Presumption of Guilt

by Marti Green

  “Thanks, no.” She’d already drunk three cups on the drive to Andersonville.

  When he put his mug down, McDonald said, “I’ve practiced criminal law over thirty years. Even though I don’t ask them, I can tell most of my clients are guilty. By and large, the police do their jobs. When defendants come in to meet with me, or when I see them in jail, I can usually tell there’s something off about them. Sometimes big, sometimes hardly noticeable. But it’s there. I didn’t see anything in Molly. Sure, she was spoiled. And I’m sure she complained about her folks to her friends. What teenager doesn’t? But she got all As in school, ran on the track team, sang in the chorus. This was a kid who did everything right. It didn’t make sense to me that she would suddenly murder her parents.”

  “But it happens, doesn’t it? Some kid who neighbors never suspected of being a monster commits an unspeakable crime and everyone shakes their head in disbelief.”

  “I suppose so. But if people looked closely, there were usually signs.”

  “Still, a sociopath can be very clever.”

  McDonald looked through the opened folder and slipped out a slim file, then handed it to Dani. “I had the same concern. So I had her evaluated by a psychiatrist. That’s his report. He concluded she was a normal teenager. No hidden demons.”

  Dani leafed through the document, scanning the pages until she reached the conclusion.

  Molly presents as a young woman of above-average intelligence. She displays no abnormal ideation or inappropriate responses to visual or auditory stimuli. Her affect is within normal range. Testing revealed no underlying psychosis or neurosis.

  Dani handed the report back to McDonald. “Were there any other suspects the police considered?”

  Once again, McDonald rifled through the papers in the folder, pulled out a sheet, and handed it to Dani. “Here’s the police report. They latched on to Molly right away and that was the end of their police work. As far as they were concerned, there wasn’t any need to look further.”

  “Why were they so certain it was Molly?”

  “They checked all over the house and found no evidence of a break-in. Molly opened the front door for them but she insisted she’d locked it when she came home the night before. And all the other doors and windows were secure. Nothing was missing from the house either. Since Molly was the only other person in the house, she quickly became their primary suspect.”

  All of that was so, but it still didn’t add up for Dani. A young woman with no apparent psychiatric issues doesn’t suddenly kill her parents. “Did you do any investigation on your own?”

  Bob nodded. “Fortunately, the family had sufficient resources to hire a private detective. He couldn’t find anyone who recalled Molly saying she hated her parents, much less wished they were dead. Just normal teenage resentment, the kind my own kids probably feel toward me every time I tell them no.”

  “But what about other suspects? Did the police look into whether anyone had a vendetta toward the Singers?”

  Bob pulled another letter from the folder. “Here’s the investigator’s report.”

  Dani noted the letterhead—Henry Aster Investigations. It was five pages long. “Can you summarize it for me?”

  “Bottom line—some questions about Singer’s partner, Quince Michaels, but nothing that panned out.”

  “What were the questions?”

  “Quince and Joe had been in business together for a long time. Quince was the public face of the company, the one who schmoozed everyone to get business. And he managed the business as well. Joe was the hands-on guy. He supervised the work, made sure any building that had their name on it was constructed right.

  “Molly told me her dad and Quince had a volatile relationship sometimes. So, naturally, I had the investigator poke around the business, see if there had been any hanky-panky with the books, that kind of thing. But he came up empty.”

  “Do you know what project they were working on when Molly heard them fighting?”

  “Sure, everyone knew. It was in the papers practically every day because of the cost overruns and delays. They were building the new county jail.”

  There it was again. The county jail. The anonymous letter that prompted the investigation into Molly’s conviction pointed to the county jail project as the motivation for the murders. But why? Dani couldn’t figure it out. She’d read the report from the state concerning the cost overruns. Routine adjustments, it concluded. Shortage of lumber led to higher prices. Weather delays led to unexpected labor expenses. Blah, blah, blah. One hundred pages of numbers and excuses that led to nothing.

  She finished up with McDonald, thanked him for his time, then started on the drive back to HIPP’s office. She took her time. She wanted to luxuriate in the Indian summer weather before entering the mostly treeless streets of Manhattan. Instead of heading south on the New York Thruway with its mass of cars and trucks, she exited onto Route 9W, a meandering and little-used road lined with tall oaks and maples exploding with autumn colors. As she drove, she thought about Molly’s case.

  The meeting with McDonald had reinforced her feeling that Molly was innocent, but proving it would be a challenge. McDonald had already appealed those trial-court rulings that had been questionable, including the exclusion of testimony showing the lack of blood in the shower drain. His representation of Molly had been professional and thorough, so a claim of inadequate counsel was out of the question. The letters about the jail were interesting, but not probative. She needed to learn more about the jail, but Tommy’s efforts on that front were going nowhere. Did the county executive cut short his meeting with Tommy because he had nothing to offer, or because he was involved somehow? They needed to investigate the jail angle further, push a little harder. Maybe speak with Joe Singer’s partner, if he was still around.

