Guilty as Sin

by Tami Hoag

  He was polite under direct examination. Yes, sir. No, sir. Not a hint of belligerence. Costello painted him as a candidate for the Young Republicans. Trustworthy, reliable, a scholarship student who earned pocket money as a tutor. The profile and the appearance bore no resemblance to the young man Ellen had spoken with at the Pack Rat. Costello had obviously been putting him up somewhere, having him groomed and coached, and was likely paying him for his trouble.

  “Todd, were you with Dr. Wright on the evening of the twelfth?”

  “Yeah, I was.” He glanced down, pretending to pick lint off his new slacks. “Downstairs in the Cray building. We were going through some data we compiled in the study last year, and looking for correlations in past studies.”

  “In your statement to the police made on January twenty-fourth you said you were at the movies that night.”

  Childs glanced up at Costello, over at Wright, and down again. “I was mistaken. I went, but it was the late show, not the early one.”

  “What theater did you go to?”

  “The mall in Burnsville.”

  “Had you heard anything about the abduction of Josh Kirkwood?”

  “No.”

  “On Saturday, the twenty-second, Agent O'Malley stopped by Professor Priest's office while you were there, didn't she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “After she left, did Dr. Wright seem upset or excited?”

  “No.”

  “Did he talk about going after her or going to Christopher Priest's home?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say anything about Josh Kirkwood's abduction?”

  Todd bobbed his head down between his shoulders. “Yeah. He said it was a shame, 'cause they were such a nice family.”

  Costello turned around with a gracious gesture. “Your witness, Ms. North.”

  Ellen walked toward the witness stand with her hands clasped in front of her, as if in prayer, her expression pensive. “Todd, you've known Dr. Wright for a long time, haven't you? Ever since you began taking classes at Harris—isn't that right?”

  He looked at her out the corner of his eye, suspicious. “Yeah.”

  “You declared your major early on. You always wanted to go into psychology.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Dr. Wright wasn't just a teacher for you, was he? He was your adviser, your mentor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your friend?”

  He gave her a hard look. “I respect him very much.”

  “That's admirable, Todd.”

  “He's an admirable man.”

  Ellen tipped her head. “Very few admirable men stand accused of kidnapping and assault.”

  “Your Honor!” Costello whined.

  “Ms. North, don't make me warn you again,” Grabko said coldly.

  “I'm sorry, Your Honor,” she said, remorseless, her attention never leaving the witness. “You respect and admire Dr. Wright. How much? Enough to lie for him?”

  “No!”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained.”

  “Where did you go to the movies that night, Todd?” she asked without slowing a beat.

  “I said—Burnsville.”

  She feigned puzzlement. “Burnsville? You drove all the way to Burnsville to go to a late movie on a Wednesday night and that slipped your mind when you were talking to the police?”

  “I told them I was at the movies.”

  “I see. Then it was the fact that you had been with Dr. Wright at the time of the kidnapping that slipped your mind? Or was it the fact that you claim to have been at the movies in Burnsville that slipped your mind, because there is no mention of Burnsville in your original statement.”

  “It didn't seem important.”

  “Until the police tried to check out your story at the Deer Lake theaters,” Ellen said sharply. “You've got a 3.85 GPA at Harris, don't you, Todd?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I should think it's safe to assume you know the meaning and the ramifications of perjury—”

  Costello threw up his arms. “Your Honor, this is badgering.”

  “Change your tone, Ms. North.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” she said automatically, never looking away from Childs. “Todd, where have you been staying the last few days?”

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Were you aware the Deer Lake police were looking—”

  “Objection. Relevance,” Costello argued, getting to his feet.

  “It's relevant to the credibility of the witness, Your Honor. If Mr. Childs has been hiding out, avoiding—”

  Grabko cracked his gavel, his cheeks tinting pink above his beard. “Ms. North, do not persist in this.”

  She spread her hands. “I'm sorry, Your Honor, but the witness has given conflicting statements to the police and to this court. He is extremely biased toward the defendant and—”

  “You've made your point, Ms. North,” Grabko said.

