Without a Hitch

by Andrew Price

  “On behalf of ‘we people’ everywhere, I thank you. . . I think.” Corbin sat down in the extra chair by the door after moving Molly’s overcoat from the chair to the coat rack and setting her purse on the floor. “Who’s the gift for?”

  “Shoe Guy.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Birthday.” Molly flipped through a catalog, looking for a page she had marked.

  “What are we talking about in terms of price?”

  “Price is no obstacle, but let’s keep it under fifty bucks.” Molly found the page. “How about this?” She handed Corbin the catalog and indicated a lamp she had circled.

  Corbin frowned. “A lamp? Is his place dark or something?”

  “No, but his decorating stinks.”

  “Ok, hold on. Before we go any further, I need a little clarification. Are you trying to get him something he will like or something you want him to like?”

  Molly pursed her lips.

  “I see. The key element is that it makes you happy that he has it.”

  “Close enough.”

  “What are his interests?” Corbin asked.

  Molly shrugged her shoulders. “We spend a lot of time at the movies. Sometimes we watch TV at his place. We go to restaurants. He seems to like Italian food.”

  “Stop.”

  “What?”

  “What does he do when you aren’t with him?”

  “How the heck would I know?”

  “Don’t you talk?”

  Molly again pursed her lips. “You really are testy today, aren’t you? Trouble with the perfect girlfriend?”

  “No, everything’s fine,” Corbin answered defensively. He’d blown Penny off three nights in a row and he knew that was a mistake.

  “Well, you look stressed. I’d offer you a massage, but I don’t like you that much.” Molly smirked.

  “Is this your attempt to change the subject?”

  “No, but you’re not being helpful asking me about things I couldn’t possibly know,” Molly said defensively as she grabbed the catalog from Corbin. “Just answer the question: what should I buy him?”

  “Buy him a book.”

  Molly’s eyes lit up. “A book?!”

  “Yes, a book.”

  “Good idea! They’re cheap. He might even learn something.” She smiled. “This is why it’s good to keep some of you people around.”

  Corbin and Penny sat at a table near the window. They were waiting for their meals to arrive. She looked mostly at the table and rarely at Corbin, and she hadn’t smiled. Corbin noticed, but hadn’t said anything yet.

  “You look tired,” Penny said.

  “I feel tired. It’s been a long week.” He sipped his Coke.

  “How’s your aunt?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “The next few weeks could make all the difference.”

  “Did you call Blue?” she asked, despite knowing the answer. She’d spent the week trying to convince Blue that Corbin had merely forgotten to call. Blue was particularly upset Corbin never returned the message where he explained how Rex wanted to sign him to a record deal and how it was urgent that Corbin call him. Corbin deleted that message without listening to it.

  Corbin winced and slapped his forehead. “Shoot, I forgot to call him,” he lied.

  “You should call him. He’s got some great news for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Penny said, trying to emphasize that Corbin needed to call.

  “Because I’m asking you!” Corbin blurted out, surprising both Penny and himself. “Wow, I’m sorry. I’ve been dealing with some difficult people all week. That has me on edge. I didn’t mean that. I really didn’t.”

  Penny kept looking at the table.

  “I really am sorry,” he repeated. “Forgive me?”

  “Is that why you didn’t return my calls all week?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about that. I just got so carried away with everything going on. I literally never had a moment to myself.”

  “You’ll call Blue?”

  “Yes, I’ll call Blue. I swear.”

  Penny seemed placated, but for the first time they ran out of things to talk about.

  Chapter 29

  Corbin returned to Philadelphia the day before the hearing. It was 11:30 in the morning. Beckett was on the phone trying to track down witnesses. Ever since he bombed Corbin’s cross examination, Beaumont had started oozing helpfulness; witnesses were his latest offering. Corbin knew Beckett would be tied up for at least an hour. This presented him with the chance he had been waiting for to search Beckett’s hotel.

