Guilty as Sin (11 page)

"I don't have to justify my life to you. Nor do I have to put up with you, Mr. Brooks. If you're here because you want to do a book about this case, I have no intention of cooperating. I'm asking you to leave. I suggest you do so, or I will call security, and won't that do wonders for your image as a beloved personality—-front-page photos of you being physically removed from these offices."

Instead of the expected show of bad temper, he stood back and regarded her with a look that suggested he was proud of her. Ellen wanted to throw something at him.

"I look forward to watching you in court, Ms. North. I'll make that appointment on my way out."

As he strolled out, it seemed as if all the energy in the room went with him. Feeling limp, Ellen sank back down onto her chair.

Phoebe burst into the office, eyes as big as saucers, her cheeks glowing. She shut the door and pressed back against it.

"Ohmygod!" she gasped. "I'm in love!"

"Again?"

She swept into a chair, perching on the edge of it. "Do you know who was just in here?"

"Jay Butler Brooks."

"Jay Butler Brooks! He is such a babe! He was number seventeen on People magazine's list of the twenty most intriguing people of the year." She brought herself up short, out of breath, her brows drawing together as the obvious dawned on her belatedly. "What was he doing in here?"

"Annoying me," Ellen groused, digging through her briefcase for the complaint forms against Wright. "You forgot 'pain in the butt' in your tribute."

"I'm not even going to try to turn that into a sexual reference," Phoebe said. "Suffice it to say, I would sit still and let him annoy me all day long if I could just look at him."

"Phoebe, you amaze me," Ellen complained, scanning the pages of the document. "You're an intelligent, articulate, educated woman panting after a man who—"

"—is a total hot babe. Intelligence and hormones are not mutually exclusive, Ellen. You should remember that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Phoebe refrained from comment, trooping to the door in her clunky boots. "He made an appointment to see you later. Is he interested in the case? Is he going to write a book?"

"I don't know and I don't want to know," Ellen said stubbornly. "Cancel the appointment. I'm sure I have something more important to do at that time."

"I don't think you'll want to cancel," her secretary warned.

"And why is that?"

"He's bringing the state attorney general with him."

Surely, no bond hearing in the history of Park County, Minnesota, had ever attracted so much attention. The courtroom was full, observers packed on the benches like sardines in a tin. Jay stayed at the back of the mob, timing his entrance so attention would be focused away from him. Wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his shades, he slipped in and took a spot on the aisle. The reporters leaped to their feet, craning their necks for a better look at Garrett Wright as he made his entrance with his attorney.

Wright and his lawyer were flanked by a deputy and the Park County sheriff himself—Russ Steiger.

Another politician in search of a photo op. No sheriff would ever have lowered himself to escorting prisoners, unless he hoped to gain something from the visibility of the case. Wright wasn't even Steiger's bust. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Steiger's bust was a 36C who went by the name of Paige Price and didn't mind playing a little horizontal hokeypokey to get her story for the channel-seven news.

Ellen North and her associate Reed had already taken their seats at the prosecution's table. She didn't look up as Wright entered the courtroom, as if she couldn't be bothered to give him the least consideration. She kept her attention on the papers she was idly reviewing, glancing up only when the judge emerged from his chambers.

Everyone in the room rose on command as the Honorable Victor Franken took the bench. Franken was small and bald and misshapen, with an unhealthy yellow cast to his skin. He looked like a hundred-year-old hand puppet in his long black robe, like Yoda from Star Wars. He banged his gavel and banged it again, looking secretly pleased at the way people jumped reflexively at the sound.

"This is The State versus Dr. Garrett Wright,'" he croaked, his voice rusted by age. "Who am I dealing with here?" He squinted at the defense as if he hadn't just spent half an hour in chambers with the lawyers involved and grumbled, "Dennis Enberg," then turned his wizened countenance on the prosecution. "Ellen North. Who's that with you?" he barked, and pulled his pince-nez off the withered red nub of his nose, then rubbed them against his robe.

"Assistant County Attorney Cameron Reed, Your Honor," Reed said loudly, rising halfway from his chair.

Franken waved Ellen's associate back to his seat. "Let's have it, Miss North."

