Ricks agreed to get Steersman’s truck out of the impoundment lot and have it ready to go as soon as the prisoner was released. He had no objection to the man who would bring the ankle monitor attaching a GPS monitor to the truck.
J.D. next called the man she knew in Sarasota and arranged for the monitor to be installed and the tracker attached to Steerman’s pickup at seven the next morning. She had done all she could do. If this thing fell apart, she’d be open to criticism and probably worse. She thought she might have committed a crime or two in the process, but Esther was her aunt and she was innocent.
J.D. was taking a page from Jock’s book, doing what had to be done even if it violated the law. She wasn’t comfortable with it, but the bigger travesty would be the conviction of an innocent woman.
J.D. went back to the little conference room to find Esther sitting unshackled in the chair that Steerman had recently vacated. “I’m so glad to see you, J.D.,” Esther said. “Have you given up on your undercover operation?”
“No. I’m here in my own name. I’ve met with the sheriff and he seems like a pretty good guy.”
They talked about things of little importance for half an hour or so, and J.D. left to drive back to The Villages. She called Matt and told him about her afternoon and what she’d done about Steerman. “If this ever hits the fan, I think I could be in big trouble,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. I think we can make a good case that, since you weren’t working in any official capacity, you didn’t do anything wrong. So you lied to a dumbass, but it was for a good cause.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t right.”
CHAPTER 40
BREAKFAST ON THURSDAY was pancakes, sausage, and the morning paper at the Longbeach Café. I loved the early mornings in spring. The air was cool enough for a long-sleeve shirt, and the locals, who seemed to hunker in their homes during season, were reappearing a little early this year. Several came in and stopped at my booth to chat for a minute or two.
J.D. had called me before I left for breakfast to tell me that the ankle monitor had been put on Chunk and the GPS tracker attached to his truck. I knew the sheriff had to cut Chunk loose and I thought we’d have a pretty good idea of where he was because of J.D.’s ingenuity. I was at my dock cleaning off the little presents regularly left by the pelicans that liked to settle on my boat’s bow rails between fishing trips, when my phone trilled the first bars of “Hello Darling.” J.D. was calling.
“Sheriff Cornett just called me. Josh Hanna was spotted an hour or so ago in St. Pete.”
“Did the cop find out where he’s staying?”
“Apparently, he’s checked into a small motel on Highway 19.”
“I’m going to run up there and have a talk with Mr. Hanna.”
“Matt, he was driving a van, but it doesn’t look anything like the one Amber Marris described. His van is a four-year-old full-size Chevrolet.”
“That may be good news. I was hoping he wasn’t involved in this, but whoever hacked the Coffee County Sheriff’s computer was in his unit in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine that being a coincidence.”
“Neither can I.” She gave me the address of the motel. “The sheriff gave me Hanna’s license plate number, and I’ve asked Will Hall to run it through his system to see if his van ever entered any of the neighborhoods. He said he’d do that this morning and get back to me. I’ll let you know. What are you doing?”
“Cleaning Recess.”
“Have fun.” She was gone.
The motel was a 1950s vintage, concrete block building with peeling paint set back from Highway 19, a major thoroughfare. It looked shabby, as if nobody had bothered much with maintenance this century. Not the kind of place where a guy with two million bucks would stay. I guess his mom hadn’t yet told him about his trust.
The motel was squeezed between a used-car lot and an ancient barbeque restaurant whose chimney was belching smoke carrying the aroma of meat cooking on an open fire. It was almost noon, and from the number of cars in the parking lot, I thought the food must be a lot better than I would have guessed, given the looks of the building.
The one-story motel was U-shaped with all the room doors opening into the parking lot nestled between the arms of the U. A sign identified the office located at the end of one of the arms. I spotted a white Chevrolet van with Georgia plates two doors from the office and pulled in beside it.
The desk clerk was as shabby as the building he inhabited. He was young, maybe not yet twenty, and sported a Mohawk haircut dyed a strange shade of orange. He wore a t-shirt that revealed skinny arms with tattoos covering them from the elbows to the wrists. “Need a room?” he asked, as I walked through the door.
“Not today,” I said. “I’ve come to see Josh Hanna. Can you tell me which room he’s in?”
“No, sir. I’m not allowed to do that.”
I fished a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket and showed it to him.
“Try room four,” he said. I handed him the bill and left the office.
The door to room four opened to my knock, and a tall, good-looking young man with red hair opened the door. “Yes?”
“Josh, my name’s Matt Royal. I’m—”
“I know who you are. Come on in. I talked to my mom last night, and she said you were a friend of Mr. Hurt. I was going to call you this evening. I’m surprised you found me.”
“Why don’t we walk next door to the restaurant and talk over lunch?”
The inside of the restaurant was surprisingly clean and modern. We ordered our lunch, and Josh said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Royal?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions, Sergeant Hanna, but first let me tell you what I know.”
“It sounds like you know I was in the Army.”
I nodded. “I also know about the purple heart and the bronze star for valor. Very impressive. I used to be a soldier myself. I also know about your dad and that you hacked into the computer system of the Coffee County Sheriff looking for information on Olivia Lathom.”
