by John Bowers
Victoria’s eyebrows rose.
“I’m sorry, your Honor. How should I have done it?”
“You could have shared the information with the Court, for one thing. You could have asked for a meeting in camera to discuss the evidence, but you went and polluted the jury instead. If you turned out to be wrong, I would have had to dismiss the jury and we’d have ourselves a mistrial.”
“I apologize, your Honor.”
Van Wert glared at Fraites.
“What about you, counselor? Were you privy to what she was doing?”
“No, your Honor, but I trust Miss Cross implicitly. When I hand her a case, I don’t have to look over her shoulder.”
“Hmph. Well, in the future, especially when she’s working in my courtroom, I think you need to keep a closer eye on things. It may have been a moment of high drama, but I didn’t appreciate looking like a fool out there.”
She turned to Crawford.
“You were about to rest your case, weren’t you? Then Miss Cross objected and requested a recess. I’m not even going to ask why you changed your mind and put your client on the stand when you did.”
Crawford told her anyway.
“There was nothing improper, your Honor. Miss Cross merely told me she had some concerns about the evidence and I needed to ask my client about it. I didn’t see how it could hurt us, and it didn’t.”
Van Wert glared at him another ten seconds, then looked at Victoria.
“You’re a hell of a lawyer, Miss Cross, but I don’t much like the way you operate. Keep that in mind the next time you try a case in my court. I’ll be watching you.”
75th Floor, Federation Building – Lucaston, Alpha Centauri 2
Fraites and Victoria somehow dodged the media and made their way back to the 75th floor. When they walked in, a holo V set had been set up in the office pool area and every employee was clustered in front of it. Nancy Swift saw them approach and reset the video to play from the beginning.
“In a stunning development this morning, the murder trial of Wallace Frie was dismissed by Federation Judge Hildegaard van Wert after a dramatic moment in which Assistant U.F. Attorney Victoria Cross, who was prosecuting the case, declared in open court that the defendant was not guilty. For details, here is a special report from Action Holo News reporter Lucy Yap…”
“Oh my god.” Victoria felt her face pink as her coworkers kept glancing at her. “I can’t watch this.”
Nancy grabbed her sleeve.
“Oh, you’ve got to! This is good stuff.”
Victoria allowed herself to be maneuvered closer to the holo set as Lucy Yap appeared in the shot.
“Some have called it the trial of the year, others the trial of the decade. Certainly it promised high drama as the Federation pushed murder charges against convicted felon Wallace Frie, who went to prison in 0432 for smuggling illegal weapons to the Rebel Coalition. According to testimony in his first trial, Frie allegedly threatened to kill the man who arrested him, Agent Lloyd Randal of the ACBI.
“Frie spent twelve years at Syracuse Island before being paroled in October. In January, Lloyd Randal’s bullet-riddled body was found in his own driveway. Investigators learned that Randal’s home was on the same garbage route that Frie worked as an employee of Rimrock Sanitation, and Frie was arrested for the crime. Investigators also found the murder weapon in Frie’s home.
“The case looked open and shut, and the trial was winding down this morning when the lead prosecutor, AFA Victoria Cross, suddenly and dramatically announced to the judge that some of the physical evidence against Mr. Frie was tainted…”
Lucy Yap’s face faded and gave way to a medium shot of Victoria standing on the courtroom floor with her back to the camera. Wallace Frie and Judge van Wert were also clearly visible in the shot. Victoria appeared to be questioning the witness.
“You didn’t do it, did you? You really, really didn’t do it.”
“Wh-what?”
“You didn’t murder Lloyd Randal. This fingerprint is a fake. It was planted.”
The camera panned to take in the stunned reaction from the gallery, and especially from Anderson Gabel, who basically melted down at the prosecution table. The next few moments were edited out, the scene resuming at the point after the jury had been removed. Victoria was talking to Judge van Wert.
