Line of Vision

by David Ellis

  “A good friend.” Paul nods and looks at the jury. Then back at her. “How’d you two meet?”

  “Objection,” Roger Ogren says. “This is entirely irrelevant.”

  The judge waves Ogren off again without speaking.

  “We met at the tennis club,” Rachel says.

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say—maybe January of last year.”

  “January. That would be—about three, four months before you started seeing the psychiatrist.”

  “Something like that.”

  I hear a ruckus behind me. I turn to see Billy Colgan, one of the associates from Paul’s firm working on my case, who has just slipped into the courtroom. He is out of breath and red-faced. Mandy turns to Billy, who nods and proudly hands her a slip of paper with three phone numbers on it, then a stack of papers with court seals on them.

  Paul looks over at us, watching Colgan hand over the documents, then returns to Rachel with a smile. “Are you still good friends? You and Rudy?”

  “Yes, I’d say so.”

  “How often do you two talk?” Paul is almost sweet as he asks these things, like he’s prodding a reluctant friend about the details of her lover.

  Rachel, for her part, has finally gotten her balance. She assumes a tone of disbelief, confusion. Her face is in a permanent crinkle now, her shoulders slightly raising with every question, as if she can’t understand why we’re talking about this guy.

  “I really couldn’t say how often we talk.”

  “Once a week?”

  “Not that often.”

  “Once a month?”

  But even still, Rachel hasn’t had time to prepare for this questioning. Her eyes are intent; beneath them her mind is in overdrive trying to get ahead of Paul, looking for the traps that await her.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Riley. I really don’t remember.”

  “No? Was there a time when you talked to him every day?”

  “No!” Rachel shifts in her seat, startled at the volume of her own voice. “No. Never that often.”

  “Did you talk to him yesterday?”

  “No, I certainly did not.”

  “Okay . . . let’s say, since . . . last Christmas. Have you talked to him since then?”

  “Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe.”

  “Have you seen him since then?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “He lives just a couple of blocks away from you, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Ever been to his house?”

  Another pause. I really have no idea if she’s been to his house or not. But if she has, she has to be careful here. “I’m not sure. I might have.”

  “You don’t remember if you’ve been to his house?”

  “No, Mr. Riley, I do not.”

  “Do you know if Rudy Sprovieri is married?”

  “Ummm . . .” She ponders this with that contorted expression. “Yes, he is.”

  “Ever met his wife?”

  “No.”

  “Does she know about you?”

  “Objection!” Ogren yelps, jumping to his feet faster than I thought he was capable. “The question is without foundation and it is completely suggestive. Your Honor, he’s—counsel is making it appear that something nefarious was taking place between these two. That is a completely baseless accusation.”

  Nefarious, Mr. Ogren? Baseless, you say?

  “The objection is sustained,” Judge Mack says. He turns to Paul. “Mr. Riley, you’ve overstepped your bounds. The question is stricken from the record.”

  “Well then.” Paul clasps his hands in front of him. “Let me be more direct.”

  Rachel holds her breath.

  “Mrs. Reinardt, isn’t it true that at the time your husband disappeared, you were having an affair with Rudy Sprovieri?”

  “What!” Rachel gasps.

  Paul takes a step forward. “Isn’t it—”

  “No! Absolutely not.”

  “And aren’t you still having an affair with him?”

  “No! What kind of person are you?”

  “And didn’t you and Rudy Sprovieri plan to kill your husband together?”

  Ogren is on his feet now, complaining up a storm. The spectators are making quite a bit of noise themselves. Rachel, during all of this, looks around in horror, her eyes sweeping the jury, the gallery, and past me—but she catches my eyes and returns to me, the disbelief gone now, just a cold dark stare. I maintain eye contact, allowing the slightest of smirks.

  Paul and Ogren approach the bench. Judge Mack bangs his gavel for order in a suddenly noisy courtroom. After a decidedly brief moment, the judge sends Ogren to his seat. Paul has the court reporter read back the question.

  Rachel is fuming now, tears all down her face, her throat full. “No. We didn’t plan anything together.”

