The Final Judgment

by Richard North Patterson

  “If I simply treat this girl like a criminal, you mean.” His study of her face became lingering and comprehensive. “I know this involves your family. But I’ve got no basis for doing what you ask.”

  “Perjury is a crime, you know.”

  “Only if proven.” Jackson paused. “Look, I’ll talk to Larry myself, without you. I’ll also have our people sniff around. And then I’ll confront Megan with these charges.”

  Caroline stood. “With what, damn it? She’ll deny it and—like a fool—I will have prepared her for the hearing.”

  “Not like a fool.” His gaze grew pointed. “If you honestly thought you could salvage Brett by destroying Megan Race on cross, you’d have done it in a heartbeat—her parents’ marriage be damned. But you don’t have anything, do you, and you don’t think you’re getting anything, either. Unless you have my help.” His tone became even. “You’re just as well off having me surprise this girl. Because if there’s any real problem, you know that I’ll act on it.”

  Caroline considered him. “Yes,” she said at length. “That much I do know. But I think I’ve made a terrible mistake and that you’re about to make one too. At whatever cost to Brett.”

  Jackson stood. “I truly hope not,” he answered. “Because this hearing you want so badly is in five days now, and it would be nice if it produced some semblance of the truth. Which, as I continue to believe that you believe, is that Brett Allen killed this boy.”

  He turned and walked back to his office.

  Leaving the car, Caroline faced the stand of trees alone.

  It was night, twelve hours since she had driven from Concord, the image of this moment slowly forming in her mind. So that now, entering the trees, she imagined herself as Brett.

  Deadwood crackled beneath her feet; branches struck her face, her body. Arms raised for self-protection, she could see almost nothing. Only her senses knew the way.

  The darkness seemed interminable. Amidst towering pines, no moonlight came. There was no sound but Caroline.

  And then, a first thin light, the trunks of trees appearing.

  More swiftly now, Caroline walked to the edge of the stand. Her face was damp with sweat.

  In front of her was the glade.

  She knelt there, next to where James Case had died, and gazed at the lake.

  The moon was crescent, half of what it had been for Brett, and the water was an obsidian sheet. She could not see the platform to which Brett claimed to have swum.

  In the woods behind her, something crackled.

  Caroline whirled, heart suddenly racing. The woods were black, silent.

  She stood there, facing the dark, a chill on her skin.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Caroline turned back to the lake.

  She was still for a moment, remembering where the platform must be. And then she pulled off her jacket and jeans, and stepped from the glade toward the water. Through her running shorts and tank top, the night air felt cool.

  With halting steps, she moved to the shoreline, rocks hurting her feet. Just, she realized, as Brett had described.

  The first shock of cold water as she dove jarred her from the thought. She was Caroline now, swimming for the platform her father had built when she was small, borne by a memory that crossed the fissures of her life.

  Her strokes were long and smooth, as they had been since she was young. She found that she knew—almost to the moment—when her hand would touch the platform she could not see.

  She pulled herself up, sat on the edge, breathing deeply in the cool night air.

  The light was better here; on the lake, trees did not block the moon. But the shoreline was a rise in the darkness, formless trees. Only the glade seemed light.

  Motionless, she listened.

  Nothing.

  Slowly, systematically, she scanned the shoreline for movement. But she saw nothing, heard no one on the water. Felt cold and dampness, the wet tendrils of her hair, her eyes straining for light.

  Something had changed.

  As she turned, a shadow crossed the glade, silver in moonlight.

  Caroline froze. Only when the shadow knelt, still and silent, was she certain it was there.

  Caroline dove into the water.

  Her strokes were choppy, panicky, as Brett’s might have been. Her body strained in the water, nerves tingling as she struggled to shore. Her pulse sounded in her ears.

  When she reached the shore and stepped from the water, the shadow was still.

  Her breaths were ragged. As she walked toward the glade, grass beneath her feet, the shadow stood to face her.

