Murder One (22 page)

Cerrabone took another step forward, remaining on script. “Defendant is present in custody—”

Pendergrass had advised that arraignments were cattle calls, with the prosecutor running the show and the defense attorney often ignored. Sloane was not about to be treated as some vestigial organ, knowing full well the subtle battle for control inside a courtroom.

“Your Honor, the defense acknowledges receipt of a copy of the charging document and agrees to accept service and to waive a formal reading of those charges. The defendant is Barclay Alison Reid, a citizen of the United States. The treaties of other countries do not apply here and need not be read. We would request that the court enter a plea of not guilty.”

The room froze, silent, as if all of the oxygen had been sucked from it, which had been Sloane’s intent by entering the plea quickly and without fanfare. After a moment, there was movement and mumbling in the gallery.

“A plea of not guilty will be entered,” Dugaw said.

Sloane continued, “Your Honor, we would like to discuss the issue of bail.”

Cerrabone took another step toward the center of the room; he now stood just below the bench and directly beside Sloane. He
placed his file on the railing near the court clerk. “The state objects to bail. This is a first-degree-murder case.” Sloane noticed an East Coast accent, likely one of the boroughs of New York, Brooklyn or Queens.

Sloane moved so that he and Cerrabone stood elbow to elbow. “To the contrary, Your Honor, there is no
case
yet. We are here for a murder
charge
, and that is all it is, a charge. Ms. Reid has not been convicted of any crime, let alone the charge of murder. She is innocent until proven guilty, and that presumption of innocence applies here. The prosecutor is also well aware that every person in the state of Washington is entitled to bail. The only relevant issues are Ms. Reid’s ties to the community, of which she has many, and whether she is a flight risk or a risk to the community, which she is not.” Though Pendergrass had done his best to educate him, Sloane was, to a certain extent, winging it, his depth of knowledge as shallow as a puddle. If Cerrabone dove deeper, Sloane would quickly hit bottom.

Cerrabone responded. “The crime of which the defendant is accused is premeditated murder. The victim was shot in the back of the head with a caliber of bullet that matches the caliber of a weapon registered to the defendant; that gun remains missing; and there is evidence the defendant was lying in wait. The defendant also has substantial resources and no familial ties to the community. She is divorced, and her only child is deceased. She has no other immediate family.”

Sloane knew Cerrabone had purposefully advised the people sitting behind them of the charges Sloane had sought to avoid having read out loud, as well as some of the evidence to substantiate that charge. Since Cerrabone had opened that door, Sloane decided to blow through it.

“Your Honor, with all due respect, the prosecutor is incorrect on a number of counts. While the caliber of bullet may be of interest, there is no evidence that it came from a weapon registered to Barclay or that she fired any weapon of that caliber or any other caliber. Similarly, while the killer may have been lying in wait, there is no evidence that Barclay was lying in wait.” Just as it appeared Dugaw was about to cut him off, Sloane moved on. “As for the pertinent issues
regarding bail, it’s specious for the state to argue that Barclay has no ties to the community. She has been a respected member of the bar for twenty years. She is the managing partner of a law firm of more than two hundred attorneys, as the court well knows, and is involved in many charitable and civic causes. Moreover, she has no prior criminal record of any kind that would make her a risk to the community. As for her resources, she should not be penalized simply because she is successful. She has surrendered her passport. Not only is she not a flight risk, she is eager to appear in court and defend against this charge and clear her name. The court must honor her presumption of innocence.”

If Dugaw was disturbed by the attorneys’ banter over Reid’s guilt or innocence, she did not display it. She listened patiently. When they had finished she ruled. “I am going to grant the defense’s request for bail. Bail will be set at one million dollars . . . to be deposited in the court registry.”

Sloane felt relief. “Your Honor, we will have that sum deposited in the court’s registry within the hour.”

“Very well. Thank you, Mr. Sloane. Anything else, Mr. Prosecutor?”

“No, Your Honor.” Cerrabone turned from the bench.

