The Liar

by Steve Cavanagh

  Copeland had already lodged the appeal – and the conviction could be overturned administratively by one signature from a friendly appellate court judge.

  I was at the double doors that led to the elevator by the time Copeland opened the conference room door. “He assaulted me. He grabbed me,” he said.

  Before Copeland could speak, all the heads in the room slowly turned to look at me, accusingly.

  “He fell. I was helping him up,” I said.

  I didn’t stay for the argument. The release button for the door was on the left hand wall, and I slapped it and pushed my way out of there. A door closer slowed the swing of the heavy doors and I saw Copeland pointing at me and shouting at Powers and Lynch.

  The elevator announced its arrival with a bright, perky chime. A hand caught the door to the DA’s office and pushed it open again.

  I was joined in the elevator by Harper and Washington. They stood either side of me. All three of us stared straight ahead as the elevator doors closed.

  “They need to change the carpeting in that room,” said Washington.

  “Damn straight,” said Harper. “I almost tripped over it myself.”

  The doors closed.

  Washington said, “He’ll want to press charges.”

  I shrugged.

  “I can’t see a District Attorney prosecuting a case for an assault against the most hated defense lawyer in the state. Particularly when that lawyer alleges he got assaulted in the DA’s own office with the Chief of Police and the FBI standing outside the room. They didn’t hear any kind of commotion. His word against mine. No, that case would be deeply embarrassing for Ms King, and I’ve got a feeling such a case wouldn’t enjoy reasonable prospects of success.”

  “Don’t bet on it. Copeland’s not the kind of man to let this go so easily,” said Harper.

  My hands dove into my pockets. I brought out Copeland’s cell phone, flicked my finger across the screen to bring it to life.

  I was met with a ten digit number pad and a request to enter the password to unlock the device. A temporary inconvenience at worst.

  The overhead lighting in the elevator felt offensively bright, and perfect for my purposes. I held the phone up, and angled it so that it caught the light. On the screen, I could see two groups of circular smudges in the top left hand corner and just below and opposite. In between was a long smear, made by Copeland’s thumb scrolling through the phone. The groups of fingerprints on either side sat perfectly over the “6” and “1” on the password screen. I figured Copeland to be in his late forties, to early fifties. Year of birth could be sixty-six. I typed in 1-1-6-6 and the screen unlocked.

  The menu icon sat in the corner of the screen. I selected it and disabled phone calls by activating airplane mode, I made sure he couldn’t trace the phone by deactivating the location signal. In another app, I found the audio recordings. There were a bunch of them, labeled under different names. Client names, I suspected. The audio folder titled “Vindico” held three recordings.

  By checking the time signatures on the recordings I found the one he’d just made, and deleted the file. I wanted to listen to the other two files, but they would have to wait.

  I couldn’t resist checking the rest of the phone. The text messages were mostly from “Office” and contained dates and times of cases for hearing, and names and telephone numbers for various people.

  Like, “Taggart. Rape. November 30th Brooklyn, Court 4.”

  But some messages were more personal. He’d had an exchange of texts with his office about my visit that morning.

  He thought I was fishing. His secretary thought I was too, but added that she thought I was cute. She didn’t get a reply to that message.

  July 2011

  Premier Point, New York

  The bright purples, reds, yellows and whites of Rebecca Howell’s garden seemed pale and gray to her. She sat at the kitchen window, looking over the lawn, the flower garden and the lane beyond. Perhaps the tears that had flooded her vision all day were somehow filtering all color from her view. That’s what she’d thought, at first. Today had been hard. Harder than most days and every single waking morning had been agony for her, for so long.

  But today was special. It was okay to cry today.

  One of Caroline’s friends had invited her for dinner, and then study. School would finish soon, for the summer, and Caroline’s last exam was next week. God, the thought of having her for another summer had made Rebecca feel physically sick.

  Those first years of Caroline’s life had been bliss. The night feeds, the early mornings, the crying, colic, toilet training, all of the difficult things that parents complain about had not bothered Rebecca in the slightest. She had her special baby. The child that she had longed for, for years and years. Her little miracle.

  Rebecca had insisted that they move after the baby was born. She told Leonard that they needed a bigger house, somewhere quiet, somewhere far away. At first, Leonard didn’t want to move, but the business with Rebecca’s sister had proved to be the final straw. Her sister’s trial brought attention. She wanted to leave, to get away, before the reporters found her. Rebecca hadn’t gone back to work following Caroline’s birth – she was still on maternity leave. The county employed a retired medical examiner to fill in during her absence. If the press found out her career could suffer, her new family could suffer. Our family is private, she had told Leonard. And for a time, their new life away from it all had been the happiest that Rebecca could remember.

  But as Caroline grew older, things changed.

  It was that first trip to the lake when Caroline turned seven. Watching her child splash in the shallows with her husband. Remembering her own childhood with Julie, when they had played in the same pools, and run along the same country paths.

  Too much.

  She spent less and less time with her daughter. Until, finally, she could not stand to look upon the face of her special child.