“What it means, your Honor, is that Wallace Frie is innocent of murder. It means Wallace Frie was wrongly convicted twelve years ago. It means that Alpha Centauri owes Mr. Frie a great deal of money in compensation for his wrongful conviction. It means that whoever murdered Lloyd Randal is still at large. It means we have dirty cops, dirty agents, and—God help me—maybe even dirty prosecutors in this city.”
Victoria gulped.
And she wasn’t the only one.
“Jesus Christ!” Gary Fraites whispered.
Victoria turned naked eyes on him.
“Did I really say that?”
“Yes you did. I think we need to conference.”
Victoria’s skin felt tight. Her heart thundered.
This was bad.
“Set it up. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
She went into her office and unloaded her gear, then picked up her desk comm and placed a call. Ninety seconds later she disconnected, picked up a folder, then headed for the conference room.
Fraites was already there, along with Nancy Swift and Brian Godney. James Dillon, wearing a bored expression, sat slouched in a chair staring at the overhead lights. Anderson Gabel sat brooding at the end of the table, his dark eyes smoldering. He glared daggers at her as she walked into the room. Victoria stopped and remained standing until Fraites pointed her to a chair.
“I was going to call this meeting anyway,” he began, “because we have loose ends to tie up. But that news report just made things worse.”
“It wasn’t the news report,” Gabel muttered.
“We can’t do anything about the report,” Fraites said, “except I’m going to call the station and ask them to tone it down a bit. What we can do is find out who murdered Randal and arrest the bastard before things get any worse.”
Victoria opened her mouth to respond, but thought better of it and remained silent. But she wasn’t off the hook.
“Victoria, if you don’t mind, I need you to walk us through everything you have that led you to believe the physical evidence was tainted. I don’t care how long it takes, I want to know everything you know.”
Chewing her lip, she stood up. Before she could begin, Gabel chipped in.
“Start with the part where you called me a dirty prosecutor.”
She turned to face him, feeling guilty and vulnerable and just a little angry.
“Andy, if the shoe doesn’t fit, then don’t try to wear it. I’m sorry I put it the way I did, but I can’t change it now.”
“What the hell were you thinking? I handed you a guilty man and you let the cocksuckah go!”
He was so angry he was starting to lapse back into his New York accent.
Victoria sucked a deep breath and turned away. She walked to the end of the room and uncovered an e-board. With an electronic wand, she began making notes on the board, talking as she worked.
“From the moment I took the case, I had reservations about Frie’s guilt. With Gary’s permission, I hired an outside investigator to dig into it—”
“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” James Dillon sat up straight in his chair. “Why did you do that? That’s what I get paid for!”
“Because I knew you would report everything to Andy, and Andy wouldn’t like the direction I was going. Even without that complication, you both already gave me grief over it, and I didn’t need any more if I was going to get to the bottom of things.
“The investigator I hired brought back stuff that made me less and less convinced that Frie was guilty. The only thing that kept me going was the physical evidence, but there wasn’t much of that. Just the gun, four slugs, four shell casings, and a couple
of fingerprints. Aside from those, it was a circumstantial case.”
“Bullshit!” Gabel muttered.
Fraites scowled. “Andy…let her finish.”
Victoria turned her back on him and continued with the board.
“I became convinced early on that Frie was wrongly convicted at his first trial…and that wasn’t your fault, Andy. You were given bad evidence and bad witnesses, so you did the only thing you could, which was to push the case forward.
“The problem came from Lloyd Randal himself. He was the agent who arrested Frie and framed him for smuggling.”
“Oh, bullshit! Why would he do that? What was in it for him?”
Victoria spun around to glare at Gabel. She picked up the folder she had brought with her and held it up.
“In this folder are financials on Lloyd Randal going back twenty years. At the time he arrested Frie, Randal’s annual salary was seventy-three thousand terros and he was living in a modest neighborhood in South Lucaston. The same day the jury returned a guilty verdict on Frie, a deposit was made in Randal’s bank account for two hundred thousand terros. Six months later he moved into a Topper Hill Estates home worth a quarter-million terros. His down payment was two hundred thousand, leaving a balance of fifty thousand, which he paid off with a ten-year mortgage.”
