Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark (25 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen. I'll keep it brief. I admire Ms. Watts's respect for the truth. Indeed, I heartily endorse it. Unfortunately for Ms. Watts, however, the truth does nothing to exonerate her client. It is Sofia Basta who was the cynical manipulator. She, not Mr. Mancini, entrapped four innocent men and led them to their deaths. And let us not forget that these were successful, highly intelligent men of the world. If Ms. Basta was able to bamboozle
these
men, not to mention senior police officers around the globe and even one of her victims'
children
”—he glanced at the broken figure of Matt Daley, slumped in his wheelchair in the front row—“how easy must it have been for her to control my client, a clinically certified schizophrenic with a lifelong history of emotional and psychological problems. The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that Ms. Basta is the cold-blooded killer here, not Mr. Mancini. Thank you.”

Alvin Dubray shuffled back to his seat. Danny McGuire watched him go. Danny noticed that at no time during his address had Alvin Dubray looked at his client or invited the jury to do so.
Probably because the guy looks so fucking evil, and she still looks like a little lamb, lost in the woods.
Danny remembered both Sofia and Frankie from their prior incarnations as Angela Jakes and Lyle Renalto. Today, as he watched them in
court, his impressions of the two were remarkably similar to what they had been all those years ago. She still seemed innocent and gentle. He still projected arrogance and deceit. Alvin Dubray had been right on the money in one regard. Sofia Basta
had
“bamboozled” him. In fact, the word
bamboozle
barely scratched the surface of what she had done. As Angela Jakes, she had bewitched the former detective. And in a way, she was bewitching him still.

Judge Muñoz called for a twenty-minute recess before the defense teams started summoning witnesses to take the stand. Outside in the corridor, Danny McGuire approached Matt Daley.

“You okay?”

Danny still felt guilty for having suspected Matt of being the Azrael killer that fateful night in Mumbai. As he looked at him now, so weak and broken, not just physically but emotionally, the idea that he might have killed those men seemed ludicrous. Matt Daley couldn't hurt a fly. Danny's one consolation was that Matt himself never knew of his suspicions. Since the Azrael arrests, the two men had become friends again. Danny and Céline had even stayed with Matt's sister, Claire, and her husband, Doug, when they vacationed in L.A., and the McGuire and Daley families had grown close.

“I'm fine. I'm worried about her, though.”

“Who?”

“Lisa, of course.” Even now, a full year after India, Matt Daley still referred to Sofia Basta as “Lisa” and still spoke about her with love and affection. As far as the trial was concerned, Matt Daley was in Ellen Watts's camp all the way. Mancini was the bad guy, “Lisa” his confused, misguided victim. “Dubray's a cold bastard. He'll do her more damage than that wet fish Boyce for the prosecution. How can he stand up there and say those things?”

“He's doing his job,” Danny McGuire said mildly. “None of us knows the truth yet. We won't till we hear the witnesses' testimony.”

Matt looked at him uncomprehendingly. “
I
know the truth,” he said simply. Then he turned and wheeled himself away.

D
AVID
I
SHAG LOOKED IMPATIENTLY AT HIS
half-million-dollar Richard Mille watch. The trial so far had been torture. Sitting just feet away from the woman he'd once believed was going to be by his side forever, he'd not only had to listen to the crushing weight of evidence against her, but had contributed to that evidence himself, testifying to the court how he too was conned into marriage and to changing his will by this most deadly temptress.

Not once in all that time had Sarah Jane, as David still thought of her, made eye contact with him. Not once had she sought, with a look or a gesture, to explain herself. But now at last, David Ishag would hear her speak. He was ashamed to admit it, but there was a part of him that still longed for her to open her mouth and prove her innocence. To take what he knew to be the truth and disprove it. To make this nightmare go away and to return home at his side. Of course, rationally he was aware that that way madness lay. Only a fine line divided him from poor Matt Daley, and it was a line David Ishag hadn't the slightest intention of crossing. Even so, the prospect of Ellen Watts calling Sofia Basta as her first witness, as she was widely expected to do, had brought him to an almost unbearable pitch of anxiety.

“The defense calls Rose Darcy.”

David Ishag's horror was echoed by a general murmur of disappoint
ment in room 306. The spectators had waited weeks to hear the beautiful woman in one of the defendants' chairs speak for herself about her terrible crimes. Instead, a stooped, frail old woman ascended the witness box, helped by a courtroom clerk. Rose Darcy walked with a wooden cane almost as tall as she was, but despite her age and seeming decrepitude, she gave off an air of determination. Her spun-silver hair was tied neatly and firmly in a bun, and her blue eyes still sparkled brightly in her ruined, wrinkled face.

The court was not to be entirely disappointed, however. For the first time since the trial began, Sofia Basta appeared to be overcome with emotion. Letting out a stifled sob, she clutched the edge of the defendants' table.

“Mrs. Darcy, can you confirm your name for the court?”

“Rose Frances Darcy.” The old woman's voice was strong and clear. “And it's ‘miss.' I never married.”

“I'm sorry.
Ms.
Darcy, are you acquainted with either of the defendants in this case?”