  “Hello, Father,” Caroline said.

  Channing Masters stepped into the moonlight. His deep-set eyes were shadows.

  “You could see me, then.”

  “Only in the glade. Not before.” Caroline paused, to ease her breathing. “Where did you come from?”

  “The trail past Mosher’s place. It ends perhaps a hundred yards from here.”

  In the moonlight, she could see that his boots were wet. “And then along the water?”

  “Yes. Just as I suggested.” His voice was firm. “You couldn’t see me, Caroline, or hear me—just as Brett couldn’t. Until I reached the glade.”

  “True. But then your killer, whoever that might be, would have to know the way. And know, somehow, where Brett and James would be.”

  Silent, Channing sat, staring at the lake. “Just that they would be here,” he said finally. “The sign at the head of Mosher Trail says ‘Heron Lake.’”

  His voice was quieter now. Caroline put on her jacket and knelt on the grass beside him. “Tired?” she asked.

  “A little, yes.” He still looked at the water. “Do you know what was strange for me, Caroline? That for a moment, as you came toward me in the darkness, your face was like Nicole’s.”

  Caroline folded her arms. Softly, she answered, “I’m no more like her than I ever was. I look at my face, Father, and I see you written there.”

  He was quiet, still. She stared at the grass in front of her.

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you,” she said at last, “that a knife is the wrong weapon for your killer? How could he, or she, count on slashing two healthy young people at once?”

  Slowly, Channing nodded. “He’d use a gun, I think. But suppose he saw that Case was alone, and asleep.” His voice became thoughtful. “A knife has the virtue of silence. Which, in turn, could mean escape without detection.”

  Narrow-eyed, Caroline picked at a blade of grass. “That means bringing a gun and the knife. A very nice knife, at that.”

  When Caroline turned to him, her father would not look at her. “All that I’m saying,” he said at last, “is that it’s plausible. And that, for a jury, plausible might do.”

  Caroline said nothing.

  He stood up, still gazing at the water. “This Megan. Could she be a suspect? Just as you suggested?”

  “A ‘plausible’ suspect, you mean? As opposed to just a liar?”

  Channing hesitated. “Yes.”

  “I don’t know yet.” For a moment, Caroline watched him. “But your theory surely needs one. As does Brett, quite desperately.”

  Nine

  Caroline pored over her notes and began to outline her examination of the police witnesses—the arresting and interrogating officers, the medical examiner, the crime lab technicians. Carlton Grey’s spare office was quiet; the first light of dawn came through the window. It was four days before the hearing.

  The press had begun calling. Caroline had been courteous; quietly, she intimated that the hearing would expose deep problems in the prosecutor’s case. But Jackson had refused to fuel the stories with any comment of his own. Caroline did not know the status of Megan Race.

  She rose from the desk, staring out the window. Brett was facing matters with a new composure; though she was clearly tired and afraid, she treated Caroline with a certain courtesy, as if sensing that self-control was something Caroline needed from her. It
was as though they had exchanged roles—Caroline herself was shorttempered, her nerves frayed. She had passed the point of exhaustion without noticing.

  When the telephone rang, Caroline flinched.

  She turned, saw the phone on an end table she had never noted. She gathered herself, walked across the room, and answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Caroline?” Jackson said. “I tried the inn, and they said that you were gone. I know it’s early, but I also know how concerned you’ve been.”

  His tone was so polite that Caroline’s hopes began to fade. “This is about Megan, I imagine.”

  “It is.” Jackson spoke quickly, as if his speech was well rehearsed. “If it were simply a matter of Larry’s demeanor, I would have found this easier—what he told me sounded persuasive, and seemingly quite painful. I came out wanting to believe him….”

  “But?”

  “But he couldn’t give me any corroborating evidence, and our investigators couldn’t find a scrap of it—no one who saw them together, or even heard Megan speak his name outside class. Beyond some vague statement Megan made to a neighbor about the virtues of an older lover, there’s nothing that even suggests that Larry might be telling the truth—”

  “So give him a lie detector test.”

