Stranglehold (26 page)

Kreitinger’s back didn’t hurt at all anymore. Yes, I’ve got a few questions, she thought. Being a smart Crown was like being a shark, probing for that soft underbelly. It was time to strike.

WATCHING HIS FATHER TESTIFY COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE WORST EXPERIENCES IN
Greene’s life. But it wasn’t. His father was being remarkably calm and self-assured. He had Judge Norville eating out of his hand. That was half the battle.

When DiPaulo finished his questions, Greene shifted his gaze to Angela Kreitinger. He’d been sneaking glimpses at her all through his father’s testimony. The woman was tightly wound, and he could see her mounting frustration because his father was doing well on the stand.

“Do you think Kreitinger is going to cross-examine my dad?” Greene had asked DiPaulo down in the cells during the lunch break.

DiPaulo had smiled. “Angie? She can’t help herself. Just watch.”

Greene watched Kreitinger walk to the lectern. She seemed to be limping a bit. Her lips were tight with determination as she opened her binder.

“Mr. Greene, you told Mr. DiPaulo that if your son is released you’ll make sure he follows each and every condition of his bail.”

“Of course.”

“Because you understand it is important to follow the law.”

“Without law we have chaos.”

Greene smiled. His father knew this better than anyone else in this courtroom.

“And when you took the stand, you took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“I did. Why wouldn’t I tell the truth?”

“The whole truth, that means everything.”

“I understand.”

“And you will do that today.”

Kreitinger had done a good job of boxing in Greene’s father, leaving him no wiggle room.

Smart lawyering, Greene thought. He glanced at DiPaulo, who winked back at him. Smiling.

“Ask me any question,” Greene’s father said. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Kreitinger flipped to a new page in her binder.

“Did your son tell you he was having an affair with the victim, Jennifer Raglan?” She put her chin out at Greene’s father, as if to say,
There, bet you didn’t expect this question.

“Yes,” he said. Calm.

“He did?” she asked. Surprised.

“The day of the murder, my son came to see me.”

“And he told you about their affair?”

“Yes. Not the details. But he told me that he loved her.”

A murmur went through the courtroom. Greene kept looking at his father.

“Did he say where he was the morning of the murder?”

“Yes. At the motel.”

Someone in the audience gasped.

“He told you he was at the motel?” Kreitinger asked.

“And that she was dead when he got there. He took off chasing after someone who was outside but couldn’t find the person. Then in the afternoon he met with Officer Kennicott, but didn’t tell him he’d been in the motel.”

Kreitinger pulled out a pen from her vest. “Let me be sure I understand this.” She started to write in her binder.

It was an old Crown trick Greene had seen prosecutors use time and time again. Re-ask a question when you got a good answer, and make a show of writing it down, that way you underlined the importance of the evidence.

“He said he found Ms. Raglan dead. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“But then he didn’t tell the homicide officer on the case. Why did he say he did that?”

DiPaulo was right about Kreitinger, Greene thought. She couldn’t help herself. Even if it meant breaking rule number one on cross-examination: Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. Her open-ended question gave his father carte blanche to say whatever he liked.

“Ari said at first he rushed around the neighbourhood trying to find the husband. He was sure the man had killed his wife and was afraid he was suicidal.
Then he was about to go back to the motel, but Kennicott called and told him not to come and that they should speak later in the afternoon. He felt terrible not telling Kennicott right away. But when he thought about it, something about how the ambulance and police arrived so quickly didn’t make sense. I taught him my whole life to be careful. There’s danger out there. Plus, he knew if he told Kennicott he’d been in the motel, then he’d be a witness at the trial and couldn’t work on the –”

“Thank you, Mr. Greene,” Kreitinger said. It was clear from her face that she knew her question had been a mistake.

“Your Honour,” DiPaulo said, instantly on his feet. “My friend asked an important question. Why is she cutting off the witness? Let’s hear the whole answer.”

“But, Your Honour,” Kreitinger protested.

Norville held up her hand. “Mr. DiPaulo is right.” She turned to the witness stand. Greene could see she was curious and wanted to hear more. “What else did your son say?”

“He said that, if he couldn’t work on the case, how was he going to find the killer. Especially when they’d realized earlier in the day that the husband was probably innocent.”

