The Rose Conspiracy (42 page)

“Save it for the court this afternoon,” Blackstone said.

“Have a pleasant day, Professor,” Hartz said, ending the conversation with an arrogant attitude, and leaving the defense counsel for Vinnie Archmont in a suffocating cloud of pessimism.

Blackstone caught a side-street, put his car into a quick U-turn, and then headed to the federal court building. He needed to confront his client immediately. The question plaguing him now was why she had risked the defense of her entire case in a foolish act that looked very much like an attempt to escape from the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court.

Blackstone parked his Maserati and hurried into the federal building. After clearing the metal detector and the security guards, he reported to the U.S. marshal's office. The agent there took Blackstone's identification, checked it, and blandly advised him to wait until he could be escorted to the interview room.

Thirty minutes later, the lawyer was taken to the room where Vinnie Archmont was waiting for him, sitting at a metal table. She was still in handcuffs.

Blackstone saw in her face a dark realization. The recognition that both she, and her legal defense, were now in a perilous state.

“Why?”

Blackstone's tone was harsh.

“Are you prepared to believe me?” Vinnie asked, her face anguished and her eyes full of tears.

“It depends.”

“On what?” she asked.

“On whether you give me facts worthy of belief,” Blackstone replied.

“All right then. What I am going to tell you,” Vinnie said, “is the truth.”

“Fine,” Blackstone said. “Why Canada?”

“Because Magister Dee was on his way to Canada. To Quebec. I heard he was meeting with some members of the Canadian Parliament. I planned on seeing him in Quebec…I just didn't tell him in advance about my plan. You can check with him to verify his trip to Canada.”

“Don't worry, I will,” Blackstone snapped. “But you haven't answered my question. Why?”

“I intended to meet with Magister.”

“To accomplish what?”

“I've been very scared. I needed to talk with him.”

“About your case?”

“Of course. Wouldn't you be frightened? Wouldn't you want to be comforted by a close friend if you were facing murder charges and the death penalty?”

“Why now—one week before trial?”

“Because,” she said, “as the trial gets closer, I am growing more frightened. Why is that so hard to understand?”

“And why not avoid violating your bail and have Lord Dee come to visit you here?”

“That's obvious, isn't it?” Vinnie shot back, her voice indignant. “Magister Dee is basically an unindicted suspect in the Smithsonian crimes. You know that. So does Magister. While he has never been charged, he understands that the prosecution is eyeing him very closely. If he enters America, he could be seized. Arrested. Charged. As long as he stays out of the United States he knows that as a member of the House of Lords he could fight extradition very effectively. I'm surprised that with all your legal intelligence you couldn't figure that one out. Maybe you are not as brilliant as you think you are.”

Vinnie was enraged and insulting.

But Blackstone was unmoved by that.

“So,” Blackstone said, “you haven't said anything about the restrictions placed on you by the Court. The Court required you to stay within the continental United States.”

“I didn't recall that being the case.”

“Vinnie,” Blackstone said. “I explicitly instructed you about that.”

“I really don't believe you did,” Vinnie said coldly. “Besides, the Court took my passport. Which means that I was restricted from leaving the country for any destination that required a passport. I was under the impression that Canada still did not require a passport for entry from the United States.”

“Up to now,” Blackstone said, “it didn't. Canada is now transitioning to a passport system for Americans. But in a world of security concerns, it wasn't too hard for the border agents to check you out and find out that you had federal murder conspiracy charges pending. And that you were violating bail.”

“What happens now?” she asked, with a quaver. Her voice was showing that her initial anger was giving way to fear again.

“A court hearing,” Blackstone said. Then he glanced at his watch. “Any minute now.”

“What will the judge do?”

“First, he will address your bail. And as much as I hope against it, I
see no way that he will
not
revoke your bail and put you in jail until the trial. I know you don't want that. But there is something much more damaging than that.”

“What is it?”

“The prosecutor, Henry Hartz, is also asking the court to advise the jury during your trial that you had attempted to flee the country in violation of your bail. And that the jury can, if they want, interpret that act as an admission by you that you were escaping because you know you are criminally guilty.”

“That's ridiculous!” she cried out. “I am innocent. If you will simply do your best and do your job I will be acquitted.”

“I suggest that you keep that opinion to yourself,” Blackstone said. “The judge is in no mood, I'm sure, to get a piece of your mind after you have violated his bail order.”

Then Blackstone added his honest assessment.

“You have no idea, Vinnie, how impossible you have made your legal defense.”

But she didn't have the chance to respond.

Just then, a U.S. marshal entered the room.

“The judge is calling your case, Counselor,” he said. “Ms. Archmont needs to come with me. We'll take her up the prisoner's elevator. She'll meet you in the courtroom.”

Then the marshal led her away.

Vinnie did not look back.

Blackstone was studying his client as she left. She was a beautiful yet shadowy enigma in a case full of dark mysteries.

