Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3

by Rachel Sinclair

  I took a deep breath and counted to ten. “Okay, this is circular reasoning at its finest. You obviously had to have initial motivation to go to that basketball game in order to see Father Mathews playing. Right? I’m asking you what initially brought you to that basketball court to see Father Mathews.”

  Mick took a sip of his martini. “I don’t know what you are getting at,” he said. “I just went to the Sacred Heart to watch a game and there he was. Delicious.”

  “Mick, I’m going to ask you this question. When have you ever gone to a basketball game before?”

  “Just the one time. I can’t stand that game, love. It’s boring to me, believe it or not. But not when there’s a hunk of man like Father Mathews playing. He’s beautiful.”

  I stood up, feeling that I was getting exactly nowhere. “Mick, you have to stop arguing with me like this. Okay? You have to stop. Now, you have to tell me, how or why did you go to that game in the first place? Who invited you?”

  “Nobody invited me, love.”

  “Did you know Father Mathews before you went to that game?”

  “No, I never saw him before in my life. Why are you getting so agitated?”

  “Because, Mick, something brought you to that gym that day. Somebody invited you.”

  Mick sighed. “Nobody invited me. Or I don’t know who invited me. Okay? I was just there. I came out at that game, and another alter actually went there in the first place. I don’t really know who.”

  I blinked my eyes rapidly. I was getting somewhere, but I didn’t quite know where. There was still a missing puzzle piece, and I knew one thing.

  That missing puzzle piece resided with an alter that I hadn’t met yet. An alter that I hadn’t heard of yet. I knew this because Mick was generally aware of the movements of Sam and Eli and Jack. He apparently was not aware of the movements of this other alter. He didn’t even know this other alter’s name.

  So close, and yet so far from my answers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  September 18 (Trial Day)

  “Come on, Mick,” I said impatiently as I walked into my mom’s house to pick him up. “Why are you dawdling? You’re always trying to make us late.”

  He yawned and stretched. “Listen, girly, this might be one of my last days on the outside. One of my last days. I hate to have to spend it in court, and I know that I have to, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it or that I have to try to hurry up and get there.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  I had decided that I was going to roll the dice and try for SODDI. I had a pretty good idea about who did this crime, even though I hadn’t yet interviewed him or deposed him. On the contrary, I didn’t want him to know what I was up to in calling him as a witness.

  My only chance was to break him down on the stand, and there was no way that I was going to be able to do that if I had interviewed him extensively beforehand.

  So, I was flying blind, but I was reasonably confident that I could make it happen.

  Or, so I prayed.

  I changed my mind. “Actually, Mick, it does mean that you have to hurry up and get there. It does.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Mick was dressed in a three-piece suit and I had to admit that he looked effortlessly stylish. His grey hair was newly cut, as I hired a barber to come to my mother’s house and cut it and I also hired a personal shopper to do the same. I knew that Jack had to look his very best if he was going to try to persuade the jury that he was not a crazed killer who had it in for Father Kennedy.

  I was never able to figure out who was the alter who witnessed the murder of Father Kennedy. I had thought about calling a therapist who could put Jack under hypnosis to try to figure that out, but I thought better about that.

  Was I gambling with Uncle Jack’s life? There was not an easy answer to that question, unfortunately. The fact was that trial strategy usually involved at least one risky maneuver. In long-shot cases like this, there was going to have to be a Hail Mary along the way. There simply wasn’t any getting around that fact.

  It helped, however, that I knew, with reasonable certainty, who did this crime. I deduced it from the clues that I got. The problem was proving it to the jury.

  I didn’t know how I was going to do that, though – prove it to a jury. I went to the cops with my admittedly circumstantial evidence about who did this, and they almost laughed me out of the station.

  “Okay, Harper,” Officer Brown said to me. “We have the murder weapon with your Uncle’s fingerprints on it. We have your Uncle there at the scene of the crime. He didn’t confess but he didn’t exactly say that he was innocent, either. Now you’re expecting us to believe some cockamamie story about a man who killed Father Kennedy as revenge for not telling the authorities about a murder that happened 45 years ago?” He shook his head. “You get us some hard evidence, any kind of hard evidence, that this happened and we’ll talk. But until then, please stop wasting my time.”

  I knew that Officer Brown would react like that, so I wasn’t terribly upset. I would have reacted in the same damned way. So, even after I thought that I figured out who did this, I couldn’t prove it in any way shape or form. And, I wasn’t even sure of my own theory anyhow. Like most of my theories, this one was out-there. But that didn’t mean that it was a bad theory. That didn’t mean that at all.

  But it was going to be extremely tricky to get my theory in front of the jury. This was made all the more complicated by the fact that Mick, who was still out, as he explained that Jack would never be able to take the stress of trial, wasn’t going to be a lick of help because he had no clue what happened in that rectory.

  The good thing was that I decided that I was going to have an expert witness at trial. I hired somebody to testify about amnesia and how traumatic events can cause it, and how trauma can cause a person to lose consciousness. I supplied that witness before the June 1 deadline to Vince, who had the chance to depose him. What I hoped that this witness could supply was a theory that Uncle Jack passed out at the scene precisely because he was witnessing a murder taking place.

