Guilt

by John Lescroart

  Farrell glanced at the clock – 3:15. He had a lot to say, but suddenly he knew with relief that he was going to finish today. It was nearly over. He went to the table and drank some water, then returned to the panel.

  'Now let's talk for a minute about the evidence of the crime itself, evidence found at the scene which they contend proves beyond a reasonable doubt an inextricable link between Mark Dooher and this murder.'

  He stood mute before the jury box, making eye contact with each juror, one by one. The process took nearly fifteen seconds – an eternity in the courtroom. The silence hung heavily.

  Farrell nodded, including them all. That's right. There is none. None. The kitchen knife with fingerprints on it? Those fingerprints were left by normal use around the house.

  The surgical glove? Where's the proof that it was Mark Dooher's glove, that he brought it to the scene? There is none because that didn't happen. No, this glove was brought to the scene by the burglar – by the murderer -and left there. That's all we know about it, and it says nothing whatever about Mr Dooher.

  ' So we have no proof that Mark Dooher was at the scene of the crime, no direct or circumstantial evidence tying him to it. Next we must turn our attention to whether Mark' – Farrell began purposefully using Dooher's first name – 'was even in the neighborhood. Mr Balian says he saw his car parked a couple of blocks away when it should have been in the San Francisco Golf Club parking lot. But Mr Balian also says he recognized a brown Lexus from diagonally across a wide street, in the dark.' Farrell shook his head. 'I don't think so.

  'And Mr Ross didn't see what he said he didn't see at the driving range that night, either.' He put his hand on the bar rail in front of the jury. 'You know, it's funny about people. You and me, all of us. You ever notice how sometimes we say something, and we're not too sure of it, but we say it anyway? Maybe something we've seen, or a story from a long time ago where we don't remember all the details so we kind of fill in what's missing with something plausible? I think we've all had the experience – after we've done this, especially if we've told the story more than once – of not being able to remember what parts exactly we filled in.

  That's what happened to Mr Ross. I don't think he purposely perjured himself under oath here. No, he was at the driving range that night, or perhaps on some other night he was three mats from the end, and he remembered not seeing anyone at the last mat. But he told Lieutenant Glitsky it was this night, and he was stuck with that story.

  'For those of you who might be familiar with Sherlock Holmes, Mr Ross was the dog who did not bark in the night. He saw no one. This testimony, even if it were true in all its details, does not possess the same authority as if he said he saw Mark picking his way through the hole in the fence. Perhaps Mark wasn't there one time when Mr Ross looked up. Mark has admitted going to the bathroom and getting a Coke. That testimony was corroborated by the golf pro, Richie Browne. He says Mark Dooher was there the whole time. So let's leave Mr Balian and Mr Ross. The purported proof they offer is fatally flawed.'

  Farrell let out a long sigh and gave another weary smile to the jurors. 'You've heard that Mr Dooher carefully sedated his wife. Then, after killing her, he made the scene appear as though a burglar had done it.'

  'Now, I ask you, if you were going to plan this kind of elaborate charade, if it were your intention to make it look like a burglar had been in your home, don't you think you'd leave some sign of a forced entry? A broken window? A kicked-in door? Anything? Ladies and gentlemen, this theory defies belief.'

  'I don't know about you, but I kept waiting for some witnesses to appear and say they'd seen Mark drive up, enter the house, drive away, anything. But I never heard that. Not one witness came forward to say that. All I heard was Ms Jenkins tell us she was going to prove it, and I kept waiting, and the proof never came. And you know why? Because it didn't happen.'

  'Now Judge Thomasino will be giving you jury instructions, but I want to say a word about the defense's burden of proof. We don't have to prove anything.'

  'And yet Mark Dooher chose to testify – to go through three or four hours of Ms Jenkins's questions – so that he could tell you what he did do on the night of June seventh.'