Kreitinger looked deflated. She started flipping the pages of her binder, as if desperate to find a better question. Greene almost felt sorry for her. If he’d been the officer in charge of this case, he would have sent her a note that said:
Sit down, do no more damage, we’ll live to fight another day.

DiPaulo’s strategy had been brilliant, Greene thought. Sucker the Crown into cross-examining his father, and have him prepared to put in the whole of his defence.

He glanced at Kennicott. He looked stunned.

Kreitinger kept flipping pages. No one spoke.

“My son is not a murderer,” his father said at last, without being asked.

“Oh,” Kreitinger said. Her eyes flashed back up to the witness stand. Her nostrils flared in anger. “Let me understand this, Mr. Greene. Are you telling this court that you can tell whether someone is a killer?”

Very, very big mistake, Greene thought.

His father fixed her with a stare that Ari had seen only a few times in his life, on the rare occasions he spoke about the war.

“It was two in the morning the night the Nazis came to our village. They
made every Jew go into the main square. One of the soldiers pulled my daughter, Hannah, away. She was four years old. My wife, Sarah, reached for her hand. The Nazi shot my wife in the face. My two daughters were exterminated at Treblinka and I spent eighteen months there before my escape. I’ve seen the eyes of killers and I know what they look like. My son is not a murderer.”

Kreitinger flushed beet red. Her hand went to her lower back, as if she’d been stabbed there. She didn’t seem to know what to do or say.

Everyone in the courtroom was in shock. No one more than Ari Greene.

“I haven’t ever spoken about this before,” his father said. “Not to my second wife. Not even to Ari.”

Greene had never heard his father refer to his mother as “my second wife.” He felt a part of him sinking. How had all this happened? Jennifer murdered. Like his father’s first wife. Sarah. He’d never even heard her name before.

“Thank . . . thank you, Mr. Greene,” Kreitinger finally said. She limped back to her counsel table as if she’d been injured.

No one else in the courtroom moved.

Greene looked over at DiPaulo. His eyes were fixed on the witness box.

“Mr. Greene, we all very much appreciate you coming to court today,” Judge Norville said, filling the silence. “I have no doubt you will be an excellent surety. I will release your son to live with you, under very strict conditions.”

“Why not?” his father said.

That seemed to say it all.

Greene watched as his father climbed down from the witness box and nodded at DiPaulo. DiPaulo smiled back.

Greene felt the penny drop. DiPaulo knew all along his father was going to say this and the powerful effect it would have. Especially on Judge Norville, who had herself lost a child. And on himself, hearing this for the first time. Norville would see the shocked look on his face as a mark of his father’s sincerity. It was DiPaulo’s trump card and he’d kept it hidden, even from his own client, to ensure the revelation had maximum power.

He remembered the sign in his office that DiPaulo had read to him the first time they’d met:
A trial was after all a savage and primitive battle for survival itself.

“I SURE AS HELL GOT MY ASS HANDED TO ME TODAY, DIDN’T I?” KREITINGER SAID TO KENNICOTT
the minute they were back in her office.

“Could have been worse,” he said.

She laughed. “I don’t see how.”

Kreitinger knew that nobody liked to work for a loser. A criminal trial was like a prizefight, with many tough rounds. Some you win, and some, like today, you lose badly. It was important to take defeat in stride, laugh it off, rally the troops, and move on.

“You didn’t really think Norville would keep him in jail, did you?” Kennicott asked.

He was remarkably self-assured for such a young man, Kreitinger thought. But she could see that having to testify against Ari Greene had shaken him. DiPaulo had done a good job with him as a witness and had got him to question Greene’s guilt.

“No, I didn’t, and frankly it doesn’t bother me that he’s out,” she said. “What’s more important is that we now know the theory of the defence. That Greene came upon Raglan when she was already dead, and raced off to chase a phantom killer. Sounds like a movie, doesn’t it?”

“Far-fetched,” Kennicott said. He didn’t sound convinced.

There was a knock on the door.

Kennicott opened it and Jo Summers marched in. She had to be close to six feet tall and had the kind of high cheekbones you see in models on the covers of fashion magazines. Then there was her beautiful blond hair that she wore tied up with a dark wooden clip. Her face was flushed and angry. “Can you believe that?” she said.

