Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests (6 page)

“Regarding this transition from uncertainty to spurious certainty—”

“Objection to the word ‘spurious.’ Implies that such remembering is always inaccurate.”

Quinn looked skeptically from Johnson to Herrera, then said, less than forcefully, “Sustained.”

“In that case,” Herrera intoned, “I ask you if indeed such memory recovery is always spurious.”

“Not one hundred percent, but often enough so that one should be wary about relying on it.”

“Objection! It’s up to the jury to decide what testimony to rely on.”

“Sustained. Strike everything after the word ‘percent.’”

Herrera blinked and turned back to the witness. “Please tell us in what way, if any, accuracy of observation is affected if
there’s a gun involved in the traumatic incident.”

“The tendency is for one’s eyes to remain riveted on the gun, largely screening out everything else.”

“Including faces?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Herrera returned to the table and scanned a printed sheet. He rattled the page briefly, and Vekt’s half-closed eyes snapped
open.

“Dr. Smithers, have any of your studies involved the procedure known as a police lineup?”

“Yes. I’ve run two such studies, one with college students as subjects, the other using the general population. Identical
studies, with closely matching results, have been carried out at several other universities.

“In each trial an incident was staged, and witnesses were later asked to identify the ‘perpetrator’ by choosing among six
people in a lineup. In sixty-seven percent of the trials the wrong person was selected, whether or not the right one was among
the six.

“Witnesses tend to select someone they’ve seen before in any context if that is the only familiar face. In one study, a man
who had come into the room to empty wastebaskets just before a staged assault was lined up with five men who had not been
present at all. Fifty-eight percent of the witnesses identified him as the one who had punched the ‘victim’ in the jaw.”

Herrera allowed a silence of several seconds before asking, “Is this type of erroneous identification—that is, of persons
who have been seen in other contexts—always of someone who has been seen in person?”

“Not at all. It may also result from a television or newspaper sighting, or from having been shown a photograph by the police.”

“From having been shown a photograph by the police,” Herrera echoed.

“Yes. Especially if no one else whose picture the witness was shown is included in the lineup.” Herrera nodded.

“Please keep in mind,” Smithers continued, “that such witnesses are not deliberately lying. They firmly believe that they
are recalling what they actually saw.”

Herrera impaled a juror in the back row with his eyes. “They firmly believe what is not in fact true. That is just what makes
this especially dangerous and frightening.”

“Objection!”

“Sustained. Please don’t editorialize, Mr. Herrera.”

“Sorry.”

Vekt smirked.

____

“H
AS THE JURY
reached a verdict?”

The foreman’s long, narrow body, in jeans and a green sweater, seemed to uncoil rather than just stand up. “Yes, Your Honor,
we have.”

Vekt’s left leg began to tremble. The judge instructed him to rise; Herrera rose with him.

“Read your verdict, please.”

The foreman, not smiling, said, “On every count, we find the defendant not guilty.”

“WHEEE-OOOO!” Harold took great gulps of breath and seized his lawyer by the upper arms. “Great job, Herrera. Great job!”
The attorney remained expressionless.

“The defendant is free to go,” Judge Quinn announced. Harold snorted with pleasure as he saw the prosecutor and his assistant
looking at each other disgustedly. Morris Jagoda sat with his head in his hands.

Vekt reached out to shake Herrera’s hand, but the attorney was bending down to retrieve his briefcase from under the table.
He removed a small manila envelope.

“I was instructed to give you this in the event you were acquitted. I have no idea what’s in it, or from whom it originated.
I don’t want to know.” Herrera swept his papers off the table into the briefcase, clicked shut its combination lock, and stalked
out of the courtroom. Harold stared after him briefly, then shrugged and turned his attention to the envelope.

It was 6 x 8; nothing was printed or written on the outside. Its metal tab closing was reinforced with two strips of transparent
tape.

“What’s that?” Theresa Vekt had come up behind her son.

“I don’t know—something from the lawyer.”

“Not a bill?”

