He’d told the hotel operator not to send calls up to his room unless it was an absolute emergency. There were two messages on the machine.
The first was from Moira and Michaela. “We know you’re busy, but we wanted to say hello, and tell you we miss you, and wish you luck. Call us when you have a free moment.”
The second was from Violet. “Glad you’re not in, since I promised I wouldn’t call. But I had to.” There was a pause, the voice lowering. “Good luck tomorrow.”
One quick cognac from the minibar, then showering the day’s gunk off, brushing his teeth, climbing in bed naked under the sheet; his thoughts drifted to Moira to Violet, to Marvin, to Dwayne Thompson, to the hundreds of pages of testimony and police reports he had to master. And when sleep finally came they all were still there, all part of his life, and all as unresolved as they had been when he was awake.
“GOOD MORNING, MR. Thompson.” Wyatt stood at the lectern, facing Dwayne.
Dwayne nodded his greeting. He was more alert than he had been during his interrogation by Abramowitz. This lawyer facing him was going to skin him if he could.
“You’ve been in prison a long time, haven’t you?” Wyatt asked his first question.
Another nod. “A fair amount.”
“More in than out,” Wyatt said. “Most of your life.”
This time Dwayne’s answer was a shrug.
“You’ve been a witness for the state in other trials before this one?”
“Yes.”
“And every time you testified for the state the prosecution cut you a deal, didn’t they?”
“Cut me a deal?” Dwayne affected being offended.
“They gave you something in return for your testimony, isn’t that right?”
Dwayne looked at him. “That’s how it works.”
“Two of those times,” Wyatt said, reading his notes, “your reward was not being prosecuted on a felony charge that was outstanding, isn’t that right?”
Dwayne stared balefully at Wyatt. “In those instances it was decided it wouldn’t be in the interest of justice to try me,” he said.
“The decision was made after they found out what you could do for them, wasn’t it,” Wyatt stated. “Rather than it being an objective reading of the merits of each case.”
Another shake of the head. “After I went to them, yeah.”
“So instead of two violent convictions on your record, you could have four, couldn’t you?”
“I could’ve been acquitted for both of them,” Dwayne answered.
“That’s true—anything can happen,” Wyatt agreed. After a quick glance at his notes again, he said, “But isn’t it true that every time you have gone to trial you have been convicted and sent to prison?”
Dwayne spit out some air. “Yeah.”
Wyatt leaned forward. “Have you made a deal with the district attorney’s office for giving testimony in this case?” he asked.
A slow nod. “Yes.”
“What kind of deal did you make?”
“Reduction in time. That’s the normal deal in these things.”
“Reduction in time. How much reduction in time?”
Dwayne shrugged. “Time,” he said.
“Is that it?” Wyatt asked.
“Yeah,” Dwayne lied with a sociopath’s glibness. “They’ll cut some time off my sentence.”
Wyatt looked at another note. “They’re going to commute the rest of your sentence, aren’t they? You won’t serve any more time on it, even though you’ve got, what, three years left to go?”
Dwayne fidgeted in his chair. He hadn’t squirmed once in the two days he’d been under questioning by the prosecution. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “They’re going to cut it to time already served.”
Wyatt walked over to the defense table and selected a file from the several that were stacked there. Walking back to the lectern, he flipped through it until he got to the information he was seeking. “According to public records,” he stated, “you have another trial pending, on a charge wholly unrelated to this current one.” He walked around to the front of the lectern so that he was close to both Dwayne and the jury. “Did you and the DA’s office cut any kind of deal on that charge, as well as on the one you just told us about?”
Dwayne’s eyes flickered toward the prosecution table. Abramowitz gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Wyatt, his eyes following Dwayne’s look, caught the nod.
“Any deal on that charge?” Wyatt repeated. “Some nice little bone, like they’ll forget all about it?” He looked at the file in his, hand again. “That’s a heavy charge,” he said. “Manslaughter in the commission of a felony. You’re found guilty on that one, they throw away the key, man. So let me ask the question again: Have you cut a deal, with this district attorney’s office, on this charge?”
