Lou Mason Mystery 03-Cold Truth (22 page)

"What similarities?"

"She threw one victim out the window and another through the computer screen. They're both windows, just different kinds."

Mason couldn't give it a rest, but he couldn't prove the connection between Centurion's drug and baby business and the murders. Worse, he had no evidence that would convince Judge Pistone not to bind Jordan over for trial on the charge that she murdered Gina Davenport.

He considered calling Terry Nix to testify at the preliminary hearing that he had convinced Jordan to make a false confession. That, he realized, would force Nix to also testify that Jordan claimed Trent had raped her, setting up the motive for Trent's murder. Even if Nix's testimony caused Judge Pistone to doubt Jordan's confession, it would blow a hole in his defense of Jordan in the murder of her brother. Mason was caught in a vicious cross-rough and couldn't see his way out.

Abby escorted Jordan to Harry's car. He pulled out behind Mickey, Blues following, completing the three-car caravan. Mason watched them go before asking Abby to come to Daphne's that evening, wondering how to tell Jordan to pack her bag.

He told Jordan the only way he could—straight. She reacted the only way she knew—violently. They were alone in the den at Daphne's, a room crowded with overstuffed furniture, soft light, and thick carpet. Jordan hurled a Tiffany lamp, snapping the cord from the wall, slamming it into the fireplace mantel.

"I didn't kill the little bastard," she said, her breath heaving through clenched teeth. "I goddamn wish I did, but I'm not going to jail for something I didn't do!" Blues rushed into the room, trailed by Abby, who slipped past him before he sealed the doorway with his body. Mason held Abby back.

Jordan had confessed to killing Gina with near serenity compared to her attack on the lamp. Mason preferred spontaneous, volcanic denials to studied confessions, though he knew that neither guaranteed honesty. It was the contrast that struck him most, though he didn't have time to sort out its meaning as Jordan cast about for another missile.

"I can't make it sound like something it isn't," Mason told her, encouraged for the moment that her hands were balled in fists instead of wrapped around another antique. "The judge is going to revoke your bail. You're in a bad spot, but you're just going to have to gut it out. Gina's case will go to trial first. If we win, the judge may let you out on bail."

Jordan's eyes opened wide as Mason's words registered. She was going to jail and she might never get out. Her face contorted into an anguished mask, a guttural wail erupting from her belly. She lowered her head and charged Blues, who was blocking her escape. He let her hit him dead on, grunting at the impact, bear-hugging her as he let her pummel his chest until she collapsed, Abby swarming her, searching for the place that hurt most.

Mason tried to find a common genetic thread that tied Abby to Jordan as she stroked Jordan's face and hair, calming her. They didn't look like mother and daughter, each a mirror reflecting the other's past or future. A child could favor either parent or neither, Mason knew from his own experience when well-meaning people told his aunt how he looked like her, though they only shared a faint resemblance. Abby hadn't described her child's father, except as the worst mistake of her life.

Abby was both soft and strong. Jordan had a prickly, hard veneer shot through with hairline fractures. Abby was beautiful, graced with a lively sensuality. Jordan was too ill at ease with herself to summon passion. He knew that their differences didn't exclude the possibility they were mother and daughter, though they underscored how unlikely it was that that link would be found in their blood.

Still, he had witnessed how Jordan and Abby reacted to each other with visceral, intuitive affection. Abby accepted her, welcomed her, and Jordan responded, loosening a bit, clamoring to be like Abby, a woman possessed of her life, not possessed by it. Now, Abby held her in a mother's unconditional embrace, a bond strong enough for the moment.

Wednesday dawned with a cold, biting rain spit from cement clouds, too harsh for the last September days of summer, but a perfect backdrop for surrender. Samantha let Mason bring Jordan in through the police garage, away from the cameras that waited in response to a leak from "a source close to the investigation," as Channel 6's Sherri Thomas reported. Samantha cursed the leak, promising Mason she would plug it if she could find it, both of them knowing that leaks and cockroaches were permanent residents of government offices.

