Dead End (15 page)

‘What was Rebecca Lang's demeanour when she left your apartment to return to Bethesda?'

‘She was happy. We both were, about living together.'

‘You didn't have an argument?'

‘Absolutely not.'

‘Fall out?'

‘Absolutely not.'

‘What did you do after Rebecca left your apartment?'

‘Sat around. Did some work I'd brought home with me. Went to bed.'

‘You didn't call her?'

‘No.'

‘Why not? You'd just made a romantic commitment. A lot of people might have expected you to call to make sure she got home safely.'

‘I know. I just didn't. I wish I had. I could have started a search, earlier. Maybe …' Parnell swallowed, not finishing. He supposed Jackson was anticipating some of the questioning he had to expect from the prosecutor.

‘Now tell the court about the damage to your car,' insisted Jackson.

‘It happened last Thursday. It had been all day in the Dubette car park. There was no damage when I left it there, just after seven in the morning. When I came out, around seven thirty, nine o'clock, someone had hit it.'

‘Describe the damage.'

‘A wing and door were badly dented. The bumper – the fender – was bent in.'

‘The paint was broken?'

‘Yes.'

‘Was there much paint around on the ground?'

‘I don't remember there being any.'

‘What about paint from the car that hit you?'

‘No. I don't remember there being any trace of that, either.'

‘Mr Hanson,' stopped the judge, addressing the prosecutor. ‘Isn't that something that the court might have found useful to have been told?'

‘As Professor Meadows has testified, his was a preliminary examination,' said Hanson, not as quick to his feet as before.

‘Told the court under cross-examination,' reminded the judge. ‘And used the word cursory, not preliminary. During a hearing to determine whether the accused is granted bail or remanded into custody, to decide which, the court wishes to know
all
facts available at the time of such consideration. Do you have witnesses, either available or who can be called, to help the court?'

Hanson turned questioningly to the two arresting officers. Bellamy shook his head. Turning back to the judge, Hanson said: ‘Not at this moment.'

‘Mr Jackson?' invited the judge.

‘Mr Parnell,' resumed his lawyer. ‘You've heard evidence of the contents of Rebecca's handbag, including a piece of paper with AF209 written upon it. Have you any idea why that was there?'

‘Part of Rebecca's job was to liaise with Dubette's foreign subsidiaries and receive shipments from them, for analysis and testing at McLean. I can only assume it had something to do with that.'

‘Assume?' picked out Jackson. ‘You and she did not discuss it on Sunday?'

‘No.'

‘You had no idea it was in her purse.'

‘None whatsoever.'

‘I have an application to make, which you might have already anticipated,' Jackson told the judge. ‘But at this moment I have no further questions for my client.'

‘Mr Hanson?' came the second invitation.

It was jack-in-the-box abruptness again but Parnell had already inferred what Jackson had referred to as an edge – guessing that a lot of other people in the court were at least suspecting an inference, as well – and the sting was taken out of the attack. But it was still an attack. Hanson took Parnell through every question that had been put to him by Jackson, repeating them, rewording them, hectoring for replies, but Parnell remained quite controlled, relaxed almost, telling himself he hadn't really needed Jackson's warnings, although at once conceding that that was probably overconfidence.

There was a palpable desperation in Hanson's repetitive conclusion, culminating with: ‘You killed her, didn't you?'

‘No.'

‘Chased her, in the dark?'

‘No.'

‘Rammed her off the road?'

‘Why should I have done that, to the woman I loved and decided I wanted to set up home with?' It was not instinctive. It was a reaction that had been growing in Parnell's mind throughout the rephrasing and repetition but the timing was devastating.

Hanson had been bent over his legal pad, intent on his listed, hopefully hammer-blow questions. He came up startled by a question in return, not a denying response. Hurriedly he said: ‘That's what I'm asking you to tell me.'

‘As I have repeatedly tried to explain, there is nothing
to
tell,' retorted Parnell. ‘Except to repeat, as many times as you have repeated yourself, that I did not chase by car, crash into, try to kill or successfully kill Rebecca Lang.'

