The lawyer at the opposing counsel table was happier to see her. “You made it.” Max rose and gave her a quick hug over the railing that separated the viewing area from the lawyers and the bench.
“Rogan said he’d finish up some lingering reports.” Given that Linda Moreland had been an indirect cause of some rough moments between them, it seemed fitting for Ellie to be here. She knew the work Max had poured into this plea agreement, the final step in putting last month’s saga to rest—at least from their perspective. It would be up to Oneida County to deal with Bill and Will Sullivan.
The bailiff stepped to the front of the courtroom and announced, “Please rise for the Honorable Judge John DeWitt Gregory.”
The judge was only halfway to his own seat before waving them to sit down. “I keep insisting that these bailiffs dispense with that particular formality now that it takes me an eternity to make my way up here, but who listens to me?” He looked out at the courtroom and then focused on Linda in obvious alarm. “Ms. Moreland, I understood from the docket that we were here for you to enter a plea of guilty and proceed directly to sentencing. Please tell me that I am having a senior moment with my eyesight and am simply missing the appearance of whatever attorney you have arranged to represent your interests.”
Linda rose to speak. “Your Honor can rest assured that your vision is fine. I am representing myself.”
“I’m well aware of your reputation and talents in the field, but you know what they say about a woman who is her own lawyer having a fool for a client.”
“Actually, Your Honor, the original quote was that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. I’d like to believe that might be a distinction with a difference in my case.”
A few of the observers giggled.
“Very well, then.” The judge asked Linda a series of questions to confirm her decision to act on her own behalf. “Now, I understand we have a plea agreement, Mr. Donovan.”
“We do, Your Honor. The defendant has agreed to enter a plea of gulty to both charges in the information.” Although Linda had originally been charged only with receiving Carrie’s stolen diaries, Max had persuaded his boss that an additional charge of reckless endangering was appropriate. It was also only a misdemeanor, but it at least reflected the role that Linda had played in putting Carrie at risk. The charge also set the stage for what was about to happen next.
“Very well. And has the government agreed to dismiss any other pending charges or forgo future charges in exchange for the defendant’s plea of guilty? It’s not often I’d expect to see you here on a misdemeanor, Mr. Donovan.”
“Yes, Your Honor. After joint discussions with the Oneida County district attorney’s office, it was agreed that Ms. Moreland would not be prosecuted for conduct occurring in Utica that was related to this prosecution.”
The judge looked curious but nodded. It was the agreement not to prosecute Linda for fabricating the burglary at the hotel in Utica that had persuaded her to change her plea. A conviction for persuading her assistant to file a false report to the police would have been clear grounds for permanent disbarment. Max knew that Linda’s ultimate goal was to save her law license.
“And is there a sentencing recommendation as part of this plea agreement?”
“A year of probation and forty hours of community service,” Max confirmed. “But a further condition of the defendant’s guilty plea is a process we are proposing for Your Honor to ensure that there is a sufficient factual basis.”
“New York law always requires a factual basis for a guilty plea.”
“Indeed. And typically that showing is satisfied by the defendant’s own allocution. What we have agreed to, if it’s acceptable to Your Honor, is that Ms. Moreland will provide her rendition of the facts, and then the court may follow up with questions as it deems appropriate before ruling on legal sufficiency.”
Max had suggested this option in the face of Linda’s resistance to the reckless endangerment charge. In theory, the process would enable her to avoid an express admission of guilt and to try to persuade the court that the state had brought charges inappropriately.
“I must not be completely senile yet,” Judge Gregory said, “because I believe I understood that. So let’s hear it, Ms. Moreland. What are the facts?”
Just as Max had anticipated, Linda made herself out to be a hero, beginning with the letter she had received from Anthony Amaro requesting her assistance. She described her hiring of Carrie Blank as a brilliant epiphany, enlisting a bright young lawyer with an interest in finding her sister’s real killer. In her telling, Carrie Blank was the obvious culprit behind the leaks to the prosecution. Linda was struggling to strategize a reaction when her client’s former foster sister, Debi Landry, called her office, wondering why prosecutors and police were hounding her.
“I’m eighty-three years old,” Judge Gregory interrupted. “Will I still be alive when this story is over? The court reads the newspaper and takes judicial notice of the fact that Anthony Amaro has been cleared as a suspect in the killing of Ms. Blank’s sister but recently pled guilty to killing four other women in Utica and received a twenty-five-year sentence.” Mike Siebecker had made the call to offer Amaro a deal of twenty-five years. If Amaro could live into his seventies, he might see freedom again. Siebecker had decided he’d rather take that chance than risk an acquittal at trial. Those were the realities of plea bargaining. “The woman you mentioned—Debi Landry—pled guilty to . . . what was it, Mr. Donovan?”
“Assault One, Your Honor.”
“Now, what does any of this have to do with you, Ms. Moreland?”
“In my attempt to explain to Ms. Landry how her name had gotten to law enforcement, I’m afraid I revealed my belief that my associate was betraying client confidences. Honestly, I was just trying to end the conversation as I was juggling an ever-growing number of wrongful-conviction cases.”
