“Translation,” she said, “they’re taking dead aim at the jury pool.”
“But why?” Jessup wondered. “If their case is so good, why resort to cheap tactics?”
“Good question,” she replied.
“Will you ask for a delay?”
Dana shook her head. “Corey doesn’t want one. He wants to get out of there as soon as possible. He’s asked for a speedy trial.”
“You could advise him.”
“I’m not sure another six months would make that much difference.”
“Are you going for a gag order then?”
“No,” she told him.
“Why not?”
“Because I’d get it, and it would look like we had something to hide,” she replied. “This way, the evidence is the evidence. It won’t get any stronger by them hanging it all out there. And it won’t get any weaker by my trying to refute it.”
“So you’re going to do nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Dana confirmed. “I want to walk into the courtroom and be able to say to the jury, here he is, take a good long look at him. Where’s the monster the prosecution has been telling you about all these months?”
Prudence Chaffey sat on a peach velvet sofa in her gracious Houston living room on a muggy afternoon in May and served tea to the board of directors of AIM, which stood for something she believed in wholeheartedly: Abortion Is Murder.
“The Hill House trial is set to begin in four months,” she said, pouring from an elegant sterling silver service, and passing the cups with plates of frosted teacakes. “For the future of this country, we must do everything in our power to make sure there is an acquittal. While I abhor the loss of life associated with the bombing, I firmly believe that Corey Latham is to be championed, not chastised for his courage.”
The only daughter of a Southern Baptist minister, she had married into a prominent Texas oil family when she was seventeen. By the age of fifty-three, she had buried two babies for whom she still grieved, raised four others into adulthood, and was enjoying nine grandchildren, with the promise of more on the way.
It didn’t take her long to realize she had married too young, and with too many romantic notions in her head. By the time she had celebrated her fifth wedding anniversary, she knew that her husband, Harold, was a regular visitor to other women’s beds.
She went to her father. But instead of being outraged, he only shrugged.
“Boys will be boys,” he said, and then suggested that she find an outside interest to occupy her time. There was no question of a divorce.
Prudence tried a variety of local charities, all of which were delighted to have the young society matron’s name on their rosters, but none of them really appealed to her. Then Roe v. Wade became law, and as her father railed against it from his pulpit, she knew she had found the true cause she was looking for. What better purpose could one have in life than to help protect the rights of the preborn? True to her daddy’s teachings, the sweet, round, strawberry blonde believed abortion to be an act against God.
“The timing of this incident couldn’t have been more perfect,” one of AIM’s board members suggested. “What with the national elections coming up, and the party’s strong stand on the issue. Demands for a Constitutional amendment against abortion have been pouring into our offices.”
“Yes,” Prudence murmured. “One would almost think the young man had divine inspiration.”
SEVENTEEN
Okay, Corey, let’s fill in a few more of the blanks,” Dana began, opening her briefcase across the metal table in the purple interview room, and pulling out a pad, a pen, and a stack of files. “Let’s start with the police. I want to know exactly when and how they got to you, and I need you to be as specific as you can.”
“The first time was when two detectives came to the base,” he told her. “I think it was the first week in March. They asked some of us if we’d be willing to let them look in our cars. I remember one of the detectives was named Tinker.”
“Specifically, besides you, who did they look at?” she asked.
Corey thought about that for a moment, and then gave her the names of a lieutenant and three enlisted men from the Jackson. “I think those were the only ones on my boat,” he added. “But I heard they were talking to some guys from the other boats, too, and some civilians.”
“Altogether, how many would you estimate?”
“Maybe a couple dozen of us.”
“And, aside from the fact that you all work at Bangor, what did you have in common?”
“I found out later,” he replied. “We all drove SUVs.”
“What else?”
“Our vehicles were all dark-colored. You know, black, green, brown.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Didn’t they all have identification stickers?”
“Oh yeah, well, sure. Everyone has to have the sticker, or they wouldn’t be allowed on base.”
“Are the stickers located in pretty much the same place on everyone’s vehicle?”
“Yes,” he replied. “We have to put them on the lower left-hand side of the windshield, so they’re clearly visible to the guard at the gate. It’s regulation.”
“Are all the stickers the same?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly the same?”
“Well, not absolutely exactly.”
“What’s different?”
“The Department of Defense sticker is the same, but we also have base ID tabs, and they have different colors: blue for officers, red for enlisted men, and green or yellow for civilians.”
“And the tags are clearly visible on the windshield?”
“Yes. That’s one of the reasons why they do it that way. So the guards at the gate can pick up on a blue tag, and immediately know it’s an officer’s vehicle, and salute.”
“Okay,” Dana said. “Now how did the police know about the abortion?”
At that, Corey looked blank. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Did you tell them?”
“No. They didn’t ask me anything about that the first time. But when they came back, they just seemed to know.”
