Matter of Trust (54 page)

‘It was kind of even,' said Connor, shifting in his seat. ‘Mr Marshall had a good start – listing all the evidence against Dad, but David gave this whole speech about burden of proof and reasonable doubt.'

And then Will saw it, the smile beginning to creep across Connor
Kincaid's face. Connor's fidgeting had nothing to do with panic – and everything to do with
hope
!

‘Fuck,' said Will, seeing the full picture now. ‘You didn't know about the fingernail DNA.'

Connor nodded. ‘No . . . like I said, my parents wanted to protect me. They were afraid that if I knew the particulars of the case I'd build up false hope.' The smile was getting wider, his hollow cheeks shifting to accommodate it.

‘
You think the fingernail DNA will secure your father a pass
?' asked Will, needing desperately to see just how far the stupid fucking kid had taken this.

‘
Yes
 . . . I mean,
no
– not just that, Will. Don't you see, this new evidence, it proves there's a chance that . . .'

‘Oh God – you think the fingernail guy killed your dad's lover.'

Will said this with such ridicule that Connor flinched before sitting forward like an excited child once again.

‘It's possible.'

‘No, Connor, it's not. The whore could have scratched someone at that bar she worked at.'

‘But the evidence of sex.'

‘Your dad wore a rubber.'

‘
No.
' Connor shook his head in frustration, obviously needing Will to see it. ‘What if we were wrong all along, Will – about my father, I mean? What if—'

The kid was practically peeing his pants at the thought of it.

‘Connor wants us to go to the cops,' interrupted Jack then, stating it plain and clear.

Will met his friend's light brown eyes – a world of understanding passing between them.

‘Listen to me, Connor, and listen to me good.' Will took a breath, willing his heartbeat to calm. ‘This isn't a baseball game we're playing here – I mean, the fingernail shit means nothing. So maybe the woman did bang someone else before your dad attacked her. Hell, your dad probably walked in on them – which was probably what caused him to go apeshit in the first place.'

Connor Kincaid shivered and Will decided to change tack. ‘I'm sorry,
man, I can see why this information would excite you – and I don't mean to sound negative. But I just don't think you should be getting your hopes up based on a couple of opening speeches. The stuff you're going to have to listen to over the next couple of weeks, Connor – it's going to be tough.' He reached across and nudged at Connor's shoulder. ‘But you are going to have to hold tight, man, for all our sakes.'

Underneath it all, Will's mind was racing. Connor hadn't ratted him out. No, Connor Kincaid in all his wisdom, had come up with a better idea on how to screw them – by suggesting they screwed themselves.

‘I understand what you're saying,' said Connor, obviously determined to push his point. ‘But think about it, Will. What if David is right? What if this other guy, whoever he was . . . what if he was the one who beat Marilyn Maloney? And what we saw, the way we
found
her, well . . . what if my dad had nothing to do with this in the first place?'

‘Connor,' Will swallowed to contain his frustration, ‘if it was my dad I'd want to believe that too. But he just broke up with her, he tried to pay her off and she threatened to go public. This other guy, whoever he was, was most likely just some john she banged – probably to get back at your dad.'

‘Nevertheless,' Connor continued, evidently having grown some balls during his recent time ‘in the cave', ‘I still think, if we came forward, all
three
of us, together, and explained that we made a mistake, then at the very least, Dad's sentence would be reduced and . . .'

But Will had finally had enough – so he took a breath and leaned slowly across the table.

‘Listen up, little Mr Princeton. I know you're all excited about your new version of events with the fairytale fucking ending, but that's all it is, Connor – a fantasy based on what you want and not what really happened. You need to stop dreaming and start understanding just much you have to lose by opening your big fat mouth, and the full fucking disaster your selfishness would cause.'

Connor tried to withdraw, but Will grabbed him hard by the wrist.

‘You think if we come forward the law will go any easier on your dad? Just how fucking stupid are you? Our confessing to save your dad's ass will simply make matters worse.'

