Matter of Trust

by Sydney Bauer

  Connor was starting to panic. Will’s questions were unsettling him. Will’s school grades might have sucked, but when it came to practical shit like this he was smarter than smart. He was a street kid who knew the right questions to ask – and the answers to all of them spelled disaster.

  Will must have read the panic on Connor’s face. ‘Look, this might not be as bad as it looks,’ he said. ‘So the cops suspect him. That doesn’t mean they have the evidence to—’

  ‘No, Will.’ Connor shook his head, the blood in his temples pulsing so hard he was having difficultly thinking. ‘You don’t get it. My dad is a public figure. He will be tried by the people of New Jersey – the same people now glued to the news flashes showing footage of him being carted away in chains.’

  ‘Which means fuck-all if the cops can’t prove that he did this, and they can’t, Connor – there is no fucking way. Besides, the people are sick and tired of the cops targeting good men like your dad. So what if the murdered chick was an old friend? They can’t prove he was banging her. There is no way they’re getting any evidence from that whore’s corpse, my friend. That’s why we did what we did, remember? That’s why we sorted things out.’

  There was silence until Jack spoke up at last. ‘So what do we do now?’ he asked. He was driving in circles, taking the tree-lined corners either too wide or too fast.

  ‘We wait,’ said Will. ‘We need to find out how this lawyer guy . . . What’s his name?’

  ‘David Cavanaugh.’

  ‘We need to find out how this Cavanaugh is going to play this. He’ll be the first to know what the cops think they’ve got, so we need to get inside his head.’

  Connor groaned.

  ‘Listen to me, Connor.’ Will twisted a little further in his seat. ‘Cops these days are full of shit. Arresting your dad is just their way of trying to look pro-active. Our murder rate is in the crapper. Jesus, they’d arrest the goddamned Pope if they thought it would win them some Brownie points with the media.’

  But Connor wasn’t convinced. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘You’re wrong. That body will tell them nothing.’

  ‘It’s not the body I’m worried about,’ said Connor. He knew it was an odd thing to say given he had been shitting himself about the body all week, but now the new thing had surpassed the old thing by such a landslide that the first worry seemed . . . well, not such a worry after all.

  ‘Jesus, Connor, what is it?’ asked Jack, taking his eyes off the road and turning to meet Connor’s eye.

  Jack is shitting himself too, thought Connor, which made him panic all the more.

  ‘Shit!’ yelled Will, as Jack barely missed an elderly pedestrian in a dark all-weather coat.

  The car swerved up onto the footpath, and Jack finally decided he was in no state to drive. He put the car into park and took a series of long slow breaths. The three friends sat in silence, listening to the thick, heavy rain which smacked at the windows like shrapnel.

  ‘They found something,’ said Connor. ‘In my mother’s car.’

  Will looked from Connor to Jack and back to Connor again. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Evidence,’ he said, for some reason finding himself unable to name it.

  ‘What fucking evidence?’ asked Will.

  Connor shot a look at Jack, and saw the fear in his eyes.

  ‘They found her shoe – the left one. Apparently, when she went into the river, she was only wearing one of them, the right one, and the police found the matching one in the trunk of my mother’s car.’

  ‘They found the dead whore’s shoe?’ asked Will.

  Connor cringed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘In your mother’s fucking car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Jack.

  ‘I told you it was bad,’ said Connor.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Will. ‘We’re fucked.’

  32

  ‘Where the hell is my client?’ David asked the cop at the front desk. It was after eleven and he’d been pacing around the 3rd Precinct reception area for hours.

  ‘Cavanaugh,’ said McNally, finally emerging from the stairwell with a short serious-faced man by his side. ‘This is Essex County First Assistant Prosecutor Elliott Marshall and he is the—’ But the small man pushed McNally aside before the detective had a chance to finish.

  ‘There’s no point in your hanging about, Counsellor,’ said the man named Marshall without any attempt to shake David’s hand. ‘Your client has been taken directly to the Essex County Correctional Facility where you can meet with him first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ said David. The thought that this kind of stonewalling would never have happened with Joe Mannix in Boston flashed quickly through his mind. ‘That is a blatant violation of fair representation. I have every right to consult with my client before—’

  ‘Not tonight, Counsellor,’ interrupted Marshall. ‘It’s Sunday, and it’s late and your client has already been transported to County. The jail is on Doremus Avenue,’ he added in a tone of pure condescension. ‘I’ll get McNally here to give you directions so you can meet with your client first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘You think I don’t know my way around Newark?’ David asked. He hadn’t planned on getting off on the wrong foot with Chris’s prosecutor, but this little prick wasn’t giving him any room to move.

  ‘Of course. McNally told me you grew up here. That’s why you were down here this weekend, right? Planning a reunion?’

  Marshall stuck the knife in, and David felt it.

  ‘I’ve already contacted the CJP Court – which is where we arraign indictables in this vicinage. But I promise I’ll make sure you have time to meet with your client before his first appearance is scheduled.’

