Without a Hitch

by Andrew Price

  Beckett cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. If Webb testifies, that’s all the jury will remember.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can. I’ve seen it a dozen times before.”

  “You need to wait!” Corbin growled.

  “No! I’m telling you, if Webb testifies that he took those documents from Beaumont, the jury will convict Beaumont no matter what else happens.” He paused. “That means I need to confess and I need to do it before we put on our case.”

  “This is insane!” Corbin yelled. He clenched his fists and paced around the small office.

  “I warned you,” Beckett said bluntly.

  Corbin pointed at Beckett. “No! You told me you would wait for the jury to act!”

  “I told you I would wait until it became clear the jury would convict. If Webb testifies, the jury will convict.”

  “Are you at least going to see if you can take his testimony apart?!”

  “We can’t. If he sticks to the story Russell told, there’s nothing we can do, unless you have something you haven’t told me about?”

  “So you’re just going to stand up after Pierce finishes with him and say, ‘hey, I did it’?”

  “My mind is made up.”

  “Don’t do this, Evan,” Corbin warned him.

  Beckett turned away to avoid Corbin’s stare. He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, picked up the divorce papers his wife’s attorney had sent the day before, and pushed past Corbin. He stopped at the door to the office. “You don’t need to show up tomorrow,” he said, without looking at Corbin. He looked sad and he looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

  Russell pinned Webb against the wall. Hillary Morales stood behind Russell. They were in an interrogation room at the station.

  “Let him go, Sergeant,” Morales ordered. “I just want to talk to him. There’s no need for violence.” Morales offered Webb a chair, but he refused. She leaned against the edge of the table. “Officer Webb, you made an arrest—”

  “I’m not lying for you or you,” Webb blurted out.

  “Let me finish, Officer,” Morales commanded. “You work for this department, and you are obligated to testify when called. In the process of exercising your duties, you made an arrest. You submitted a report commensurate with that arrest. That report includes a statement in which you assert certain things to be true. If you do not repeat that statement in court, I will prosecute you for making false statements. You will be convicted and sent to prison. Your career, and your life as you know it, will be over.”

  Webb folded his arms.

  “The choice is yours. Are you going to stand by the statement you made in your official capacity or are you going to admit you lied on official documents?” She waited for a response, but he remained silent. “We’re not leaving here until I get an answer from you.”

  Webb still didn’t speak.

  “Are we leaving here with an understanding or are you leaving here in cuffs?” she asked.

  They stood there in silence. After what seemed like an eternity, Webb laughed. He stepped away from the wall. “You want to call me, that’s fine. I’ll back up the report to the letter, but nothing further.” He pushed past Russell and stormed out of the interrogation room. Russell followed him into the hallway.

  “What the heck does that mean?!” Russell shouted.

  Webb stopped. “It means I’ll tell the truth and nothing more.”

  Corbin sat on the edge of his bed in the dark. Sleet hit the window. It was 6:04 am. He held the gun in his hand. Could he do it? He tried calling Beckett the night before to give him one last chance to change his mind, but Beckett had checked out and Corbin had no idea where he was. . . though he knew where Beckett would be in a couple hours. Corbin squeezed the gun tightly. His face contorted into a twisted mess. He felt a throbbing pain behind his left eye.

  “Fuck!”

  He set the gun down on the bed. He leaned forward, with his elbows on his knees and his head resting in his hand. He rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. He stood up and paced back and forth across the room. Finally, he stopped. He stood above the gun, staring at it, grinding his teeth.

  “Fuck you, Evan, fuck you,” Corbin hissed.

  Corbin walked to the closet and removed a hanger from one of his dry-cleaned shirts. Returning to the bed, he grabbed some packaging tape from the top of the television and a small white towel. He wrapped the gun in the towel, forming a triangular package. Then he took the clothes hanger and bent it to match the size of the triangular package. He taped the hanger to the package, leaving the hook sticking out beyond the edge of the package, and then sealed the package with the tape.

