Degree of Guilt (33 page)

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s ambitious. As ambitious as you were.’

Mary’s face turned grim. ‘Ambitious, perhaps. But she doesn’t have nearly enough to lose.’

Paget shook his head. ‘In the middle of the night, when she’s alone with her private thoughts, I think Marnie Sharpe has as much to lose as anyone.’

‘And you, Chris?’

‘If that tape comes in, I may have a lot to lose. And so may Carlo.’ Paget paused. ‘Which is why McKinley Brooks suggests that I sell you this deal.’

Mary considered him. ‘I plead guilty, and the tape stays buried. Is that the deal?’

‘Yes.’

‘How neat.’

‘Whatever,’ Paget said softly, ‘made you think they wouldn’t find it?’

Mary’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because
I
didn’t know where it was. And if I didn’t tell them about it, the police wouldn’t know to look.’

‘Bad judgment, Mary. As I said, you’re losing your touch.’

Mary sighed. ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘What would you do?’

‘I won’t say. Brooks and Sharpe want me to make a choice for you, and their choice at that. I refuse.’

‘Despite what you and Carlo have at risk?’

‘Despite that.
You
put me here, because you thought I’d play to win. That’s the “essence” of
you
– manipulative and completely without conscience – and I despise you for it. But I won’t let the D.A. turn your trick around on me and make me play to lose.’ Paget shrugged. ‘Your killing, Mary. Your choice.’

She was quiet for a time. ‘If I go to trial, will you defend me?’

‘What about Carlo? After all, he
is
our son.’

Mary looked down. ‘The way I see it,’ she said slowly, ‘is that Carlo’s mother is either an admitted murderer or a potential perjurer with a chance to be innocent of murder. Which I am.’ She looked up again. ‘So the only question is: Will you represent me?’

Paget got up, walked to the window. Again weighed Melissa Rappaport, Lindsay Caldwell, the odds that whatever Mary had done was not premeditated murder. And, finally, thought of Carlo.

He went to the telephone. ‘I’ll call Brooks,’ he said.

Mary looked relieved. But all she said was, ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

Brooks’s secretary answered on the second ring. Paget told her who he was, and waited.

‘Hello, Christopher,’ Brooks said. ‘Long time no speak.’

‘No deal, either.’

Beneath the opening banter, Brooks had sounded tense; now Paget could measure by his silence how little more he relished this trial than Paget himself. ‘You needn’t be precipitous,’ Brooks said. ‘Really, I didn’t expect you back so soon. If you want more time to think, take it.’

‘Don’t need it. I’m bringing her in for photographs and prints. All I want is a few courtesies.’

He could hear Brooks exhale. ‘All right. Anything else?’

‘One suggestion. Keep Ms Savonarola under control. For both our sakes.’

‘I read you,’ Brooks said, and hung up.

Paget turned to Mary.

She looked hopeful, watchful, scared. The look reminded him of the moment before she had testified in the Senate, first pregnant with Carlo, when she had gazed into his face.

He did not need to tell her what was coming: the reporters shouting questions, the flashbulbs popping, the cameras. Nor did he need to hear the voice-over that night, as he and Carlo watched alone:

‘This afternoon in San Francisco, television journalist Mary Carelli was charged with the murder of America’s most celebrated writer, Mark Ransom.’

JANUARY
27 –
FEBRUARY
10

Five days later, Mary Carelli was in court.

Terri and Paget stood next to her, facing Municipal Court Judge Caroline Masters, Terri’s former boss at the public defender’s office. The occasion, the arraignment of the accused, was the most humdrum grist of the criminal mill. Paget would plead Mary innocent, and Judge Masters would set another meaningless date: the preliminary hearing in municipal court, where all that Marnie Sharpe had to establish was that there was ‘probable cause’ to believe that Mary Carelli had committed a crime, an event as routine as singing the national anthem before a football game.

The arraignment, Terri knew, was likely to be Caroline Masters’s first and last appearance in the case; another municipal court judge would likely preside over the preliminary hearing. After the prosecution showed probable cause, the muni court and its judges would have finished their work, and the case would be dispatched to the relative grandeur of the superior court, the forum of higher jurisdiction, to be tried by a superior court judge.

