Alibi (62 page)

“You are on trial for murder, James, and double murder at that. You lost your son, granted, but if you do not wake up to the seriousness of the situation around you, you may never have the chance to become a father again.”

James’ shoulders slumped, the talk of fatherhood obviously wrenching at his heart.

“Katz is pissed,” David went on. “No, he is more than pissed because Sara just ate his witness for breakfast and he will be set on revenge. And Barbara Rousseau is his ultimate weapon—young, beautiful and ready to tell the world what a goddamned liar you are.”

James lifted his face, his bloodshot eyes set on David’s similarly hued pair with a look of pure sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. And David looked across at Sara, her aqua eyes now pooling with tears.

“I will try to help you, David,” James went on. “I will do the best I can. But you have to understand that right now I can’t even find a reason to want to save myself.”

“I know, James,” said David at last, now pulling his client close, feeling the young man’s body convulse with long overdue sobs. “And if you cannot do it for you, then I beg you to do it for me. For if we lose this thing I will never forgive myself, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“Are you ready to call your next witness?” said a relatively calmer Stein as he took his seat for the afternoon session. His face returned to its normal pallor but his voice was still edged with the slightest trace of irritation.

“No, Your Honor,” answered the Kat, looking remarkably well considering the morning’s shellacking, and the fact that he was, without a doubt, about to set a fire under the already volatile judge before him. “I am afraid our suggested order for the afternoon will need to be changed.”

“He’s up to something,”
David whispered to Arthur, who nodded in agreement.

“Forgive me, Mr. Katz, but I believe I am owed an explanation,” glared Stein, his manner barely concealing his growing rage. “I am a stickler for order, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Yes, Judge. You see, Miss Rousseau’s flight has been delayed due to bad weather, and she is not as yet in Boston.”

“And where is she, Mr. Katz?” asked Stein, removing his glasses to rub at his deep-set hazel eyes with vigor.

“Still in Paris, Judge.”

“That’s a long way from Boston, Mr. Katz.”

“I know, Your Honor. There are rumors Logan International may be closed by this evening and if that is the case, we have made alternate plans to fly her into New York and will attempt to get her here by other means tomorrow or Friday at the latest.”

“And I am assuming you have a backup plan, Mr. Katz, that ah . . .” Stein checked the witness list before him. “Perhaps Mr. Westinghouse has made himself available so that this day is not a complete loss?”

“No, Your Honor. I did try to contact Mr. Westinghouse during the lunch break,” he lied. “But to no avail.” David guessed Katz was determined to play Westinghouse and Simpson as a double-hitter tomorrow and had no intention of breaking them with an overnight lag. “Apparently he is in class, and even if he left Wellesley now, he would not be here until three.”

“Are you suggesting an early recess, Mr. Katz?”

“That is exactly what I am proposing, Judge, with sincerest apologies for the delay.”

“Are you all right with this, Mr. Cavanaugh?”

“Do I have a choice, Judge?” said David, taking every opportunity to stick it to the ADA.

“It appears not,” said Stein, shaking his head before turning to the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for your patience today and apologize for this senseless waste of your time. In fact, I know Mr. Katz feels so pained at this inconvenience that he would like to give you each fifty dollars apiece so that you might catch a taxi home in this dreadful weather. That all right with you, Mr. Katz?” asked Stein, peering down at the ADA in disdain.

“Ah, of course, Your Honor,” said Katz, now fishing into his pocket. “But I may need an advance on some cash.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Katz. There’s an ATM around the corner,” said Stein. “And as the jury were meant to be here all afternoon, I am sure they won’t mind the wait.”

With the early adjournment and the weather worse than ever, David and Sara decided to work from home for the rest of the evening—Arthur having promised them he would call if they were needed back at the office. They made themselves a light early dinner and started to discuss the impact of Wakeford’s testimony when David looked up from his notes to meet Sara’s eyes.

“You were amazing in there today,” he said.

“Thanks.” She smiled, before reaching across the coffee table to rest her hand on his. “I’m learning, David,” she said then. “How to separate the two.”

And he nodded, knowing just how hard it was to disconnect your own views from the argument you needed to make in court.

“James was right,” he said then. “That despite everything we have to do, when it comes down to it, the world ceases to exist without the people you love.”

And she smiled, before moving around the table to fall into his arms. “Then maybe we need a reminder of what matters most,” she said, kissing him then.

And as he unbuttoned her blouse and took her in his arms and entered a world where he was allowed to forget, at least for a time, who they were and what they needed to do, he took comfort in knowing that whatever else, they were in this—and everything else they chose to take on—together.

