The Final Judgment

by Richard North Patterson

  “Come now, Sergeant Summers. Wasn’t that when your witness came forward? Mr. Case’s supposed lover—Megan Race?”

  Summers’ mouth opened, then shut. In that moment, it was plain to Caroline that Summers knew to be careful on the subject of Megan, but that neither he nor Jackson knew why. “Yes,” he said tersely.

  “Who claimed, among other things, that the night James Case died, he was to tell Brett that he and Megan were taking off for California?”

  “I said that this morning.”

  Caroline cocked her head. “James sure had a funny way of getting his message across, didn’t he? Of course, maybe that’s why he couldn’t climax—the guilt was just too much.”

  “Is that a question?” Rising, Jackson gave Caroline a look of annoyance. “Because if it’s a statement, perhaps Ms. Masters should leave it to the only living person who was there.”

  Jackson, she could see, was at the limit of his patience; the challenge for Brett to testify showed that she had damaged him. “There were two people,” she answered mildly. “Brett and the killer.”

  For an instant, Jackson gazed at her, eyes steady now. Softly, he repeated, “Do you have a question, Caroline?”

  He had broken her rhythm, Caroline knew, and now her concentration. “Yes,” Towle interjected. “Please find a question to ask.”

  Caroline nodded to Jackson and then turned back to Summers. “From the evidence at the scene—including a condom—does it appear that they were having consensual sex?”

  “It does.”

  “And is there anything to support your theory that this was Brett’s idea? Or is that just theoretical?”

  “I’d have to say it’s theoretical….”

  “Indeed, Sergeant Summers, is there anyone other than Megan Race to say that Mr. Case meant to leave with her at all?”

  Summers paused. “They were seen together, Ms. Masters.”

  “That wasn’t my question, Sergeant. But I’ll take your answer and ask this—is there any evidence that Ms. Race and the victim were seen together after early April?”

  Summers considered her. “We didn’t specifically ask that, Counselor.”

  “Do you have an answer?”

  “No.” Summers paused; suddenly, he looked relieved. “But how would Ms. Race know to talk to us about the same subject Ms. Allen did—that he had asked her to go to California but somehow wound up dead?”

  From the stand, Summers seemed to watch her face for signs of alarm. But Caroline simply smiled. “So you considered it important that Ms. Race knew the victim wished to go to California?”

  Summers paused; it was as if, Caroline thought, he sensed the trap but could not see it. “Yes,” he said at length.

  “And this enhanced her credibility.”

  A curt nod. “To me.”

  “As well as, according to this morning’s testimony, providing you with a motive? A promise to drop a bomb on Brett that would surely make her angry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Indeed, for you, it explained why Brett Allen had killed him.”

  Summers gave her a look of veiled defiance. “I already said that.”

  “Is it also fair to say, then, that Megan Race is a critical part of the case against Brett Allen?”

  “There’s lots of other evidence,” Summers began, and stopped himself. “But she’s a significant witness.”

  Briefly, Caroline imagined Larry behind her; when she turned, glancing at him, he looked away. Turning back to Summers, she asked, “In fact, didn’t the appearance of Ms. Race cause the decision to charge Ms. Allen with the crime?”

  “Calls for speculation,” Jackson said evenly, and turned to Caroline. “As Ms. Masters knows, it wasn’t his decision.”

  Towle nodded. “Sustained.”

  But Caroline was already facing Summers. “Prior to charging Ms. Allen with murder, did Mr. Watts ask your opinion?”

  A reluctant nod, late in coming. “Yes.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That we had enough to charge her.”

  Caroline touched a finger to her lips. “And before Ms. Race came forward, did you express an opinion to Mr. Watts on whether to charge Ms. Allen?”

  For the first time, Summers glanced at Jackson. “I did.”

  “And what was that opinion?”

  “That we should keep looking.”

  Silent, Caroline considered him; she could see Summers hope that she would be satisfied with this concession of Megan’s importance. But Caroline was not quite done. “How long was it,” she asked, “between the time Mr. Case was killed and the time that Megan Race first came to you?”

  “About six days.”