  That was when she’d decided that she’d made a mistake. Later that morning, she dropped Caroline at school and visited the little stationery store a block up from the school gates. She bought writing paper and a pen, returned home and sat now in her kitchen, staring out of the window through her tears.

  Rebecca took up the pen, and removed two sheets of writing paper from the cellophane wrapper.

  Her pen flowed quickly over one page, then the next. She folded the second page, put it in an envelope, wrote “Lenny” on the front of the envelope and left it for him to find. The second letter she would mail.

  Standing at her open front door, she looked around the house for the final time. At last, she grabbed her car keys from the bowl in the hall and left.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  I knew the DA, the cops, and the FBI had agreed to meet Barker’s demands before they officially came to tell me as I waited outside the courtroom. From the atrium window I’d seen a black Mercedes pull up outside, a white-haired guy in a navy suit get out of the passenger seat, sign a document held by a clerk on a clipboard, fold his old white ass back into the Mercedes and take off into the night.

  Appellate court justice in full swing. Only it was usually the other way around. A lawyer could spend years working on appeals for a wrongly convicted man, only to have an appellate judge spend five seconds glancing at the papers before deciding not to bother reading it, and that the guy was probably guilty of something and deserved to rot away in a cell for the rest of his life.

  The clerk ran back into the building.

  I knew this was bad. Scott Barker was getting everything he wanted. His game was playing out exactly as he’d planned.

  The corridor lighting threw my reflection onto the glass. My tie was undone, hanging loosely at my open collar. I looked like I’d aged a year in a day. I felt it too. My legs were sore, my back and my neck. And my ribs were still smarting from Lynch’s shot.

  I rubbed at the fleshy muscle at the top of my shoulders, working my fingers deep into the tissue. />
  “They were always going to take the deal,” said Harry.

  His reflection joined mine. Seeing both of us in the glass made me realize how much weight Harry had lost. The Rosen appeal was eating him.

  “I figure if the appeal is granted without a hearing, you won’t face the same kind of criticism,” I said.

  “Don’t bet on it. I was informed by the Commission on Judicial Complaints, in no uncertain terms, that if the appeal was granted I would be expected to resign. The pleadings Copeland has lodged have already created a stink.” said Harry.

  “And are you going to resign?”

  “No. Not like this. Copeland knew the appeal would ultimately go this way. It has been planned, very carefully. I won’t bow down to that son of a bitch. No way. I was never going to be Supreme Court Justice anyway.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said.

  “I’m a small part in a clever man’s game. You know, in many ways, it’s easier predicting what an intelligent man will do than what a stupid man will do. Don’t you think?” said Harry.

  I said nothing. Just stared at the glass, our image framed in the lukewarm glow of halogen lighting and the night sky.

  “There’s often meaning, or at least significance behind every act conceived by a great mind,” said Harry.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Well, take the fake name, for example. George Vindico.”

  “What about it?”

  “It has meaning,” said Harry, with a sigh.

  “Means nothing to me.”

  “I think it will, in time. George could be from Saint George. One of the most famous saints. He was a soldier. Legend says he slayed the dragon that cut off the water supply to a village, and that in later life George became a martyr when he refused to renounce Christianity.”

  “That’s a bit of a leap, Harry. Could be he picked the name George because he’s a boxing fan or he’s got one of Foreman’s grills at home.”

  Harry didn’t laugh.

  “I don’t think so. Not when you consider the last name – Vindico. It’s Latin. It means ‘revenge’. I think Scott Barker created his fake identity to get close to Howell so that he could take revenge for Julie Rosen. He’s getting her a posthumous acquittal. He’s making her a martyr.”

  I considered what Harry had said.

  “If that’s true, then who is the dragon he’s trying to slay?” I said.

  Harry shook his head.

  “That’s what you’ve got to find out,” he said.

  The courtroom doors behind us swung open, and Michelle King stood in the open doorway. She held a signed document in her hand. She was smiling. She’d got what she wanted.

  I knew in my bones that the only person who’d gotten what they wanted was Scott Barker.

  “We’re starting in five minutes. We’ve made a deal with Barker. Full immunity. He’ll reveal everything on the stand. We learn about the truth same time as you,” said King.

  I nodded.

  “Be careful in there, Eddie,” said Harry.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  I’d been practicing as an attorney for a good many years. I was still young, but I had put in my time in the courtroom. I knew a few tricks. I’d seen things. During a complex mail fraud trial I’d seen a juror fall asleep right in the middle of the prosecution’s opening statement. Couple of years ago, a juror in a robbery homicide case had not looked at me, or any of the witnesses, or the judge or the prosecutor for the whole two weeks of the trial. He’d stared at the ceiling the whole time.

  I thought I’d seen everything.

  But I never saw a jury so pissed off in all my life.

  Every single one of them.

  I folded my arms, scowled at the judge and the DA and made a point of looking pissed too. I kept the jury in my peripheral vision as they took their seats. A couple of them nudged the juror next to them, then subtly hinted in my direction.

  See, he’s just as angry as we are.