Dwayne took a deep breath, let it out. “Yes.”
“What’re they going to give you? Reduction in sentence?” he sneered. “Only one lifetime instead of two?” He walked closer to Dwayne, only a few feet away from the informant. “Or did they promise they’d drop that charge as well if your testimony helped them convict my client?”
“They’re dropping that case,” Dwayne said. “It isn’t that good a case anyway,” he said, trying to soften the blow.
Wyatt laughed in his face. “Yes, I’m sure. A real loser.” Staring at Dwayne, he said, “You’ve got a lot at stake here, don’t you? Your freedom or a lifetime in prison. If I was facing that choice, I’d do anything to fix it. I’d tell anyone any damn thing they wanted to hear,” he said, pausing dramatically. “Even if it’s true or not.”
“Objection!” Abramowitz was practically out of her shoes she jumped up so fast. “This is—”
“Sustained,” Grant said before she could tell him why he should. “I’m warning you once again, Mr. Matthews. Save your opinions for your summation.”
Wyatt walked back to the witness. Picking up another file folder, he opened it and laid it down in front of him. “You received a college degree in computer science, with honors. Is that correct?”
“Yes. I was one of the best students they had,” Dwayne bragged.
“So I’ve heard. Warden Jonas up at Durban told me how good you were.”
Dwayne’s eyes narrowed.
“They had to bar you from using their computers because you could hack your way into anything, and you were causing all kinds of mischief. Isn’t that true?”
“The prison officials decided inmates shouldn’t have the kind of free access I had,” Dwayne parried.
“You used to brag about how you could hack your way into Fort Knox, didn’t you?”
Dwayne shrugged.
“Of course, you can’t hack your way into anything if you don’t have a computer and a modem, can you?” Wyatt said. “And a phone line out.”
“Those are the essentials,” Dwayne agreed.
“While you’ve been down here in our county jail,” Wyatt asked, “how many times have you had access to a computer?”
Dwayne stared at him. “Good trick question, lawyer. The answer is none.”
“You did research in the law library there. They have computers. Didn’t you ever use one?”
Dwayne shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me. Anyway, none of those computers have modems, so you couldn’t hack with them.”
Wyatt frowned. “If they didn’t let you use them, how come you know none of them have modems?” he asked.
Dwayne caught himself quickly. “I looked at them. They were right there.”
“Some modems are internal. How can you tell by just looking at them?”
“They’d be plugged into a phone line. Otherwise, they’d be useless.”
“Couldn’t they have modems that weren’t connected?”
Dwayne shrugged. “I guess.”
“Your Honor,” Helena said, standing up, “I fail to see the purpose of this line of questioning. Cross-examination is not supposed to be a fishing expedition.”
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“Agreed. Narrow your examination of the witness to the issues before us,” Grant told Wyatt.
“Fine. I just want to be certain. During the time that you have been incarcerated in the county jail, you have never used or had any access to a computer or a modem. True or false?”
“I’ve never had access to a computer, period.”
“Glad we put that one to bed,” Wyatt said. “Because there’s something funny about your testimony, Mr. Thompson. Do you know what that is?”
Dwayne eyeballed him warily. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s too good.”
He looked at the jury as he spoke to Dwayne. “You know everything there is to know about these murders. You know as much as the police. A cynic would say you had a pipeline into their files; but since I’m not a cynic, I won’t make that claim. I might think it,” he added, “but I won’t come straight out and say it.”
“Objection!” Abramowitz almost hit her head on the ceiling, she was so forceful coming out of her chair.
“Sustained!” The gavel came down.
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “I got carried away, Your Honor. I’m sorry.”