“Nah—the court’s paying him. I’ll look at it later.” His implication that it was none of her business was accepted matter-offactly.
“How about celebrating at Dinky Jones’s?”

The dimly lit wood-paneled tavern had survived through all the years of change in Harold’s childhood neighborhood. They sat
on stools at the far end of the bar and had a couple of beers each, talking little except for toasts to each other and Herrera
and Smithers and the jury. Then Harold took his mother to the Yonkers bus, promising to come for dinner in a couple of days.

____

B
ACK IN HIS
flat, he put the thick envelope on the coffee table and studied it, pressing it between his palms. Fetching a steak knife
from the kitchen, he cautiously slit the seal and peered in, then eased out the contents: two tape-bound stacks of currency
and a folded sheet of white paper. He flipped his thumb through the bills; they appeared to be all twenties. Then he unfolded
the paper.

Mr. Vekt—

I have need of a person with your skills and stamina to do a job of work for me. Of several people considered, you appear
to be the best qualified.

The job is a one-time errand, whose nature you will learn at the appropriate time. It is essential, and in your best interests,
that you say nothing to
anyone
about this, starting right now.

If you wish to accept, please come to 774 West 32nd Street at 9:30 on Friday night. The building has several entrances; use
the door at the far end, closest to the river. It will be unlocked from 9:25 to 9:35. You will be met and given further instructions.
Please do not bring your own weapon.

Enclosed is an advance payment of one-tenth of your fee. The rest, if you earn it, will also come in small bills. Should you
decide against taking the job, you may keep this money. The only thing that will be expected in return is silence.

The message was unsigned, but the stiff formality of its wording had a certain familiarity. Vekt wondered if Herrera himself
had written it.

One hundred and twenty-five twenty-dollar bills. Times two. Five thousand dollars. One-tenth. He didn’t care who. His career
as a mugger, supplemented by occasional legitimate odd jobs when he was up against it, would scarcely produce that much in
two years. It was creepy, but he could take care of himself. He knew it, and the guy, whoever he was, that wanted to hire
him knew it too.

____

L
IGHT RAIN FILMED
Vekt’s face as he walked west. Unexpectedly, the wait for the downtown bus had been only three or four minutes, and he reached
his destination at 9:15. On the designated door the numbers 774 were formed out of bright blue plastic tape.

Vekt tugged on the unyielding vertical door handle, then knocked, futilely. The appointed time, apparently, was firm. Shivering
from the dampness, he hugged himself and stamped his feet, glancing at his watch with increasing frequency.

Just as 9:25 popped in, Vekt heard a metallic scrape. He tried the handle again; this time only the door’s great weight held
it back. Slowly, he was able to pull it open.

Inside, there was total darkness. “Hey! You there?” Though he’d spoken softly, his voice reverberated. Suddenly there was
blinding light, as multiple fluorescent bars fluttered on. He squeezed his eyes shut, then blinked several times before adjusting
to the brightness.

He was facing a long, narrow corridor with whitewashed concrete walls. Blue tape arrows pointed down the center of the white
floor. Vekt could not see where they ended.

“Anyone here?” He was louder this time, and so was the responding silence. Harold felt his scalp clench. His palm itched for
a gun, but his only choices now were to accept the circumstances or forgo any possibility of earning a quick $45,000.

He proceeded warily about sixty feet along the blue trail, which made a left turn and an almost immediate right. A strip of
blue disappeared under a battleship-gray door, which pushed open easily into a small bare rectangular room. The arrows continued
at a diagonal. The head of the last one was angled toward a doorway in the corner.

“Son-of-a-bitch! What kind of stupid game is this?” Vekt aimed a punching shove at the narrow door, but it gave so easily
that he lost his balance and stumbled through it into an unlit area. The lights in the room he’d just left cut off. With a
loud clang, the door closed behind him.

“What the fuck is this?” He groped at the door, could not budge it, could find no knob or handle. “Turn the goddamn lights
on!” He pounded on the door with both fists.

