VC04 - Jury Double

by Edward Stewart

“It’s a little more solid than that. The real Catch Talbot defended Mickey Williams in a Seattle lawsuit. They’re friends.”

  A beat of silence. And then, defensive: “So?”

  “So Mickey has seen Talbot’s charge cards. And he knows who Talbot’s ex-wife is and who his son is and where Toby goes to school.”

  “I haven’t got time or energy for this. Good night.”

  There was a click and a dial tone. Running scared, Cardozo thought. He dropped another quarter into the slot and dialed Anne Bingham’s number. Her answering machine picked up.

  “Hi. You’ve reached the office of Ding-a-ling Music, Anne Bingham, CEO. If you’d care to leave a message at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. That’s a promise. Thanks.”

  But instead of a single beep, there were a dozen or so.

  “Miss Bingham,” he began.

  A click interrupted him, followed by a dial tone.

  “Damn!” He realized what must have happened: Anne Bingham hadn’t picked up her messages, with the result that sometime since he’d last phoned, her message tape had filled up and the machine automatically disconnected any further callers.

  The doorman was leaning against the brick wall of 118 East 81st, smoking the tail end of a cigarette.

  Cardozo flipped open his shield case. “I’m trying to get hold of Anne Bingham.”

  “Haven’t seen her since last Saturday.”

  “Do me a favor.” Cardozo took a business card and a fresh twenty from his wallet and tucked them into the doorman’s breast pocket. “Contact me the minute she shows up.”

  Clutching his visitor’s pass, Catch Talbot stepped off the elevator and looked for the nurses’ station. He smelled burnt coffee and ethyl alcohol. A candy-striper shot out of the service door. Her cart broadsided him. Fruit and candies and canned juice and gifts spilled to the floor.

  “Sorry.” He crouched and helped her rearrange her pyramid.

  “My fault.” She smiled. “Paperback books on the bottom, dolls on top.”

  He handed her a stuffed baby dinosaur. “I’m looking for the nurses’ station.”

  She pointed. “Right down there.”

  He stepped around a Latino family holding a clutch of silver balloons. A young nurse shaking down thermometers glanced over at him. Her eyes breathed a careful fog of apathy.

  “Hi.” He forced a smile. “I’m looking for an unidentified burn victim? Eleven-year-old boy?”

  “A kid was transferred from Newark yesterday. Caucasian.”

  “That’s the one. Could I see him? He may be my son.”

  The way the nurse was looking at him, he felt like wax under a blowtorch.

  “They shouldn’t have sent you up here,” she said. “He died this morning. Never regained consciousness.”

  “My God. Is there any way I could—see the body?”

  At that moment the elevator opened, and Catch saw the man in the Hawaiian shirt step off.

  Tess diAngeli lifted the phone and tapped in the number of Mickey’s guard.

  “I’m sorry,” a recorded voice told her. “The mobile phone number you have dialed is currently outside of the service area. Please try your call again later.”

  She broke the connection and dialed the number of her contact at the Justice Department.

  A patrician voice growled, “Yes?”

  “Foster—it’s Tess.”

  A silence bubbled across the line.

  “Tess diAngeli.”

  “Well, hello. How are you, my dear?”

  “I’m having trouble getting hold of Rick Burnett—Mickey’s guard. His mobile phone says he’s outside the service area.”

  “That’s not surprising. Mickey’s under surveillance, not arrest.”

  “Rick’s starting to worry me. He’s been giving Mickey windows of opportunity.”

  “Tess, you’re not part of the federal chain of command. I don’t want you interfering.”

  “Mickey is my witness. The case depends on him. If he’s running around unsupervised, he could compromise the whole prosecution.”

  “I’m quite cognizant of that possibility. And I’m on top of it, believe me. Mickey won’t get into any trouble. You have my word.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Wednesday, September 25

  Seventh day of trial

  10:20 A.M.

  “DO YOU KNOW OF any cases,” Tess diAngeli asked, “where one person has exercised posthypnotic control over another for days or even weeks?”