Wright and his lawyer were officially served with the complaint. Jay smiled to himself. Good move, Ms. North. Having the complaint presented now meant it had to be read aloud into the record. The clerk of the court, a matronly sort who likely had a brood of children of her own, read the charges, one after another after another. Kidnapping, denying parental rights, kidnapping a police officer and causing great bodily harm, attempted homicide, assault, assault, assault—enough counts and variations of assault to sound as if Wright had attacked half the town.

While she did her best to keep the emotion from her voice, the clerk couldn't seem to keep her throat from tightening or her eyes from shooting daggers at the defendant as she read the bit about the bloodstained sheet that had been wrapped around Megan O'Malley—bloodstains that matched Josh Kirkwood's blood type.

Round one went to the prosecution. The members of the media soaked it all in—the allegations stacked one on top of another, Mitch Holt's report of the events that had taken place Saturday night, up to and including the chase and Wright's apprehension.

The defense was allowed to make no rebuttal. Enberg sat scratching the arm of his wool jacket, looking as if he were fighting a losing battle with acid indigestion.

When the clerk finished reading, Franken fixed the accused with a baleful glare. "Dr. Wright, do you understand the charges being made against you?"

"Yes," Wright said softly.

"Don't mumble!"

"Yes, Your Honor!"

"I want you to know that, in the eyes of the court, you are innocent until the State proves your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." The glare seemed to suggest otherwise, but, then, it could have been cataracts or constipation causing the judge's sour expression. "You will have the opportunity to plead guilty or not guilty. You'll have the right to a trial. If there's a trial, you will have the right to hear the State's evidence, to cross-examine the State's witnesses, and to present witnesses of your own. You may testify on your own behalf or remain silent. You already have a lawyer, so we don't need to talk about that.

"Did you get all that?" Franken shouted. "Yes, Your Honor."

Ellen rose. Jay leaned to the right for a better look down the aisle. Even through the bars of the gate that kept the spectators at bay, he caught a nice glimpse of leg. She never cast a glance at the gallery, giving the impression that they meant nothing to her. Her only interest was her job—to bring the hobnailed boot of justice down squarely on Garrett Wright's head.

"Based on the complaint and the statements of the officers involved, four Honor, the State requests the defendant be booked and a date set for he omnibus hearing."

"The purpose of the omnibus hearing, Dr. Wright," Franken explained, "is to hear all issues that can be determined before trial—evidentiary issues, pretrial motions—and determine whether or not there is probable cause to bind you over for trial."

Franken drew a wheezing breath to replenish his withered lungs and fell into a coughing fit, nearly disappearing behind the bench as he lunched over. Everyone in the room seemed to hold a breath, waiting for his tuft of cotton-white hair to vanish as he crumpled to the floor in a small, dead heap. The bailiff peered around the edge of the massive bench. Franken popped up again, like a moldy jack-in-the-box, and made an impatient gesture at his clerk.

"Omnibus hearing on Tuesday, February first?" she suggested.

"Let's see about the bail."

"Your Honor, in view of the seriousness of the charges," Ellen said, "the State requests bail in the amount of one million dollars."

A gasp went up from the gallery. Pens scrambled frantically across paper. The murmur of voices into minicassette recorders was like the low hum of an engine. Franken banged his gavel.

Enberg hopped up from his chair. "Your Honor, that's outrageous! My client is a professor at one of the top private colleges in the country. He works with juvenile offenders. He is a well-respected member of this community—"

"Who happens to be charged with heinous crimes," Franken said.

"He has ties to the community, and the charges are ludicrous—"

"And he was apprehended after a lengthy chase. Save it for the hearing, Dennis," Franken ordered. "He's a flight risk. I'm setting bail in the mount of five hundred thousand dollars, cash. Omnibus hearing on the—the—" He shook a crooked finger at his clerk. "Whatever Renee said."

"Tuesday, February first."

"The defendant shall be booked, photographed, and fingerprinted," Franken stated. "And he shall undergo a physical exam for scratches, bruises, et cetera, and surrender samples of blood and hair for analysis and comparison with evidence."

He cracked the gavel again, signaling the end of the proceedings. The reporters jumped up and scrambled over one another to get to the door or to get to the lawyers or Paul Kirkwood, who had positioned himself directly behind the prosecutors. Jay eased out of his seat and took a position at the back of the pack.

