Compulsion (Max Revere Novels Book 2)

by Brennan, Allison

  “Sounds very cut-and-dried.”

  “In many ways it is. Though Judge Tarkoff is known to be a tough judge—hence the banning of electronics, even among the media—he set out a tight calendar. He expects to have the trial wrapped up in four days. That means the jury could get the case as early as Thursday afternoon.”

  “What’s the jury pool like?”

  “A cross section of age and race. Eight women and four men.”

  “Any surprises this morning?”

  “None. It was very routine.”

  “But you had some good news. Adam Bachman has kept a low profile since his arrest, but he agreed to grant you an exclusive interview. What was that like?”

  “I’ll be reporting more in depth on my interview with Mr. Bachman on the next Maximum Exposure, but two things struck me. First, his appearance is that of a young, neat, articulate man. People who know him have called him ‘fastidious.’ As you and I both know, Ace, killers often don’t look like they could commit violence. Mr. Bachman has that pleasant guy-next-door appearance, which will be something the prosecution is going to have to deal with.”

  “Sort of like Ted Bundy?”

  Though Max was tired of the Ted Bundy comparison, which seemed so outdated and cliché, she smiled and nodded. “Exactly. The second thing that struck me was his complete lack of fear for the process. He didn’t seem to be nervous about what faced him in court. He smiled at me, almost as if he was looking forward to the proceedings.”

  “Because he’s innocent?”

  “He made no claims of innocence or guilt to me,” Max said. “I asked him what he thought the outcome would be and he shrugged and said he had no idea what the jury was going to decide. He made a point of saying he wasn’t violent.”

  “He’s accused of killing five people. He doesn’t consider that violent?”

  That was a good segue back to the trial. “As the prosecutor revealed in her opening statement, the five victims were suffocated. A.D.A. Golden said she would prove that Mr. Bachman put a clear plastic bag over their heads and watched them suffocate. I would call that violent. But the jury will have to make the final decision as to whether Adam Bachman committed these murders.”

  “Maxine, based on the opening statements, what do you think will happen?”

  “Honestly, Ace, if the prosecution proves what they claim to be able to prove, I don’t see how the jury can come back with anything but a guilty verdict. However, that’s the key, right? The State has to prove the facts, and as you and I both know sometimes the State fails.”

  Chapter Five

  After eating a hot dog with Riley, Max sent her assistant on a quick errand and took the opportunity to call James Palazzolo, Jr. J. J. was the oldest of Jim and Sandy’s three children. Married with two kids of his own, he had resented his youngest sister contacting Max about their parents’ disappearance, but after Max flew to Ohio last fall to meet with the three Palazzolo children, all animosity disappeared. J. J., Rachel, and Cindy were grieving. They knew in their hearts that their parents were dead, but not knowing what happened was sucking the life out of them.

  Max understood how they felt better than most people, and though she hadn’t particularly wanted to look into the case after Cindy contacted her, once she met the family she knew she had no choice. Max had written an article for a women’s magazine called “An American Family” that detailed the quiet middle-class life of Jim and Sandy and how they bought a home, raised their kids, and put them through college. Jim had been an electrician and Sandy was an elementary schoolteacher. The three kids were grown and creating their own middle-class families in a quiet community in an uncertain world.

  For all of Max’s wealth, for all her property and family connections, she envied the Palazzolos. Love, affection, and respect flowed freely. J. J. told her about how every night the family had dinner together and talked, sometimes for hours after the meal. How they went to church on Sunday and had afternoon barbeques and went to Friday night high school football games even after J. J. graduated. There was so much history, so many memories in the family house that J. J. had decided they would never sell it.

  But they needed to know what had happened to their parents. They needed to bury their bodies and have a funeral. Answers. Closure.

  Max slipped into an empty interview room for privacy. The rooms were off-limits to reporters, but Max knew enough people in the courthouse that they usually turned a blind eye.

  She logged on to Skype from her iPad and waited for the call to go through to J. J.’s work computer. He answered, and she saw him sitting behind his cluttered desk. He was a veterinarian and she could hear yelping in the background.

  “Hello, J. J. I’m glad I caught you.”

  “I cleared my lunch hour, since I thought you might call.”

  “I had my interview with Bachman this morning.”

  “You got it.” He smiled, but there was no humor. “I knew you would. What did he say?”

  “He didn’t admit to anything.”

  “But?”

  “He made some cryptic remarks. I’m going to follow through on them. My colleague, David Kane, is working with a detective in Queens following up on a lead. I promise, J. J., I will call the minute I know anything definitive.”

  He sighed heavily, his head sinking into his hands. Then he looked back at her and said, “Knowing that you care about my parents means a lot. It’s been nearly a year since they disappeared. Two more weeks—if we still don’t know what happened to them, we’re going to have a memorial service. My sisters and I want you to be here, if possible.”

  “E-mail me the details. I hope to learn something before then, but I can’t make promises. Just know that I am doing everything I can to find out what happened.”