  I didn’t, however, hire an expert witness who was going to testify to Jack’s mental state at the time of the murder. I could have had a psychologist examine him thoroughly and ascertain the truth, but I didn’t want that. I knew that if I hired this psychologist to testify, then Judge Greene was more than likely to stop the trial and have Jack evaluated further for NGRI, and that would be that. Jack probably would be declared NGRI and he would be put into a mental institution for the rest of his life. The jury would have never heard my evidence regarding my theory as to who really did this crime.

  The upshot was that I wasn’t confident going into this trial. I wasn’t confident at all. I had no idea if I could ever prove my theory of an alternative killer, and if I didn’t, then Jack was going to prison for the rest of his life. In that scenario, I would be forever second-guessing my strategy of doing things this way. The fact was, a mental institution was infinitely better than prison. I would be forever thinking that I should have just gone for NGRI and not have gone for broke.

  I wondered if my mother would ever forgive me for my decisions regarding this trial.

  I wondered if I would ever forgive myself.

  Jack and I got into my SUV and headed to the courthouse. My mother was taking her own car there, and so was Albany and Emma and Brad. The whole gang was going to be there to see me either flame out spectacularly or emerge triumphant.

  I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel, trying to quell my misgivings about my trial strategy. I couldn’t calm my racing heart, and my stomach had a tight knot that wasn’t going away anytime soon. I looked over at Mick, who was looking out the window, and I knew that he was terrified, too. I knew that because he was quiet, and Mick was never quiet.

  He finally sighed. “Harper, I hope that you know what you’re doing.”

  I had ran through the entire trial s
trategy with Mick, explaining that if we tried to have Jack declared legally insane at the time of the murder, there would be no chance for a full acquittal. I also was honest in that I had a good idea who did this murder, but that it was going to be a long-shot in proving it. An extreme long-shot.

  Mick told me to go for broke. “Doll, I can handle prison. I’ll just find me a big strong man to protect me and I’ll be just fine. We’re going to be okay.”

  I gulped as I tried to focus on the road. “I know what I’m doing,” I said weakly. I closed my eyes as the light turned red and bowed my head. “I know what I’m doing.”

  The courthouse came into view. I went and parked my SUV and the two of us walked slowly, slowly to the courthouse steps and then walked slowly up them. We were early, for once, as it was 8:45 and we were scheduled to start picking a jury right at 9. Vince I had one more pre-trial conference that took place the week before, where we agreed that we were going to trial, and we also agreed that neither of us had a pressing motion that needed to be heard.

  Vince was surprisingly mellow about this whole thing. He seemed to be sympathetic to my situation. He knew that my client was my beloved Uncle and he wasn’t doing his usual bullying. He usually tried to psyche me out by telling me how crappy my case was and how I wasn’t going to win and how I really needed to plead. That was his MO.

  But not this time. He didn’t pressure me in the least to plead Jack out. The only thing that he did was gently encourage me to enter a plea of NGRI and ask for a bench trial, where the judge would be the one who would decide Jack’s fate, and not a jury.

  “I think that you know that this is the best route for your Uncle,” Vince had said in one of our meetings.

  I knew he was right. I knew that doing things that way would be the safest route.

  But the way that I decided to play it had, by far, the highest risks but also the highest potential rewards. If I played things right, Jack would be a completely free man by the end of the week.

  And if I called things completely wrong, he would be in prison for the rest of his life.

  The stakes couldn’t be higher.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Okay, Harper,” Vince said when I came through the door. “We’re ready to go. I hope that you are too.”

  “I am,” I nodded. “I’m ready to go.”

  He looked over at Mick, who was sitting quietly at the defense table, his hands clasped in front of him. “It’s not too late to avoid this,” Vince said. “Judge Greene is a reasonable guy. You can still try for a NGRI plea. Judge Greene would order your client to be evaluated and we can come back here later and make sure that your Uncle gets the help that he needs.”

  I stiffened my spine. “We went through this. That’s not the direction I’m going.” I hoped that my voice told him that I was more confident than I actually was.

  Vince shook his head. “Your move. At any rate, the jury panel is going to be coming in soon.”

  Sure enough, 50 men and women made their way into the courtroom and took a seat where the spectators usually sit. They were quiet and solemn and they consisted of men and women from all walks of life. There were doctors in this panel and two lawyers. There were a few construction workers and plumbers and three nurses. There were Asians and Native Americans and Hispanics and blacks and whites. They were all ages - the youngest was 21, the oldest was 80. The jury panel was a perfect cross-section of America, and I was going to have to figure out who amongst them would be “right” for my case.

  Picking a jury was always a stressful process, made more so in a case like this. I always hoped that I could possibly pick at least one person who was going to be sympathetic to my defense, because one juror voting “not guilty” would be enough for the jury to hang, and, if the jury hangs, there is always the potential for the prosecution deciding not to try the case again.

  Outright acquittal from a jury was always a long-shot proposition, and it was really a long-shot here. Nevertheless, if I could find a jury that would not be too closed-minded to my theory of the case, then I might have a shot.

