Prosecution: A Legal Thriller (12 page)

Another reporter yelled out, "But he says Goodwin
paid him to do it!"

"He says a lot of things," Jones replied, with a
dismissive wave of his hand. "If you were facing the death penalty,
you'd probably get pretty inventive yourself. He's a confessed
murderer, and there isn't any evidence of any sort to back up
anything he said."

The same reporter shot back, "If there isn't any
evidence, how come your client has been indicted?"

A knowing look creased Jones's closed mouth. "It's
curious, isn't it," he said, with an expression that hinted darkly
at something. "I mean, it's curious that with nothing else than the
self-serving statement of a killer, they would think to bring a
case against anyone, much less someone as respected as the chief
deputy district attorney of the largest county in the state."

Tilting his head, his eyes darted from one television
camera to the next. "Now, I don't know why they did it. But isn't
it a little strange that instead of turning this over to the
present district attorney, the police went to a sitting
circuit-court judge who just happens to be the former district
attorney? I wouldn't want to suggest that there might be something
political going on here, but it does seem a little odd, doesn't
it?"

"Are you saying that Judge Woolner is trying to get
Gilliland-O'Rourke by charging her chief deputy with murder?" an
anonymous voice shouted from somewhere deep within the densely
packed throng of reporters.

Jones denied any improper intention. "I can only
recite the facts. I'll leave it to you to figure out what they
mean."

While Jones answered questions, I kept my eye on
Kristin, watching the way she reacted to each thing that was said.
She was the perfect audience, quick, responsive, sharing the mood
of those around her before they knew themselves exactly how they
felt. Holding her husband's hand, she gazed out over the crowd,
laughing with everyone else at something Jones had just said. Then
she saw me, and in a brief moment of uncertainty her laughter
stopped.

"If that's true," someone asked, directing the
question to Goodwin, "why did the district attorney issue the order
for your arrest?"

Taking a half step forward, Marshall answered, "She
was just doing her job. As soon as I learned I was going to be
charged, I told her." He lowered his eyes, and then, wearing an
even more serious expression, looked up and insisted it had been
his idea. "I told the district attorney that the only way to
preserve our reputation as a completely impartial office was to
have me arrested herself. The last thing I wanted," he said,
looking straight into the camera, "the last thing either of us
wanted, was to have anyone think we play favorites among the people
the law requires us to prosecute." He made it sound as if he had
arrested himself.

I had started to head down the corridor toward the
door when someone whispered my name, and a hand grasped my arm.
"Well, Antonelli, did you ever think you'd have a chance to try a
case against the greatest lawyer the world has ever known?"

With a round, smooth face, piercing black eyes, and a
waistline that wobbled when he walked, Harper Bryce looked like a
snowman beginning to melt. Folding up his reporter's notebook, he
tucked it into the pocket of his sports jacket and put his pencil
above his ear. "Haven't seen you in a while," he said, when I did
not answer.

We reached the door and stepped outside. "I haven't
been around for a while."

"Why did you come back?"

I was careful. "It was time."

He nodded as if the words meant something. "You want
to tell me what's really going on with this thing? You don't want
me to just write what that egomaniac just said, do you?" His voice
was deep and fluid and came at you in short, abbreviated bursts, as
if he threw out a few words at a time and then waited to see how
they worked before he tried again.

"Aren't all lawyers egomaniacs?" I asked. It was
something he had once written.

"That's right." He snorted. "Some more, some
less."

"Richard Lee Jones?"

He laughed. "The common measure does not apply."

I could not resist. I stopped and looked at him.
"Me?"

Tugging on his tie, breathing heavily, he seemed to
think about it. With a shrewd smile, he studied me for a moment and
then shook his head. "I never could figure you out. Sometimes I
thought you had more ego than Emperor Jones himself. Other times
you seemed so lost in what you were doing, I wondered if you had
any ego at all.

"There are people, you know," he went on, as we
strolled along the sidewalk, "who get so wrapped up in what they
do, they lose themselves in it, forget themselves completely. Wish
I was a little like that," he added wistfully.

But Harper Bryce was like that; he was forever losing
himself in whatever story he was trying to tell. He had been
covering the courthouse for longer than I could remember and had
watched more trials than any lawyer I knew. A frequent visitor to
the half-empty courtrooms where most litigation takes place, Bryce
was fascinated by the way ordinary people, confronted with the loss
of either their money or their liberty, could eschew the truth so
completely. It was a fault from which he himself was not entirely
free. Whenever he reported on one of my cases, the facts were often
wrong, the testimony of witnesses was often embellished, and yet,
when you looked at it as a whole, the impression it conveyed was
usually right. Perhaps there was more of the artist in him than he
cared to admit.

We continued walking and did not say anything more
until we got to the next corner and waited for the light to change.
"What did you think of that performance back there?" he asked.

The light turned green. "I'm not going to comment on
anything," I said, as we stepped off the curb together. "Not on the
record, anyway."

"Agreed," he said, with a chuckle. "Everything off
the record." He was starting to have trouble keeping up. Pulling on
my sleeve, he stopped. "If you don't mind my asking, where are we
going?"

"I'm going to my office," I replied. "You want to
come along?"

"How far is it?"

"Just another block."

He seemed relieved. "You have a few minutes to
talk?"

"You mean, off the record?"

"Is there any other way?"

When we walked in, Helen was standing barefoot on a
chair, hanging a framed picture on the wall next to her desk. It
was something by Monet, a laser reproduction that supposedly
duplicated perfectly each brush stroke on the original.
Embarrassed, she hopped down and put on her shoes. I introduced her
to Bryce, and her mind filed him in the proper category.

