s case is founded on the notion that what Mr Arias did was so ugly that Chris Paget abandoned the training of a lifetime and shot Ricardo Arias with an ancient gun and a rusty bullet.

  ‘Why on earth should you believe this?

  ‘The two people who knew Chris Paget better than anyone – Teresa Peralta and Carlo Paget – say that he’s not a killer.

  ‘They know him to be a kind and decent man.

  ‘And, in Carlo’s case, he believes he heard his father at home that night.’ Pausing, Caroline continued in measured tones. ‘Mr Salinas asks you to conclude that Carlo Paget, after thinking about what did not become the most important night in his life until weeks after the event, cannot be believed. But if Carlo Paget is right, and yet you believe him disqualified by the love of a son for a father, then you will become part of a double tragedy. The failure of a son to help his father with the truth, and the conviction of an innocent man.’

  Carlo raised his head to face the jury. But the jurors were drawn to Caroline now, the eyes of some flecked with the first traces of doubt.

  ‘Let us stop for a moment,’ she said softly, ‘and consider Carlo Paget. There is not a shred of evidence, anywhere, to suggest that Carlo Paget molested anyone. But that has never stopped Mr Salinas from smearing this boy, in front of this jury and the national media, in order to convict his father. Because this is not a prosecution, ladies and gentlemen. It is a witch-hunt, and it is utterly without principle.

  ‘Why,’ she demanded suddenly, ‘is the testimony of Leslie Warner and Sonia Arias that Ricardo Arias would not kill himself so worthy, and the testimony of Carlo Paget and Teresa Peralta that Chris Paget is not a murderer so unworthy?

  ‘I cannot tell you. Not when it is so obvious that the real difference is that Carlo and Terri truly know Chris Paget and that Ms Warner and – sadly – Mr Arias’s own mother didn’t know Ricardo Arias at all.’

  With a brilliant thrust, Paget realized, Caroline was back to suicide. But Paget could not look at Terri or Carlo; whatever Caroline said, he knew their own doubts too well.

  ‘That’s what sociopaths like Richie do,’ Caroline went on. ‘Fool people. But no one has disputed that Christopher Paget is a gentle and nonviolent man. And, for that matter, a skilled trial lawyer.’ Here, Caroline paused again. ‘A skilled trial lawyer, who knew what Ricardo Arias knew: that he wouldn’t hold up under the cross-examination that Chrisopher Paget intended to inflict on him in the fight for custody of Elena. And then the supposed affair, and the alleged abuse, would turn back on Ricardo Arias – a pathological liar whose characater was, at last, about to catch up with him.

  ‘So when you look at motive, ladies and gentlemen, consider that Ricardo Arias had a better motive to kill himself than Christ Paget ever had to kill him.’ Abruptly, she turned to Duarte. ‘And then you must ask yourself this: has there ever been a more unlikely murderer than Christopher Paget? And this: if there was any evidence that Christopher Paget had ever committed a violent act, wouldn’t Mr Salinas have found time to mention it? But he has nothing.

  ‘That,’ she snapped, ‘leaves us with the “evidence” on which the prosecution, which itself has ignored so much, asks you to ignore every doubt you should reasonably have and convict Chris Paget of murder.’

  Caroline’s voice filled with scorn. ‘A fingerprint. But no one disputes that Chris Paget touched the answering machine while it was still in Terri’s apartment.

  ‘Carpet fibers. But no one disputes that Teresa Peralta left them in Mr Paget’s house and car, just as she did in her own.’

  Caroline focused on Duarte again. ‘An eyewitness,’ she said evenly, ‘who heard everything but a gunshot. In truth, we don’t know if this unknown man leaving Ricardo Arias’s apartment – whoever he was – had come with a gun. And the only time Mrs Keller failed to recognize Chris Paget as a man she’d seen before – on television, as it happens – was when, according to Mr Salinas, she saw this stranger leaving Mr Arias’s apartment carrying, she tells us, some sort of journal.’ She paused. ‘Without gloves, she also tells us. And yet, once we eliminate the answering machine, without leaving a single print that was Christopher Paget’s. Nor, you will recall, did the police ever find a journal in Chris Paget’s possession, or ever explain what it was or why he would even care to have it.’

