False Accusations (29 page)

Hellman bobbed his head. “It’s still an important case for him, he just loses some of the fanfare that goes along with it. But I had an idea. I think we should offer to do an interview with that reporter from KMRA. It’d give the media some things to chomp on, divert their focus away from Phil.”

“It seems like everyone assumes I’m guilty before I even go to trial. I can’t even go to the zoo with my family without being harassed by nuts who’ve seen the news painting me as a dreg of society.”

Chandler rubbed his forehead, contorted his face. “A TV interview.”

“I know you didn’t want to think about peripheral matters,” Hellman said, “but a strategic, exclusive interview could neutralize the negative PR and actually work to our benefit.”

“Isn’t this precisely what you argued against in front of the judge today?” Madison asked.

“This is different. It gives us a chance to have equal time after that bogus report Mather did on his interview with John Stevens. We do this one spot and that’s it. Then we stay away from the media. But I really think it could have a positive effect.”

“How do you figure?” Madison asked.

“We tell the press we believe we’ve found the real killer and are in the process of building enough evidence that will not only exonerate you, but will implicate someone else. And of course once we have all the evidence in order, we’ll cooperate fully with the police and turn it all over to them.”

“The police,” Chandler said, “are going to be pissed as hell. You’re showing them up. They accused the wrong guy, so
you
are going to show them the right way to conduct an investigation. You’re such a damned good attorney that you’re not only going to get the charges against your client dismissed, but you’re also going to hand them the real killer. After all, they’re just a bunch of screwups.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Don’t expect them to be your buddies.”

Madison took a seat beside Chandler at the table. “Why don’t we give Denton what we have now and see if they’ll cooperate with us?”

“By cooperate you mean drop the charges,” Chandler said.

Hellman shook his head. “Forget it. They’re already deeply committed to your prosecution. Doing a one-eighty at this point would invite criticism from everyone and their uncle.” He shook his head, as if he were convincing himself of something. “In fact, I spoke with Denton yesterday. Their witness, that homeless guy, remembers that the driver was wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball hat—”

“Harding grew up in Chicago,” Madison said.

“I know. I pointed that out to him. He wanted no part of it. He said, quote, ‘we have our
man.
’”

“I don’t think we have enough of anything to give them now anyway,” Chandler said. “Let’s wait until we get the DNA results back. Then we’ll hopefully have more than enough to make this thing go away.”

Hellman pulled out a chair and settled into it. “Used to be you wouldn’t tell the prosecution anything about what you expected to bring out during trial...because if you gave them the key evidence that you had, they’d have time to investigate it and find a way of refuting it. So you tried to spring it on them in the middle of the trial. If they don’t know what’s coming, they can’t prepare for it. It was a big tactical advantage. Some defense counselors would never give anything to the prosecution; others would feed the prosecution bad info to make them waste time on a wild goose chase. Problem with that method is that once you got a rep for doing that, they’d never again believe anything you told them—and then when you really needed them to look into something legit, they’d tell you to go to hell.”

“So then maybe we shouldn’t tell them anything,” Leeza said.

“Can’t do that. About twenty years ago, Prop 115 made it so that the prosecution got reciprocal discovery. That means,” Hellman explained, noticing Leeza’s twisted face of confusion, “that if the defense gets hold of something pertinent to the case, they have to turn it over to the prosecution. The reverse is also true—if they come across something that might be of assistance to us, they have to give it to us.”

“And if you withhold something,” Chandler said, “the judge could exclude that witness, or fact, or document, from the trial.”

“So,” Hellman said, “bottom line is that we don’t have a choice. If we’ve got something, we have to turn it over, regardless of the tactical advantage we may be losing.”

“But we can fudge a little on
when
we have to give it to them,” Chandler said.

“Exactly,” Hellman said. “Right now, we’re not required to turn anything over to them because I don’t think we have anything concrete enough. We can do this interview or we can wait and see what happens. Things may lighten up on their own.”

“Wait and see. Wait, wait, and then wait some more,” Madison said, getting up from the table. “That’s all I’ve been doing.”

