Ties That Bind (16 page)

“Thank you for seeing me, Jon.”

“I need your help,” he answered.

Amanda knew that sociopaths were very skilled at faking sincerity—she had been conned before—but no alarms were going off.

“I’ve always wanted to help you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

“Then let’s forget the last two visits. Why don’t you tell me how you got the cuts on your hands and forearm?”

The question startled Dupre. “Why do you want to know that?”

“I thought you were going to trust me.”

Dupre twisted in his seat.

“Jon?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Dupre looked away from Amanda.

“You know why I’m here, Jon,” she said in a steady voice. “I’m the only lawyer who would take your case, the only person who wants to help you. But I can’t work in a vacuum.”

Dupre met Amanda’s eyes. He spoke slowly, weighing each word.

“Wendell Hayes cut me.”

“With the shiv?”

“That’s right.”

“How did he get the shiv?” Amanda asked. “Did he wrestle it away from you?”

“Hayes brought the knife into the jail. It was his. He attacked me, not the other way around. I know it sounds insane, but that’s what happened.” Dupre brought his cuffed hands to his face and rubbed his forehead. “This whole thing is a nightmare.”

“How could Hayes smuggle a knife through the metal detector?”

“I don’t know. All I know is the moment the guard was out of sight Hayes was on me.” Dupre pointed to the stitches along his forearm and the cuts on his hands. “I got these blocking the knife. I’m not dead because I caught Hayes in the throat with a lucky punch. He dropped the shiv and I grabbed it and stuck him in the eye.”

“Why didn’t you stop then?”

Dupre looked incredulous. “He was trying to murder me. I was locked in with him. Hayes is huge and I didn’t know if he had other weapons. I had to finish him.”

“I’ve got to level with you, Jon. This sounds . . . far-fetched. Why would Wendell Hayes want to kill you?”

Dupre looked down at the table and shook his head.

“Did he even know you before Judge Grant appointed him?” Amanda asked.

“Not really. My parents knew him, but they weren’t friends. Before I was banned from the club I saw him at the Westmont a few times.”

Amanda shook her head. “This isn’t going to fly.”

“You think I’m lying?” Dupre asked angrily.

“I didn’t say that. In fact, I have a witness who supports your story.”

Amanda told him what Paul Baylor had concluded after viewing the photographs from the jail infirmary.

“Unfortunately, Paul’s testimony alone won’t be enough to acquit you,” Amanda concluded. “Can you think of any other way to prove that Hayes attacked you?”

“No.”

“Then you see our problem. Your word is not going to be enough to convince a jury that a prominent attorney would try to kill a client he hardly knew. What’s Hayes’s motive? How are we going to counter the argument that Hayes couldn’t have smuggled the shiv through the metal detector? You didn’t go through a metal detector, and the weapon is the type of homemade job that jail inmates make.”

“I could take a lie detector test.”

“The results aren’t admissible in court.”

Dupre threw his head back and slammed his hands on the table. The guard on the other side of the window started to raise his radio to his mouth as he moved toward the door. Amanda waved him off.

“Forget Hayes for a moment. Tell me about Senator Travis,” Amanda said.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Why did you argue with him the day before he was killed?”

“He dated one of my girls and she turned up dead.”

“Lori Andrews?”

Dupre nodded. “The last time he dated her he beat her up.”

“Did Travis admit that he had anything to do with Lori Andrews’s murder?”

“No. He said he didn’t touch her. But I didn’t believe him.”

“I’m surprised that you cared about Andrews. Her disappearance helped you, didn’t it? It got your case dismissed.”

“I’m glad Lori didn’t show up, but I didn’t want her dead.”

“The police found an earring at the Travis crime scene that’s supposed to be identical to one you were wearing when you argued with Hayes at the Westmont.”

“They did?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No. What did it look like?”

“It’s gold, a gold cross.”

“I have one like it, but I have no idea why it would be at Travis’s place. I’ve never been there.”

