False Testimony (13 page)

I slip into a seat in front of the desk and Geraldine perches on the edge of the chair next to mine. She’s suddenly silent, a rare phenomenon.

“Assuming the best,” the judge continues, “that it was an honest mistake, your office’s failure to disclose the missing monstrance to the defense is a problem. A real one.”

“We kept it quiet initially,” Geraldine says, “as an investigative tool. Frankly, by the time we were preparing for trial, I’d forgotten all about it. We never intended to withhold its disappearance from the defense.”

The judge shakes his head, looking like he’s about to tell her that good intentions don’t make a whit of difference, but Clarence pipes up first. “It’s my fault,” he says. “I dropped the ball.”

He’s leaning against the side wall and he’s visibly distraught. He’s also correct. This is the kind of omission he should have caught. It’s his job to worry about the details—especially the technical ones—while Geraldine focuses on the big picture. He’s a decent sort, Clarence, but as Harry’s fond of saying, he’s about two oysters shy of a bushel.

Harry feels sorry for Clarence now, though; I can see it in his eyes. We’ve all made plenty of mistakes in this heavily detailed business. And we all feel guilty as hell when we do. But in the early years, when you’re new to the practice, each misstep seems like the end of the world.

Geraldine shuts Clarence down with one raised hand, not turning to look at him. She’ll probably chew him up and spit him out later, in the privacy of her office, but she won’t let him take the blame here. “Okay,” she says to the judge. “My error. But what difference does it make? It’s not as if Holliston ever claimed he
didn’t
kill the priest. He admitted that much from the get-go. The missing monstrance doesn’t change anything.”

She’s right. It doesn’t. But as every criminal defense lawyer learns in the first week or so of practice, a prosecutorial error—even one that has no real bearing on the substance of the proceedings—is a rare gift. We’ll milk it now, worry about whether it’s worth anything later.

“You’re wrong,” Harry says to her. “It changes a lot. It’s one more item that
wasn’t
in Derrick Holliston’s possession when he was picked up, one more item that
wasn’t
found in his apartment—or anywhere else, for that matter—when he was taken into custody. It’s one more piece of evidence that tends to prove his version of events, or—at the very least—
dis
prove yours.”

He’s good, Harry Madigan. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he believes what he’s saying.

Geraldine throws her hands in the air. “Go ahead,” she says. “Take your mistrial.” She checks her watch. “I’ll refile before the day is out.”

She’s calling our bluff, of course. We don’t really want a new trial and she knows it. We’ll never get another opportunity like this one.

“We’ll settle for an instruction,” Harry says. His expression suggests he’s less than satisfied with that solution, but everyone in the room knows he’s not. This is a break few criminal defendants get. The judge will tell the jurors that the District Attorney’s office misbehaved, failed to play by the rules. And from that moment on, our case will be about the DA’s misconduct, not Holliston’s.

“All right, then,” the judge says as he stands, “let’s get on with it. I’ll give the instruction and we’ll wrap it up with this witness. I’m sorry,” he says to Geraldine from the doorway, “but you’ll have to bring your pastor back tomorrow.”

She nods, then follows him out of the room without a word. Rescheduling the pastor is the least of her problems at the moment. Clarence slinks out behind her. Harry and I follow.

Holliston’s angry eyes bore into us as we approach the defense table, his glare saying he’s certain we did a less than adequate job for him behind closed doors. “I dint take no monster,” he says as soon as we sit. “I hope you told them people that.”

Neither of us answers. Instead, we focus on Judge Gould, who’s already settled on the bench, poised to give the instruction. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says to the panel, “it has come to the court’s attention that certain material evidence known to the District Attorney’s office has not heretofore been disclosed to the defense.”

The jurors’ gazes move from the judge to Geraldine. Their expressions are serious, concerned.

“In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Judge Gould continues, “the prosecuting attorney bears a burden of full disclosure. In other words, it is incumbent upon the prosecutor to disclose all material facts to the defendant and his lawyers prior to trial. In the case before us, the prosecutor failed to do so.”

Again, the jurors turn their attention to Geraldine. She stares straight ahead.

“In particular,” the judge says, “the District Attorney’s office failed to inform the defense that an item of value, a solid gold monstrance, was taken from St. Veronica’s Chapel on the night of Father McMahon’s death.”

Holliston bolts upright. He looks indignant.

“The prosecution’s failure to disclose is particularly troubling when the evidence is exculpatory, as it is here. Like the collection proceeds, the monstrance has never been recovered. It was not in the defendant’s possession at the time of his arrest. It has not been linked to him in any way.”

