Thomas Prescott Superpack (35 page)

I surveyed Erica.
I was wondering if the same questions were running through her head. Was she a skeptic? I hoped so. 

We painted for another twenty minutes when Erica’s cell went off.
She left the room for a couple minutes. When she came back she was holding the shirt I’d given her. She handed it to me and said, “That was Ethan. There’s a problem with the arrest warrant. The judge won’t sign it. Turns out Gray went to school with one of his cousins or something.”

It didn’t surprise me Gray had a judge in his pocket; he probably had many.
Adam Gray was one powerful man.
Forbes
might have him listed at 97, but he was number one when it came to his home turf. But just because this particular judge might not have signed the arrest warrant, eventually a judge would. There was too much evidence. An overwhelming amount. Still, I’d always thought of evidence like a bell curve. Too little, or too much, and you need to reevaluate the case.

Erica’s phone rang a second time and she had a thirty-second conversation.
She flipped the phone shut and said, “Ethan found a judge to sign the arrest warrant, but not until Friday. He doesn’t want the Proctor case to go to mistrial. They’re giving their final summations tomorrow.”

I nodded.
 

I walked Erica to the door.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to shake hands with her, give her a hug, or give her a hundred bucks for her labor.

I told her I’d be in touch.
I had her card.

I opened the door for her and she started down the drive.
She took two steps, then turned. “Oh, by the way, Gray’s lawyer sent over the security tapes from Monday.”

Security tapes?

She said, “You sleep with your eyes open.
It’s kinda creepy.”

“I’ll remember that next time I take a nap on camera.”

She turned and started down the drive. When she was about halfway, I said, “He didn’t do it.”

She turned around.
She just stared at me for a long minute. A thousand-yard stare. Finally, she said, “Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

But I was going to find out.

Chapter 16

The Seattle Municipal Courthouse was located in the heart of downtown Seattle. I parked in the Space Needle parking lot and walked the three blocks west to the courthouse. The pervasive rain was unable to deter the protestors from showing up. Close to a hundred people congregated near a series of barricades girdling the courthouse’s stone steps. Most were decked out in ponchos and holding some sort of sign.

I tapped a man wearing a bright blue poncho on the shoulder and asked him about the case.
He said a guy named Proctor was accused of strangling a young black prostitute. Now, Seattle is one of the more liberated, and liberal, cities in the United States, and that the girl was black wasn’t a factor. But Adam Gray had made a career of getting these deviants off without a slap on the wrist, and it was beginning to upset some folks.

I read a couple of the ink-blurred placards as I skirted around the melee. “
No O.J. For Adam Gray
.” Another was more direct. “
Proctor? Gray? Who cares. Kill ‘Em Both
.”

Well put.

Camera crews hovered around and I saw a handful of reporters readying themselves to go live for the noon editions.
I slipped past one of the barricades and started up the stones steps. I didn’t expect to just waltz into the courtroom; I had concocted a little tall tale for the occasion. Stepbrother of the accused. Two cops stopped me as I approached and I fed them my line. They sneered at me but let me through.

I pushed through the large doors and into a feeding frenzy.
The foyer of the courthouse was packed with more cameramen, more reporters. The combination of the high profile Proctor case, Gray as his counsel and also suspect
numero uno
in his wife’s death was too much for the media. It was one big clusterfuck.

I tapped a well-dressed woman on the shoulder and said, “Do you know what’s going on in there?”

“Prosecution just rested. Recess until twelve-thirty, then summations.” She added, “They’re not letting anyone else in. I heard there’s a viewing room in the east wing.”

I nodded my thanks, then made my way to the courtroom doors.
The bailiff gave me a once over and said, “We’re filled to capacity. There’s an extra viewing room set up in the east wing.”

I think this may have been the woman’s source of information, but I wasn’t positive.

I said, “I’m brother of the accused.
I flew in from the Netherlands to be here.”

He raised his eyebrows.
“The Netherlands?”

Sure.
Why not.

“Yep.”

He looked from side to side, then opened the door and ushered me in before anyone saw. It was standing room only. I wiggled my way through until I had a spot up against the far left wall. 

It was a large courtroom.
The jury box was on my side, twelve empty seats. The gallery was twenty rows of seats filled to capacity. Both the prosecution and the defense tables were empty. No doubt both sides were getting their ducks in a row for their final summations.