"He should rot in jail," Kirkwood said. "After what he put my son through. After what he put us all through."

"If Garrett Wright is guilty, then who returned Josh?"

"Has your son identified Garrett Wright as his kidnapper?"

"Is there any truth to the rumor the police are still considering you a suspect?"

Kirkwood's face flushed. His eyes were bright with temper. "I had nothing to do with my son's disappearance. I am one hundred percent innocent. Any accusation to the contrary is just another example of the incompetence of the Deer Lake police department."

"Let's break it up, folks!" the white-haired bailiff called. "We've got business to conduct in this courtroom!"

As the circus moved out into the hall, Jay took a seat, keeping his head down as he jotted notes and avoided recognition. As much as he enjoyed his fame and fortune, there was something to be said for anonymity. Particularly now.

The case had drawn him here. He wanted to be able to take it all in without the interference discovery would bring. Unfortunately, he wasn't going to be able to get the kind of access he wanted without using his name like a pry bar.

He took one last look at Ellen North, who sat in conference with her associate at the prosecution's table. He speculated as to what he might get there besides a hot tongue and a cold shoulder. A challenge, some insight, a kick in the ego.

He knew what he wanted. And he could guaran-goddamn-tee it she wouldn't give it to him without a fight.

CHAPTER
 
6

"The goddamn lawyers strike again."

"I can't believe that bitch asked for a million dollars' bail. A million dollars! Shit!"

"My. North was only doing her job," Christopher Priest said. He stood at the front of the classroom, a small man with big glasses and bad taste in clothes. His students sometimes teased him about perpetuating the stereotypical image of computer people as nerds, but their comments ind suggestions went unheeded. There were certain advantages to the image. Unfounded assumptions could be useful things.

"Her job,"Tyrell Mann jeered. Even his posture was disrespectful. He sprawled back in his chair with his long arms crossed over the front of his Chicago Bulls starter jacket. "Her job is to fuckin' pin this on somebody. Fuckin' cops would'a nailed a brother for it, but there ain't hardly no niggers in this fuckin' hick town."

"That's not logical, Tyrell," Priest said, unaffected by the bravado or the language.

He had helped found the Sci-Fi Cowboys. Even though there had been encouragement to expand the program, they kept it at a manageable level—ten young men from Minneapolis inner-city schools, teenagers whose brushes with the law ran the gamut from gang activity to grand-theft auto. The point of the program was to bring the boys' positive qualities of intelligence to the surface, to interest them in science and engineering through innovative projects with computers and robotics.

The boys had requested this emergency meeting—a logistical headache that required a dozen phone calls to schools to get permission for the
 
boys to leave in the middle of the day, and to probation officers to find one willing to drive them down to Deer Lake. At least the van simplified matters somewhat. Fund-raising and contributions had helped pay for a used Ford van four years ago.

"Think," Priest said. "If the authorities were looking for a scapegoat, would they choose a man like Dr. Wright?"

"Hell no, but that loser they dragged in from the hockey rink offed himself—"

J. R. Andersen leaned forward in his seat. His rap sheet included charges for raiding bank accounts electronically. "Professor, are you saying it is logical to believe Dr. Wright did it?"

The others in the group reacted in an explosion of sound. Priest waited for the fury to die down.

"Of course not. I'm asking you to look at the system without emotion coloring your perceptions. The police apprehended someone they believe to be involved in the crime." He held up a finger to ward off the automatic protests. "You are all well aware that the next step in the process belongs to the county attorney's office. It's Ms. North's job—"

"Fuckin' bitch."

"Tyrell . . ."

Tyrell unfolded his long arms and spread them wide. "A million?"

"A lesson in bargaining. Always ask for more than you think you can get. The judge cut that number in half."

"Five hundred large. Where we supposed to raise that kind of green?"

"I'm sure Dr. Wright will appreciate your intentions," Priest said. "But no one expects you guys to raise that kind of money."

"I could get it," J.R. offered with a twisted grin, cracking his knuckles with dramatic flair.

The professor ignored the inference. Crime was never rewarded within the group in any way, not even as a joke. "If you want to show your support, there are things you can do. You've got brains. Use them."

