The Final Judgment

by Richard North Patterson

  “What I intend,” Caroline answered, “is to show that the prosecution case against Brett Allen should not satisfy anyone who comes to this courthouse with an open mind. I hope the prosecution meets that description.”

  Caroline turned away, making this challenge to Jackson her sound bite of the morning. It also hid her own discomfort; after all, she thought grimly, only she could guess the origin of the murder weapon, only she knew that Brett and James Case had quarreled in the moments before his death. Her stomach felt hollow.

  At the top of the courthouse steps she turned, waiting for her family.

  Dressed in a three-piece suit, Channing Masters was a figure of judicial rectitude, head held high as he climbed the stairs toward Caroline. Betty clasped one elbow, Larry the other; their faces, as Caroline had schooled them, were open and hopeful. They met Caroline, forming the tableau of a family come to seek justice for its youngest member.

  Minutes before, Jackson had arrived.

  With a certain restraint, he said only that what mattered was the evidence. As for Megan Race, she was in virtual seclusion: two nights before, a television camera had caught her leaving the apartment, straight-backed and angry. She would not speak at all.

  The previous day, Jackson had appeared at the inn unannounced.

  They had gone to her room. In a voice much colder than usual, Jackson asked, “What have you done to Megan Race?”

  With feigned indifference, Caroline had answered, “What does Megan think I’ve done?”

  Jackson gazed at her across the room. His eyes looked puffy; Caroline knew that he was as tired as she was.

  “She wants me to investigate you,” he said finally. “She still thinks someone broke into her apartment.”

  Caroline sat back. “Any more proof of a break-in?”

  Jackson hesitated. “No. Not that we can see.”

  “Then it never happened, did it? Just like a drug dealer never broke into James’s apartment…”

  “Don’t play games with me. Megan’s jumpy as a cat now—you did something to intimidate her.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to intimidate me. Or maybe you are.” Caroline’s voice was brittle with strain. “If you want to investigate me, go ahead. But not until this hearing’s over.”

  Jackson folded his arms. “Save it for the cameras, Caroline. I’ve been watching you ratchet up the pressure on this girl for the last two days. If you’ve got some reason to believe she’s not reliable, tell me.”

  “I already did,” Caroline snapped. “And yet you insist on calling her.”

  “She denies any relationship to Larry.” Jackson stood, hands on hips. “Look, if you’ve got something else, tell me. But don’t try to set me up.”

  Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Caroline was silent. “This is a capital case,” she said at last. “It’s about Brett, not you and me, and you’ve chosen to base it on Megan Race. I’m entitled to cross-examine her without giving you a preview.”

  “You did do something, didn’t you?” Jackson’s tone was sharp now. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that whatever it is will come out too? What about your judgeship?”

  Caroline looked at him wearily. And what about your judgeship, she wanted to ask; all at once, she understood what public embarrassment might do to him as well. It made her sorry for them both.

  “I’m a defense lawyer,” she answered. “Brett comes first.”

  “Just what do you plan?” her father had asked.

  They sat in Carlton Grey’s office a few hours after Jackson’s visit. Perhaps it was fatigue; Caroline felt the full weight of her memories, the deep despairing wish never to have returned. It took an act of will to address her father as a lawyer.

  “Several things,” she said. “First, to show that the physical evidence, in which Jackson put such stock, is ambiguous. I’ve been over this with our experts—on serology, on drugs, on pathology, and on forensics—until the lab reports are swimming before my eyes.”

  “Yes.” Her father’s tone was suddenly gentle. “You look tired.”

  Caroline did not want sympathy. In a flat voice, she said, “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  Channing was quiet for a moment. “Being tired is no good,” he said finally. “For you or for Brett. And from the way you’ve dealt with the press, you’ve staked a lot on this.”

  “Yes,” Caroline said with some asperity. “I’ve considered that.”

  Channing turned to the window. The office was shadowed, but outside it was brilliant summer; in the half-light, the skin of Channing’s face had the translucent look of parchment. “You’re still my daughter,” he answered softly, “and Brett is my granddaughter.”

  There was nothing Caroline wished to say.

  After a time, Channing spoke as if her silence had never happened. “Judge Towle is a friend, Caroline. He’s hardly pro-defendant, but he does have a certain libertarian streak. I think he’ll give you latitude in showing that Brett was too intoxicated for the police to question, or that they didn’t warn her properly.”

  Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Even if it means that everything—her statement and the warrants to search her person and the property—goes out the window? Leaving Jackson with next to nothing?”

  Channing shrugged. “As a district judge, Fred Towle won’t have to make that ruling—the Superior Court judge will, if Fred otherwise finds probable cause. But I believe that Fred will let you call Jackson’s principal witnesses and tie them down on that and other points.”

  Caroline raised an eyebrow. “Even though under New Hampshire law I’m not allowed to ferret out Jackson’s case? After all, in theory, the sole purpose of this hearing is to establish probable cause.”

  “Fred may find that a hard line to draw.”

  Watching him, Caroline found herself wondering if her father had spoken to Judge Towle: the integrity of New Hampshire judges was a matter of great pride, but Channing Masters had helped Towle secure his judgeship. And who could know what might be said in some passing conversation over bourbon at the Trout Club.

