Moment of Truth (15 page)

“Don’t do that. I don’t think it’s viable and it will jeopardize my chances for a guilty plea.”

“No, it won’t. The D.A. will expect a motion to suppress on these facts.”

“I don’t want to queer the deal.”

“There
is
no deal.” Mary leaned toward the bulletproof glass. “And don’t bet there will be. They have all the cards right now and unless we fight back, they’re gonna play them. They’re likelier to deal if they think we have a decent defense or will win a suppression motion. They don’t want to lose at trial either.”

“I see.” Jack nodded, dismissively. “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

“I hand you a winner and you’ll think about it?” Mary squeezed her pen, trying to keep her cool. His stubbornness only encouraged her confidence. If she was right about the truth, then she was fighting him for his own life. “I’m the lawyer, Jack.”

“But I’m the client. I make the decisions in the case. In my own practice, I gave legal advice, and the client made the ultimate decision. Plenty of times I disagreed with my clients, and they with me. I did as they decided.”

“This isn’t an estates matter, where you assume your client’s death. My job is to keep you alive.”

“In any case, the lawyer is only an agent.”

“Not exactly.” Mary had crammed last night, after she’d left her father. “A criminal case is different from a civil case. As criminal counsel, I have a duty to file the motion to suppress. You don’t determine the scope of your right to counsel, even though it’s your right. It’s grounded in the Constitution. Ever hear of the Sixth Amendment?” He fell silent, and Mary continued the lecture, on a roll. “If I don’t file the motion on these facts, you could have me before an appellate court on a PCRA. That’s post conviction relief, for you estates lawyers. I’d be found ineffective per se, which isn’t the sort of thing I want on my permanent record card.”

“I didn’t want to say this, but I guess I have to. Isn’t it possible that you’re wrong about this motion to suppress?”

“No. I read the law.”

“But, as you told me directly, you aren’t very experienced with murder cases. Have you ever filed a motion to suppress?”

Mary swallowed hard. “No.”

“So isn’t it possible that your judgment is wrong? I’m hearing things from the other inmates, who have more experience than you and me put together. They think you’re crazy not to pursue the guilty plea right now.”

She felt like snarling. She didn’t need legal advice from felons. She was right about the plea negotiation and the motion. It wasn’t a matter of experience. Or was it? She couldn’t think of an immediate reply.

“Mary, I know you’re working hard on my behalf and I appreciate it. I hadn’t thought about such a defense. It seems wrong on the facts. I need to mull it over. Isn’t that reasonable?” He exhaled audibly, and Mary nodded, still off-balance. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken this case. Maybe she wasn’t experienced enough. She was playing with someone’s life. Still.

“No. You can think about it until tomorrow morning. Then call me and tell me you agree.”

“I’ll call you.” Jack rose, his handcuffs linking his arms against his jumpsuit. “Please don’t file a motion until we talk again.”

“Wait a minute,” Mary said, uncertain as she watched him stand up. “I wanted to brief you on the arraignment. Let you know what to expect this morning.”

“The arraignment is a detail. I don’t care if I make bail or not.” Jack walked to the door and called the guard, who came almost immediately and took him away.

It left Mary stumped. She’d never had a client walk out on her, much less one in leg manacles. He had to be protecting his daughter; there was no other explanation. Defending Jack was turning out to be a road strewn with rocks he’d thrown there, and she was becoming the adversary of her own client.

She wanted to win, but feared that if she did, it wouldn’t be much of a victory.

Davis hit the
STOP
button to end the videotape of Newlin’s confession and eyed his boss, Bill Masterson, the District Attorney of Philadelphia. Masterson sulked in his sunny office, behind a mahogany desk littered with gold-plated awards, commemorative paperweights, and signed photos. The clutter of photos included Masterson with the mayor, various ward leaders, Bozo the Clown, the city council, and Elmo from Sesame Street, in town to open a new Target store. The D.A.s always joked that one-hour photo developing was invented for Bill Masterson.

Davis was concerned. They had viewed the video three times, and Masterson had said nothing except “play it again” at the end. He hadn’t reacted at all to Davis’s theory of premeditation. At the moment, Masterson was frowning, emphasizing jowls like an English bulldog’s. He was a large man, a tall power forward out of LaSalle, big-boned and still fit. Ruddy skin provided the backdrop for round eyes of a ferocious blue, which fought with his large nose to dominate his face. “So what do you think, Chief?” Davis asked.

“I’m not happy.”

“You’re never happy.”

“This we know.” Masterson glowered under a thatch of gray-blond hair.

“So what’s the problem?”

Masterson gazed out a window in a wall covered with citations, more photos, and framed newspaper articles. MASTERSON WINS AGAIN read one of the headlines, from under glass. The morning sun in a solid square streamed through the window, past the plaudits, and onto the desk, suffusing his crystal paperweights with light. Davis couldn’t tell if Masterson was gazing out the window or reading his own press.

“Chief, I know it’s early in the game, but I made up my mind. I’ve only asked twice before, in
Hammer
and in
Bertel
, and you know I was right on both counts. They’re dead and they both deserved it. So does Newlin.”

Masterson squinted out the window or at his headlines. The tan phone on his desk rang loudly, and he reached over and pushed the intercom button to signal Annette to pick up. Davis, still at the VCR, pressed
REWIND
for something to do. He was expert in handling Masterson and knew to take it easy.

“You remember, Chief. The public, the papers, they went for it. They agreed. It gave them confidence in this office and in you. I don’t have to remind you about
Bertel,
do I?” Davis had the facts, he didn’t have to shout. Leon Bertel had murdered a popular pharmacist in Tacony, and his execution, which took place a month before the last election, had clinched Masterson’s win. “I say no deals with Newlin. I want your okay before the other side asks me. I got it? Chief?”