  “Thank you. I’ll tell Rach and Cindy you called.”

  “I’ll check in later this week.” She disconnected the call and stared at the blank screen.

  It wasn’t fair in any sense of the word that J. J. and his sisters had to suffer like this. Even a memorial service like they planned wouldn’t give them the closure they needed, only diminish their hope. They believed their parents were dead, because in no world they lived in would their parents walk away from them and their family and home.

  Believing they were dead and knowing it were two different things. They would learn to accept, learn to live again, but that niggle of doubt and worry in the back of their minds that they could have, should have, would have found the truth if only …

  That’s where Max came in. She wanted the truth as much as they did. The truth was tangible. Adam Bachman knew the truth and she would find a way to get it out of him, to find some thread to give her and the Palazzolos the closure they needed.

  * * *

  After the lunch break, the prosecution began to build their case. Charlene first called the officer who’d initially arrested Bachman, which Max thought was a smart move. The key was to walk the jury through the case as it unfolded so that they couldn’t come to any conclusion other than what the prosecution intended.

  The officer went through his credentials—a twelve-year veteran of NYPD, several commendations—and then Charlene asked him about the night he stopped Adam Bachman’s car.

  “Why were you stopping cars on the Queensboro Bridge?”

  “There was a serious, nonfatal accident on the bridge. Four cars were involved, so we had an extensive backup and only one lane open. We were managing the traffic flow so the clean-up crew could get the damaged vehicles off the bridge while investigators processed the scene. We stopped cars when we needed to, then waved them forward. Basic traffic management. I had just waved Mr. Bachman’s car through but I heard a female scream. My partner and I pulled out our weapons and ordered Mr. Bachman to stop and keep his hands on the steering wheel. I called in the other unit and they kept an eye on Bachman while my partner and I opened the trunk.”

  “So to clarify, you had probable cause to open the trunk.”

 
“Yes, ma’am. Both my partner and I heard the scream.”

  “What did you find when you opened the trunk?”

  “A white female later identified as Ava Raines. Her feet were bound and she had duct tape hanging from her cheek. She had duct tape on her hands, but she had managed to cut the tape off on the inside of the trunk lid.”

  “Objection,” Warren said. “Speculation.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said.

  Charlene nodded and said, “Did you see remnants of duct tape on her wrists?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did Ms. Raines say anything at that time?”

  “She said, ‘Help me. Thank God you’re here. Please help me.’”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “We removed the woman from the trunk, called for an ambulance, and took her statement.”

  “The official statement is Exhibit Four,” Golden told the jury. “Continue.”

  “Ms. Raines informed us that she woke up in the trunk of the car, which she realized was her car because her things were in the trunk, and her hands and feet were bound. She kicked and tried to signal for help.”

  “Thank you, Officer.”

  Max wrote her impressions in her own unique shorthand. Clear and straightforward, Max noted. Established the facts and a time line, plus probable cause, which was important for the jury. Very typical of an experienced officer. He’d probably testified in a hundred trials during his tenure. Score one for the prosecution.

  Warren’s cross-examination was brief, but he asked the one question Max knew he would.

  “Did you ask Ms. Raines who abducted her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said she didn’t know.”

  “Did you ask her if she recognized the man driving her car?”

  “Yes, I did. She said he looked familiar, but she didn’t know why.”

  “And did Mr. Bachman comply with your orders?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Bachman in no way resisted arrest?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you read Mr. Bachman his rights?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did Mr. Bachman say anything before you read him his rights?”

  The officer looked confused and glanced at Charlene. Max agreed—the question was odd. She put a star in her notepad then wrote down the question and waited for the answer.

  The judge said, “Answer the question, Officer.”

  “He repeated several times, ‘I don’t understand.’”

  “Did you think that he didn’t understand why you were arresting him?”

  “No, sir. He understood his rights and verbally acknowledged such.”

  “Meaning, did he seem surprised that there was a woman bound in the trunk of the car?”

  “Objection,” Charlene said.

  “It goes to my client’s emotional state of mind, Your Honor.”

  “You may answer the question, Officer. But, Counselor, please tread carefully in this area.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Officer, did Mr. Bachman seem in any way surprised that there was a woman bound in the trunk of the car?”

  “I really can’t say, sir. The only thing he said was, ‘I don’t understand.’ He didn’t say anything after we read him his rights, except to affirm that he understood them.”

  “Thank you.”

  I don’t understand.

  Max underlined the comment. It was odd for Bachman to have said it to the police, and equally odd in how the defense brought it up to the officer. What was his purpose? To attempt to show confusion on Bachman’s part? To cast doubt on his knowledge of Ava Raines being in the trunk? He was driving her car, after all.

  “Redirect,” Charlene said and rose from her chair. “Officer, were you aware that Mr. Bachman was driving a car registered to Ms. Raines?”

  Max smiled. Charlene could have pulled the question right out of Max’s head.

  “Not until after we placed him under arrest. We then ran the plates on the car and determined that it was registered to Ava Raines of Long Island. That coincided with the registration we found in the glove compartment box.”

