Mary squirmed. He was right but she didn’t find it persuasive. She considered confronting him about whether he was protecting Paige, but settled for planting a seed of doubt. “Okay, let’s move on. Paige isn’t what I came to talk to you about. I’ve been doing my homework, and the primary evidence against you will be your confession. The videotape.”
“They said there would be other evidence, too. Physical evidence. They told me that.”
“I know.” Mary checked her notes. “But let me make my point. We can argue that you were drunk at the time you confessed.”
“Drunk?”
“Yes. You said you had some Scotch. Two drinks, you weren’t sure.” She rummaged in her briefcase, pulled out her notes, and double-checked the law on point. “You said you weren’t used to drinking and that it caused you to throw up. That’s legally significant, and throws doubt on the validity of your waiver. The case law is clear that you can’t waive your right to counsel when you’re drunk.”
“But I wasn’t drunk.”
“You could have had three Scotches.”
“Two, I think.”
“Isn’t it possible you had three? You told me you had a few. A few is three.”
“You want me to say three, is that what this is about?” Jack smiled easily, his teeth straight and even. “Are you coaching me, counselor?”
“Of course not.” Mary never coached clients, though she had been known to kick them under the table, collar them in the hallway, or tell them to shut up. None of these breached ethical rules, and was, on the contrary, looked upon with favor. “But if you had two or three drinks, your blood alcohol had to be high. We’ll get the tests when they turn them over, but frankly, I plan to argue you were impaired when you confessed.”
“But you saw me. I wasn’t drunk.”
“By the time I saw you, maybe you weren’t. Besides, I can’t tell if someone’s drunk in an interview, necessarily.”
“This is silly.” Jack leaned forward, and the gravity in his tone telegraphed controlled anger. “I’m telling you I wasn’t drunk when I spoke to the police. They asked me if I was drunk and I told them no. I even signed and initialed the waiver.”
“You’re not the judge of whether you’re drunk or not.” Mary hadn’t expected a fight when she was trying to save the man’s life, though maybe she should have. The situation was downright perverse. “Lots of drunks think they’re sober. That’s why they get into cars and drive.”
“I know I wasn’t drunk.”
“How can you be sure, Jack? Your actions weren’t exactly rational. Beginning the confession, then calling for a lawyer. You weren’t thinking clearly. You’d had the Scotch, early on.”
“And then I killed my wife. It sobered me up.”
“I don’t think that’s funny,” Mary said coolly, though his bravado didn’t ring true. “Why are you fighting me on this? This is good news. Without that confession, their case against you is much weaker. I intend to cross the detectives about it at the prelim and file a motion to suppress the confession.”
“Don’t do that. I don’t think it’s viable and it will jeopardize my chances for a guilty plea.”
“No, it won’t. The D.A. will expect a motion to suppress on these facts.”
“I don’t want to queer the deal.”
“There is no deal.” Mary leaned toward the bulletproof glass. “And don’t bet there will be. They have all the cards right now and unless we fight back, they’re gonna play them. They’re likelier to deal if they think we have a decent defense or will win a suppression motion. They don’t want to lose at trial either.”
“I see.” Jack nodded, dismissively. “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
“I hand you a winner and you’ll think about it?” Mary squeezed her pen, trying to keep her cool. His stubbornness only encouraged her confidence. If she was right about the truth, then she was fighting him for his own life. “I’m the lawyer, Jack.”
“But I’m the client. I make the decisions in the case. In my own practice, I gave legal advice, and the client made the ultimate decision. Plenty of times I disagreed with my clients, and they with me. I did as they decided.”
“This isn’t an estates matter, where you assume your client’s death. My job is to keep you alive.”
“In any case, the lawyer is only an agent.”
“Not exactly.” Mary had crammed last night, after she’d left her father. “A criminal case is different from a civil case. As criminal counsel, I have a duty to file the motion to suppress. You don’t determine the scope of your right to counsel, even though it’s your right. It’s grounded in the Constitution. Ever hear of the Sixth Amendment?” He fell silent, and Mary continued the lecture, on a roll. “If I don’t file the motion on these facts, you could have me before an appellate court on a PCRA. That’s post conviction relief, for you estates lawyers. I’d be found ineffective per se, which isn’t the sort of thing I want on my permanent record card.”
