Knight 02.5 - If I'm Dead (5 page)

Meanwhile, Saul Hildegarde was nodding sanctimoniously—an “I told you so” expression on
his face. I wanted to put my fist into it so badly I could feel my knuckles turn white.

We were screwed, and it was only going to get worse. I'd intended to close the case with the handwriting expert who'd say that the handwriting in the diary was consistent with Melissa's. Since the last line of the diary helped the defense, I'd figured that was the one area O'Bryan wouldn't want to mess with. But now I knew Ronnie O'Bryan would pull out all the stops to go after the handwriting expert to prove the diary entry could be a forgery. And that meant I'd be forced to end on the weakest note of all, because Morris Ivins wouldn't be able to rule out the possibility that someone else had deliberately forged the last entry. I tried to salvage what I could from the w
reckage of my case.

“Mr. Ivins, did Melissa Gibbons make this last entry in the diary?” I asked.

“Most likely, yes. Not only does the handwriting in this entry match the handwriting in the rest of the diary, but it also matches other known exemplars written by Melissa Gibbons.”

I sat down and slid another glance at the jury. Some looked disturbed, others confused, but there were at least two, one of them Juror Number Four, whose expressions were closed. A very bad sign. I sighed privately. There was nothing more I could do.

O'Bryan swaggered up to the podium. He took Ivins through all the weaknesses in handwriting identification for what felt like hours and then ended on a note that was predictable yet powerful:

“The truth is, Mr. Ivins, you can't rule out the possibility that someone deliberately imitated Melissa's handwriting, can you?”

“No, sir. I can't.”

“And so you really can't say for sure that the writing was done by Melissa, can you?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Nothing further, Your Honor.” O'Bryan obnoxiously turned to me with a flourish. “Your witness, Madame Prosecutor.”

I nodded and smiled serenely as I silently wished for him to perform an anatomically impossible act. Saul Hildegarde tilted his chin up and faced the jury with a self-righteous look. Before s
tanding, I quickly leaned over to Bailey. “We could ask Officer Abrams to try and imitate the handwriting and then let Ivins show how hers is different from Melissa's. But—”

“The defense will just say Abrams wasn't really trying,” Bailey whispered back. “No, cut the cord. If the jury's buying the defense bullshit, there's nothing more we can do.”

It rankled to let go, and I badly wanted to wipe the supercilious smile off O'Bryan's face, but I knew Bailey was right. If we started scrambling and making desperate moves now, it would only taint all the good evidence we'd presented.

“Ms. Knight, any redirect for Mr. Ivins?” the judge asked. I thought I heard a note of sympathy in his voice, but I could have been wrong.

“No, thank you, Your Honor. No redirect.” I stood, put on my game face, and said in as strong a voice as possible, “The prosecution rests.”

“Defense?” the judge said to O'Bryan.

“Your Honor, the defense chooses to rest on the state of the evidence. We believe the People have failed to make their case—”

“You can tell the jury what you believe in closing argument, Counsel,” the judge said, deliberately cutting off the grandstanding. “For now, I take it you don't intend to present any additional evidence?”

“That is correct, Your Honor.”

“Then, seeing as it's the noon hour, we'll take our lunch break and commence with closing arguments at one thirty.”

After the jury filed out, the defendant gave O'Bryan a victory clap on the back. Feeling my eyes on him, Hildegarde shot me a sneering, triumphant grin. I wanted to yank Bailey's gun out of her shoulder holster and blast the grin off his face.

Bailey saw m
y expression. “The only thing that'd make his getting off worse is for you to wind up in custody. Let it go, Rachel.”

Having no other choice, I did. Bailey and I picked up what was left of the sandwiches at the snack bar. She scored a ham and cheese; I wou
nd up with some rolled-and-pressed mystery meat. We took our “lunch” up to my office and ate in silence. Neither of us was in the mood to chat. As I stuffed the remainder of my sandwich into its wrapper and pitched it into the wastebasket, I heard the
ki-koo
of Toni's heels clicking down the hall toward my office.

She stopped in my doorway. “Hey, where's the funeral?”

“Right here, soon as I finish closing arguments and get a five-minute ‘not guilty.' ”

“That bad?”

Bailey gave her a dark look. “Yeah.”

“Man, that's a bitch. You guys put together a hell of a case. What happened?”

We told her. Then I noticed the clock on the Times Building. “We've gotta jump. Meet us for sympathy drinks?”

Toni nodded. “Your place?”

My place being the Biltmore Hotel, where I got
to live full-time thanks to a case I'd won involving the murder of the CEO's wife. I stood up and started to gather my legal pads and exhibit sheets.

“Hold on,” Toni said. “I'll be right back.” She hurried out.

Twenty seconds later, Toni was back. She pressed a small plastic object into my hand. I looked down at it, puzzled.

“It's my juju,” Toni said.

“It's a friggin' troll doll, Tone.”

“Just keep it close—”

I started to argue, but she grabbed my chin and got nose-to-nose.

“Do not argue with me about this, Knight. What can it hurt?”

I sighed and dropped the little thing into the pocket of my blazer. What the heck—who was I to argue at a time like this? I needed all the help I could get.

I tried to put a spring in my step as I entered the courtroom. Never let
'em see you sweat.

“Ready, Counsel?” the judge asked.

We both said yes.

“Let's have the jury.”