"Harper Bryce, reporter and columnist," she said, as
her fingers disappeared into his plush, uncallused hand. Bryce had
a certain courtly charm, and in the presence of women you almost
expected him to pronounce his carefully chosen words with the slow
grace of a Southerner.

As it was, Helen forgot her usual cheerful cynicism
and began to buzz around, trying to be helpful. She brought us two
fresh cups of coffee and shut the door to my office. I tried to
explain her eagerness. "You're one of the few people she's ever
seen me with who isn't accused of a crime."

"I suppose that means I'll have to wait another week
before I murder my editor," he said, and sipped his coffee.

We talked for more than an hour, and when I read the
paper the next morning I had what I needed. The story of Marshall
Goodwin's arraignment on a charge of arranging the murder of his
wife was treated almost as a preface to the revelation that,
"according to sources close to the investigation," the chief deputy
district attorney had not acted alone. "A second person, whose
identity has not yet been disclosed, faces almost certain
indictment as a co-conspirator with Marshall Goodwin in the murder
for hire scheme. Joseph Antonelli, appointed as special prosecutor
in the case, would neither confirm nor deny these reports."

After reading what Bryce had written, I was not
entirely surprised to receive a call telling me that Gwendolyn
Gilliland-O'Rourke wanted to see me. When I arrived, the
receptionist ushered me right in. I had not been in the DA's office
since Horace Woolner had resigned to become a circuit court judge.
The room had a completely different look about it. With his
obsessive fear of disorder, Horace had made certain nothing was
ever out of place; the jacket Gilliland-O'Rourke had left draped
over the arm of the sofa would never have been found anywhere
except on the hook behind the door or the coat rack in the corner.
Horace worked on one file at a time and kept all the others stacked
neatly at the front of his desk; documents were littered all over
Gilliland-O'Rourke's varnished antique writing table, some of them
spotted with petals that had fallen from a vase filled with cut
flowers.

The most striking change, however, was the difference
in what they wanted to remember. Horace had kept a picture of his
wife on his desk; among the gallery of photographs that now covered
the walls I could not find a single one of Arthur O'Rourke. They
were all of Gwendolyn next to someone else, a governor, a senator,
a member of the state legislature, the last defeated candidate for
county clerk, anyone who had ever held an office or thought about
running for one.

Standing next to the writing table, she gave me her
hand and then, gesturing toward the brocaded chair on the other
side, took it away."Congratulations," she remarked as she sat down.
"You've managed to go from defending the guilty to prosecuting the
innocent. Not many lawyers can make that claim."

Except for the ballet dinner, where I had watched her
move from table to table, intent on greeting everyone in the room,
I had not seen her in person since the day the jury brought back
its verdict in the case of Leopold Rifkin. She watched me as I sat
back against the chair, her eyes, usually inviting and often
flirtatious, filled with ice-cold anger. Picking up the newspaper
that had been lying, folded in half, on the corner of the table,
she tossed it toward me.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded to
know. "You're going to indict someone besides Marshall?"

Ignoring her, I let my eye wander around the room
until it came to rest on one of the photographs grouped together on
the wall immediately to my right. Only a few years out of law
school, Gwendolyn was wearing a black judicial robe, her right hand
raised, taking the oath of office as the youngest district court
judge in the state. She looked as if she could hardly wait to get
started.

I looked back at her.

"It was a long time ago," she said curtly. "You
haven't answered my question. Are you planning to indict someone
else?"

"So because it was a long time ago, you'd prefer we
both pretend nothing ever happened between us?"

Her green eyes flashed. "I'm the DA. Horace Woolner
had no business doing what he did, and you have no business trying
to keep me in the dark. You might regret it."

Raising my chin, I stared back at her. "You care to
explain that?"

"I don't think I need to. We both know what you did
in the Rifkin trial."

"I got an acquittal for a man we both know was
innocent."

"You got a small-time thief to claim he witnessed a
murder he never saw," she replied, with a show of defiance.

"If you thought you could prove that, you would
have," I retorted.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice less strident, if
still far from friendly. "I shouldn't have said that."

"You should never have prosecuted him," I said, my
own voice less hostile. "He wasn't guilty. You had to have known
that."

She looked away, a slight twitch at the side of her
mouth. Then, a moment later, her eyes came back around.

"Do you really think that you have more evidence
against Marshall Goodwin than I had against Leopold Rifkin?"

"I knew Leopold wasn't guilty. Are you convinced
Goodwin is innocent?"

"Are you convinced he's guilty?" When I did not
answer, she went on. "Marshall has a clear track to become district
attorney. Why would he take a chance like that, risk everything?"
She had spent her life calculating her own advantage, and she
assumed everyone else did the same thing. Everything, even murder,
was a matter of measuring the benefits against the costs.

"I notice you didn't say he must be innocent because
he'd never do such a thing."

"Either way," she said with a shrug.

I put one hand on the arm of the chair and bent
toward her. "Either way—if you don't think he did it—why did you
have him arrested?"

Her explanation parroted part of Goodwin's. "This
office can't afford to have people think we treat anyone
differently from anyone else." Glancing away, she added, as
something strictly between ourselves, "It's bad enough that it
looks like the chief deputy was a murderer and we didn't know it."
Drawing herself up, she took a deep breath, as if bracing herself
for more bad news. "Now tell me, who else do you think was
involved?"