  Any chance I got to get into bed with a jury, I took it. Little things sometimes make all the difference.

  A cop in uniform followed behind Scott Barker as he made his way back to the witness stand. The cop stood to the right of the jury, and let Barker make the last few strides to the witness stand. Seeing him walk normally told me a lot. His back was straight, feet fairly wide apart as he walked, and his arms swung loosely by his sides. He gave the appearance of a man on his way to do some serious damage in a fight; he was always in perfect balance and control.

  A hand on my shoulder. Harper.

  The judge was arranging her papers on her desk, King was whispering to her assistant and the jury were being handed their trial folders by a clerk.

  “What is it? Not much time here,” I said.

  She knelt down, and I could feel her breath on my neck as she whispered.

  “I’ve just heard, somebody from the Justice Department is on their way here, right now. Guy called Alexander Berlin. He has information on Barker …”

  The clerk had handed out six trial bundles to the six jurors in the front row. She stepped up to the back row and gave out another six.

  “No time, just tell me what you’ve got,” I said.

  “He started out as a drug runner. Got caught by the DEA and turned snitch. He brought down the whole organization. But Justice kept him on a leash and sent him out to do the same thing again. This guy has been in some of the toughest holes in the US, getting cozy with the hardest, worst people you can imagine. Somewhere along the line, he forgot he was supposed to be working for the good guys. Berlin suspects Barker has killed to get inside these organizations, but they can’t prove it. It’s confirmation – this guy will do anything to get what he wants, including murder.”

  All of the feeling disappeared from my fingers. Like I’d just held them in an ice bucket for a half hour. I turned, and saw Harry a row back, watching Barker.

  “Jesus, and he’s been with Howell all this time,” I said.

  “I know. Just watch yourself.”

  “Does the DA’s office know this?” I said.

  Harper shook her head, got up and walked away to take a seat in the row behind Harry.

  Judge Schultz cleared her throat, and began explaining to the jury that there was essential testimony which had to be given in this trial, that it was time-sensitive due to another unrelated matter, and that the jury should hear it tonight. At least three audible groans from the jury could be plainly heard in the courtroom. When the judge told them they’d get an additional payment for the late sitting, it brought the jurors to life, and made the most belligerent of them shut up.

  Judge Schultz finished her address to the jury.

  Michelle King got to her feet, opened her notes and asked the witness her first question.

  “When we were last here, you had indicated that your real name was Scott Barker, not George Vindico. Why did you take a false name?”

  The question seemed a little alien to Barker. His eyes took on a fixed stare, and he ignored the crowd, much thinned thanks to our late proceedings.

  “I created the identity of George Vindico for my own purposes. To get close to Leonard Howell and his daughter.”

  Everyone within a twenty-foot radius of Michelle King heard her neck crack as her head snapped in the direction of the jury stand. The jurors were confused, shocked, palms raised, mouths open.

  “Your Honor …” said King.

  “No way, Ms King,” said the judge. Barker’s answer was not what King was expecting. He was hinting that he was the one who’d targeted Caroline Howell. I knew King had been about to ask the judge for a mistrial. An unexpected statement like that could prejudice any jury. But Schultz was having none of it. Not yet.

  King had to regain control or go down in flames. From the defense table, I saw the veins pulse in her throat, her neck and cheeks turning from pale pink to deep, violent red. Everything she’d ever worked for hung on the strength of her next question. Her eyes sudden
ly took on a sharp focus, and I knew she’d found something to anchor Barker’s testimony.

  She turned, picked out a document from the top of the pile on her table, and handed it to the clerk. The clerk gave it to the judge. Schultz skim read the ten-page agreement. Handed it back to the clerk who swiveled in her chair and returned it to King.

  As King’s high heels echoed on the floor, I thought I could detect a new confidence in the rhythm and determination of her stride. She slapped the document onto the small shelf in the witness stand, spun away and backed up ten feet. Without picking it up, Barker glanced at the document.

  “This document is an immunity agreement, which you signed, in the presence of witnesses, not ten minutes ago, correct?”

  She was leading the witness, and I could’ve objected, but Schultz would not have sustained my interruption – she was prepared to give King some leeway with this guy.

  “Yes,” said Barker.

  The jury looked as though they were on a rollercoaster that was sailing up the incline, the wheels slowly clacking along, their apprehension building the closer the car got to the drop.

  “Mr Barker, this agreement grants you immunity from prosecution in relation to your part in the kidnapping and murder of Caroline Howell in exchange for your testimony in this case against the defendant, isn’t that correct?”

  “Not quite,” said Barker.

  “Excuse me?” said King.

  “Not quite,” said Barker, again. Louder this time.

  The flush returned to King’s neck, and she clasped her hands together tightly, the whites of her knuckles standing out against the backdrop of scarlet nail polish.

  “The agreement is very clear, and was explained to you by your lawyer before you signed it, Mr Barker.”

  “Oh, I agree. The wording of the agreement is plain and clear,” he said, picking up the document.

  He flipped over a page and his lips moved quickly and silently as he read through the document looking for a particular passage.