“But we’re supposed to believe that you’re being honest now, is that right?”
“I am being honest now.”
“Assuming you even know what you saw, in your impaired state, on that night?”
“I know what I saw.”
“Well, that’s for the jury to decide. No further questions.”
27
Leary sat in his car, low in the seat. He was parked in a crowded corporate parking lot. Through the streaked glass of his windshield, he could see the entrance to the CBL building, an eleven-story glass-and-chrome tower in the suburbs just outside Philly’s urban center. He had been watching the front of the building for about an hour. He was looking for two people whose faces he had on a color printout on the passenger seat next to him. The founding partners, whose photos had been easy to track down online—Jack Woodside and David Whittaker. Either one of them would do.
His plan—if you could call it that—was straightforward. Corner one of the men, ask him some unpleasant questions about Lydia Wax and the death of Terry Resta, and see how he reacted. If Leary was lucky, this surprise attack would shake something loose—something he could use to start building a case against CBL and its principals.
He knew the company was responsible for at least two deaths—those of Terry Resta and, indirectly, Lydia Wax, since her suicide had been related to her involvement in their scheme. He intended to prove this and bring them to justice.
His thoughts were interrupted when a black man in a suit emerged from the doors of the building. Leary swept the printout off the seat beside him and compared the face on the page to the face he could see through his windshield. The man was David Whittaker, one of the company’s founding partners and current leaders. No question.
Leary watched Whittaker get into a car—a fancy-looking Jaguar—and pull out of his parking space. After a silent count of five, Leary tailed him. They drove away from the city.
He wasn’t sure where he expected the ride to lead—to some shady warehouse, maybe?—but he definitely was not anticipating Whittaker’s actual destination, which turned out to be a Toys “R” Us. Leary followed the Jaguar into the toy store’s parking lot, watched Whittaker find a space, and then parked his own car a few slots away. He watched Whittaker get out of the Jag and head for the store. He seemed to recall one of the articles he’d read online mentioning that one of Whittaker’s reasons for establishing his company in Philly was to start a family in the same city in which he’d grown up, so it made sense that the guy had kids. Apparently, even criminal masterminds bought toys for their children.
He decided to let Whittaker do his shopping. He’d catch the man on his way out of the store. No sense denying a kid a toy.
Ten minutes later, David Whittaker emerged from Toys “R” Us carrying a small plastic bag. Leary popped open his car door, climbed out, and walked casually in the direction Whittaker was coming from. About halfway between the store and the Jaguar, Leary intercepted him.
“David Whittaker?” he said with a friendly smile.
Whittaker stopped. He returned the smile, but Leary could tell he was struggling to identify him. Finally the man said, “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“I’m a friend of a friend,” Leary said, injecting a cheerful tone into his voice.
“Oh?” Whittaker seemed to relax. “Who’s that?”
“You probably wouldn’t want me to say her name in public, since you paid her to kill a man.”
The effect was instant and obvious. Whittaker’s dark skin seemed to pale a few shades, his mouth opened, and his grip on the plastic bag tightened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Leary got closer, invading the man’s personal space. “I think you do.”
Whittaker’s gaze jumped to his Jaguar, as if he were weighing the option of making a run for it. He didn’t run, though. He took a breath and met Leary’s gaze. “You must have made a mistake. I’m not the person you think I am.”
“You’re not David Whittaker, one of the founding partners of CBL Capital Partners, LLP?”
He saw the hand holding the Toys “R” Us bag tighten like a claw, crinkling the pastel-colored plastic. A bead of sweat rolled down Whittaker’s forehead, even in the chilly autumn air.
“You can’t just corner a man in a public place like this and start throwing around accusations,” Whittaker said. “This is harassment. It’s defamation. My company has very good lawyers. We’ll—”
“You’ll sue me? That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Whittaker straightened up. He puffed out his chest. “Why not?”
“Because truth is an absolute defense to defamation, so if you take me to court, you’ll force me to publicly prove that you engaged in a conspiracy to commit murder.”
Whittaker laughed and shook his head. “Is this a joke? Who the hell are you?”
“It was a clever plan, making the killing look like self-defense. You want to know where you screwed up? You weren’t careful enough to hide the financial connection between CBL and your poor, helpless, scared-for-her-life murderess.”
“I’m going to my car now.”
“That’s fine. I won’t stop you.”
Whittaker watched him with a wary expression, as if he were not sure whether Leary might actually do just that, then walked slowly past him, moving toward his car like a man stepping carefully away from a live landmine.
“Things will be easier if you talk to me,” Leary said. Whittaker stopped walking. A second passed before he turned to face Leary again. “I have influence with the DA’s office,” Leary said, which he supposed was sort of true. “Come in, talk to us voluntarily, and maybe you won’t spend the rest of your life in a prison cell.”
“You listen to me,” Whittaker said. The man looked suddenly furious, and Leary wondered if he’d pushed him too far with the threat of prison. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your accusations are crazy. My company had nothing to do with any shooting.”
Whittaker was breathing heavily now. He turned away from Leary and practically fled to his car. Leary watched him go.
Shooting? What the hell was Whittaker talking about? Terry Resta had been stabbed, not shot.
