Witness for the Persecution, page 8
‘If you get killed I’ll never forgive you,’ I said.
‘Imagine how I’d feel. I think my chances are pretty good,’ Jon said. ‘I’ve learned how to duck since then.’
‘You don’t have to do this out of guilt,’ I said, and meant it.
‘Send me what you have and I’ll be up to speed in an hour.’ How is it you can tell when a person on the other end of the phone is smiling?
Nate Garrigan answered on the second ring. His text message had said it wasn’t urgent but his speed in picking up spoke otherwise. I had the Bluetooth on in the car so his voice sort of boomed throughout. ‘You out getting a latte?’ Because people who aren’t from New Jersey think that constitutes sarcasm. Colorful.
‘Oddly, when someone leaves me a message that says it’s not urgent, I tend not to dive for the phone,’ I said. ‘Forgive me for not sending a SWAT team to your house. This is nine-one-one. What is your emergency, sir?’ That’s sarcasm. You’re welcome.
‘Gee, Moss. Maybe you don’t want to hear about the evidence I’ve turned up.’ Nate, despite being a crusty old cop, has a flair for the dramatic that he must have learned from watching reruns of Law & Order. Or maybe he was born with it.
I sighed audibly for effect. ‘OK, fine. What’d you find out? Garrigan.’ If we were going to call each other by our last names, I was not going to be left out.
‘Hi, Nate!’ Angie, from the passenger seat, was determined to be if not the center, at least the center-right of attention.
‘You have me on speaker? And she’s there?’ Nate was operating in a world where women were … well, let’s not dwell on what Nate thought women were. Or, to be more precise, what he pretended he thought women were. Nate is actually very respectful but he wouldn’t want me to tell you that. So hi, Nate!
‘Deal with it,’ I said.
I could hear the scowl. ‘Fine. I have video footage of the guy falling off the crane and the five minutes that led up to it.’
OK. That was a development. ‘But the camera wasn’t running,’ I said. ‘Everybody has been very clear about that part. The camera wasn’t running.’
‘No, it wasn’t. Not the main camera. This was a five-camera shot and even the other four weren’t turned on.’
There’s a flair for the dramatic and then there’s just being annoying. ‘Cut to the chase, Nate. What do you have?’
‘There was somebody on the set taking video on their phone,’ he said.
I sat there wondering whether that was good news or bad news, and if it was bad news for Reeves, was that necessarily bad news? I spent years as a prosecutor and there’s still part of me that wants to lock up the bad guys. If Reeves had really caused the ‘accident’ that killed James Drake, did I want him to be acquitted?
Life would be so much easier if I had no morals.
‘Sandy?’ I guess Nate was now happy using my first name to demonstrate what great pals we were. ‘Did you hear me? Someone on the set got the whole thing on their phone.’
I coughed. Angie was blinking. So was my right turn signal. Probably best to make the turn. ‘I heard you,’ I told Nate. ‘Who was it?’
‘Who was it got the video?’
‘No, who was it that stole the cookie from the cookie jar. Of course, who got the video!’ Don’t play with me when I’m not in the mood. Patrick has learned this. It hasn’t stopped him, but it has slowed him down.
‘I’ve been asked not to mention a name,’ Nate said. ‘The person doesn’t want to testify.’
Well, that wasn’t going to be much help. If I couldn’t question the videographer about how the footage was taken and whether it had been edited or digitally manipulated, I wasn’t sure Franklin would even admit the video into evidence. ‘I’m not loving this yet, Nate,’ I said. ‘Does the footage at least show that our client didn’t kill James Drake?’
It was Nate’s turn to hesitate and fake-cough. ‘Um … I’m not a hundred percent sure yet,’ he said finally.
‘Say what?’ That was Angie. Let it be stated on the record.
‘Nate, tell me you’ve seen the video.’ That was me. I mean, I’m sure you could tell, but clarity is half the battle. Or something.
Nate’s voice took on a steelier quality. ‘Not. Yet,’ he said.
‘Are you sure it exists?’ I mean, people will do pretty much anything to get attached to a big sexy murder case. I don’t know why, but they will.