  She nodded her understanding and stepped back from the witness stand. “No further questions.”

  Childs climbed down from the box and was met on the other side of the gallery gate by Mitch Holt and a uniformed officer.

  “What the fuck—?” he snapped, jerking his arm back from the officer's grasp.

  Costello shot to his feet. “Your Honor, this is an outrage!”

  The crowd broke their silence as the scuffle in the aisle continued and reporters jumped up on their chairs for a better view. The bailiff hurried through the gate as Mitch and Officer Stevens took hold of Childs, and herded the lot of them toward the door, with Grabko destroying another gavel behind them.

  The judge ordered the attorneys to the bench once again. Ellen took her place beside Costello, feeling the anger roll off him in waves as he accused her of turning the hearing into a circus sideshow.

  “Really, Mr. Costello,” she said calmly, “don't you think you're being a little paranoid? The police have been looking for Todd Childs for days to question him on that break-in. Since they've had no luck and received no cooperation in finding him, I'm sure they felt they had to grab him when they could.”

  “In front of the court?” he bellowed, his temper boiling up.

  “I don't appreciate the theatrics either, Ms. North,” Grabko said sternly. “I'll be speaking with Chief Holt about this.”

  “He should be taken off the case entirely,” Costello fumed. “The conflict of interest is obvious.”

  “The issue is not germane to this hearing, Mr. Costello,” Ellen said.

  “For the last time, Ms. North,” Grabko said through his teeth, “refrain from doing my job for me. Now, go back to your places and we will resume this hearing in a civilized manner. Call your next witness, Mr. Costello.”

  As they returned to their tables, the door at the back of the courtroom opened, and a neatly turned-out middle-aged man with slicked-back dark hair strode purposefully down the center aisle with a small manila envelope in one gloved hand. He leaned over the rail and handed the envelope to Dorman. Gravely murmured words were exchanged. Something bright and feral flashed in Costello's eyes as he turned back toward the court.

  “The defense calls Karen Wright.”

  Karen Wright settled herself in the witness chair. Ellen wondered if the thin veil of calm about her was drug induced. Her dark eyes were wide, unblinking. She fixed her gaze on Costello and waited for him to begin. He took his place at the corner of the stand, not wanting to obstruct anyone's view of her—pretty in pink, her ashblond pageboy sleek and silky, her mouth slightly trembling.

  “Karen, I want to thank you for testifying here today,” he began gently. “I know this is difficult for you. This entire ordeal has been very hard on you, hasn't it?”

  “You can't know.” She lifted a lace-edged handkerchief to catch a tear that had yet to fall. “It's been terrible. All of it. I never would have thought—” She cut herself off and closed her eyes for a moment. “It's terrible. I hate it
.”

  “Karen, how long have you and Dr. Wright been married?”

  A nostalgic little smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “It seems like forever. Sixteen years.”

  “And in all that time, has Garrett ever been in trouble with the law?”

  “No.” She shook her head, twisting her hankie in her lap. “Garrett has never even had a traffic ticket. He's a very careful man. He shouldn't have been arrested. None of this should ever have happened.”

  “Has he ever spoken ill of the Kirkwoods?”

  “No. Never.”

  “And you?”

  “I considered them friends,” she said, dropping her gaze and her volume.

  “In fact, you helped them out while Josh was missing, didn't you, Karen?”

  “I sat with Lily.” A pair of tears skittered down her cheeks. “Such a little sweetheart. I love babies,” she admitted. “Garrett and I can't have children,” she added, dropping her gaze to her lap again, as if the fact carried shame with it.

  “Karen, where were you the evening of the twelfth?” Costello asked abruptly, steering her away from potentially dangerous waters.

  “At work. I do secretarial work part-time for Halvorsen's State Farm Insurance in the Omni Complex.”

  “Do you often work in the evening?”

  “I—no.” She closed her eyes again and drew in a hitching, shallow breath.