  “You lied about the abuse, Mrs. Reinardt, didn’t you? That way, if you killed your husband yourself, you had a built-in defense!”

  “No! That’s a lie.”

  “And you drew up that petition for a restraining order just in case, isn’t that true?”

  “No!”

  “Just in case you needed to frame Marty for the murder!”

  “No!”

  “And, Mrs. Reinardt, as part of your plan, wasn’t Rudy Sprovieri supposed to threaten Marty to keep quiet about your and Rudy’s affair?”

  “No! None of that is true!”

  “And just last night, didn’t Rudy Sprovieri call Marty and threaten to kill him if he told anyone? Wasn’t that part of the plan?”

  “No! There was no plan. This is all wrong!”

  “And don’t you know for a fact that Rudy Sprovieri called Marty last night?”

  “No.”

  “And again this morning? Threatening Marty? Threatening him not to spill the beans about you and Mr. Sprovieri?”

  “My God! No! No no no!” Rachel slams her hands down on the railing, half out of her chair now. “I can’t believe you’re saying these things! It was Marty who did this!” She points at me. I shake my head sympathetically. “I saw him! Didn’t you hear me? I saw him!”

  Paul brings his hands together at his waist, watching, with no lack of amusement, Rachel’s tirade. Ogren stands and asks for a recess, a brief one, just five or ten minutes. Paul says he has no problem with that, but he would like a moment of the judge’s time once the jury is excused. So the jurors leave in whispers and contorted faces, Rachel gets up in a heap and storms out of the courtroom, and from the sounds of it, a good number of the spectators leave in a hurry. Paul hands the prosecution several sheets of paper and addresses the judge while Ogren flips through them furiously. For the record, Paul tells Judge Mack, based on the new circumstances of these phone calls from last night and this morning to my house, he is issuing subpoenas for the phone records of Michael Rudolph Sprovieri at his home and his place of business, as well as the phone records of three pay phones in the lobby of the building Mr. Sprovieri works at. For the last three months. He hopes the prosecution will cooperate to obtain these records with all due speed.

  The judge might be disinclined to allow these motions if it will delay the trial. Paul has told me this. But what Paul doesn’t know is that there will be a delay anyway. Within the last few minutes, the Highland Woods Police Department has learned the whereabouts of the body of Dr. Derrick Reinardt. Roger Ogren will hear about this soon enough. What with the autopsy and all the other tests they will perform, this trial will have to be postponed. At the prosecution’s request.

  But Ogren doesn’t know this yet, and he is indignant at the mention of the subpoenas and furiously argues against Paul, babbling about red herrings and goose chases, waving his arms in the air and, at one point, slamming his fist on the table and knocking a stack of papers to the floor. Paul, in turn, is incredulous. Isn’t this about truth, Your Honor? Does the prosecution really have a problem in unearthing the truth?

 
This word, as always, brings a smile to my lips. Truth. Each side gives their own version of what happened, Mandy once said to me, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth. Somewhere in the middle. That elusive middle. A middle that we just might reach.

  But I doubt it.

  BOOK THREE

  78

  COUNTY ATTORNEY PHILLIP EVERETT STANDS TO deliver his closing statement. His suit is a smart double-breasted gray pinstripe, with a blue-and-silver tie that he has knotted perfectly. He buttons his coat as he stands, first pausing and making a slight turn to the gallery of spectators, taking in his moment, acknowledging the crowd, even giving a brief nod to Roger Ogren. Then he approaches the lectern, square in the center of the jury box, set back about five feet, where his notes have already been placed. The jury is depleted after a lengthy and emotional trial, but they know now that the end is in sight, and they know what awaits them. They will have to make a decision that will affect the lives of at least one man, and probably to some degree their own. And depending on how they decide, they might face the question of imposing capital punishment. Sending a man to his death.

  The press has berated the prosecution of late for the Reinardt murder case, very bad timing for Everett, who is said to be ready to announce his Senate campaign in the coming weeks. So what does Everett do? He says, you want it done right, you do it yourself. He rolled up his sleeves and participated in the end of this trial, and now will close it off. If he gets a conviction, he is the tough prosecutor who gets things done. If he loses, he is still the man who supports his underlings in a time of crisis, not afraid to take the shrapnel. I must grudgingly credit him with a heady political move.