Sloane, however, was not finished. Pendergrass had advised Sloane that the presiding judge, Mathew Thompkins, had recently mandated a fast-track system to expedite matters and reduce the backlog of those in custody.

“Your Honor, we note for the record that Ms. Reid does not waive her right to a speedy trial and requests that the court immediately set a case-scheduling hearing within the next seventy-two hours.”

Cerrabone wheeled. “Your Honor,” he started, then, perhaps perceiving the game of chicken, said, “The state has no objection.”

SIXTEEN

T
UESDAY,
S
EPTEMBER
13, 2011
L
AW
O
FFICES
OF
D
AVID
S
LOANE
O
NE
U
NION
S
QUARE
S
EATTLE
, W
ASHINGTON

O
ver the weekend, Sloane and Barclay had taken refuge by day at his office and by night at her home. The gated fence served as an impediment to the media scrutiny. Sloane initially thought it best they not be seen entering and exiting her home together late at night or early in the morning, but the news of their relationship had already broken, and trying to hide it was like trying to camouflage an elephant with a dish towel.

The stress and anxiety of the impending trial could have separated them but instead it drew them closer together. At night they released that tension in intense and prolonged lovemaking. Afterward, they would lie in bed, sometimes facing the sliding-glass door, or lying head to foot so they could look at each other as they talked—not about the law but about themselves, their pasts and their future.

In the office, Sloane turned the big conference room into a “war room” where they would all meet to discuss trial strategy and keep the accumulating documents. He, Barclay, and Tom Pendergrass spent long days planning her defense, making reams of notes on witnesses they needed to talk with, experts they would need, legal issues to be researched, and motions to be written.

The media frenzy reignited the following Tuesday. The reporters returned for the case setting and preliminary hearing conference, but with no chance of a plea deal and neither Sloane nor Cerrabone willing
to flinch on Reid’s refusal to waive her right to a speedy trial, there wasn’t much of a show. Judge Dugaw set the case for trial seventy-five days out—merry Christmas to all—and advised Sloane and Cerrabone that they would trail on the court’s calendar until a trial judge became available. Show over, Sloane left with a promise from Cerrabone that the police file would be delivered to his office that afternoon, a promise the prosecutor made good on, but only to a certain extent.

As Sloane pored over the file, he began to suspect it was incomplete. He did not find statements for Felix Oberman or Joshua Blume. Neither Alex nor Carolyn had been able to contact Felix Oberman. His receptionist had offered a myriad of excuses for his unavailability, and it was becoming increasingly clear the doctor had no interest in helping his ex-wife. Oberman’s reticence did not come as a surprise, but the lack of any statement in the file did.

“They’ll do that,” Pendergrass explained while they sat around the conference room table, “to make it more difficult to prepare for cross-examination, or if they’re concerned that the witness might say something that could be used to impeach him at trial.”

“Something like he hates the defendant’s guts and would very much like to get even with her for every perceived ill that has ruined his life?” Barclay said.

Oberman was important, but Sloane considered Joshua Blume the state’s most important witness and the reason Barclay was in custody. Everything else Rowe and Crosswhite had—the footprints, the fact that Vasiliev was killed with a .38, Reid’s gun mysteriously missing, her alleged statement to Oberman—was not enough to get a conviction. Blume’s statement did not just refute Reid’s alibi, it placed her down the road from the shooting and it supported the prosecution’s theory of how Reid, a triathlete, had committed the crime. The state would argue Barclay had biked into the neighborhood so that a car would not be heard or seen, and accessed Vasiliev’s property by swimming half a mile to his backyard.

Alex had reached Blume’s father but he refused to make his son available. Unlike Oberman’s receptionist, Richard Blume offered no excuses for his reticence. It wasn’t going to happen. Cerrabone said he would do what he could to arrange the meeting, but Sloane knew he’d have to get a court order and depose Blume under oath.

As Sloane sipped cold tea and reviewed the police file, Pendergrass entered the conference room holding a sheet of paper and looking puzzled. “Did you see this?”