  Corbin walked into the alley outside the courthouse. It was still dark and sleeting. He walked over to the dumpster which sat just one floor beneath the restroom window. Corbin looked both ways to make sure the alley was empty and he scanned the windows to make sure he wasn’t being observed. He was alone. He pulled the towel-package from his coat and carefully placed it into the dumpster, wedging it between two garbage bags so the hook from the clothes hanger stood upright, as if it were hanging in a closet.

  With the gun placed in the dumpster, Corbin entered the building. As usual, he emptied his pockets to walk through the metal detector. The guards thought nothing of the ball of string in his bag or the dry cleaning he carried. As he entered the courtroom, Corbin found the bailiff already there. He asked for permission to use the restroom in the private hallway to change his shirt. The bailiff agreed.

  Corbin entered the restroom, locking the door behind him. Despite the early hour, the radiator rattled away, causing the window to fog up. He removed the clothes hanger from his dry cleaning and stuffed the shirt into his bag. He took the ball of string from his bag and tied it around the clothes hanger. Using the trick he’d learned from the clerk, he opened the window and scanned the deserted alley below. The alley was deserted. Slowly, Corbin lowered the clothes hanger on the string until it hooked onto the package in the dumpster, about ten feet below. He carefully pulled the package up, grabbing it when it got close enough. He unwrapped the gun, before dropping the towel and the clothes hanger into the dumpster. After closing the window, Corbin hid the gun in the hand-towel dispenser and returned to the courtroom. He was ready.

  Beckett paused at the door to the courtroom. The room was empty except for two people sitting together near the back and Corbin, who sat at the defense table. Beckett walked over to Corbin. “I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said, as he brushed snowflakes from the sleeves of his navy-blue suit.

  “There’s a good chance Webb won’t show up,” Corbin said, without looking at Beckett. He sounded unconvinced. He looked tired, with dark bags beneath his eyes. He also hadn’t changed his suit, though he did change his tie. “Even if he does show up, I want one last chance to talk to you.”

  “My mind’s made up.”

  “Hear me out,” Corbin commanded. He stared right into Beckett’s bloodshot eyes. “Before you do anything, you need to talk to Beaumont about this. He may not want your confession.”

  Corbin was right, but Beckett didn’t acknowledge it. Beaumont had a right to make the decision on whether or not he wanted Beckett to offer this confession, which would essentially be evidence and likely would cause a mistrial, or whether he felt the trial was going well enough that he wanted it withheld.

  “Before you say anything, you owe it to Beaumont to explain to him what happened and what you’re about to do,” Corbin repeated.

  Beckett shook his head.

  “This isn’t your decision,” Corbin said coldly. He turned his attention to his notepad and left Beckett to consider his words.

  Corbin and Beckett sat in silence for almost an hour as people drifted into the courtroom. The jury remained out of sight, as did the judge. Morales sat at the prosecution table, waiting nervously for any sign of Webb. Pierce was in the hallway, talking to the press.

  “I’m confident
we’ll get this conviction,” he told two reporters.

  “But it sounds as if the defense has blown your case apart?” asked one of the reporters.

  “Oh, nonsense!” Pierce laughed. “Trials are about surprises. Things happen you never expect. Some witnesses come through, others don’t. It doesn’t mean the defendant isn’t guilty. It just means that sometimes witnesses get confused on the stand and make mistakes. When the jury hears all the evidence, they’ll see clearly that Beaumont is guilty of these crimes, and I’m confident they’ll convict him.”

  “What additional evidence are you planning to introduce?” asked the other reporter.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” Pierce said, giving a little laugh as he spoke.

  “Would you be willing to give an on-camera interview for our lunch hour?”

  “Certainly.” Pierce looked at his watch. “I need to get ready, but I’ll be happy to speak with you during the lunch break. I think you’ll see a very different case by then.”