  'So what do we have? We have no proof of motive, we have no proof that Mark was at the scene of the crime when it occurred, we have no proof that he was even in the neighborhood at the time. In short, there is no proof at all, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mark Dooher is guilty of this crime. There are no facts that convict him.'

  Farrell was almost done. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said. 'I'm a defense attorney. It's what I do for a living. I defend people and try to convince a jury that the evidence in a case doesn't support a Guilty verdict.'

  He drew a breath. A trial was a war. You had to do whatever it took to win it. Now he'd gone this far and there was no turning back. He had worked tirelessly to convince the good people of this jury that he was a man of honor, worthy of their trust. And now he was going to lie to them.

  God help him, he had to do it.

  This case is different,' he said. 'Once in a career, a guy like me gets a chance to tell a jury that his client isn't just Not Guilty, but that he's innocent.

  'And that's what I'm telling you now – Mark Dooher is innocent. He didn't do it. I know you know this, too. I know it.'

  Part Five

  CHAPTER FOURTY FOUR

  The way Dooher saw it, his acquittal should have restored him to his accustomed power, influence, and gentility. He'd been cleared of the charges, after all. That should have been the end of it and perhaps would have been, if Wes Farrell had not led the charge of rats from the ship, adding to the illusion that it was, in fact, sinking.

  He supposed it was because he had never cultivated friends. The way it had always worked was that people came to Mark Dooher. Not the other way around. They had always needed something he could give them – position, money, esteem – but he did not need them. He would give no one the satisfaction.

  He had been the center of Sheila's life, providing her with a house and an income and children, but even in the early years she had never been his equal. That had been tacitly understood.

  And Farrell? Until the trial, Wes Farrell wouldn't have dared presume that he was on the same level as Dooher. The man's entire existence had been lived at a rung below Dooher's. His clearly defined role had always been as fawning admirer to whom Mark permitted easy access because Farrell amused him.

  Flaherty – a friend? Hardly. The Archbishop was a man who needed Dooher's advice and guidance, and who paid for it. If he chose to believe that Dooher harbored any real affection for him, that was a need of his own nature, not Mark's.

  Their social life had always been directed by Sheila. The occasional dinner in restaurants or at the Olympic, a night at the theater or a movie with longstanding acquaintances – that had been about the extent of it. Mark never thought he'd miss it and he didn't; at least not specifically. Dooher should have realized that Sheila's friends would shun both him and his new wife, but he didn't miss anyone's personal company.

  There was an emptiness, though, a social void that filled him with a sense of isolation.

  It wasn't fair and just, he thought. The ostracism was as complete as it would have been if he'd been found Guilty. He and Christina had married within a couple of months of the trial and now, between them, had no friends.

  And very little business.

  Flaherty had led that abandonment. Somehow, sometime during the trial, the Archbishop had lost faith in his innocence. He had taken no joy in his acquittal; hadn't even called to offer his congratulations. In the weeks after the trial, the legal work from the Archdiocese had slowly but inexorably dried up, and with it had gone the ancillary contracts from the network of agencies, charities, schools, and businesses that were one way or the other tied to the Catholic Church in San Francisco.

  McCabe & Roth held on without the Archdiocesan billings for seventeen months, though the la
yoffs began almost immediately. First to go were the word processors. Then the attorneys began having to double up on secretaries. Next the junior associates started getting their notices. Morale went into the toilet. A splinter group of four senior partners left with their clients to form their own firm, getting away from the Dooher stranglehold.

  Christina went back to work but there was a lot of barely concealed resentment about her situation. Engaged, then married to the managing partner, she was avoided by the other associates and mistrusted by the partners.

  Still, she was a game fighter and threw herself into her role of reestablishing her husband's credibility. She and Mark were together for the long haul. If none of the lead attorneys would assign work to her, then she would do business development, taking prospective clients to lunch or dinner, trying to help any way she could.