  “Didn’t you suggest to Mr. Watts that this was curious? After all, according to Ms. Race, they were so in love that they were going away together.”

  Almost absently, Summers glanced at his cuff. “We discussed it, yes. But according to Ms. Race, she was afraid of what Ms. Allen might do.”

  “Did you accept that?”

  A small shrug, watchful eyes: Caroline imagined him wondering why she had not raised the affair with Larry. “I’m not Ms. Race,” he said.

  Caroline let him sit there for a moment. “Isn’t the major reason you believed Ms. Race that, in your view, Brett Allen lied to you about her very existence?”

  Summers leaned forward to answer, as if she had thrown him a life raft, and then his head snapped back and his glacial eyes turned faintly puzzled, probing her for a motive. “Could you repeat that?” he asked.

  Moving closer, Caroline said curtly, “Did you believe Megan Race because you thought Brett had lied about her?”

  Summers hesitated, then came to a decision. “That was a factor, yes.”

  Caroline smiled down at him. “But according to the tape, you didn’t ask Brett about James’s past involvements, did you?”

  Summers put one arm on the rail and propped his chin in his hand, ostentatiously weary of a hair-splitting lawyer. “Not explicitly,” he said, and then added, “I guess I expected her to answer the question reasonably.”

  Caroline’s smile turned sardonic. “Because you assumed that Megan’s alleged relationship with the victim continued to his death?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then perhaps you should have made that assumption clear to Ms. Allen.” Caroline paused a moment. “Before you suggested indicting her for lying to you.”

  Summers flushed. “I know that’s not a question,” Jackson snapped.

  Caroline turned to him. “Do you? Then I have none.”

  Facing Summers, she thanked him and sat down. As with her first, her last image of that day in court involved Jackson and her father, now both facing her—Jackson’s look of wariness; Channing’s cool, appraising eyes.

  Turning from them, she focused on Brett’s smile for her, filled with relief and gratitude.

  Seven

  Caroline cut herself another piece of Gruyère, washed it down with a deep red Chianti, raw in her throat.

  “Thanks for bringing this,” she said. “And for the information about Megan’s mother.”

  Joe Lemieux smiled. “Was your day productive? Or just long?”

  Caroline did not answer; perhaps the hardest part, she thought, was pretending to everyone—herself included—that she felt nothing. She sipped more wine. “That may depend,” she said at last. “What else have you got?”

  They sat in Carlton Grey’s office. It was nine o’clock, and Caroline’s lamp cast shadows in the corners. Lemieux shifted in his chair.

  “I can’t say for sure. It’s already been three weeks since this guy was murdered, and now no one remembers seeing her. But then they’ve got no reason to—that night was nothing special to them.” Lemieux seemed to watch her. “All I can really tell you, Counsel, is what we knew before—that she called in sick to her boss at the student union.”

  Caroline shrugged. “Keep looking, then.”

  “I have been. No one near the la
ke remembers seeing her, or her blue Honda.” Pausing, Lemieux made a steeple of his fingers. “Are you serious about trying to place her there, or will it do if no one saw her?”

  Caroline considered him. “Near the lake is better, obviously.”

  “Because all it takes is for her to be watching TV with a friend, and you’re out of luck.” He gazed at her with curiosity. “Unless you believe…”

  Caroline gave him a wintry smile. “I don’t know what I believe. But then, in my job, it’s not essential.” Abruptly, her smile vanished, and she asked in a quiet voice, “Did you show them all the pictures?”

  Lemieux looked at her hard now. “Every one of them.”

  “Is there anyone we missed?”

  Lemieux studied the tips of his fingers. Softly, he said, “You are serious.”

  Caroline simply stared at him.

  “There’s a gas station left,” Lemieux told her. “By the head of Mosher Trail. The kid who works nights took off for Florida the next day, to see his mother. He won’t be back till two nights from now. Thursday.”

  Caroline reflected. “She’ll take the stand on Thursday, I think. I’ll try to keep her there until Friday. Somehow I doubt that will be too hard.”

  Lemieux’s eyes asked a silent question. “I’d better get going,” he said at length.