Judge Gregory rotated one hand in a “get on with it” gesture.
“Long story short, Your Honor, after my conversation with Ms. Landry, she assaulted Ms. Blank and then stole personal belongings from her home. She came to me afterward, and she had my former associate’s journals with her. I realized immediately I made a terrible mistake when I agreed to take them from her, but, at the time, I had absolutely no idea the extent of Carrie’s injuries, and my desire to expose her ethical violations was overwhelming. I agree that the above facts are sufficient for the receiving stolen property charge, Your Honor, but do not agree with the state’s decision to charge me with reckless endangerment.”
“I see. I can ask questions before I rule?”
“That’s what we’ve agreed to,” Moreland said.
“And why aren’t you asking the questions, Mr. Donovan?”
“Because Ms. Moreland objected. Apparently she trusts you to be fairer.” More giggles from the courtroom.
“I see.”
This was where Max was hoping that his superior knowledge of local practice would outmatch Linda Moreland’s reputational heft. Linda’s recent expertise was in appeals and post-conviction relief. She didn’t know the ins and outs of state court procedure, let alone the idiosyncracies of individual judges.
But Max did.
“Well . . .” Judge Gregory leaned back in his chair as if thinking to himself. “You say that you made this offhand comment about a potential leak in your office in a rush to get off the phone with Ms. Landry. Do you know how long that call lasted?”
She did, because Ellie had pulled the LUDs. Debi’s call to Linda had lasted more than ten minutes.
“The state produced records in discovery indicating about ten minutes.”
“Uh-huh. And did you refer to your former associate simply by her job title, or did you refer to her by name?”
Linda knew that Ellie had listened in on Debi’s side of the conversation the night Linda had called her to see if she’d spoken to police. She also knew that Debi had confessed when she was arrested. She could only stretc
h the truth so far.
“I believe by name, Your Honor.”
“First and last name?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“And if I were to ask Mr. Donovan here what Ms. Landry has said about that conversation, what would he say?”
Linda’s cockiness had convinced her that she could talk an octogenarian judge into the quick, Solomonic conviction on one charge and dismissal of the other, but she didn’t know Judge Gregory like Max did. Max had steered the plea to this judge because he was a former law professor who got his back up when lawyers underestimated him.
“I—I’m not sure that’s for me to speculate.”
“Very well, then. Mr. Donovan, would you care to answer that question?”
“With all due respect,” Linda said, “that’s not the process we agreed to.”
“Ah, but this is my courtroom, and I just asked the defendant a question she won’t answer, but which I expect Mr. Donovan certainly can. Please proceed.”
Max already had the relevant reports in front of him. “In a call from the defendant to Debi Landry that was intercepted by police, Ms. Landry said, quote, You’re the one who told me that bitch was screwing Tony over. You said something needed to be done.”
Ellie noticed some of the reporters shifting awkwardly in their seats. The beloved celebrity lawyer had clearly crossed a moral line, if not a legal one.
“Aha,” the judge said. “Ms. Moreland, did the prosecutor misspeak when he said this was a call from you to Landry? Or was this intercepted call different from the ten-minute call you referred to earlier?”
“It was a different call.”
“Can you please stop acting like you’re in a deposition. You’re a good enough lawyer to know what I’m about to ask you next, so go ahead and answer, please.”
“It was a call that I placed to Ms. Landry.”
The judge stared at Linda impatiently.
“I called her because my assistant—in cooperation with police—led me to believe that I was a suspect in the horrific assault against Carrie, so I called Ms. Landry to make sure she was not fabricating some kind of false story in an attempt to garner favor with a prosecutor’s office that would like nothing more than to see me go down.”
“And would you say that Ms. Landry is close to your former client, Mr. Amaro?” Linda started to answer, but the judge immediately realized that his question left too much wiggle room. “For example, if I were to check Mr. Amaro’s visitor logs at the prison, would this person he met in childhood have visited him?”
Ellie could see Linda’s confidence fading. “I’m not certain about that fact specifically, Your Honor, but, yes, I suppose it would be fair to say the two are close.”
“Mr. Donovan, please save me the trouble of having my clerk run the search for me, and tell me what criminal convictions Ms. Landry had prior to any conversations the defendant had with her.”
Ellie noticed that the judge was now referring to Linda as the defendant instead of Ms. Moreland. She watched his frown grow deeper, and more reporters shaking their heads in disgust with each conviction Max rattled off from Debi’s lengthy rap sheet. The picture was clear: Linda was careful to avoid any explicit directives, but she had waved Carrie Blank like a chewtoy in front of an unpredictable offender with a history of violence.
“I’ve heard enough,” Judge Gregory said. “I not only find a factual basis for both counts of the information, but I’ll be writing a letter personally to the state bar association to ensure they receive a transcript of these proceedings. And before the defendant even asks if she can perform her community service through pro bono legal activities, I will answer with a resounding no. You will pick up trash or paint over graffiti or whatever else the county conjures for you, just like anyone else. If you ask me, Ms. Moreland, you’re lucky the state didn’t charge you as an accomplice to Ms. Landry’s deeds, but I imagine they concluded that you had successfully abused your legal knowledge to obtain in result what would be unlawful for you to do or ask for directly. I’ll be certain to point that out to the bar as well.”
