“Detective Dan Jenkins, FDLE,” he said, as he approached the tape.
“Is Charlotte Holmes under arrest?” Jack asked.
“No,” said the detective. “But I would like to ask her a few questions.”
“Not before I’ve spoken to her.”
“That’s fine. But whether she talks or not, her gun stays with us. She gave it to us, and it’s been tagged as evidence.”
Jack didn’t argue, though it appeared that his client had already said more than any lawyer would have liked. “Can you take me to her, please?”
“I’ll bring her.”
Jack called Theo while waiting and told him not to go anywhere. A minute later, Charlotte came into view in the company of Detective Jenkins, their shadows long in the bright portable lighting. Charlotte was limping, and when she stopped on the other side of the tape, she breathed out the pain, not to mention a good amount of stress and worry.
“Charlotte, let’s go get an X-ray of that knee.”
“I’m fine.”
She didn’t seem to get Jack’s drift. “Charlotte,” he said firmly. “Let’s go.”
Jack thanked the detective, and they exchanged business cards as Charlotte stepped beneath the tape. Jack offered a shoulder to lean on, but she insisted on walking under her own power. Theo was able to pull the car up a half block closer to shorten the walk. Jack had mentioned an X-ray just to get her away from the scene, but she was limping so badly that a trip to the ER probably made sense. She agreed. Jack got in the back seat with her so they could talk on the way. Charlotte explained everything, from Alberto’s text messages to the rendezvous at Clyde’s, from the crack of gunfire to the moments that followed—when she checked on the body.
“Are you sure the man you shot is not the same guy you saw across the street from Madeline Chisel’s office?” asked Jack.
“This guy is way bigger around the middle.”
“Not the guy who pulled you out of the truck after the accident?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t remember much about that, other than the camouflage jacket.”
“Do you have any idea who he is?”
“I don’t.”
Jack would come down harder on her later, after the trauma of having shot and killed a man subsided. But every lawyer had his limit, and that bit about the customer always being right didn’t apply to clients. “Why did you leave the hotel in the first place? How could anything good come of that?”
Charlotte apologized and then gave him the full background on Alberto.
“And where is this Alberto now?” asked Jack.
“His lawyer was on the scene even faster than you were. They left.”
Jack was immediately suspicious, and he recognized the irony: the fact that Charlotte had left with her lawyer had surely struck the police as no less suspicious. Jack turned his questioning back to the shooting.
“Was the man coming at you when you shot him?”
“Not at me. The argument was between him and Alberto.”
“Why did you shoot him?”
“I didn’t want to. I had to.”
“Why?”
Charlotte breathed deep, her tone more somber. “I thought he was going to shoot Alberto.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“I think I saw a gun in his hand.”
“What do you mean, you think?”
“When Alberto jumped up from the table, the guy said he had fire in his pocket. He reached into his pocket for something and—well, after that, it was a blur. I fired.”
“Did you find a gun on the sidewalk?”
“It was a stampede. Tables were knocked over. People were falling on top of other people. Everything went flying. Alberto and I were trying not to get trampled to death.”
“Was there a gun in his pocket?”
She glanced out the car window, then back at Jack. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t check his pocket before the police got there?”
“No. I took his pulse to see if he was alive.” She paused, and Jack could hear the lump in her throat. “There was nothing. He wasn’t breathing. So I dialed nine-one-one.”
They arrived at the hospital. Theo stopped the car, and the glow of the ER entrance signs bathed them in a rainbow of light. Jack could see in Charlotte’s expression that the adrenaline was waning, taking her strength with it.
“What if it turns out he didn’t have a gun?” asked Charlotte.
Jack looked into her eyes. Second-guessing wasn’t what he’d expected from a gun lobbyist, but any combat veteran would attest to the world of difference between target shooting and firing on another human being at point-blank range.
“You did the best you could,” he said.
“I . . . I shot him. What if I made a mistake?”
“It’s not fair to torment yourself with what-if questions. Especially when you consider all you’ve been through in the last two weeks. Give your mind a rest.”
“But a man is dead.”
She seemed to be slipping into a bad place, and the only way Jack knew how to stop it was to stop talking about it. “Come on. Let’s go check out that knee. Then we can have a conversation.”
Jack climbed out, walked around to the other side of the car, and helped Charlotte out of the back seat. Together, they walked toward the emergency room entrance. This time, when Jack offered his arm, Charlotte accepted and leaned against him.
It had nothing to do with her knee.
Chapter 32
President MacLeod took the Florida attorney general’s call at his table-like desk in the Treaty Room. On the wall behind him hung a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, the former president seeming to watch over him. Alight in the distance, framed in a pair of windows that flanked the portrait, were the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
MacLeod didn’t make regular use of the Treaty Room the way his predecessors had. Just a few doors down from the master suite, adjacent to the famous Lincoln Bedroom, it was perfect for quiet study and after-hours reflection. For MacLeod, it was simply too damn quiet. He liked the energy and controlled chaos of the West Wing, which he encouraged by leaving the doors to the Oval Office open late into the night, inviting an endless stream of high-level aides who came and went with praise, ideas, comments, and—if they were smart—still more praise for the man who fired staff on a weekly basis.
