“You won’t permit’? Then you might consider that a life sentence for Brett would run appreciably longer than a life sentence for you.” Caroline’s words grew softer. “Don’t ever tell me, Father, what you will or will not permit. Because I will do or say whatever I believe to be in Brett’s best interests. Including—though I’ve not quite decided—putting Jackson through this probable cause hearing.” Channing seemed to study her; for a strange moment, Caroline thought she saw the faintest smile cross his face. “I can raise twenty thousand,” he said quietly. “In three or four days.” Caroline did not answer. She waited briefly, to clear her head, and then put on her reading glasses. She had saved the statement of Megan Race for last. She read it once, for meaning, trying to detach her feelings from the words on the page. The second time, she took careful notes. When she had finished, Caroline slid it down the table. “Read this” As if to imitate Caroline, Channing put on horn-rimmed reading glasses. It surprised her; she could not remember that he had ever needed them. He read in silence. When he was through, Channing put the papers down. His face was pale. “She’s lying.”
“Why?”
“She has to be.” He turned to her. “Without this girl, Jackson lacks a sufficient case. At least if your experts do their job.”
“Just so.” Channing looked uneasy. Quietly, he asked, “She’s why you want a preliminary, isn’t she’?.” Caroline smiled a little. “Suppose Megan’s the obsessive one. Suppose she followed them, spied on them.” Watching his face, she added with a touch of irony, “Suppose, Father, that she even killed him.” Channing stared at the pages in front of him. “What if she was with friends that night—assuming that you’re remotely serious.” His voice fell. “Or, more realistically, that her reputation is good.” Caroline’s smile grew cold. “Then I’ll have to destroy her, won’t I? For all our sakes.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I’ve got everything I need,” Jackson told her, “for murder one.” Caroline had found him at his fishing camp. He stood on the pier in a gray morning light, sunlight refracted through a thin layer of clouds. The lake was still. She put both hands in the pockets of her blue jeans. “Except proof that the knife was hers.” Jackson gave her a look of irony. “They don’t register knives, Caroline. I don’t have to know where it came from.” Caroline felt her nerves tighten. “You overcharged this one,” she persisted. “If you really think this looks like premeditation, then I’ve a wonderful insanity defense—Brett coolly planning to run naked through the woods, covered in blood, then make her escape still disguised as a hysterical naked woman. All after neatly disposing of the body by leaving it in plain view on her property.” Jackson gave her a look somewhere between compassion and curiosity. Then he sat on the pier, legs over the edge, and motioned for her to join him. Silent, Caroline sat next to him. “You’re feeling me out,” he said softly. “Specifically, you’re hoping for manslaughter. With Brett getting out before she turns thirty.” He was good, Caroline thought. Or perhaps, now, she was less good. “It never hurts,” she answered, “to define the real world.”
Gazing at the lake, Jackson slowly shook his head. “In your world—San Francisco—real is maybe two hundred murders a year: the prosecution has to plea-bargain, or the system will just break down. But this is New Hampshire, where we have less than forty murders statewide, and the pressure on us is to try them.” He looked at her directly. “I won’t play games with you, Caroline. Under our guidelines, manslaughter is out. The best I can do is second-degree murder with a twenty-year minimum.” Caroline sat back, speechless for a moment. “That’s absolutely medieval,” she said. “She’d be inside until she was forty-two.” Jackson looked defensive. “It’s absolutely New Hampshire,” he shot back. “And James Case never reached twenty-four. You’re expecting me to sell him out.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Abruptly, Caroline turned on him. “Or are you overcompensating?”
“By asking twenty years for a life?” A sudden anger, controlled yet intense, showed in his eyes. He forced himself to finish slowly, softly. “Just what, Caroline, am I compensating for?” Caroline went silent, regretting her words, unsure of what to say next. She watched his anger die, replaced by the sense that he had withdrawn from her. “All right.” He folded his hands in front of him, staring straight ahead. “If you’re referring to my prior relationship to Channing, the other lawyers in my section are no better off he helped the two senior lawyers get the job and knows the two remaining through Republican politics.” His voice became almost casual, as if conveying a minor point of information. “As I said, I haven’t spent any real private time with Channing since shortly after you left. It was a little painful for us both. “Which brings me to you.” He turned to her with a look so cool she found it hurtful. “If I have a problem, it’s trying a case with you on the other side. And it’s you who shouldn’t be here, presuming on whatever there was—or is—between us.”
