Even in the grainy black-and-white photograph, the face was unmistakable. It was Molly.
“Ms. Griswold, a passerby saw you in front of the window and, after she read about the murder the next day, thought it might be important, so she notified the store. They managed to save the tape before it was automatically erased.” Granny passed another copy of the photo to Molly. “Care to explain?”
Molly stared at the photo with undisguised horror. “There must be some mistake.”
“There’s no mistake. I’ve checked and double-checked everything, just as I’m sure defense counsel will. There’s no doubt about it, ma’am. You were there, in front of that store, just after one in the morning. Not in the forest. And not with George Zakin.”
Molly’s hand flew to her face. Tears began to stream out of her eyes. “Oh, God. I didn’t mean to—” Her arm reached out toward defendant’s table. “I just wanted to help you, Zak. I just—” More tears followed; her voice was choked with anguish. “I still love you, Zak. Even now. I still love you.”
“Ms. Griswold,” Granny said quietly, “you were not with George Zakin at the time of the murder, were you?”
At first she reacted only with tears. Then, after several painful moments, her head began to weave its way back and forth. “No.”
Everything went silent, dead, as if Ben were traveling in an airplane but the engines had cut out and they were in free fall, spiraling downward toward an inevitable crash.
“Thank you,” Granny said. “That’s all.”
Gradually the courtroom seemed to normalize. Molly returned to the gallery, glancing at Zak as she passed, then covering her tear-stained face with her hands. Ben felt himself reentering the stream of life as the judge called for a recess till the afternoon.
And with that, it was over. The cross-examination and, Ben knew, the absolute last vestige of hope for the defense.
Chapter 64
“YOU KNEW SHE WAS lying!” Ben shouted, after they returned to Zak’s cell. “You knew it!”
Zak was pacing back and forth across the tiny cell. “Hey, so I don’t want to be fried. Sue me!”
“You let me put a liar on the stand! That’s inexcusable!”
“Aw, clam up already.”
“I have never in my life put on a witness I thought was lying—”
“And you still haven’t.”
“But everyone in that courtroom thinks I did! They don’t know my idiot client doesn’t have the sense to tell his lawyer the truth!”
Zak pressed himself into Ben’s face. “Look, this isn’t about you, okay? I’m the one who’s on trial. It’s about me!”
“That’s the whole point, you blithering idiot. It is about you! And my defense of you has been systematically undermined because you don’t have the sense to tell me the truth!”
Zak threw himself down on the cot. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“It would! If I’d known Molly was lying, I would’ve told you we couldn’t use her. In case you haven’t noticed, the prosecutor isn’t an idiot. She knows how to smoke out a liar. Putting perjured testimony on the stand could only hurt you. Which it did.”
“Man!” Zak flung his head back on the pillow “I still can’t believe she cracked like that. Just because of a little picture. Stupid cow.”
Ben’s face burnt red, smoldering. “How dare you—” In frustration, he ripped the pillow out from under Zak’s head and tossed it down in his face. “You should be calling that woman a saint! Do you know how hard it was for her to do that? To sit up there and perjure herself for you?”
“Uh, Ben.” Christina was out of the firing line, at the side of the cell, next to the window. “About that.”
“What?”
She motioned him over to the window. “Get a load of this.”
Ben walked beside her, anxious to get away from his client. He craned his neck and peered through the paned and barred window.
The view wasn’t very scenic—just an alley behind the jailhouse. But in this instance, that provided an eyeful.
There were two people in the alley leaning against a Jeep, and Ben knew both of them. One of them was Rick Collier, the turncoat Green Rager who had helped drive one of the biggest nails in Zak’s coffin.
The other was Molly Griswold, who minutes before had stepped off the witness stand after Granny destroyed her.
And they were kissing.
Key words and phrases raced through Ben’s brain. He was a pig to women, Rick had said. Never treated them well. And then Molly: He was the one who broke up with me.
She knew that store, Ben remembered. She’d been in there. She knew they had a video camera.
And then Ben recalled another phrase, one from last night’s witness prep.
Zak has done so much, she said. I just want to pay him back.
The couple in the alley were still kissing. It was obvious that this was not a new relationship.
They had each managed to get back at Zak, Ben realized. Rick by exposing his true feelings. And Molly by hiding them.
Zak was alone in his cell lying on his cot when Granny appeared out of nowhere.
“Lawyer take a powder?” she asked.
Zak didn’t even look up. He didn’t know why she was here and he didn’t care. “Hadn’t he been here long enough? Man, if I go over that testimony one more time I’m gonna hurl.”
Granny smiled. “I’m surprised he bothers.”
“Well, he’s an optimist. He still thinks there’s hope.”
“And you?”
“I don’t pretend to know. What do you think, Madame Prosecutor?”
“I think you’ve got a date with the Big Needle,” she said, approaching the bars. “But sometimes juries fool me. Not often, but sometimes. And I look at you and I think—well, he’s handsome. Big baby-blue eyes. Used to handling himself in public. If he’s really good on the stand, he might possibly sway one of the jurors. And unfortunately, one is all it takes.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve decided to take out a little insurance.”