  Dani turned on the radio and tuned to the classic-rock station on Sirius/XM. There were no other cars on the road, and she let herself get lost in the music, oblivious to the large black SUV with tinted windows moving closer and closer behind her. It came as a shock when it tapped her rear bumper, just hard enough to rattle her.

  The SUV fell back then, and she slowed to move onto the road’s shoulder to exchange insurance information. Just as she began to pull over, she glanced in the rearview mirror. Instead of seeing the SUV moving off the road with her, she found it barreling toward her just an instant before it rammed into her car, sending it careering off the roadway and straight toward the massive tree in her path.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Finn gripped the newspaper tightly in his hands as he read the story on page twelve.

  Dani Trumball, an attorney with New York City’s Help Innocent Prisoners Project, is in critical condition following a crash on Route 9W in Marlboro yesterday morning. Witnesses to the crash described a black, late-model SUV that seemed to deliberately strike Ms. Trumball’s car from behind, pushing it into a nearby tree, before it sped off. Ms. Trumball represents Molly Singer, who was convicted twelve years ago of the murder of her parents, Joseph and Sarah Singer. Singer is serving consecutive tweny-five-years-to-life terms at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

  He slammed the paper down on the desk. Just like that, he felt a headache bloom behind his temples. He rubbed at them with slow, concentric circles. Damn. He’d bumped into Donna at the supermarket last week. She’d told him how she’d pushed this same Dani Trumball to take Molly’s case, how the head of the agency hadn’t wanted to. What would happen now? Would someone else take over or would it be dropped? For such a brief time he’d held out hope for Molly. Hope that she would get a new trial. Hope that she’d be proven innocent. Hope that she would reunite with Sophie. Hope that the melancholy Sophie wore like a shroud would be lifted if Molly were part of her life.

  He picked up the newspaper and read the story again. If the witnesses were right, someone had wanted to hurt the lawyer. Even kill
her.

  Who would want to do that?

  Someone who stood to lose from something the investigator was working on.

  But surely there would be other investigators at the woman’s agency who would carry on her work.

  Unless they knew she was the only one there who wanted to go forward with that work to begin with.

  In addition to his headache, Finn was now having trouble breathing. He knew who had to be behind the attempt on Dani Trumball’s life—and he knew that he himself had helped set it in motion. Finn had told only one person about Donna’s intervention on Molly’s behalf, and about how the agency hadn’t wanted to take her case—until Dani Trumball had pushed them to do so.

  In a kind of daze, he picked up the phone and dialed the county executive’s office. When Frank Reynolds answered, though, the daze was gone. Finn was screaming at him. “Are you insane? Are you—what are you? You’d help kill a woman, all so you could sabotage Molly? Sophie’s your granddaughter. You’re supposed to care about her, at least.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You told him!”

  “Calm down, Finn. I don’t know what this is about.”

  “You told him Ms. Trumball was the only one who wanted to take Molly’s case. He must have figured if she were removed from the picture, no more questions would be asked.”

  Frank didn’t speak for a moment, then quietly said, “You saw the newspaper today. That’s what this is about?”

  “Yeah, I saw it. What did you think? That I’d never find out?”

  “Son, that’s crazy. I swear to you, Finn. I never told anyone.”

  Finn didn’t believe his father for one moment. He slammed down the phone.

  The headache was worse. If he didn’t lie down now, it’d blossom into a full-fledged migraine, and he’d be utterly disabled all day and night, curled around the pain in a pitch-dark room, helpless as a baby. He left the office and headed up to his bedroom. The kids were in school and Kim was, thankfully, at the gym. He stepped into the master bathroom, swallowed three Advil, and then ran hot water over a washcloth. After shutting the bedroom curtains, he lay down and placed the warm cloth on his forehead.

  Before long, the pain began to subside. A minor miracle.

  After less than an hour, Finn got up from bed, straightened the flowered bedspread Kim had insisted upon, and which made him cringe every time he looked at it, and returned to his office. The business’s account books were open on his desk, ready for him to send out the monthly invoices. He tried to concentrate but couldn’t push away thoughts of Molly. At first, he’d let his father convince him Molly was guilty, and he’d given in to his father’s insistence that he testify at her trial. The guilt gnawed at him like a parasite, eating away inside him.

  He heard the front door slam, then heard Sophie’s footsteps stomping up the stairs to her bedroom. When she was younger, she’d rush into his office upon her return from school, eager to tell him about her day. Now she barely spoke to him. He hoped it was normal. Raging adolescent hormones turned the most rational of children into foreign creatures, mortified by their parents’ very existence. When he drove her and her friends anyplace, he’d see her try to shrink into the car’s seat, as though she could will herself to be invisible. It was almost comical to watch, but he knew better than to laugh.

  He remembered his own adolescent embarrassment when his friends were around his parents and wanted to believe that was all Sophie was going through. Yet there seemed to be more to it than that. He left his office and walked upstairs to her room, knocked on the closed bedroom door, and opened it before she responded.

  “Hey, no hellos?” he asked.

  Sophie lay on her bed, her arms thrown over her forehead. She remained silent.

