Murder One (28 page)

“What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” Loving replied. “Shouldn’t I be askin’ what
you’re
doin’ here?”

“None of your goddamned business!”

“I think it is.” Loving leaned forward, not intimidated in the least by the hulk he had to cross over to get near Matthews. “I think you’ve been tailin’ my man Kincaid. And God knows what else. You should’ve taken the warning I gave you back in the parking garage.”

“Get stuffed.”

“I’ll tell you somethin’ else,” Loving continued. “If I find out you’re behind some of the troubles Ben’s been havin’ lately, I’ll be comin’ to you for payback.” His voice dropped a notch. “And I find out you were the son of a bitch who attacked Paula Connelly, you’re a dead man.”

“Very scary, Loving. I’m trembling.”

“You should be, Matthews.” He slowly pulled out of the car. “Now if you’ve got any sense at all in that tiny little pea brain of yours, which unfortunately I’m not sure you do, you’ll take your friend’s advice. Let the courts do their job and leave Kincaid alone.”

“How long have you been eavesdropping?”

“You see, Matthews, it ain’t eavesdroppin’ when I’m supposed to be here—and you ain’t.” Loving took a step back, then raised the camera again and snapped another picture. “See you in court, Matthews. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“W
HERE ARE THE MATTHEWS
exhibits?” Ben said, ripping through the notebooks scattered across the defense table. “I need those exhibits.”

“I think they’re in one of the bankers’ boxes,” Christina offered,

Ben scanned the stacks and stacks of boxes beside their table in the courtroom. “That’s helpful. Which one?”

“If I recall correctly, the blue one.”

“There is no blue one.”

“Uh-oh.”

Ben looked at her with unforgiving eyes. “How could this happen?”

“Beats me. I’m the new grad, remember? How do lawyers normally keep track of their exhibits?”

“Normally their legal assistant takes care of that. Unfortunately, mine just got a law degree.” He glanced over his shoulder. The bailiff was coming in, which meant the judge would not be far behind. “Christina, could you run to the pay phone in the corridor and call Loving? The box must be back at the office.”

“Phone’s broken. And I didn’t bring my cell phone. I didn’t think Judge Cable would be amused if it started playing ‘La Vie en Rose’ in the middle of the trial. I could run downstairs—”

“No way. I need you here.” He snapped his fingers. “I know what to do. I’ve been looking for an excuse to use this.” He popped open his briefcase and took out a small Palm Pilot. “Christmas present from my mother.”

Christina watched over his shoulder. “Going to look up the office phone number?”

“Hey, this baby’s wireless. I can send e-mail.”

“Loving doesn’t have a computer.”

Ben punched the tiny keys on the palm-sized keyboard. “I’m sending the message to a company called myFax. They’ll receive the message and fax it to Loving. Isn’t that incredible?”

Christina rolled her eyes. “Boys and their toys.”

LaBelle started the testimonial phase of the trial predictably enough by calling back to the stand Sergeant Mark Callery, the young cop who was the first on the scene to discover Joe McNaughton’s body. He recounted the whole incident in gory detail. Ben thought he was much more persuasive than he had been at the first trial; as with all things, he supposed, practice makes perfect. Callery painted the picture with an artist’s exactitude. All the grisly details were included; not so much as a single blood splatter was left to the jury’s imagination.

The effect on the jurors was immediate and apparent. They already knew what had happened to the unfortunate Joe McNaughton. But it was another thing again to hear it described in court, in minute detail, with pictures no less. The true horror of the crime hit home with a force Ben knew would linger for days. This was no longer a hypothetical matter. A man had been killed, horribly so, and according to LaBelle, Keri Dalcanton was the monster who did it.

Ben cross-exed, principally on the subject of physical strength. Unfortunately, Callery was ready for this line of questioning, having already heard it once before, and had his answers polished and ready. One of the flaws with retrying a case, Ben thought—one of many such flaws—was the fact that it was almost impossible to surprise anyone. As he had before, Callery opined that someone had driven the body to Bartlett Square, then dragged it to the fountain and somehow mustered the strength to hog-tie it with the chains. As for the severing of the male member, that was an easy stroke, Callery said. Anyone could have done it. Callery had no opinion on why the word
FAITHLESS
had been smeared across his chest.

