Suspicion

  Also available from MIRA Books by Christiane Heggan

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 All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone hearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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 First published in Great Britain 1998. Reprinted 2003.

 MIRA Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,

 Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR

 © Christiane Heggan 1998

 ISBN 0 778 30020 X 58-0403

 Printed and bound in Spain by Litografia Roses S.A., Barcelona

  

  

  As the twelve jurors filed back into the courtroom, their eyes downcast, defense attorney Kate Logan felt her heart skip a beat. Not a single one of them had looked at Tony.

  "Kate…" Tony shot her a quick, worried glance. He was a small but wiry young man, with Latin good looks and a tough exterior that didn’t match the gentle man she knew him to be.

  "Stay calm," she said, wishing she could take her own advice. "Let’s listen."

  From her bench, the Honorable Margaret J. Hawthorne, a severe-looking woman thought by many to favor prosecutors, turned toward the jury box. "I’ve been advised that you have reached a verdict," she said in her resounding voice. "Mr. Foreman, is that so?"

  The foreman, a middle-aged businessman who had been scrupulously attentive throughout the trial, rose. "Yes, Your Honor. We have."

  "Please hand your verdict sheet to my court clerk."

  The clerk took the sheet of paper to the judge, who unfolded it and read the verdict before handing it back to him. Without a change in expression, Judge Hawthorne looked at Tony. "Will the defendant please rise?"

  Tony and Kate rose together. The court clerk turned to face them and read out loud, "We, the jury, find the defendant, Antonio Fuente, guilty."

  Before the people in the gallery could react, a cry of utter despair rose in the courtroom, creating instant chaos among the more than one hundred Puerto Ricans who had come to hear the verdict.

  Kate didn’t have to turn around to know that the heart wrenching protest had come from Maria, Tony’s mother.

  "No!" the woman’s voice echoed with the kind of anguish only another mother could understand. "You can’t do that," she cried at the twelve solemn-faced jurors. "He didn’t do it. My Tonio is innocent."

  The judge, who hadn’t given Kate a single break during the two-week trial, banged her gavel several times in an attempt to regain control of the courtroom.

  "Silence! Silence! Sit down, Mrs. Fuente. One more outburst like that and I’ll have you removed from my court." She looked at Maria over the rims of her glasses. "Is that understood?"

  Reaching behind her, Kate took her housekeeper’s hand, which was clasped on the wooden railing, and pulled her down gently, but firmly. She waited until Maria was once again seated before turning back to face the bench. "We apologize, Your Honor. Mrs. Fuente is under great stress-"

  "Maybe so, Counselor, but I won’t tolerate that kind of behavior in my courtroom."

  Kate was tempted to snap right back at her. Would it have killed that cold bitch to show a little compassion? Instead, she forced her tone to be respectful. There was still a sentencing hearing to go through, and making an enemy of Judge Hawthorne now could have disastrous consequences.

  "It won’t happen again, Your Honor."

  "Good."

  Kate waited until the courtroom was perfectly quiet before adding, "May it please the court, I move that the jury be polled."

  "Very well." Arms resting on the bench, Judge Hawthorne turned her head toward the jury box again. "Polling the jury simply means that I’m going to ask each one of you to state your personal verdict out loud. You need not, and will not, say anything further."

  After a quick glance at each juror to make sure her instructions had been understood, the judge let her gaze rest on the man in the first seat. "Juror number one, what is your verdict?"

  The man answered without hesitation. "Guilty."

  "Juror number two, what is your verdict?"

  "Guilty."

  "Juror number three, what is your verdict?"

  "Guilty."

  The answer was the same with all twelve jurors, including number eight, an African-American woman with tears in her eyes and a tremor in her voice as she said the word "guilty." No doubt, Maria’s grief had touched a few hearts, Kate thought bitterly. But it hadn’t changed the verdict.

  As the judge dismissed the jurors, Kate glanced at Tony, who, as the last shred of hope vanished, had fallen back against his chair, his eyes closed. A knot formed in her throat. She had known him since he was a small boy. She had watched him turn from a mischievous child to a rebellious teenager before finally settling down. She knew he could never hurt another human being, much less murder the woman he loved.

  Kate heard the sound of rustling paper and looked up at the bench.

  "The sentencing hearing will be held in this court on Tuesday, January 2 at 10:15 a.m." Judge Hawthorne snapped her desk calendar shut. "Until then, the prisoner will be escorted back to his cell." Then, with a final rap of her gavel, she added, "This court is adjourned."

  Oblivious of the deputy who was approaching, handcuffs in hand, Maria stumbled out of her seat and threw herself into her son’s arms. "Oh, hijo, " she sobbed, hugging him fiercely. "Hijo mio."

  "Mom, please don’t cry. It’s going to be all right." Tony threw Kate a helpless look.