‘I’ll have it within twenty-four hours,’ Nate insisted.
‘How’d you find out about it?’
He sounded offended. ‘I’m an investigator, Moss.’ We were back to that. ‘I find out stuff.’
‘Yeah, that’s gonna sound great in front of a jury. How did you find out about the video footage of the murder?’ At the end of the day, I had to remind him, I was Nate’s employer.
‘Just tell her,’ Angie suggested. ‘She’ll get all legal on you.’
Nate sighed, which sounded like an elephant having gall bladder surgery with very little anesthetic. ‘I got it from the friend of a friend and no, I’m not providing a name until we’re sure you’re going to use it in court. Suffice it to say my friend had reason to be very beholden to me.’
I made an executive decision not to ask what Nate might have done for this ‘friend’, which might have ranged from a night of passion to a contract hit. I guessed it was more in the area of calling an old cop acquaintance to get a traffic ticket fixed, but there’s no knowing for sure with Nate.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Call me the minute you get the footage and don’t look at it until I’m there, understand? I have to be absolutely sure there hasn’t been any doctoring done to that video.’
‘You think I would …’
‘No,’ I told Nate. ‘I don’t think you would. But I have no idea who your friend is or what he, she or it might be capable of. Don’t watch one second of that video until I’m in the room with you, capiche?’ No matter who you are, in New Jersey you pick up the odd Italian word. Most of them, very odd.
Then I hung up on him just to avoid any possible counter-arguments. I didn’t even call Patrick back, assuring myself I would do so as soon as my meeting was over.
We had pretty much reached my office by then, so I pulled into the underground garage, swiped my pass and, after another twelve minutes, managed to find an open space where I parked the car.
Angie got out and followed me to the elevators. I gave a quick thought to faking her out, getting back in the car and ditching her for the rest of the day and then I remembered 1. That it was my office and 2. That I was wearing four-inch heels and couldn’t run faster than Angie on my best day. This was not my best day.
Resigning myself to the fact that she’d be following me around and packing heat (good lord), I walked to the elevators and pushed the button for my floor. Angie looked around the elevator as if expecting ninjas to drop from the roof and attack me. Her hand was in her unzipped purse, just in case I was in need of having someone shot. Alas for Angie, we made it up to my office unassailed.
We passed Jon’s office on the way to mine and saw that he was already elbow-deep in the Reeves file. I could see his elbows because he’d literally rolled up his sleeves to get started. He waved as we went by but didn’t engage me in conversation; Jon would want to be completely up to speed on the case before he’d discuss it with me.
And most of the work wasn’t even on paper; it was in computer files I’d sent him. Jon must have had everything printed out because he likes having it in a tangible form. Jon is old school.
I had barely made it to my own desk and sat in my own chair when there was a commotion of some kind in the outer office. Angie pulled the gun out of her purse – this is all based on some general rumblings in another room, mind you – and headed for the office door before I said, ‘Hold it. Nobody’s coming for us.’ She flattened out her lips and stopped, but she clearly wasn’t a fan of my assessment of the situation. ‘In two seconds my phone’s going to ring.’
It did, too. Possibly the first time I’d been right all day. I picked up the phone, listened to Janine on the line, said, ‘OK,’ and hung up. Angie stared at me.
‘Show people,’ I said. ‘Never lost for a big entrance.’
I stood up and walked to my office door, which took six steps. I don’t have a Bronson-sized office. Angie silently followed behind. I took a pause at the door and stood for a long moment.
‘What?’ Angie said.
‘With egomaniacs it’s best to make them wait for you.’ I finished counting to fifty and opened my office door.
Angie, nodding, walked by my side to the small conference room, which would have required a Sherpa guide the first three months I had worked at Seaton, Taylor. I would have dropped breadcrumbs, but they have a cleaning service come in every night.