  First appearances, indictables, CJP, vicinage – Marshall was using local legal jargon on purpose and David knew it. In Massachusetts, first appearances were arraignments, indictables were felonies, the Central Judicial Procession Court played the role of the District Court, and the vicinage was the geographical area of the court’s jurisdiction

  ‘You have a seventy-two-hour window before you have to arraign, Marshall,’ said David. ‘Unlike in my home state where it stands at forty-eight.’ He was making a point. ‘So I don’t want to hear you’ve scheduled the first appearance for first thing tomorrow morning. I want a decent amount of time to confer with my client before you—’

  ‘I don’t schedule the arraignments, Cavanaugh. That is done by the court. But, in any case, arraignments are just to enter pleas, talk bail – so what’s to confer about?’ Marshall rocked backwards and forwards on his two small feet. ‘If you’re lucky, I’ll consider setting bail, but I’ll need some time to review the case before making any promises.’

  Marshall was stonewalling him again. In Boston, assistant district attorneys often refused to set bail in homicide cases, but in Newark, bail was always set – but the prosecutors simply made it impossible for defendants to make, by setting it at some ridiculously high six figures.

  ‘Then once you enter your plea,’ Marshall continued, ‘which I am assuming will be “Not guilty”, I will take this matter to the grand jury who will hand me an indictment within minutes.’ Marshall took a breath. ‘Unless, of course, you are willing to get smart now and convince your client that admitting culpability could reduce his life without parole to life. I may have the reputation as a hard-ass, Mr Cavanaugh, but believe you me, if your client is willing to plea, I am more than conducive to—’

  ‘Life without parole,’ David interrupted, not believing what he was hearing. ‘You’re going to charge my client with murder one? That requires proof of premeditation.’ David’s head was reeling. He’d been sure the initial charge, given Chris’s relationship with the victim, would be passion/provocation manslaughter, but this little runt was going for the big guns. Murder one carried a minimum sentence of thirty years without parole.

  ‘You’re right,’
Marshall returned. ‘But here in Jersey we call it proof that said defendant acted purposefully and knowingly – two attributes on which your client has built his very successful career.’

  ‘My client is innocent.’

  ‘Your client lost his chance of any semblance of innocence the moment he lied to the police.’

  ‘You’ve been on this case for two minutes and already you have the whole thing figured out?’

  ‘I’ve been prosecuting cases here since college, Mr Cavanaugh.’

  ‘And I knew my client a long time before he was your boss.’

  Marshall took a breath. David could tell he’d hit a nerve.

  ‘Detective McNally,’ said Marshall, now turning to the detective who had stood, watchful and silent, through the entire exchange.

  ‘Yeah,’ said McNally.

  David sensed there was no love lost between the two.

  ‘Give Mr Cavanaugh here directions to the County Jail so he can see his client first thing in the morning.’

  ‘What?’ said David, unable to stop himself. ‘You sure you don’t want to pick me up and drive me there personally so that I don’t get lost?’

  ‘Sorry,’ smiled Marshall. ‘My complementary tutorage is over, Mr Cavanaugh. From here on in, Counsellor, you are on your own.’

  33

  7 am the following morning

  When David was a boy his mother worked as an elementary schoolteacher at a small Catholic school several miles from their Down Neck home. David and his siblings hadn’t attended the school because Patty Cavanaugh hadn’t wanted to place them in the awkward position of having their own mom as teacher, and in hindsight, given their various personalities and academic abilities, it was probably the right decision. The only problem with this plan was that David’s older brother Sean was responsible for bringing David and Lisa home from school each afternoon – Sean would make them sit up the front of the bus, and herd them off at their requisite stop, and he’d march them the two blocks to their front door, which he would open with his own house key and spend the next hour and a half lording it over them like a king over his peasants.

  It was not until many years later that David realised this behaviour was his brother’s desperate attempt to prove to their mom that whenever their dad wasn’t around, he was man enough to fill the void. Which he had been, and still was – a fact that, despite everything, David was grateful for.

  ‘David.’ His mother turned to him as he entered the kitchen. ‘I heard you come in, but it was very late and I knew you’d be tired and I didn’t want to bother you so . . .’ she took a breath. ‘We saw the news,’ she added.

  We.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she went on. ‘What a horrible day you had. Come and sit down and I’ll make you some breakfast while you tell us what happened.’

  Us.

  David craned his neck around the kitchen door as he moved into the room and all those memories of King Sean and his kingdom came flooding back.

  ‘Hey,’ said Sean, a muscled mass at the far end of the kitchen table.

  ‘Hey,’ said David, moving forward to shake his brother’s hand. He suspected from the look in Sean’s dark green eyes that he was already bottling his disapproval – and it did not take long for him to be proven right.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Sean, the moment their mother left for her part-time substitute teacher’s job in East Orange.

  ‘What?’ said David, his muscles tensing in anticipation.

  ‘What in the hell are you doing agreeing to represent that jerk? The man’s a fucking adulterer. He was screwing his high school sweetheart. He’s married, DC, he’s married, with three kids for Christ’s sake.’

  But David said nothing.

  ‘What does Sara have to say about this?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘You haven’t called her yet, have you?’ Sean shook his head. ‘You have a new baby, DC. You should be at home with your family, not playing servant boy to the conceited Kincaids.’