  I look across to Roger Ogren and Gretchen Flaherty. They sit composed and attentive. Before the proceedings began today, Ogren actually gave me something like a nod, a just-doing-my-job. Maybe he’s reconsidering my guilt. Maybe, guilt or not, he doesn’t enjoy this part of it, taking another person’s liberty and maybe his life.

  Phillip Everett takes two steps from the podium and laces his hands together at his waist. The jurors are fixed on him; I have noticed their reaction to his appearance in this courtroom the last few days, the seemingly heightened importance attached to this case with the participation of a man all of them have seen on television. Does this favor the prosecution, I wonder. Not for the first time, a shiver runs through me. Can the life of a man depend, in some small part, on the fame and importance of the person who is prosecuting him? Can his fate rise or fall on the added credibility of his accusers? I want to believe not. I want to believe somehow that the jury sees this for what it is—politics, desperation, maybe even an indication that the state’s case is weak enough that they have to bring in the big gun. But Dad didn’t raise no fool. The prosecution’s chances of a conviction have increased.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Everett says quietly, “I want to thank you for your participation in this trial. It’s been a grueling few weeks, for us as well as for you, especially you, and all of us realize that. We have asked you to take time away from your families, from your work, from your lives. And on behalf of the People, I want to thank you.”

  The prosecutor looks down humbly and pauses. “But this is one of the most important tasks you will perform in your lives. The room we sit in”—he looks around reverently and lifts out his hands—“is a court of law. A court of justice. And we ask you to do only what is just. What is just for the people. What is just for Derrick Reinardt.”

  The prosecutor turns and points at the defense table. Don’t shrink away if he points at you, Paul reminded me over and over again. Look him in the eye.

  But seeing the prosecutor’s finger, I let out a very quiet groan.

  “The defendant murdered Dr. Derrick Reinardt on November eighteenth of last year. He entered his house by smashing through a glass door. He shot him twice, in cold blood, while Dr. Reinardt lay on the floor helpless.” He turns back to the jury. “Helpless.”

  This is not the first time I’ve heard Dr. Reinardt described as “helpless” that night. For the longest time, I greeted that characterization with scorn. Now, I realize, it probably wasn’t far off the mark. The way his eyelids froze as he realized death was coming. The way he tried to move his leg, in a vain attempt to push himself away from me, as I stood over him with the gun.

  I shake my head out of the dreamy trance I tend to fall into when I think of that night. I promised myself I would listen to every word of Everett’s close.

  Everett stops and swings out his arms. “And you know what? His plan worked. It worked to perfection. For months, nobody had any idea where Dr. Reinardt was. Nobody had any idea it was the defendant who was involved. Nobody knew. His plan worked.”

  I wipe the perspiration from my forehead; to my surprise, even after all this time, I am still so affected by hearing these descriptions of the Reinardt murder.

  “And why did the defendant do this? He did this so he could spend his life with Rachel, the doctor’s wife. He wanted to marry her, so he could spend the millions of dollars Dr. Reinardt had worked hard for. The oldest motives in the book, ladies and gentlemen: love, sex, lust”—he turns back to the defense table again—“and greed.”

  Greed. There’s a new one. There has been almost nothing said at the trial about Dr. Reinardt’s wealth. Those are the kinds of mistakes you would expect, I suppose, from someone who is joining the trial late. I notice Ogren grimacing at the remark, too. I wonder what he thinks of the job his boss is doing on this closing argument.

  The prosecutor lets go of his faraway look now and slaps a fist into his hand. “The evidence against the defendant is overwhelming. The police recovered a .38-caliber gun from the defendant’s basement, hidden in a wooden chest underneath assorted memorabilia—I guess this was just another souvenir for the defendant. And you heard the testimony: This was the gun used to murder Dr. Reinardt.”

