The Last Plea Bargain (35 page)

81

Mace James watched the readout from the machine that measured the brain activity of Rashad Reed. This was the third time he had seen this machine in operation, but he still couldn't figure out what the graphs meant. So he also kept an eye on Dr. Rukmani Chandar's expressions to see if he could pick up any clues about the test. But Chandar never flinched, his poker face giving nothing away.

The BEOS test lasted for nearly ninety minutes in the cramped cell as Chandar took Reed through every step of all three carjackings. When he was finished, he politely thanked Reed and removed the electrodes from the prisoner's scalp. Mace still couldn't figure out if the news was good or bad.

“Let's talk outside,” Chandar suggested.

Mace said good-bye to Rashad and waited for the doctor to pack up. They left the secured area, saying nothing as they passed through one fireproof door after another. Only after they had reached the parking lot and found a place in the shade did Chandar give his preliminary opinions.

“He was there for every one of the carjackings. I don't know how he beat the polygraph; the young man does not strike me as very savvy. But that is why I prefer the BEOS—you cannot bluff your way through it.”

“Is there any doubt about this?” Mace asked. He towered over Chandar, who was a full seven or eight inches shorter.

“As always, my preliminary opinions are subject to confirmation after I study the graphs,” Chandar said. “But this one seems pretty clear.”

Mace thanked the doctor and told him he would need an affidavit. After discussing some logistics, Mace returned to the jail to meet with Rashad. He considered the irony of justice in Milton County. Because a new type of brain scan had just proved his client guilty, Rashad Reed might be able to get out of jail in a couple of years. But if the brain scan had suggested Rashad was innocent, the judge probably wouldn't allow it into evidence, and Reed would have to go to trial. Odds were, he would spend at least twenty years in prison.

The roulette wheel of criminal justice in Milton County was spinning, and Rashad Reed might have just landed on a lucky red seven.

Caleb Tate shuffled some papers at his table and lined up the edges as if he had all the time in the world.

“Does defense counsel have any questions?” Judge Brown prompted.

“A few.”

“Well, now would be a good time to ask them.”

Without rising, Caleb Tate asked his first one. “Are you aware that I represented Antoine Marshall, the man accused of killing Jamie Brock's mother?”

The muscles in LA's neck tightened. “Of course.”

“And because of that, she really wanted to nail me in this case,” Caleb Tate said in a matter-of-fact style, as if everybody knew it.

I stood and looked at the judge. “Objection. Relevance.”

“Goes to the witness's bias,” Tate said.

“I'll sustain the objection,” Judge Brown said.

“Are you aware that Ms. Brock promised to lynch me in this case?” Tate asked.

“Mr. Tate,” Brown snapped, “leave Ms. Brock out of it.”

Tate looked at me and then back at the witness. “Do you have a relationship with Ms. Brock?”

“What did I just say?” Brown asked.

Tate finally stood. “If Your Honor will just allow me a few questions. This goes directly to Detective Finnegan's bias.”

Brown waited. Thought about it. Probably worried about how it might look on appeal. “Proceed,” he said.

“Do you remember the question?” Tate asked.

“Yes. And the answer is that I have a professional relationship with Ms. Brock. It involves putting people like you in jail for life.”

“Do you want to see me lynched as well?” Tate asked.

“Not really,” LA said. “It would be a waste of perfectly good rope.”

“You think this is a joke?” Tate shot back. “A man is on trial for his life, and you think it's time for humor?”

“I think it's extremely sad—the way you manipulate and abuse the system.”

I knew that LA was baiting Tate, waiting for an opening to mention his assumption that Tate was behind the prisoners' no-plea-bargaining strategy.

But Tate proved once again that he had good courtroom instincts and changed the line of questioning. “In fact, you have more than a professional relationship with Ms. Brock, do you not?”

I stood but Judge Brown waved me off. “I'll allow it,” he said. “Goes to bias.”

“No. We work together on cases. That's all. I would like for it to be more.”