When we walked into the room, which I generally used for one-on-one client meetings that I didn’t want to hold in my own office, Robert Reeves was standing next to the table looking impatient, which had been my goal. Penny was with him, of course, but she didn’t look nearly as irritated as my client did. His arms were crossed over his chest and it’s entirely possible that his foot was tapping on the floor, which did him no good because the floor was carpeted.
Next to him was a woman easily twenty years younger than he was, and she was a confusion of people all in one very well-toned body. Trying hard to be chic but also youthfully casual and sexy but professional and knowledgeable while kooky all at the same time must have been exhausting, but she was doing her very best to pull it off.
‘Ms Moss,’ Reeves said. ‘You’ve kept us waiting.’
‘I know,’ I said. I directed my attention to the even-younger-than-I-thought woman. ‘You must be Patricia Reeves.’
She stuck out her hand and, despite my resolution to avoid shaking hands, I took it to establish some solidarity. ‘You can call me Tracy,’ she said.
I looked at Reeves. ‘And you can go,’ I said.
THIRTEEN
Reeves and I had the usual struggle about him leaving the room. He knew I’d already clearly stated the rules, but he wanted to show what a big important guy he was, particularly in front of his younger-every-moment wife. I, on the other hand, wanted Tracy Reeves to see without ambiguity that I was in charge here and could order her husband, major cinematic talent that he believed himself to be, to go away.
Then he agreed to leave but wanted Penny to stay, which would have been the same thing as him remaining in the room. So there was another round of hilarious banter, followed again by my usual threat to drop the case and let him deal with the public defender and Reeves telling me I’d never do that. I wasn’t sure he was right.
After all the posturing, Reeves left the room, no doubt to go and terrorize Penny his assistant for mentioning Steven Spielberg’s name in his presence. He seemed the kind of guy who would do that to make himself feel better.
The current Mrs Reeves was sitting with her legs (amply displayed in a short skirt) crossed at the ankle, no doubt as they had taught her in parochial school before she started wearing short skirts. Her hands were clasped in her lap. Her eyes were wide and open, not just literally but effectively, ready to take in all that might happen before her. She was the very model of a modern trophy wife, and no doubt owned her own yoga studio on top of it.
‘Nice to meet you, Tracy,’ I said. It wasn’t the most original opening in the world but it did the job.
‘Hi.’ Did she even know why she was here? Angie, sitting as far to my right as she could to be out of the way, snuffled a snort and looked out the office window searching for threats. There were apparently none imminent.
‘I’m glad you came in,’ I continued, ignoring my best friend’s editorial comment. ‘I want to ask you about some of the issues surrounding Robert’s upcoming trial.’ I mean, his wife knew he was accused of murder, right?
‘OK.’ I’d had more interesting conversations with cats. And I’ve never owned a cat.
I had a pen in my hand, ostensibly for the purpose of making notes on a legal pad (I’m one of the chosen who can use them unironically) and noticed myself tapping it on my desk. I stopped.
‘Robert is accused of sabotaging a stunt on the set of his movie in order to kill a stuntman named James Drake,’ I told Tracy. Just in case. ‘Did you know Mr Drake?’
She nodded dutifully. ‘Oh yeah. We were screwing.’ I guess it could have been worse.
‘You were.’
Tracy nodded even more forcefully. ‘Oh yeah. For, like, months.’
I was mentally crossing Tracy Reeves off my witness list. ‘Why?’ I asked.
She actually looked up, having not anticipated the question. ‘Why?’ she repeated.
‘Yes. You were newly married and then you began … seeing another man. And he was married to someone else. Why did that happen?’
‘Stuff just happens,’ she said.
‘No, in cases like this, stuff doesn’t just happen,’ I said. ‘People make choices. You had a choice not to cheat on your husband and you decided you would anyway. Now, that was your choice and you had every right to make it, but I’d like to know about the decision-making process that led to it.’
‘I don’t know,’ Tracy said. Like that settled it.
I’d circle back to this when I could wrap my head around what might have been going on in Tracy’s. ‘Did your husband know about your affair with Mr Drake?’ I asked.
‘Oh sure. He fixed us up.’
Huh? ‘Your husband suggested that you have sex with a stuntman in his employ?’