‘Points and denials that I believe already to be well established, Mr Hanson,' said the judge. ‘I think it's time to get to submissions. I would like to hear yours.'

The confidence had gone from the prosecutor. He spoke coherently, prepared – prepared, clearly, before the courtroom reversals – but his argument lacked conviction or belief. He stressed the seriousness of the accusations and insisted even more serious charges were to follow, and demanded that the remand be in custody for the investigation to proceed to enable those additional charges to be formulated.

Barry Jackson's rebuttal was as forceful as Vernon Hanson's had been falteringly weak. The prosecution's grounds for a remand in custody had not been proved by a failed, premature and inadequately conducted investigation upon which he might at some later stage invite the court's comment. Richard Parnell was a man of unquestioned rectitude and integrity. He totally and utterly refuted all the current and any subsequent charges and was prepared to offer in his own recognisance whatever bail the court might demand. Parnell was further prepared to surrender his passport to the court and report daily to any police authority, although Jackson invited the judge to rule that that authority be other than the one involved in the ongoing investigation.

Throughout the submission, Hanson, the two officers and Professor Jacob Meadows sat stone-faced, not looking at anyone. The Dubette lawyers Peter Baldwin and Gerald Fletcher also remained expressionless.

‘I want counsel to approach the bench again,' insisted the judge.

This time it was Jackson who did most of the gesticulating, but when they returned to their places Hanson said: ‘I would once more like my strongest objection to any bail application to be placed on record, in view of our discussions.'

Judge David Wilson said: ‘Let it be so recorded, but it is in view of that discussion and, at the moment unsubstantiated, observations of defence counsel Barry Jackson that I am minded to take an unusual course. I have concerns about several aspects of this custody application. I do not consider it is one upon which I can, or will, give an immediate decision from the bench, until matters raised by Mr Jackson have been resolved. I fully recognize, however, that this court is considering a person's freedom or detention, albeit how brief of either. Mr Jackson, where is your client's passport?'

Before his lawyer fully bent towards him, Parnell said: ‘The apartment,' loud enough for the judge to hear.

‘So,' nodded the black-robed man, without waiting for the relay. ‘I am putting the accused into the temporary custody of a court official and yourself, Mr Jackson, for the passport to be retrieved and returned here, at two o'clock today, to be placed in the custody of this court, should it be my decision to grant the bail application. During that adjournment I shall properly and fully consider both submissions made to me this morning, hope to get guidance upon the matter that has so far not been disclosed in open court, and rule accordingly. Until then …'

Everyone rose, to the usher's order.

It was the same usher whom Wilson appointed their court escort, with the admonishment that any overheard conversation between Jackson and Parnell was wholly governed and protected by client confidentiality. Despite that instruction, Parnell waited for Jackson's lead in the car taking the three of them to the apartment, the usher driving. Almost before they cleared the court precincts, Jackson said, ebulliently: ‘We got our breaks!'

Parnell said: ‘I still need to know what the hell that is! Or was! Or perhaps still is! This really is Perry Mason!'

‘I know,' grinned Jackson. ‘Tomorrow's headlines are going to be twice as big as today's.'

‘Please?' implored Parnell. He ached with the strain of the concentration with which he'd had to hold himself in court. ‘What in Christ's name is the importance of AF209?'

‘I haven't confirmed that yet,' said Jackson. ‘Until I do, it remains a matter for the closed court.'

‘So, how come I got released like this?'

‘Professor Jacob Meadows,' announced Jackson. ‘His expert evidence has been discredited on three appeals. One, two years ago, overturned a judgment of Judge Wilson. I couldn't believe Hanson's court list when I saw it this morning. That's why I so easily got the court protection order with the cars. I just busked the questioning in court, believing even less that I'd get the admissions that I did from him.'

‘There's still a lot I don't understand, about what's being claimed,' protested Parnell.