When Ben sat down after cross, Christina leaned close. “I don’t think that hurt us,” she said. “All he did was establish that a crime occurred. Which we’ve never denied.”

“That’s not all he did,” Ben whispered back. “He etched into the jurors’ brains the visceral nature of this crime—that only a truly sick, twisted, sociopath could have committed.”

“Still, he didn’t—”

“Have you noticed how the jurors are looking at Keri?”

Christina turned her head. In fact, many of the select fourteen did appear to be looking her way.

“They’re scrutinizing her, trying to get a fix on what kind of person they think she is. Whether she’s capable of committing this atrocity.”

“We have to convince them that she’s not.”

Ben nodded. “Which is going to be pretty damn hard to do, if she doesn’t take the stand. And she says she doesn’t want to.”

Given all that had transpired since the last trial began, Ben wasn’t sure whether LaBelle would recall Matthews to the stand or not. A few minutes after Callery departed, though, LaBelle answered the question. He did.

Matthews studiously avoided making eye contact with Ben as he strolled confidently to the witness box. Just as well. There was no love lost between the two; that much was certain. And Ben might’ve been tempted to show him the photograph tucked inside his manila folder.

Not ten minutes into Matthews’s testimony, it became clear that he, unlike Callery, would be singing a very different tune this time around. Despite the fact that the previous trial had been mooted on grounds of alleged fraud, there was no reason to believe Judge Cable would rule any differently on the subject of the improperly obtained warrant to search Keri Dalcanton’s apartment. To the contrary, LaBelle knew the ruling would be no different, so he avoided the subject altogether. If the search of the apartment was invalid, then all the evidence obtained during the search, including Keri’s testimony, was inadmissible.

This time, Matthews told the story of his midnight raid on an unspecified law office with a valid search warrant, and how his men had turned up the murder weapon.

This line of questioning had been the subject of intense debate during the pretrial hearings. Ben wanted it excluded altogether; Matthews’s story could only cast negative aspersions on the defendant’s counsel, which was not an acceptable trial tactic. After all, no one had proved Ben had done anything wrong and the charges against him had been dropped. Telling this story could force the defense attorney to testify—to exonerate himself by telling the jury he did not put the knife in his files. This, too, Ben argued, was unacceptable.

LaBelle had argued just as strongly that the evidence had to be admitted. After all, Matthews couldn’t introduce the weapon without explaining when and how it had been found. The murder weapon was a critical part of the defense case and it wasn’t reasonable to expect him to proceed without it. There was nothing illegal about the manner in which it had been obtained; therefore, there was no justification for excluding it.

As judges usually do when confronted with such imponderable contradictions, Judge Cable compromised. Matthews could explain that the weapon had been found in the office of one of Ms. Dalcanton’s legal representatives, but he was precluded from mentioning the attorney’s name. Both LaBelle and Matthews were precluded from suggesting that there was anything improper about the knife being where it was. That’s just where it was, period, no smirks or smart remarks. Like most judicial compromises, it pleased no one, and worse, created a logical gap in the facts that the jury would wonder about for the rest of the trial. Ben hated it when judges precluded the jury from knowing something they were desperate to know; it usually resulted in their imagining something far more complicated and dirty than the reality, and almost always at the defendant’s expense.

“What did you do after you discovered the weapon?” LaBelle asked.

“While wearing gloves, I placed it in a plastic bag to prevent any trace evidence from being lost, then I immediately returned to our downtown headquarters.” Ben noted that Matthews was omitting the minor detail of arresting the attorney on trumped-up charges later dismissed, as well as the police helicopter, the SOT team, and all the other evidence of his obsessive overkill. “I logged in the evidence, assigned it a number which was recorded in two different places, tagged it, lockered it.” Matthews was trying to establish a chain of custody sufficient to thwart any cross-ex attempts to suggest the evidence could have been tampered with after it was found.

“What was done with the weapon after it arrived at police headquarters?” LaBelle asked.

“A battery of tests were performed to determine if it was the murder weapon, and to examine it for any trace evidence, such as blood or fingerprints.”

“Do you know what the results of those tests were?”

What did they take him for? “Objection,” Ben said. “Did Sergeant Matthews perform the tests? I don’t think so.”