When the man first walked through the door, she thought he was a vagrant seeking respite from the cold. Nora Kelly was not one to judge people, at least not by appearances alone. But this large, red-faced man looked like he had commandeered every jacket and overcoat in Boston and layered them one on top of the other, like a circus clown wearing an impossible mishmash of colors and patterns and styles.

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking over the top of her small, square tortoiseshell glasses.

“I need to see Mr. Cavanaugh,” said the now puffing man, removing his purple tartan scarf and resting his hands on No ra’s desk as he attempted to catch his breath.

“Ah . . .” began Nora. “I am afraid he is out of the office at present, but if you would like to leave a message?”

“What is it, Nora?” asked Arthur, now at his office door.

“Are you Mr. Wright?” asked the man, turning around.

“Yes. I am Arthur Wright, one of the partners of this firm. How can I help you Mr. . . .”

“Professor,” said the man. “Professor Carl Heffer. I’m a lecturer at Deane.”

“Right,” said Arthur. “Well, Professor, if you’d like to come into my office, Mrs. Kelly will get you some coffee and . . .”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wright, and I apologize for the late hour, but the boys were very specific. I need to speak to Cavanaugh and Mr. Cavanaugh alone.”

“What boys?” asked Arthur, his curiosity now piqued.

“H. Edgar Simpson and Heath Westinghouse, or the master and his apprentice, as I like to call them.”

Arthur nodded.

“Nora, call David, and ask him to come at once. He’s not far, Professor,” he said, turning toward Heffer. “It should not take him long.”

“Good, because believe me, Mr. Wright, if what I am guessing is correct, then time is not on your side.”

An hour later David sat stock-still across from the cherry-faced man before him—his office door closed, with Sara, Arthur and Nora waiting anxiously in the rooms beyond. And even as Professor Heffer reached the section headed “conclusion,” David could still not believe what he was hearing—the scope of it all, and the arrogance it had taken to see it through.

“It’s them,” David said at last, as Heffer put down the report and looked up at him.

“Yes,” replied Heffer, incredulous. “The names are aliases of course, but there is no doubt the two subjects in this assignment are Simpson and Westinghouse.”

“And you believe them?” asked David, anxious to get the professor’s learned opinion. “You think these two are capable of . . .”

“Yes,” interrupted Heffer without hesitation. “Simpson is a genius, a Machiavellian mastermind with an extremely accomplished intellect. Westinghouse is also incredibly bright, but naive when it comes to his choice of friends—obviously.”

The report was nothing short of extraordinary. It basically laid out their entire strategy from beginning to end. David had no doubt the boys had edited the copy to ensure their own legal protection and the work had been submitted as a work of fiction. But it was real, David could feel it, and he knew Heffer could feel it too.

“Mr. Cavanaugh,” Heffer began.

“Call me David,” said David, and Heffer nodded.

“David, these boys have basically admitted to concocting the entire ‘confession,’ to setting up your client simply to see if it could be done. And despite what you think or what everyone else would assume, this is not about the money. These boys are trust fund babies of the highest order. I believe Simpson inherited close to twenty million when he turned twenty-one, and I suspect Westinghouse would not have been far behind.”

“They sold out their friend simply to get off on their superiority?” asked David.

“Yes and no,” said Heffer. “As the report suggests, they believed in their friend’s innocence from the very beginning and were certain the foreign ‘lover’ could verify his whereabouts at the time of the young girl’s death. But the third friend, your client, lied, or in the very least exaggerated, leaving our two principals with a monstrous calamity on their hands.”

“So this was all an exercise of ‘let’s see how far we can go,’ ” said David. “They wanted to test their manipulation abilities against the police, the DA’s office, the FBI, and then use the money as proof that they pulled it off. It was all a game from the beginning, one astronomical scam that proved, at least to themselves, that they were smarter than some of the highest law enforcement officials in this city.”

“Yes,” said Heffer simply. “The assignment requested they be entrepreneurial, and I suppose, in a macabre sense, they outdid themselves, literally.”

David nodded, while Heffer took a sip of his coffee, a long, slow slurp that reminded David of the noise kids made when they drained the bottom of their chocolate malt with a straw.

“Of course,” Heffer went on, wiping a drop of espresso from his large double chin, “now they find themselves in some very deep water—about to take the stand in an extremely high-profile trial. If they lie and say Matheson’s confession was real, they perjure themselves and send their closest friend to the gallows; if they tell the truth and admit to their own obnoxious lie, they come off looking like the smug manipulators that they are—and once again their future is in tatters.”

“They have no way out,” said David.

“It appears so, at least at face value,” said Heffer, and David was beginning to see why this man was coveted by respected law schools such as Deane. “But this is obviously not the case.”