‘How?' interrupted a still determined Connor. ‘How could matters get any worse, Will? We're the ones who killed her, remember?'

‘Only because we thought she was already dead. We,
I,
did this to save your father's skin – and for that you owe me and will continue to owe me big-time for the rest of your goddamned life.'

Will turned his attention to Jack, needing to gauge his reaction. But Jack sat silent, his chin lowered onto his chest.

‘We come forward, two things could happen,' Will continued, realising he would have to spell things out. ‘One, they believe us, and we, along with your dad, are sent away to prison for life. Or two, they don't believe us, and they think your dad paid me and Jack to go along with some cockamamie story to save his sorry ass.'

Will could see the reality sinking in.

‘You think they might say we were lying?' asked Connor.

‘It's not like your dad hasn't used a chequebook to get himself out of trouble in the past.'

Connor nodded – defeated – his momentary joy squashed like a bug on the turnpike.

‘I told you I would fix things and I will,' Will went on, glancing at Jack again before returning his attention to Connor. ‘Your parents were right to protect you, Connor. You operate best when you don't know shit.'

‘And that's what you like about me isn't it, Will?' replied Connor. ‘The fact that I don't know shit?'

‘Yeah,' said Will, telling the truth for once. ‘That and the fact that you know your limitations.'

‘So maybe one day I'll surprise you.' There was the slightest trace of resentment in Connor's voice.

‘Maybe,' smiled Will as he released the kid's wrist and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Maybe, but I think not.'

D
etective Carla Torres was feeling sick.

She had been on a short fuse for days – so much so that this morning she'd barked at her oldest son Carlos for leaving his football shoes at practice. Carlos was only fifteen, but he still managed to play ‘man of the house' with his father overseas in Afghanistan. The kid was her greatest supporter, but she tore him down for something stupid, and now she felt sick about it.

This had nothing to do with Carlos, of course. This was about Marshall and Chris Kincaid and, even more so, Harry McNally. She had been called as Marshall's first witness this morning and she knew exactly what to expect. Hell, the FAP had practically given her a script to work from – and many of his questions goaded her to either have a subtle dig at her old partner McNally, or to express her own belief in Chris Kincaid's guilt.

It was what Marshall had to do, of course – paint Carla as the lead investigator on the case. And while she felt confident in her ability to do her job, she couldn't shake the nagging feeling that McNally could be right. What if there were a chance Kincaid was innocent? What if the real killer really was roaming free? And what if Marshall was railroading this investigation simply to put a big fat notch on his too-big belt?

Well, that last question was a no-brainer, which made her anxiety all the worse.

The problem was accentuated by McNally's absence. He hadn't contacted her since that day in the office. He had failed to return her calls and, while she suspected he was keeping his distance for her own protection, she was still angry as all hell at him for not keeping her in the loop.

The trouble was, in all the years she had worked with him, she had never known McNally to be wrong about a perp. Even after Megan died – even when he was racked with sorrow – his focus didn't desert him. If anything, his investigatory skills had sharpened after his wife's death. The tragedy seemed to give him a special insight into human nature, and the futility of judging without proof.

Her stomach churned some more as she paced the corridor – another wave of nausea hitting her as Cavanaugh and his fellow lawyers disembarked from the elevator at the far end of the hall. For a second she had stupidly hoped that McNally would be with them – even had to stifle the desire to walk up to Cavanaugh and ask him where the hell her old partner was. But in the end there was no need, for it was Cavanaugh who approached her.

‘From McNally,' he said, as he handed her a sealed white envelope with ‘Carla' written across the front. And then he looked at her and smiled, before moving into the courtroom.

 

‘The crime scene was worked like any other,' said Carla Torres, now a good half hour into her testimony.

Marshall was taking it slowly, extracting every detail about the discovery of Marilyn's body. David knew the FAP was leading up to the physical retrieval of Marilyn's corpse – hell, he wouldn't be surprised if Marshall decided to show pictures.