  The witness—a dark-haired man of forty-five or so—gave a sad-faced nod. “The psychiatric literature of the last quarter century is full of such instances—the Manson cult, the Koresh cult, the Jones cult; the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists operational in Europe and the United States.”

  “Have you yourself ever dealt with any such instances?”

  “Your Honor,” Dotson Elihu interrupted, pushing to his feet. “I object to the presence of Ms. Yolanda Lopez in this courtroom.” He gestured toward the rows of spectators. Yolanda Lopez, unobtrusive in a high-neck pale blue dress, was sitting quietly on the aisle in the third row. “Her very visible presence is a clear attempt to influence the jury.”

  “Mrs. Lopez has completed her testimony,” Judge Bernheim said. “Unless you intend to call her as a witness, there’s no reason she can’t view these proceedings.”

  Tess diAngeli, frozen in mid-gesture like a stop-frame TV image, broke into smiling, flowing movement. “Dr. Martins, would a person given a posthypnotic suggestion recall executing that suggestion?”

  “The subject would be aware of his or her acts—and would recall them—but it would be as if he or she were watching someone else perform them. He or she would wonder: Why am I doing this? Why can’t I make myself stop?”

  “Did you ever have occasion to examine a young girl by the name of Lisa Lopez?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And did Lisa Lopez exhibit signs of posthypnotic suggestion?”

  “Yes, indeed. She’d been hypnotized by Corey Lyle. I was able to pull up the hypnotic commands.”

  “And what were these commands?”

  “Commands to perform terrorist acts.”

  “Objection!” Dotson Elihu leaped up. “The charge is conspiracy to murder, not terrorism!”

  “Overruled.”

  Tess diAngeli circled back to the witness box. “Dr. Martins, did you ever have occasion to examine Mickey Williams?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Would you tell the court your findings?”

  “As a child, Mickey Williams was repeatedly abused by his father. Almost three decades later, Mickey still bears the physical trauma of Williams senior’s sadistic mistreatment.”

  “Objection.” Dotson Elihu shoved himself wearily to his feet. “Since Mickey Williams is apparently beyond prosecution for the murders he admits committing, how on earth does his deprived childhood relate to the case before us?”

  “Your Honor.” Tess diAngeli’s voice glowed with indignation. “It is precisely because of his childhood conditioning—a conditioning well understood by Corey Lyle—that Mr. Williams was so easily manipulated by the defendant.”

  “Overruled.”

  DiAngeli turned again to her witness. “Does Mickey Williams still feel anger over his abuse by his father?”

  The doctor nodded somberly. “Mickey has enormous rage locked within himself.”

  “Does this rage ever break through into his awareness?”

  “Not into his awareness per se, but into his actions—and like water breaking a dam, it is uncontrollable: it seeks to obliterate the object.”

  “Can Mickey and his rage be manipulated by others?”

  “Very easily. Mickey is highly vulnerable to suggestion, to manipulation, and certainly to hypnosis.”

  “Could he carry out posthypnotic suggestions that were morally repugnant to him? Such as a suggestion to murder an elderly couple?”

  “Objection! Hypothetical!”


  “An expert may answer a hypothetical question. Overruled.”

  “He would have no difficulty,” the witness said, “carrying out such a suggestion.”

  DiAngeli moved toward the witness box. “When you examined Mickey Williams, did he exhibit signs of posthypnotic suggestion?”

  “Yes, indeed. He’d been hypnotized by Corey Lyle. I was able to pull up the hypnotic commands.”

  “And what were these commands?”

  “The commands were to murder John Briar and his wife Amalia.”

  “Objection!” Dotson Elihu shouted. “There is no evidence for such an irresponsible assertion other than the uncorroborated conjecture of this witness!”

  “Overruled.”

  Greg Monteleone stepped into the cubicle. “Got that information you wanted. The Bingham and Talbot charge cards.” Today he was wearing fire-engine red suspenders that clashed with his heliotrope shirt. He laid four faxes on Cardozo’s desk.

  “Thanks.” Cardozo glanced up. “How’s it coming with Catch Talbot?”

  “He’s keeping busy—checking out hospitals. Hitting a few bars.”

