The Ophelia Cut

by John Lescroart

  “I’m not here to say whether any given witness is right or wrong. I’m saying the IDs were not strong. Each for different reasons. I’m not going to comment on which were stronger, because none of them were strong.”

  “They didn’t see who they said they saw?”

  “Their testimonies did not establish that.”

  “Doctor, let me ask you this. Is there any hypothetical identification anyone could make, ever, that you would accept in a court of law? Could a son incorrectly identify his own mother? A husband his wife? A father and—”

  “Your Honor,” Hardy said. “This is badgering, pure and simple.”

  Before Gomez could rule, Stier said, “I’ll withdraw the question, Your Honor.”

  “Court will take this opportunity for a recess,” Gomez said. “Let’s all meet back here at eleven o’clock.”

  ON HIS WAY to use the restroom, Paley, looking genuinely contrite, stopped by the defense table. “The bare fact remains,” he said, “that none of the eyewitness testimony is very good. What was I supposed to say?”

  “You did fine,” Hardy said. “It’s all going to come down to the specifics anyway. Why Anantha was wrong. Why, separately, Fred Dyer was wrong. Liza Moreno. Susan Antaramian. We’ll take them individually when they come up and prove what you’ve just said is true. Don’t you worry about it.”

  Paley still didn’t like the way it had gone, and Hardy didn’t blame him in the least. “I should have the names of those studies and the citations at my fingertips. If you want to redirect, I’ll spend this break and find the articles.”

  “That might be worthwhile,” Hardy said. “Let’s see what he pulls out next and take it from there.”

  “I’ll throw in a couple of footnotes; that always impresses.”

  Hardy, wishing Paley had come into the courtroom with that mind-set and a little more attention to detail, gave him a confident grin. “We’re not killing them, but after yesterday we’re still winning,” he said. “Just stay friendly and comfortable up there. Don’t let him rattle you. It’s all about credibility, and you’ve got more of that than Stier on his best day. As long as you stay loose, we’re golden.” Hardy thought he’d lighten things up with a little humor. “Now go do what you’ve got to do. We don’t want you squirming up there on the stand.”

  HAVING ESTABLISHED THAT Paley was a hired hand citing unsubstantiated claims about the basic facts of eyewitness testimony, Stier could have dismissed the witness, feeling that he’d done an adequate job of discrediting him. Hardy certainly thought he’d done enough damage, but this time, as Stier returned to his expert witness, he was the same boxer who’d knocked his opponent down in the second round and now planned to finish him off.

  Hardy had no idea what he had up his sleeve.

  “Dr. Paley,” Stier began. “Yesterday morning, I introduced myself to you right here in this courtroom. Did I not?”

  “Yes, you did.” Paley, heeding Hardy’s advice, added, “And very graciously, I might add.”

  “Thank you.” Stier backed away and half turned, gesturing toward the People’s table. “And do you recall that at that time you also met my assistant, Lars Gunderson?”

  “Yes.”

  “The gentleman seated at the table right in front of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the man you met yesterday with me just inside the bar rail?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re certain it’s him?”

  Paley took an uncomfortable ten seconds or so, scowling briefly, then regaining his amiability. “Yes, that’s him.”

  “With what degree of certainty, Doctor, can you say that Mr. Gunderson is the same Mr. Gunderson you met yesterday?”

  Paley, too experienced in cross-examination to believe that this was all in good fun, paused again, glanced at the jury and then at Hardy, who raised his eyebrows ambiguously. Paley was in this one all alone. “I’m certain it’s him. Ninety-nine to a hundred percent.”

  “Ninety-nine percent. That’s very certain. So you had a chance to observe him at close range in good light, and you’re ninety-nine percent convinced that Lars is the man you met yesterday.”

  “Actually”—Paley rose to the bait—“I’m a hundred percent certain. Unless he’s got an identical twin.”

  “No. He has no twin.”

  Paley never took his eyes off Gunderson. “Then that’s the man.”