  Caroline leaned back in her chair. “By the way,” she asked, “is Megan right- or left-handed? I never noticed.”

  Lemieux gave her a faint, puzzled smile. “Right, I think.”

  Caroline nodded. “Good.”

  Eight

  Dr. Jack Corn, the medical examiner, had lank gray-blond hair, wire-rim glasses, and the amiable half smile of a small-town banker. Little about this mild appearance suggested that—as Caroline well knew—he was a nationally recognized pathologist who had brought the New Hampshire Medical Examiner’s Office to a place of professional esteem. His manner was courteous, his voice soft and faintly midwestern.

  Methodically, he took Jackson from his appearance at the crime scene through the trip to the morgue in Concord—Corn and two assistants assessing and photographing the body; inspecting it for trace evidence; measuring the width and depth of the wounds; taking blood samples; searching for prints on the body. The reality of this, Caroline knew, was not pleasant; it was part of Corn’s gift to make the process sound clinical, thorough, and scientific. Which it clearly was.

  “And in the course of these procedures,” Jackson was asking, “did you determine the cause of death?”

  Corn nodded slowly. “The victim died from a deep wound to the throat, severing the jugular vein, the carotid artery, and the victim’s airway. As a result, the airways were filled. So that, quite literally, Mr. Case drowned in his own blood.”

  Next to Caroline, Brett folded her hands on the table, took a deep breath, and kept on looking at the witness. “Could you describe,” Jackson said, “the nature of such a death?”

  Corn’s face had lost its semi-smile. “It would not be instantaneous, Mr. Watts. There would be a gurgling sound, perhaps with the victim thrashing in agony, for as long as three or four minutes. What Mr. Case would have experienced was the quite horrific knowledge that he was drowning and that there was nothing he could do.”

  Caroline saw Brett’s eyes shut. Jackson moved forward. “This gurgling sound, Dr. Corn—what would account for that?”

  “Asphyxia. The victim would be unable to speak. Instead he would suffer what we call agonal breaths, spewing blood from his mouth for approximately ten to fifteen seconds.” Corn paused, as if imagining the moment. “Eventually, he would suffer hypovolemic shock: the absence of sufficient blood to the brain. I should add that with respect to movement, there does not seem to have been much. But then the wound was so grave that Mr. Case’s head was partially severed.”

  Touching Brett’s arm, Caroline felt a spasm pass through her. Caroline’s fingers tightened around her wrist.

  “Was there also, Dr. Corn, a second wound?”

  “There were three, actually. I believe that the first in time was also a throat wound, but much shallower, from which we concluded that the fatal wound was a second and more successful effort to sever the victim’s throat. The last wound, we believe, was the stab wound near the heart.”

  Corn’s narrative, calm and uninflected, somehow conveyed the picture of a determined killer, a butchering both intimate and passionate. “And did you determine the type of wound?” Jackson asked.

  Corn folded his hands. “It was a knife wound. From the tearing of the skin, it appeared that the knife had a serrated edge. From that, and from our measurements, we determined that the wounds were consistent with the Cahill fishing knife found in Ms. Allen’s possession.”

  “And did you photograph the body and the wounds?”

  “My assistant did. Yes.”

  Jackson produced a sheaf of photographs from an envelope on the prosecution table. Reluctantly, he turned to Caroline, glancing at Brett as he did so. “Would you care to review these again, Ms. Masters?”

  Briefly, Caroline turned to Brett. She had her own copies. But it had been Caroline’s judgment that seeing the photographs would only haunt Brett’s nights. “Don’t look,” she whispered. “There’s no point to it.” Pale, Brett nodded and turned away.

  “Yes,” Caroline said evenly. “Thank you.”

  Looking down at Caroline, Jackson hesitated. Then he handed her the photographs and went back to his table.

  Caroline took them one at a time.

  By agreement, they were premarked for identification: the first, prosecution exhibit number twenty-seven, was an overhead shot that captured the staring eyes of a man for whom death was the end of agony.

  Next to her, Caroline felt Brett flinch. Caroline wondered if this was the horror of discovery, or of memory.