“What?” Kreitinger asked. “That Norville gave him bail?”

“No. I don’t give a shit about that. But his story? Greene’s a homicide detective.
He walks into the motel room, sees Jennifer strangled to death, and then he doesn’t tell anyone? Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.”

“One thing is true,” Kennicott said. “When I called him he said he wanted to come and meet me at the scene and I told him not to.”

“Screw that,” Summers said. “He could have gone back to the department and told anyone he’d been there, for God’s sake.”

“True.”

“And when you met him that afternoon, he didn’t tell you a bloody thing, did he?” she demanded.

“You’re right,” Kennicott conceded. “He used me.”

Kreitinger was impressed. Summers was a crackerjack cross-examiner.

“Guy’s a liar. He broke up Jennifer’s marriage. He’s saying there was someone else at the door who took off? That’s a laugh. Who was it, a one-armed man?” She looked at Kreitinger. “You’re the prosecutor, what do you think?”

Kreitinger’s first thought was that she needed a junior lawyer on this case. Summers was smart and passionate. Pretty too. That never hurt in front of a jury. She’d be perfect.

“In most trials we never know in advance what the accused’s story will be or even if he will testify. But now we know that if his father testifies, we get in the evidence that Greene and Raglan were having an affair, that he was there that morning, and that he took off.”

“It’s perfect,” Summer said.

“Not really,” Kreitinger said. “Because then the father can give his whole defence. How Greene thought there was someone outside the door and how he took off to try to find the killer. Why he misled Daniel because he wanted to investigate who killed the woman he loved.”

Summers rolled her eyes. “It is such total bullshit.”

“The problem is the jury will love the father. And then Greene won’t have to testify.”

Summers nodded. “You’re right.”

“We won’t tell the defence this, but DiPaulo will probably figure it out. Still, we’ll subpoena the father to make it look like we’re going to call him. And you never know.”

“I’ve already got him on my list,” Kennicott said.

“We can’t get distracted. We have to figure out how to prove this circumstantial
case without the father. How do we put Greene with Jennifer and in that motel room?” Kreitinger said. She made a fist and smacked her open palm. “We have to force him into the box. Make him testify.”

Summers grinned. “I can’t wait to see you cross him. You’ll nail him.”

“One day at time. This case is going to be a battle.” Kreitinger turned to Summers. “I need a junior lawyer who’s prepared to put in the hours to help me with this case. It’s going to be tough slogging. You interested, Jo?”

Summers beamed. “There’s nothing in the world that I’d like more. Daniel, are you on board?”

It was the question that Kreitinger had wanted to ask him since they left court. She’d read his body language on the witness stand. Sensed his torn emotions. He was having second thoughts about Greene’s guilt. A jury would pick up on this in a flash.

He straightened his back. “Jo. I arrested him, didn’t I?”

This is interesting, Kreitinger thought. They were both young, both good-looking. And, as far as she knew, both single. They’d called each other “Daniel” and “Jo.” What was that all about?

“Okay, team.” She pulled the top evidence box off her trusty old cart and dumped it back on her desk. “Time to get to work.”

“DAD, LET ME DRIVE,” GREENE SAID AS THEY WALKED TOWARD HIS FATHER’S DODGE, PARKED
underneath the courthouse in the lot reserved for judges. Ernest Sapiano, the shift supervisor from the jail cells, was with them. He’d arranged for Greene’s father to park down here so they could drive out this way and avoid the press, who were hovering around all the usual courthouse exits.

“You’re not too tired?” his father asked.

“Not at all,” Greene said. “This good officer has treated me very well today.”

“Thank you, sir,” his dad said.

“My pleasure,” Sapiano said. “Your son is a gentleman. Drive up to the gate, I’ll put my card in, and you’re out of here. I suggest you gun it.”

It felt good to Greene to be behind the wheel of a car, just as it had felt good ten minutes earlier when the handcuffs were taken off. He zipped up the ramp and headed north on Centre Street. In his rearview mirror he saw a few TV cameramen facing in the wrong direction. A reporter heard his car, turned, and pointed at it.