  “Splendid, Dr. Paley. Now, you have testified that the witnesses in this case are not reliable because of, among other things, discrepancies in their descriptions of the clothing that the man was wearing and because, in some cases, they couldn’t describe the clothing at all. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you remember what Mr. Gunderson was wearing yesterday when you observed and met him?”

  A longish pause. “No. I assume some kind of business attire. I didn’t specifically notice it. It seemed to fit in here at the courtroom.”

  “Was he wearing a tie?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Might it have been a bow tie?”

  A beat. “Maybe.”

  “Would you care to guess at the color?”

  “It would only be a guess.”

  “What about eyeglasses?”

  Paley flicked another glance at Gunderson. “I don’t remember.”

  By now Hardy knew it was futile, but he had to try something to slow Ugly down. He stood and objected.

  “Grounds, Mr. Hardy?”

  “Undue consumption of time, Your Honor. Mr. Stier has made his point.”

  Gomez nodded, thoughtful. “Mr. Stier,” she said, “have you made your point?”

  “Not remotely, Your Honor. I’m just getting started.”

  Gomez smiled sweetly. “I thought that might be the case. Once again, Mr. Hardy, overruled.”

  Hardy didn’t know what he’d done to fall so far, so fast. It crossed his mind that Gomez might be one of those judges who hated objections and the lawyers who raised them. Surely Stier had risen in her favor only since yesterday, when he hadn’t objected to a word of Hardy’s direct with Paley. While, since this morning, Hardy had been picking on the tiniest of tidbits, slowing down the process, interfering with the flow, objecting and objecting and objecting and getting overruled just about every time. And now here he was again, on the wrong end of a ruling.

  Stier reined himself in. His enthusiasm, not to say glee, was palpable. “Dr. Paley,” he said, “is there anything else about Mr. Gunderson that you particularly recall from your direct observation of him that has helped you reach the conclusion that your identification of him is one hundred percent, or at worst ninety-nine percent, correct?”

  Paley stared for a few more baleful seconds at Gunderson. “No.”

  “And you are still certain that is the Lars Gunderson you met yesterday?”

  This had been asked and answered a couple of times, but Hardy bit his tongue.

  Paley said, “Yes.”

  Drawing a cleansing breath, Stier walked up to the evidence table in the courtroom and turned over a movie poster–sized color photograph. “Your Honor,” he said, “I’d like this photograph marked as People’s Exhibit One and would ask the witness if he can identify the people in it.”

  It was the picture Stier had taken on his cell phone the day before, the hirsute, mustache’d, bow tie–wearing Lars Gunderson shaking hands with the expert witness.

  Hardy wanted to hide his face in his hands. How could he have been so stupid as to think Stier’s picture-taking had been innocent? No. It had been a tactic, and a brilliant one. And they were paying for his stupidity now.

  Paley’s voice, his equanimity destroyed, was nearly unrecognizable as he identified himself and Lars Gunderson.

  “Let’s see, Doctor. You are one hundred percent certain that Lars Gunderson is the very same man you met yesterday, and yet when you met him yesterday, he had long hair and a mustache. He was wearing a red bow tie and a pink
shirt, and eyeglasses, not his usual contact lenses. In spite of all the details that you either did not observe or did not recognize, the bottom line is that you did make the proper and correct identification of someone with whom you had only a one- or two-minute interaction. Isn’t that correct?”

  Paley nodded, but Stier, going for blood, demanded that he speak out loud. At last the doctor said, “Yes.”

  “Now, Doctor, I am a district attorney and officer of the court asking you these questions, am I not?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you testified earlier that you had seen Mr. Gunderson yesterday, was your ID influenced in any way by the fact that I was the one asking you the questions?”

  “No.”

  “How about making the ID in court? Would you have hesitated to say he was not the man if that were the case just because you were in a courtroom?”

  “No.”