But despite that, the criminal law professor was now starting to see the essence of the case before him more clearly, as if illuminated by a light whose source was still uncertain. And he was beholding the shape of the Smithsonian crimes in ways that he had not disclosed to anyone else. Not to his client, nor the staff at his own law firm. And certainly not to Henry Hartz, the aggressive, career-climbing federal prosecutor.

It would only be a matter of time, now. To see if his theory was proven true. Even though he was not quite sure how such an astonishing state of affairs could have ever taken place.

CHAPTER 53

I
n court, Henry Hartz made a dispassionate but detailed description of Vinnie Archmont's travel from the District of Columbia to the state of Maine. Where she then rented a car and attempted to enter Canada, with her driver's license and birth certificate as identification. She was stopped for questioning by border agents. After a short computer search and discovery of her pending federal charges and bail restrictions, they took Vinnie into custody. The “clear terms of her bail release required her not to leave the borders of the United States,” Hartz told the judge. The court had no other alternative, he argued, but to vacate bail and place her into jail confinement pending her trial date.

Vinnie's face was pale and lifeless as she sat at the counsel table next to Blackstone.

Then her lawyer rose to address the judge.

“Your Honor,” Blackstone argued. “Canada has up to now
not
required a passport for American citizen border crossings. This court would have reason to be alarmed if she had attempted to leave the country through the use of a forged passport or through some other illegal means. But that is not the case here.”

“That doesn't give me much comfort,” the judge shot back. “Her attempt to enter Canada was, itself, illegal. It violated my bail restrictions. My bail order. Professor Blackstone
,
please…give me one reason why she should not be denied her liberty and locked into a jail cell until trial.”

“The purpose of bail, Your Honor, is ultimately, and always, to ensure
that the defendant will show up for all required court appearances. And, of course, will show up for trial. Yet there is not one aspect of my client's actions at the Canadian border that indicates that she was intending to avoid showing up for her trial.”

“You haven't told me,” the judge pointed out, “exactly what she was doing, trying to slip into Canada like that. Why did she do it? Why?”

That was a question that Blackstone could have answered. He could have told the judge that Vinnie wanted to meet with Lord Dee, who was planning on being in Quebec on political business.

But that was a point he could not afford to make. After all, Lord Dee was a person already under suspicion. Vinnie's plans for a rendezvous with Dee might slightly incline the judge to reconsider not revoking her bail, but only if the judge determined that her meeting with Lord Dee was intended to be entirely innocent. On the other hand, that was a risky gamble. What if Hartz then used that intended rendezvous with Dee as further proof of an ongoing conspiracy?

Blackstone couldn't afford to take that chance.

“The defense cannot provide any further details at this time,” Blackstone said, “on Ms. Archmont's reasons for wanting to
temporarily
enter Canada.”

“Then bail is hereby revoked,” the judge announced, “and Vinnie Archmont is remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service for confinement in a suitable federal facility until the time of trial.”

“And my motion,” Hartz said, rising quickly and leaning on his cane, “regarding my request to advise the jury of the defendant's attempt to flee the United States jurisdiction? Will the court grant that motion as well?”

The judge eyed Vinnie, then surveyed Blackstone's face for a moment. Then he ruled.

“I will take that under advisement,” the judge said. “Until the time of trial. I will announce my decision on that matter at that time, and not before.”

Then he gaveled the proceeding to an end.

Vinnie was led away in handcuffs by the marshals. As she was escorted out, she turned her head and quickly threw a confused and anxious look back to J.D. Blackstone. Then the side door to the courtroom was
opened by the federal guards, and Vinnie was whisked out and the door slammed behind her.

Henry Hartz had a smug look on his face as he gathered up his file. Blackstone was tempted to fire off a caustic comment to his opponent, but he refrained. He was banking on something else. A chance to have something substantive and ominous to tell Hartz. But that was going to depend on what was waiting for him at his office.

Blackstone hurried into the law office just as Jason was finishing a summary of the comings and goings of the key players who had access to Horace Langley's office before and after his murder.

“I'm just finishing up this list,” Jason said over his shoulder. He was at the computer workstation in the law library typing furiously.

“Print it out and bring it into my office when you're done,” Blackstone said and then hustled down the hallway toward his office, but he stopped momentarily in front of Julia's office. She was poring over a pile of records.

“I'm going over the statistical data on Vinnie,” Julia said, looking up. “And I did have a question on something. Maybe you can answer it—our public record search turned up a petition for name change that she filed. She had her last name changed from Wilson to Archmont…after she was an adult. Just wondering whether you knew about that.”

“No,” Blackstone said. “I wonder if she was an adopted child…sometimes they change their names after they discover who their natural parents were.”

“Could be,” Julia said. “Maybe you can ask her when you see her next. Which I am assuming will be soon, judging from what I heard. When I interviewed the apartment manager at Vinnie's apartment complex he mentioned you.”

“Oh? By name?”

“No,” Julia said, trying to be upbeat. “He said he was pretty sure that Vinnie ‘had a boyfriend.' That's how he put it. Nice, huh? You're no longer the defense lawyer, you're the ‘boyfriend.' Thought you ought to know.”