  She fought the guilt that she had doubted him. Her actions must make that up to him. She would stand by him when the world had let him go. It was romantic and noble and filled her with a sense of mission and meaning. They would make what her parents had made – a life built on trust.

  She told herself that she did not get pregnant to save the marriage. It had always been her dream to have children, a family, a normal life. But things with Mark had gotten difficult – his moods, darker than anything she had seen in their early going. But the failure of his firm, his power dissipated, that was devastating to a man.

  A few weeks ago, it had come to a head.

  'Mark, please.'

  'Just don't touch me, all right? It's not working. It's not going to work.'

  He violently threw the covers off the bed in frustration, then stood up and immediately snatched at his bathrobe, wrapping it around him. Turning, he grabbed the comforter from off the floor and threw it back on the bed, snapping at her. 'Cover yourself, would you, for God's sake!'

  'I don't need to cover myself.'

  His jaw set, his angry eyes ran down the length of her body, over the protruding belly, the swollen breasts. She could not believe he could look at her like that. She loved the way her body had changed in the past eight months.

  'This just isn't doing it for me right now,' he said.

  'What isn't?'

  'Us, if you must know. You and me. All these doubts.'

  'What doubts? I don't have-'

  'You don't talk about them, but I see them. You think I don't see what you're thinking? You think it turns me on to see you trying so Goddamn hard?'

  'I'm not trying anything, Mark. Come to bed. Just hold me. We don't have to do anything.'

  'I know don't have to do anything. I want to do something, don't you understand that? But I can't. I can't with you! Nothing's happening.'

  He swore and stalked out of the room.

  He hadn't felt any guilt or regret. When he got arrested, it actually played into his hands. Christina was sympathetically drawn to the grieving spouse, who was tragically and wrongfully charged with murder. She would help defend him.

  It had been beautiful. He couldn't have planned it better.

  But now Christina was ruining everything.

  She pulled a flannel nightshirt over her head and came downstairs, turned on the reading light next to where he sat in the library, then crossed the room and lowered herself on to the couch. 'I don't want to feel like it's not working with us when we're about to have this baby. I don't like you thinking I'm not attractive like this.'

  'My problem is not how you look. I said it upstairs. It's us. The way we are.'

  She settled back into the cushions. Her eyes flicked to the glass next to him, nearly empty.

  'Yeah, I've been drinking. I might be drinking more. Is that a problem?'

  She stared across at him. 'Why are you so hostile to me? What have I done, except stand by you, support you? Don't you want this baby, Mark? Is that it?'

  Defiantly, he drained the rest of his drink before he answered her. 'No, that's not it.' He got up abruptly, grabbed his glass and went over to the bar. He poured another stiff one. 'I have always dealt from power, Christina. It's the only way I'm comfortable. What works is when you want me, and I see how you look at me now.'

  'I don't look at you any way, Mark.'

  But he was shaking his head. 'You loved who I was when you met me, when I was running the firm, when I had a big dick…'

  'You don't have to talk like that.'

  'I'll talk any way I want in my own house.'

  She shook her head and stood up, thinking she'd tried her best tonight. 'Okay,' she said, 'but I don't have to listen to it in my house.'

  She was all the way to the door before he stopped her with a whisper. 'Don't you hear what I'm saying at all, Christina?'

  Taking a step toward him, she spoke evenly. 'I don't recognize you, Mark.I know the firm failing is hard and I don't know how you're dealing with it. But I'm not trying to take away any of your power. I've been here for you, I've kept trying even when-' She stopped.

  'When what?'

  'All right.' A few more steps, up to his chair. She eased herself down on the arm of it. 'Even when I found out you lied to me, even then.'

  Narrowing his eyes, giving nothing away. 'When did I do that?'

  She had to get it out. She'd come this far, maybe it would help. 'I ran into Darren Mills a month ago, two months, something like that. Over at Stonestown. Remember Darren, your old partner?'

  'Sure, I remember Darren. What about him?'