“That’s a lie! Danielle told you and me that the house isn’t quite paid for.”
“She lied.” Victoria slammed the folder down. “The final balloon payment was made three years ago. She owns that house free and clear.”
Gabel glared at her, practically hyperventilating. But he stopped muttering.
“I interviewed former ACBI Agent David Jones, who was Randal’s partner when Frie was arrested. I also talked to Tommy Tobias, the only surviving CTP officer who was there that night. They both told me the same thing, that Randal was arrogant and overbearing, and he pretty much did things his own way. Jones, his partner, called him an ‘alpha dog’.
“The night Frie was arrested, there were blizzard conditions. The snow was so thick they couldn’t see ten feet ahead, so they agreed to force his cargo rig to the ground on the excuse that it was for traffic safety. That way they could stop him without tipping him off that he was in trouble. They agreed that all parties involved—there were five of them—would take Frie down at the same time to reduce the chance that he might resist. But Randal broke protocol and charged ahead of the others. He seized Frie, beat him up, and E-cuffed him before the others got to him. He also planted a weapon on him.”
“That’s hearsay,” Gabel grumbled. “There’s no proof of that.”
“You’re right, there’s no proof. But Jones believes it and so do I. In any case, we know that somebody paid Randal two hundred grand for something, and the timing is very suspicious.”
“Still doesn’t prove anything.”
“It doesn’t have to. We aren’t taking Randal to trial. He’s dead.”
“It also doesn’t prove that Frie was innocent of smuggling.”
“It does cast a lot of doubt on his guilt. If the arrest was tainted, there had to be a reason. Why frame a guilty man by planting a weapon and claiming he resisted arrest?”
“All right, if Frie wasn’t guilty, then who smuggled those weapons? They weren’t planted!”
“Obviously, Randal was paid to frame Frie by the real smuggler. Marty Martin.”
“Oh, for Christ sake! I’ve known Marty for years! His father founded that cargo company and they’ve been in business for decades.”
“That’s right, but back in the thirties, the economy slumped for a couple of years. North Continent Freight was facing budget cuts and layoffs, because their customers were reducing shipments due to tight money. But they stayed open and never laid off a single worker, because in 0431 they began getting orders for highly lucrative cargo shipments that kept the lights on. Their profit margin soared and by the time of Frie’s arrest, in spite of the economy, the value of their assets was triple what it had been just two years earlier.”
Gabel scowled and started to speak, but Fraites held up a hand.
“You have documentation on that, Vic?”
“Yes, it’s right here. I pulled their ledgers for that period and it’s all laid out in black ink.”
“That still doesn’t prove Marty’s guilt,” Gabel said. “The information we had at the last trial was that only one cargo pilot made those weapons deliveries. Whoever shipped the weapons paid a bonus to make sure NCF kept delivering them, but the real money went to Frie. We found it in a private account in his name.”
“My investigator looked into that. The bank had video records that show the account was opened by a white man in his early twenties. The name on the account was Wallace Frie, but Frie didn’t open it and he told his attorney at the time that he knew nothing about it.”
“What else was he going to say? We had him cold.”
“I understand. But did you ever look at that account again? One month after Frie’s conviction, it was cleaned out. Fourteen million terros were transferred into Marty Martin’s private account. Frie never saw that money, never even knew it was there. It sent him to prison, then ended up where it was always intended to be—in Martin’s pocket.”
Victoria picked up the folder again. “I have a deposition here from Antiochus Groening.” She gazed at Gabel. “For some reason, Andy, it apparently never entered your mind to go directly to the recipient of those weapons and find out who delivered them.”
“We didn’t know who was in charge out there, and every attempt to find out ended with the cult people claiming their right to privacy. We hit a dead end.”