  Too upset to talk, Kate wrapped a comforting arm around Maria’s shoulders and held her back as handcuffs were snapped around Tony’s wrists.

  "Take care of my mom, Kate." All signs of toughness were gone as Tony’s eyes filled with tears, not for himself, Kate knew, but for his mother, whom he adored.

  "I will." She gripped Tony’s arm and squeezed it. "Please don’t lose faith, Tony. I know that it looks as if the system has turned its back on you right now, but this fight isn’t over. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll file for appeal."

  "Sure, Kate."

  She watched him being led away, a proud young man who was trying desperately not to succumb to the terrible blow that had been dealt to him.

  The crowded courtroom began to empty. At the prosecutor’s table, Ted Rencheck, a small, pretentious man with big political aspirations, was accepting congratulations from two colleagues. Knowing he wouldn’t miss a chance to come over and gloat, Kate pulled out a set of keys from her purse and handed them to Maria.

  "Go wait for me in the car, Maria. I won’t be long."

  She was gathering her papers and stuffing them into her briefcase when Rencheck approached her. "You should have taken my deal, Kate."

  "Some deal." She closed her briefcase, remembering the long, drawn-out argument they’d had in his office three weeks earlier. "You wanted my client to plead guilty when you knew damn well he was innocent."

  "He could have gotten twenty years and been out in seven. Now he could get twice that-" Rencheck paused for effect "-or he could get life."

  Kate turned to face him, forcing a thin smile. "And then again, he might get off on appeal."

  Rencheck laughed. "Appeal? On what grounds?"

  "You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?"

  The assistant U.S. attorney let out another chuckle and walked away, his female assistant running to catch up with him.

  "Jerk," Kate murmured under her breath. As she turned around to leave, her eye caught a movement to her left. Glancing over, she saw that Mitch Calhoon, the detective who had investigated the case, was watching her.

  Kate had met the homicide detective six months ago when Tony had first been apprehended. Although there was something appealing about the man-a latent strength combined with a rather boyish sincerity-she had quickly come to realize how wrong first impressions could be.

  Mitch Calhoon had been concerned with only one thing-to see Tony convicted. Even under her cross examination, which had been brutal at times, he hadn’t wavered from his steadfast insistence that Tony had murdered Lilly Moore.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him in court today. Most detectives insisted on hearing the verdict firsthand. Calhoon was no exception. It was common knowledge that his arrest/conviction ratio was higher than anyone else’s in the Washington Metro Police Department. No doubt he wanted to keep it that way.

  Aware that he was still looking at her, she strode down the aisle, pushed the double doors open and hurried toward the exit.

  A blast of frigid December air hit her as she stepped outside, but it wasn’t the cold that instantly commanded her attention.

  Held back by a half-dozen uniformed policemen, more than two hundred people, most of them Hispanic, had assembled in front of the courthouse to protest Tony’s verdict. Some were carrying placards proclaiming Tony’s innocence. Others were more verbal.

  Maria stood facing the demonstrators, her rapid-fire Spanish eloquent and passionate as she tried to pacify them, but they weren’t listening. They were accusing the justice system of having used Tony as a scapegoat, and Kate knew why. Two weeks ago, just as Tony’s trial had begun, three young Puerto Ricans had blasted through a Washington delicatessen with machine guns, killed the two Italian owners and run off with eight hundred dollars in cash. Although the police knew the perpetrators and had searched their neighborhood with a fine-tooth comb, they hadn’t found them. Either the three youths had fled across the state line or someone in their neighborhood was hiding them.

  Afraid that this latest act of violence would jeopardize Tony’s trial, Kate had made every effort to postpone it. Rencheck, true to form, had refused to delay the proceedings.

  Pushing through the crowd, a female reporter for Channel 4 shoved a microphone in Kate’s face. "Mrs. Logan, do you feel that Antonio Fuente’s verdict was in retaliation for the killing of those two men two weeks ago?"

  "No, I don’t," Kate said, anxious not to have this demonstration escalate into a riot. "As you well know, the jury included two HispanicAmericans-"

  "As well as three men and women of Italian origin," the reporter interjected.

  The demonstrators, either tired of listening to Maria, or inflamed by Kate’s presence, suddenly turned hostile’

  "You sold out, lady," a man in the front row shouted at Kate. "It’s all your fault Antonio got the shaft."

  "That’s true." A dark-haired woman elbowed her way forward. "Whose side are you on anyway?" They moved closer, angry-faced men and women who looked as though they could explode at any moment.

  Before Kate could respond, a strong hand had gripped her arm, pulling her back. Startled, Kate turned and saw Mitch Calhoon. He held her tightly, with an understated possessiveness she wasn’t accustomed to.. "What do you think you’re doing?" she asked, trying to free her arm.