Degree of Guilt

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781407059297

Version 1.0

  

Published in the United Kingdom in 1994 by

Arrow Books

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Copyright © Richard North Patterson, 1993

The right of Richard North Patterson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Hutchinson

Arrow Books

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099296911

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Typeset in Ehrhardt by Deltatype Ltd, Birkenhead, Merseyside Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

Richard North Patterson’s novels include the international bestsellers
Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgement, Silent Witness, No Safe Place, Dark Lady
and
Protect and Defend
. His novels have won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Case Western Reserve School of Law, he studied creative writing with Jesse Hill Ford at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He and his wife, Laurie, live with their family in San Francisco and on Martha’s Vineyard.

Praise for DEGREE OF GUILT

‘More gripping than Grisham’ –
Today

‘This novel defies any attempt to put it down’ –
Daily Telegraph

‘Exceptionally skilful, high tension, full of surprises’ –
The Times

‘Anyone who enjoyed Scott Turow’s
Presumed Innocent
will be gripped by DEGREE OF GUILT . . . a roller-coaster of surprise twists and turns with a profound moral debate at its heart’ –
Time Out

‘Patterson has his finger on the pulse of contemporary America, and this intricate, nail-biting labyrinth of a book teems with references to a recent sexual
causes celebres
’ –
KATE SAUNDERS
,
Cosmopolitan

‘Ingenious’ –
Sunday Times

‘One intense courtroom clash after another. An intelligent and gripping thriller’ –
The Washington Post

‘Absorbing’ –
Publishers’ Weekly

‘The pleasure in reading a book as mesmeric as this without skipping a page defies the desire to pick a single hole’ –
FRANCES FYFIELD, Daily Telegraph

‘Walk, don’t wait . . . Get hold of Richard North Patterson’s new novel DEGREE OF GUILT . . . There is a murder right from the git-go and a courtroom drama that is hair-raising. Hot, hot, hot’ –
USA Today

‘The most compulsively readable courtroom thriller since
Presumed Innocence’ – People

There are a number of people to whom I owe a great deal. Those who contributed important background information include Bill Fazio and Frank Pasaglia of the District Attorney’s Office in San Francisco; Homicide Inspector Napoleon Hendricks; County Medical Examiner Dr Boyd Stephens; defense attorney Jim Collins; and my colleague, Randy Knox. Dr Norman Mages was a valuable sounding board when I applied my lay psychology to several of the characters. And Al Giannini, also of the District Attorney’s Office, not only provided me with stimulating advice before I began writing but gave me important guidance once the manuscript was done. They deserve a goodly share of the credit for verisimilitude on matters such as medical and criminal procedure; any errors or omissions are my own.

There is no greater favor a writer can ask of a friend than to be an objective and critical reader. A book in progress can feel quite fragile; it is of immeasurable assistance to have readers who are supportive but honest. Because my fiance, Laurie Anderson, my close friend and partner, Philip Rotner, and my great pal and literary agent, Fred Hill, were discerning judges of the strengths and weaknesses of my first draft,
Degree of Guilt
is a far better novel. And there is no finer editor than Sonny Mehta – incisive, patient, and devoted to bringing out the best values of the manuscript from the day that he first read it.

Finally, this book would not have happened the way it did without Alison Porter Thomas. That she typed the manuscript was the least of it: page to page and scene to scene, she was a gifted critic of language, characterization, and dialogue. I cannot ever thank her enough.

January 13

The woman froze in the hallway, staring at the numbered door-plate.

For a moment, she felt uncertain that this was the same suite she had left perhaps a minute before. Then she turned the knob slowly, wincing at its metallic click.

The door cracked ajar, a pallid sliver of light coming from inside. She paused, looking over her shoulder, less from fear of being seen than the desire to stay suspended in time, outside the room.

Time. She glanced at her gold wristwatch. When had it happened? she wondered. No way of telling now. Thirty minutes, she decided arbitrarily. Thirty minutes, and she had not decided what to do. Her mind was sluggish, numb with disbelief. She felt drugged.

Her fingertips were damp, she realized. With every thought, her choices seemed to narrow. She fought the impulse to stop thinking, to run. It took all her will to do nothing.

The chime of an elevator rang.

She flinched. Quickly, she tried to remember arriving in the elevator, how far it was down the hallway. Afraid to turn, unable to recall the corridor right behind her.

She straightened, squaring her shoulders, and pushed open the door.

The rectangle of light from within captured her like a photograph, a slender woman with long black hair, standing motionless in the door frame. The elevator opened. A second chime penetrated her shock.

She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

Closing, it sounded heavy. Final, she corrected herself. It sounded final.

She turned to face the room.

Her eyes sought out details. Drawn blinds. Her black leather purse on the floor. The gold neck of an empty champagne bottle, above the rim of a silver ice bucket on a glass coffee table. The two crystal glasses. The heavy oil painting of San Francisco Bay she had remarked on, slightingly, when she first entered. Her panty hose on the carpet, ripped in one leg.

She touched her throat, feeling for scratches. She had broken a nail; it was that, oddly, which made her remember her own fragility.

Finally, she looked at him There was blood on the carpet now, beneath his chest. His pants were pulled below his knees.

A sudden jumble of images: Legs splayed at crazy angles. Blue argyle socks. A curly shock of red hair. Thin craggy face, turned to chalk. Eyes open as if to stare at the black handgun, lying near his head where she had left it.

For an instant, she was paralyzed.

She breathed in deeply, once, and exhaled. Then she took three steps, standing over him, and stared down at his bare buttocks.

The wave of revulsion hit her again, rose to her throat. She felt sure she would vomit; some cold, distant part of her brain wondered how that would look to them. Perhaps they would see her fear, see how afraid he had made her. Then the hatred ran through her again, hard and deep and raw.

She shut her eyes, remembering. What he had done. What he had wanted to do.

When they opened again, she felt stronger, more ready. More like the woman who had come here. More like the woman she had always been.

The nausea had passed. She sat beside him on the carpet.

There was no hole in his back, she saw; the bullet had not gone through. The flabby skin of his buttocks was turning gray. She could hardly see the scratches she had left there.

In her new resolve, she tried to summon a clinical dispassion. Perhaps forty minutes before, she realized, his heart had stopped pumping blood. The great man, bottom in the air, pale as a fish. It was almost comic.

The smile, small and involuntary, hurt her bruised mouth. The dark mirth vanished.