His last words, flat and passionless, hit Caroline like a slap. She forced herself to sound calm. “As it happens, Jackson, that was a very nice day for me. But it has nothing to do with why I came here. Which involves nothing more than seeking fairness for a client.” He crossed his arms. “I offered you a lie test.”
“No. For all the reasons I gave before. And because she may well have been too confused by drugs to have any accurate memory.” He raised his eyebrows. “How about one simple question, then. Like Did you kill James Case?” What’s she going to say—‘I don’t remember’?” He shrugged at his own question, dismissing its absurdity. “Like it or not, we both know that Brett killed him and that the only question is degree. And you’re at once too close to this and too far away: a lawyer from California, who with all your gifts—knows next to nothing about how things work here.” It stopped her for a moment; the comment came far too close to Caroline’s unstated fears. “I can learn, Jackson. With all my gifts …”
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “I mean, you haven’t seen her for twenty years and plainly didn’t give a damn——”
“That’s not for you to say.”
“No?” He shook his head in wonder. “What are you trying to prove here, and to whom? I thought you’d left this place behind—”
“Christ.” Caroline leaned back on her palms, staring at him, and finished in a low voice. “Don’t try to psycho-analyze me. You don’t know enough.” His lips compressed. “Forgive me, Caroline, but there are a lot of very good defense lawyers in this state who don’t carry whatever baggage you’ve returned with and who don’t have a judgeship at stake.” He paused, tone softer now. “This is already a tragedy for Brett and for her family. I don’t want it to be a tragedy for you. Or—and this is my weakness—to be any part of that.”
Caroline felt the emotion drain from her. “I promised her,” she said simply. He studied her for a moment. “No manslaughter, Caroline. If you want that, you’ll have to try the case.” Slowly, she nodded. “Then count on a hearing, all right?” He cocked his head. “Is that all?” “That’s all.” Caroline got up. “Thank you for your time.” They stood then, silent, looking at each other. Then Caroline smiled a little and turned away. He did not walk with her to the car.
“Megan Race,” the detective repeated, and wrote the name at the top of a lined yellow pad. They sat in the office of Caroline’s new local counsel. Carlton Gray, a bespectacled veteran of the local courts, sat at his walnut desk; Caroline and the detective from Concord, Joe Lemieux—dark, ascetic looking, and thirtyish—in guest chairs facing Gray. Lemieux had turned to her. “What is it you need?” he asked. “Everything,” she answered crisply. “In less than ten days. Where she’s from, what jobs she has, what courses she’s taken. Her family. Whether she’s ever seen a therapist or is seeing one now. What friends she has. And, critically, former boyfriends. That one’s a priority.” Lemieux looked curious. “What are we after, exactly?”
“Anything that I can use to destroy her credibility.” Caroline paused for emp
hasis. “She’ll have something, Joe. Everyone does.” He nodded, silent. “Then,” Caroline went on, “there’s her relationship to the dead boy, James Case.” Carlton Grey leaned forward. “As I understand it, Caroline, you want to know when it ended.”
“According to her statement, Megan and James were lovers unto death—so much so that he asked her to go with him to California. But according to Brett, James broke it off
in April—two and a half months ago. Did anyone, I wonder, see them together since?” Lemieux noted this on his pad. He had long fingers, Caroline noted, an air of delicacy. He would not put people on edge. “And the former boyfriends … ?” he asked. “First, were there any. If so, then we’ll want to consider approaching them.” She looked from Lemieux to Grey and back again. “What would help is for someone to say that she’s malicious, spiteful, or—best of all—unbalanced.” Grey nodded. “You need a reason for her to lie.”
