False Accusations (48 page)

He cupped his hands over his mouth and took several deep breaths, each lungful of carbon dioxide slowing his heart rate, decreasing his dizziness, calming his stomach. He slowly stood, opened the stall door, and walked over to the sink. He splashed his face with water, rinsed his mouth out, and leaned on the countertop, staring at his pale reflection in the mirror.
You can do this.

Feeling stronger, he stood up and squared his shoulders.

He strode back into the locker room to change and saw the crumpled message lying on the floor. He pulled the tom shirt over his head, dressed, and walked out the door.

IT TOOK MADISON ten minutes to drive from Sacramento General to the courthouse, nearly running three red lights along the way. He left his car in the lot and sprinted across the street. As he neared the doors, he felt himself become suddenly short of breath again. He stopped, put his hands on his knees, and panted like a dog, gulping mouthfuls of air. He stood there, hunched over, as several attorneys in dark suits pushed past him.

A moment later, he stood up and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, passed through the metal detectors, and headed for the elevator. He burst through the doors of the courtroom just as the judge looked over toward the foreman of the jury. A few heads turned to the back of the room, where Madison stood looking for a seat. He found one in the last row and quietly slipped into the chair.

“Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.” The short, rotund man in his fifties handed a piece of paper to the bailiff, who brought it to the judge.

Madison, still weak from the surgery and his panic attack, felt his heart begin to race. There was a hollow sensation in his stomach that he attributed to nerves, however, rather than hunger. He glanced at the members of the jury, trying to read their expressions. Most were staring blankly at the judge, purposely avoiding the gaze of those in the packed gallery. Calvino opened the folded paper and glanced at it.

Madison took a deep, uneven breath, and closed his eyes.

“On count one of the charges, murder in the first degree, how do you find?”

The foreman’s attention was cemented on the judge.

“We find the defendant guilty.”

A roar erupted from the crowd in the packed courtroom; Calvino banged his gavel and shouted for order. Madison’s heart stopped momentarily as dizziness and elation descended upon him simultaneously.

“On count two, murder in the first degree, how do you find?”

“Guilty.”

Another rumble, more gavel banging, hand shaking, and backslapping at the prosecution table. Tears flowed freely from Madison’s eyes as he buried his head in his hands and wept.

“Nooo! I’m innocent!” Harding was on her feet, writhing and flailing as one guard restrained her while another slapped handcuffs on her wrists. “Idiots!” she shouted at the jury, craning her neck to face them. “Go to hell, all of you...” she continued to scream as they dragged her away.

Madison felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, saw Hellman, and buried his face in his friend’s chest. And wept uncontrollably.

After taking a few minutes to compose himself, Madison left the courtroom through a back entrance to avoid the press and to find Leeza so he could share the good news with her.

Denton saw the reporters gathered at the exit. Plastering a broad smile on his face, he made his way toward the throng of camera crews and reporters. Instantly, microphones descended upon him, the news people shoving the handheld devices in front of his face to capture his comments. As he began to answer questions, he spotted Maurice Mather off in the distance, who had just completed a brief interview of Jeffrey Hellman.

“I want to thank all the members of the media for their support and understanding throughout this long ordeal,” Denton said. “I’d also like to thank the jury for their fine work under difficult conditions. And of course, I’m indebted to the district attorney, who again supplied me with the staff and unending support I needed to obtain this victory for the people of the State of California…”

THE PARTY THAT FOLLOWED on Friday night was held in the Madisons’ home. The children were allowed to sleep in their parents’ bedroom, on the third floor, so as to have as quiet an environment as possible. A baby-sitter was hired to care for them for the evening.

Everyone in the medical community who had worked with Madison at one time or another had been invited. A couple of hospital administrators showed up, including John Stevens, as well as friends, neighbors, his parents—and of course Ricky. Music played and liquor flowed freely, as did people’s emotions. Drinks were being raised in toast every five minutes, preceded by the clanging of spoon against glass. Following each speech, everyone would drain their beverages and resume their conversations until the next tribute interrupted the chatter.

Streamers were shot off, and even a few fireworks were launched into the cold night air. Choruses of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” erupted at various times during the night. As the evening progressed, Madison felt the weight of his troubles drifting away on an ocean of Scotch.

At two in the morning, people began filtering by to offer congratulations on their way out.

Madison raised his glass and banged it hard with a spoon. He swayed a bit to the side, steadied himself on the wall to his right, and looked out amongst his guests. He focused his thoughts and attempted to speak clearly. “I would be remiss if I didn’t thank two people who stood beside me and kept me sane during the most difficult and trying time of my life. My wife, Leeza, and my longtime friend, Jeffrey Hellman.” A roar went up from the remaining fifty or so guests, some of whom were so blitzed that they would have cheered a toast to the local cow for providing milk.

When the last guest had departed, Madison looked at the clock in his study: it was a few minutes past three in the morning. The place was a mess, with half-empty glasses littering tables, cabinets, bookshelves...just about every horizontal surface was occupied.

He took a deep breath, gazed into his own glass, and, in a stupor, reflected on the recent turbulence of his life...and considered what lay ahead for him in the coming months.

Hellman poked his head in the door and cleared his throat.

“Hey. I thought you left.”

“I was getting into my car, but I had to make sure you were okay.”

“Come, sit.” Madison slumped into his soft leather seat and motioned Hellman to the antique chair in front of his desk. “I’m surprised Chandler didn’t make the party. You did call him, didn’t you?”

Hellman nodded. “He said he had other plans.”