“Sustained,” Judge Cable said.

LaBelle continued undaunted. “Have you been able to determine whether that knife was in fact the weapon used to kill Joe McNaughton?”

“Yes,” Matthews said hastily, barely waiting a breath, which was a signal to Ben that the answer was probably improper and he knew it. “The coroner determined conclusively—”

“Objection,” Ben said. “This is not within the witness’s scope of knowledge.”

“Sustained,” Judge Cable said wearily. “Mr. LaBelle, please put the proper evidence on with the proper witness, and stop trying to get everything in with this one much too eager witness.”

“As you wish, your honor,” LaBelle replied, as if he hadn’t actually violated any evidentiary rules but was simply humoring a personal peccadillo of the judge’s. “That’s all I have.”

“Thank you,” the judge said. “Mr. Kincaid?”

As Ben approached the podium, he thought perhaps he detected the tiniest crack in Matthews’s armor, his permaplaqued obnoxious exterior. Could it be Matthews was actually afraid of him? That he was dreading this cross? It would be nice to think so. Of course, the last time Ben had crossed Matthews, he’d gotten the whole case dismissed. If that happened again, Matthews would probably be out of a job.

Alas, no such miracles were in the cards. There was precious little Ben could do, since what Matthews had said was true and wasn’t especially incriminating (at least, not yet). He was tempted to whip out the photo in his folder and accuse Matthews of harassing him and his staff, even planting evidence. But what was the point of impeaching a witness who hadn’t said anything false or incriminating? Ben decided to save that ammo for a time when it would do him more good. He hated to let the creep get off so easily, but when all was said and done, Ben simply asked a few perfunctory questions and let Matthews retake his seat.

The real battle would be fought, not with these remnants from the past trial, but with the new witnesses in the current one because, Ben knew, their testimony would be much more damaging.

“T
HE STATE CALLS CORPORAL
James Wesley Jr. to the stand.”

Normally, in Ben’s experience, the first witness after the lunch break had the toughest job—keeping the jurors awake. With this witness, however, Ben knew that wouldn’t be an issue.

In a brief expanse of time, LaBelle established that Wesley was a sixteen-year member of the force, that he was a good friend of Joe McNaughton’s, and that he had worked with McNaughton not long before his death. It seemed that LaBelle, like the jury, was in a hurry to get to the good stuff.

“Did Sergeant McNaughton ever mention Ms. Dalcanton in your presence?” LaBelle asked.

“Oh yeah.” Although Wesley had to be in his forties, he looked much younger, almost baby-faced. “That he did. Repeatedly.”

“Did he ever describe the… uh, nature of their relationship?” This was hearsay, but the judge had ruled before trial that he would allow it, since the declarant was deceased and, therefore, somewhat unavailable.

“ Yup. He didn’t make any bones about it. He was boink—uh, uh—” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Excuse me, your honor. He was engaging in a sexual relationship. With the defendant. Ms. Dalcanton.”

“You’re certain about this?”

“Oh yeah. Joe did occasionally tend to brag and even exaggerate, but there’s no way he could have invented all these details. And man, did he give me lots of details.”

“Like what?”

“Objection.” Ben knew this was a loser, but he at least wanted to register his displeasure. “This is not relevant. He’s just hoping to introduce a lot of embarrassing details to smear the defendant.”

“That’s not true,” LaBelle shot back. “The sex life of Ms. Dalcanton and the deceased is, regrettably, keenly relevant to the case, as it explains the chains, the black leather, some of the deceased’s wounds and, as we will show, the defendant’s motive.”

“I’ll allow it,” Judge Cable said. “But try to keep it under control, would you? This is a courtroom, not a tabloid TV show.”

“I’ll do my best,” LaBelle said, which Ben suspected would count for precious little. “Please proceed, Corporal Wesley.”

“Well, from the start, Joe knew that this chi—um, this young woman, had unusual tastes. She liked it kinky, if you know what I mean.”

“Perhaps you could explain.”

“Well, she liked to pretend. Joe told me time and time again about how she got off on that dominatrix stuff. You know, she’d dress up in black leather, or he would, or both. And she’d get out the whips and chains. Sometimes he’d wear a dog collar and pretend to be her slave. That sort of thing.”