“Precisely. It would very much help to have it for the probable cause hearing. Whether I use it or not.”
“She won’t be there,” Grey put in. “Jackson would never call her.” Caroline smiled. “But I can subpoena her, can’t I? Assuming that the judge lets me.” Grey raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been reading our statutes.”
“Oh, yes, I do that.” She still smiled faintly. “It’s one of my gifts.”
“My niece has asked me to do this,” Caroline said slowly. “To my surprise, I find that I can’t turn her down.” It was night; she had called Walter Farris at home. At first, she heard only static, a faulty connection. Then Farris said, “That poses a problem.” Caroline forced herself to sound calm. “But should it? There’s no question of my using influence here. Really, Walter, in the age of family values, I’d hope that people—including senators—might sympathize a little. What good is twenty years defending strangers if you can’t help your own niece?” The answer, carefully prepared, silenced Farris for a time. When he spoke again, his tone was neutral. “You’re quite close, I take it.” Caroline considered her answer. “We’ve become so,” she said, and returned to her carefully wrought appeal. “If it will help things, I’m prepared to write the chairman of the
Judiciary Committee, explaining my difficulty, confirming my continuing interest, and expressing the hope that confirmation hearings can be held promptly after completion of the trial.” In the silence, Caroline felt herself tense. At length, Farris asked, “How long might that be?” Caroline hesitated. “Maybe six months.”
“I think that’s too long.” His voice was brisk. “Once we get near the election, the Republicans can hold things up, see if they can elect a President. You’re too obvious a target.” Tense, Caroline forced herself to think swiftly. “Because I’m a woman?” she asked. “Or, as you put it, a feminist? Then that is a problem.” She made her voice sound tentative, musing. “But I suppose there may be another way to view this—as a chance for the President to remind them that he’ll stand by his appointments. Unless there’s a better reason than Jesse Helms’s displeasure, as you once put it.” Her tone was so mild that Farris could not confront her. “What would you like me to do?” he asked with muted annoyance. Caroline held her breath. “Just to tell the President,” she said, “that I’ll do whatever he wishes. After all, I’m the nominee only at his pleasure.” Farris fell quiet again. Caroline could imagine him—cornered, unable to say so, wondering how much of this she had calculated. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll run this by him.” Alone in her room, Caroline closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
CHAPTER THREE
A woman deputy brought Brett to a stark interview room with yellow walls and a pressboard table that, to Caroline, seemed passed on from some county office. Brett sat across from her; the deputy stepped outside the room, occasionally peering through a wired-glass rectangle in the metal door. A certain light replaced the dullness in Brett’s green eyes. “Thanks for coming,” she said to Caroline. “I’ve gotten to count on it.” Caroline smiled. “Oh, it’s pure self-indulgence—a place like this puts my company in a new and attractive light. Quite heady for a neglectful aunt.” Bret’s own smile was slow to come and, when it did, perfunctory; Caroline could see her imagining endless days like this. “Have you worked up some sort of routine?” she asked. “A little.” Brett gave a fractional shrug. “It reminds me of something my philosophy prof said once—that life is a way of killing time.” She looked somewhat removed, Caroline thought, almost detached. “What kinds of things do you do?” Caroline asked. “Yoga, a little reading … The people who watch us are nice enough, and in the cell there’s still only me.” Brett shifted in her chair “A couple of friends came by—high school friends, cause the college people are mostly gone. But they don’t know what to say to me, or me to them.”
