by Andrew Price
“What do you want from me, Mr. Beckett?” Sutherlin asked dryly. “I can’t create videotape from whole cloth?”
“We understand the police looked at some of those videos, and we would like those produced.”
“Your Honor, we no longer have any such videos,” Pierce responded. “If we were unable to find Mr. Beaumont clearly, then we returned the tapes to the banks.”
“Where, presumably, they were destroyed. I see.” Sutherlin rubbed his chin. “Mr. Beckett, I cannot give you what does not exist.”
“But Your Honor, if the police had these videos, then they had an obligation to preserve the evidence.”
“I would agree with you, Mr. Beckett, except this is not evidence. Your client was not on the tapes.”
“That means my client wasn’t at those banks,” Beckett countered.
“No, Mr. Beckett, it only means he wasn’t on the tapes. Since I don’t see how these videos are relevant, I’m not going to grant any sort of remedy.”
“Your Honor—”
“Next motion, Mr. Beckett.”
“That’s it, Your Honor.”
“We have a motion, Your Honor. We haven’t prepared it yet, but Mr. Beckett’s comments raise an issue.” Pierce waited for Sutherlin to nod before continuing. “The defense apparently intends to show one or more of these tapes for the purpose of showing that Mr. Beaumont allegedly does not appear on the tape. We object to that in light of your ruling that his failure to appear on video is not relevant to this proceeding.”
“I don’t know which tapes Mr. Pierce is referencing, but I believe it is entirely relevant to show the videos that are in our possession, seeing as how the prosecution is relying on them as proof that Mr. Beaumont supposedly opened these bank accounts.”
The Judge scratched his sharp, clean-shaven chin again. “I’m going to defer a ruling on this until I can see the videotapes. File a pre-trial motion on this matter for all tapes you want excluded, and I’ll consider it.” The Judge rose, causing everyone else to rise as well. “If there’s nothing else, counselors?” Sutherlin dismissed them.
Corbin leaned against the window ledge in the restroom as Beckett ran cold water over his face. Like Sutherlin’s office, the restroom was steaming hot and humid. This restroom was located between the judge’s chamber and a conference room where they were allowed to meet privately with Beaumont when he was brought to the courthouse. The entire hallway was away from the public hallways, back behind the main courtroom. Normally, this restroom was reserved for the judge and the clerks only, but Judge Sutherlin gave Corbin and Beckett permission to use it so they could avoid the media, which began hounding anyone remotely connected to the case after Pierce’s television appearance.
“Man, it’s hot in here,” Corbin said, examining the ancient radiator in the corner, which burped, clanked and sizzled. It had no off switch, so Corbin tried opening the window. He yanked at it, but it didn’t budge. “What do we do now?” Corbin asked, turning his attention to Beaumont’s case.
“We prepare for a bigger case than we were expecting,” Beckett said. “This is disappointing.”
“How do we fight evidence the prosecution hasn’t even produced?”
“That’s the question. We might have a problem if Sutherlin lets in the prior crimes evidence.”
“Can he do that? That’s not admissible at trial, right?”
“Not generally, but you can use it for some purposes, like refuting direct statements made by witnesses, like ‘I’ve never owned a gun.’”
“I see,” Corbin said sourly. “Let’s get the hell out of here, before we melt.”
“Are you talking about the restroom or the city?” Beckett asked with a hint of accusation. He and Corbin were not getting along well, with Corbin repeatedly suggesting they leave Beaumont to his fate. Before Corbin could answer, however, Eddie Pierce entered the restroom.
“Tough luck,” Pierce said in his usual smarmy tone. “I’m sure you’ll do well though. I’ll have the file couriered over this afternoon.” He checked his short black hair in the mirror. “I’m glad I’m not defending your guy. . . what a turd!”
“At least I’m defending the truth on this one,” Beckett replied.
This began a verbal exchange between Pierce and Beckett, with each trying to outdo the other. As they parried back and forth, Corbin looked out the window at the alley below. There was a dumpster about ten feet directly beneath the window. Wet gray snow was falling in the alley. It looked cold. This was turning into a miserable winter.
Hillary Morales studied Sgt. Russell’s crooked face. She didn’t like Russell, and this meeting wouldn’t improve her opinion. Russell asked to meet with her, but refused to say why over the phone. That could only mean he wasn’t bringing good news. Morales sat at her desk with her arms folded.
“What’s so important, Sergeant?” she asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
“I’m concerned about my partner—”
“Why?!” she snarled, cutting him off.
“He might go a little weak on this one,” Russell responded carefully.
“Is there some reason for him to ‘go weak’?”
“Let’s just say we might not a’ crossed all our ‘I’s and crossed all the ‘T’s.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Morales demanded. “Wait!” she barked, throwing her hand up to silence him. “I don’t want to know. I do not want to know what you two jokers did. This case is very important to the D.A. Do you understand me, Sergeant? Very important.”
Russell nodded his head.
“You,” Morales pointed at Russell, “are going to make sure your partner doesn’t blow this! Do you understand me?”
Russell nodded.