  “Something wrong, sweetie?” Finn looked around her room, still a child’s room, with pale-pink walls and pink-and-green gingham curtains. An oversize stuffed giraffe sat in one corner, and a shelf over her desk held dolls she’d collected over the years. The walls were adorned with posters of Justin Bieber and the boy band One Direction.

  Slowly, Sophie moved her arms down, then looked up at Finn. “I hate her.”

  Finn knew she meant Kim. At times, he couldn’t blame her. “What did she do now?”

  “Now? What could she do now? She’s locked up, where she belongs.”

  Finn didn’t understand. Had Kim been arrested? He went over to Sophie’s bed and sat down on the edge. “What are you talking about?”

  “My mother, the murderer,” Sophie said, her voice filled with disgust. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. Finn could hear soft cries. Undoubtedly her friends, or their parents, had seen the paper, reminding everyone of the murder that had taken place in their quiet town twelve years earlier. She’d been taunted at school, he figured. It wasn’t the first time, but it hadn’t occurred in a long while. He lay down next to Sophie and put his arms around her slim body. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to do this. She was poised on the edge of childhood, ready to take the leap into becoming a young woman.

  “I don’t believe Molly murdered her parents,” he said softly to his daughter.

  Sophie turned onto her back and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “But you were against her at the trial.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I know a lot. Kids talk.”

  Finn wrapped his large hand around Sophie’s. “I spoke about things Molly had told me. I thought then it was the right thing to do, but I was wrong.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Do you think there’s a murder gene?” Sophie’s voice seemed strained.

  “Of course not.”

  Sophie turned to him, leaned into him, and buried her face in his chest. “Sometimes I’m afraid of my thoughts about Mom.”

  Finn knew she was now talking about Kim. The only mother she’d ever known, she’d called her “Mom” from the beginning. “All kids hate their parents at one time or another. It’s natural.”

  “But I don’t hate you.”

  Finn laughed. “You will. Trust me. When you get a little older and you don’t like all the restrictions I’ll put on you.”

  Sophie picked up her head and looked at Finn. “Like what?”

  “Well, like you can’t date any boys till you’re at least twenty-one.”

  She punched him in the arm. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so silly.”

  They laughed together and relief washed over Finn. It had been a long time since he’d heard Sophie laugh. He gave her a kiss on the top of her head, then headed back down to his office.

  Opened on his desk was the newspaper with its story about Dani Trumball. The relief he’d felt moments before dissipated, replaced by a tightening in his stomach. He had to do something for Molly, something he should have done many years ago.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Tommy’s face blanched when he saw Dani in the hospital bed, tubes going everywhere into her body, her face and arms covered with bruises. An orange glow from the setting sun streamed through the one window in the single-bedded room and cast its light over her. On every surface in the room stood bouquets of flowers, their sweet fragrance replacing the antiseptic odor of the corridors. He trudged over to Doug, sitting at her bedside, and held out his hand.

  “I’m so sorry. Tell me what I can do for you.” He knew those were empty words, the murmured condolences of everyone when in fact they were helpless to do anything.

  Doug shook his head. His eyes were puffy and rimmed in red.

  “She’ll be all right, won’t she?” Tommy asked.

  Doug looked up at Tommy. “The doctors put her in a coma.” His voice cracked at the word. “Said they had to, because of swelling in her brain.”

  Tommy sat down in the chair next to Doug’
s. “I had a cousin they did that to. He came out of it fine. Good as new, at least after a while.”

  “They won’t know whether there will be any impairment until they take her out of it.” Doug picked up Dani’s hand and dropped his head to his chest.

  “She’s a tough broad, Doug.”

  A thin smile stretched Doug’s lips, and he nodded. “She’s got a few broken ribs, too, but that’s all. I saw pictures of the car. It’s a miracle it wasn’t worse.”

  Tommy took in Doug’s rumpled clothes and stubble. “You been home yet?”

  “I don’t want to leave her.”

  “You got to take care of yourself, if not for you, then for Jonah.”

  “Katie’s taking care of Jonah.”

  “How’s Jonah doing with this?”

  “I haven’t let him see Dani yet. It would be too frightening for him. I told him she was traveling for a case.”

  Tommy nodded, and then for a long moment the two of them just looked at Dani, battered and tiny amid her tangle of tubes and wires. “I’m gonna find whoever did this,” Tommy said. “You can count on it.”

  Doug turned to him. “Do you think it’s because of the case she’s working on?”

  “Has to be.”

  “But why? She’s just one of dozens of lawyers at HIPP. If she doesn’t handle it, someone else will. What did whoever did this think he’d accomplish?”

  “You know, Bruce didn’t want to take this case at first. Dani talked him into it.”

  Doug nodded. “She believes in this girl. No, woman. I guess she’s no longer a girl. So what’s Bruce going to do now?”

  “We met this morning. Everyone wants to keep going. Melanie will take over the lead until Dani’s back on her feet.” Tommy looked back at his friend, lying still in her bed. He got up from his chair and leaned over the railing, his face inches from Dani’s. “We’re gonna get her out. I promise you,” he whispered to her. He straightened up to leave and said good-bye. As he got to the door, Doug called out to him.