Zak sat upright. “What are you talking about?”
“When Kincaid puts you on the stand,” she explained, “I want you to cave.”
“What?”
“Refuse to testify. Take the fifth. Get mad. I don’t care what you do. Just don’t testify.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I don’t care if you answer the easy stuff, like your name and address. But when he takes you to the night of the murder, you freeze. You don’t say a word.”
Zak pushed himself off the cot. “Lady, I think trial stress has deadened your brain cells. You must be crazy if you think I’m going to take a dive on the witness stand.”
“You know, I thought that would be your reaction. That’s why I haven’t been here before.” She leaned forward, exposing a generous amount of prosecutorial cleavage. “I kept thinking—how can I get to him? He’s basically self-centered, selfish, cares only about himself. I can’t threaten him with anything worse than what I want—death. How do I get to him?”
Zak strolled slowly toward the bars. “And what did you come up with?”
“Well, I remembered how nice everyone says you are to one of those Green Rage clowns. Deirdre, to be specific. Rick Collier mentioned it. Even Kincaid mentioned it. At first, I figured she was one of your many female conquests, but my informants told me that wasn’t so. So what the hell was she to you? I couldn’t figure it out.”
Zak’s eyes grew dark and narrow. “And?”
“And so I sicced a team of investigators on it. And early this morning they finally brought me the answer I wanted.” Granny smiled from ear to ear, like a crocodile with way too many teeth. “She’s your sister.”
“You bastard,” Zak growled.
“Deirdre isn’t even her real name. Her real name is Dana Zakin, but she changed it because—get this—she’s hiding from the law. Seems th
ere’s a warrant out on her for possession of over ten kilos of cocaine, with intent to distribute.”
“She didn’t have anything to do with it!” Zak said. “She didn’t even know about it. It was this asshole she was living with. But the apartment where the cops found the junk was in her name. And she was on the premises.”
“You know, I figured there was probably some explanation like that. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Ten kilos—my goodness. That’s worth at least eight years in the slammer. Even for a first offender. And you know, as I was telling someone else just the other day—life in prison is not fun. She’ll be sent to the Collingsgate women’s facility. It’s a hellhole. Violence, cruelty, rape—it happens every day at Collingsgate. They’ll love a pretty little thing like your sister.” She shook her head. “Dana won’t last a year.”
Zak’s teeth were clenched tightly together. “What is it you want?”
“I already told you. You go on the stand and zip your lips. If you do, I’ll tear up my information and the cops back in Tulsa will probably never find her. But if you don’t, I’m afraid your sister has a very bleak future. And a short one.
“But if I don’t testify, they’ll kill me!”
“Don’t you get it yet, Zak? You’re dead already. The only question is whether your sister goes down with you.”
Zak’s face twisted up in a bitter snarl. “You’re a real bitch, you know it?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” She pushed forward on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. “And now you do, too.”
Chapter 65
DON’T GIVE UP HOPE, Ben kept telling himself, as he approached the podium to begin Zak’s questioning. The jury will know. You have to act as if you have all the cards. As if you have nothing to worry about. He’d had dark moments at trials before. He knew any trial could be turned around by one stellar witness.
He just hoped Zak was the one. Because he was the only one Ben had left.
“Would you state your name for the record, please?”
Zak cleared his throat. “George Zakin.”
“And where do you live?”
“I’ve been staying here in or near Magic Valley for over four months now.” He glanced at the jury. “I’m a member of Green Rage. In fact, I’m the team leader.”
Ben spent several minutes having Zak talk about his activist background, first in the anti-Klan group, then in the animal rights organization, then in the environmental world. Ben hoped someone in the jury box would admire his dedication, his unselfish works—even if they didn’t particularly admire the cause.
After that, they moved into more dangerous but necessary waters. He asked Zak about his prior bomb-related conviction. Zak handled the question with finesse. He didn’t back away from the fact that he had occasionally built bombs to benefit a cause. But he emphasized that he always took extreme precautions to ensure that no living creatures would be caught in the explosion—only machinery. He had never hurt another human, he said.
“I know sometimes people have the wrong idea about environmentalists,” Zak said. “That we love trees but hate people. But it isn’t so. People always come first in my book. I just think people will be a lot better off if they still have an ozone layer, don’t live in greenhouse temperatures, and can occasionally take their children for a walk through a verdant ancient forest.”
Ben was modestly encouraged. He thought Zak was making a good impression—at least, as good as was possible, given the circumstances. At any rate, they were giving the jury something to think about when they retired.
“Thank you, Zak,” Ben said when the background was completed. “Now I’m going to have to ask you a few questions about the crime with which you’ve been charged. I know some of this will be unpleasant for you. I just have to ask you to bear with me.”
“Of course.”
“Zak, did you know Dwayne Gardiner?”
Before answering, Zak glanced quickly at Granny, who was sitting at the prosecution table. That was odd, Ben thought. Why would Zak be checking her? “Not really,” Zak answered. “The first and only time I ever met him was when he stopped me in the hallway in that bar, just before he died.”