“Say it!”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“If you get the slightest hint something is wrong, then you take care of it.” Morales rose and walked toward her door. “I want updates, but officially I don’t want to know anything. Do you get me?”
“Yeah, and you don’t want to know what happened at the—”
“Listen to me,” she interrupted him. “I don’t care what you two idiots did. I just want this situation fixed. It would be very, very bad for you if I had to suddenly discover what really happened.” She opened the door. “Now get out,” she spat out.
Russell muttered a profanity under his breath as he left.
Alvarez sounded despondent. “The judge denied everything?”
“Yes,” Corbin confirmed.
“But I thought you had a really good case? I thought the law was on your side on all this stuff?”
“It is. . . it’s complicated. Just because you’re right about the law doesn’t mean the judge needs to agree with you. He can make his decisions any way he wants. If we think he’s wrong, then we need to appeal to prove it.”
“Are you going to appeal?”
“We can’t appeal until after the trial. There are only a couple states where you can appeal during the trial and this isn’t one of them. And with Beckett threatening to turn himself in, appealing just isn’t an option. So we’re gonna play the hand we’ve been dealt.”
“Does that mean it’s hopeless?”
“No, not at all. We had a chance to toss out some of the charges and some of the evidence, but the judge didn’t buy it. That’s all. So we move on.”
“That’s ok, I guess,” Alvarez said, still trying to figure out how this changed their odds of success.
“But that’s not the real problem.” Corbin paused before deliver the bad news. “They’ve added more charges. Beaumont’s now facing seventy-five years.”
“What?! Seventy-five years?!” Alvarez exclaimed. “Holy shit! Seventy-five years?! What the fuck!”
“Calm down”
“Don’t tell me to calm down, this is a fucking disaster!” Alvarez yelled into the phone. “Two years, that wasn’t a big deal. I could see a guy like Beaumont taking a deal for two years and this whole thing comi
ng to an end. But there’s no way anyone can reach a deal if they want seventy-five years! Shit! Our risk just shot through the roof! We can’t wait anymore for Beckett to make his move. He could really fuck us now!”
“Calm down,” Corbin repeated.
“You need to act now!” Alvarez continued in the same panicked tone. He either didn’t hear or chose to ignore Corbin’s attempts to calm him. “You need to do something!”
“We can’t take that chance yet.”
“Can’t take a chance?” Alvarez let out a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t. . . I don’t buy that. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t see why it matters if he has the wallet. You’ve been investigating long enough that he could have gotten it from Beaumont for all anybody knows. There’s no way they could use the wallet to say we’re involved, no way!”
“Will you calm down! There’s no reason for us to take any chances yet.”
“There are seventy-five reasons—”
“Stop panicking! There’s no reason to take any chances yet,” Corbin repeated.
“Yes, there is,” Alvarez started again. “We need to act! You need to act!”
“Calm down,” Corbin growled.
“We need to act now—”
“Shut up!” Corbin finally ordered. Corbin’s words hit Alvarez like a slap across the face and he stopped talking. “I will take care of this one way or another. I’ll do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, not before.”
Almost half a minute of silence passed before Alvarez spoke again. When he spoke, he spoke more calmly. “Can we even trust Beckett to wait until the trial is over?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s to say he waits until the jury gives their verdict before he does something? What if he stands up right after they say ‘guilty,’ and he says, ‘I want to confess’? What can you do about it then? Are you gonna shoot him in the courtroom? What if he stands up on day one of the trial and announces he did it? I say something needs to be done now because you can’t predict what this guy will do.”
Corbin took several deep breaths before responding. “I’m not convinced yet that he’ll turn himself in. We have time. We have time to see if there’s a settlement. We have time to see if the prosecution makes a mistake. We have time to see if Beckett changes his mind. We have time to see how everything plays out.” Corbin rubbed his temples. “There will come a point during the trial when it becomes clear the jury will convict Beaumont. If Beckett waits until that point to confess, then our problem solves itself. Anything he says after that will sound like the rantings of a depressed defense attorney who will say anything to save his client. Everyone’ll ask why he never came forward before things went wrong at trial, and they’ll discount any evidence he produces because they’ll assume he got it from Beaumont. I’ll back that up with stories of Beckett becoming despondent and ranting about doing whatever it takes to save Beaumont.”
“But what if the prosecution believes him?”
“They won’t. They want Beaumont, not Beckett. They’ve gone so far as to frame him to get him. They’re not going to ruin that by taking Beckett’s crazy bait.”
“But—”
Corbin cut him off. “BUT, let me assure you,” Corbin said in a tone so cold it made Alvarez shiver, “if things start to go wrong. . . if it becomes apparent he’s going to turn himself in before that point, or if it becomes clear he’s got more evidence that we’re not aware of. . . I’ll put an end to this.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
Chapter 30
The row house smelled like cat urine and cigarettes. The thick curtains kept out the sunlight. The small television blared out game shows. Retired police officer Richard Forte lit a cigarette. He looked at Beckett and coughed.
“I don’t remember much from back then, you gotta look at my report.” He knocked ash from his cigarette into an overly-full ashtray.
“I’m not looking for precise details, I just have some general questions,” Beckett replied.