‘Me, too,' conceded Jackson, soberly now. ‘I didn't know how right I was last night, about opening up cans of worms. There could be some we don't want to see.'

The usher was lucky with a meter very close to Parnell's apartment, outside of which there was already a waiting phalanx of cameramen. The usher said: ‘I suppose I've got to come in with you. This is a first for me as well.'

‘Come and get your moment of fame,' said Jackson.

They endured the flashlights and strobes and Parnell was conscious of faces at windows, as there had been when he'd left the Dubette building. Inside the apartment, he went directly to the bureau and retrieved the passport. As he turned away, offering it to the usher, Jackson nodded towards the telephone and said: ‘Your light's flashing. You've got a message.'

All three men stood looking down at the apparatus while the message rewound. Then a bright voice said: ‘This is the Acme Toyota garage, 9 a.m. Monday, responding to Ms Lang's message of Saturday. Sorry we haven't been able to get back to you sooner, Mr Parnell. You want to call us on 202-534-9928, we'll fix a time either in DC or McLean to sort a repair estimate for your Toyota. Like we told Ms Lang, our estimates are free and we are the authorized Toyota repair shop in the DC area. Look forward to hearing from you.'

Jackson extracted the tape from the machine with a surgeon's delicacy and said: ‘This has gone beyond luck. We're now into I don't know what …' He looked Parnell up and down, disdainfully. ‘I've got calls to make. And while I'm doing that, you got time to clean yourself up and put on something you haven't slept in. You got to start making yourself look good for the cameras, because there's going to be a lot more of those around before the day's out.'

Thirteen

R
ichard Parnell showered for a second time to wash off the imagined smell of detention and chose a collar and tie to go with the discreetly patterned sports jacket to match Jackson's conservatism. The lawyer nodded at his reappearance and said: ‘That'll do fine for whatever the hell else is going to come today. I've lit a lot of fuses and there could be a very big bang.'

‘I don't understand a word you've just said and I need to know when I'm going to,' protested Parnell. He felt like a specimen under one of his own microscopes, an essentially alive but inanimate object blindly writhing and twisting.

‘You'll know when I know,' promised Jackson. ‘For the moment, we're going an inch at a time, starting from when we leave here. If we get ambushed again you say nothing. I do all the talking. But we don't hurry. Guilty people hurry and, sure as hell, Richard my friend, we ain't guilty. But other people are, exactly of what I'm not at this moment quite sure. So we're lighting as many more fuses as we can.'

There was the expected media encirclement outside the apartment, and Jackson murmured it was just what he'd wanted, and waited patiently for them all to get into position with their cameras focused before announcing that there had been a sensational development which he was unable to disclose until it had been brought before Judge Wilson, with whom he had been in telephone contact and who had delayed for one hour the original court resumption for this new evidence to be produced. That new evidence had elevated the investigation into the tragic death of Rebecca Lang to a federal level, the circumstances of which would become clear later that day. In the car, the usher once more at the wheel, Parnell demanded: ‘What federal level?'

‘Flight AF209,' said Jackson. ‘It rang a distant bell. I had my office check it out while you were cleaning up. And then spoke to guys I know at the J. Edgar Hoover building. It's a Paris to Washington DC flight that was cancelled four times about three months ago after intelligence electronic eavesdropping picked up a reference to a terrorism attack.'

‘It was in Rebecca's bag!' said Parnell, disbelievingly.

‘You heard what Bellamy and the Montgomery woman said in court.'

Had it anything to do with the mystery French consignment? wondered Parnell, at once. ‘Why this one number?'

‘That's a question you're going to be asked a lot of times over the next few days,' predicted Jackson. ‘Like I said, I'm not sure we're going to be happy with all the cans of worms we've opened. This is now an FBI and Homeland Security investigation.'

‘You're not suggesting Rebecca could have been involved … no, that's too absurd even to think about …'

‘I'm afraid you're going to have to think about it a lot,' said Jackson.