  To make sure Beckett wouldn’t leave the office, Corbin asked Beckett to watch for a fax they were expecting from Judge Sutherlin’s clerk, regarding their first scheduled hearing. He told Beckett the fax would contain the hearing date and time and might need an immediate reply. In truth, the fax was already safely hidden in Corbin’s briefcase. Corbin then excused himself, ostensibly to get some lunch.

  As he stepped into the Tribune Building elevator, Corbin double-checked his pocket to make sure he had the electronic keycard which would let him into Beckett’s hotel room. Corbin took the key earlier from Beckett’s desk when Beckett visited the restroom. The name and address of the hotel and Beckett’s room number were on the paper sleeve in which the card rested.

  The hotel was six blocks away. Corbin jogged most of the way. As he entered the hotel, he walked right past the front desk without stopping. The clerk hardly noticed him. When he reached room 214, Corbin inserted the key. It clicked. Corbin entered the room. Beckett’s personal effects were spread everywhere. Corbin searched everything, even between the mattresses, but found no wallet and no stacks of cash. After replacing everything the way he found it, Corbin made his way to the parking garage. He knew Beckett’s car, as he’d been in it many times. He also knew the driver-side door lock was broken, so he didn’t need to smash a window. His search came up empty.

  An annoyed Corbin returned to the office, where he found Beckett watching television in the conference room.

  “Guess what?” Beckett pointed to the television.

  Eddie Pierce, the District Attorney, was on television talking about Beaumont’s case. Behind him stood the grim Hillary Morales. “Yes, this is part of our zero-tolerance policy,” Pierce said. He had the manner of a circus ringmaster with the permanent smile of a car salesman. “I’m determined to get these criminals off our streets no matter what it takes. If that means taking them down for less serious crimes, that’s fine by me. Every day someone like Mr. Beaumont is off the streets, the safer our community will be. It worked with Al Capone, it will work here. Sometimes the tried and true methods are the best.”

  “Could you give us some background on Beaumont,” asked one of the reporters.

  “Certainly, Beaumont’s been implicated in a series of crimes in the past. He’s the sole suspect in a double homicide that occurred two years ago, though he could not be prosecuted when the witness against him turned up beaten to death in the river.”

  “Do you have enough evidence to convict him on this new charge?” asked another reporter.

  “That’s up to the jury. All I can say is I’m confident of our case.”

  “How long would he serve?”

  “If convicted of all charges, he could serve up to seventy-five years.”

  “‘Seventy-five years!” Corbin exclaimed.

  “Yeah, they added a bunch of charges,” Beckett said, pointing to a package which had been delivered by courier only a few minutes before. “See what you can come up with to dismiss some of these charges or suppress the evidence. I’ve got a couple ideas already.”

  “I’ll add that to the list,” Corbin said bitterly.

  Beckett turned off the television. “Let’s split up the videos. There’s a lot of footage there and we should check it all.” Beckett pointed at a box containing half a dozen bank surveillance video cassettes. These wer
e delivered by the same courier. “Verify the notes they gave us about what’s supposed to be on the tapes and look for anything suspicious.”

  Corbin took two of the tapes. “I hope these have a better plot than the first tape.”

  “What’d they want?!” Sgt. Warner Russell demanded, accosting his former partner the moment Webb stepped into the police station.

  “Who?” Webb asked, pushing past Russell.

  “Beaumont’s attorney!” Russell grabbed Webb’s arm to stop him.

  Webb shook Russell’s hand from his arm. “How would I know?”

  “You met with ’em,” Russell said in a low, accusing voice.

  “I haven’t met with anybody.”

  “Don’t give me that shit! They wanted to meet with you, and now they ain’t asking to meet with you’se no more. That means you met with ’em.”

  “No, it doesn’t, and no, I didn’t.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, rookie,” Russell barked. “I got a right to know what they wanted.”

  “You’ve got a ‘right’?”

  “Yeah, I got a right ’cause my ass is in the sling on this one, and don’t you forget, your ass is first in line. You signed that report, so you better be straight with me if you want this thing to go away.”