Thoughts swirled in Leary’s head as he returned to his own car and slid behind the wheel. Could he have been wrong about CBL being involved? All he knew was that the company had purchased the Resta brothers’ business, and that Lydia Wax had acted evasive, and then killed herself, after he mentioned the company’s name to her. That was hardly overwhelming evidence. He didn’t need a law degree to know that.
Or maybe CBL had been involved, but Whittaker didn’t know. Maybe it had been the scheme of the other partner, Woodside, or someone else at the company.
But why had Whittaker assumed Leary was talking about a shooting?
Leary’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as a feeling like an electric bolt shot through him. Holy shit.
Terry Resta had not been shot, but Corbin Keeley had. What if CBL was connected to both deaths? Could it be possible? Had they pulled the same trick twice, used the same MO to eliminate obstacles to their success on two separate occasions? If so, Leary might be able to crack not only his own three-year-old case, but Jessie’s current one, too.
Holy shit indeed.
28
The cross-examination of Conrad Deprisco had been brutal, and there wasn’t much Jessie could do to repair the damage on redirect. When the judge told Conrad he could step down from the witness stand, the kid was visibly shaken.
Watching him move meekly from the well of the courtroom to the gallery, where his parents sat with horrified expressions, Jessie saw the glint of tears in his eyes. A feeling of guilt and regret burned through her. She’d called him to the stand knowing there was a high risk that Hughes would hit hard on the drug use as a means to attack his credibility, but she’d decided that the risk was outweighed by the potentially game-changing evidence Conrad could provide as an eyewitness what had actua
lly happened that night in the parking lot. She had been wrong. Just when she’d thought she was making real progress, Hughes’s cross-examination had thrown her back. One look at the jurors told her Conrad’s testimony had been rendered untrustworthy, and that many of them were going to dismiss it altogether—including his testimony that it had been Raines, and not Keeley, who’d thrown the rock. Jessie had put the kid on the stand, and subjected him to almost an hour of humiliating interrogation, for nothing.
When Conrad reached his parents, his father turned away, seemingly unwilling to look at his son. His mother hugged him, but the hug looked stiff, hesitant, and she pulled away from him after only a second. Then his parents turned to leave, and he trailed after them out of the courtroom. Jessie felt a pang in her chest.
“Ms. Black?” Judge Armstrong said. She realized he’d asked her a question and was waiting for an answer.
She snapped to attention. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. Could you please repeat that?”
“I said, are you ready to call your next witness?”
The image of Conrad Deprisco dejectedly following his parents as they marched out of the courtroom refused to leave her mind. “Your Honor, would it be possible to take a short break?”
Armstrong did not look thrilled by the idea. “I’m trying to keep to a schedule here, Ms. Black.”
“I know. I appreciate that.” She tried to force the negative thoughts out of her mind. She needed to focus on presenting her case.
“On the other hand, maybe this is a good time for a break,” the judge said, surprising her. “Let’s take a fifteen minute recess.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
She caught up with Conrad and his parents in the hallway outside the courtroom, just before they reached the elevator. “Conrad, wait a second!”
The three people turned. Conrad’s parents glared at her, while Conrad looked at his hands. His face twisted with embarrassment and misery.
“What the hell was that?” the kid’s father said. He stepped closer to Jessie, so close she could smell the sour odor of his breath. “You walked our son into an ambush. You just embarrassed our whole family!”
“There’s no point in talking about it now,” Conrad’s mother said. “We told him not to testify, but he thought he knew better. He’s eighteen, a grown man.” Her voice was so thick with sarcasm and disdain, she almost made Hughes’s cross-examination seem friendly.
“Can we talk alone?” Jessie said to Conrad. “Just for a minute?”
“Yeah, okay.”
She led him away from his parents, feeling their stares burning into her back as she walked. She found an empty attorney room and ushered the kid inside.
“I’m sorry I screwed up in there,” Conrad said as soon as the door was closed. “I tried, but I didn’t know a good way to answer the defense lawyer’s questions. I guess my parents were right.”
“You did fine, Conrad. You told the truth. That’s what matters.”
He didn’t look convinced. Jessie’s heart clenched as she tried to think of something she could say that would make him feel better. She came up empty. Even worse, a glance at her watch told her she was almost out of time.
“Listen, I need to get back to the courtroom. Judge Armstrong only gave us fifteen minutes. I have a few more witnesses to call today.”
Conrad nodded. “Yeah, I gotta get going, too.”
“Promise me you’ll think about what I said. You did the right thing today. Sometimes the right thing ends with the wrong result, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was right. A man was shot and killed. Your testimony could help ensure that justice is served.”
Conrad sighed. “Maybe.”
She watched him leave the small room, shoulders slumped. I’ll give him a call tomorrow, she thought, make sure he’s okay.
Then she followed him out of the small room and into the corridor, where she walked directly into Carrie Keeley.
“We’re losing, aren’t we?” Carrie said.
Jessie glanced around quickly to make sure no one was in earshot. Even though she was pretty sure their conversation would be private, she still lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “It’s hard to say. You can never be sure what a jury is thinking, or which witnesses they find believable.”
