by Sydney Bauer
‘Actually, I’m divorced,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she looked down, as if wondering if she had touched a nerve.
‘It’s old news,’ he said. ‘I married my college sweetheart. We were nineteen. I was divorced by the time I was twenty-three.’
‘Does she live . . . ?’ Sara began.
‘Here in Boston?’ finished David. ‘No, Washington.’ He stopped wondering how much he should say, realising these were just details about his past and had nothing to do with who he was now.
‘Have you ever heard of Dr Karin Vasquez Montgomery?’ he asked.
‘The cardiac surgeon? I’ve seen her on TV talking about transplants. She’s amazing.’
‘I thought so too, but that was before she added the first and the last bits to that name.’
‘Didn’t she marry that professor who operates on presidents?’ she asked.
‘That would be the one . . .’ answered David looking up at her, stopping short, and Sara smiled, as if letting him know it was okay to change the subject.
‘Anyway, I studied law at Boston College,’ he said. ‘Passed the bar, and spent the past twelve years being bossed around by Arthur.’
‘Impressive.’
‘Actually it’s pretty pathetic. I have no life. I spend more time with my boss than I do with any other human being. But don’t you dare tell him I admitted to that. It makes me sound desperate.
‘As for the pet thing,’ he said in an attempt to lighten the mood, ‘I did own a guppy a year or so ago but let’s just say I wasn’t the greatest of dads to old J Lo.’
‘You called your fish J Lo?’ she smiled. ‘Somehow I wouldn’t have picked you for a Jennifer Lopez fan.’
‘No,’ David laughed. ‘The fish was downright ugly. Oversized, misshapen. I would have been doing Ms Lopez a serious injustice. J Lo was black and white, I named him after Jonah Lomu, you know, the New Zealand Rugby player. The All Blacks . . . black and white . . . team colours, get it?’
‘I didn’t, but I do now and it makes perfect sense.’
Within minutes their beers arrived and David turned the conversation to Sara.
‘Okay,’ he said, as he put down his drink, ‘your turn.’
‘Right, well,’ Sara smiled, leaning slightly into the table. ‘I was born in Atlanta.’
‘Nice city.’
‘To be honest I wouldn’t know. To me it’s just the POB listed on my birth certificate. I was adopted at two months by a couple, Alec and Dorothy Davis. Grew up in Cambridge. My dad’s a dentist and Mom was his technician.’
‘That explains the straight teeth,’ said David.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she smiled.
‘Anyway, they didn’t think they could have kids but six years later gave me a baby brother the natural way. His name is Jake and he’s an economics major at MIT.’
‘Good for him.’
‘He’s twenty-three, full of optimism, hasn’t been spoiled by life if you know what I mean.’
‘And you have?’
‘I didn’t mean that, it’s just I had my fair share of challenges as a kid.’ She paused before continuing and he waited patiently for her to decide how much of herself she wanted to reveal.
‘My parents are white and I’m . . . well, somewhere in between. Mom and Dad never made it an issue, Jake just used to say he envied me every summer vacation when he would fry like a lobster. But others growing up . . . kids can be cruel.’
‘Did you ever want to look for your birth mother?’ David asked.
‘Yes and no. One day, maybe. My parents have always been very open about it. They told me she was African–American, seventeen and single.’
‘And your father?’
‘I have no idea. He was white, obviously, but that’s all I know. Let’s just say I get the feeling I was not created out of love.’
She picked up her drink then and David sensed that perhaps Sara had built up her own defences over the years. Once again he felt a need to relieve her discomfort. And so he smiled before asking: ‘So, what does Sara Davis do when she’s not working?’
She seemed grateful for the change of subject. ‘Well, besides all the usual stuff like hanging out with my friends and family, I can often be found at the shoe department at Neiman Marcus. My shoe cupboard puts Imelda Marcos’ to shame.’
‘And mine is not something we should discuss over dinner.’
She laughed.
‘And I rent a great little brownstone not far from here, which you already know. I share with one of my best friends, Cindy Alverez and the man in both our lives, her pet dalmatian, Sylvester.’
‘And you thought J Lo was a ridiculous name for a fish.’
By the time they’d finished their meal, they seemed to get a second wind and were back on to the case. David expected the arraignment to be the next afternoon. He knew the court docket was loaded but he was sure a case with this much public interest would be bumped up the running order.
‘And you’re sure we’ll secure bail?’ Sara questioned.
‘As sure as I can be. First of all I’ll be pushing for the charge to be dismissed. This was accidental death and Rayna shouldn’t even be in some courtroom but at home consoling Teesha. Secondly, Rayna is a woman of high standing in her community – a hard worker, a single mom. Her flight risk is zero, she has a clean record and a close family with the means to supply the bond money.’