Surprisingly, even in the heat of the courtroom battle, the comment gave me a surge of adrenaline. But I couldn't dwell on it.

“Did you go to her house last night?”

It hit me at the same time that it hit LA. We had been followed.

He shifted in his seat. “I went to her house to work on the case.”

“Did you stay until after 1:30 a.m.?”

LA hesitated, and I knew it wasn't lost on the jury. “I don't know exactly what time I left.”

I thought about the big picture window that ran across the back of my house, the length of the family room. The backyard was fenced in, so I seldom pulled the blinds. I wondered if Tate's investigators had pictures.

“You weren't working the whole time. Were you?”

“I don't see what this has to do with the case.”

“I take it that means no.” Tate said it with a snide tone that made me furious. “I take it that means you weren't working the whole time?”

“We worked until she fell asleep. I continued to work until I left.”

Alarms went off as soon as LA finished the answer. My best witness had just lied on the stand, and I was a sworn officer of the court. Not only that, but I was afraid that Tate would expose him the same way he had Rafael Rivera.

“Would it surprise you to know that your car left Ms. Brock's residence at approximately 1:45 a.m.?”

LA shrugged, but all of this was having an impact on the jury. “Not really.”

“Isn't it true, Detective Finnegan, that you would do anything you could to help this woman nail me to the wall?” Before LA could answer, Tate amended his question. “Or perhaps I should say, lynch me from the nearest tree?”

“There was no bloody glove for me to plant at your house, Mr. Tate. The drugs were undeniably in your wife's bloodstream and stomach. There are lots of witnesses who can talk about the difficulties in your marriage. I didn't make up your financial problems. Nor did I download the Van Wyck case to your computer. All of that evidence has nothing to do with me.”

“Ahh,” Tate said, drawing it out with smug satisfaction, “but you didn't mention the morphine. Isn't it true that you told Rafael Rivera about the morphine and the fingernail tests even before he met with Ms. Brock?”

“That's ridiculous.”

“And just so the jury is clear, I'm assuming that means you deny it?”

LA's face had turned crimson. His muscles were tight and his jaw was set. “That's right; I deny it.”

Caleb Tate stood there for a moment as if trying to determine whether he should take the next step. Then he reached into his briefcase and pulled out a few photographs. I looked quickly at LA and hoped he picked up on the cue. He stared at the pictures, but Tate was holding them facedown.

“I want to make sure I've got this right. Are you denying that you and Ms. Brock spent intimate time together last night?”

“No. We were not intimate.”

“Did you give her a back rub on the couch?”

LA swallowed hard and seemed to be weighing his options.
How did Tate know? Did he have pictures?
“I might have.”

“Might have,” Tate taunted. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“I gave her a back rub. She fell asleep next to me on the couch. After that, I went back to work.” LA's voice had adopted a defeated tone. He stared at Tate while making the admissions, avoiding eye contact with me. “Then that's all I have for this witness,” Tate said.

My mind raced, but I could think of no way to undo the damage. “No redirect,” I said.

On the way by my counsel table, LA looked at me and whispered a “sorry.” I pretended to be busy writing something on my legal pad. I hoped the jury hadn't seen the quick exchange.

I could practically feel the steam coming from Masterson's body. This was why, on my first day in the office, he had drilled into me cardinal rule number one—no relationships with victims or members of the force.

“It's nearly five o'clock,” Judge Brown said. “This court stands in recess until Monday.”

82

Masterson asked me to follow him back to the office for what he called a brief meeting. I expected an angry tongue-lashing. But when we arrived, he spoke in measured tones, conveying a profound sense of disappointment rather than anger. I wished he would have just yelled at me.

He estimated our chances of pulling out a guilty verdict as “slim to none.” Continuing with the case would just put my father's reputation at risk and make the DA's office look vindictive. And even if we won, Tate now had too many issues for appeal. Instead of fighting Tate on this case, we should work on tying him to the recent gang killings of Ricky Powell, Rontavius Eastbrook, and Jimmy Brandywine and the brutal murder of Latrell Hampton's girlfriend and her young son. “We're going to nol-pros this case first thing Monday morning,” Masterson told me. “It's not open for discussion.”