Max glanced back at Ellie. She tried to suppress a smile that might be construed as vengeful, but she knew her face was filled with pride that Max had found a way to do the right thing.
Ellie knocked on her former apartment door. Jess was pulling on a Pixies T-shirt, his hair still damp from a shower, when he answered.
“Whoa, you’ve gotten skinny,” she said. “Does this mean you’re still dating the vegan?”
“Indeed,” he said, making his way back to the bathroom. Interesting. Jess had a tendency to correct her vocabulary from dating to hooking up when it came to his romantic life. “Gotta say, I feel good. Skinny like Sid Vicious, but without the heroin.”
“When do I get to meet her?” Out of habit, she walked toward the spot on the kitchen counter where her jar of Nutella had once lived, but then remembered finishing it the last time she was over.
Jess emerged from the bathroom, running some kind of muddy substance through his hair. “You free tonight?”
“Seriously?”
“Sure, why not? If she doesn’t like you, I’m going to have to kick her to the curb, so better sooner than later.”
“As if anyone doesn’t like the Hatchers.”
“Where’s Max?” Jess had referred to Max as “Captain America” until two weeks ago. The name change was probably as close as Jess would get to an express endorsement.
“DA happy hour. Should be called DA unhappy hour, if you ask me. Bunch of people worried about how their conduct will look if photographs turn up at their judicial confirmation hearings.”
“Ah, and yet when I take you to my hangouts, you’re afraid to go in the bathroom because you’re likely to see something you’ll have to call in.”
“Goldilocks, forever searching for a bar that’s just right. You said you got the paperwork from the management company?”
“Right there on the coffee trunk, awaiting your signature.”
Two weeks ago, Ellie had asked Jess to see if there was a way for her to legally transfer the apartment’s lease into his name.
“Got a pen?” She removed the documents from the mailing envelope. Jess had already signed.
“You sure about this?” he asked, handing her one from a kitchen drawer. “I mean, you know I would always give it up if you needed it back, but, still . . .”
She signed her name and handed him the agreement. “I’m absolutely positive.”
She only needed one home, and it was no longer here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All Day and a Night is my tenth novel, which means it likely contains the millionth word I have written with the support and guidance of my wonderful editor, Jennifer Barth, and agent, Philip Spitzer. I have never been much of a team player, but these two pros have taught me what a difference the right combination of bright minds and good hearts can make.
Rounding out the team are Lukas Ortiz and Lucas Hunt at the Spitzer Literary Agency; Amy Baker, Jonathan Burnham, Ed Cohen, Heather Drucker, Michael Morrison, Katie O’Callaghan, Katy Schneider, Leah Wasielewski, David Watson, and Lydia Weaver at Harper; and Angus Cargill at Faber and Faber. Offering quiet but helpful publishing-related whispers from the sidelines are Anne-Lise Spitzer and Richard Rhorer.
That’s more than enough with the sports analogies, but I also owe a big thank you to NYPD Lieutenant Lucas Miller, Dr. David Newman, and Nic Wolff for their helpful expertise. Any mistakes are mine, but I will still try to blame them on you. For helping me keep it real from the minute I decided to try to write about New York, I will always remember and cherish retired NYPD Sergeant Edward Devlin.
Thank you to the readers who go the extra mile, serving as the online Kitchen Cabinet. You named Carrie’s fictional neighborhood and some of its institutions. Though I can’t thank each of you individually, you may recognize a few character names that I randomly selected from your membership. All the lamentation about changes in publishing c
an make it hard to focus on the work and craft of writing a book. I try to block out the noise, tell the best story I can, and hope it works. Knowing that I’ve got a few readers cheering me on (oops, sports again) helps me do that. If you’re reading this and want to meet a pretty darn likable group of booklovers, pop in at https://www.facebook.com/alafairburkebooks and www.twitter.com/alafairburke.
Finally, I am thankful, as always, to my family, friends, and mostly my husband, Sean, for . . . everything.
This novel is a fictional account of one fictional case involving one fictional wrongful conviction claim. I.e., it’s made up. To learn more about the causes of wrongful convictions and the more than three hundred exonerations that have been made through post-conviction DNA testing, a good starting place is with the Innocence Project. http://www.innocenceproject.org/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALAFAIR BURKE is the bestselling author of nine previous novels, including the stand-alones Long Gone and If You Were Here, as well as the Ellie Hatcher series: Never Tell, 212, Angel’s Tip, and Dead Connection. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
ALSO BY ALAFAIR BURKE
Long Gone
If You Were Here
THE ELLIE HATCHER SERIES
Dead Connection
Angel’s Tip
212
Never Tell
THE SAMANTHA KINCAID SERIES
Judgment Calls
Missing Justice
Close Case
CREDITS
Cover design by Richard Ljoenes
Cover photograph © Charlie Bennet/ImageBrief.com
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All Day and a Night: A Novel of Suspense (Ellie Hatcher) Page 32