  Bachman shifted in his seat and whispered something to his lawyer. Max wished she was a fly on the table in front of them. What was he saying? He looked agitated, as if he wanted to say something to the court. His lawyer put his hand on Bachman’s, whispered something into his ear. Whatever he said didn’t seem to appease Bachman. He slouched in his chair and frowned like a reprimanded child.

  Warren didn’t ask any more questions and Charlene called the second officer, who corroborated his partner’s testimony. Then the paramedic who was first on scene, who reported his observations about Ms. Raines’s wounds, followed by the doctor who confirmed she’d been drugged with a depressant that caused memory loss.

  During the twenty-minute recess, Max quickly wrote up a summary for the Maximum Exposure Web page. She sent it to Ben just as the bailiff was about to close the doors. He let her slip back in.

  As soon as Judge Tarkoff was seated, he called for the next witness. Charlene called Ava Raines to the stand.

  Max had great interest in the next witness. Not only because Ava’s testimony could make or break the case, but because Ava had agreed to let Max interview her once the trial was over. Her statements—here in court and then in a personal one-on-one interview—would add even more depth to this tragic story.

  Ava was of average height, on the slender side, with long straight blond hair and large brown eyes. She wore a modest dress, a bit casual for court, but not inappropriate. She wore only a little makeup, which made her look younger than her twenty-four years. She shifted nervously.

  Charlene did a great job of putting Ava at ease. She asked a few easy questions. Her name, where she lived, then what she was doing staying in a hotel in Manhattan that weekend when she lived on Long Island.

  “It was supposed to be a girls weekend,” Ava said, “with my two best friends, Mandy and Ginger. We were all recently single and thought why not just go to some shows, go shopping, pretend we’re tourists?”

  “You stayed in the same hotel room?”

  “Yes, Saturday night. And we had fun—but then Mandy’s boyfriend called her Sunday morning and wanted to talk.” Ava rolled her eyes, then quickly glanced around as if that were inappropriate. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Ava. Mandy’s boyfriend called and…?”

  “I had driven us, and I was mad and didn’t want to leave. I’m training to be a paramedic, and I’d just taken my certification test. I’d worked sixty-hour weeks for hardly any pay for so long, and studying—I deserved to have fun, you know? And I was nervous, because it takes two weeks before they give you the results. And Trevor called, begging Mandy to come back so they could talk.”

  “You and Mandy both live in Medford, correct?”

  Ava nodded.

  “You need to answer out loud, Ms. Raines.”

  “Sorry. Yes. We all live in Medford. We went to high school together and stayed friends.”

  “Did you drive Mandy back to Medford?”

  “No. I was mad and I didn’t want to leave. My dad gave me some money when I reached my required EMT hours, and I wanted to have fun because I knew when I got my certification, I would have to find a job and be the rookie and work longer hours. I wanted to stay and enjoy myself. We fought—it was awful. And Ginger got mad at me and went back on the train with Mandy.”

  “And you stayed.”

  “I had tickets to see Rock of Ages Sunday night.” She frowned and glanced down.

  “Are you all right, Ms. Raines?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Let’s go back to the afternoon you were abducted. Can you tell the court what you remember?”

  “I … that day has always been fuzzy. Because he drugged me.”

  “Objection!” Warren called.

  “Sustained,” the judge said.r />
  Ava frowned, and Charlene nodded. “Ava, let’s go through that night step by step, okay? What do you remember about Tuesday? Start with when you woke up.”

  “I woke up about eight in the morning. I went to the hotel gym, then came back to my room and showered and packed. I didn’t really want to go home, but three nights in a Manhattan hotel is expensive, especially since Mandy and Ginger left and only split Saturday night with me. I checked out, but left my car in the garage so I could go shopping.”

  “What time did you check out?”

  “Around eleven in the morning.”

  “Where did you shop?”

  “Um, first I went to H and M, then the Nike store for new running shoes because they were having a sale, then I had a late lunch at Fringe.”

  Fringe. Bingo. Max wrote rapidly. Fringe was the bar that Bachman worked at, though he had Tuesdays off.

  “Had you been to Fringe before?”

  “Yes—on Sunday, after I saw Rock of Ages.”

  Max looked at Bachman. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at Ava or at the judge.

  Charlene said, “Let the record show that Exhibits Nine through Twelve are receipts from Ms. Raines’s hotel and shopping that day, confirming the time line.”

  “So noted,” the judge said.

  “When did you leave the restaurant?”

  “About two thirty.”

  Charlene said, “Let the record reflect that Ms. Raines paid for her meal at two twenty-one, per the time stamp on the receipt.”

  Ava said, “I hung around another few minutes, texting Ginger.”

  Charlene introduced those texts into evidence. “Did you make plans?”

  “I told Ginger I was leaving the city and maybe we could get together later. I was still mad, and wanted her to apologize, but I also needed to apologize because I said some mean things.”