“What did he want?”
“The account you’ve already heard was essentially accurate,” Zak said, turning toward the jury. “He had just found out his wife was having an affair, and he was angry about it. He threatened me. I tried to calm him down—without much luck.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“Absolutely not. I am a firm believer in nonviolence. I would use force only in defense, and fortunately, it didn’t come to that.”
“Did you purchase bomb materials at Georgie’s pawnshop?”
“I did.”
“Did you say, ‘I’m going to teach a logger a lesson he’ll never forget’?”
“No, I did not. That’s one part the witness got wrong. I was trying to explain the conservationist’s viewpoint, how inflexible the logging industry is. I said, ‘I’m going to teach some loggers a lesson they’ll never forget.’ ”
“And what did you mean by that?”
“I meant that if they tried to harm us, or the forest, as of course they have repeatedly, Green Rage would take action to defend ourselves. In the same nonviolent manner that we always have.”
“Now Zak,” Ben said, “you say you’re nonviolent, but you’ve also admitted using bombs. In most people’s eyes, bombs are pretty violent.”
“True. I guess what I should be saying is, we respect human life. We might hurt machinery in order to save a forest. But we would never harm a human being. Never.”
“Zak, I’m going to have to ask you an unpleasant question now. Were you having an affair with Dwayne Gardiner’s wife?”
His lips made a little frown. “Yes. I’m not proud of that. It was a mistake. But I should point out that when I first met Lu Ann, over at Bunyan’s, I didn’t know she was married, and she didn’t tell me, either. I didn’t know till almost a week later—and even then I didn’t hear it from her. By that time, well, things had already gone too far.”
“Did you think about breaking up with her?”
“I did break up with her. Told her it was over. She wasn’t happy about it, either. I gather relations between her and her husband were not too hot. Anyway, she was really mad—screamed and shouted, threatened me.”
“And was this before or after Dwayne Gardiner confronted you?”
“Before. I figure it was only after she got ticked off at me that she told him. That’s why the whole thing was so stupid—here he was yelling at me about an affair, and I’d already terminated the thing on my own.”
Ben checked the jury out the corner of his eye. Having his client participate in adultery was never going to be a selling point, but Ben was convinced it was better to be up front about the negatives than to try to hide them. Juries were smarter than most people gave them credit for—and they were more likely to be forgiving to a confessed sinner than to a liar.
“Have you seen Lu Ann Gardiner? Since you terminated the relationship?”
“Not once. When it was over, it was over.”
“Did you bear any ill will toward Dwayne Gardiner?”
“Of course not. If anyone had an axe to grind, it was him, not me.”
“You didn’t have any bad feelings toward him?”
“No. I was sorry he disagreed on the environmental issues—I wish we could get more loggers to see things from our long-term global perspective, rather than from their narrow economics-based viewpoint. But I had no grudge against him in particular.”
“Thank you. Now I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you back to the night of the murder. The early morning, actually. Okay?”
Zak shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn’t say anything.
“Where were you at one A.M. on July thirteenth?”
Zak was still antsy, shifting. His eyes darted around the courtroom. “I … um …
“Excuse me?
”
Zak licked his lips. “I … uh … can’t answer that.”
Ben’s head fell forward. “What?”
“I … I’m sorry. I can’t answer the question.”
“You what?” Ben stared across the courtroom, utterly befuddled. What the hell was going on here?
“I’m sorry, I just—ask me something else.”
Ben was incredulous. Zak had systematically undermined his defense at almost every point. And now he was spoiling his own testimony.
“Zak, you didn’t program the bomb to explode when the ignition was turned, did you?” It was a leading question, but Granny didn’t seem interested in objecting.
“You mean … on the night of the murder, right?”
“Well, of course!” Ben tried to control himself. He couldn’t believe this.
“I’m sorry, then.” He folded his hands in his lap and looked down. “I can’t answer that question, either.”
“Zak?” Ben didn’t know what to do, what to say. In all his years he had never encountered anything like this. “Zak, this is critical. You have to answer.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t and I won’t.”
The hell with subtlety. Ben cut to the highlight of his outline. “Zak, did you plant a bomb for the purpose of killing Dwayne Gardiner?”
He did not look up. “I’m sorry. I can’t answer.”
The buzz in the courtroom was growing audible and distracting. Everyone in the gallery seemed just as mystified as Ben.
“Well, look,” Ben said, “you’re on the stand, and you’ve sworn to tell the truth. So you don’t have the option of silence. Answer the question.”
Zak shook his head. “I won’t.”
“I insist.”
“I’m sorry, no.”
Ben looked up at the bench. “Your honor?”
Judge Pickens leaned forward. He was obviously just as confused as everyone else. “Son, you’re on the witness stand. You have to answer the question.”
“I’m sorry. No disrespect intended. But I won’t answer.”
Pickens’s chest swelled. “Son, I don’t think you understood me properly. I didn’t ask you—I told you. Answer the question!”
Dark Justice Page 39