"Our name," J.R. said, his gaze sharp on the professor. "We're a media draw."

"Very good, J.R."

"We could start a defense fund for the Doc."

"And the news crews will hear about it and make a big deal about us—"

"And the money will come rolling in."

A knock at the door drew Priest's attention away from the conversation.

"Professor?" Ellen North inched the door open. "I'm sorry to disturb you. I was told you didn't have a class this hour."

"I don't." He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. "The Cowboys called an emergency meeting. They were understandably upset over Dr. Wright's arrest, then they heard the news reports of this morning's bail hearing . . ."

He offered a little shrug that sent his shrunken wool sweater crawling up his midriff. "You have to understand, they're not very trusting of the system."

Ellen reserved comment. From her perspective the system wasn't the problem with juvenile offenders, but she hadn't come to Harris College for a philosophical argument.

She wanted to meet and speak with Wright's friends and colleagues herself, face-to-face to look for some hint of doubt or unease in them. It seemed impossible that Wright could be so twisted without giving someone close to him a clue.

But wasn't that what everyone in Deer Lake wanted to think? That a monster had to look like a monster and walk like a monster and talk like a monster so they could see the monster coming? If evil came in plain clothes and a pretty face, then evil could be anyone anywhere.

"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the night Josh Kirkwood disappeared," she said. "It won't take long, but if you'd rather I come back—"

"I heard he's been returned unharmed." Priest raised a bony hand to rub his chin. "A fascinating turn of events. Obviously, Dr. Wright didn't return the child—not that I believe Garrett took Josh in the first place."

"We believe otherwise, Professor."

He put his head a little on one side and looked at her as if he were an android attempting to decipher the illogical workings of the human mind. "Do you truly believe, or are you following a path of least resistance?"

"Believe me, prosecuting a well-respected member of the community is hardly a path of least resistance."

"However, he is the bird in the hand, so to speak."

"Just because there's still one in the bush doesn't mean this one isn't guilty," Ellen pointed out. Priest just blinked at her, frowning the way he probably frowned at students who couldn't grasp the latest computer language.

"I want to clarify a couple of points about that night," she said. "You told the police you were here working."

"In the computer center, yes. Garrett and I have a group of students working together on a project involving learning and perception. One of those students was here with me."

"Mike Chamberlain," Ellen said. "Whom you sent on an enrand around five o'clock—an errand he never accomplished because he was involved in a car accident."

"That's correct."

"The accident that kept Hannah Garrison at the hospital when she would have been picking Josh up from the hockey rink."

Priest looked down at his loafers. "Yes," he said softly. "If I hadn't sent Mike out at that precise moment, perhaps none of this would have happened. You can't imagine how that makes me feel. I think the world of Hannah. It was such a relief to hear she'd got Josh back—unharmed."

The professor's cheeks colored as he spoke of Hannah Garrison. Interesting. And a little odd. He didn't seem the sort for romantic crushes. Or perhaps the shy glance at his shoes was something else altogether.

Megan O'Malley didn't believe that car accident had been an accident at all, but rather the first move in the kidnappers' game. Was the involvement of Priest's student in that car wreck accidental, or was that all part of the plan as well? If one professor could be involved, why not two?

"After Mike Chamberlain left, you were here alone?"

Priest's eyes narrowed a fraction. His skinny shoulders pulled back. "I thought I was past needing an alibi, Ms. North. I voluntarily took a lie detector test on Sunday."

"I'm aware of that, Professor," Ellen said without apology. "Did you see Dr. Wright here that evening?"

"No. I wish I could say I did, but I was in the machine room in the computer center, and Garrett was in his office."

"So he claims."

"Only the guilty live their lives with alibis in mind."

"You and Dr. Wright are friends. You work together, founded the Sci-Fi Cowboys together. You don't happen to jointly own any property, do you? A cabin, maybe?"

"We're friends and colleagues, Ms. North, not husband and wife."

The door behind him opened, and a tall youth with angry dark eyes glared out over the professor's head. "You got a problem here, Professor?"

"No, Tyrell. There's no problem," Priest said evenly.

Tyrell kept his gaze fixed hard on Ellen. "Hey, you that bitch lawyer."