I didn't say anything. But I wondered how much of this was driven by politics. Dismissing the case would make Masterson look magnanimous, like he was committed to justice more than winning. Losing a jury verdict would make us both look incompetent.

“We'll turn Rivera loose, and he can get what's coming to him,” Masterson continued. “I'm not sending him out to California, and I'm not wasting any police protection on him. He lied on the stand, though that tape is too ambiguous for us to prosecute him for perjury. But now that he's cut his deal, let's see how long he survives.”

Even to me, the most hard-nosed of prosecutors, it seemed harsh. The man had perjured himself and played us for fools, but I didn't like the idea of just abandoning him on the streets to die. Yet I was so angry with so many people right now—including Rafael Rivera—that I wasn't about to stick up for him.

“And, Jamie, I hope you've learned a few things from today. You're one heckuva prosecutor, but you've got to keep your emotions out of it.” Masterson paused and gave me a look that could melt steel. “And I mean that in every respect.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

I sat there for another moment as Masterson got busy on some paperwork. He looked up. “That's all,” he said.

I checked my BlackBerry on the way home, and I had more than twenty messages. Most of them were from friends who tried to encourage me. There were two phone calls and one text message from Mace James, who wanted to meet with me as soon as possible. The text said it was a critical issue that could impact Caleb Tate's case. But Caleb Tate's case was over. I ignored the message.

I didn't ignore the text messages from LA asking if we could get together. I texted him back, telling him that getting together right now would be a bad idea. I wished with all my heart I could have taken back the night before. It wasn't necessarily LA's fault, but I knew Masterson was right. I'd let my emotions get out of control, and now I was paying for it in so many ways.

When I arrived home, there was a car in my driveway, and I recognized it immediately. My brother, Chris, to the rescue. He was sitting in the driver's seat and got out to give me a big hug. Somebody had apparently called him about our day in court.

Justice greeted us both like conquering heroes. He jumped all over Chris, who laughed and played with Justice because anybody who came to our house had to play with Justice. They wrestled in the family room for a few minutes with Justice hunkering down and making runs at Chris and rolling on the floor and doing his fake growl. The only way I could calm him down was to feed him dinner.

Chris and I sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, waiting for the burgers to cook on the grill. I know Chris expected me to cry, but I had done enough crying in the last few months. Tonight I was just confused, frustrated, and angry. I started talking and put it all out there—the guilt at being away from the house when Mom died, my resentment toward Dad for being a defense lawyer, the frustration of not knowing whether Antoine Marshall was truly Mom's killer, and even my disappointment in Chris for not being a more forceful advocate for justice. But most of all, my bitterness at everything that had happened in Caleb Tate's murder trial and Masterson's decision to nol-pros.

“I can't believe God's going to let him get away with killing his wife,” I said.

Chris listened patiently and responded softly. He had his hands laced together on the table and looked down as he spoke. He told me that I couldn't blame myself for Mom's death. He assured me that Caleb Tate wasn't getting away with anything.

He paused and looked at me. Tonight, it was Chris who had tears in his eyes. “When you hurt, I hurt,” he said. Then he turned philosophical. “We can't bring about perfect justice in this world, Jamie. It pleases God for us to try. But at the end of the day, this is a fallen world. Even the best systems put together by men—and I believe our justice system is pretty darned good—are going to be imperfect. But there's a verse in Genesis that I've always loved: ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?'

“That's what I hold on to. Even on days like today, when the world is so messed up. That jury doesn't have the last word. And Judge Brown doesn't have the last word. And neither does Bill Masterson.”

Chris used the back of an index finger to wipe a tear from the bottom of his eye. “Sorry to preach,” he said. “I'd better go check on the burgers.”