  In all his notetaking, Duarte’s surprised expression said, these were points he had not considered. Caroline’s voice had become softer yet. ‘Most damning of all, Mr Salinas suggests, is that Chris Paget gave some clothes to charity. And then, just to conceal his evil intentions, Chris also gave them his name, so they could record it.’ Her voice filled with irony. ‘Oh, yes, and one of the suits had stains on it – a pretty good reason, if you’re financially comfortable, to give a suit away.

  ‘There are stains, ladies and gentlemen, and there are stains. After all, the high point of the police interest in Ms Peralta was the day they found a suit in her closet with stains on it.’ Caroline paused for a moment. ‘Ketchup stains.’

  Careful, Paget told her – don’t remind them that I, like Terri, could explain this by testifying. As if she had heard him, Caroline went on. ‘But while Mr Salinas touts all of this evidence, there is one piece of evidence he treats like a dead mouse on the kitchen floor. And that’s the ten thousand dollars in cash about which his superior, McKinley Brooks, has shown such a driving lack of curiosity.’

  Salinas stared straight ahead, Paget saw, as if he had been steeling himself for this.

  ‘Ricardo Arias lived a funny life,’ Caroline told the jury. ‘How many of you, I wonder, keep ten thousand dollars in cash sitting around your house?’ Her voice became rhythmic, compelling. ‘But drug dealers do, and people with secrets do. Perhaps drugs, or secrets, got Ricardo Arias killed. Perhaps he was killed for this mysterious journal. But who among us knows?’ For the first time, she turned to Salinas. ‘Certainly not the prosecution.’

  Caroline was going for Brooks’s throat now, Paget realized. ‘But the district attorney,’ she continued, ‘does know some things. He knows that Christopher Paget embarrassed him in the Carelli case. He no doubt knows as his reporter friend Mr Slocum knows, that other politicians did not want Chris Paget to be a senator and that Ricardo Arias wanted money from them. And he certainly knows that, win or lose, Christopher Paget was through in politics the day he was charged with murder. Just as he knows that the unknown politician he seems so determined to protect would have been through in politics if Ricardo Arias had ever turned him in.’ Her voice became dry again. ‘It surely sounds like motive to me. At least for ignoring all the things that the prosecution has chosen to ignore.’

  As Caroline turned to Luisa Marin, Paget saw why Caroline had wanted her. Could hear the young Hispanic woman quote her dead policeman father, disenchanted with his job: ‘They pass good laws, and then we enforce them against people we don’t like.’

  ‘Inspector Monk,’ Caroline said quietly to Marin, ‘wanted to know where the cash came from. But McKinley Brooks called him off, so you’ll never know.

  ‘Mr Slocum knew who gave him copies of Ricardo Arias’s papers, weeks after Richie’d death. But McKinley Brooks told Mr Salinas not to ask who, so you’ll never know.

  ‘How and why did this man get those papers? You’ll never know.

  ‘You’ll never know whether Mr Arias was dealing in drugs, or politics, or both.

  ‘You’ll never know,’ Caroline said with sudden scorn, ‘because the D.A. didn’t want you to know.’ Just as quickly, her voice softened. ‘And because of the district attorney, you will never know who pulled the trigger. Even if this was murder.’

  Luisa Marin regarded Caroline intently. ‘If the district attorney ha
d done the job he should have done, with integrity and honor, perhaps Mr Salinas could look you in the face and ask you to convict Chris Paget. Perhaps, at least, he could tell you that this is not a vendetta more insiduous and dishonorable than any pursued by Ricardo Arias. But he cannot.’

  Caroline stood straight, gaze sweeping the jury. ‘From the bginning of this case, when McKinley Brooks reined in Inspector Monk, Christopher Paget has been his only target. Now you, each one of you, are Christopher Paget’s only hope of justice. He is a good man, and a good father, and he means a great deal to Ms Peralta and to his son. And when the district attorney cannot do right, it falls to you to protect the man he has so grievously wronged.