This after-hours call from the Florida attorney general had been flagged as “extremely private.” The Treaty Room fit the bill.
“Good news, Mr. President,” said Barrow. “The Leon County state attorney plans to bring criminal charges against Charlotte Holmes.”
“Breach of oath?”
“No, sir. Second-degree murder.”
The president gripped the phone with excitement. “That certainly ups the ante. What’s this about?”
“It appears that Ms. Holmes arranged a meeting with two men at a Tallahassee nightclub. An altercation broke out, and she ended up shooting one of the men dead. Looks like a botched payoff.”
“What makes you think this was a payoff?”
“FDLE obtained access to her cell phone and collected text messages. One of the texts was from an untraceable cell phone spoofing as another number. The message said ‘A promise is a promise.’ We take that to be code for ‘A deal is a deal.’”
“As in a deal to support Senator Stahl? She sold her electoral vote?”
“Exactly.”
MacLeod shot from his chair, so thrilled that he would have slapped a high-five with President Grant, had the eighteenth president actually been in the room. “Can you prove all this?”
“We have a nine-one-one recording of Ms. Holmes admitting that she shot him. Proving that this was a payoff will take some detective work. But we’ll get there. We already have the text message about the promise—the deal.”
“Excellent,” said the president, settling back into his swivel chair. “Who’s the dead guy?”
“Hi
s name is Logan Meyer. Basic troublemaker. A bunch of small-time arrests. We don’t know what his role was in the payoff, but the fact that such a sketchy guy got involved makes for good atmospherics.”
“Was he armed?”
“No report so far that he had a weapon.”
“What about money?”
“Sir?”
“You said this was a botched payoff. Did money change hands?”
“Unfortunately, no money was recovered at the crime scene.”
“What happened to it?”
“We don’t know. Ms. Holmes won’t tell us. I can only presume that’s why her lawyer won’t let us talk to her.”
A sour taste gathered in the back of the president’s throat. “Would that be Low Jack?”
“Lojack?”
“No. Low Jack. Low-energy, low-IQ Jack Swyteck. The former governor’s son.”
“I don’t see any reason why Ms. Holmes would replace him. It’s my understanding that criminal defense law is his specialty. He did nothing but death penalty work for years.”
“Will the state attorney seek the death penalty here?”
“There is no death penalty for second-degree murder.”
“Ah, that’s right. The death penalty is for breach of oath.”
There was a pause on the line. “I’m sorry, sir. What?”
MacLeod chuckled professorially. “A little highbrow humor there, General. I guess you’ve never heard of Sir Thomas More? Executed for—uh, something to do with an oath.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Mr. President. You are truly a Renaissance man.”
“Don’t you forget it.” MacLeod swiveled in his chair, gazing out the window toward the Jefferson Memorial. “When do you plan to make the arrest?”
“The warrant will be issued tonight. I’ll call Swyteck and extend the courtesy of allowing his client to voluntarily surrender in the morning. We’re scheduled to continue the fitness hearing before Judge Martin at nine a.m. He’s not technically the duty judge, but he has years of criminal experience on the bench. He can do the arraignment right there.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Execute the warrant tonight and haul her off to the detention center in a squad car. She can be arraigned at the morning cattle call by A-V connection from the detention center, along with the DUIs, the armed robbers, and everybody else arrested in the last twenty-four hours.”
“I say forget the courtesy. Let her spend the night in jail.”
“That makes us look bad, Mr. President. Perceptions matter. Like you always say, when they go low, we go high.”
“When did I say that?”
“Starting now. Plus, arraignment before Judge Martin is the surefire way to maximize media coverage. Everyone is already planning to be in his courtroom for day two of the fitness hearing.”
MacLeod smiled thinly. “You’re lucky you’re so damn good, General Barrow.”
“I aim to please, Mr. President.”
“Yes, you do.”
Chapter 33
At 9:00 a.m. Jack and his client were in Judge Martin’s courtroom. The judge was wearing his criminal-jurisdiction hat.
The phone call from General Barrow had come around midnight. Jack suspected an ulterior motive behind her proposed “voluntary surrender,” but that was no reason to refuse what, on its face, appeared to be professional courtesy. By 7:00 a.m. Jack had a copy of the probable-cause affidavit in support of the arrest warrant, as well as the formal criminal information charging his client with homicide in the second degree. Jack had been expecting, at most, negligent homicide. The courtesies only went so far.
“Criminal case number twenty-dash-ninety-two,” intoned the bailiff. “State of Florida versus Charlotte Lee Holmes.”
“Truth matters!” a woman shouted from the back row. Jack had no idea which side she supported.
Judge Martin smacked his gavel. “There will be order in this courtroom.”