The sole reason Judge Masters had borrowed such an impressive courtroom was that this time the mill was grinding on Mary Carelli, and space was needed for all the media people who wished to watch it happen. The sterile courtroom where Caroline Masters usually processed the minions of muni court – traffic violators, parking scofflaws, and petty disturbers of the urban peace – could barely accommodate the defendants and their sport-coated lawyers; the more spacious courtroom specially assigned for
People v. Carelli
could absorb a greater crowd, and its oak bench, high ceiling, and wood-paneled walls would show well on television. Watching Caroline Masters and knowing her aspirations, Terri was certain that she enjoyed this respite, however fleeting, from processing the dregs of the justice system in a room that looked like public housing.

‘How do you plead?’ Judge Masters asked.

Paget paused. ‘Not guilty,’ he answered calmly.

Judge Masters gazed at the participants, stretching out the moment. At one long table, both dressed in gray, were Marnie Sharpe and a young male assistant D.A., who Terri guessed had been selected for his ability and inexperience, so that Sharpe would have competent help without being challenged by a seasoned homicide prosecutor with ideas of his own; McKinley Brooks was nowhere in sight, for what Terri was certain were reasons of political prudence. At the other table were Paget, Terri, and Mary Carelli, Mary in a simple black dress, Paget dressed with a bit less dash than usual. Even Caroline Masters seemed to have given her appearance some thought: her black robe looked freshly pressed and her straight black hair newly cut, and her gold-and-onyx earrings and red-orange lipstick nicely complemented a deep tan acquired at her time-share in Puerto Vallarta. But as with other things about Caroline, Terri had no idea whom she might have vacationed with or what she might have done; in two years of work, Terri had learned little more about Caroline Masters than that she was quite ambitious and very smart.

It was not, Terri thought now, that Caroline had not been pleasant to her – in her incisive way, she had quickly concluded that Terri had enough talent to make her worth Caroline’s time. But the advice she had given had been strictly professional; Caroline, Terri learned, drew a wall around herself. What, if anything, she was protecting, Terri did not know; Caroline acknowledged her passion for privacy only by making it seem impersonal. ‘The way for a woman to survive,’ she once told Terri, ‘is to make men see you as a lawyer. If they see you as a
woman
– someone with fears or a troubled marriage or a lover who’s broken your heart – they’ll start seeing weakness that they’d never see in a man. It’s sad but true.’ To Terri, the comment seemed too stark, the flip side of some hurt that Terri could not see. Since she had been appointed to the court, Caroline had not changed; Terri would see her come alone to bar functions, nursing one drink carefully, determined to be nothing but a judge. By consensus, Caroline Masters was a good one.

‘The defendant,’ Judge Masters repeated for the record, ‘has entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of murder.’ She stopped a moment, allowing the court stenographer to catch up, and then turned again to Paget. ‘Has the defendant arranged for bond?’

‘Yes, Your Honor,’ Paget answered. ‘Five hundred thousand, by agreement with the district attorney.’

Judge Masters nodded. ‘In that case, Mr Paget, we are required by statute to set the preliminary hearing within thirty days. Do you wish to waive the ten-day period?’

It was, Terri knew, the standard inquiry. In practice, the preliminary hearing was worthless to the defense; by waiving the right to a hearing within ten court days, the defense lawyer typically lost nothing of value, and in exchange gained time to prepare by putting off the setting of a trial itself. From her expression and tone of voice, that was what Caroline Masters expected of Christopher Paget.

‘The defendant,’ Paget answered pleasantly, ‘chooses not to waive time.’

For the first time, Judge Masters registered surprise, her raised eyebrows making her thin face seem longer, her expression more intent. At the prosecution table, Marnie Sharpe had turned to look at Paget.

‘Might I inquire,’ Judge Masters said to Paget, ‘as to why you want the prelim so promptly? As you may know, our docket is stacked up like planes at the airport. If you’re going to discommode the court, it ought at least to serve your client’s interests. It’s not apparent to me, Mr Paget, that this does.’

Already on edge, Terri began to lose hope. The question was vintage Masters; it was Caroline’s habit to decide what lawyers should do, and lawyers who did otherwise affronted her sense of strategy. But that she was so direct in saying so told Terri that Paget was not among those defense counsel who, by virtue of their experience in murder prosecutions, might get some slack from Caroline Masters. Sharpe, who had shown a moment’s surprise and annoyance, now looked pleased.