“Phil, say the word and I’ll set up that interview with KMRA.”

Madison looked at Chandler, who shrugged. “It’s your decision, Phil.”

“Let’s do the interview,” Leeza said. “It’s time we took the offensive.”

“Fine,” Madison said. “Set it up. Let’s divert their attention, get them the hell off my back.”

THE MORNING SKY was bleak, black thunderhead clouds engorged with moisture once again threatening to unleash yet another storm. Chandler called Denise but there was no answer. He left a message, told her that he loved her, and that he would see her soon.

He reviewed his notes, planned out his day, and phoned a friend of his father’s in New York: John Donnelly. A retired private investigator, Johnny was a seventy-six-year-old former cop who had gotten caught in a corruption ring back in 1969 at the height of his career with the NYPD.

“I knew you’d be up,” Chandler said.

“Junior, that you?”

“Who else?”

“Your father’d like to talk with you, Junior.”

“First, tell me how you’re doing.”

“I still put my shoes on in the morning and go for my walk. As long as I can put my shoes on, I’m doing okay.”

“How’s Keara?”

“Fine, just fine. Thanks for asking.” Keara, Johnny’s younger sister, had contracted cancer, and had no medical insurance to cover all the hospital bills and medication while supporting her two children. Her husband had left her one night in a drunken fit—and had never returned. Johnny, a cop with meager pay, gave her what he could to help out—but when that was depleted he went on the take—narcotics dealers were paying him to look the other way on his beat. The payoffs subsidized his sister’s care, and the cancer went into remission—but at the cost of his career. As he was about to ask for a transfer to a different beat to covertly end his arrangement with the dealers, a druggie he had once busted dropped the dime and turned Johnny in. A classic case of irony.

But Johnny, ethics violations and embarrassment aside, had saved his sister’s life, and as a result, had few regrets. He resigned as part of a deal that was arranged in lieu of a long, drawn-out investigation and trial that would have been embarrassing for the department. He ran a successful private investigation practice for twenty years, and remained friends with Chandler’s father, who was one of the judges sitting on the bench at the time of Johnny’s arrest.

“So what can I do for you, Junior?”

“I need to find this witness, a checkout clerk who recently moved back east. Guy’s name is Ronald Norling,” he said, consulting his notepad. “I got his name from the manager at the supermarket where he used to work.”

“I take it you don’t have no address on this fella.”

“I have a PO Box in Rhode Island and a social security number. Should be enough.”

Johnny took down the information on Ronald Norling and agreed to assist Chandler in locating him.

“It’s real important to this case I’m working out here,” Chandler told him.

“Got it,” Johnny said. “I’ll get to work on it.”

“We’ll get together sometime soon, okay? When I get back.”

“Maybe your dad’ll join us. What do you think of that? Grab some supper over at O’Malley’s.”

Chandler chewed his lip. “I— We’ll see.”

“He misses you. He’d like to see his grandson, his daughter-in-law. It’s time already, four years now.”

“I’ll think about it.” Chandler thanked him and hung up. He doubted his father really wanted to see him. He figured it was in fact Johnny who felt that the two of them should make amends, and this was his way of bringing them together. But his father’s inability to accept the fact that Chandler’s back injury genuinely prevented him from doing police work and continuing the family tradition created a friction he felt would never go away. For his own part, he was proud of his work as a forensic scientist. He enjoyed it, and just as with his career as a detective, he excelled in it.

He closed his eyes and tried to put his father out of his mind—he did not need another complicating factor in his life at the moment. He called the Department of Justice’s state crime lab to see if the print results were completed on Harding’s cigarette. He was hoping that Kurt Gray had actually run the comparison and was not just giving him lip service at the time to avoid confrontation.

Chandler tapped his foot while waiting on hold. Finally, the receptionist returned to the line. “He’s busy,” she said.

“What does ‘busy’ mean?”

“It means that he can’t take your call right now.”

Chandler clenched his jaw. “When
can
he take my call?”

“Just a minute,” she said with a sigh.