  “I hope you’re right,” Caroline said at length. “I want the sworn testimony of Jackson’s witnesses before they’re as well prepared as Jackson will have them at trial. If we can show how drunk Brett really was, the pressure will build for Jackson to knock the charge down to manslaughter.”

  Channing’s mouth compressed. “She’s not guilty, Caroline.”

  “Oh, I know. You’ve already said that.”

  Channing straightened in his chair. “You may have become so jaded that guilt or innocence doesn’t matter. But it should.” His voice turned hard. “Now that you’ve made this hearing such an event—for reasons I don’t completely follow—nothing will do but that you destroy Jackson’s case if Fred Towle lets you try. Because if you don’t do Jackson real damage, Brett will be worse off than ever. Not simply because you’ll have lost the battle of publicity, with the attendant effect on prospective jurors. But because we’ll have given away to Jackson, and his witnesses, your best lines of attack at trial.”

  Caroline frowned; she knew all too well the perils of the decision she had made. “This isn’t helping me. Assuming that’s what you came for.”

  Her father folded his hands in front of him. “Caroline,” he said at last, “what will you do about Megan Race?”

  His voice mingled apology and concern; more than antagonism, Caroline found, this made her edgy. She did not want to feel the burden of her father’s sleepless nights.

  “I’m going to destroy her, Father. Just as you suggest.” She smiled faintly. “After all, how do I know that she didn’t kill him? How do Jackson and the police know, when, as I intend to show, they were so quick to latch onto Brett that they never even looked for the real killer?”

  Her father studied her. “You still believe she’s guilty.”

  Caroline no longer smiled. “We’re all guilty,” she said quietly. “Brett no more than the rest of us.”

  Her father gave her a com
plex look of inquiry and comprehension. “And you won’t tell me what you mean to do to Megan.”

  Caroline folded her hands in front of her. “No,” she answered. “Over the years I’ve learned to keep my own counsel.”

  Her father blanched and then looked down. After a time, he said, “You never will forgive me, will you.”

  It took Caroline long to answer, but when she did, her voice was steady. “All these years, and you’ve learned nothing. You think that feelings are an elective—that I elect to feel this way to hurt you. But all that I elected was to survive.” Her tone grew quiet. “You say you look at me and see my mother. But when I look at you, it’s David’s face I see. No matter how hard I try.”

  He gazed up at her, stricken. Softly, she finished: “That is far more painful to me than I can ever tell you, Father. And it will never change.”

  With her father beside her, Caroline entered the courtroom.

  She faced him, pausing a moment. And then, for the press who watched them—for Brett—she touched him on the shoulder, then Larry, and turned to Betty.

  Betty looked away. To cover this, Caroline clasped her shoulders, and kissed her softly on the cheek. Her lips barely touched her sister’s skin.

  Turning, Caroline drew a breath and walked to the defense table.

  The courtroom was small and plain, with the American and the New Hampshire flag at each side of the judge’s bench. The press began to cluster in the back, and the slow gathering of a courtroom reaching critical mass began—Jackson shuffling papers at the prosecution table; a bailiff coming through the judge’s door at the back of the room, the court reporter sitting at her machine in front of the raised bench where Judge Towle would sit. The murmur of onlookers grew quieter.

  Caroline folded her hands beneath the table. At the back of the courtroom, a second door opened, and then Brett appeared with a deputy.

  She wore the simple blue dress Caroline had selected for her, and her hair was pulled back from her face. The effect was demure; Brett’s eyes seemed to widen at the courtroom, and her bright green gaze sought out Caroline. And then she smiled a little and came to her directly.

  Feeling strangely light, Caroline stood. This was what she was here for.

  Brett gazed up at her. “Hi,” she said.

  Her voice was close to normal. “Are you all right?” Caroline asked.

  Brett smiled again. “Anything to get out of there.”

  The joke did not quite work; for a moment, Caroline wished that she could hug her.

  “Well,” she said in her calmest tone, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  They sat together. Caroline squeezed Brett’s hand beneath the table. Then Carlton Grey joined them, and she let go.

  “All rise,” the bailiff called out.

  District Judge Frederick Towle appeared. He was plump and brown-haired, no older than Caroline and no taller. He took his time, his round, amiable face solemn and a little abstracted, as if he was aware of being watched. Assuming the bench, he looked at Jackson.

  Jackson did not look happy. Caroline knew why: at seven-thirty that morning, Judge Towle had brought the lawyers in to take care of preliminary motions. Carlton Grey had moved Caroline’s admission for the purposes of the case; graciously, Judge Towle had welcomed her back to New Hampshire, and then he set the rules for the hearing. His sole purpose, he went on, was to determine whether the prosecution had probable cause to pursue a charge of murder in the first degree: Jackson would be allowed to put on hearsay evidence, asking the police to testify as to knowledge gained from other witnesses. But after argument from Caroline, Towle ruled that Jackson could not show probable cause solely through the lead investigator. Instead he must himself call four of the prosecution witnesses whom Caroline had subpoenaed—the arresting officer; the lead investigator; the medical examiner; and Megan Race.