Mason didn't object to the quick arraignment, preferring to keep Jordan's courtroom appearances to a minimum and hoping the full press corps might not yet have gotten the word. Judge Pistone made short work of the arraignment, revoking Jordan's bail and ordering a preliminary hearing two weeks after the preliminary hearing on the Davenport murder charge, now only ten days away.

Microphones surrounded Mason when he stepped into the hall outside the courtroom. Sherri Thomas wielded hers like a machete, slicing through the competition, squaring off in front of Mason.

"Mr. Mason," she said. "Now that your client is off the streets, is the killing over? What's next?"

Mason knew she wasn't interested in his answer. The story she wanted was in her question. "Justice," he told her, brushing aside the rest of the pack.

Mason loved old westerns.
The Magnificent Seven,
a movie about seven hired gunslingers who saved a poor Mexican village from a band of outlaws, was one of his favorites. The youngest gunman, barely out of his teens, was infatuated with the romantic heroism of the veterans. Two of the older gunmen indoctrinated him in the perks of their profession, one saying that they had no enemies, the other adding they had no enemies still alive, the last boast a bluff to cloak his lost nerve.

Mason felt like the aging gunslinger, his promise of justice blowing away like dust-bowl dirt as he sat in the courtroom waiting for Judge Pistone to gavel to life the first of Jordan's preliminary hearings. He hadn't lost his nerve, only his way. Jordan's case—now cases—had punched and pulled him in too many different directions. He forced himself to focus on the proof, a mantra he repeated under his breath.

Jordan sat beside him, wearing a charcoal-gray skirt and white blouse Abby had bought her. Modest, not severe, Abby, ever the PR expert, had told her, reminding Jordan to look at the witnesses and the judge. Jordan looked over her shoulder, casting an anxious look at Abby, who nodded encouragement from the first row of spectators. A courtroom deputy evicted a reporter from a spot on the end of the row at the center aisle, making way for Jordan's mother as the bailiff instructed everyone to rise.

Carol Hackett was wrapped in a black suit with a Prozac lining, her face so flat and her eyes so dull, Mason wasn't certain she knew where she was. He checked the courtroom for Arthur Hackett, not finding him among the crowd. That was a bad sign for reasons other than family relations. Witnesses were not allowed in the courtroom until they testified so that they were not influenced by what they heard from other witnesses. Arthur Hackett was going to testify against his daughter.

Patrick Ortiz had taken over for his assistant prosecutor, not because he was grandstanding for votes, but because he loved a meaty case. With his average build, rumpled suits, and elbows-on-the-counter-it's-just-youand-me-talking style, Ortiz was the lawyer as Everyman, inviting his opponents' underestimation. By the end of a trial, jurors wanted to buy him a beer and defense attorneys wanted to spike it.

The purpose of the preliminary hearing was not to establish Jordan's guilt or innocence. It was to establish that there was sufficient proof to require Jordan to stand trial for the murder of Gina Davenport. Ortiz didn't have to prove she did it. He only had to convince the judge that he was likely to prove that at trial.

Stripped of its sensational trappings, Ortiz had a simple case. He had a victim—Gina Davenport. He had a defendant with a motive for murder—Jordan Hackett, who was furious that Dr. Gina refused to continue treating her because of a contract dispute with her father. He had an unimpeachable witness to testify about Jordan's motive—her father, whose pain on testifying would confirm his truthfulness. He had a witness who placed Jordan at the scene—Earl Luke Fisher. He had physical evidence that showed the defendant had laid hands on the victim—Jordan's hair and clothing fibers. Best of all, he had a confession. And—in a world where everything was caught on tape, from drivers running red lights to terrorists flying passenger planes into office buildings—Patrick Ortiz had Gina Davenport's murder on video.

Ortiz explained all of that to Judge Pistone, who, as usual, kept his head down as if it hung on a broken hinge until Ortiz mentioned the videotape. The judge raised an eyebrow, pulling the rest of his face up along with it.

"You intend to introduce the videotape?" the Judge asked Ortiz.

"Yes, sir, I do," Ortiz answered.

"For what purpose?"

Mason caught the annoyance in Judge Pistone's question, knowing the answer. Ortiz wanted to show the videotape not just because it was evidence of the crime, but because—for a trial lawyer—it was cool. It was cooler than any piece of evidence the prosecutor could have, short of footage showing Jordan pitching Dr. Gina through the glass.