“What makes you think I hacked the sheriff?”
“I have a lot of resources. Whoever hacked that computer was in Afghanistan and was in your unit. I can’t believe that any other person in such a small outfit would have an interest in Olivia Lathom. I’m not here to bust your balls. I don’t care about the hack. I just need some information to properly defend the woman who’s charged with Lathom’s murder.”
“That’s what my mom said on the phone last night. Do you think I had something to do with the murder?”
“Did you?”
“No, sir. I think she probably killed my father, but I’ve seen a lot of dead people over the last few years, a lot of them the victims of revenge killings. I want no part in that sort of thing. I was just trying to satisfy my curiosity. I didn’t have any intention of following up on anything.”
“Have you ever been to The Villages?”
“No, sir.”
“I think you can agree that I can find out a lot of things, including how to find you. I’ll know today whether your van ever entered any of the neighborhoods in The Villages.”
“You won’t find anything like that.”
Our meal arrived. The pulled pork tasted as good as it smelled coming through the chimney. We talked some more, about his growing up in Cordele, life in the Army, his deep appreciation of his mother, and the longing for his dead father. I told him I was confident that he had nothing to do with the murder and nobody would bother him with it again.
We finished and walked back to the motel and said our good-byes. He went into his room and I went to the back of his van, looked closely at the license plate, and could see no trace of a device that would obscure it with the flick of a button in the cab. I was about to pull out of the parking lot when my phone beeped, indicating an incoming text. It was from J.D. “Hanna’s van did not go through any of the gates. Ever.”
I called her. “You got my text?” she asked as she answered.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, and Josh is in the clear. He’s a war hero who wanted to know about the woman who may have killed his father. He hacked Sheriff Black, but that’s where it ends. I’m thinking it’s about time for you to come back home. I don’t know that there’s anything else we can do in The Villages right now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I need some time on the island to recharge my batteries before we start the trial. And I need that time with you. I’m sure Chief Lester would be glad to have you back on the job.”
“There’s a meeting of the book club tonight. I can tell them I need to head back to duty and slip out first thing in the morning. Would that work out?”
“It does. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
THE TRIAL
CHAPTER 41
MY ALARM JANGLED me awake at four on Tuesday morning. I rolled out of bed, turned on the coffeepot on Esther’s kitchen counter, took a quick shower, and dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. The air-conditioning system was in mortal combat with the unseasonably late April heat, and so far, cool seemed to be winning. Not by very much, but the temperature in the house was comfortable. I wouldn’t count on it being that way all day and I didn’t even want to think about August. On the other hand, by the time the dog days rolled around, I’d be back on Longboat Key.
I sat at the dining room table where my files were spread out in what could be described as organized chaos. I sipped my coffee and glanced over the transcripts of depositions that had been taken in the case. I wasn’t sure who Meredith would put on the stand as her first witness. I had to be prepared to cross-examine any number of people who had shown up on the state’s witness list, some of whom would never be called to testify. Still, I had to be ready if they were called. I had either talked to each of the people on the list or taken their depositions, but there were always surprises. Trying a case was a nerve-racking experience and the first day of testimony always stirred the butterflies in my stomach. I could only look forward to more of the same as the week wore on.
Monday had been spent picking a jury. Since the state had announced that it would not be pursuing the death penalty, we would only have six jurors and two alternates. If, for any reason during the course of the trial, one of the jurors could not continue to serve, the alternate would be substituted. Meredith and I both thought the trial could be finished in one week, so we felt safe with just two alternates. If we lost more than two jurors, the judge would have to declare a mistrial, and we’d start the trial all over. That was never a good outcome. For either side.
We’d taken all day to seat the jury, and in the end, we settled on three men and three women. Five of the members lived in The Villages and one man lived with his family in the small town of Coleman. The alternates, both retirees, lived near Bushnell. The man who lived in Coleman was a guard at the federal prison that stood on a patch of palmetto and scrub oak between Coleman and another little town called Sumterville. I’d taken a gamble on him. Typically, in a criminal trial, the defendant’s lawyer doesn’t want a law enforcement officer on the jury. Their jobs programed them to lean toward the idea that the defendant wouldn’t have been arrested if she hadn’t been guilty as charged.
Prison guards were often the most cynical of people. Every day, they watched the very worst people in our society go about their daily routines while locked up in the most brutal institutions in the nation. Of course, not all the prisoners were drawn from the most ruthless individuals that our society produced. Some were people who’d committed crimes of passion while in a rage, people who had never entertained a thought of hurting another human being. Yet, the crimes these otherwise upstanding citizens had committed were so egregious that they were sentenced to the same prisons that housed the worst people our tribe could spit out. The guards knew this and were able to differentiate between the worst ones and the ones who, except for a momentary lapse, might have lived out their lives in middle-class anonymity.
I decided that a prison guard would also be able to differentiate between a retired schoolteacher like Esther and a really bad guy, or even one who had slipped and found himself in a federal penitentiary. Maybe he’d give her a break.