  “Don’t,” she murmured. “They get no better.”

  Caroline reviewed the photographs as quickly as she could. “Thank you,” she said to Jackson.

  Taking the exhibits, Jackson shot a quick, opaque glance at Brett. In that moment, Caroline saw in close-up the deepening lines at the edges of his eyes, the bruises of weariness.

  Within minutes, a blond assistant from Jackson’s office had pinned the photographs to a bulletin board. Even from a distance, Caroline could see the spatters of blood on James’s face, the gash in his throat.

  Glancing at her family, Caroline saw Betty and Larry looking down; only her father, face impassive, seemed to study the photographs. Next to her, Caroline heard the slow intake of breath. “It was dark,” Brett murmured. “I couldn’t see him.”

  Caroline turned to her. Staring at the pictures, Brett’s face had filled with something close to awe. “How could someone do that…?”

  Jackson stepped forward. “Dr. Corn,” he asked, “were these the photographs taken as part of your autopsy of Mr. Case?”

  “They were.”

  “And are they consistent with your opinion with respect to the cause of death?”

  “Yes.” Corn left the witness stand and stood before the photographs; Caroline saw the judge’s gaze, intent and narrow, follow him. “For example, Exhibit Twenty-seven shows the pattern of blood on the victim’s face—large spots in some areas, spatters in others. For lack of a more felicitous description, the airway wound sustained by Mr. Case creates a pattern similar to a can of spray paint that is running low, where spurts and spatters alternate with the degree of pressure.” Pausing, Corn adjusted his glasses, and then he concluded: “After a time, ten to fifteen seconds, the pressure subsides altogether. But this pattern was already here.”

  Caroline knew what was coming now. Within moments—a few brief exchanges between Jackson and Towle—a second bulletin board of premarked exhibits stood near the first. Next to Caroline, Brett was still.

  In the photographs where Brett’s eyes showed, they were dull with shock. Her breasts and face and torso were flecked with blood.

  “I’m sorry,” Caroline said so
ftly. “But there’s no help for this.”

  Brett’s eyes had frozen. Perhaps, Caroline thought, it was simply humiliation; more likely, it was the shock of seeing the masks of James’s dead face, her shocked one, twinned by specks of blood. Even Judge Towle seemed transfixed by the imagery.

  “Did you also,” Jackson asked Corn, “examine the pattern of blood on Ms. Allen’s face, neck, arms, and body?”

  “I did.”

  “And are these photographs consistent or inconsistent with the conclusion that Ms. Allen killed Mr. Case?”

  “In my opinion, they are consistent.”

  Brett stared at Corn, her body rigid with anger. But Jackson sounded quite calm; it was as if, Caroline thought, he preferred this case in someone else’s hands. “And on what, Dr. Corn, do you base that opinion?”

  “The pattern of blood.” Pausing, Corn pointed to a photograph of Brett’s neck. “The pattern in Exhibit Thirty-nine, for example, is consistent with the spraying from the first infliction of the wound. It’s the spray I would expect when, in the alternating force of pressure, it lessens.”

  “Could it also be consistent with the administration of CPR, which Ms. Allen claims to have attempted?”

  “Not in my view. For instance, there’s no contact pattern of blood on Ms. Allen’s mouth, as one might reasonably expect. And, while CPR might possibly cause the pinpoint spray one sees in Exhibit Thirty-seven, it would not account for the teardrop pattern on Ms. Allen’s stomach. As shown by Exhibit Thirty-nine, for example.” Corn turned to the judge, as if conducting a seminar for one. “You’ll notice the teardrop pattern of the spatters here: slender at the bottom, much wider at the top. That would not be caused by CPR on the victim after the immediate spurt from his wound had abated—it’s much too heavy. But it could be consistent with the agonal breaths of the first few seconds.”

  He was quite impressive, Caroline thought. “It’s all right,” she murmured to Brett, and scrawled a note—cast-off pattern?—on the pad in front of her.

  Jackson’s voice was firm now. “Are there other factors which are consistent with the commission of a homicide by Ms. Allen?”