‘You have me convinced, but we both know the bail is just the beginning of what could turn out to be a hell of a fight.’
They both agreed that while Scaturro would take the reins up front, Roger Katz would play a major role in any preliminary hearing and even the trial, if it came to that. David also put his money on Roger keeping his alleged chats to Haynes a secret from his boss.
‘I gather you and Katz have a history? What happened?’
David frowned and paused before answering. ‘Let’s just say every decent lawyer in Boston has a history with the Kat.’
‘He’s good isn’t he?’
‘Very. But we all live in hope that one day he will trip over that huge ego of his and fall flat on his face.’
Sara smiled. ‘Maybe we can give him a hand, or should I say a push in the right direction.’
‘Counsellor,’ David said as he lifted his glass to hers. ‘I think you just said the magic words to launch an extremely successful partnership.’
‘To Rayna,’ she said.
‘To Rayna,’ he replied.
4
Her name was Stacey Pepper.
After David had walked Sara to her car, he headed back for his Landcruiser and started thinking about Roger Katz. Sara had asked about their history, but he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her about Stacey Pepper. It was still too close. She had only been dead three years.
Stacey Pepper had been a large girl, with unruly black hair and a drooping stature. She had deep, dark eyes which hid beneath heavy lids and she wore oversized clothes which hung off her frame like a shroud of defeat.
Stacey had been eighteen when David met her and nineteen when she’d died. She had been charged with murdering her eight-year-old stepsister Lara, a wide-eyed, blonde-haired child with an angelic face and the gentle disposition to match. There was no disputing the charge, the evidence was plain and clear, for in the middle of the night Stacey had shot her sister through the heart with a shot gun.
Five years ago Roger Katz had been touted as the perfect running mate to hotshot prospective DA Loretta Scaturro. They made an impressive team, Scaturro promising the strength and stability and Katz adding the sparkle. Loretta stood for justice with compassion whilst Roger vowed to keep the conviction rate up and as such the critics, all too ready to label her administration ‘soft’, at bay.
That was mid 2001 and all was sailing smoothly until that catastrophic day on September 11 when the whole world was turned upside down. Suddenly, the national psyche changed from one of clemency to one of fear. Scaturro’s reformist attitudes beca
me seriously out of sync while Katz’s stance on tough justice became even more important to her campaign.
A new hard line strategy saw them win the election, but talk meant nothing if they could not back it up, and they knew they needed a case to prove their administration meant business. The Pepper case was perfect. Big, ugly stepsister murders sweet and defenceless child. It was a PR dream, a no-brainer, a political gift. Until, David Cavanaugh agreed to represent the defendant.
It was Mannix who had persuaded him. He said he had a feeling about this one, and Joe’s ‘feelings’, combined with his incessant nagging and talk of an ‘attorney’s duty to represent those less fortunate’ had made it impossible for David to refuse.
He took the case pro bono and spent two months trying to gain Stacey’s confidence. Then he asked for help from an independent psychiatrist who examined Stacey and diagnosed her as a classic abuse victim. The doctor suspected Stacey had been abused – sexually, physically and emotionally – from a very early age. He also concluded the girl was incapable of cold-blooded murder, particularly of her sister Lara towards whom she exhibited extreme protective tendencies.
So David asked Mannix to do some digging, certain his client was hiding something important.
The case started and the press lapped it up. Pictures of the two girls ran front page. Dolores Pepper, the mother of the two girls played the loving parent whose family had been torn apart by her uncontrollable daughter, and her husband, the Reverend Pepper took his righteous role as the forgiving stepfather, devastated by Stacey’s actions but buoyed by his faith in an ‘all-loving and all-forgiving God’.
Katz claimed Stacey was the ultimate bully. He called in his own psychologist who testified she was a crazed, unstable, green-eyed monster who could just as easily have emptied her bullets into a school playground or McDonald’s restaurant. He claimed the State had a responsibility to ‘set a precedent’ and seek ‘conviction without reservation’. And unfortunately many agreed.
Whilst David had finally won Stacey’s trust, she still hadn’t told him the truth. She was so horrified with what she had done, and so emotionally incapable of seeing past her guilt and desperation and loneliness that she almost welcomed the inevitable – a guilty verdict and the subsequent punishment.
And so, without any help from his seriously depressed client, David lost at trial, the greatest loss of his career and a personal defeat from which he had never fully recovered. Two days later Stacey was sentenced to life without parole and one day after that, Mannix cracked the case.
Stacey had been born in Pensacola, Florida. Her biological father, one Leroy Levane, was a drunk. Her mother claimed to have left him ten years ago after realising he was a no-good bum.
Dolores had taken up with the Reverend Thaddeus Pepper when Stacey was eight. She married him a year later after falling pregnant with Lara.