Silence. It appeared to be an isolated outburst, not a coordinated protest.
An early press release from the Office of the Attorney General had unleashed a flood of tweets and other Internet chatter about Charlotte’s alleged “electoral vote for sale,” a botched payoff, and a dead bagman. Even before the shooting, Jack had expected demonstrations at day two of the fitness hearing, but news of Charlotte’s criminal charges had drawn even larger crowds. Only a fraction of the people who’d flocked to the courthouse found a seat for Charlotte’s arraignment. The media section was again at capacity, some determined reporters squeezing in sideways for a firsthand account.
Jack was at his client’s side as they stood before the bench. The legal team for Senator Stahl was notably absent. They’d filled the first row of public seating for Charlotte the Faithless Elector. They were nowhere to be seen for Charlotte the Accused Murderer.
“Good morning, everyone,” the judge said. “Ms. Holmes, the purpose of this proceeding is to advise you of certain rights that you have, to inform you of the charges made against you under Florida law, and to determine under what conditions, if any, you might be released before trial. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Charlotte.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the judge said, and with the full recital of her Miranda rights, Jack saw a look of fear return to Charlotte’s eyes.
“We’ll waive the reading of the charges,” said Jack. His client had read them before the hearing. A public reminder was unnecessary.
“Ms. Holmes, how do you plead?” the judge asked.
“Not guilty.”
“So noted.” The judge’s gaze shifted to the other side of the courtroom. “General Barrow, what is the state of Florida’s position on bail?”
“Judge, we wish to be reasonable wherever possible. I would point out that we didn’t rush out to arrest Ms. Holmes and handcuff her at midnight. We allowed her to surrender voluntarily this morning.”
“I appreciate that,” the judge said. “Such gestures reflect well on you and the entire profession.”
“Thank you,” said Barrow. “We were comfortable with that arrangement only because the defendant’s lawyer is in town to ensure her appearance in court. To be honest, we have no such comfort after Mr. Swyteck returns to Miami. We believe the defendant is a flight risk, and therefore the state of Florida opposes pretrial release.”
Ulterior motive exposed. But Jack had prepared for it.
“My client has lived in northwest Florida her entire life, and in Leon County since she was eighteen years old. This is not about flight risk. The attorney general opposes bail for one reason. If Ms. Holmes is locked up, she can’t attend the meeting of the Electoral College at the state capital on December fourteenth. By law, if she fails to show up, Florida’s other Republican electors select her replacement. This is a political power play in response to her announced intention to cast her electoral vote for Democratic candidate Evan Stahl.
“In fact,” Jack continued, “this entire criminal case is political. The allegation that my client sold her vote and that the words ‘a promise is a promise’ somehow mean ‘a deal is a deal’ is preposterous. Ms. Holmes was being threatened for breaking her alleged ‘promise’ to vote for President MacLeod. This unfortunate incident was clearly an act of self-defense.”
“Save your speech, Counsel,” the judge said.
Jack apologized, but it was worth the rebuke in open court. His “speech” was mainly for the media, the press release he had yet to release.
“Bail is set at one hundred thousand dollars,” the judge said. “The defendant shall surrender her passport to the clerk of the court and is prohibited from leaving the state of Florida. Anything else, Counsel?”
“Not in the criminal case,” said the attorney general.
“Then this initial hearing is adjourned. Bailiff, call the civil case.”
The bailiff complied, and the attorney general didn’t miss a beat in transition. “Judge, we believe the hom
icide charge in the criminal case is dispositive of Ms. Holmes’s unfitness to serve as an elector.”
“Charges are just accusations,” said Jack. “They aren’t dispositive of anything.”
“I agree,” the judge said. “General Barrow, if you want me to remove Ms. Holmes as unfit to serve as an elector, you need to prove these allegations.”
“Let me make sure I understand,” said Barrow, though she looked more annoyed than confused. “To convince this court that Ms. Holmes is unfit to serve as elector, we have to prove in this civil case that Ms. Holmes committed murder in the second degree, as alleged in the criminal case. And you want us to do that before December fourteenth?”
“I don’t want you to do anything,” the judge said. “I’m telling you that what you presented in court yesterday was a salacious circus. I wouldn’t remove Ms. Holmes as ‘unfit’ to serve as dog catcher based on that record.”
Jack liked the judge’s assessment of the attorney general’s “fitness” evidence so far. The rest was a problem. “Your Honor, the meeting of the Electoral College is less than three weeks away. My client can’t be expected to defend murder charges in that time frame.”
“Your client doesn’t have to prove anything, Mr. Swyteck. And this is not the criminal trial. If the state of Florida chooses to pursue this civil action under the framework I’ve established, the defense gets a free look at the state’s evidence at least six months before the criminal case goes to trial. Stop complaining.”
Jack had never looked any horse in the mouth, and he wasn’t about to start with a gift horse. “Understood,” said Jack.
The Big Lie Page 18