  “Why, Russ? Are you gonna turn me in?” he laughed.

  Russell snapped his head around quickly to see who might be listening. “Keep your damn voice down. All I’m saying,” he was whispering now, “is your name is on that report. If you want to keep this from blowin’ up on you, we gotta stick together.”

  “Uh huh, sure.” Webb ran his tongue over his lips. “I called Beaumont’s lawyer and told him I had nothing to say. What about you? What did you tell him?”

  “They never asked to talk to me.”

  Webb raised an eyebrow, but didn’t follow up. “All right, let me know if that changes,” he said and walked away.

  Russell watched him leave. “Fucker,” he said under his breath.

  Corbin pointed to the television screen. They were watching the surveillance video from First Regional. “Here it comes. There, see it. . . the guy in the red shirt.”

  “That’s not Beaumont,” Beckett agreed.

  “No, not even close. But that’s who they’ve identified as Beaumont. The time code corresponds with the transaction Beaumont supposedly made, and I’ve looked at every frame of the video, frame by frame, for two hours in either direction. This is the only guy it could be. He’s even wearing the red shirt the teller mentions in her statement.” Corbin chose not to mention that Alvarez could be seen standing slightly behind the man in the red shirt in the video.

  “You’re sure Beaumont isn’t anywhere else on the tape?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve seen every frame of it. Same thing with the Penn Bancorp tape. I don’t see anything that looks like Beaumont.”

  “Is this all they gave us? No other surveillance tapes? No ATM videos? There should be dozens of those.”

  “These are the only tapes they’ve given us. My guess is they stopped asking for tapes when Beaumont didn’t show up on the tapes they had.” Corbin handed Beckett some papers. “I’ve got a request for the prosecutor to identify everywhere they looked for tapes. I’ve also started working on some motions. I’ve got a motion to suppress the manager’s testimony because she didn’t identify Beaumont until after they showed her a photo of Beaumont. That’s an illegal line up. I’ve got some motions about the tapes and one about the gun. I don’t know how you want to handle the teller, the one who identifies Beaumont as the guy in the red shirt? She’s clearly wrong about it being Beaumont, but that’s not a legal reason to keep her testimony out.”

  “No, we’ll have to deal with that at trial,” Beckett agreed.

  “We could still try, kind of a shot in the dark?”

  “No, let’s not tip our hand. If we get to the point where the prosecution is thinking about dismissing the case, then it might be the shove we need. But anything short of that, we’re better off saving that surprise for trial.” Beckett scratched his chin. “On the Penn Bancorp video, if the judge refuses to exclude the manager’s testimony, then we need to show the whole tape to show he’s not there.”

  “That’ll be fun,” Corbin said sarcastically. “We have eleven hours of tape from Penn Bancorp that day. I’ll write something up.”

  “What else have you got?”

  “I’ve got a motion to dismiss the gun charge for lack of evidence. I can’t see the judge granting that one, but it’s worth a shot to remind him they need to prove every part of the crime.” Corbin flipped through some of his notes. “I’ve got a motion to keep out any mention of prior crimes or suspicions of crimes. I’ve got a request for the complete file on Beaumont; we only have parts of it.”

  “That’s not unusual. Prosecutors like to play games.”

  “That’s all I have for now, but I’m still working.”

  Judge Immanuel Sutherlin’s office was stiflingly hot. Two radiator heaters near the door to the hallway clanked and sizzled all day, causing the windows to steam up. The windows were tall, but not wide. Beneath the windows ran a knee-high, built-in shelf from one end of the twenty foot office to the other. A series of legal books sat on top of the shelf, as did three plants, one under each window. A large mahogany desk dominated the room, though it was buried under two dozen files. Photos and various certificates hung on the walls. On the other side of Sutherlin’s desk were two studded leather chairs with rounded wooden arms. They looked like something you might find in a museum to the 1930s. Another four identical chairs stood against the wall, opposite Sutherlin, by the radiators. A green and gold Persian rug covered the floor. It lay over the gray commercial carpet found throughout the rest of the building’s offices and in the courtrooms; the hallways were tile, which made them incredibly noisy as people’s footsteps echoed. To Sutherlin’s right was another door, which led to a smaller office where his clerk and his secretary worked.