Carrie’s eyes narrowed. “Come on, it doesn’t take a mind reader to see what the jury thought of that guy.”
“It was a tough cross-examination.”
Carrie shook her head. She looked like she was holding back tears. “It was a slaughter. And the worst part is, he saw the whole thing. He saw Brooke Raines kill my father and then throw the damn rock to make it look like he attacked her first. That’s cold, calculated murder. But no one will listen to his story because he was smoking weed? For God’s sake, from the way the defense attorney questioned him, you’d think he was a drug-crazed maniac, not an eighteen-year-old guy who smoked a few joints. What is wrong with this city?”
“The trial’s not over yet, Carrie.”
“Whatever. It’s obvious the jury thinks my dad deserved to die. They’re not going to find that woman guilty no matter what evidence you show them.”
Words of encouragement came to Jessie’s mind, but she didn’t speak them. Creating false hope didn’t help anyone, and Carrie’s assessment wasn’t far off from her own. “If I had to guess, I would agree with you. My sense is that the jury’s not on our side yet.”
“Yet?” Carrie closed her eyes and her features scrunched up. After a few seconds, she seemed to regain her composure. “What’s it going to take?”
Jessie put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We still have a few more witnesses, and then we’ll have a chance to cross-examine the defense’s witnesses, and we’ll end with a closing argument. Each of those moments is another opportunity to sway the jury. So please don’t give up yet, okay? I haven’t.”
Carrie nodded. “My dad isn’t the bad guy. People need to know the truth.”
“I’m going to do everything I can. That’s a promise.”
After the girl walked away, Jessie let out a long breath. It seemed that she kept making promises to Carrie Keeley, but she didn’t seem to be making much progress delivering on those promises. Every step forward seemed to be met with resistance that pushed her two steps back. Carrie had been right about one thing—they were losing.
29
His encounter with the man in the Toys “R” Us parking lot left Dave Whittaker in a panic. He fled back to CBL, where he barricaded himself behind the closed door of his office. Nightmare images and awful thoughts assaulted his mind.
The public humiliation of an arrest and trial.
Talking to his wife and children through the glass partition of a prison visitation room.
Kids ostracizing his children because of his crimes. His boys in tears.
The rest of his life spent in some hellhole, where he’d be beaten and worse for the rest of his life.
He put his elbows on his desk, lowered his head, and ran his fingers over his close-cropped hair. Everything he had, he was going to lose. His family. His company. His wealth. His life. All lost. All gone.
Was there anything he could do? The man from the toy store parking lot had insinuated that he might have options. What had he said? Things will be easier if you talk to me. I have influence with the DA’s office. Come in, talk to us voluntarily, and maybe you won’t spend the rest of your life in a prison cell.
Right, Dave thought. Not the rest of his life—just the next twenty or thirty years. He knew better than to trust the DA’s office. Making deals with criminals was what they did, day in and day out, and like any lawyer specializing in a type of transaction, they would make a good deal—for themselves. He, on the other hand, would be screwed.
“What choice do I have?” he said to the empty room. If he couldn’t go to the DA, where could he go?
When the answer came to him, it came with an overwhelming feeling of cowardice and self-loathing. Goyle. Luther Goyle, th
e man responsible for all this horror in the first place. Goyle would help him because it would be in Goyle’s self-interest to do so. Goyle might be a sociopath, a psychopath, but he was smart. Goyle would know what to do.
Dave closed his eyes. Had it really come to this? After all the moral agonizing he’d done from the comfort of his own safety, now that his life was on the line, and the choice between doing the right thing or the wrong thing was upon him, was he really going to choose to do the wrong thing?
I guess you learn something new about yourself every day.
He would tell Goyle about the man in the Toys “R” Us parking lot. And whatever Goyle decided to do about it, Dave would follow his lead. He would justify it after the fact. He would rationalize it. And not from the squalor of a prison cell, but from the luxury of his home.
Maybe he wasn’t as good a man as he’d once believed, once hoped.
So be it.
In Luther Goyle’s office, Dave Whittaker told the whole story to Goyle and Jack Woodside, from the moment he’d walked out of the toy store and been approached in the parking lot, to the moment he’d driven away, hardly able to control his car in a haze of panic. Every few seconds, Jack cursed under his breath. Goyle remained silent until Dave finished.
“It’s nothing, right?” Jack said. He turned away from the windows and looked at Goyle with an imploring expression. “Some random guy talked to Dave, spouted some nonsense that, obviously, turned out to be insanely close to the truth—but so what? If the authorities really knew anything, we’d all be in handcuffs.”
Goyle breathed steadily. His iPad was on his desk, but for once, its screen was dark.
“Luther?” Jack said. “It’s nothing, right?”
Goyle sighed. “It’s probably nothing. But….”
“But what?” Jack said. “I don’t like ‘but.’ You’re a lawyer. When you say ‘but’ it’s usually not a good sign.”
“I received a call from Lydia Wax recently. She was upset.” He rubbed the jowls of his oily face. He looked, Dave thought, uncharacteristically unsettled. “She had received a visit from a man who made accusations similar to those made to Dave.”
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