  'During your trial, Darren wound up doing a lot of work down in LA with Joe Avery. They got to be friends.'

  'Good for them.'

  She ignored that. 'Darren figured I'd be interested in how Joe was doing. He's still down there, you know. He got on with a new firm.'

  'I'm happy for him.'

  She paused. His venom was poisonous. She put her hand protectively over her stomach. 'Darren mentioned Joe's transfer down to LA, how it had come on so suddenly.' A beat. 'You told me Joe's transfer had been in the works for months.'

  'I did?'

  'Darren said that wasn't true. You sprang it on the Managing committee a couple of weeks before it happened. It stunned everybody. Joe hadn't even been up for partner for another year, but of course they did what you told them they had to – rubber stamp it.'

  Dooher pulled a stool around and sat on it. 'That's my terrible lie? That's it?'

  'Yeah, that's it. And it made me think…' She paused and started over. 'It made me remember your explosion in the courtroom, when you blew up at Amanda Jenkins, and then saying it had all been an act.'

  'I got into the role.' He shrugged. 'And so what did the other lie – that whopper about Joe Avery – what did that make you think that you stopped yourself from saying just now?'

  Swallowing, she met his gaze. He was unflinching, challenging her, casually sipping from his glass. He wanted her to get it out in the open. 'It made me think you got rid of Joe so he'd be out of the way. You knew it would break us up.'

  'And then I could subtly court you? While Sheila was still alive? And if you responded, then I could kill her?'

  She crossed her arms.

  'Okay,' he said, 'let's say I did that.'

  'I'm not saying you did.'

  'Oh, but you are, Christina. That's exactly what you're saying. And if that were the case, then you were part of it, weren't you? And for a sweet person like yourself, that's hard to take, isn't it?'

  He came off the stool, his hands in the pockets of his robe, pacing in the area between them. 'So let's say I did do it, let's say I killed Sheila because I had the hots for you – and get this straight, Christina, I did. And you knew it. You're not stupid. You knew it. So I killed her and now it's been almost two years and I got away with it. Now you tell me this: how does that change anything between us?'

  'It changes who you are,Mark. It would change everything.'

  Hovering over her now, he shook his head. 'No, it wouldn't.' He came down to one knee. 'I am the same person.'

  She couldn't face any more of
it, and she closed her eyes. 'Tell me you didn't do that, Mark. Please. You're scaring me to death.'

  'And I suppose I killed Victor Trang for practice.' He put his hand around the back of her neck. 'It's your own guilt that's eating you up, Christina. Not mine. I don't feel any guilt.'

  'Did you do it?' she repeated.

  'And the guy in Vietnam, too. And raped Diane Price.'

  'Did you?'

  'What does it matter?'

  'Please! I have to know.'

  'No,' he said, 'you have to trust me.'

  She took his hand away from her neck, holding it to keep it off her. 'When I know you've lied to me? When you act so convincingly? When you're just so cruel? I need to know, Mark. I need to know who you are.'

  The eyes – at long last – softened. Shaking his head, he let out a sigh. 'I don't even remember this lie about Joe Avery, Christina. I don't remember what it was about, when I told it, anything about it. If I told you a lie, I'm sorry. The act I put on in the courtroom was a strategic decision. The insane accusations got to me and I let myself lose my temper, which I normally hold in pretty good check. That's all that was.'

  'But were they insane, Mark – the accusations? That's what I'm asking you.'

  'How many times do I have to answer that question, Christina?' He hung his head. 'God help the accused. It never ends.'

  'It can. It can end right now.'

  'What's it going to do for us? Or for me? I'll tell you again, no, I didn't do it, and then some other doubt will come up in six months or a year, or you'll hear some new story about something I did or didn't do in the Stone Age.'

  'No, Christina, what's happening here is I've got to keep proving myself to you, over and over again. And I'm going to tell you the truth – it's wearing me down. You're doing what Wes has done, what Flaherty did…'