I’d only been inside a courtroom a handful of times.
I had to testify twice in official investigations, and there had been three or four times when I’d been involved in a case and stopped in to watch the action. Speaking of which, I could make out Erica and Ethan sitting in the third row behind the prosecution table. I wondered how they got such good seats. Did they Fandango?

Anyhow, ten minutes later, the prosecution team rolled in.
Four of them. All dressed sharply. The lead prosecutor was a balding man of about fifty with circular spectacles. Sort of a middle-aged Harry Potter.

All chatter stopped abruptly as they walked in and sat.
The defense came next. It was just Adam Gray and his client. I recognized the defendant. I hadn’t put it together until now. Proctor was in actuality Daniel Proctor. Daniel Proctor was a couple years younger than me, a decent looking guy—compliments of an excellent plastic surgeon—with dark eyes and jet-black hair. He reminded me of that really snaky Baldwin brother. William, I think. Daniel and I had crossed paths eight years earlier. He’d been my last arrest. In fact, the last time I’d seen Mr. Proctor, he’d been connected to all sorts of tubes and his face had been swollen shut. The last time he’d seen
me
had been twelve hours prior to this when I’d stripped him of all his clothes and repeatedly smashed my fist into his face. This, of course, led to my immediate dismissal from the Seattle Police Department and Proctor’s suing the city for seven million dollars. Which he would go on to win.

The jury was led in and a moment later the judge entered. Everyone stood, then sat.
I didn’t recognize the judge, but he was a strict old codger.Within a couple short minutes, the district attorney was out of his seat and delivering his summation.

Harry Potter was a tad long-winded, but he was good.
The State had about as solid a case as I’d ever heard. Cut and dry. Proctor picked up the girl, took her to a shitty motel, had sex with her, strangled her, then threw her in a dumpster. They had his semen, her blood, his blood, one witness who saw him pick her up, the motel manager who saw him enter the motel with the girl, and a third who saw him exit without the girl.

This wasn’t exactly the grassy knoll.

After the prosecution rested, I’d say everyone in the courtroom was convinced Mr. Proctor was a killer.
And I didn’t think there was anything Adam Gray could say to convince me otherwise. I was wrong.

The judge nodded at Gray that it was time for his closing statement.
He whispered into his client’s ear, then stood.

A hush fell over an already-hushed crowd.
Gray brushed a couple stray pieces of lint from his arms. He walked in front of the jury and locked eyes with each person for a brief moment. Two jurors had to look away, Gray’s piercing green eyes simply too much.

After a long minute the judge had had enough. “Please proceed counsel.”

Gray gave him a dismissive glance. This was Gray’s courtroom and everyone, including the judge, knew this. He would proceed at his own pace.

He turned his gaze to the prosecution, stopping in front of each of the four attorneys.
It was the definition of smug and I found myself smiling. Rooting for the asshole.

Gray turned to the gallery.
He swept his gaze over the family of the accused, then the family of the victim. He locked eyes with Erica and Ethan. I wondered if he knew they would be arresting him sometime in the next twenty-four hours. If he did, he didn’t show it.

He then gave one last look around the courtroom.
He swept his eyes past me, then snapped them back. I offered a soft wink.

Guess who?

He took a deep breath but continued to stare me down. After ten seconds, everyone in the courthouse began craning their necks to see who he was looking at. Soon every eyeball in the large courtroom was trained on yours truly. So much for anonymity.

Gray’s client, Daniel Proctor, sneered at me.
I guess some of his long term memory had come back. I thought I detected the faintest of smiles flash across his thin lips, but he turned before I could be sure. 

Anyhow, after another long second, Gray turned and faced the jury.
I gave a quick look in Erica Frost’s direction. She gave me a tiny wave with her fingers. Ethan shook his head at me, then faced forward.

Gray coughed into his hand.
It was show time. The crowd collectively leaned forward as Gray said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is a murderer.”

Everyone gasped, including his client.
Gray pointed at Proctor and said, “That man sitting right there has killed before, and if he walks out of here a free man today
he will kill again
.”

Proctor was out of his seat.
I’m quite certain he didn’t know his attorney would be playing the
murderer
angle. Proctor screamed at his attorney, “I’m gonna kill you first, you stupid sonofabitch.”

