by Mark Young
* * * *
The guy stood on the concourse at JFK and watched as the passengers from the London flight disembarked and filtered through passport control. He looked down at his phone screen, switching between pictures of Pascal and Hannah.
And he almost missed Pascal. She was about last out and was wearing a woolly bobble hat pulled well down, and shades. He kept one eye on her as she moved away and the other on the gate, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else coming through. As Hannah was old you’d expect them to be together so Pascal could help her, but Pascal seemed to be going solo and was now moving away fast and would be gone soon. Goddammit, he should have brought a partner along; Schmidt would tear him a new one if he fouled up.
The old lady wasn’t on the flight, he was pretty sure of that, and if he didn’t get moving soon he’d lose Pascal. He turned and quickly followed, checking his phone screen for flight times. Schmidt would be in the air by now following, so nothing to do but tail Pascal and find out where she was staying. Looked like Hannah’s plane ticket was a good old fashioned diversion - she’d stayed in the UK.
* * * *
Pascal settled back in the yellow cab as it moved off from the crush of the airport. She told the driver to take her to Calver’s old Mid-town hotel. She’d stay there, check out the murder scene, nose around, maybe talk to some staff.
She didn’t bother checking behind. She’d clocked the spotter guy on the concourse; couldn’t miss him really. Man, where did they get them from these days? He’d be following, probably in the car behind, but that was fine.
* * * *
Southern District Court
Morganna was back at the Plaintiff’s table. Lunch had been a wash-out, a half-eaten sandwich and then Joel, her professor mentor, had been unavailable, teaching a class apparently, so she’d had to leave a message. Now Browder was questioning another juror, a stout looking lady with a blue rinse.
‘Now, you said your parents came to America in the 1930’s, from Germany, fleeing the Nazi’s?’ Browder suggested.
The woman nodded, and said, ‘that’s right,’ although her expression suggested she wanted to add a couple more words on the end of her reply, like, “so what?”
Browder kept the friendly enquiring look on his face. ‘So I guess you’re probably not particularly sympathetic to anybody who may have been in the German armed forces during the war, right?’
Morganna wondered what the hell Browder was up to. The line of questioning of the juror seemed surreal and to have no possible relevance to the claim being made. She wondered whether she should object but wasn’t sure how to, but the juror was already responding.
‘Brother, you can say that again,’ the woman answered, looking around the court, as if it was so obvious it hardly needed saying.
‘So in all conscience, might you not find it hard to be be fair and impartial in judging a defendant if it was alleged he had such a background?’
The juror was trapped and she knew it, but disappointed as well. ‘I guess,’ she finally said.
‘Strike for cause,’ Browder said.
Judge Friedman nodded. ‘That’s the last of your challenges, I think, Mr. Browder, and Ms Fedler,’ he said, turning to look at Morganna with a quizzical expression. ’You’ve exercised none?’
‘That, that’s right, your honour,’ Morganna mumbled, half rising. ‘I am happy with this panel of jurors,’ she said quickly and unconvincingly. Truth was she didn’t know if she was happy with the panel or not. She’d thought her case was simple; the return of a family heirloom or damages, but it was starting to look as if there was a hell of a lot more going on here than met the eye. And if she didn’t know the parameters of her case, how the hell was she supposed to challenge jurors for bias? Bias in favour of, or against, what? She didn’t know, and she guessed Calver didn’t either.
She looked over at the panel of six jurors and two alternates. They looked okay; three black, two Hispanic and three whites; four men, four woman. Then she looked over at Browder; he was watching her with a calm, confident look, half smile on his face. Then judge Friedman was saying, ‘I will adjourn now for the day, and we’ll start tomorrow with opening speeches.’
Morganna grabbed her case and was moving before the Judge had finished rising. Cell phone in her other hand, she speed-dialed Joel as she maneuvered her way through the door, praying that this time he’d pick up.
Chapter 6
Pascal climbed out of the cab in front of the hotel, sweeping the street with her eyes as she tipped the driver. Her tail was parked a hundred metres back, sticking out like an unwanted piece of ice in a glass of brandy. At the desk, after some strange looks, she was able to swop and take Helena’s old room. Apparently things were slow.