"Tyrell . . ."

Priest turned and attempted to contain the trouble to the classroom, an effort as futile as trying to shove the cork back in a champagne bottle, the door swung wide and two more members of the Sci-Fi Cowboys stared out, arrogant and indignant and big enough to pick their mentor up and set him aside like a child.

"Dr. Wright is innocent!"

"He's gonna kick your ass in court!"

"Guys! Please go back to your seats!" Priest ordered. They stared past him as if he were invisible, their attention on the woman who was, in their minds, an enemy.

Ellen held her ground. She had tried enough hardened criminals of sixteen and seventeen to know the rules. Show no fear. Show no emotion, with hormones at high tide, the kids had enough emotion for everyone— of it negative, ready to boil up into violence.

"Dr. Wright will have his chance to prove his innocence in court."

"Yeah, right."

"Court didn't give me a chance. Court screwed my ass."

Priest frowned at her.

"You've got your hands full, Professor," Ellen said. "I'll let you go. If anything occurs to you that may be of help to the case, please call me or Chief Holt."

"When hell freezes over, bitch!" the one called Tyrell shouted as she turned and walked away.

The neighborhood to the south of the Harris College campus had once been a town in its own right. Harrisburg had competed with Deer Lake for commerce and population during the latter part of the nineteenth century. But Deer Lake had won the railroad and the title of county seat, and Harrisburg had lost its identity. At some point, what was left of it had been annexed by the Deer Lake municipality, and someone had slapped it the the nickname Dinkytown.

The old buildings on the main drag housed businesses that targeted the college crowd. The buildings were shabby, but the signs were trendy and artsy. The Clip Joint Hair and Tanning salon, the Tome Bookstore, the Leaning Tower of Pizza, Green World—a nature and New Age shop— the Leaf and Bean Coffee House, a mix of bars, restaurants, and tiny art galleries.

Ellen headed for an old creamery building on the north end. The Pack Rat was a secondhand shop crammed with a boggling array of junk. Racks of "vintage" clothes from the sixties and seventies crowded the front of the room. A hand-lettered sign above them read Blast From the Past! Ellen scowled at the thought that anything she might have worn in high school was now considered nostalgic.

She worked her way back through the haphazard displays of outdated textbooks and Harris mementos that alumni had undoubtedly trucked out of their basements and attics to make room for more timely junk. The clerk behind the counter was a large girl with a shock of purple hair, black eye shadow, and a ruby stud in the side of her nose. She was engaged in animated conversation with a tall young man as slender as a rope, stoop-shouldered and rusty-haired. He wore the scraggly chin whiskers that passed for a beard with the grunge crowd and sucked on a cigarette with serious purpose. The pair of them caught sight of Ellen simultaneously and gave her the kind of look that suggested they were more interested in making small talk than money.

"I'm looking for Todd Childs," Ellen said.

"I'm Todd." He tapped the ash off his cigarette into a tin ashtray with a plastic hula dancer perched on the rim.

"Ellen North. I'm with the county attorney's office. I'd like to have a few minutes of your time if I could."

He took a last deep drag, crushed the cigarette out, and blew the smoke out his nostrils on a sigh of disgust. "I was just leaving. I've got a class in half an hour."

"It won't take long."

She watched his face as he weighed the merits of denying her. He exchanged a look with Vampira behind the counter. Behind his round-rimmed glasses his pupils were dilated, large ink-black spots rimmed by thin lines of color. Steiger called him a pothead. The scent that underscored the cigarette smoke on him was unmistakable. But smoking a little grass was a long way from being an accessory to the kind of crimes Garrett Wright had committed.

"Clock's ticking," she said with a phony smile.

Todd heaVed another sigh. "All right, fine. Let's go back in the office."

He led the way through the maze to a room the size of a broom closet, where he took a seat between piles of junk on the desk. The only chair was a dirty green beanbag. Ellen gave it a dubious glance and leaned a shoulder against the door frame.

Wright's student jumped on the offensive. "The charges against Dr. Wright are so bogus."

"The police caught him fleeing the scene."

He shook his head, fishing in the pocket of his flannel shirt for another Marlboro. "No way. It was some kind of frame job or something."