The jurors’ eyes move to our table now. I hope Holliston has his face under control, but I don’t dare look.

“Our Supreme Judicial Court has recently held that judges should begin instructing juries in criminal trials to be ‘skeptical’ when either police officers or prosecutors fail to abide by the rules. The court also held we should instruct juries to weigh the Commonwealth’s case ‘with great care and caution’ whenever proper procedures are not followed.”

Holliston’s timing couldn’t be much better. The high court issued that ruling less than a year ago.

“Mr. Holliston is entitled to every reasonable inference you may draw from the missing monstrance. He’s also entitled to every reasonable inference you may draw from the District Attorney’s failure to disclose that fact.”

With that, the judge faces front and stares at Geraldine. The jurors study her too, all of them, and more than a few look troubled.

Harry leans back in his chair and snaps a chewed-up pencil in two. “How many times in the past twenty-three years have I wished Geraldine Schilling would screw up?” he says. “Why the hell did she do it now?”

The T intersection outside our 1840 farmhouse–turned–law office is the gateway to Chatham. Back roads into town exist, of course, but anyone wanting to stay on main thoroughfares will pass through this juncture en route to our charming village center. The antique Cape next to our building houses the Chatham Chamber of Commerce, where volunteers and merchants welcome weekly renters and day-trippers throughout the summer, recommending breakfast joints, fish markets, and seal-watch cruises; handing out menus, maps, and brochures. More than once each season, some confused out-of-towner wanders into our front office looking for directions to the Friday-night band concert. Harry patiently points every one of them toward the gazebo in Kate Gould Park, always with a plug for the PTA’s cotton candy machine.

During the season, traffic is perpetually heavy here, both two-lane roads constantly clogged with carloads of tourists headed for beaches, shops, and restaurants. After Labor Day, the stream of visiting vehicles thins, the whole area growing markedly quieter overnight. By this time of year it’s normally downright desolate, the roads clogged only with snowbanks left behind by the town’s plows. Not today, though.

Today the waist-high white banks have company, and plenty of it. The Chamber of Commerce parking lot is full, though the building is closed until May. Cars and trucks that couldn’t find space in that lot are strewn along both sides of our road, though no parking is allowed on either. Chatham cops are all over the place, slipping orange cardboard citations under icy windshield wipers, barking orders at those vehicle owners they can locate, and directing traffic impatiently while a solitary tow truck tries to make its way through the quagmire.

Our narrow driveway is filled to capacity, the Kydd’s pickup and my Thunderbird hemmed in by two dark gray sedans I’ve never seen before. Harry pulls in behind them, then up onto the front lawn, and stops the Jeep next to Senator Kendrick’s Hummer. “Oh, good,” he says as he cuts the engine. “Company.”

We collect our belongings, climb out of the Jeep, and Harry takes a leisurely stroll around the two mystery cars. He kneads his chin, his expression puzzled. The sedans are identical and they’re impossibly clean, somehow immune to the slush, sand, and salt that coat every other vehicle in sight. “You have friends I don’t know about?” he asks. “People who wash their cars?”

I don’t answer.

Two men in dark overcoats pace in opposite directions on our small front porch, one with his hands jammed into his pockets, the other talking into his palm. I assume there’s a phone in it. They glance at Harry and me as we approach, but both quickly return their focus to the noisy crowd on the sidewalk. It’s multiplying by the minute, kept in check on the other side of our split-rail fence by a human barrier of Chatham police officers. I recognize a few faces in the assembly—members of the press for the most part—and they shout hurried questions at us as we cross the front lawn. Harry’s name is called out more than once—and mine, too—but I can’t decipher much else. Two TV vans idle in the Chamber of Commerce driveway, their lights and cameras pointed in our direction. It’s after six; it should be pitch black out here now. But, thanks to the TV crews, it’s not.

The talker snaps his miniature phone shut, drops it into his coat pocket, and plants himself at the top of the three brick steps leading up to the porch, his stance wide. “You Madigan?” he asks, pulling his black wool cap tight over his ears. His hatless partner joins him, outturned palm demanding:
Hold it right there.

Harry pauses on the bottom step and laughs. “You boys are forgetting your manners,” he says as he continues the short climb to the porch. “That’s not how it’s done in these United States of America.”

He’s nose to nose with the one in the black cap now, and neither of our visitors is happy about it. “You’re supposed to tell
me
who
you
are,” he says to both of them, “and you’re supposed to prove it before you ask me a goddamned thing.”

They stare at him, stoic.