‘And by that, I mean all care was taken to preserve evidence,' the well-spoken Torres went on. ‘The area was cordoned off, the jogger who discovered the body was interviewed, the necessary lighting was put in place so that we as investigators might observe the scene in detail and the crime scene photographers would have the best illumination possible – and our crime scene guys used a winch to retrieve Ms Maloney's body with the care it required.'

‘Not an easy task I would assume,' pursued Marshall.

‘Discovering a lost life is never easy, Mr Marshall.' Torres made her point and Marshall bristled slightly.

‘He's treating her like a child,' David whispered to Arthur. ‘He doesn't approve of her offering any opinion whatsoever – unless it's one he agrees with.'

‘McNally said she could be trusted,' Arthur leaned into his ear. ‘Let's see where this goes.'

David returned his attention to the court.

‘What I meant was,' Marshall pushed on, ‘from what I am told, a body that has been submerged for close to two weeks in freezing, stagnant, bacteria-infested water – the chances of it disintegrating the moment it is lifted are significant.'

‘I'm not a medical examiner, Mr Marshall, but yes, we took care to be as gentle as possible – so that the ME had her best chance of lifting evidence from the body. And out of respect to the victim, of course.'

‘Of course,' nodded Marshall, perhaps realising that Torres was not the puppet he'd hoped her to be.

The FAP moved back to his desk to retrieve a large cream-coloured envelope, before entering photographs of the victim into evidence and – just as David had speculated – asking permission to distribute the images to the jury.

David was up. ‘Objection. The jury will have access to these photographs during their deliberations and, as such, distributing them at this point is almost theatrical. Further, the images themselves have no bearing on the information this witness may be able to provide – that being her earliest observations in regard to the possible identity of the killer.'

‘Mr Marshall?' The judge was fishing for a rebuttal.

‘On the contrary,' said the FAP. ‘The images go directly toward motive, Your Honour. Ms Maloney's body was discarded in an attempt to hide the crime – a crime committed so that the defendant could hide his affair with the victim.'

‘That's a stretch, Mr Marshall, but I'll allow it.'

And so David re-took his seat and the entire room sat in silence as the images of the victim's bloated body were passed from one juror to the next. It was like watching the reaction to a grisly horror film played out
frame by frame – the gasps, the sighs, the trembles. At least two jurors put their hands to their mouths as if they were going to gag, and a third crossed himself before mouthing a silent prayer to the heavens.

Five minutes later, the images collected, Marshall moved on to the investigation proper – starting with Chris's visit to the 3rd Precinct. This was where things got tricky as Carla Torres had not been at the precinct at the time. McNally's absence presented two big problems for the FAP – the first being that McNally was the only one who heard Chris's lies besides David and the second being that the detective had embarrassingly ‘disappeared' from the case. So David knew Marshall had some tap dancing to do – he was just not sure which song he was going to be dancing to. But then it became clear.

‘Detective Torres, your original partner on this case was a Detective Harold McNally, was it not?'

‘That's correct,' said Torres, her jaw tightening ever so slightly.

‘But Detective McNally is no longer on the case.'

‘That's right.'

‘And why not?' asked Marshall.

Torres gave him a look prompting the FAP to be more specific.

‘Is he on leave?'

‘Yes.'

‘I believe it is compassionate leave?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why is that?'

Torres took a breath. ‘Last year, his wife, a fellow police officer, drowned while trying to rescue a young boy in the course of her duty.'

The gallery sighed in sympathy.

‘Terrible,' said Marshall. ‘But Detective McNally was on duty at the time Chris Kincaid and his lawyer, David Cavanaugh, came to visit the 3rd Precinct back on January 26 – the afternoon after the discovery of the victim's body.'

‘Yes.'

‘And in your opinion – as his partner, and I take it his friend . . . ?' Marshall left the question hanging.