He waited a moment for passions to settle, then took Dwayne through a timetable: what Marvin said, to the best of Dwayne’s recollection, when he said it. Dwayne was better at what Marvin told him about a particular murder than he was about when he told him about the same murder.
They would talk mostly at night, when it was only the two of them in the infirmary. “Once he got to talking, and opening up to me,” Dwayne said, “I couldn’t get him to shut up. He’d go on and on for hours.”
“Did you ever ask him to stop?” Wyatt asked. “Or remind him that it was dangerous to talk about these terrible things?”
“Are you crazy?” Dwayne answered. “I’m not naive, man, he was my ticket out and I knew it. I encouraged him every chance I could.”
During the break, Wyatt and Marvin reviewed the morning’s testimony.
“I never tol’ him none of that crap,” Marvin whined. “I didn’t do none of them murders, Mr. Matthews. You know that. And my memory ain’t nearly good enough to remember all that shit he says I tol’ him.”
“I know,” Wyatt told him. “We’re going to get into that issue this afternoon.”
At one-thirty, when court was back in session, Wyatt strode from the defense table to the lectern, his arms laden with files, which he stacked in front of him. He opened the top file. “I’m going to read some of the statements you’ve made,” he told Dwayne. “Either here or to the grand jury. When I read each statement to you, I’d like you to tell me whether it was in here you said that particular remark, or whether it was back in the grand jury room. If you don’t remember which place it was, say so. And if you made a statement to the grand jury, and then repeated it here, tell us that, also. Okay?”
Dwayne nodded.
Wyatt read: “ ‘When I realized it was a man, I went crazy. I was ashamed at myself for being with a man, and I was angry at him for tricking me into thinking he was a woman. That’s when I stabbed him in the balls.’ ”
“That was to the grand, jury,” Dwayne said. “Ms. Abramowitz didn’t ask me about that part of that murder.”
“Okay. What about this? ‘She was sitting at the bar of this ratty hotel I went into to get change for the bus. I’d never been in there before, so nobody knew who I was. She came over to me and looked me up and down and said if I rented a room she’d show me the best time I’d ever had. I told her I didn’t have money for no room but we could go back outside and do it. So we went in the back there and she started to want to give me head, but I told her I wanted the real thing, and she said she didn’t do that lying on her back on some dirty street, and that’s when I said you are this time, and then I raped her and stabbed her. It felt good, feeling that knife go in. I stabbed her seventeen times.”
Wyatt looked up. “Did you also tell that to the grand jury?”
Dwayne thought for a moment. “Part of it. I don’t think I mentioned the part about her telling him she wanted to get a room and him saying he wouldn’t.”
Wyatt picked up another file, flipped it open, turned to a previously marked page. “There was seventeen stab wounds. Three in the left breast, four in the right breast, nine in the neck, one across the vagina.” He looked up, chagrined. “Sorry. We just covered that material, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” Dwayne answered disdainfully, “and I told you where I’d said it.”
Wyatt looked at the page again. “Actually, you didn’t say that.”
“What?” Dwayne said, caught off balance.
“That’s part of the official police, report I was reading from.” He walked over to the prosecution table and set both files down in front of Abramowitz, side by side, pointing to the sections in question. Leaving them with her for the moment, he walked back toward the witness. “Doesn’t it strike you odd,” he asked Dwayne, “how uncannily similar your testimony is to confidential police reports?”
“That’s got nothing to do with me,” Dwayne answered, his anger showing. “I’m telling you what he told me. I’m not the one on trial here.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Marvin. “He is.” He forced a grimacing smile, his lips tight against his teeth.
Wyatt knew what the smile was supposed to be telling him: “Fuck you, Jack. You’re not going to break me down.”
But he was. He picked up another file. “Let’s try this one. ‘Her head was lying faceup in a pool of her blood, which had stained her hair and the back of her blouse.’ ” He looked up. “That’s a simple one, isn’t it? Which victim was that again?”