Suddenly the darkness was a bit less than total. He turned to see a small pool of light coming from a naked 25-watt bulb hanging
by its wire about six feet above the floor. Directly beneath it was a small square table, and on the table was a sheet of
paper. He crossed the murky space and gingerly picked up the page, printed in the same typeface as the letter that had directed
him here.

Dear Mr. Vekt,

Welcome to the rest of your life.

I own this property. It has been disused for several years. No one ever comes here. The walls, inside and out, are eighteen
inches thick.

Behind this table is a door leading to another room, the only other place you will ever be.

In that room are a refrigerator, a sink (cold water only), and a toilet; also a rolled-up mattress with a blanket and two
spare lightbulbs.

In the refrigerator is a small supply of food. Use it sparingly; it will be replenished, but who knows when?

The door to the room is on an automatic time lock set to open twice a day, at 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., and stay open for twenty
minutes each time. (This will help you to know the approximate time of day after your watch battery runs out. That is, if
you manage to keep track of day and night—there are no windows in your new environment.) During those intervals, do whatever
you need to do and get out. The room has no outside air supply. If you need urgently to urinate at any other time, use the
storm drain in the center of this room.

You have no hope of deliverance, even if you’ve broken the rules and told someone where you were going. All the blue tape
will soon be gone, including the numerals on the door. (There is no 774; the highest number on this street is in the five
hundreds.)

You will live, at most, as long as I do—or perhaps a few days longer if there’s food left when I die. My own life expectancy
is problematic—my heart was torn out by my wife’s death, and when I’ve finished with you, I’ll have nothing left to do.

Now, of course, you know who I am. Have you figured out yet that it was I who paid for your defense? Attorneys such as Wilson
Herrera do not ordinarily serve in “routine” cases, even by court appointment. Dr. Smithers doesn’t come cheap either. Neither
knows the origin of their fees.

Why have I done this? I prefer—for myself, at any rate— personal vendetta to “criminal justice.” I want to control the exact
specifications of your punishment, so that I may savor it.

When you’ve digested the contents of this letter, put it in the other room. It is the price of your next supply of food.

There was no signature.

Harold Vekt commenced his accommodation to his fate by vomiting into the storm drain.

BY JO DERESKE

J
eff squinted through the snow and saw her—almost too late—standing beside the butt end of her car waving both arms. The nose
was so deep in the ditch the rear wheels kissed air. Hopeless.

He hadn’t passed another car in an hour. She’d freeze to death before any snowplows came by.

He eased the Cavalier to the side of the road, pumping the brakes. It fishtailed anyway. He turned into the skid and saw her
running after him, arms frantic now.

She pounded on his window while he was cranking it down. Snow blew in and stung his cheeks, sucking at the warm air in his
car. Her head was uncovered, hands bare, hair whipping with snow and ice. Her cheeks had passed from red to white.

“I need…,” she said. “I need…” He thought she was going to pass out.

“Get in the back.” He reached behind him and pulled up the lock.

“My purse.”

“Get in,” he told her.

“Have to get it.” And he’d be damned if she didn’t turn around and start stumbling back toward her car.

“Get in,” he shouted again, this time leaning back and feeling for the rear door handle. “I’ll get it.”

She fell into his car. “On… front seat.” She spoke through clumsy lips. Shaking and unsteady. It was impossible to tell how
old she was, what she actually looked like, even though, after all these years, he was good at that.

Jeff threw his jacket over the milk crate of files on the front seat and took the car keys with him. “I will be right back,”
he told her, saying it loud and slow like she was stupid. She didn’t answer, but in the dim snowy light, he saw her nod.

It was hellish outside. He came prepared when he held hearings in the Upper Peninsula: extra clothes, boots, flares, water,
blankets. He ran to her car first, his head bent against the wind. The snow was filling in the path she’d made around the
driver’s door. He jerked it open and grabbed a black plastic purse off the seat. It was an old car, and he’d bet the tires
were bald as snot.

Last, he checked the backseat in case she’d forgotten a kid or a dog. He’d seen it happen.