“I am. With the young lady.”

The old woman looked across the room at the accused, her eyes welling up with tears of affection.

“I see,” said Ellen Watts. “And when did you first meet Sofia Basta?”

“I never met Sofia Basta.”

The jury members exchanged puzzled frowns. For a moment Ellen Watts looked equally perplexed. It would be just her luck to discover that her first witness had lost her marbles.

“Ms. Darcy, you just told the court that you know the female defendant. But now you're saying that you never met her?”

“No,” the old woman said testily. “I never said that. I've known
her
”—she pointed at the defendants' table—“since the day she was born. What I said was, I never met Sofia Basta.”

“But, Ms. Darcy…”

“That's not Sofia Basta.” Rose Darcy finally lost her patience. “Sofia Basta doesn't exist.”

 

I
T TOOK
J
UDGE
M
UÑOZ A MOMENT
to bring the court to order. Once the gasps had died down, the old woman continued.

“Her real name is Sophie. Sophie Smith. I don't know where this ‘Basta' baloney came from, but it wasn't the name she was born with.”

Ellen Watts said, “You said you knew Sofia—Sophie—since birth. You knew her mother?”

“No, ma'am. I'm a social worker. Her mother abandoned her at birth at a maternity clinic in Harlem. I happened to be working at the clinic that night, so I saw her soon after she was born. Tiny little thing she was, but a fighter even then. She spent the first three weeks of her life withdrawing from heroin. Mom must have been using throughout the pregnancy. She was lucky to survive. It was the workers at the clinic who named her Sophie.” She turned and looked at the stricken figure at the defendants' table. “She'll always be Sophie to me.”

“What contact did you have with Sophie after that night?”

Rose Darcy smiled sadly. “Not as much as I would have liked. Although I probably had more contact with her over the course of her childhood than anyone else. She was a sweet little girl, very loving, very sensitive. But she was troubled from the beginning.”

“Psychologically troubled?”

William Boyce lumbered to his feet. “Objection. Leading the witness.”

“Objection sustained. Be careful, Ms. Watts.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Ms. Darcy, in what way would you say the defendant was troubled?”

“Her psychiatrists could give you a clinical opinion. But from my observations, she was withdrawn, poorly socialized among her peer group, prone to fantasy and self-delusion. Child Welfare Services was aware of her as a problem case. She was moved repeatedly between facilities.”

“Why was that?”

Ms. Darcy turned toward her former charge and said affectionately, “Because no one could handle her, that's why. No one understood her.”

“But you did?”

“I wouldn't say that, no. After she turned thirteen, she told her caseworkers that she didn't want to see me again and we lost touch. I never did know why.”

Sofia Basta was crying openly now, with every TV camera trained on her beautiful, tear-streaked face.

“That must have been hard for you.”

“It was,” Rose Darcy said simply. “I loved her.”

Ellen Watts's next witness, Janet Hooper, had worked at the Beeches, the home where Sophie lived in her late teens. A heavyset woman, with hunched shoulders and heavy bags under her eyes that suggested she might be one of the chronically depressed, Janet Hooper, it soon became clear, felt none of old Ms. Darcy's affection toward the defendant.

“She was difficult. Rude. Withdrawn. Kinda snooty toward me and my colleagues.”

“Sounds like a typical teenager.”

“No.” Janet Hooper shook her head. “It was more than that. She traded on her looks in a real cold, cynical way. The records from her previous home said the same thing. Once she hit puberty, the boys were all over her, as you can imagine. But she didn't discourage it. She reveled in it.”

Ellen Watts frowned. “She became promiscuous?”

“Very.”

Alvin Dubray blinked his rheumy old eyes in Ellen's direction, as if to say,
Just what on earth do you think you're doing?
Calling witnesses who painted her client as a calculating slut was hardly the most obvious way to win a jury's affections. If anything, vilifying “Sophie” was his job.

But Ellen Watts plowed on, regardless. “I see. And how long did that behavior continue?”

“Until she was around sixteen, I believe. Until she got close to Frankie.” Janet Hooper turned toward Frankie Mancini, who met her gaze with his usual withering disdain.

“Frankie Mancini changed Sophie Smith for the better?”

Alvin Dubray couldn't believe his ears. Ellen Watts was making his case for him.

“Frankie Mancini changed Sophie Smith completely. She was a new person once she met him. Completely under his control.”

The first warning signals went off in Dubray's mind.

“Under his…
control
?”

Janet Hooper nodded. “Yeah. Like Frankenstein's monster.”

Oh God.

“She worshipped the ground Frankie walked on. Did everything he told her to.”

Ellen Watts smiled smugly at Alvin Dubray. “Can you give us some examples, Mrs. Hooper?”

“Well, changing her name, for a start. It was Frankie who started this whole ‘Sofia Basta' thing. Convinced her she was a Moroccan princess or some such nonsense. That she had a twin sister who'd been separated from her at birth. He created this whole past for her, this whole identity. I think he got the story from a novel. Anyway, Sophie started acting like it was real. She was out of her mind.”