“Did you talk to Travis again after you saw him at the country club?” Amanda asked.

“No.”

Amanda made a note on a legal pad. “What about the evening that Travis was killed? Was anyone with you?”

“A few of the girls were over earlier in the evening. I got high and passed out. When I woke up in the morning they were gone.”

“I’ll need a list of the women who were at your house so Kate Ross can check them out.”

“Joyce Hamada was there. She’s a student at Portland State. And Cheryl . . . uh, Cheryl Riggio. Talk to them.”

“Okay. We have a bail hearing set for tomorrow. Don’t get your hopes up about getting out. There’s no automatic bail in a death-penalty case.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dupre was suddenly very quiet. “Oscar told me.”

“I take it you’ve heard?”

Dupre nodded. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“Only what I read in the paper and heard on the radio, which wasn’t much.”

“Was he tortured?”

“That’s what the paper said.”

“Burglars, right?”

Amanda nodded. “It seems unreal. I was talking to him a few days ago about your case.”

“Yeah,” Dupre agreed, “unreal.”

The corridor outside the courtroom was packed with people who were trying to get a seat. They had to wait in line and go through another metal detector to get inside. Amanda flashed her ID, and she and Kate were waved through. Judge Robard had seniority and one of the older courtrooms. Amanda couldn’t help thinking how the high ceiling, marble Corinthian columns, and ornate molding made the setting ideal for a judge with such an exaggerated sense of his own importance.

The spectator benches were almost full, and Tim Kerrigan was already at the prosecution counsel table; his second chair was a young Hispanic woman whom Amanda had never met. Kerrigan heard the stir in the courtroom when Amanda came in, and turned his head toward the doorway. The prosecutor whispered something to his colleague and they both stood.

“Hi, Amanda, Kate,” Kerrigan said. “This is my second chair, Maria Lopez.”

The women nodded at Maria then Kate took the end seat at the defense table.

“You’re not really asking for a full-blown bail hearing, are you?” Kerrigan asked Amanda.

“Yup.”

“Robard will never grant bail.”

“Then I’ll be wasting my time.”

The prosecutor laughed. “I knew you’d be a pain in the neck.”

“Hey, it’s my job.”

Kerrigan was about to say something else, when Jon Dupre was led into court in manacles and leg chains. With a look of deep satisfaction, Maria Lopez watched Dupre struggle forward. Amanda remembered that Lopez had prosecuted the prostitution case, which had been dismissed.

“Sit down with your attorney,” ordered Larry McKenzie, one of Dupre’s guards.

“Aren’t you going to take his chains off?” Amanda asked when McKenzie made no move to unshackle her client.

“Orders. He’s supposed to have them on during the hearing.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Don’t get mad at me. I’m just following orders.”

“Sorry, Mac,” Amanda told the guard.

“No problem, Ms. Jaffe, but I wouldn’t argue too hard to have them taken off, if I was you. I was on the admitting desk when Wendell Hayes came to the jail the day he was killed. I wish I’d told him to be more careful.”

Amanda pulled out Dupre’s chair and helped him sit down before sitting next to him. The bailiff rapped his gavel and Ivan Robard walked briskly through a door behind his dais.

“Be seated,” he ordered. “Call the case.”

“This is the time set for a bail hearing in the case of State of Oregon versus Jonathan Edward Dupre.”

As soon as the bailiff finished reading the case number into the record, Tim Kerrigan stood and told the judge that he was ready to proceed.

“Amanda Jaffe for Mr. Dupre, Your Honor. Before we start the bail hearing, I would like to have my client unshackled. He . . .”

Robard held up his hand. “I’m not going to do it, Ms. Jaffe. Feel free to file a motion with authorities so you can make your record for the appellate courts, but I’ve talked to the jail commander and he believes that Mr. Dupre is too dangerous to leave unshackled.”

“Your Honor, this is a bail hearing. You are going to have to decide whether Mr. Dupre should be released from custody. Your ruling to have him kept in chains shows that you have prejudged his case, and I’d ask you to recuse yourself.”