Sloane reviewed the document. Pendergrass had highlighted a name. Julio Cruz. “They found his fingerprint on the sliding-glass door. The report from the latents unit confirmed a ten-point hit when the print was run through AFIS,” he said, meaning that the fingerprint had ten characteristic points that matched a fingerprint in the system. “I cross-checked the name with the list of people who signed in at the scene—uniformed officers, detectives, CSI, people from the medical examiner’s office. Julio Cruz is not on the list. He’s also not on the witness statement list I made.”

Sloane looked up from the document. “Maybe an associate of Vasiliev?”

“Maybe, but if he was, and he was in the system, one would expect him to have a criminal record, right?”

“One would think,” Sloane agreed.

“Which is why I had a friend at Fort Lewis run a criminal history for me,” Pendergrass said, referring to the military base where he had been a JAG officer. “He didn’t find anything.”

“No criminal record?”

“Not even an outstanding parking ticket.”

“Then why would he be in the system?”

“I don’t know. I know that AFIS includes civilians who have submitted to background checks for their employment, and federal and state law enforcement, but like I said, he’s not on the sign-in sheets. You want me to ask Cerrabone about it?” Pendergrass asked.

Sloane considered it. “No,” he said. “Get it to Alex. See what she can pull up on the guy.”

Alex had set up in one of the unused associate offices down the hall from the war room. She and Charlie had moved to the Washington Athletic Club during the weekdays, cutting their commute from an hour and a half to five minutes. For the time being, Jenkins’s mother had flown out from the East Coast to take care of CJ and the dogs. Given Alex’s proficiency on the computer, and her connections in
the cyber world that even Charlie professed to not fully know, Sloane had tasked her with finding and talking to the witnesses who provided police statements. Hers was a gentler voice on the phone, and her physical appearance didn’t immediately evoke fright and intimidation, as Jenkins’s did.

As Jenkins walked into her office, Alex was finishing a phone conversation. He waited for her to hang up. “I’m sure Carolyn could come up with a poster or something for you to look at,” he said. The walls were unblemished by even a nail hole.

She looked to the rectangular-shaped window. “Million-dollar view is enough for me. That was the alarm company. My phone charm didn’t get me far. They need a subpoena to produce any records.”

“Let Pendergrass know, that’s his territory.”

Jenkins smiled at the considerable amount of paper Alex had already managed to accumulate. It overflowed her L-shaped desk to stacks on the floor. “Didn’t take you long to jump back in.”

“Did you doubt me?” she asked.

“Never.”

“Where are you off to?”

“King County jail. David wants to talk to the guy who sold Barclay’s daughter the heroin, see if he knows anything about Vasiliev’s organization.”

“Give these to David for me.” She handed Jenkins a series of articles printed from the Internet. The headlines gave him a good idea of the content—statements from the U.S. attorney’s office after the raid on Vasiliev’s used-car business.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He looked up from the documents. “I didn’t say anything.”

“No, but you just did that thing when you’re frustrated. You blew out like a whale spouting.”

He closed the office door and lowered his voice. “SODI?” he said, referring to the acronym for “Some other dude did it.”

“Every street punk in America knows that defense, Alex. ‘I didn’t do it. It was some other dude.’”

Alex walked around to the front of the desk and leaned against it, arms folded. “Do you think she did it?”

“I don’t know, but it seems like a real coincidence that she makes plans to go to that dinner that very day, then just happens to run into him.”

Alex shrugged. “That kind of thing happens all the time.”

“You know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“How could it have been anything but?”

“He was the speaker. The organization promoted the event.”

“And she’s a lawyer,” Alex said.

“Which means she likely gets all the legal publications and, given her stature, all of these kinds of invites. She would have known he was going to be the speaker . . .”

“But your theory assumes she knew all along she was going to kill Vasiliev. Now,
that
would take a lot of foresight, don’t you think?”

“All I’m saying is we both know that ninety percent of all homicides are solved because they were committed by family members or someone with a motivation to kill. She had the motivation, the opportunity, and the weapon. And now the weapon is missing.”