Harry shifts his schoolbag from one gloved hand to the other and claps the black capped one on the shoulder. “You want me to recommend you for retraining?” he asks them both, his tone entirely sincere. “Or do you want to try that again?”

Both men scowl, but each one reaches into an inside pocket and pulls out a laminated ID. Harry takes his sweet time perusing both, his hand resting comfortably on Black Cap’s shoulder while he reads. “Secret Service,” he says to me at last. “We’re safe now.”

Secret Service. Of course. Senator Kendrick normally keeps a low profile when he’s in Chatham. Now that Michelle’s body has been recovered here, that won’t be possible.

“We have another team out back,” Hatless tells him.

Harry’s still looking over his shoulder at me. “We’re a veritable fortress,” he says.

Black Cap removes Harry’s hand from his shoulder, holding the glove with two fingers as if it’s toxic. “You Madigan?” he tries again.

“One and the same,” Harry answers, taking a gallant bow. “And may I present the lovely Miss Nickerson?” He sweeps one hand toward me, as though I’m the guest of honor at a debutante ball.

Hatless pulls a notepad from his pocket. “She’s on here,” he says to his partner, taking a pencil from behind his ear and tapping the eraser end of it against the page. “Nickerson, Martha.”

Harry grins as I join the three of them on the porch. “Come, Nickerson Martha,” he says, offering his arm. “I’m sure Jeeves has the martinis mixed.”

The closest thing Harry and I have to a Jeeves, of course, is the Kydd. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know how to mix a martini. Still, if he offered one, I wouldn’t turn it down. A stiff drink sounds like a good idea at the moment. Two, maybe.

The front office is empty and the sounds of the TV tell us the Kydd and Charles Kendrick are in the conference room. Harry and I hang our heavy coats on the rack and then join them, but they barely look up when we enter. They’re in side-by-side wing chairs, their eyes glued to the evening news. The Kydd’s are glistening; he has a heart the size of Texas. The Senator’s aren’t, but the network of fine, pink lines around the whites of his gray-blues tell me he hasn’t been dry-eyed for long. Michelle Forrester is the top story. The four of us watch in silence as two Coast Guardsmen lift a draped stretcher from Smithy’s patrol boat and carry it to the county van waiting at Cow Yard.

Geraldine Schilling appears on the screen, looking the way she always looks on TV: like she just emerged from a two-week stint at a Beverly Hills spa. The autopsy is ongoing, she tells the horde assembled outside the Superior Courthouse. She expects to have the Medical Examiner’s report in hand first thing tomorrow morning. She’ll issue an update then. And she will, she assures her audience, bring the perpetrator of this heinous crime to justice. She turns her back to the crowd without another word and reenters the courthouse. The anchorwoman pauses for a station break. The Kydd hits the mute button.

Harry rests a hand on the Senator’s shoulder, then drops into the chair beside him. “How’re you holding up?” he asks.

Charles Kendrick shakes his head slowly, his eyes still glued to the glow of the television screen. He doesn’t answer.

I unbutton my suit jacket and half-sit on the edge of the conference room table. We’re going to be here for a while, it seems.

“Geraldine called,” the Kydd says quietly. “She wants Senator Kendrick to come in tomorrow.”

“That’s out of the question.” I realize too late that I’ve snapped at the Kydd, a classic shoot-the-messenger reaction.

He shrugs. “She said she’d see him at his convenience—before the Holliston trial resumes in the morning, or at the lunch break, or at the end of the day. She’s hoping he’ll do this voluntarily.”

“She is not,” Harry says. “She knows better.”

“But shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t I at least
try
to help?” The Senator directs his query to Harry, but Harry turns to me. Charles Kendrick isn’t going to like the answer to that question. I’m the one who should give it to him.

“No,” I say. “You shouldn’t.”

“But—”

“Everything is changed now.” I hold up both hands to cut him off, then point to the still-silent TV screen. “Michelle is dead. You can’t help her. No one can.”

His lips part, but he says nothing.

“Our District Attorney is an elected official,” I tell him. “You don’t need me to tell you this is a political nightmare. She wants an arrest yesterday. All you can do by talking now is hurt yourself.”

The Senator’s eyes move from mine to Harry’s to the Kydd’s. No doubt he’s hoping one of them will contradict me, offer a kinder, gentler view of our system. No luck. He turns back to me, resigned. “All right,” he says. “You tell me what to do. And I’ll do it.”

This is a first.

Charles Kendrick’s gaze returns to the TV screen. The commercial break is over; coverage of the Michelle Forrester story has resumed.

“I loved her,” he says to no one in particular.

And I believe him.