  As they entered the jury box that morning, several jurors eyed Eddie Pierce skeptically. He ignored their looks and continued to project an air of extreme confidence, with his wide smile and easy manner. Morales, however, looked ill. She hadn’t slept, though her brown suit looked like she’d slept in it. Beaumont hadn’t slept either. He looked angry, like he always did. Today’s pimp suit was metallic silver. Neither Beckett nor Corbin slept either. They showed no emotions at all.

  Judge Sutherlin immediately turned to Pierce. “Call your witness, Mr. Pierce.”

  “The people call Officer Paul Webb, Your Honor,” Pierce proclaimed loudly.

  All eyes turned to the back of the room, where the bailiff opened the door and called Webb’s name. For what seemed like an eternity, no one appeared.

  Meanwhile, out in the hallway, Russell walked over to Webb, who stepped off the elevator a moment before he was called. Russell grabbed him by the shoulder. “Don’t you fuck me, Rook,” Russell spat out venomously, but quietly enough not to be overheard by the reporters waiting down the hallway.

  “Get out of my way.” Webb showed no trace of being intimidated.

  “What are you gonna tell ’em bastards?” Russell demanded.

  “What you’re doing is a crime, Russ.”

  “What are you gonna tell ’em!”

  “I’m going to tell them the truth,” Webb replied, his voice drained of emotion. “I’m going to tell them I arrested Beaumont, that I searched the nightstand, and that I found the documents.”

  “What if they ask where them documents came from?”

  Webb shook off Russell’s hand and pushed past him. He stopped once he was clear of Russell. “If they ask me where the documents came from, I’ll tell ’em the truth. . . I’ll tell ’em you put ’em there.”

  Webb walked into the courtroom. He wore an ill-fitting gray checkered suit, not his uniform. The sleeves were too long and the pants a hint too short. His black tie was off center. Slowly, reluctantly, he made his way to the witness box. Corbin closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Beckett looked pale as a sheet. He looked like he might throw up. Morales too looked like she might throw up. Pierce smiled broadly.

  “State your name for the record,” Pierce began in a formal tone.

  “Paul William Webb.”

  “You are a police officer?”

  “Yes,” Webb replied with a trace of hostility, which Pierce ignored.

  “Officer Webb, you’ve been on the force now for just over a year, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you involved in the arrest of the defendant, Mr. Beaumont, on November 21st of last year?”

  Webb hesitated. “I was involved, yes.”

  “What can you tell us about that arrest?”

  Webb hesitated again before responding. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell us what you did,” Pierce demanded.

  “I arrested Mr. Beaumont.” He said nothing else.

  “Is that all?” Pierce asked testily. “Didn’t you in fact take a number of documents—”

  “Objection,” Beckett interrupted. “Leading.”

  “Sustained,” Sutherlin said. He wasn’t reading his file today, he was watching Webb closely.

  “Did you search the apartment, Officer?”

  “Not the whole thing, no.” Webb continued to resist Pierce’s questions.

  “Did you search part of the apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “What part or parts did you search?” Pierce asked. His frustration at Webb’s resistance was eroding his poker face.

  “I was asked to search the nightstand next to Mr. Beaumont,” Webb responded.

  “Did you find anything in the nightstand?”

  Webb looked at Beaumont, looked at Pierce, looked at Beckett, and then looked at the jury. They watched him intently.

  “Did you find anything in the nightstand?” Pierce repeated.

  “Yes,” Webb finally said.

  “What did you find?”

  Webb looked at Beaumont again before speaking. “I found documents. . . credit cards, checks. . . bank statements.”

  “Did these belong to Mr. Beaumont?”

  “No, they had various names, but never Mr. Beaumont’s.”

  Corbin leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Beckett’s hand shaking.

  For the next twenty minutes, Webb methodically went through each of the documents Pierce showed him, identifying each as a document he found in Beaumont’s nightstand. The jury followed every word closely. By the time Pierce rested, several jurors were shooting disgusted looks at Beaumont and Beckett. Pierce never asked Webb about the gun, nor did he ask if Webb knew where the documents came from.

  Beckett took a sip of water and rose to his feet. He looked unsteady. His hands shook. Corbin immediately shot out of his chair.