  “In fact, some people, asked to make an identification, may be uninfluenced by the apparent authority asking for the ID or by the fact that the ID is to be made in the courtroom, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Stier cut him off. “Thank you, Doctor. I have nothing further.”

  As Paley walked back through the gallery, Moses leaned over and poked Hardy in the arm. “What are we paying this guy?” he asked.

  Hardy gave him the deadeye. “You don’t want to know.”

  31

  FROM WHERE HE stood in the impressive lobby of Jon Lo’s fifteenth-floor northeast-corner office in Embarcadero One, Hardy’s investigator, Wyatt Hunt, could see four of the bridges—the Golden Gate, the Richmond, the Bay, and the San Mateo—that spanned San Francisco Bay. Down below, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Ferry Building bustled with tourists. A little farther to the right, he could make out the Audiffred Building, home to Boulevard Restaurant and, on the second floor, to his own offices. Traffic on the bay testified to a maritime economy that was at last showing signs of life: three container ships on the water between the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge; the Sausalito ferry plying the waters out by Alcatraz; three or four dozen private sailboats tacking and hauling in the ever-present breeze and fitful sunshine. Just this morning, Hunt had been out on the bay himself, in his wet suit, windsurfing under the Golden Gate.

  Now he wore pressed khakis and a light blue dress shirt under a navy blue blazer. Hunt was a little above average height, strong and angular, and carried himself with an easy grace. Jon Lo’s secretary, a lovely Asian woman, barely came to his shoulders when she appeared right behind him and said, “Mr. Hunt, Mr. Lo will see you now.”

  She led him over to the door and opened it.

  Lo sat behind an immense teak desk, the surface of which held nothing but an iMac. The rest of the furnishings were equally spare—a couple of filing cabinets, a fax/printer on a small table, a built-in counter with a sink under mostly empty bookshelves, three industrial chairs, some random, generic, poorly framed Asian landscapes on the walls. Whatever Lo did for a living, Hunt thought, did not involve a lot of paperwork.

  Lo came around his desk and greeted Hunt cordially, offered him a seat, and returned to his own chair behind the desk. “So,” he said, “you’re investigating some matters to do with the murder of Rick Jessup. I’ll be happy to help all I can, but I have to say at the outset that I barely knew him, although we were acquainted.”

  After Hardy put him to work, Hunt had done some research into the bust of the Golden Dream massage parlor and the ensuing events. Essentially, Hardy had asked him to go fishing, and this pool appeared to be the only one where he was likely to get any kind of bite. “I thought maybe we could start there, with how exactly you were acquainted.”

  Lo appeared to consider the question. “Well, he was the chief of staff to my friend Liam Goodman. I don’t remember where we first met, but he was active in most of Liam’s work, particularly fund-raising, so we were at a few events together. That’s pretty much all of my involvement with him.”

  “How about your staff?”

  Lo smiled politely. “You’ve met Li-Su, my secretary. I don’t believe she ever met Mr. Jessup.”

  “I meant the staff in some of your massage parlors. I understand you have bodyguards in some of these locations for the girls’ protection.”

  The smile chilled a degree or two. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hunt. I’m afraid I’m not clear about why you’re asking me these questions. There is no question as to who killed Mr. Jessup, is there?”

  “There is some, yes. I am working for the defendant.”

  “I take it, then, that you are trying to identify another suspect?”

  “That would be the jackpot, yes. We’re looking a little more deeply into Mr. Jessup’s personal life, hoping we can find some areas of conflict, someplace he might have made an enemy.”

  “Among my staff? How would he have met any of them?”

  “I thought between Mr. Goodman and yourself, staff to staff.”

  A mirthless chortle. “There is no point of contact. I barely knew Mr. Jessup and doubt that any of my employees knew him at all. Besides which, your defendant had a very good reason, I recall.”

  “True. Jessup raped his daughter.”

  “If that’s true, who could blame the man? I’m afraid I still don’t understand why you decided you needed to speak to me.”