“Other plans? This a huge feather in his cap. You’d think this would be something he wouldn’t want to miss. He’d have been the center of attention.”

“I was about to go into a deposition and I didn’t really have time to talk. But look at it his way—at least he was here when it counted. I’m glad you made me call him. When you insisted I bring in a guy from New York, I thought you were out of your mind.”

“Hell of an investigator. We were lucky to have had him on our team.” Madison smiled, his face haggard, the strain of the past nine months etched into his skin like acid on a pane of glass. “And I’m equally fortunate to have you for a friend, Jeffrey. Thanks again. You came through when I needed it most.”

“While you’re so appreciative, I should hand you my bill.”

They both laughed.

Leeza’s call from upstairs urging him to come to bed interrupted them. He reached over to the intercom on the wall behind his desk and told her he would join her in a few moments.

“Well, I’d better be going,” Hellman said as he rose from the chair.

“You okay to drive? You can stay the night if you want.”

“Nah,” he said with the wave of a hand. “I’m fine. I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

Madison started to get up; Hellman motioned him down. “I’ll let myself out.”

Madison leaned back in the leather chair, resting his feet on the desk. He felt numb as he attempted to sort through his thoughts, his plans for the future. Although it was quiet now in the house, the echoes of the noise from the party still buzzed in his ears.

He lay silently, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest with each breath, the gleeful high of only an hour ago becoming a post-drunken depression. He thought of one of his favorite poems: “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. As he lay there, he pondered what his life would have been like had Brittany Harding not crossed his path, had she not accused him of rape, had she not tried to blackmail him, had she not attempted to destroy his marriage. Had she not made him kill those two innocent people.

He began to weep, appraising his hollow victory. Physically free, emotionally imprisoned for life. Held captive by his own horrible secret.

Karen Vail is no ordinary FBI agent. She’s a profiler, brought to life by Alan Jacobson’s seven years of unprecedented access to, and research with, the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico. Karen Vail debuted in
The 7th Victim
to raves from reviewers, readers...even one of the founding fathers of the real Behavioral Analysis Unit.

The Karen Vail series is currently comprised of the bestselling novels
The 7th Victim
,
Crush
,
Velocity
, and Jacobson’s latest release,
Inmate 1577
, which Clive Cussler called “A powerful thriller, brilliantly conceived and written.”

So step into the world of Karen Vail and discover a character that James Patterson called “Compelling,” who Michael Connelly described as “My kind of hero,” and which Nelson DeMille found “Tough, smart, funny, and very believable.”

Inmate 1577
Copyright © 2011 by Alan Jacobson
Published by Premier Digital Publishing
All rights reserved.

January 29, 1955
8:39 PM

37 W. Rosedale Avenue
Northfield, New Jersey

Henry sat deathly still in the corner watching the life drain from his mother’s body, knees drawn tight against his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. He stared at the blood seeping from her pulpy head wounds, poking forth from between strands of matted hair.

The seven-year-old boy had told the policeman in so many words about the man in the black knit mask who came up from behind and struck his mother several times, then disappeared out the back door. Afterwards, Henry had sat frozen, unable to move, unable to comfort her in her last seconds before her body stilled, her eyes rapt in death.

A bottle of maple syrup, the lone weapon his mother had grabbed to fight off her attacker, lay shattered on the floor, oozing across the kitchen linoleum. In halting sentences, with shock-laden tear-filled eyes, Henry described how the masked man had knocked it from her hand before she could raise it.

It now sat impotent on the ground, like a cold revolver stuck in the deepest reaches of a holster, never given the opportunity to be of service.

Henry had finally eased forward, inching across the floor until the tips of his toes were a fraction of an inch from the pooled blood that encircled his mother’s head. He reached over and touched her ashen face, then poked it, despite the policeman’s admonishment to stay back from her body.

At his tender age, the finality of death was little more than an innate concept, like when an animal in the wild knows that one of its own kind is no longer among the living.

THE POLICEMAN, AFTER HAVING WAITED in the living room with Henry, walked outside into the winter evening. Moments later, he pushed open the door and then stepped aside so another man could enter.

Walton MacNally’s eyes instantly settled on the center of the kitchen floor, taking in the violence laid bare before him. A grocery bag dropped from his hand, glass bottles within shattering as it struck the hard floor.

“Doris?” He rushed to her side, caressed her face, felt for a pulse, couldn’t stop staring at her head wounds.

“Sir!” the cop said. “Mr. MacNally. Don’t touch the body—”

MacNally’s Adam’s apple rose sharply, then fell. Ignoring the cop’s directive, he lifted Doris’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissed it, and then started whimpering. He became aware of his son and pulled his gaze from his wife’s irreparably injured and abnormally still body.

“Henry—what...what happened?”

The boy’s eyes coursed down to his mother. His lips made an attempt to move, but no sound emerged.

But there was little doubt as to what had transpired. His wife had met with severe violence, the overt damage to her head and brain unquestionably fatal.

A parched “Why?” managed to scrape from MacNally’s throat. “Who?”

“A detective should be here any minute,” the policeman said.

MacNally scooted over to Henry and took the boy into his arms. His life had been turned upside down, destroyed...his mother, his maternal presence, ripped from him like a doe taken down by a lion while her fawn watches.

MacNally swallowed hard. A whimper threatened to escape his throat, but he fought it back. A pain unrecognizable to him, unlike anything he had ever felt, emerged from deep in his soul and manifested as a plaintive, silent moan. He balled a fist and shoved it between his front teeth. He did not want to further traumatize his son by losing control.