Robard cracked a humorless smile. “Nice try, but it won’t work. I’m keeping the shackles on for security reasons, and so would any other judge in this courthouse. I haven’t heard any evidence yet. If Mr. Kerrigan doesn’t make a case for holding your client, we’ll talk about bail. So let’s get to it.”

Judge Robard shifted his attention to the prosecutor.

“Mr. Kerrigan, Mr. Dupre is charged with, among other things, two counts of aggravated murder. ORS 135.240(2)(a) says that I have to grant release unless you can convince me that the proof is evident or the presumption strong that Mr. Dupre is guilty. What’s your proof?”

“Your Honor, I’m planning on calling one witness in the case against Mr. Dupre for murdering Wendell Hayes. That should be sufficient to convince the court that there is a strong presumption that Mr. Dupre is guilty in that murder case. The state calls Adam Buckley, Your Honor.”

Like most of the jail guards, Adam Buckley was a big man, but he had lost weight since witnessing the death of Wendell Hayes. He was dressed in an ill-fitting sports coat that hung loosely on his slumped shoulders; he kept his eyes low to the ground as he walked to the witness stand. Amanda had read the report of his interview and she knew that he was on administrative leave as a result of his trauma. She felt sorry for Buckley because she knew what he was going through.

“Officer Buckley,” Kerrigan asked after the guard had been sworn and testified to his occupation, “did you know Wendell Hayes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How did you know him?”

“He came up to the jail to talk to prisoners from time to time. I let him in and out.”

“On the day of his death, did you let Mr. Hayes into a contact visiting room at the Justice Center?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What prisoner was he meeting?”

“Jon Dupre.”

“Do you see Mr. Dupre in this room?”

Buckley cast a quick look at Dupre, then looked away. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you identify him for the judge.”

“He’s the man sitting with the two women,” Buckley said without looking at the defense table.

“Was Mr. Dupre in the visiting room when you let Mr. Hayes into it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You saw him?”

“I went into the room with Mr. Hayes. Dupre was sitting in a chair in the room. I told Mr. Hayes to press the call button if he needed help, then I locked them in.”

“Was anyone else in the contact room?”

“No. Just Mr. Hayes and the defendant.”

“Was Mr. Dupre shackled as he is today?”

“No, his hands and feet were free.”

“Thank you. Now, Officer Buckley, shortly after you locked the two men in together, did you see them again?”

Buckley paled. “Yes, sir,” he answered in a shaky voice.

“Tell the judge what you saw.”

“Mr . . . Mr. Hayes . . . He was pressed up against the glass window.” He paused. “It was awful,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it of his memory of the event. “There was blood all over the window. It was coming from his eye.”

“What did you see next?”

Buckley pointed at Dupre. “He was stabbing him.”

“Could you see what Mr. Dupre was using?”

“No. He was moving it back and forth too fast.”

“Your Honor,” Kerrigan said as he picked up an evidence bag containing the shiv, “Ms. Jaffe has agreed to stipulate, for purposes of this hearing, that Exhibit One is the weapon that was used to stab Mr. Hayes.”

“Is that right?” Robard asked.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Amanda answered.

“Officer Buckley, did you see what happened to Mr. Hayes as a result of Mr. Dupre’s attack?’

“Yes, sir. He was bleeding badly from several places.”

“Did Mr. Dupre try to attack you?”

“I was pressed up against the glass trying to see how bad Mr. Hayes was hurt, and he made stabbing motions at me.”

“Where was Mr. Hayes at that time?”

“On the floor.”

“Your Honor, for purposes of this hearing, Ms. Jaffe has agreed to stipulate that Mr. Hayes died as a result of wounds inflicted by Mr. Dupre with Exhibit One.”

“So noted. Any further questions, Mr. Kerrigan?”

“No.”

“Ms. Jaffe?” Judge Robard asked.

“A few, Your Honor,” she said, standing and walking toward the guard. “Officer Buckley, where did you first encounter Mr. Hayes?”