  Jackson had protested vigorously—this, he said, would present the defense discovery not permitted by New Hampshire law. But Towle held his ground: the purpose was not discovery, he responded, but establishing probable cause in a matter that relied on the credibility of Megan Race and on medical evidence—including photographs—too complex for hearsay testimony from lay witnesses. Jackson had looked astonished; watching, Caroline could feel her father’s presence, though he was nowhere near the courtroom.

  Now, still facing Jackson, Towle nodded. “Mr. Watts,” he said, and the hearing began.

  Two

  Watching Jackson rise, Caroline wondered if this would be her last appearance in a courtroom. The sense of emptiness frightened her—who would she be if not a judge or lawyer. And then she felt Brett beside her.

  Get a grip, Caroline told herself. What Brett needed now was for Caroline to be as good as she ever had been.

  Passing before the cramped spectator section, jammed with media, a young policeman in uniform took the stand.

  Officer Jack Mann of the Resolve police was much as Brett had described him: stocky, well built, barely in his twenties. His brown hair was cut short on the sides, Marine-style, emphasizing his square chin and prominent nose. But his face seemed hardly written on, and his eyes were guileless: the effect was of someone decent, striving to fill his role and almost painfully sincere. Caroline could see why Brett had trusted him.

  Jackson stood near the witness box in his prosecutor’s outfit: navy-blue suit, white shirt, subdued tie. The sober spokesman of law and order, soberly examining its first line of defense.

  Quickly, Jackson disposed of the preliminaries and got to the critical facts. “That night,” he asked, “when did you first encounter Brett Allen?”

  “I saw her Jeep.” Mann glanced quickly at Brett. “It was stopped by the side of the county road, with the headlights on. I thought someone might be needing help.”

  Next to Caroline, Brett sat with her head bowed. She made herself look up at Mann; in Caroline’s line of vision were two young profiles—Brett gazing at the policeman; Mann facing Jackson.

  “So you stopped?” Jackson asked.

  “Yessir. And went to the car.”

  Jackson shoved his hands in his pockets. “And what did you find?”

  “At first I couldn’t see anyone. So I went to the driver’s-side window with my flashlight.”

  “And?”

  Mann stared straight ahead now. “There was a naked woman inside. She was hunched down behind the wheel, face pressed against the car door.” His voice carried the memory of puzzlement. “Sort of curled up in the fetal position, like she was trying to hide.”

  Brett’s face reddened. Caroline touched her arm.

  “I called to her through the window,” Mann went on. “After about the third time, she opened it.” He paused a moment. “She tried to cover herself. But I could see the blood and vomit on her.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Only that she was sick. I could smell it too—along with marijuana and maybe wine.”

  Caroline glanced about. An odd decorousness had settled over the courtroom: Judge Towle studied nothing in particular, and reporters soberly scribbled notes. But Betty and Larry were rigid in profile, and her father’s stare was fixed.

  Caroline turned back to Jackson.

  He was moving closer to Mann. “Did she tell you how she’d gotten that way?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing about a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  Eyebrow raised, Jackson skipped a beat. “Or a murder?”

  “Nothing like that, sir. She didn’t say anything about him.”

  On Brett’s eyes was the sudden film of doubt—all at once, Caroline sensed that Brett herself was not sure of what had happened. She wondered if this was better, or worse, than the settled knowledge of one’s guilt.

  “Did you search the car?” Jackson asked Mann.

  “No, sir—I didn’t have a warrant. But there were certain items on the passenger seat, in plain view.”

  The young cop’s voice was stiff now—he wanted to show
how well he had stuck to the rules. As if to affirm this, Jackson nodded before asking, “What were those items?”

  “A wallet and a knife.” Mann’s voice lowered. “The knife had blood on it. From the looks of it, the blood hadn’t dried yet.”

  The process had begun, Caroline thought: the slow accretion of fact upon fact to establish Brett’s guilt. Brett herself was still, attentive.

  “Did you ask her about that?”

  “I asked if anyone was hurt.”

  “And what did she answer?”

  “I don’t remember, exactly. But what it amounted to was ‘no.’”

  “And how was her demeanor?”

  “It was like she was so scared she was numb. But her eyes followed me—I could see she understood my questions. When I asked her name, she told me.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “Told her I was taking her in, for DWI.” Mann’s voice turned defensive. “I didn’t know what else had happened, but it was pretty clear she was drunk or maybe stoned.”

  The next question, Caroline knew, was critical. Jackson paused before asking it, and each word was slow and distinct.

  “At the time you arrested Ms. Allen, Officer Mann, did you believe that a homicide had been committed?”

  Mann fidgeted in his chair, but his voice was firm. “I had no idea what had happened, except that there was blood in the car, and someone might be hurt. At first, I thought it might be her blood. But she wasn’t telling me a thing.”

  “So you took her to the station in Resolve.”

  “Yessir. I gave her my jacket and drove her in. Then I booked her for DWI and put her in a cell.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went through the wallet and found a driver’s license with a man’s picture and a name—James Case. That was the first time I was sure the wallet wasn’t hers.”

  Jackson nodded. “Did that concern you?”