  ‘That is your job now. The absence of doubt you need to convict Chris Paget of murder should be no less than the certainty you would need to take a life-support system from someone you love, knowing that he and those who care for him would suffer an irreparable loss. For a sentence of guilty will, for all practical purposes, remove Christopher Paget from the lives of those who love him.’

  Pausing, Caroline turned to Joseph Duarte. ‘This case,’ she finished softly, ‘is what the district attorney made it. If you cannot condemn Christopher Paget to a life in prison, confident that you are doing justice, then you must let him go free.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Eyes of a Child

  FEBRUARY 17 – FEBRUARY 19

  Chapter 1

  By the next morning, the jury had begun its deliberations.

  For Paget, the hours of waiting became a collage. Lerner had instructed the jury; they listened with sober concentration and then filed out in silence to elect a foreman. The courtroom seemed to decompress: it was like a slow leak of tension – spectators talking quietly, muted by uncertainty. The knowledge that what mattered now was out of his control, and would happen out of sight, hit Paget hard.

  Trying to smile, he told Carlo and Terri he would see them later. They left together, not talking to the press or to each other; suddenly Paget and Caroline were two people with nowhere to go. When Paget suggested that he buy her lunch, she seemed almost grateful; whatever the strains between them, they were still bound to each other by the experience of the trial, and she did not seem ready to face the office.

  Evading the press, they drove to Sam’s, a venerable seafood institution, and got a booth with a curtain they could draw for privacy: Caroline phoned in their number to Lerner’s courtroom deputy and then drew the curtain and sat, mustering the first semblance of a smile. ‘So that I can drink at noon,’ she said. When the waiter came, she ordered a double Scotch on the rocks.

  Paget asked for a martini. They sat in the booth like a pair of conspirators, in need less of each other’s company than of not being seen or questioned. Caroline looked tired.

  Paget touched his glass to hers. ‘You were terrific,’ he told her. ‘This morning, and throughout.’

  Caroline took a large swallow of Scotch and then set it down, staring into the glass. ‘I think I lost Duarte,’ she said. ‘I just want to hang this one.’

  The kind of bald comment one lawyer makes to another, it was Caroline’s honest reaction to what had happened, and the fact that Paget was also her client did not stop her. This was, Paget knew, the residue of Anna Velez.

  ‘You think I screwed you,’ he said.

  She looked up from the glass. ‘I’m only your lawyer, Chris. This isn’t about me.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe there was nothing else you could do – I suppose I’ll never know. It’s just that we went awfully far down the road, with me trying to make them wonder if you were even there that night, for this Goodwill lady to pop us. But then that’s why you wanted a speedy trial, I suppose. Hoping they wouldn’t find her.’

  Paget did not answer. Caroline drained her Scotch and put it down emphatically. ‘I might as well have another one,’ she said. ‘They won’t be in today, I don’t think. Maybe, even, Duarte won’t be the foreman.’

  Paget finished his martini; something in him wanted to reach out to her, explain himself. But another part held back. ‘If the jury hangs,’ he said at last, ‘Brooks will try me again.’

  Silent, Caroline pushed a button in the wall; the waiter came, a bespectacled veteran in a white jacket, and she ordered a second round of drinks. The waiter seemed to know better than to mention food. When he was gone, Caroline said to Paget, ‘Maybe not.’

  Paget smiled at this; in their fatigue and distraction, they had fallen into the pattern of old friends who can remain silent for minutes and then pick up the thread of an abandoned conversation as if it had never been broken off. But the subject itself depressed him. ‘Oh, they’ll retry me,’ he answered. ‘Victor will go to school on his mistakes and figure he can win next time.’

  For a moment, Caroline toyed with the nondescript black watch she wore only for trials. ‘Mac’s in trouble,’ she said after a time. ‘If we really go after him – put him on the stand next time – I can make him look like he’s covering for someone. Even if that didn’t scare him, and I think it does, Colt may call him off.’

  Paget considered that. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But the local media would be all over him.’

  Caroline smiled slightly. ‘Our friend Slocum has problems of his own. At least one part of the local media may be content to let Ricardo die.’