  Hunt, recalling that these were almost precisely the words he’d used to tell Hardy that this assignment was ridiculous, bobbed his head, suitably chagrined. “I can’t really give you too good a reason myself. I thought you might have heard about something, some rumor . . .”

  “If that had been the case, I certainly would have gone to the police.”

  “Yes, of course.” Hunt got to his feet. “I’m sorry to have taken your time.”

  “Really. Not so much of it. Leave your card, and if I think of anything, I’ll get back to you.”

  FEELING LIKE AN idiot, Hunt rode the elevator down to the lobby. He’d check in with Hardy and make another pitch for not continuing down this path. He’d decided not to charge for the hours he’d put in. It was senseless. And he hated taking a job where he couldn’t get results. A few too many of those, and you stopped getting calls for work. He should have gone with his gut and turned down the job outright. There was nothing there, because McGuire killed Jessup, and for an excellent reason.

  Out on the sidewalk, Hunt called his office and learned that Supervisor Goodman had gotten back to him while he’d been out and could see him if Hunt showed up at his office in city hall by noon sharp. Hanging up, cursing himself for a fool, Hunt wrestled with his conscience for the better part of a minute, then hailed a passing cab.

  SOMETIMES, HUNT REALIZED, you just had to put yourself out there. You didn’t necessarily need a plan. You just had to stay in the game.

  When he got to Goodman’s office, the supervisor had been called out to an unexpected meeting with the mayor down the hall and should be back within a half hour. He had specifically told Diane that she should ask Mr. Hunt to wait—if it was anything about Rick, he wanted to do all he could to help.

  So Hunt found himself sitting across from the secretary’s desk while she worked on the computer and answered the occasional phone call. After perhaps ten minutes, she stopped typing and asked if she could get him anything, and he said he wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee. When she returned, she’d brought one for herself as well. “You’re here about Rick?” she asked as she handed him the mug.

  “That’s the idea,” Hunt said. “The man was a little enigmatic, to say the least, and we’re trying to get a handle on him.”

  “Why would you need that after he’s dead?”

  “It might help us understand why he died.”

  She sipped her coffee. “So you’re, what, with the defense team?”

  Hunt gave her a self-deprecating smile. “Coming off the bench, so to speak.”

  “But don’t we know why he died? He raped that girl, and her father—”

  “There�
��s some question about that.”

  “What? The rape?”

  “The murder. The rape. The whole thing.”

  “Really?”

  Hunt leveled his gaze at her. “Does that surprise you?”

  “I didn’t realize there was a question about the rape. From everything I’ve read, I thought that was established.”

  Something about her tone struck Hunt, and he came forward on his chair. “Diane. It’s Diane, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think was established?”

  The question stopped her. “Well, you know, the rape, the motive, all of that.”

  “So it didn’t surprise you when you heard that your chief of staff had raped someone? That’s something you thought he might be capable of?”

  She sat back in her ergonomic chair, aware that something had shifted. She threw an almost furtive look at Hunt, then half turned to check the offices behind and beside her. Putting her mug down on the desk, she lowered her voice. “He was a very arrogant man. I think he hated women. You had to be a little careful around him. He’d gone out with her a couple of months before, you know.”

  “Yes, we knew that.”

  “Not a nice man. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but really. The office is so much better now. Or at least nontoxic, which is about the best you can hope for with most politicians.”

  “He made it toxic? How’d he do that?”

  “You haven’t heard that? Nobody’s talked about how he was?”

  Hunt shook his head. “He’s the victim, Diane. He’s dead. Lots of people don’t even believe he raped the woman. As you say, people aren’t going to say bad things about him. What would be the point? He’s already been punished enough, right? And it doesn’t matter about the actual fact of the rape, at least legally. What matters is whether our client thought the rape happened. The concentration was never really on Jessup, because who he was and how he was didn’t matter.”

  She emitted a quiet snort. “It sure mattered here.”

  Hunt leaned in closer. “Diane, you just asked me if I’d heard something. Was there something specific that poisoned the atmosphere in this office?”