In the room she moved around, unpacking her meager luggage. She didn’t expect to find anything; the room would have been steam-cleaned and swept after forensics had finished and then occupied by other guests. She went to the large windows across one wall and looked out over New York. Then she went to the mini bar where she dug out a bottle of Bud and cracked the cap off with her teeth, then the phone buzzed. Someone downstairs to see her – a gentlemen.
She peeped through the eye hole. The guy had to be Six. She let him in. He looked way too young. ‘Rob Galloway,’ he said, aristocratic tone, but the smile seemed genuine. ‘I’m the welcoming party. We only got your flight details from London an hour ago.’
‘That why they sent the office boy? You want a beer?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘I insist,’ she said, handing him another uncapped Bud, watching him.
He smiled. ‘They warned me about you,’ he said, taking the bottle and lifting it to his lips for a long drag.
‘What did they say?’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘They said you could be difficult.’
She just looked at him, nodded, half smile, then clinked her bottle against his.
‘I was just sent down to welcome you really and be your point of contact,’ he said.
She said, ‘where you based?’
‘We’re attached to the consulate on
Third avenue, which is where you’ll come in for your briefing in a couple of days.’ ‘If I wanted access to old second world war records and maybe some immigration as well from the 1940’s, would it be available?’ she asked.
Rob, taken aback by the sudden change of subject, said, ‘I don’t know. I guess you’d need authority from pretty high up to access it.
‘What about US records?’
‘You’re kidding, right?
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I really don’t know, but I doubt it. Look why don’t you ask, when you come in.’
‘I will. Thanks for coming, Rob,’ she said, as she ushered him towards the door, yawning. She’d take a quick nap and then get moving.
* * * *
I stood at the bank of phones again, receiver to my ear, listening to the ringing sound, hoping she would pick up. Then she was there, saying, ’Morganna Fedler,’ sounding slick and lawyerly.
‘Calver,’ I said, no time for pleasantries. ‘How’d it go?’
Deep sigh, then, ‘not too well, I guess,’ she said, sounding down. ‘Look, Jonas, maybe I’m not cut-out for this hotshot lawyer routine. I’m out of my depth, and that Browder guy’s eating me alive. He bumped four jurors today, and I bumped zilch. I don’t know what I’m doing and I need some help.’
She’d gone from suave lawyer to little girl lost in about five seconds flat. I looked up and there was my nemesis, Delgado, this time with two other big guys who always seemed to be hanging around him. All three were watching me. I tried to block them out and concentrate, but it was damn near impossible. Here I was trying to lift Morganna and give her some confidence but I’m standing in a phone queue in Rikers scared out of my fucking wits. I felt like hanging up and walking over to Delgado and begging him to tell me what I could do to make him like me. And what I would give for a drink right now….
>
But I had to keep going. I took a deep breath. ‘Forget jury selection. Case like this, it doesn’t matter,’ I lied. ‘You’re doing great, Morganna, because you’re keeping the claim alive, and that’s all we need right now. By the time the important testimony comes around we’ll be ready.’
‘But I’ve got to make an opening speech tomorrow morning, Jonas. What the hell am I going to say?’ she wailed.
I gritted my teeth and counted to ten. I looked over again at Delgado. Big mistake; all three were watching me and one of them was grotesquely rubbing his crotch whilst running his tongue around his lips, eyes locked on mine. I just saw red then and flipped. Whatever I did, they were going to come for me, whether I rolled over and begged for mercy, or whether I gave them the finger, so why roll over. I held my hand up and gave them what I think is a particularly English gesture of insult; the crude universal hand-job motion of masturbating. I didn’t wait for a reaction, but I heard a couple of guys in the queue behind me stifle some laughs. I tried to blank it all out again and said, ‘opening speech is a doddle, Morganna. You’ll walk it. Just introduce yourself and don’t do detail. Bare bones, then simply say your client, Hannah is going to talk to them and tell them her story, and leave it at that.’