  “Karen, were you working that night?”

  A strange keening sound came up the back of her throat, and she began to rock herself forward and back. Even with her arms wrapped around herself, she was clearly shaking. The tears spilled over her lashes.

  “It's not fair,” she whimpered. “It's not fair. . . .”

  “Karen,” Costello murmured. “Please answer the question. It's very important. You were at the Omni Complex that night. Were you working?”

  She looked at him, her pretty face twisting with torment. Her eyes scanned the crowd, resting on someone in the gallery, then moving to her husband, who stared back at her blankly.

  “I'm so sorry,” she whispered, dropping her gaze to her lap. “I'm so, so sorry. Please don't . . .”

  “Karen,” Costello prompted. “You have to answer the question.”

  She dropped her bomb with a voice so soft everyone in the courtroom was straining to hear.

  “I stayed late because . . . I was having an affair with Paul Kirkwood.”

  The admission hit Ellen like a sonic blast. Behind the bar the courtroom erupted, Paul Kirkwood's voice rising above the others.

  “That's a lie! Goddamn you, Wright! You put her up to this! You'll pay, you son of a bitch!”

  All Ellen could think was that someone had already paid—Josh.

  “It is within counsel's rights to attempt to prove someone other than the defendant committed the crime,” Dorman recited. He stood at Costello's shoulder like an overeager valet.

  Costello had settled himself into one of Grabko's visitor's chairs, legs crossed, suit coat arranged to minimize wrinkles, manila envelope in one hand. Ellen could feel his eyes on her, calm, sharp.

  “It's a goddamn smear campaign and it's unconscionable!” she snapped, beyond circumspection, beyond anger. She may have drawn blood from some of his witnesses, but he had nicked a major artery and was waiting to see if Grabko would allow it to bleed out. She was too furious to sit, but she kept herself planted in the chair with Cameron standing guard behind her.

  The judge glared at her in affront. “Ms. North, I won't have that kind of language in my chambers, particularly from a lady. This is a place of civil discussion.”

  “There's nothing civil about what Mr. Costello is attempting to do here, Your Honor. I don't care if he couches it with excerpts from Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It stinks to high heaven!”

  Grabko had ordered them into his chambers before all hell could break loose in the courtroom. The dissonant clamor of the gallery as they adjourned from the room had been deafening. Ellen could only imagine what was going on out there now. A feeding frenzy. Paul Kirkwood pinned up against the gallery railing as the rabid mob tore chunks out of him. She wouldn't have minded tearing some chunks out of him herself if what Karen Wright claimed was true, but his infidelity was an issue of its own.

  “Paul Kirkwood's sexual exploits are well outside the scope of this hearing,” she said, turning toward Costello. “Although, if it's true, it gives your client motive beyond mere evil.”

  “On the contrary,” he said coolly. “It gives Paul Kirkwood motive.”

  “Which is what?”

  “We think the boy might have discovered his father's dirty little secret and Paul saw abducting the child as a way of killing two birds with one stone—shut the boy up and get his rival for Karen's affections out of the way.”

  “Why stop there?” Ellen said sarcastically. “Don't you think he might have been on the grassy knoll the day Kennedy was shot?”

  “Ellen, facetiousness is not called for here,” Grabko chastened.

  “Not unless it's in the guise of a defense,” she muttered, then winced as Cameron surreptitiously pinched her arm.

  “Mrs. Wright is prepared to testify she had a tryst with Paul Kirkwood in a vacant office in the Omni Complex the night Josh disappeared,” Costello said. “That Paul was to meet her at six forty-five that evening and did not show up until seven. He wouldn't account for the time he had been gone, and he seemed extremely agitated.”

  “So says the wife of your client,” Ellen said. “It's absurd that she's even on the stand.”

  Costello ignored her. “Her testimony sets the stage, Your Honor. Paul Kirkwood has been under suspicion from the first. He's without an alibi for the time of the abduction, had a connection to the van owned by Olie Swain—who may well have been his accomplice. He repeatedly lied about the van. In her statement to the police the Ryan's Bay witness said the man who came to her house was looking for his son's dog and called it by name. Who's to say it wasn't Kirkwood himself?”