“Move to strike,” droned William Boyce. “The witness is not an expert and not qualified to comment on the accused's mental health.”

“Sustained.” Judge Muñoz preened self-importantly for the cameras, pushing back his newly dyed black hair. “Where are you going with this, Ms. Watts?”

“Your Honor, the relationship between Mr. Mancini and my client is key to this case. I intend to show that Mr. Mancini's grooming of my client was cynical, calculated and started from a young age. That she was as much a victim of Mr. Mancini as the men that he killed. Let's not forget that during each of these brutal attacks, my client was raped by Mr. Mancini.”

“Objection!” It was practically a howl from Alvin Dubray. “She was turned on by the killing! Sex was consensual.”

“With those injuries?” Ellen Watts shot back. “The police reports all said ‘rape.'”

“The police didn't know she was in on it!”

This was television gold, watching the defense “team” rip each other's throats out. After two weeks of William Boyce's monotone speeches for the prosecution, Judge Federico Muñoz finally had the spectacular trial he felt he deserved, complete with a balcony full of salivating television crews and news reporters. Tomorrow his name would be on everyone's lips.

“I'll allow it,” he said graciously, “but I hope you have some expert psychiatric witnesses for us, Ms. Watts. The jury's not interested in the opinions of amateurs.”

Ellen Watts nodded gravely, dismissing Janet Hooper and calling her next witness.

“The defense calls Dr. George Petridis.”

A handsome man in his early fifties, wearing a three-piece suit with a vintage silver pocket watch, Dr. Petridis was chief of psychiatry at Mass General Hospital in Boston. He radiated authority, and both Alvin Dubray and William Boyce noticed with alarm the way the jury members sat up with attention when he spoke. Even Frankie Mancini seemed interested in what the esteemed doctor had to say. Throughout his testimony, you could have heard a pin drop.

“Dr. Petridis, what is your relationship with the defendants in this case?” Ellen Watts asked.

“I treated both of them in the late 1980s, when they were teenagers. I was working as a psychologist for New York State Child Welfare Services at the time, dealing almost exclusively with adolescents.”

“Prior to these homicides being brought to light, did you remember these patients at all? Twenty years is a long time. You must have counseled hundreds of kids since then.”

The doctor smiled. “Thousands. But I remembered these two. I also keep meticulous notes, so I was able to check my memories against what I recorded at the time.”

“And what
do
you remember about the defendants?”

“I remember an intensely codependent, symbiotic relationship. She was a sweet kid with a lot of problems. She was clearly psychotic. I prescribed Risperdal from our very first session, but she was resistant to the whole idea of drugs. The boy disapproved.”

“What form did her psychosis take?”

“Well, she was a fantasist. At best, she had a very fluid sense of self. At worst, no conscious identity at all, at least none that bore any resemblance to reality. I suspect maternal, prenatal drug use was a major factor. Effectively the kid was like an empty shell, a mold waiting to be filled with somebody else's consciousness. In a very real sense, the boy ‘created' her.”

In the front row of courtroom 306, Danny McGuire shivered.
“I have no life.”

“Changing her name was probably the clearest external manifestation of her condition. Sofia was the name of her exotic, Moroccan alter ego. It was a psychotic affectation, lifted from a romantic novel one of the nurses had given her as a child. Frankie recognized her attachment to
this story and her need for a past, an identity. He pretty much took the two things and meshed them together.”

Ellen played devil's advocate. “Is a seventeen-year-old boy really capable of that sort of sophisticated manipulation?”

“Usually, no. But in this boy's case, absolutely. He was highly intelligent, highly manipulative, a uniquely adaptable and capable individual. He was amazing, actually.” Dr Petridis looked across at Frankie Mancini rather like a zoologist might look at a particularly fine specimen of some unusual species.

“In your opinion, was Frances Mancini psychotic?”

“No. He was not.”

“Did you prescribe any psychiatric medication for Mancini at any time while you were treating him?”

The doctor shook his head. “There's no pill that could have cured Frankie's problems. We tried talking therapies, but he was highly resistant. He knew what he was doing, with Sophie, with everything he did. He had no interest in changing.”

“Correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Petridis. But are you saying Frances Mancini was ‘bad' rather than ‘mad'? That he did what he did deliberately and consciously, knowing that it was wrong, that it was evil?”

Dr. Petridis frowned. “
Bad
and
evil
are both moral terms. I'm a psychiatrist, not a judge. I can tell you that Frankie certainly wasn't ‘mad' in the sense of insane. Like most of us, like Sophie, he was a product of his childhood.”

“Did he talk to you about that?”

“Oh yeah,” said Petridis solemnly. “He talked.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Dr. George Petridis outlined the horror story that was Frankie Mancini's childhood. As he spoke, at least two female jurors were reduced to tears. In the front row, the trio of Matt Daley, Danny McGuire and David Ishag listened intently, hanging on the doctor's every word. For Danny McGuire in particular, it was like finally being given the answers to a crossword puzzle that had defeated him for years. With each word, the Azrael murders began to make more sick, twisted sense.