“When he came off the elevator he rang me to get into the hall with the interview rooms.”

“And you took him to the interview room where Mr. Dupre was waiting?”

“Yes.”

“Did you search Mr. Hayes before you let him into the interview room?”

Buckley looked surprised by the question. “I don’t ever do that. They search the lawyers downstairs before they send them up.”

“So your answer is that you did not search Mr. Hayes?”

“Right. Yes.”

“Did you have Mr. Hayes and Mr. Dupre in your sight continuously after you locked Mr. Hayes in?”

“No.”

“Why not?’

“Another lawyer came up on the elevator and I let him in to see a prisoner.”

“How long were Mr. Dupre and Mr. Hayes out of your sight from the time you locked in Mr. Hayes until you saw the two of them fighting?”

“I don’t know. Probably a minute, maybe two.”

“So you have no idea what happened in the interview room between the time you locked Mr. Hayes in and the time you saw the men in the middle of their fight?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No further questions.”

“No further questions,” Kerrigan said, “and no other witnesses, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Jaffe?” Robard asked.

“One witness, Your Honor. Mr. Dupre calls Larry McKenzie.”

“What?” the startled jail guard said.

Kerrigan and the judge also looked surprised but Robard recovered quickly and beckoned the redheaded bodybuilder to the stand. McKenzie glowered at Amanda as he walked past her, but Amanda was concentrating on her notes and didn’t notice.

“Officer McKenzie,” Amanda asked when the guard was sworn, “you were manning the reception desk at the jail on the day that Wendell Hayes was killed, were you not?”

“Yeah.”

“Please describe the reception area and the process you go through when an attorney comes to the jail for a contact visit with a client.”

“Reception is on Third Avenue off the Justice Center lobby. When you come in, we’re behind a desk. To the side of the desk, between the reception area where you can sit down and the elevators that go up to the jail, is a metal detector.”

“Okay, so say I come into the jail to visit a prisoner and I come up to your desk, what happens then?”

“I ask for your Bar card and I check your ID.”

“Then what?”

“You empty your pockets of any metal objects and you give me your briefcase to search, if you’ve got one. Then you go through the metal detector.”

“What time did Mr. Hayes come into the reception area?”

“Around one, I think.”

“Was he alone?”

McKenzie snorted. “He had a circus with him—TV cameras, reporters shouting questions.”

“Did Mr. Hayes hold a press conference?”

“He answered a few questions. The reporters had him backed up against the reception desk. When it got too bad, he asked me to rescue him.”

“By letting him into the jail?”

“Right.”

“What did you do?”

“What I always do. I checked his ID and passed him through the metal detector.”

“Did Mr. Hayes have a briefcase?”

“Yeah, but I checked that, too.”

“Did you send the briefcase through the metal detector?”

McKenzie started to answer, then stopped.

“No, I don’t think so. I think I just went through it.”

“What was Mr. Hayes doing while you were going through this procedure?”

“He was . . . Let me think. Yeah, we were talking.”

“About what?”

“The Blazers.”

“While you searched the briefcase?”

“Yeah.”

“So your full attention wasn’t on the search?”

“Are you saying I didn’t do my job?”

“No, Officer McKenzie. I know you
tried
to do your job correctly, but you had no reason to think that Wendell Hayes would try and smuggle anything into the jail, did you?”

“Hayes didn’t smuggle anything in.”

“Did he go through the detector with all of his clothes?”

McKenzie gazed upward, trying to recall everything that had happened. When he looked back at Amanda, he was worried.

“He took off his jacket and . . . and he folded it up and handed it to me with his briefcase and the metal stuff in his pockets, like his keys and a Swiss Army knife. I kept the knife.”

“Did you search the jacket thoroughly?”

“I patted it down before I handed it back,” McKenzie said, but he did not look as sure of himself now.

“Were the reporters still milling around your desk?”

“Yeah.”

“Were they talking?”