  Cardozo held up a two-inch stack of blue telephone message chits. “And calling here every minute.”

  “You should phone him, Vince—give him an update.”

  “There is no update.”

  “He’d still like to hear from you … he’s edgy, depressed. And he may be getting a little paranoid, wondering why I’m on his tail.”

  “He saw you?”

  “I was getting off an elevator in Saint Vincent’s burn unit—he was getting on.” Greg shrugged. “Bad luck and freak timing.”

  “Can’t be helped now.” Cardozo studied the charge reports. Anne Bingham’s showed no activity since Monday, September 16. But Kyra Talbot’s showed that she spent eighty-five dollars last Saturday at an establishment called Flip Your Wig. No expenditures since.

  “What do you know about this place Flip Your Wig?”

  “Sounds like a New Age shrink or a hairdresser.”

  “Or possibly a wig shop in the hotel where she’s sequestered.” Cardozo reached for the phone directory.

  Dotson Elihu crossed to the witness box with a sort of dawdling, senior-citizen swagger. He smiled at the witness. “Dr. Martins—you’ve had professional training in the field of hypnosis, have you not?”

  “Yes, I’ve trained extensively.”

  “Extensively.” Elihu seemed to measure the weight of the word. “You claim that Corey Lyle performed prodigies of hypnotic suggestion—twisted human wills like rubber bands—yet isn’t it a fact that he was never professionally trained in hypnosis?”

  “Manson wasn’t trained, Koresh wasn’t, Jones wasn’t, the ayatollahs aren’t—their hypnotic gift is a combination of intuitive skill and on-the-job training.”

  Dotson Elihu leaned into the witness box, zestfully belligerent now. “Isn’t it a fact that Corey Lyle was never trained as a hypnotist?”

  Dr. Martins’s face flushed. “I don’t know.”

  Dotson Elihu drew back, satisfied. He took a three-step stroll. “Dr. Martins—you say you’ve had personal experiences inducing posthypnotic suggestion—have you published these experiences in any professional journal, such as the New England Journal of Hypnotherapy?”

  “I have not. There are considerations of confidentiality, security of ongoing operations.”

  “Yet you’re not afraid of compromising security by testifying here—or is today’s testimony an instance of an ongoing operation?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Dr. Martins … would you describe to the court how you recovered Corey Lyle’s alleged hypnotic commands to Mickey Williams and Lisa Lopez?”

  “By hypnotizing them.”

  “You had Mickey Williams and Lisa Lopez under hypnosis, and you told them to recall commands implanted by another person, and they did so?”

  “Yes, indeed. Precisely.”

  Elihu drew in a deep breath. “While you had Mickey Williams hypnotized … if you told him his recollection would be that he murdered John and Amalia Briar under instructions from Dr. Lyle—would this be his recollection?”

  “Objection,” Tess diAngeli cried. “Hypothetical!”

  “The witness is an expert!” Elihu shouted. “Experts may answer hypotheticals!”

  “Mr. Elihu,” Judge Bernheim said, “are you shouting at your learned colleague or at me?”

  “I would never shout at Your Honor.”

  “You’re out of order if you shout at anyone.”

  “I apologize, Your Honor.”

  “Overruled. Witness may answer.”

  Out in Foley Square, a police siren screamed past, dappling the stillness.

  “My answer to that question,” Martins said, “is that it’s within the parameters of conceivability—but barely.”

  A bell tinkled as Cardozo stepped through the doorway of Flip Your Wig, a small hairdressing salon on West 4th Street. A sweet, nutty smell of heated shampoo floated in the air. Scraps of conversation mixed with the sound of a Barbra Streisand record and the humming of hair dryers. Four white-smocked women sat in barber chairs, gazing into the mirror, while men in blue jeans fussed with their hair.

  “Help you, sir?” A white-haired, slightly disheveled polar bear of a man approached. Brown solution was dripping off the fingers of his surgical gloves.

  Cardozo showed his shield and introduced himself. “I need a little information on one of your customers. Kyra Talbot.”