"It's evidence of the crime," Ortiz answered.

"Does it show who did it?" the judge asked.

"No."

"You're not worried that I won't believe that Dr. Davenport is dead, are you, Mr. Ortiz?"

Mason bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Displaying gruesome photographs of the victim was the first tactic every prosecutor learned. Every defense lawyer objected to that evidence because its only purpose was to inflame the jury. Everyone knew the victim was dead. That's why they were in the courtroom. Mason had never seen a judge refuse to allow this kind of evidence, especially on the judge's own initiative without an objection from the defense lawyer. Judge Pistone was known for his roughshod treatment of criminal defendants, making his questions all the more surprising. Mason sat back, knowing better than to open his mouth.

"Even so, Your Honor, this sort of evidence is routinely admitted—"

"For a jury. I'm not the jury. I know she's dead. You want to put on some evidence that the defendant did it, I'm all ears. Save the show for the jury. Now get on with it."

Ortiz got the judge's message and swallowed his irritation. Earl Luke Fisher was the first witness. Earl Luke kept his story straight, testifying that Jordan had let herself in the front door of the Cable Depot just before ten o'clock the night of the murder. He rejected Mason's suggestion on cross-examination that Gina Davenport had let Jordan in as Jordan claimed in her confession. Mason highlighted the inconsistency in the hope of raising doubt in the judge's mind when Ortiz offered the confession into evidence.

Arthur Hackett's entrance into the courtroom elicited a swoon of sympathy from the gallery. His face was ashen, his eyes bleak. He walked with the tired gait of someone as exhausted by the prospect of sleep as of waking, unable to find peace in either state. The destruction of his family had leveled him. He stopped at the end of the first row of spectators, placing his hand on his wife's shoulder for a moment—to rest, to reassure, to gather the strength to damn his daughter.

"Do you love your daughter?" Patrick Ortiz began.

Arthur, hunched forward in the witness chair after taking his oath, straightened with surprise at the question. "Yes, of course," he said, looking at his wife. Jordan had been sketching abstract images on a legal pad, but stopped at her father's answer.

"Did you love your son?"

"I do," Arthur said, his voice heavy, unable to accept the prosecutor's past tense.

"Mr. Hackett," Ortiz continued, "I cannot imagine what you and your wife are experiencing in this courtroom today. You both have my profound sympathy. I wish there were some other way to do this, but there isn't. I have to ask you some very difficult questions and your answers may result in Judge Pistone ordering your daughter to stand trial for the murder of Gina Davenport. Understanding all you have been through, are you able to answer my questions?"

Arthur examined his hands, rolled his shoulders forward as if bracing for a blow. "Yes," he said with such dread certainty that Mason knew his testimony would be heard as gospel.

Ortiz led Arthur through his contract negotiations with Gina Davenport, her threat to cut off Jordan's treatment, her threat to report Trent Hackett's alleged rape of Jordan to the police, and Jordan's incendiary reaction when Arthur told her of Gina's threats. He gently probed Jordan's history of emotional problems and violent behavior that had led the Hacketts to bar Jordan from living at home.

Ortiz's direct examination lasted barely an hour, and cast the Hacketts as parents overwhelmed by a tortured child who was victimized by an unscrupulous therapist. Mason knew he had to strip Arthur Hackett of the credibility he carried as another victim of the crime.

"You loved your daughter and you love your son, is that right, Mr. Hackett?" Mason began, intentionally reversing the tenses from the prosecutor's questions.

"That's right," Hackett answered, not quick enough to catch the difference.

"You loved your daughter when you first adopted her?"

"Of course."

"But that changed when she started having emotional problems, didn't it? It changed when you began telling your wife that you had bought damaged goods when you adopted Jordan. Isn't that true?"

Hackett reddened, stunned at Mason's attack. "No, it isn't."

"When Jordan was thirteen and told you that her brother had raped her, did you believe her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Trent would never have done such a thing."

"Did you take your daughter to a doctor to be examined for evidence of rape?"