‘Well, he didn’t say it like that.’
I was being spoon-fed information when I wanted to take large gulps. ‘Suppose you just tell me how that happened and don’t leave anything out,’ I said. Maybe I could get more than six words out of her that way.
‘We were at a party? And Jimmy came over? And Robbie said he thought we looked good together?’
Was she asking me if that was what happened?
‘Is that what happened?’ I figured it was best to clarify this as quickly as possible.
‘Yeah?’ Somehow that didn’t help much.
Angie, no matter what role she might have in the current drama, was going to be Angie. It was one of the reasons – no, it was the reason – I had tried to avoid having her in my office while I was working. She took time away from security detail (but not taking her eyes away from the window into the main office) to say, ‘You know your husband says you’re crazy, right?’
That seemed to awaken Tracy from her stupor. ‘What?’ she said.
‘Yeah. He says you weren’t cheating with this Drake guy and that you just think you were because you’re nuts. So who should we believe?’
Tracy looked at me, the figure of authority she’d seen kick Robert out of the office only minutes before. ‘Is this true?’ she asked in a voice that was ten years older than the one she’d been using.
I gave Angie a poisonous glare that I hoped Tracy didn’t notice and said, ‘Robert has been making some statements that would indicate you might have some problems separating reality from unreality,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’d like to have a doctor friend of mine meet with you next Tuesday so we can make a determination about whether you might testify at the trial.’
Tracy paled a little bit. ‘Testify? Under oath?’
‘That’s how they like to do it,’ Angie said.
‘I’m not going to do that,’ Tracy said.
This meeting was not going quite in the way I had hoped. ‘Well, why don’t you meet with Dr Chao and then we can talk again about how we’ll proceed.’
‘Not a chance, lady. I will not testify.’
It was an interesting response, but not one that I thought confirmed Robert Reeves’s assertion that his wife was suffering from a mental illness. She was, however, dead set on not speaking on her husband’s behalf in a court of law.
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘A wife doesn’t testify against her husband,’ Tracy said. She too was apparently a fan of courtroom dramas in movies and on television, because they tell you that all the time.
‘A wife doesn’t have to testify against her husband,’ I said. ‘But if you have evidence that your husband didn’t kill James Drake, you’ll be testifying for him, not against him.’ Besides, she was under subpoena from the DA. It appeared Tracy didn’t read her mail.
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.’
I put up my hands like a very dedicated traffic cop, palms out and up. ‘OK. You don’t have to testify for the defense. But I would like you to see Dr Chao so we can deal with any testimony that might be about your state of mind. Is that OK with you?’ It pretty much had to be.
‘My state of mind?’ Tracy said. It wasn’t like Angie hadn’t been particularly clear about what that meant.
‘There’s going to be a lot of talk about whether you were having an affair with the victim,’ I began.
‘And I was. So what?’ There are witnesses and then there are living, breathing obstacles to getting an acquittal.
‘So maybe your husband killed the guy you were sleeping with,’ Angie said. Angie is my id.
Tracy shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
I was starting to be happy she wouldn’t testify. For me. Not so much the other way.
‘They’re gonna want to talk about that in court,’ Angie went on, explaining like she would to a particularly bright pet ferret. ‘So if your husband says you’re nuts and you don’t know if you were really shtupping the stuntman, we need to know if anybody has any evidence that you do or don’t. Get it?’ After that explanation even I didn’t get it.
But Tracy nodded. Clearly we were dealing with kindred spirits here. Although I thought Angie could think rings around Tracy without a scintilla of effort. They were communicating on a level I didn’t have, and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
It was time to get back to the point. ‘So you’ll see Dr Chao on Tuesday?’ I said.
‘Yeah. I guess. I’m not crazy. Might as well have that on the record. I guess.’ Tracy guessed a lot. She was probably guessing when she married Robert Reeves that he would find out about her dalliances with other men, divorce her and then – under California’s no-fault divorce laws and the pre-nuptial agreement I had not yet read – get a large sum of money in alimony and community property. But I was just, you know, guessing.