  She had said it on impulse. But Jackson’s civility was too complete, she realized, to throw her own refusal regarding Brett back at her—sufficient answer in itself.

  “Once I do that,” he said evenly, “I have to test Megan too. Which transfers the task of assessing witnesses—none of whom are charged with a crime—from the courtroom to a machine, one that a fair number of experts don’t accept. We don’t run our cases that way and, with respect, I can’t start now. Even granting your concern.”

  Caroline stood straighter. “Quit treating me like I’m some emotional cripple at the deathbed of a relative, all right? I’m a lawyer whose client was indicted because of a witness who may well be a pathological liar.”

  For the first time, Jackson hesitated. “I’ve spoken with her, Caroline. Quite angrily—and also quite persuasively—Megan says that Larry was nothing more to her than a moderately interesting professor she had for a single class. And she reminded me, as if I needed it, that her testimony involves a proven relationship with James Case, which was discovered by your client. Another fact that, unless and until Brett testifies, no one has disputed. Not even you.”

  Caroline was silent for a moment. “Jackson,” she said at length, “there’s something wrong with Megan Race. Her whole performance the other day was aimed at persuading me to plead Brett guilty. Every instinct I’ve got tells me she’s afraid of testifying.”

  “Then she’s got a poor way of showing it. Because once she came forward, she had to know that testifying is a real possibility. And—assuming Larry’s story to be true—that he would be a central subject of any cross-examination—”

  “All that she assumed,” Caroline interjected, “was that no one would be able to prove it. Which you haven’t.”

  At length he said, “Then that’s become your problem, hasn’t it.”

  Caroline’s fingers tightened on the telephone. “Please,” she said, “get a warrant. Look for calendars, datebooks, scraps of paper—anything with Larry’s name on it. Or James’s name.”

  This time Jackson did not hesitate. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I won’t harass this witness—not unless you’ve got something more. Do you?”

  Caroline paused. “No. Not yet.”

  “Then please call me once you do,” Jackson said politely, and hung up.

  With the office door shut, Caroline listened to Joe Lemieux’s report on Megan Race. It was past noon, and Caroline had not eaten.

  “There’s no therapy we can find,” he said in summary. “No history of strange behavior—at least nothing really bizarre.”

  “What about merely eccentric?”

  “Maybe that. She does seem a little short of friends—which may be why she treated that poor neighbor lady, and you, to lectures on her sex life. The one roommate I found said that she sort of glommed onto her, like she was trying to take over her life. The way she put it was that Megan wore her out.” Lemieux shrugged. “Since then, Megan’s lived alone.”

  Caroline nodded. “All that fits with Larry’s story. There’s something obsessive about this girl, Joe. Which is exactly how she described Brett.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That if you’re disturbed enough, you project your disturbances onto other people. Megan saw in Brett all the threatening qualities she herself had.”

  Lemieux frowned; with his thin face and thoughtful eyes, he looked less like a detective than a doctoral student, lost in his own private specialty. “Maybe,” he said dubiously. “But if you’re right, then Megan’s pretty good at maintaining. There’s no evidence, for example, that she’s ever been in therapy. She was a high school honor student, and she’s gotten through three years of college with good grades and no obvious problems—let alone being caught baying at the moon.” He looked at Caroline more closely. “There is this, Caroline: You know that job she has at the student union—noon and night?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “For whatever reason, and for whatever it’s worth, she called in sick the night Case was murdered.”

  Caroline cocked her head. “We can confirm that?”

  “With time slips, sure.” Lemieux scowled. “The problem, of course, is that there’s no good reason to believe that she had any reason to hate the guy, or was anywhere near Heron Lake. Let alone that she walks around with—what was it?—a knife and a gun.”

  Caroline studied him. Softly, she said, “Anyone can get them, Joe. It’s the American way.”