Judge Gallagher swore in the jury and read them the charges describing their responsibilities, which included not watching TV or reading newspaper reports about the trial. He asked if the jurors had any questions, whether the lawyers had any issues to resolve, and recessed the court until nine the next morning.
Meredith and I walked out of the courtroom together and stood for a moment on the steps watching the traffic. We were both tired, our brains ready to quit for the day. The constant strain of the courtroom wears on the lawyers, and at the end of the day only a troubled sleep beckons. She looked up at me and said, “A prison guard, Matt? That’s some kind of a gamble.”
“He’ll be the foreman,” I said. “He’ll carry a lot of weight in the deliberations. If he’s with me, we walk.”
“And if he’s with me?”
“Then Esther’s up shit creek and I’m in big trouble with my sweetie. I’ll appeal immediately.”
“Did you ever hear the story about the young Atlanta lawyer many years ago who’d been sent down to South Georgia to try a murder case that nobody thought he could win? After a week of trial, much to everybody’s surprise, the jury acquitted the young lawyer’s client. He sent his boss in Atlanta a telegram that said, ‘Justice has prevailed.’ The boss wired back, ‘Appeal immediately.’”
I laughed. “We’ll see, Counselor. You have a good evening.”
“You, too, Matt. See you in the morning.”
My practice during a trial is to get as good a night’s sleep as possible. I don’t work in the evening. I might watch a movie on TV or one of the inane programs that pass as entertainment these days. I want to empty my mind of any thoughts of the trial or what I had to do the next day. If it worked, it made me sleep better. I’d get up at four a.m. and get a fresh start with a clear mind, and prepare for the day in court.
But it was a hit-or-miss proposition, and sometimes, like the previous night, I tossed and turned, dreaming of disturbing things I could not remember the next morning. I’d wake up with a sense of dread enveloping me like a dark fog and the only thing I could do to alleviate the anxiety was to throw myself into preparations for another day in court.
I’d tried a lot of jury trials, both civil and criminal, everything from real estate disputes to murder cases. Yet, even in the most mundane trials, the fear never leaves. I worry that I’ve missed something that my opponent didn’t, that there was some fact that would be sprung on me and ruin my carefully constructed trial plan. The nineteenth-century Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke said something to the effect that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. That is also true of a trial plan. Things change in an instant in the courtroom. Witnesses shade their testimony from what they said in pre-trial depositions, a witness you didn’t depose decides not to honor a subpoena and fails to show up, your opponent knows something about one of your witnesses that you failed to ferret out, and she lays into him on cross-examination, leaving you to do your best to rehabilitate him.
It’s a crapshoot, but I always tried to know everything about my case. I met with witnesses, took their depositions, spent the days just preceding the trial going over their testimony with them trying to make sure we were in sync when they got on the witness stand. The trial lawyer has to be nimble, ready for anything, prepared to fend off the surprise attack and in turn assault the witness in a calm demeanor that doesn’t anger the jury but will destroy the witness, his testimony, his credibility, and render his evidence useless.
I was up against a seasoned prosecutor and that was good. I’d always found trials to be easier when my opponent was competent and honest. I was convinced that justice was more likely to be reached under those circumstances than when the opponent was either unethical or incompetent or both.
I looked at my watch. I’d been at it for a little over three
hours and had actually gotten some work done while cogitating on my plight as a trial lawyer. When I get in these moods, I always recall a time long ago when a wise old judge, named Bernard Muszynski, and several tired lawyers were sitting around in his chambers on a Saturday night waiting for a jury to return a verdict in a case we’d tried all week. We lawyers were complaining about working so late and on a weekend to boot. The judge chuckled and said simply, “This ain’t work, gentlemen. Hod carrying is work. And those boys do it outside in August.” I thought the judge was right, although I never did figure out what a hod was.
I dressed, poured coffee into a travel cup, and drove toward Bushnell and the courthouse. I rolled all the windows down, opened the sunroof, and let the warm breeze and the black coffee wake me up.
CHAPTER 42
MY WORKDAY STARTED with Meredith Evans’ opening statement. She did a professional job and didn’t take up too much time. She laid out her case, but didn’t argue the facts. She hammered on the proposition that the evidence would show that the defendant, Esther Higgins, had become obsessed with the victim who was the author of a national best-selling novel. Esther herself had also written a novel, and she suffered from the delusion that Olivia Lathom had stolen her book. The fact that Esther had shown her manuscript to a member of her book club, Ruth Bergstrom, who was a friend of the victim, was the only link between the victim and the defendant. Ms. Higgins had never met Olivia Lathom.
“You will hear from Ruth Bergstrom,” Meredith said, her tone dropping a bit, her voice softer as she leaned in toward the jury. “She will tell you that she read part of Ms. Higgins’ manuscript and thought it was so awful that she couldn’t finish it. In fact, she gave it back to the defendant and, in an effort to spare Ms. Higgins’ feelings, apologized for not having time to read it. It was from this thin thread that Esther Higgins decided that the book she wrote had been stolen by the victim who published it under her own name and made a bucket of money.
Vindication Page 24