  “Well, well, well. I’m Woody. Kyra’s stylist.” He snapped the gloves off, balled them, and lobbed them into a wastebasket. “I can always make a moment for the NYPD.”

  “Mrs. Talbot’s records show she made a charge here Saturday.”

  “Oh yes, indeed.”

  “You did her hair?”

  “Me and a few helping hands. It was an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “The worst. She ran in without an appointment. Wanted a trim, rinse, and set. Said she had to look sensational. She wasn’t spelling anything out, but she asked for the name of a hairstylist in Paris. And she wasn’t talking about Paris, Texas.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  1:40 P.M.

  “BEFORE BRITTA AND I testified,” Cardozo said, “you covered up some lines in her notebook and mine.” He laid the two notebooks down on the desk. “I’d be curious to know why.”

  They were sitting in room 509, Tess’s broom-closet-size workspace, lunching on delicatessen takeout. She moved a file, making room, and opened the notebooks. She looked at the page where Britta had pulled up the tape and half the writing. She looked at the page where Cardozo had dissolved the tape and the ballpoint was still legible.

  “Come on, Vince. We’re living in the real world. No prosecutor’s going to shine a spotlight on evidence that doesn’t help her case. And there happens to be honest disagreement as to exactly how Amalia Briar died.”

  “Who disagreed?”

  “There were two autopsies. We went with the autopsy we liked. It was a judgment call.”

  He gave her a long, appraising look. “If you knew the evidence was cooked, why didn’t you just turn the case down?”

  She slapped the notebooks shut. “Listen, my friend—this is not a decade for idealism. Since my building went co-op, my salary barely covers living costs. I still owe on a ten-year-old student loan and they just hiked the interest. Turning down assignments is a sure way of not getting a promotion, and if I don’t get promoted this year I’ll be looking for a new job.”

  “Okay, I get the picture.”

  “No, you don’t. I put in five years’ indentured servitude prosecuting cases for United States Tax Court—not knowing how I was going to meet the mortgage or the deductible on my health insurance. At long last I’ve got a chance to cop a little economic peace of mind—and I’m not throwing it away.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry I asked.”

/>   She sat motionless and silent, gazing down at her fingernails. “I didn’t mean to shout.” She swiveled a full circle in her chair. When she came around again she was smiling. See? I can be a Barbie doll. “Vince, I told you we were making a deal with a demon so we could catch the devil. I was level with you from the get-go. What the hell more do you want from me?”

  “I want that demon’s address.”

  She slammed down a plastic cup beside her half-finished pastrami on rye. Diet Sprite splashed a stack of depositions. “We’ve been through this before. No way.”

  “I’m ready to barter.”

  “You haven’t got a thing I want. And I’ve got to get back to court.”

  “How about the name of a witness who saw Kyra Talbot break sequestration last Saturday?”

  Her eyes came up slowly. “I hope to God you’re kidding.”

  He shook his head. “Woody Chandler. He does hair at Flip Your Wig at Charles and West Fourth. He’ll be there till eight P.M. tonight.”

  She scrawled on a legal pad. “Are you going to tell anyone else?”

  “Not if we have a deal.”

  She pushed out a sigh. “Mickey’s using the name Matthew Warner. The government’s rented him a garden apartment at 72 West Twelfth Street.”

  “Mr. Langdell,” Tess diAngeli said, “would you tell the court your profession?”

  “I am a polygraphologist.” The witness was a tall man with red hair and a torso like a door. “I give polygraph tests.”

  “Your Honor.” Dotson Elihu was up on his feet. “I object to the certifying of this witness as an expert. The scientific value and reliability of the polygraph has yet to be established.”

  Judge Bernheim gave him a hard, impatient look. “The court is satisfied that this witness is an expert. People will proceed.”

  Tess diAngeli asked the witness to summarize his qualifications. Langdell stated that his services were much used by NYPD detectives and New York County prosecutors. He had formerly served as a New York state trooper and a United States marine.

  “On January seventh of last year,” Tess diAngeli asked, “did you administer a polygraph test to Mickey Williams?”

  “Objection.” Elihu sprang to his feet. “Polygraph results are not admissible in this court.”