  Sutherlin was nothing like Judge D’Amato. He was a great deal older, quite a bit testier, and he didn’t talk with people so much as talk at them. Where she had an easy manner and presented an aura of practicality, Sutherlin’s manner was exceedingly formal and precise. As he read through Corbin and Beckett’s motions, he scratched notes in the margins. All eyes were on his thick, white, perfectly-coiffed hair and his starched white shirt. His robe hung from a hanger in the corner.

  “Mr., ah, Beckett. I have reviewed your motions. Is there anything you wish to add that isn’t already covered in your memoranda?” Sutherlin asked in a deep, dominating voice which filled the room and demanded attention. He looked at Beckett over the top of his glasses. Beckett sat on the other side of Sutherlin’s desk, next to the dapper Eddie Pierce, the District Attorney. Corbin and Hillary Morales sat behind them, against the wall.

  “Yes, Your Honor, thank you.” Beckett flipped a few pages in his notes. “We’ve looked at the prosecution’s filings and we simply can’t find any evidence linking Mr. Beaumont to most of the charges. There are no witnesses placing him in the banks and there’s no evidence linking him to the documents in question—”

  “Your Honor, the police found the documents at his residence,” Pierce said, interrupting Beckett. Pierce wore a black checkered suit with a red handkerchief sticking out of the suit’s breast pocket. Platinum cufflinks became visible whenever he moved his arms, which he did whenever he spoke.

  “There’s no evidence placing Beaumont in the banks or showing that he ever opened the accounts,” Beckett countered.

  “Mr. Beckett, how do we know the defendant didn’t have an associate open the account for him?” Sutherlin asked. “You want the case dismissed because there is allegedly no evidence Mr. Beaumont entered these banks, but how do you know he didn’t have an associate?”

  “The state hasn’t made that allegation, Your Honor,” Beckett responded. “Nor have they produced any witnesses to that effect.”

  “The case is still
young, Mr. Beckett. Your motion to dismiss is denied. Though I will consider the motion again should the state fail to demonstrate a connection between Mr. Beaumont and these documents at trial.” Sutherlin made some additional notes. “Let’s talk about this videotape. What is the problem with the videotape, Mr. Beckett?”

  “With regard to the First Regional tape, we are moving to exclude the testimony of the teller and the videotape. First, the videotape has no date or time stamp. Thus we have no way to know when it was made.”

  “I presume the teller can testify as to when it was made,” Sutherlin responded.

  “We also challenge the testimony of the manager from Penn Bancorp, because she was shown a picture of Mr. Beaumont before she was asked to identify him.”

  “And you think that tainted the identification?” Sutherlin asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Beckett responded.

  “But she does identify him as the man with whom she dealt,” Pierce said.

  “Motion denied.”

  Beckett frowned, causing Sutherlin to smirk. “Don’t worry, Mr. Beckett. You’re an experienced trial attorney. I’m sure you can make your case effectively to the jury.”

  “We’re also moving to dismiss the gun charge, again for lack of evidence.”

  “Denied.”

  Beckett stared at the Judge for a moment. Sutherlin stared back coldly.

  “What about our motion to exclude any mention of prior crimes or suspicions of crimes?”

  “I’m going to defer my ruling on that one, Mr. Beckett, until it becomes clear what the prosecution intends to do to prove their case. . . but I will grant your request for the entire file.” Sutherlin looked at Eddie Pierce. “You are ordered to provide a complete copy of the file to Mr. Beckett within five days.”

  “We can turn it over this afternoon,” Pierce responded.

  “Is there anything else, Mr. Beckett?”

  Beckett closed the file on his lap. “We’ve been trying to get videotape from the other banks where Mr. Beaumont is alleged to have opened accounts, but we haven’t had any success because they claim they didn’t keep it—”