  Now he’s ticking off the facts on his hand. “We found sand in his basement that matches the sand from the baseball field in Mount Rayford where Dr. Reinardt was buried. You heard the testimony. A direct”—he slaps the back of one hand into the palm of another—“match.”

  The prosecutor turns on his heels now and glances at his notes. “And let’s talk about the baseball field. When the police uncovered Dr. Reinardt, what did they find? A crumpled ATM receipt. A receipt that reflected a withdrawal from the defendant’s checking account. Probably fell right out of his pocket while he was bending over and throwing the doctor into the hole he’d dug.”

  I fold one leg over the other as the prosecutor continues. The gallery seats, especially the front row spot I have been given out of courtesy, are so much more comfortable than sitting at the defense table.

  Where to begin. The phone records that Paul subpoenaed showed repeated phone calls to Rachel’s house in January and February. Some came from Rudy Sprovieri’s house, but most came from the pay phones in the lobby where he worked—a blatant attempt, Paul told the jury in his closing argument at my trial, to keep the calls from registering to Rudy’s name. There were also several calls from his office to mine, only days after the murder, which I now affectionately refer to as the I-saw-you calls. Finally, the records showed several calls to my house, including three calls the night before Rachel’s cross-examination and one the next morning—these were the calls Rudy made after receiving my note, but which Paul claimed were phone calls in which Rudy threatened me to keep quiet.

  The day after Rachel’s cross-examination at my trial, Detective Theodore Cummings of the Highland Woods Police Department received two very startling videotapes in the mail. These videotapes were made on January 3 and January 15 of this year. They were fairly low on quality—the maker’s no Hitchcock—but quite scintillating in content. The star of the films was Rachel Reinardt, her costar the dashing Rudy Sprovieri. The first film began in the back of a motel off Route 41, an hour out of the city, where our costar got out of his red BMW, looked around once or twice, pulled his jacket collar
up around his face, and hustled around to the front of the hotel. Rachel showed up about ten minutes later, dressed in a smashing winter-white leather coat, parking her car right next to Rudy’s, in the back of the lot, out of sight. The stars returned to the parking lot roughly an hour later, five minutes apart, presumably satiated, and drove away.

  The sequel—“Rachel ’n’ Rudy Do the Town”—was located on the north side of our commercial district, Rachel ducking into a hotel with several shopping bags, which made her entry through the door just difficult enough so that the director got a good long close-up of her before she went in. Rudy showed nothing but his profile on the way in, but he made a nice pose as he exited the hotel an hour later.

  Over the next two days after the receipt of these tapes by Cummings, there was not a peep to be heard from Roger Ogren. My defense attorneys had no idea the tapes even existed.

  On the third day, reporter Andrew Karras of the Daily Watch received the same package of videotapes, with an anonymous letter, scrawled haphazardly in red ink, wondering why the police hadn’t made this video public or, at the very least, told my defense attorneys about these tapes. This very issue was then the subject of a front-page article in the Metro section the next day by Mr. Karras, entitled “What Are the Kalish Prosecutors Hiding?”

  Paul Riley, celebrated defense attorney, was indignant in the judge’s chambers that day. If the article was true, it corroborated his theory that Michael Rudolph Sprovieri was having an affair with Rachel Reinardt. It was, without a doubt, Brady material, meaning it was something the prosecution was required to turn over.

  Roger Ogren reluctantly confirmed that he had the tapes but said that their authenticity was still an issue, and wasn’t it oh-so-convenient that these tapes suddenly popped up? Paul Riley was beside himself. What was Mr. Ogren suggesting? That these tapes came from the defense? What possible reason would we have to withhold these tapes for so long? And what proof was there that we had anything to do with those tapes? Who knows who made those tapes?

  The only person, besides me, who could have answered that question was Gregory Quillar, a former private investigator who served as the choreographer, director, and executive producer of those videos, and who signed an exclusive distribution deal with me, the delivery made in a shoe box at his offices many weeks ago. Mr. Quillar is contemplating retirement now after receiving a very tidy fee from the Martin Kiernan Kalish Defense Fund. Payments in cash, of course.