  “So it is. But you’re a long way from putting a gun in this girl’s hands. Or even that knife.”

  Caroline was quiet for a time. “I also wanted her current schedule,” she said at last.

  Lemieux looked at her hard now. “Can I ask why?”

  Caroline shrugged. “Curiosity.”

  Lemieux’s eyes narrowed. In a flat voice, he said, “Same schedule—noon to two serving food, and eight to ten running the coffee bar. Some nights, when it’s slow, she closes early.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lemieux considered his fingernails. “No luck with the prosecutor?”

  “None.” Caroline folded her hands in front of her. “What kind of security does Megan’s building have?”

  Lemieux looked up at her. “It’s a fifties apartment,” he said slowly, “like the one Case lived in. A buzzer at the front door is all.”

  For a moment, Caroline was quiet. “Dead bolts?” she inquired.

  Lemieux’s eyes met hers. With equal quiet, he answered, “I can’t do that, Counselor.”

  Caroline’s stomach felt empty. She kept her face expressionless. “You can’t tell me if there are dead bolts?”

  Lemieux’s eyes did not move. “I didn’t see dead bolts,” he said at last.

  At two o’clock, restless, Caroline left the office. She was dressed in jeans and behind the wheel before she knew where she would go.

  She drove past Masters Hill, hardly glancing at her father’s home, and did not get out until she reached the foot of the trail she had climbed two weeks before—before she had met Brett Allen and begun unraveling the self-creation of more than twenty years, until she was no longer sure what it meant to be Caroline Masters.

  Slowly and steadily, Caroline traversed the side of the hill, climbing between the brush and trees. As she reached the top, she half expected to see her father on the fallen log, surveying Resolve and the country beyond. But Caroline was alone.

  Though the day was overcast, she could see great distances—the roofs and spires of the town from which she had driven, mountains undulating westward until the last peaks met the sky. But nothing else was clear to her.

  For twenty years, Caroline had lived by the law and its rules. Perhaps not the rules as lay people understood them—Caro
line the defense lawyer accepted the hardest truths of justice: That the presumption of innocence must protect the guilty. That when police and prosecutors break the rules, sometimes an evil person must go free. That it was Caroline’s job to enforce these rules at whatever cost. Sometimes this had haunted her: police without rules were an injustice waiting to happen, but where was the justice in freeing an incorrigible criminal—a murderer, a rapist, a molester—to harm yet another victim? The fact that she might also have protected the innocent was, on certain nights, too theoretical to allow for easy sleep.

  But she had always obeyed the rules as she understood them. Just as, she insisted, the police should.

  Closing her eyes, she imagined Brett’s life.

  This was far too easy for her now, Caroline knew Brett’s daily routine—loneliness, too little exercise, reading until the words swam in front of her, writing in a diary she must censor to protect her deepest thoughts. And then, in her mind, Caroline followed her through the twenty-year sentence that Jackson Watts, with the prosecutor’s pitiless sense of duty, demanded as the minimum. Knew the terrible apartness, yet the loss of all her privacy. Felt the absence of friends or lovers or children, the withering of sexuality as twenty-two became thirty-two, and then forty-two. Saw the pallor as Brett at last left prison, her face lined from the passage of empty years, the richness of her youth behind her. All because of a single witness and the darkness of a single night.

  All at once, a memory came to Caroline. She was young again, a lawyer for perhaps a year. A client, out on bail, had come to her office. He did not deny his guilt, hoped merely for a lighter sentence. He was scruffy and slight, and wore a slightly aggrieved expression. “They made it so easy,” he complained—like so many of her clients, Caroline realized, he blamed a nameless “they” for the actions he had taken. And then, to prove his point, he closed the door to her office, produced a thin plastic credit card, and slid it through the slit near the door handle.

  The door seemed to spring open in his hand. “See,” he said in an accusatory voice. “No dead bolt.”

  “Yes,” Caroline had answered dryly. “What else can ‘they’ expect?”