“I didn’t want to say this, but I guess I have to. Isn’t it possible that you’re wrong about this motion to suppress?”
“No. I read the law.”
“But, as you told me directly, you aren’t very experienced with murder cases. Have you ever filed a motion to suppress?”
Mary swallowed hard. “No.”
“So isn’t it possible that your judgment is wrong? I’m hearing things from the other inmates, who have more experience than you and me put together. They think you’re crazy not to pursue the guilty plea right now.”
She felt like snarling. She didn’t need legal advice from felons. She was right about the plea negotiation and the motion. It wasn’t a matter of experience. Or was it? She couldn’t think of an immediate reply.
“Mary, I know you’re working hard on my behalf and I appreciate it. I hadn’t thought about such a defense. It seems wrong on the facts. I need to mull it over. Isn’t that reasonable?” He exhaled audibly, and Mary nodded, still off-balance. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken this case. Maybe she wasn’t experienced enough. She was playing with someone’s life. Still.
“No. You can think about it until tomorrow morning. Then call me and tell me you agree.”
“I’ll call you.” Jack rose, his handcuffs linking his arms against his jumpsuit. “Please don’t file a motion until we talk again.”
“Wait a minute,” Mary said, uncertain as she watched him stand up. “I wanted to brief you on the arraignment. Let you know what to expect this morning.”
“The arraignment is a detail. I don’t care if I make bail or not.” Jack walked to the door and called the guard, who came almost immediately and took him away.
It left Mary stumped. She’d never had a client walk out on her, much less one in leg manacles. He had to be protecting his daughter; there was no other explanation. Defending Jack was turning out to be a road strewn with rocks he’d thrown there, and she was becoming the adversary of her own client.
She wanted to win, but feared that if she did, it wouldn’t be much of a victory.
13
Davis hit the STOP button to end the videotape of Newlin’s confession and eyed his boss, Bill Masterson, the District Attorney of Philadelphia. Masterson sulked in his sunny office, behind a mahogany desk littered with gold-plated awards, commemorative paperweights, and signed photos. The clutter of photos included Masterson with the mayor, various ward leaders, Bozo the Clown, the city council, and Elmo from Sesame Street, in town to open a new Target store. The D.A.s always joked that one-hour photo developing was invented for Bill Masterson.
Davis was concerned. They had viewed the video three times, and Masterson had said nothing except “play it again” at the end. He hadn’t reacted at all to Davis’s theory of premeditation. At the moment, Masterson was frowning, emphasizing jowls like an English bulldog’s. He was a large man, a tall power forward out of LaSalle, big-boned and still fit. Ruddy skin provided the backdrop for round eyes of a ferocious blue, which fought wi
th his large nose to dominate his face. “So what do you think, Chief?” Davis asked.
“I’m not happy.”
“You’re never happy.”
“This we know.” Masterson glowered under a thatch of gray-blond hair.
“So what’s the problem?”
Masterson gazed out a window in a wall covered with citations, more photos, and framed newspaper articles. MASTERSON WINS AGAIN read one of the headlines, from under glass. The morning sun in a solid square streamed through the window, past the plaudits, and onto the desk, suffusing his crystal paperweights with light. Davis couldn’t tell if Masterson was gazing out the window or reading his own press.
“Chief, I know it’s early in the game, but I made up my mind. I’ve only asked twice before, in Hammer and in Bertel, and you know I was right on both counts. They’re dead and they both deserved it. So does Newlin.”
Masterson squinted out the window or at his headlines. The tan phone on his desk rang loudly, and he reached over and pushed the intercom button to signal Annette to pick up. Davis, still at the VCR, pressed REWIND for something to do. He was expert in handling Masterson and knew to take it easy.