“Well, aside from you and Elise, of course, who did know?”
Corey had to think about that for a moment. “Zach did,” he said at length. “And a bunch of guys on my boat. I stopped in and had cocoa with Mrs. Biggs a couple of times, and I didn’t exactly keep it a secret. My minister knew, and the people in the support group I was in. And I guess the staff at Hill House. I think that’s all.”
Dana shrugged. “Well, I don’t know if it means anything,” she said, passing the pad and pen over to him. “But I’d like you to give me all the names.”
“Sure,” Corey said, beginning to write.
“All right,” she continued when he had finished. “So, the first contact you had with the police was when they asked to see your car. Detail the second for me.”
“Maybe a week or so later, Tinker and another detective came back to the base to ask questions.”
“Of all of you?”
“I don’t think so. They talked to me, and they talked to another lieutenant on my boat, and to a couple of officers on the Michigan, and to one on the Alabama.”
“That’s it? Just officers?”
Corey considered that for a moment. “Yeah, I think so. I think it was just the five of us. I’m pretty sure it was.”
“What did they ask you?”
“They wanted to know what my relationship was with Hill House. How many times I’d been there. And how I felt about the abortion. And did I hold the people at the clinic responsible. Stuff like that.”
“How long did they talk to you?’
“Gosh, it must have been for an hour or more. I remember it was long enough so that they started asking the same questions two and three times, like they forgot they’d already asked me.
“And then they went away?”
“Yes. But then the same guy, Tinker, and a couple of others showed up at my home a few days later, with a search warrant. They took stuff from my car, the garage, my closet. They kept telling me that what they were doing was so they could eliminate me as a suspect. I cooperated with them as much as I could.”
“And was that it?”
Corey nodded. “Except for the day they came and arrested me.”
“Here’s the list of people Corey says knew about the abortion,” Dana said, handing Craig Jessup the piece of paper Corey had written on. “I don’t know what it means, though, or if it’ll do us any good.”
“Are you thinking this might have been a setup? That one of these people took advantage of a situation?”
“I have an obligation to explore every possibility,” she responded. “And to present any reasonable alternative to the jury.” She shrugged. “Sure, there’s always a chance he was set up.”
“Okay,” Jessup agreed. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“There’s something else, too,” she said. “When the police went to Bangor the second time, they were only looking at officers.”
“What do you mean?”
“They didn’t talk to any of the enlisted men a second time, or the civilians. According to Corey, they only talked to the officers.”
Jessup’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Okay,” he said.
“She thinks it could be a setup,” Paul Cotter said over the telephone.
“A setup?” the voice at the other end asked.
“Seems a fair number of people knew the kid was angry over the abortion. She’s got Jessup out snooping around. But I think the chances of him finding out anything are slim to zero.”
There was a thoughtful pause on the line. “Does she really think she could back that up?”
Although the caller couldn’t see him, Cotter shrugged. “Frankly, with just a few months before trial, and the other side enjoying round-the-clock media coverage, I think she’s just grasping at straws.”
“Probably,” the caller agreed. “But you never know.”
“How’d you get your nose caught in the middle of this one?” Detective Al Roberts asked.
Although Craig Jessup was no longer a member of the police force, relationships that had been forged over twenty years on the job were lasting ones. The two men still met for drinks almost every week.
“Doing what my clients pay me to do,” Jessup replied with a helpless shrug and a heavy sigh. “Right now, I’m just trying to get a handle on this whole thing, you know, doing what I have to do to get it clear in my own mind. Worst-case scenario, I go back to my client and tell her to start praying for a deal to keep her client off the gallows.”
Roberts laughed. “From what I hear, that would take a lot of praying.”
“His head’s already in the noose, huh?” Jessup murmured.
“Oh yes, and then some,” Roberts confirmed. “Rumor has it, they’ve already ordered in the champagne—imported, too.”
“Well, between you and me,” Jessup confided, because he knew Al Roberts to be an honest cop, “I don’t see how they put this together.”
“Defense teams never do,” Roberts suggested with a smile. “Isn’t that the way it works?”
“Well, most of the time, I suppose,” Jessup allowed. He considered his friend for a moment, because he valued their relationship, and he didn’t like to abuse it unless it was absolutely necessary. “Listen, without doing yourself any damage, can you tell me how you came to like this guy for the bombing in the first place?”
“It isn’t my case, you know,” Roberts replied. “It’s Tinker’s, all the way. I have no real involvement, so I’m not privy to all the ins and outs. But as I understand it, they got a tip.”
“A tip?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a tip?”
“An anonymous tip.”
“An anonymous tip?”
“Yeah, so what?” Roberts responded. “It’s not unusual. We get them all the time. You know that as well as I do.”