Adam smiled and said to the jury, “See what I mean.”

There was a bit of uncomfortable laughter from the gallery; even a couple jurors cracked smiles. The prosecution was grinning ear to ear.

The bailiff got Proctor under control, and Gray continued as if nothing had occurred. “But ladies and gentlemen, there is one small problem.”
He paused, stared at his client, and said, “No matter what you think of my client, no matter how many women he’s killed in the past or how many women he will kill in the future, you can’t hold this against him. The law will not allow it. Because when my client left Amanda Peters that night she was alive. Sure she was a bit banged up, but she was still very much alive.”

Proctor gave his counsel a cockeyed look.

Gray went on for a short ten minutes.
He quickly discredited all three witnesses. The witness who saw him pick up the girl was in a liquor store across the street and had himself a bad case of cataracts. The manager, who was the most important witness, had been swigging on a bottle of Angry Times whiskey (they found it in the trash can) during his shift, and had a blood alcohol level of .18 when they questioned him six hours later. And the final witness, the witness who testified she saw the accused leave the motel, alone, at three-thirty in the morning, was a prostitute herself. And, if this wasn’t enough, she had a little crack problem.

Gray shook his head and said, “The medical examiner concluded the victim died by asphyxiation less than six hours after she was found, putting her time of death at three in the morning.
Which is all fine and dandy, except my client’s car went through a tollbooth thirty miles away, heading in the opposite direction, at just after midnight.”

The jury of course knew all these details, but for most of the spectators, these details were fresh.
People in the gallery jabbed one another and whispered.

Gray said, “Traces of my client’s semen were found inside the victim, but so was that of three other gentlemen.
Who’s to say there wasn’t another fellow after my client? Or two? Or all three? We don’t know these things and we never will.”

A black woman stood and cried, “He killed her.
He killed my baby.”

The judge slammed down his gavel and said, “I will not allow outbursts in this courtroom.”

The woman shrank back into her seat.

Gray looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly I am.
But my client did not kill your daughter. Somebody did. Maybe someday we will find him.”

Gray turned back to the jury.
He went on to narrate how the Seattle Police Department had made mistake after mistake while gathering the evidence, and if they had only widened the suspect pool beyond his client, they may have found out who had committed this, “Horrible, irrefutable, ungodly crime.”

Adam walked to the defense table and the judge said, “Will that be all, counsel?”

Adam took a sip of water, shook his head, and said, “No.”

He cocked his head to the side, took a deep inhale through his nose, and turned to face the gallery.
There was something majestic about the way he held himself. As if he were a black hole, sucking in the gaze of everything around him.

Again, he swept his eyes over the collective audience, and again, his eyes settled on me.

He said, almost as if he was talking to me and me alone, “The system is corrupt.
It is. We live in a country governed by laws written hundreds of years ago. We look to a Constitution that has remained unchanged for nearly two centuries. It states that all men deserve a fair trial. But do they really? Does every man deserve a fair trial? Does my client? A playboy with an unlimited supply of the city’s money, who has never worked an honest day in his life. A man who has hurt, killed, and God knows what else. Does he deserve a fair trial?”

Adam shook his head.
“Surely he does not. He deserves to have his face beat in. Scum like him doesn’t deserve a jail cell. He deserves to feel all the pain and suffering he’s caused in his lifetime. Really, he deserves to die.”

The audience jeered and a handful of people even started clapping.
Proctor was gritting his teeth. The bailiff eyed him to stay put.

The judge banged his gavel and said, “I don’t know where you’re going with this counsel but please tread lightly.”
He turned his gaze to the gallery. “And if I hear so much as a peep from any of you spectators you will be removed from my courtroom.”

Gray continued unfazed.
“And don’t get me started on a fair trial. There is nothing fair about this trial. This case has always been stacked in my client’s favor.”

He walked to the prosecution table and said, “These four attorneys did an amazing job.
Really. They are hardworking lawyers, working for slave wages, who have been working tirelessly for the past three months to put my client behind bars.”

The prosecution team didn’t appear to know how to take the praise, and all four appeared markedly uncomfortable.
Harry Potter stood and said, “I object, Your Honor.”