The jury took their seats, and I stood up. For the next hour, I did my best to sound persuasive, convincing, and confident. But when O'Bryan stood up, the jury leaned forward, all ears. Short of their handing in the “not guilty” verdict right then and there, it couldn't get much worse. He made the predictable argument that we'd utterly failed to prove Melissa was dead, that she had every reason to want to frame Saul Hildegarde for murder, that the jury had no choice but to return a verdict of “not guilty.” And then he made his grandstand move.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I say that you must have a reasonable doubt, because I listened to the evidence here in this courtr
oom just like you did. And I cannot say that I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Melissa is even dead, let alone that my client killed her. And neither can you. Because for all you know, Melissa could be walking into this courtroom
at this very moment!
”

With that, O'Bryan turned, thrust out his arm, and pointed to the door. And at that very moment a woman just “happened” to be entering the courtroom. Of course, the woman wasn't Melissa, and there was not a doubt in my mind that O'Bryan had orchestrated it, but I knew that didn't matter. He had made his point, and now he capitalized on it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, when I turned and pointed to that door, I saw all of you look. In fact, everyone in this courtroom looked—including Madame Prosecutor.”

Ronnie turned to face me for a moment, enjoying his moment of triumph.

“And that proves you are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Melissa is dead. Therefore you must return a verdict of ‘not guilty.' ”

The judge looked at me. “Ms. Knight. Rebuttal?”

I sat still for a moment and let the silence linger. My heart was pounding. I knew that what I was about to do was dicey on many levels. But given the circumstances, I had nothing to lose. I moved to the edge of counsel table and faced the jury with a little smile.

“That was quite a dramatic moment, wasn't it?”

A few hesitant nods.

“But Mr. O'Bryan didn't get it quite right. He said that when he pointed to that door, everyone in this courtroom turned to look, including me. But he was mistaken. You see, I did turn, but I wasn't looking at the door.” I came to a full stop and looked each of the jurors in the eye before continuing. “I was looking at the defendant.”

I turned toward the defense table. Saul Hildegarde was frowning and shifting nervously in his sea
t. O'Bryan, his forehead wrinkled in confusion, was trying to figure out where I was going. I knew I had only seconds to make my move. Because whether he'd figured it out or not, in two more seconds, O'Bryan would object and take me to sidebar, if only to
derail me. And if that happened, it would likely ruin my one last shot. I quickly turned back to the jury.

“And so when Mr. O'Bryan pointed to the door, and you all turned to look, I saw that there was one person in this courtroom who
didn't
look.” I swung my arm out and pointed at the defense table. “Him. Saul Hildegarde, the defendant. Do you know why? Because Saul Hildegarde didn't have to look. He
knew
Melissa would never walk through that door. He knew that beyond all
possible
doubt because he killed h
er.”

One hour later, the jury returned with the verdict: guilty. Murder in the first degree.

The judge ordered the defendant remanded into custody forthwith. And Bailey and I had the unmitigated pleasure of watching the bailiff ratchet the handcuffs tightly around the wrists of a stricken, white-faced Saul Hildegarde and lead him out of the courtroom.

Marcia Clark introduced Rachel Knight, the brilliant and tenacious Los Angeles DA, in Guilt by Association

Following is an excerpt from the novel’s opening pages.

Prologue

He snapped his cell phone shut
and slid it into the pocket of his skintight jeans. The last piece was in place; it wouldn’t be long now. But the waiting was agonizing. Unbidden, the memory of his only ride on a roller coaster flooded over him, like a thousand tiny needles piercing his f
ace and body: eight years old, trapped in that rickety little car with no escape, the feeling of breathtaking terror that mounted as it click-click-clicked its slow, inexorable climb to the top of the sky.

He shook his head to cleanse his mind of the memor
y, then abruptly grabbed his long brown hair and pulled it tightly into a ponytail behind his head. He held it there and exhaled again more slowly, trying to quiet his pulse. He couldn’t afford to lose it now. With the lift of his arms, his worn T-shirt ro
de up, and he absently admired in the little mirror above the dresser the reflection of the coiled snake tattooed on his slim, muscled belly.

He started pacing, the motel carpet crunching under his feet, and found that the action helped. Despite his anxiet
y, he moved with a loose-hipped grace. Back and forth he walked, considering his plan yet again, looking for flaws. No, he’d set it up just right. It would work. It
had
to work. He stopped to look around at the dimly lit motel room. “Room” was using the term loosely—it was little more than a box with a bed. His eyes fell on a switch on the wall. Just to have something to do,
he went over and flipped it on. Nothing happened. He looked up and saw only a filthy ceiling fan. The sour smell of old cigarettes tol
d him that it hadn’t worked in years. There were stains of undetermined origin on the walls that he thought were probably older than he was. The observation amused him. Neither the stains, nor the foul smell of decay, nor the hopeless dead-end feeling of the place fazed him at all. It wasn’t that much worse than a lot of the places he’d lived during his seventeen years on the planet.

In fact, far from depressing him, the ugly room made him feel triumphant. It represented the world he’d been born into, and the one he was finally leaving behind… forever. For the first time in a life that had nearly ended at the hands of a high-wired crackhead while his so-called mother was crashing in the next room, he was going to be in control. He paused to consider the memory of his early near demise—not a firsthand memory since he’d been only two months old when it happened, but rather a paragraph in the social worker’s report he’d managed to read upside down during a follow-up visit at one of the many foster homes where he’d been “raised” for the past sixteen or so years. As it always did, the memory of that report made him wonder whether his mother was still alive. The thought felt different this time, though. Instead of the usual helpless, distant ache—and rage—he felt power, the power to choose. Now he could find her… if he wanted to. Find her and show her that the baby she’d been too stoned to give a shit about had made it. Had scored the big score.