‘I don’t know Jonas I—’
‘Hey, I need you strong, and I’m struggling in here,’ I said, and I couldn’t keep the desperation out of my voice. ‘You got no idea what it’s like in……….’
‘I’m sorry, Jonas,’ she said immediately. Voice strong again, and I could hear her brother in there somewhere, a kind of toughness. ‘I’ll do it. Oh,’ she suddenly exclaimed. ‘I should have said. Pascal’s here, just arrived. She left a message for me. Tell me what you need?’
That lifted me like nothing else could. ‘Good. No time left so I’ll be short,’ I said. ‘Grand jury have handed down the murder indictment and I’m in Supreme Court tomorrow morning for arraignment. Talk to Pascal and tell her to be there, and remind her about keeping Hannah safe and lining her up for when she will be needed to testify for you. Lastly can you rough me out a couple of motions I need to make tomorrow, and email them to Pascal to bring to court?’
I gave her brief details. Then I hung up and turned around to face whatever Delgado might have for me, but he’d gone, along with his buddies. I let out a long sigh of relief, but I knew it would only be temporary. I slowly walked back to the block.
* * * *
In the end Pascal couldn’t sleep. Time zone clash and jet lag ganging up on her. She got out of bed and walked around, beer in hand, trying to work off the excess energy. Then her cell was buzzing. Ten minutes later she clicked the phone off and finished her beer.
Morganna Fedler had sounded inexperienced but enthusiastic. Pascal heard a pinging sound on her laptop which stood open on the coffee table, as an email came in. She guessed it was the court motions from Morganna she needed to take to court for Calver in the morning.
She moved to the windows to look out on the city. She thought about earlier in the day when she’d gone walkabout. She’d taken the lift to the top of the building and then walked down, checking out each floor; fire escapes, CCTV, maid stations, cupboards and storage rooms. It looked like a slick well run hotel, mid-range, comfortable, not ostentatious. She hadn’t yet managed to check out the kitchen, office and back room operation, but she’d get to them soon enough.
Back in the day during those long hot summers when she’d been a student she’d worked casual in hotels, and one thing she’d learned was that it was almost impossible for stuff to happen that the staff didn’t know about. Deconstructing Calver’s murder charge, and assuming it was a frame, her first conclusion was that it would have been impossible to carry it out undetected without inside help. The reports she had seen suggested the cops had CCTV security camera footage showing only Calver entering and leaving Helena’s room at the time the murder was committed. Just to get around the CCTV covering the corridor and showing the entrance to both Calver and Helena’s rooms, would have been hugely difficult, and impossible without inside help.
Pascal finished her beer and tossed the empty into a waste bin with a loud crash. She knew she wouldn’t sleep if she went back to bed, so she grabbed her tablet and left the room, heading for the lifts.
She walked through the lobby and into the hotel bar. It was a small, dark and intimate place, palm fronds overflowing from giant tan coloured tubs, low kaleidoscope style lighting, tinkling piano in the background, and it was empty apart from a couple of lovers cooing to each other in the corner. Pascal climbed onto a high stool at the bar and ordered a Jack Daniels. She set her tablet down and began to scroll through and read local news reports covering the murder.
She tried her drink. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the waitress; she was leaning on the bar just up from her, arms crossed, chewing gum, looking mournfully into the distance. Pascal signaled for a re-fill, edging her tablet around so the girl would see the screen when she came over; it showed a headline from a web news channel reporting on the murder story.
‘Quiet night, huh?’ Pascal said, as the girl placed the drink down on the bar, her eyes flicking down over the screen.
She looked at Pascal, expression less friendly. ‘If you’re a journo looking for something on that,’ she said nodding down at the screen, ‘I wouldn’t let O’Leary find you in here.’
‘D’you talk to all your guests like that?’ Pascal asked, wide-eyed.
The girl looked at her again, sizing her up some more. ‘Sorry. Guess I didn’t pick up on the accent. We’ve had some characters coming in here, nosing around, you know how it is?’