A moment later, she was back on the line. “He said he’ll call you.”

Chandler bit his lip. Damn ambiguous answers. He took a deep breath.
Keep it calm.
“Does that mean today? Sometime this week?”

“Look sir, he can’t speak to you right now. I’ll leave him a message and he’ll call you back.”

Chandler left his number, and explained that he would be there for only a few more minutes and that his cell phone battery was nearly dead. He would have to call back—hence the reason for his asking when Gray would be available. She told him to try again in an hour.

Chandler was unsure if that was her way of putting him off, a useless guess, or if it really was when Gray could take the call. Either way, it seemed as if the criminalist was avoiding him. Not what he needed now. Time was precious.

He made his scheduled appointment at the KMRA studio, where Hellman’s Lexus was parked out front. He entered and explained to the receptionist why he was there. She buzzed Maurice Mather, received authorization, and handed him a visitor’s pass. An escort was summoned to the lobby to take him into the studio.

The set consisted of three chairs positioned around a small round coffee table. Behind it stood an expansive blue backdrop as well as two white pillars that were fashioned to match those on the state capitol building’s facade. This was where
Politically Speaking
was filmed every Sunday morning.

As Chandler walked into the studio, he saw the host, Maurice Mather, standing off to the side with Hellman, who was touching his index finger into his opposing open hand, as if he were going point by point.

“
.
..Dr. Madison will not be participating. He will not be answering any questions, and he will not be directly addressed, even though he will be standing off-camera. Are we clear on this?”

“Clear,” Mather said.

“My purpose in insisting that this be taped rather than shot live is so that I can view it when you’re finished editing it. If I’m not satisfied, and there’s no acceptable way to edit it, we pull it and nothing gets shown. Are we clear on
that
?”

Mather hesitated a second before saying, “Clear again.”

“This outlines our agreement,” Hellman said, handing him a one-page document. “Initial at the bottom that you received it.”

Mather scribbled his initials and handed it back to Hellman, who provided him with a copy.

“A word?” Chandler asked.

Hellman excused himself, then moved off with Chandler out of earshot of Mather and the camera crew.

“What’s up?”

Chandler folded his arms across his chest. “The lab guy won’t take my call. Says I’m supposed to call back later. Rotting piece of—”

“Easy,” Hellman said, motioning with both hands and keeping an eye on Mather over Chandler’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna call him back in an hour. I just want to make sure he ran the lip print comparison.”

“Fine,” Hellman said, “we’ll worry about it later. About this interview. We keep it short, to the point, and we don’t divulge any specifics. We only tell them enough to whet their curiosity. But we can’t say anything that’s not factual and we can’t make claims we can’t substantiate.”

“C’mon, Jeffrey. That doesn’t leave us a whole lot of leeway.”

“No, you’re missing the point. We can discuss the new evidence we have, without saying what it is specifically, and we can discuss its significance without outlining exactly how it’s going to have an impact on the case.”

Chandler appeared uneasy. “We’re not magicians. This is gonna be difficult.”

“You don’t have any experience as a politician.”

“I’ve dedicated my life to catching criminals, not acting like them.”

Hellman smiled. “That remark could be considered blasphemy being that we’re so close to the state capitol building.”

Mather approached from behind. “We’ll be ready to shoot in two minutes, gentlemen.”

Hellman nodded and turned back to Chandler, “Comb your hair, will you? There’s a mirror over there on the wall behind the cameraman.”

“What, no makeup?”

Hellman snorted. “No offense, but you’re nobody important. So, no, you’re not getting any makeup.”

Chandler knew that appearing professional and confident would play an important role in achieving their goal. He straightened his hair and tie, then took a few deep breaths to wipe the lines of stress from his face.

Mather was waiting for Chandler and Hellman to take their seats. Cables snaked across the floor from three cameras that stood like sentries guarding the set.

The floor director helped them clip on their lapel mikes, then positioned them for the camera setup. Mather sat to the right of Hellman and Chandler, who sat beside each other. Large spotlights shone down upon them, bathing the small area in bright white light.