Masterson finally looked away from the wall and down at his desk. “It’s dirty,” he said finally.

“It’s murder. All the more reason to crucify this asshole. He whacks the wife and weasels out of it. He’s out in no time with his cash, livin’ large again. I want to tell the press, too. Right out, from day one. No deals in the Newlin case. We’re taking him down. Bringing him to justice.”

Masterson began fiddling with a slim gold Cross pen, rolling it across his blotter, back and forth. Sun glinted on the gold pen as it moved. The phone rang again, and the pen stopped rolling while Masterson pressed the intercom button wordlessly.

“I don’t see the problem, Chief. This is a no-brainer. We got him cold-cock, blood on his hands. Think down the line. Say Newlin does his time or even makes parole. He’ll have a decent case for it, the model prisoner, he’ll keep his nose clean. You want him out and walking around? You think the people are gonna like that? The rich getting away with murder, with our, read Bill Masterson’s, assist?”

The Cross pen rolled back and forth, so Davis took a cushioned chair across the desk and remained patient. He was one of the few assistants who got this much face time with the Chief. The word count was usually fifteen before the Chief’s attention span evaporated, the mayor called, or the game started. Big Five basketball mattered. Masterson had priorities.

“You know he’s lying, don’t you?” Davis asked.

“Course.” Masterson waved the air with a large, fleshy palm. “They all do.”

“Then what?”

“Newlin’s at Tribe.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You know how much Tribe gave the campaign last year?”

Davis blinked. He never thought the Chief would say it out loud. “He did it, Chief. He killed her.”

“Understood, but you gotta have your ducks in a row on this one.” Masterson didn’t look at his subordinate, but watched the pen as if someone else were manipulating it. “You can’t go up against Tribe and be wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. You know that. You know me.”

The Cross pen came to a sudden stop. The phone started ringing, and Masterson looked over. This time instead of pressing the intercom button, he picked up the call, covering the receiver as he glanced at Davis. “Get me more,” he barked. “Talk to me after you do.”

“You’re tellin’ me no? That it’s conditional?”

“Go!” Masterson said. He swiveled his chair to the side.

Davis rose nimbly, brushed his pant legs down, and took it on the chin. He hadn’t expected the Chief to say no, but he wouldn’t lie down. On the contrary, he accepted the challenge. It would make winning that much sweeter, and in a strange way, he would enjoy the delay of gratification. After all, he wasn’t a sprinter, he was a marathoner. He had the stuff to go the distance. This was just a chance to let it shine, shine, shine.

So Davis hurried from the District Attorney’s office to begin his search for the evidence that would convict, and kill, Jack Newlin.

The press mobbed the Criminal Justice Center. News vans, cameramen, and print reporters with skinny notebooks clogged Filbert Street, the narrow, colonial lane that fronted the sleek, modern courthouse. Black TV cables snaked along the sidewalk like inner-city pythons, and microwave transmission poles fought the linden trees surrounding the courthouse for airspace. TV reporters shouted to their crews, their puffs of breath visible in the morning air. The winter cold bit cheeks protected only by pancake makeup, but the reporters forgot the weather when a Yellow cab pulled up and out stepped Assistant District Attorney Dwight Davis.

“Mr. Davis, any comment on the Newlin case?” “Dwight, will the Commonwealth ask for the death penalty?” “Mr. Davis, will you be trying the case?”

“No comment,” Davis called out as he climbed the curb. His head was a helmet of dark hair, with sideburns just long enough to be risqué for a D.A. He wore a pinstriped suit and moved nimbly from the cab to the courthouse entrance. The media loved Davis, and the feeling was mutual, just not this morning. His expression was dour, and when the reporters kept blocking his path, he lost any sense of humor whatsoever. “Move the hell out, people!” he called, and hurried into the Criminal Justice Center.

Arriving on foot just after Davis were Mary DiNunzio and Judy Carrier. No press recognized them, much less plagued them for comment. They were merely associates of Bennie Rosato’s and one of the throng of young lawyers heading into the Criminal Justice Center. Mary snorted at the ruckus. “Dwight Davis, no less,” she said. “They’re rollin’ out the big guns. They’re scared of us.”

“Us? You mean you, and they should be.” Judy glanced ahead at Davis. “Check it, Barbie. It’s Ken, come to life. He’s even got his plastic briefcase.”

“Look at him run. He knows I studied. It’ll take more than a Commonwealth to stop me now.” Mary was psyched despite her meeting with Jack. If her client was going to fight her, so be it. She had never felt so good before court. Where were the blotches? “Step lively, little pretty.”

Judy laughed as she pushed on the revolving door of the courthouse. “You’re ballsy this morning.”

“Temporary insanity,” Mary said, and grabbed the next door.

Jack found himself handcuffed to a steel chair in a tiled cell, and directly across from him was a large TV monitor on a rickety table. On the wall was a black phone but the cell was otherwise bare. There was nothing in it but Jack and the TV, so the scene felt surreal, as if Jack would be forced to watch bad sitcoms. Gray static blanketed the screen, which emitted an electrical crackling so loud he winced.
Crk-crk-crk-crk.

He’d been told by the sheriff that he was going to his arraignment, but this was downright odd. He should have let Mary fill him in, but he had been too shaken by what she’d told him. Had Paige lied to him about Trevor’s being there? Couldn’t be. Her story had been so convincing and it made complete sense. It was how Honor would have reacted, what she would have said, especially when drunk. But did Trevor have anything to do with Honor’s murder? Was Paige even there? Had Jack sacrificed everything—
for nothing
?