  She gave him a veiled look above the smile; for an instant, Paget saw her wonder if she was drinking with a murderer.

  ‘Care to eat?’ Paget said.

  By five o’clock, when they ceased deliberations for the day, the jury had not come in.

  Paget picked Carlo up after basketball practice; as much as possible, he insisted that they follow a normal routine. But when they arrived home, there was a cluster of reporters and TV cameras on the sidewalk, looking for a quote.

  ‘I hate them,’ Carlo said.

  ‘You’re not alone.’

  They parked in the garage and entered the back of the house without acknowledging the media. Two cameramen scurried up the driveway, to film them as they disappeared. The murderer, Paget thought bitterly, and the child molester.

  Paget flicked on the kitchen light; it was dark outside, and the room seemed suddenly bright, reminiscent of the winter evenings when Paget would cook and Carlo would loiter at the kitchen counter, looking over his homework or, if it was done, eating potato chips and talking to his father or watching sports or news on the miniature television. The memory led Paget to the thought that by this time tomorrow, the verdict might be the lead story on the evening news. He felt a lump in his chest; this might be the last night that, however tentatively, he and Carlo could hope that their world would somehow return to normal. Only last night, Paget had bought Carlo more potato chips.

  ‘Why don’t I make chicken piccata,’ he said.

  It was Carlo’s favorite. Although the boy did not seem hungry, he answered, ‘Sure.’

  Paget fell into their ritual, thawing the chicken, scattering the capers and slicing the scallions. For once, he did not ask after Carlo’s homework.

  Carlo leaned on the counter. ‘So what do you think they’ll do?’ he asked after a time.

  What should he tell him? Paget wondered. That he himself could not judge, or that his own lawyer thought that the best she could do was hang the jury? And then, looking into the face of his son, Paget knew what to say.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I only know that you helped me.’

  Carlo’s eyes flickered with hope. ‘Do you think so?’

  Carlo was still so young, Paget realized; the cruelest thing he could do was refuse to accept the gift of his son’s lie or to let Carlo wonder – perhaps starting tomorrow – if he had helped Victor Salinas convict him by not lying well enough. ‘Yes,’ Paget answered. ‘The way Caroline told the jury to believe you was one of the finest parts of her argument. That’s what they’ll remember.’

  Carlo gazed at the counter; somehow it reminded Paget of Caroline, staring into her drink for answers. ‘I have
n’t been sure,’ Carlo said at last.

  ‘I am.’ It was all that Paget could give his son; there was no good way, after Velez, to tell Carlo that he had lied for an innocent man. ‘That, and coming with Terri today, were all you could have done for me.’

  Watching Carlo, Paget saw the boy remember his own discomfort with Terri, perhaps consider that she might be no more certain of Carlo’s innocence than Carlo was of his father’s. ‘Will she be here tonight?’ Carlo asked.

  ‘Later.’

  Carlo nodded but did not answer. Paget was somehow certain that Carlo would go to his room and remain there. And then Paget saw him turn away, gazing at the blank screen of the television.

  Paget reached into a cabinet and pulled out the chips he had bought. ‘Here,’ he told Carlo. ‘Have some of these.’

  Never, when making love with Terri, had Paget wished to imagine that he was anywhere else. But now, as he entered her, he found himself amid a fantasy where Richie’s death had never happened and where, as their two children slept in Paget’s quiet house, Terri and he would create a child of their own.

  For the few moments that he was able to believe this, the escape lent their lovemaking a certain sweetness: each movement in the dark seemed slower, each sensation of her closeness to him – her breasts against his chest, the smell and feel of her hair, her hips moving with his – was more intense. When he came inside her, some part of him imagined her smiling into the eyes of their child, and then she lay next to him, quiet and still, and Paget was in the present.

  Gently, Paget kissed her.

  She had come to him with a simple warmth that said without words that, at least for this night, she had resolved to put all else aside. But Paget knew that her warmth could no longer be instinctive and unthought of; it was an act of generosity and not of impulse. He could not say this: he could only accept what she could give him, as he had accepted her lies. There was no graceful way to thank her.