  The prospective jurors sat quietly until the bailiff came out. “All rise,” he said, as everyone stood up. “The case of State of Missouri v. Calhoun has now come to order, the Honorable Harold Greene presiding.”

  Judge Greene took a seat. “You may be seated.”

  He gave the jury instructions while Vince and I paced around the floor. I was nervous, so nervous. I had never been more nervous in my entire life. I was gambling with the life of my Uncle. I was putting everything I had into a long-shot theory and I was questioning this strategy with every breath I took.

  Vance’s words rang through my ears. It’s not too late to try for a NGRI plea. Judge Greene is a reasonable judge. All I had to do was to explain to Judge Greene that I made a mistake in not trying for NGRI, and he would stop the trial so that Jack could be evaluated. That’s all I had to do.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My insides were roiling and I simply couldn’t stop my racing heart. I looked down at my hands, and they were shaking.

  I opened my eyes and saw that Vince was questioning the jurors. It would soon be my turn.

  I looked up at Judge Greene, who was smiling placidly at the jurors. He was a reasonable, fair-minded judge. Vince was probably right – if I decided to tell him that I changed my mind about NGRI, Judge Greene would stop the trial. I only needed to say the word.

  Vince did his voir dire, and I stood up to do mine. I asked question after question, trying to get a feel for the jurors who were before me. This was always a tricky thing, trying to suss everybody out. I did the best I could with my questions, but it was never an exact science. It was more of an art, which meant that there would inevitably be variables and mistakes. I had the sense that I was being too careful with my questioning and I was second-guessing myself.

  Calm down, Harper. Calm down. You got this.

  I did my questions, the jury was excused, and Vince and I sat down to do our challenges and our strikes for cause. Basically, we were entitled to 10 peremptory challenges apiece, and we were also entitled to unlimited strikes for cause, but those were hard to come by. If a juror, for instance, said that he or she would not be able put their prejudices and biases aside and judge the case on its merits, that was a strike for cause. Most jurors, however, stated that they could put aside their biases and prejudices, so that made striking for cause a limited proposition.

  As for peremptory challenges, those were typically made with combination of gut instinct and the facts as they presented themselves. Since the peremptory challenges were limited, unlike strikes for cause, I needed to use them sparingly.

  I closed my eyes as I looked at the sheet that listed the jurors on it. I tried hard to calm my heart, but I could feel it. It was almost audible in my ears, and I put my hand on my wrist and felt it thumping.

  You got this. What is wrong with you? You’ve done hundreds of trials. This one is no different. It’s no different.

  But all the little pep talks to myself wasn’t doing it this time. I was second-guessing everything at that moment. I was second-guessing my jury peremptory challenges and my strikes for cause. I was second-guessing my trial strategy. I was second-guessing my decision not to try for NGRI. I was second-guessing my decision to roll the dice, with my Uncle’s life on the line.

  I looked over at Mick, who was sitting calmly, his hands clasped in front of him. I thought about how Jack was going to completely disappear if he was sentenced to prison, and how we were going to lose him forever if that happened. I considered the alternative, that Jack would be sentenced to a mental institution, one that he would never leave, but, perhaps, life would be slightly better than if he went to prison.

  But I doubted that Jack would be able to handle that fate, either. He was too weak, too vulnerable. He needed the love of his family and a good therapist. I pictured him sitting in front of a window, looking out it, despairing day by day about his fate. I saw
the sterile white walls, I smelled the antiseptic scent that always permeated every hospital I had ever been to, and I saw his environment. I had been through tours of those mental institutions, and they weren’t fun. People were screaming and cursing through the halls, others were always crying, and still others were wandering the halls aimlessly. Nobody was in touch with reality.

  I had been in a psychiatric facility myself, but that was something different. Where Jack would go would be specifically a facility for the criminally insane, and that was a different beast altogether. It would be a depressing existence, not to mention a dangerous one. These facilities were filled with paranoid schizophrenics who were hearing voices telling them to kill. They were filled with dangerous psychopaths who had not one ounce of remorse. They were filled with people who were in various stages of desperation.

  They were filled with people like Robert Dunn, who impaled, stabbed and practically beheaded his daughter because he was convinced that she was the Devil. People like John Hinckley, Jr., who shot President Reagan because he wanted to impress the actress Jody Foster. People like Andrea Yates, who drowned her five sons in the bathtub.

  These were the people who populated these mental institutions. I feared for Jack’s safety if he was committed to such a place.

  I shook my head. No, the mental institution wasn’t an option for Jack. It wasn’t.

  I was going to have roll that dice.

  OUR JURY WAS SELECTED and the trial was set to begin. I looked over my opening statement, closed my eyes and silently spoke to myself. I opened my eyes and looked over at Mick, whose own eyes weren’t meeting mine.

  He silently put his hand on mine while looking straight ahead.

  The bailiff stood at the front of the courtroom. “All rise,” he said, as we all stood.

  Judge Greene took his seat at the bench. “You may be seated. Counselors, I understand that you are ready to proceed to opening statements, is that correct?”

  “Yes, your honor,” we both said.