  “Your Honor, could we have a ten minute recess?” Corbin asked.

  Sutherlin looked curiously at Corbin and Beckett, both of whom were standing. “Very well counselor, ten minutes.”

  “We’re not cutting any deals,” Pierce whispered across the aisle to Beckett.

  Ignoring Pierce, Beckett hissed at Corbin: “What are you doing?”

  “You and I and Beaumont need to talk before you do anything.”

  Chapter 42

  After Sutherlin dismissed the jury, the bailiff shackled Beaumont and led him to the private conference room. Corbin and Beckett followed. As they reached the back hallway, Corbin excused himself to stop in the restroom.

  “I’ll meet you in the conference room in a minute.”

  Entering the restroom, Corbin checked each of the three stalls. They were empty. He jarred open the towel dispenser and removed the gun. He stuffed the gun into his belt before closing his suit jacket over it. Corbin checked himself in the mirror. His face was flush and his eyes burned. His hands shook. His mouth was dry. He took a deep breath. It was time to do what had to be done.

  Corbin entered the conference room and closed the door, leaving the bailiff in the hallway. The door was thick enough that the bailiff couldn’t overhear them. Corbin turned to face Beaumont and Beckett, but didn’t move toward them. He just stood there with his arms folded. Beaumont leaned against the wall in the far corner, about ten feet away, diagonally across the room. The conference table stood between them. Beckett stood at the end of the table, between Corbin and Beaumont. His back was mostly turned to Corbin and he was trying to calm Beaumont, but Beaumont wasn’t listening.

  “What the fuck, man?! That mothafucka lied through his fuckin’ teeth,” Beaumont continued his complaint.

  “Calm down,” Beckett said.

  “Don’t tell me to fuckin’ calm down!”

  “Beaumont, listen to me! There’s something we need to tell you. You’re being set up.”

  “Yeah, no shit I’m being set up! I been saying that all along! You only believin’ me now?!” Beaumont glared at Beckett.<
br />
  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is we know who stole those identities.”

  Beaumont furrowed his brow. “What you talkin’ about?!”

  Beckett hesitated.

  “Go ahead, Evan. Here’s your moment,” Corbin said acidly.

  Beckett closed his eyes. “We did it.”

  An ominous silence followed.

  Beaumont raised an eyebrow and tried to fold his arms, though the shackles prevented that. “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

  “We did it,” Beckett repeated. “We stole the money. You’re being framed for our crime.”

  “I ain’t laughin’,” Beaumont barked angrily.

  “It’s no joke. When we go back into that courtroom, I’m going to confess to the crime.”

  Beaumont exploded. “What the fuck!?” he yelled as he jerked back and forth, trying to free himself from the shackles so he could strangle Beckett.

  “I’m going to set this right,” Beckett pleaded.

  Beaumont stopped struggling against the shackles and glared at Beckett.

  “I promise,” Beckett added.

  “All right Evan, I think you’ve said enough,” Corbin said.

  “No Alex, I haven’t said nearly enough,” Beckett replied bitterly without turning to face Corbin. As he did, Corbin pulled the gun from his belt.

  “Fuuuuck!” Beaumont exclaimed upon seeing the gun. He backed into the corner.

  Beckett spun around to face Corbin and saw Corbin point the gun at him. “Whoa!” Beckett exclaimed. He threw his hands up before him as if to block the bullet, even though Corbin hadn’t yet fired. “Put the gun down, Alex,” Beckett said as calmly as he could manage. His heart raced and his pulse pounded in his ears.

  “Yeah, put the gun down,” Beaumont added, as he tried to dig himself deeper into the corner.

  “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Evan?” Corbin hissed. His rage was obvious. His eyes became small and narrow and tore into Beckett’s. His nose flared, his lips curled into a snarl, exposing his teeth, and his left eye twitched. Yet, there was a strange calmness about Corbin, almost a detachment. He moved smoothly, almost mechanically, he spoke effortlessly, his breathing wasn’t labored, and even his hands had stopped shaking.