Dwayne thought for a minute. “I think that was number five. I don’t know why, but my memory’s a little hazy on the number.”
“He’s human after all!” Wyatt observed caustically, looking at the jury. Flipping a page, he read again: “ ‘She was wearing a knee brace on her left knee. Under the brace, there was a fresh scar, as if she had been operated on recently.’ ” He looked questioningly at the witness.
Dwayne sat stone-faced. “Grand jury. It wasn’t mentioned here.”
Wyatt nodded. Snapping his fingers, he said, “I meant to ask you something at the beginning of this session and I completely forgot—you were shown your grand jury testimony before you came in here to testify, isn’t that true?”
“Yes.”
“So those last two statements I read to you, for instance—the blood on the victim’s head, and the knee brace and scar. That was grand jury testimony, not trial testimony. Agreed?”
“Yes,” Dwayne answered.
Wyatt frowned. “I’ve got a problem here. Maybe you can help me out. I can’t find those statements in your grand jury testimony.” He flipped through a bunch of pages. “Nope. Not here.”
Abramowitz was on her feet immediately. “If we can take a short recess, Your Honor, I’m sure we can assist defense counsel in finding the references in question.”
Before Grant could respond, Wyatt said, “Don’t bother. They aren’t there.”
“You made them up?” Grant asked.
“No, I didn’t make them up,” Wyatt responded. “But they aren’t in this witness’s grand jury testimony. And they aren’t in the official police reports that have been entered into the computer, either,” he added.
“Then if you didn’t make them up, where are they?” Judge Grant demanded.
“Here,” Wyatt said, holding up a sheaf of papers. “In Detective Marlow’s handwritten notes. Remember how Marlow testified, Your Honor, about how he didn’t transfer everything from his notes to the official computer reports because it took too long, or the material wasn’t relevant to the investigation? Here are two examples of that.”
He walked to the bench and handed the notes up to Grant. Abramowitz scurried over to join them. “I’ve researched that matter thoroughly, Your Honor,” Wyatt said. “There’s something very interesting about this witness’s testimony, both in here and earlier,
at the grand jury proceedings. Everything he has said corresponds to data that has been entered into the police department’s computer files. Conversely, he has not given one instance, not one single fact or allegation, that wasn’t in those files but is in the handwritten notes of the various detectives who have worked on these murders. That’s over fifteen detectives, by the way.”
Abramowitz was livid. “This is unconscionable, Your Honor. He’s still trying to ride that dead horse of the witness having access to the police files. It’s been proven conclusively that he could not have. This is not allowed under cross. It’s a smoke screen, a desperate diversion from a lawyer who doesn’t have a shred of a case and is trying it with smoke and mirrors.”
“This isn’t smoke and mirrors. Your Honor,” Wyatt rebutted. “This is strong evidence of collusion.”
Grant pondered the situation for a moment. “This is serious,” he told Abramowitz. “Don’t think it isn’t. But I agree with you that cross-examination is not the proper forum for this. Introduce this in your case in chief,” he told Wyatt. He handed the pages back. “I’ll be happy to hear it then.”
Wyatt walked back to the lectern. Whether he’d use it in his own presentation wasn’t the point, he thought with satisfaction. He had introduced a major element of doubt into the credibility of the state’s key witness.
He faced Dwayne again. “How long have you known Deputy Sheriff Doris Blake?” he asked.
Dwayne started to say “I don’t … ,” realized he would be caught in another lie, recovered nicely. “About six years,” he said evenly.
“You met her at Durban, while you were a prisoner there and she was a guard?”
“That’s right.”
“And then you renewed your relationship when you were temporarily transferred down here and you discovered she was a deputy sheriff in the jail division?”
“We don’t have a relationship,” Dwayne said flatly. “I know her. She knows me. End of discussion.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Then why, out of over a hundred deputies who work in the jail, was she the one who arranged for you to sleep in the infirmary, when you had been assigned elsewhere?”
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