  “Anyone with half a brain,” Ellen grumbled. “If you'll recall, that witness identified your client in the lineup.”

  “She identified a man in a parka and sunglasses.”

  “She singled him out by his voice.”

  “Paul Kirkwood wasn't in the lineup. She did the best she could. For all we know, Kirkwood disguised his voice. He was trying to pin this thing on Dr. Wright—”

  “Then why didn't he introduce himself as Garrett Wright?” Cameron asked. “Why implicate himself in any way? It makes no sense.”

  “And I say there's room for doubt,” Costello declared with an elegant shrug. “The police went so far as to fingerprint him.”

  “For elimination purposes!” Ellen argued.

  He gave her a look. “You know perfectly well the difference between what the police say and what they mean, Ellen.”

  Ellen sniffed. “Two days ago you thought they were too stupid to tie their own shoes; now you think their every action is fueled by an ulterior motive.”

  “And there's still the matter of the actual arrest,” Cameron began.

  “Easily explained if Kirkwood set out to frame Dr. Wright,” Costello said. “The hairs on the sheet, the hairs in the stocking cap—evidence easily planted. In fact, the criminalist stated there were unidentified hairs on both items. I suggest Mr. Kirkwood be asked to surrender hair samples.” He turned to Ellen with exaggerated seriousness. “For elimination purposes, of course.”

  She curled her fingers around the arms of her chair and resisted the urge to take samples of Costello's hair with her bare hands. He undoubtedly would have been delighted to have her try. His goal from the first had been to make her look bad in front of Grabko, to get any edge he could any way he could. And she had let herself be drawn into his traps again and again. That truth made her want to tear her own hair out. She was supposed to have got over him, not just away from him and his kind. She was supposed to have changed her life and herself, not simply let the old Ellen
go dormant to be reawakened.

  “Your Honor,” she said with forced calm, “Paul Kirkwood is not on trial here. He was investigated and eliminated as a possible suspect. There appears to be a direct connection between the abduction of Josh Kirkwood and the abduction and murder of Dustin Holloman. In fact, the Holloman case has been used to taunt the authorities in such a way as to make Wright look innocent. If Paul Kirkwood is the villain here, and trying to make Garrett Wright take the fall, it doesn't follow.

  “We have to proceed with this case, make our judgments about this case, on the basis of the evidence we have. The evidence we have points clearly to Dr. Wright and an accomplice who has yet to be apprehended.”

  Grabko pursed his lips and dug a fingertip into his beard as if in pursuit of a tick. “The Holloman case is outside the scope of this hearing,” he said. “Paul Kirkwood is directly related to the case before us. Although I don't necessarily care for your method in bringing Mr. Kirkwood's possible involvement to light, Mr. Costello, this is a hearing and not a trial, and I am inclined to allow more leeway. After all, it is the truth we're after.”

  “Absolutely, Your Honor,” Costello said gravely.

  “We sometimes lose sight of that ultimate goal in our adversarial system,” Grabko pontificated, warming to his topic. “Ambition crowds out purer motives. The rules of court are bent and corrupted. The truth is lost in a scramble to win.”

  He paused, pleased with the ideals he had just brought out like shining jewels to show off to his small audience. It never occurred to him to look beyond his own brilliance to see which of the factions before him was guilty of the sins he had named.

  “We'll hear what Mrs. Wright has to say,” he said, snapping out of the afterglow.

  Costello waited until everyone else was halfway out of their chairs to speak. “Before we adjourn, Your Honor,” he said, lifting the envelope. “My associate, Mr. York, has brought in a piece of evidence I believe will add validity to our defense.” As smooth as a magician performing sleight of hand, he opened the envelope and produced a microcassette tape. “This is a tape from Paul Kirkwood's office answering machine with messages from the night his son was abducted.”