“You remember, Chief. The public, the papers, they went for it. They agreed. It gave them confidence in this office and in you. I don’t have to remind you about Bertel, do I?” Davis had the facts, he didn’t have to shout. Leon Bertel had murdered a popular pharmacist in Tacony, and his execution, which took place a month before the last election, had clinched Masterson’s win. “I say no deals with Newlin. I want your okay before the other side asks me. I got it? Chief?”
Masterson finally looked away from the wall and down at his desk. “It’s dirty,” he said finally.
“It’s murder. All the more reason to crucify this asshole. He whacks the wife and weasels out of it. He’s out in no time with his cash, livin’ large again. I want to tell the press, too. Right out, from day one. No deals in the Newlin case. We’re taking him down. Bringing him to justice.”
Masterson began fiddling with a slim gold Cross pen, rolling it across his blotter, back and forth. Sun glinted on the gold pen as it moved. The phone rang again, and the pen stopped rolling while Masterson pressed the intercom button wordlessly.
“I don’t see the problem, Chief. This is a no-brainer. We got him cold-cock, blood on his hands. Think down the line. Say Newlin does his time or even makes parole. He’ll have a decent case for it, the model prisoner, he’ll keep his nose clean. You want him out and walking around? You think the people are gonna like that? The rich getting away with murder, with our, read Bill Masterson’s, assist?”
The Cross pen rolled back and forth, so Davis took a cushioned chair across the desk and remained patient. He was one of the few assistants who got this much face time with the Chief. The word count was usually fifteen before the Chief’s attention span evaporated, the mayor called, or the game started. Big Five basketball mattered. Masterson had priorities.
“You know he’s lying, don’t you?” Davis asked.
“Course.” Masterson waved the air with a large, fleshy palm. “They all do.”
“Then what?”
“Newlin’s at Tribe.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You know how much Tribe gave the campaign last year?”
Davis blinked. He never thought the Chief would say it out loud. “He did it, Chief. He killed her.”
“Understood, but you gotta have your ducks in a row on this one.” Masterson didn’t look at his subordinate, but watched the pen as if someone else were manipulating it. “You can’t go up against Tribe and be wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. You know that. You know me.”
The Cross pen came to a sudden stop. The phone started ringing, and Masterson looked over. This time instead of pressing the intercom button, he picked up the call, covering the receiver as he glanced at Davis. “Get me more,” he barked. “Talk to me after you do.”
“You’re tellin’ me no? That it’s conditional?”
“Go!” Masterson said. He swiveled his chair to the side.
Davis rose nimbly, brushed his pant legs down, and took it on the chin. He hadn’t expected the Chief to say no, but he wouldn’t lie down. On the contrary, he accepted the challenge. It would make winning that much sweeter, and in a strange way, he would enjoy the delay of gratification. After all, he wasn’t a sprinter, he was a marathoner. He had the stuff to go the distance. This was just a chance to let it shine, shine, shine.
So Davis hurried from the District Attorney’s office to begin his search for the evidence that would convict, and kill, Jack Newlin.
14
The press mobbed the Criminal Justice Center. News vans, cameramen, and print reporters with skinny notebooks clogged Filbert Street, the narrow, colonial lane that fronted the sleek, modern courthouse. Black TV cables snaked along the sidewalk like inner-city pythons, and microwave transmission poles fought the linden trees surrounding the courthouse for airspace. TV reporters shouted to their crews, their puffs of breath visible in the morning air. The winter cold bit cheeks protected only by pancake makeup, but the reporters forgot the weather when a Yellow cab pulled up and out stepped Assistant District Attorney Dwight Davis.
“Mr. Davis, any comment on the Newlin case?” “Dwight, will the Commonwealth ask for the death penalty?” “Mr. Davis, will you be trying the case?”
“No comment,” Davis called out as he climbed the curb. His head was a helmet of dark hair, with sideburns just long enough to be risqué for a D.A. He wore a pinstriped suit and moved nimbly from the cab to the courthouse entrance. The media loved Davis, and the feeling was mutual, just not this morning. His expression was dour, and when the reporters kept blocking his path, he lost any sense of humor whatsoever. “Move the hell out, people!” he called, and hurried into the Criminal Justice Center.