Jessup hunched his chair a little closer and lowered his voice. “This is the biggest case to ever hit this town, and from where I’m sitting, anyway, there’s nowhere near enough to convict here. I’m looking at nothing direct, nothing material, no DNA, just a pile of assumptions. And now I hear you got to this guy through an anonymous tip. I don’t know. You tell me they’ve ordered the champagne, but I see a case that just barely got them their indictments, and won’t hold up on cross-examination. And you know I know enough to know that.”
Roberts frowned. “You saying you think the kid’s being railroaded?”
“Well, I sure wouldn’t blame anyone if he was. Look at the criticism you got for keeping a tight lid on the investigation. People said you were making mistakes and then covering your asses. Look at the pressure you were under to find the bastard, whoever he was. Now your side’s got people running all over the place, assuring everyone he’s the right bastard, like for some reason you need to try your case in the court of public opinion instead of the courtroom, and the other side’s not saying a word. Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar? Let’s face it, this thing is a major hot potato, for all of us, and an acquittal isn’t something the department would recover from so easily.”
Roberts stared into his beer for a few moments, then picked up the glass and drained it. He knew Jessup was being straight with him.
“Let me get back to you,” he said.
EIGHTEEN
At the age of forty-five, Tom Kirby was by far the oldest reporter on the staff of the investigative magazine Probe. He had knocked around the fringes of journalism since graduate school, without ever quite finding his niche. Not that he hadn’t had his share of opportunities.
There were a few good years on the Detroit Free Press, and a couple more on the Chicago Tribune, but in both cases, booze had gotten in the way. Then came other newspapers, smaller and smaller dailies, then weeklies, and finally a tabloid. In each case, a step down from the job before. There was also a bad marriage in the middle of it all. He finally checked himself into a rehab center and got clean. But it was too late to resurrect any kind of serious journalistic career.
He became a jack-of-all-trades, doing odd jobs for people whenever he could find them. He had always been good with his hands. He knew basic carpentry, was a pretty decent painter, and had more than a passing acquaintance with cars. He taught himself as much as he could about plumbing and electrical repair.
A year and a half ago, he had landed at Probe, a glossy weekly that liked its readers to think it was mixing fact with its gossip, and providing less sensationalism and more integrity than most of the competition.
He shaved off his three-day stubble, combed his unkempt sandy hair, and put on his one good suit for the interview. It was at least ten years old, and he was relieved to find that it was only slightly tight around his midsection.
“I know your history,” the Los Angeles publisher, who was ten years his junior, told him. “But I also know you did some good work once.”
“How would you know that?” Kirby asked.
“I was raised in Detroit,” the publisher replied.
“I can’t remember that far back,” the reporter mumbled.
“Try,” the publisher said. “Try to tell me what it was you went into journalism for.”
Kirby thought for a moment. “I wanted to write something that was worthy of winning a Pulitzer Prize,” he said with a dry chuckle.
“What?”
Kirby scuffed his shoe against the plush carpet. “I don’t know—a series maybe, about people in trouble.”
“Any particular people?”
Kirby shook his head. “Nah, it didn’t matter. Just people who got themselves in trouble. I always wanted to understand what forces can drive a person to do certain things, and how they make the decision on whether they do good things or bad things. Maybe because I never understood myself very well, or why I did a lot of the stuff I
did.”
The publisher smiled. “I need a veteran here, someone with just that attitude, someone I can rely on to get a story and get it right, someone the kids fresh out of school can learn from. Are you clean enough to be that person?”
“I’m clean,” Kirby replied. “I’ve been clean for two years now.”
“I know,” the publisher said. “That’s why you got this interview. But I also happen to know that you haven’t worked much in the past few years, either. So the question is, will you be able to stay clean when the pressure is on?”
Kirby looked at the man through disillusioned eyes, hating that he had to beg for work on a rag that wasn’t even good enough for toilet paper. “I can’t make you any promises,” he said, “except that I’ll try. I want to stay clean. I want to work. Hell, I need a job, okay, and this is the first interview I’ve had in eight months. You’d be going out on a big limb with me, but I’d do my damnedest not to let you down.”
The publisher had taken a chance, not that much of a chance, really, at least monetarily, and had not been disappointed with his bargain. Kirby had done his job, delivered his pieces on time, and earned the respect of his much younger coworkers. If he was drinking, it certainly wasn’t apparent to anyone.
At the end of May, Kirby knocked on the publisher’s door.
“I want to go to Seattle,” he declared.
“Why?” his boss asked. “We’ve already got someone up there covering it.”
“I know,” Kirby said, “but I think there’s something there for me. I don’t know what it is yet, but I can smell it.” He gave the publisher a cynical look. “I think it might be my Pulitzer.”
“I know how busy you are, Ms. McAuliffe,” Corey said shyly one day, when he had been in the King County Jail for two and a half months. “But do you think maybe you could come see me once in a while, even if it’s not about my case?”
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