Forte shrugged his shoulder. “Ok. Shoot, counselor.”
“Did anyone ever try to verify Beaumont’s story?”
“Naw, it was obvious he did it.”
“What makes you say that?”
Forte leaned forward. “By the time we found him, he washed his hands with ammonia and got rid of his clothes.” He jabbed his cigarette at Beckett to emphasize his words as he spoke. This caused the bright tip of the cigarette to appear to dance in the semi-darkness.
“Why is ammonia significant?”
“’Cause he used the ammonia to get rid of the gunpowder traces. That’s how he tried to hide he was shooting a gun.”
“So no one investigated because. . .,” Beckett let his sentence drop off, hoping Forte would finish it; Forte didn’t disappoint.
“Because it was obvious he did it,” he said, followed by a series of coughs. “Why else would he leave the scene and go wash in ammonia? To get rid of the gunpowder, that’s why.”
“Did anyone test him for gunpowder? Maybe he missed something when he was cleaning?”
“Naw, we didn’t waste our time.”
“Did anyone hire a blood splatter expert to look at the scene?”
“Naw, like I said, it was obvious he did it.” Forte coughed again. “But I got training in that and what I saw fit what happened. Sorry, counselor,” Forte laughed, “your client’s story was bullshit.”
Beckett removed a folder from his bag. From the folder, he pulled a handful of enlarged photographs. “I’m not an expert when it comes to blood or crime scenes. Can you show me what you’re talking about on these photos?”
Forte set down his cigarette and stuck out his hand. “What you got?”
“The crime scene photos,” Beckett said, shuffling the photos. “This one,” he handed one of the photos to Forte, “looks to me like somebody was sitting on the couch, when somebody else got shot in the middle of the room.”
Forte looked at the photo. “Yeah, that’s the girlfriend. She was sittin’ on the couch when he shot the other one. The blood covered the walls to her left and traces of it covered her and the couch. You can see from the clear spot in the middle of the couch somebody was sitting there when the blood splattered.”
“How do you know that wasn’t Beaumont on the couch?”
“’Cause he was busy shooting the other woman.” Forte laughed.
Beckett handed Forte another photo. “This looks like somebody got shot in the middle of the room.”
“Right. That’s where he shot the first girl.”
It was obvious from the spray pattern the shot had been upwards, but Beckett didn’t want Forte anticipating where Beckett was headed with the questioning, so he pretended to believe the shot had been downwards.
“No,” Forte interrupted Beckett impatiently. “Look at the spray pattern. See how there’s more higher up? He shot upwards.”
“Upwards? He’s fairly tall isn’t he? If she was on her knees—”
“He was on his knees too,” Forte concluded.
“How do you know?”
“When you shoot somebody, you get blow back in your direction. See how there’s blood to the left and right but not in the center? That means somebody was blocking that patch of rug. You can’t block a patch like that by standing there cause your legs ain’t thick enough to block all that blood and make such a big clear patch. That means he had to be kneeling or sitting in that spot. So he was on his knees when he shot her.” Forte took another photo from Beckett’s hand. “See here, see how the blood forms a kind of ‘V’ shape on the ceiling? That means he shot upwards.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I ain’t stupid. It’s obvious. Your client was on his knees or his ass. He put the gun in her face, pointed up, and pulled the trigger. If you check my report, you’ll see that. I put it all in my report. Do you got my report?”
“We do, yes,” Beckett responded.
“Let me see it, I’ll show you.”
“I didn’t bring it,” Beckett lied.
“Oh well.” Forte picked up his cigarette and put it out in the tray. He smiled. “Sorry I couldn’t help you counselor, but your client did it.”
“I guess you’re right,” Beckett said dejectedly. “I can’t see us calling you at trial, but we may need to subpoena you anyway just to make sure we’ve covered all our bases.”
“You go right ahead, counselor,” Forte laughed. “I ain’t changing my story.”
After thanking Forte, Corbin and Beckett returned to the car.
“Why didn’t you show him the report?” Corbin asked.
“No reason to clue him in yet,” Beckett said, pulling the report from the folder. “I don’t want to give him time to rethink his story. ‘Spray pattern on victim one indicates suspect Beaumont stood above victim one and shot her as she kneeled before him.’,” Beckett read from Forte’s report. “‘He then dragged victim two from the couch, shooting her in the face, before dumping the body of victim two on top of victim one.’” Beckett returned the report to the folder. “Do you know what this means?”
“What?”
“It means Beaumont’s telling the truth. He was sitting on the couch as his girlfriend shot Letricia, before she turned the gun on herself.”
“Maybe,” Corbin stressed the word.
“What do you mean ‘maybe’? Forte just laid out the blood spray pattern. What he said fits Beaumont’s version and completely contradicts the story put together by the police at the time.”
“There could be other explanations,” Corbin cautioned Beckett.
“I don’t see how.”
They drove in silence for a few blocks, before Corbin broached the topic that always lay just beneath the surface with them these days. “Listen, now that they’re talking about seventy-five years—”
“It doesn’t make any difference,” Beckett said, cutting him off.
Corbin shook his head. “It makes a huge difference.”