She shrugged again, helpless. “I mean, I can’t tell them about nightmares, or missing James, or this fantasy I have where we’re in California now. It would be too weird for them, you know.” Brett gazed at the table. “It’s not their fault, I suppose. Not many people have this experience. They can’t exactly say things like, I know how you feel.”” Brett paused again. “Do you know what’s really weird,” she went on. “This is the first time I can remember being alone—without Grandfather or my parents, or a roommate, or maybe James. That was another reason I wasn’t sure about going with James. It was time for me to be on my own.” Her voice filled with wonder. “Now I’m finally alone …. ” It was as if, Caroline thought, Brett were musing to herself, in Caroline’s presence. She felt a strange intimacy between them. “There was a time in my life,” Caroline said at length, “around your age, when I decided to spend time alone. It lasted for a while—a period of months, actually—and I even wrote a little. And when it was over, I found that I had come to some conclusions about the future I would have, for worse or better. And about the price I’d pay for that.” Brett studied her, curious. And then she simply said, “You’re saying that I should do that—take this time to think. And maybe write.” Caroline shrugged. “What else is it good for?” The fingers of Brett’s left hand idly stroked a tendril of brown hair. “All that I can think about,” she said at last, “is how I got here.” Beneath this statement, uttered with the simplicity of truth, Caroline felt a challenge. I think about it, the girl was saying, because I’m innocent. Caroline’s own gaze was steady. “Think about whatever comes,” she answered softly. “But here you can talk—or write—about anything but that. Or James.”
Brett’s look grew cool. “Because they’ll read it.”
“Or hear it. And, perhaps, misinterpret it.” Brett sat back, appraising her before she spoke. “Why did you stay here, Caroline? When you don’t believe I’m innocent.” Taken by surprise, Caroline flashed on the bloody knife. She kept her own voice calm. “Lawyers don’t believe anything. Because belief is pointless. I, and the law, presume your innocence. My job is simply to preserve that presumption.”
“That seems so cold.” It was strange, Caroline thought, that a simple word from this girl could hurt her. “Sometimes coldness’ is merely a point of view. And you should presume that some lackey may try to curry favor by reporting something you said. Real or imagined.” Brett folded her arms. “We’re in different places, aren’t we? And not just now. When you were my age and needed to think, you chose the time and place and subject.” Her voice turned bitter. “I’m not free to do any of those things. Unless you get me out of here, I may never be.” Caroline looked down, accepting the rebuke. “What I said was foolish. We’re not the same, and this isn’t the same. I was only trying to tell you to be careful.”
“Fine. And I’ll try not to tell anyone that I cut James’s throat.” When Caroline looked up, there were tears in Brett’s eyes. They regarded each other, silent. Caroline drew a breath. “There’s something else we need to talk about.” Brett seemed to clasp herself tighter. In the pallid fluorescent light, her eyes had a vivid sheen. “Whatever.” Caroline rested her cheek on the fingers of one hand. “I spoke w
ith Jackson,” she said slowly. “He won’t take manslaughter.” Brett’s face hardened. “I won’t take manslaughter. I already told you that.” She leaned forward, looking into
Caroline’s eyes. “That might sound crazy to someone who only presumes’ my innocence. But I won’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do.” After a moment, Caroline shrugged. “Well,” she said, “that makes it simple, doesn’t it.” Brett stood, pacing. Then, abruptly, she turned on Caroline. “This probable cause hearing you told me about—when is it?” “Eight days. Assuming we go through with it.” Brett stared down at her. “I want that hearing. And I want to testify.” Caroline pushed her chair back from the table. “No,” she said tersely. “Absolutely not.”
“Well, I’m going to.” Brett’s voice rose. “I sit here, day after day, with no one to say I’m innocent. So I’m going to say it.” Caroline kept her own voice quiet, sympathetic. “I understand your feelings—at least as much as I’m able. But my whole purpose in forcing this hearing is to catch Jackson’s witnesses unprepared, Megan Race—who refuses to even speak with me being the most critical of all. I won’t let him catch you like that.” The mention of Megan seemed to silence Brett, as Caroline had intended. She tried to seize the moment. “Trials are like theater, Brett. You have to know your lines or, at least, know the play well enough to improvise. I don’t have a firm grasp of their evidence yet. And there’s not nearly enough time to get you where you need to be.” “Theater?” Brett gave her a look of disbelief and anger. “The truth is the truth, and I’m testifying.” Her eyes were bright now. “Whose trial is this? Yours or mine?” Caroline stood, facing Brett across the table. “This is not negotiable. I refuse to help you commit suicide. Jackson will cut you to shreds before you even figure out that he isn’t Jimmy Stewart—”
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