  ‘I got in after midnight, Sean. I’ll call her this morning, and she will understand.’

  ‘Then Sara is an idiot. These people are poisonous, DC. That woman is the devil. Don’t you see what this is doing to Mom?’

  ‘What?’ David could not believe what he was hearing. He had always made an effort to hold his tongue when it came to Sean’s agitations, largely to avoid upsetting his mother. But now his brother was using their mom as a means to back up his own argument, and that was where David drew the line. ‘That’s a load of crap, Sean,’ his voice now rising. ‘Mom has been nothing but supportive.’

  ‘Mom is faking it for you, you ass. She is scared shitless. She knows how Gloria Kincaid operates. That woman has treated us like shit for years.’

  ‘I know the woman is arrogant, but Sean, her son has just been arrested for murder. Besides, from what I know there was a time when she actually helped us out – by giving Dad a job when he—’

  ‘You think she did that out of kindness?’

  ‘I know part of her probably enjoyed the fact that she lorded it over Mom by paying Dad a salary, but that doesn’t mean she—’

  ‘Jesus, you have no fucking idea.’

  ‘Then explain it to me, Sean. Why do you hate these people so much when, besides their pomposity, they’ve never really done anything bar help us out when we were down?’

  Sean’s cheeks flushed as he attempted to put his frustration into words. ‘People like the Kincaids,’ he began, ‘they make it their life’s mission to own people like us. Gloria owned Mom and Dad once, and now she has a chance to do it all over again with you. She’ll be footing your bill, DC. You’ll be in her employ. And what for? So that you can stand up and defend her lily-livered hypocrite of a son who’s been pissing on his wedding vows for decades?’

  ‘That has nothing to do with Gloria,’ he said.

  ‘Bullshit. She knew what her son was up to and turned a blind eye. She’ll be pulling your strings and taking the greatest of pleasure in knowing that Mom will be watching her do it. And then she and Kincaid will use their combined bank balances and connections to get him a pass on murder. And you’ll be patting yourself on the back for freeing a killer without any regard for the girl he dumped into the Passaic.’ Sean took a breath. ‘Forgive me if I’m wrong, DC, but you used to like that girl.’

  ‘I did,’ argued David, ‘which is exactly why I am doing this.’

  ‘You think Marilyn Maloney would thank you for defending her goddamned killer?’

  ‘I think Marilyn would want me to avenge her death – to help find the real culprit rather than drag the one person she cared about through the mud. She loved him, Sean.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, she loved lots of people.’

  ‘Then you heard wrong.’

  David realised that it wasn’t just the Kincaids who were guilty of wrongly judging others; Sean had immediately put a label on Marilyn, based on rumours he had heard.

  ‘Not all of us can be as perfect as you, Sean,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t think I have the right to judge them?’

  ‘I don’t think you have the right to judge anybody.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Sean sprung to his feet, the backs of his wide calves knocking over the metal-legged plastic chair behind him. ‘You made this my business the minute you stood up for Kincaid. Just because there’s a lot of water under the bridge doesn’t mean we’ve moved on.’ Sean’s heaving chest pulled at the buttons on his worn plaid shirt. ‘You need to go home, David.’

  ‘That’s funny, for years you’ve been berating me for leaving.’

  ‘Then maybe I was wrong,’ said Sean after a beat.

  ‘I’m not a quitter, Sean.’

  ‘Quitting is one thing little bro, but blind loyalty is another . . . and I promise you, if you go down this road, you will regret it, wholeheartedly, for the rest of your goddamned life.’

  34

  Boston, Massachusetts

  It was two minutes
after eight. Sara knew this because the screech of the telephone had woken both she and Lauren from an all too rare synchronised sleep, and her eyes had gone instinctively, as they were so accustomed to do of late, toward the green glow of the digital clock which sat like a constant companion on the dresser beside her bed.

  She had slept in – most likely because she had stayed up late waiting for David’s call. She had seen Chris Kincaid’s arrest on the news and knew exactly what was to follow and, despite all her reservations, she had decided not to voice them. She had been doing a lot of thinking over the past twenty-four hours, and while she knew David had made a commitment to reject any cases that would adversely affect their family, she also sensed that stopping him from doing what he needed to do would be like forcing him to become someone he was not.

  She searched for the phone. ‘David,’ she said.

  ‘I woke you.’

  ‘I slept in.’

  ‘You stayed up waiting for me to call you,’ he returned.

  ‘Do you think I spend every living moment worrying about you, David Cavanaugh?’

  ‘Yes – me and Lauren.’

  ‘So sue me.’

  ‘You’d represent yourself and I’d lose.’

  She managed a small laugh, before, ‘I saw the news. Things have happened.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then he told her everything – right down to Sean’s objections, obviously desperately needing for her to see it as he did. She listened without interrupting, temporarily ignoring Lauren’s cries so that he might say his piece. Then after she had enquired about the first appearance set for some time today, and despite the fact that his taking on this case would place a huge burden on her both personally and professionally, she told him, without hesitation, exactly what he needed to hear.

  ‘Chris is innocent,’ she said – a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it would be wrong of you not to defend him.’

  He said nothing, but she could hear the conflict in his silence.