Tense, Terri watched Paget frame his answer. But Paget seemed unaffected; perhaps only Terri could tell how uncertain he was that he could draw Judge Masters into a plan that had little precedent.

‘There are several reasons,’ Paget responded. ‘But one, I think, should suffice. My client is a television journalist. She does
not
make her living in the state, but in New York and around the world. Yet at the insistence of the district attorney’s office, in the person of Ms Sharpe, Ms Carelli is not allowed to leave the state until the case is over.’ He paused. ‘Apparently, Ms Sharpe is concerned that Ms Carelli is going to escape justice. In truth, all Ms Carelli wants to do is escape Ms Sharpe’s misguided charges. But if what Ms Sharpe requires for Ms Carelli to resume her life is to get this trial over with, that’s what Ms Carelli wants – just as quickly as these charges warrant.’ Turning to Sharpe, Paget inquired amiably, ‘I assume, Ms Sharpe, that you’re prepared to show probable cause within the statutory period.’

Caroline Masters did not appear sympathetic; she did not yet see, Terri realized, what Paget was about to do. As for Sharpe, she was openly annoyed.

‘Of course,’ she told Paget with asperity, and then turned to the judge. ‘If it would make Mr Paget happy, the People could show probable cause by the close of business today.’

Judge Masters gave her a curious look. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘Just as I wonder if it’s necessary to keep Ms Carelli on quite so short a tether.’

‘
We
think so.’ Quickly, Sharpe sought the cover of her office, making her judgment institutional. ‘Mary Carelli has considerable resources, and the charges pending, in our view, make her a serious flight risk.’ Sharpe turned to Paget and Mary, speaking with a certain bite. ‘The court will remember, as will Ms Carelli and Mr Paget, the case of William Lasko. After Mr Lasko’s conviction, with his appeal pending, he fled to Costa Rica. It took several years for the United States government – with all its legal and diplomatic resources – to secure Mr Lasko’s return. Where the district attorney has not insisted on prohibitive bail, the least we can do is not facilitate that kind of risk.’ She turned again to the judge. ‘We therefore join Mr Paget in requesting the promptest prelim possible.’

Terri knew that the gratuitous reference to the Lasko case, and therefore to the tapes, was meant to put Paget on edge. But his face showed nothing. ‘We appreciate Ms Sharpe’s endorsement,’ he responded pleasantly, ‘if not her analogy to William Lasko. And for the record, Ms Carelli prefers Bolivia.’

Sharpe stared at him; for the first time, there was laughter from the press. Caroline Masters raised her gavel with a look of annoyance, signaling her intent to run a tight courtroom, and the noise subsided.

‘All right,’ she said crisply. ‘We’ll need an estimate on time. How long, Ms Sharpe, will you require to show probable cause?’

The usual prelim, Terri knew, consisted of a couple of witnesses and lasted one to two hours. For an important homicide case, it might run on for the morning; for someone as careful as Marnie Sharpe, it might extend to midafternoon.

‘One day,’ Sharpe responded. ‘Max.’

‘All right.’ Judge Masters turned to her courtroom deputy, Charlie McWhorter, a paunchy factotum who seemed to predate the courtroom and, perhaps, the court itself. ‘Charlie, find out from Department 20 when they can hear this.’

‘Pardon me, Your Honor.’ Paget stepped forward. ‘Might I be heard on the question of time?’

This time, Masters showed genuine surprise. As she paused before answering, Terri watched the judge begin to wonder where Paget might be heading. ‘The prelim is the D.A.’s show,’ she said flatly. ‘Were you intending to cross-examine?’

‘What we’re intending,’ Paget answered, ‘is to challenge the D.A.’s entire case.’

Sharpe spun to look at him; Terri heard another, deeper murmur from the press. There was no laughter at all.

The judge’s aquiline features had rearranged themselves into a stare of incredulity. ‘You intend to challenge probable cause?’

Paget nodded. ‘Specifically, we intend to
refute
probable cause and to ask this court to dismiss all charges against Mary Carelli.’