‘Sure. No harm done. You join me in a drink?’ Pascal asked. Then, ‘who’s O’Leary, anyway?’
The girl smiled. She was young, early twenties, rather mousy, with short hair and glasses. She made herself a Jack Daniels and topped Pascal’s up. ‘John O’Leary’s head of security here,’ she said, and left it at that. Despite the smile, Pascal could tell the girl was still wary.
‘I’m Courtney, by the way,’ Pascal said, extending her hand over the bar.
The girl shook and said, ‘Lorraine.’ She took a sip of her drink, then she was looking up, over Pascal’s shoulder and nodding. She said, ‘evening John.’
Pascal half turned on her stool to look at the guy as he moved in to the bar beside her. She swore under her breath; her tablet still showed the murder story headline.
The guy was average height and build, pale complexion with reddish brown hair. ‘Everything all right, Lorraine?’ he asked, his eyes taking in the tablet screen.
‘Sure thing boss, quiet as a tomb,’ Lorraine said.
‘And Miss Pascal,’ he said turning to her. ‘I hope you’re enjoying your stay with us?’
His eyes were unreadable, but there was something of the lizard about the guy, a kind of slow languid air of insolence in the way that he looked at her. ‘And I hope you enjoyed your little tour of the building earlier today as well,’ he said, letting her know she was already a mark. He continued, same slow cadence. ‘I understand you specifically asked for the room in which the murder took place. But alas, if you’re looking for ghoulish kick’s,’ he said, with a thin smile at Lorraine, ‘you’ll find no traces, as the room was re-decorated as soon as the police tape came down. And at the hotel we don’t encourage discussion about such macabre and unfortunate events, and I hope you’ll respect that. The hotels reputation is of course paramount. I’m sure you understand.’
‘Of course. No problem,’ Pascal said, knowing she’d completely blown it. Maybe it was jet lag, but she couldn’t keep blaming that. Fact is she might as well have worn a big sign saying she’d come to dig up stuff about the murder. She’d have to find another way in. But now she needed to make her exit as it was clear O’Leary wasn’t going to leave until she did.
She signed the bar chit with her room number and dropped five bucks on the tray with a wink at Lorraine. Then she picked up her tablet, nodded
to both and moved off her stool. She could feel their eyes on her back as she made her way to the door, a busted flush. But she had picked up one thing: O’Leary had a cocaine habit, maybe quite a heavy one if he could come out on duty with tiny amounts of white powder still showing on the tip of his nose. Might be nothing; lots of hotel workers imbibed, but in her experience it was usually lower level staff, less so older guys in the more responsible positions, but it might be something. She’d sleep on it, if she could, then she’d better hitch a ride out to see Calver at court.
* * * *
Pascal woke early, then sat on the bed chewing a bagel as her mini printer spewed out the court motions Morganna had emailed over the night before. As she munched away she idly watched the maid bustling around her doing the dusting. She had invited her in to do her work rather than putting her off until she was out the room. Pascal checked her watch; she’d have to leave for court soon.
She watched the maid some more, then smiled at her and gestured at the coffee pot on the table. The maid graciously declined the offer with a shake of her head and a shy smile. She was middle aged with a mahogany coloured face with few lines, and dark somnolent eyes. Pascal watched her for a moment longer, and then said, ‘perdon, habla usted Ingles?’
‘Of course,’ the maid replied with a mild look of reproach.
‘Please forgive my rudeness. Why wouldn’t you speak English?’ Pascal said, rolling her eyes at her own stupidity. ‘Come, lay down your duster, take a moment and join me for a coffee - please.’
The maid checked her watch. ‘Okay, but only for a moment. We are not supposed to, but on the other hand, we must not be rude to guests. Thank you,’ she said.
Pascal poured the still hot coffee into a cup and passed it to the woman, saying, ‘I’m Courtney.’
‘Dolores,’ she replied, nodding solemnly.
Pascal said, ‘look, I wonder if you can help me, Dolores?’
‘I try.’
‘Your head of security, Mr.…….O’Leary, I think,’ Pascal said, feigning uncertainty.