She nodded to concede the point.
“Okay, I can buy that. Groening was gearing up for war and he wasn’t going to cooperate with the Federation or colonial authorities. But he lost the war and now he’s talking. He told me who delivered his weapons and even pointed out his flat photo.”
“And who was that?”
“Marty Martin. According to Groening, Martin only showed up at night. Frie delivered the cargo to a warehouse in Trimmer Springs, where it was held until Martin retrieved it. So, yes, Frie delivered the weapons, but to him it might as well have been pots and pans. He never inspected the cargo, didn’t need to, didn’t want to. All he did was hook his rig up to a cargo sled and haul it across the continent, then unhook it at the other end. He never opened the sleds to look inside.
“But Martin, every few weeks, retrieved that cargo and delivered it to Groening at Millennium Village. Martin was the only contact Groening had.”
“You believe Groening?” Fraites asked.
“Yes, I do. I dropped a felony charge for him that was good for twenty-five years. He owed me and he came through.”
“You sure it wasn’t the kid?” Gabel demanded. “I can’t hardly believe Marty would do something so treasonous.”
“According to everyone I talked to, the kid, Dickey, is well named. He’s an absolute dick, a raging asshole. But he was only twenty-one years old at the time, and probably not sophisticated enough to pull off something like this. If it happened today, maybe, but not back then. Anyway, Groening didn’t pick him out of the lineup.”
“How many digitals did you show him?”
“Six, including Lloyd Randal and both Martins.”
She turned back to the board and made a few more notes, then turned back.
“Also at Frie’s first trial, Mickey Tullis testified that Frie had threatened to kill Randal, which helped get him convicted. That was also a lie.” She nodded toward Gabel. “That’s on you, Andy.”
“How the hell do you figure that? That mothahfuckah is a born liah!”
“You didn’t vet him. You got his sentence reduced by six months so he could walk free, so he told you whatever you wanted to hear.”
“The man sounded sincere. I believed him.”
“And I don’t blame you. It was easy to believe him because he told you what you wanted to hear, but you heard him on t
he stand today. He came clean.
“Anyway, the bottom line is that Frie was wrongly convicted. Not completely your fault, Andy, but true just the same.”
“What about the murder?” Fraites asked. “Who killed Randal? And how did Frie get framed for that?”
“In order for Frie to be framed a second time, more than one person had to be involved. It occurred to me there probably had to be some kind of cop involved, so I pulled bank records on everybody in sight. My prime suspect was Agent Majors, who actually arrested Frie. He went to the halfway house with a search warrant and it would have been a simple matter for him to plant the gun under the bed, which would explain why Frie would be so stupid as to hang onto the gun after the murder. It turns out that Frie wasn’t stupid at all; he never owned that gun, never fired it, never handled it, never even saw it until he was arrested.
“But for any law enforcement officer to take a risk like that, he had to get something worthwhile in return. Majors’ bank records were clean. No suspicious activity of any kind, and his employee record was exemplary, so it probably wasn’t him.”
“Then who?”
Victoria stood silent for a few seconds. She felt her pulse jump as the moment approached. She slid her tongue across her upper lip, then stared at the table for a few seconds.
“As I said, I pulled financials on everybody in sight. All the witnesses, all of Frie’s coworkers…and everybody in this room.”
Her blue eyes shifted from Fraites to Gabel to Nancy. She looked at Godney.
“Brian, would you step outside and invite Marshal Bridge into the room, please?”
Godney’s eyes sprang wide. He stared at her in shock for a couple of seconds, then got up and hurried out of the room. Ten seconds later, he returned with a middle-aged man in a business suit who wore a U.F. Marshal badge on his belt.
Victoria turned to face the newcomer and flashed him a brief smile.
“For those of you who don’t already know, this is United Federation Marshal Robert Bridge, the top cop on this entire planet. Thank you for coming, Marshal Bridge.”