Arriving on foot just after Davis were Mary DiNunzio and Judy Carrier. No press recognized them, much less plagued them for comment. They were merely associates of Bennie Rosato’s and one of the throng of young lawyers heading into the Criminal Justice Center. Mary snorted at the ruckus. “Dwight Davis, no less,” she said. “They’re rollin’ out the big guns. They’re scared of us.”
“Us? You mean you, and they should be.” Judy glanced ahead at Davis. “Check it, Barbie. It’s Ken, come to life. He’s even got his plastic briefcase.”
“Look at him run. He knows I studied. It’ll take more than a Commonwealth to stop me now.” Mary was psyched despite her meeting with Jack. If her client was going to fight her, so be it. She had never felt so good before court. Where were the blotches? “Step lively, little pretty.”
Judy laughed as she pushed on the revolving door of the courthouse. “You’re ballsy this morning.”
“Temporary insanity,” Mary said, and grabbed the next door.
Jack found himself handcuffed to a steel chair in a tiled cell, and directly across from him was a large TV monitor on a rickety table. On the wall was a black phone but the cell was otherwise bare. There was nothing in it but Jack and the TV, so the scene felt surreal, as if Jack would be forced to watch bad sitcoms. Gray static blanketed the screen, which emitted an electrical crackling so loud he winced. Crk-crk-crk-crk.
He’d been told by the sheriff that he was going to his arraignment, but this was downright odd. He should have let Mary fill him in, but he had been too shaken by what she’d told him. Had Paige lied to him about Trevor’s being there? Couldn’t be. Her story had been so convincing and it made complete sense. It was how Honor would have reacted, what she would have said, especially when drunk. But did Trevor have anything to do with Honor’s murder? Was Paige even there? Had Jack sacrificed everything — for nothing?
Crk-crk-crk-crk. He couldn’t think for the crackling noise. He kicked himself for rushing to confess before he was sure of the facts. His reaction had been almost reflexive, the instinct of a good father; shelter, protect, fix. Or maybe it had been the instinct of a bad fa
ther, overcompensating. If he hadn’t felt so responsible for what had happened, would he have been so quick to confess falsely? He couldn’t answer that question. He didn’t know. He shifted in the hard chair.
“Sit still!” commanded the sheriff, guarding the door. “Else the camera won’t get you right!”
“Camera?” Jack said. It must have been some sort of closed-circuit TV system. He scanned the cell. It was dim, lit only by a bare bulb in the hallway and the bright flickering of the TV screen. A camera lens peeked over the top of the TV. Crk-crk-crk.
“Sit still, goddammit!”
Suddenly the static noise ceased, the gray blanket on the monitor vanished, and a full-color picture popped onto the screen, divided into four boxes. The upper right box showed a courtroom made miniature and the upper left box was a close-up of a judge, an unassuming man in a tie and cardigan sweater instead of black judicial robes. In the lower left sat a well-dressed woman behind a sign that read COMMONWEALTH; in the lower right was a young man behind a PUBLIC DEFENDER sign. If Jack hadn’t been so preoccupied, he would have laughed. It looked like the Hollywood Squares of Justice.
“Sit up straight!” ordered the sheriff. “Be ready. You’re on deck.”
The TV courtroom seemed to be waiting for something, but Jack’s thoughts raced ahead. He doubted he’d get bail, considering Mary’s inexperience. It was why he’d hired her, after all. He didn’t want an experienced criminal lawyer who might figure out he was setting himself up. He had never intended to hire Bennie Rosato herself, but one of her rookies, and he’d been delighted by the reluctant voice on the telephone.
But he might have been wrong about Mary. She was evidently suspecting that Paige was involved, and it worried him. Ironic. With her inexperience came energy and she wasn’t as callous as an experienced criminal lawyer would have been. She cared too much, and somewhere inside, Jack was touched. She hardly knew him, yet she was fighting for him. He smiled despite the tight handcuffs, the weird TV, and the fact that he was about to be arraigned for murder.