They moved five times in the next seven years from Florida, across the Midwest, over to California and then back across the country to Boston. Reverend Pepper claimed he was ‘spreading the word’ but David later found out otherwise.
Thad Pepper, alias, Nigel Hooper, alias Phillip Cripps, born Earnest Schiff was a paedophile who abused his way across the United States, using his front as a Reverend for the fictional Church of Little Flowers as a means of gaining access to unsuspecting children. He was the lowest of scum who, thank God, now rotted in Walpole Maximum Security Prison.
The psychiatrist surmised that Stacey Pepper had most likely been abused by both Leroy Levane and Thaddeus Pepper only finding the courage to fight back when she discovered her stepfather had started on her younger sister.
According to teachers and friends, Lara Pepper had been a happy child considering her circumstances. But her demeanour had changed in the months leading up to her death. Her grades had slipped and her smile had faded. Stacey guessed what was happening and decided to take matters into her own hands.
That dreadful night, Lara was sleeping over at her best friend Polly’s house, the stay having been orchestrated by Stacey without her parents’ knowledge. Stacey’s plan had been to lie in Lara’s bed and wait for the Reverend Pepper to come, as he had started to do after midnight. She was ready, hiding under the thin blankets with his huge, rusty rifle firmly in her grip.
What went through the young girl’s head as she heard the door handle, listened to his footfalls, and finally sat up and fired was anyone’s guess. For within hours she had lost the will to speak – having been charged with the murder of her little sister who had run home seeking comfort from her older sibling after a silly midnight fight with Polly.
For months Mannix had been trying to get a lead on Reverend Thaddeus Pepper, suspecting there was more to the man’s façade than met the eye. Finally he got a positive photo ID from a seven-year-old in San Diego who named Pepper as the man who had abused her after a prayer meeting. After that, it was just a matter of retracing his evil criminal exploits across the country.
That Stacey had intended to kill her stepfather in order to protect her sister, was clear. This was still murder one, but a jury would have had a hard time convicting her under the circumstances. David had planned to petition for acquittal. He never got the chance.
Stacey committed suicide in custody the night before Mannix broke the case. She had made a primitive knife out of a discarded soda can and cut away at her wrists until she lost consciousness and bled to death under the concealment of a dark grey prison blanket.
Katz was all shock and horror, devastated by the death, horrified by the new evidence, stricken with grief for the girls’ mother and ready and willing to prosecute Thaddeus Pepper to the full force of the law. If only poor Stacey had spoken up.
A month later, Mannix told David he had information that Roger Katz knew of Pepper’s perverted past at least two weeks prior to Stacey’s conviction and Mannix’s exposé.
He knew. He knew.
Right at the end, when David knew the case was unwinnable, he had tried to plead it out. But even then, Katz wanted to take it to trial. He wanted to bury this girl and the evidence concerning her stepfather, just so he could stand in the spotlight and continue to score those beloved political points.
And all the time he knew.
David asked Mannix to beg his source to come forward and expose Katz but the informant, who worked in the DA’s office, wanted to remain anonymous. To this day David did not know who had ratted Katz out. Worse still, he had no proof that Roger had foreknowledge of Reverend Pepper’s perverted activities. Even Katz was unaware that David knew the truth. It had taken all his restraint not to head over to Katz’s office and beat the crap out of him, but on Arthur’s advice he decided to hold on to the information in case he needed it in the future.
Maybe that time had come.
‘Mr Washington.’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Senator Rudolph Haynes.’
It was ten on Sunday night and Haynes had decided to take a calculated risk.
‘Senator Haynes,’ said Washington and Haynes visualised the man juggling his hand set as he gathered himself for this all-important, unexpected telephone call.
‘This is such an honour,’ Washington went on. ‘I am so sorry for your loss Senator. My wife and I are two of your biggest supporters.’
The level of risk was reducing with every word.
‘Thank you, Mr Washington. My daughter certainly thought the world of young Francine.’ This was a lie. Whilst Christine would fight to see Teesha Martin and the other girl, he got the feeling Francine Washington was more an accessory to this distasteful group of inappropriate friends.
‘Likewise, Senator, likewise. Oh Senator, I can only begin to imagine your . . .’
‘Yes Mr Washington, I was actually ringing to ask a favour.’
‘Anything, Sir.’
‘Would you meet me for breakfast tomorrow? Say, the Regency Plaza at eight? Don’t give your name, just ask for Charles, the maître d’, and he’ll direct you to a
private table.’
‘Why I’d be delighted Senator. Delighted. Anything I can do to help.’
‘Thank you, Mr Washington. Tomorrow then.’
And Haynes promptly hung up, knowing Washington was running to tell his wife and already deciding what suit to wear for tomorrow’s much anticipated engagement.
There was now no doubt in Haynes’ mind that Washington would bite at his offer, subtle as it was. The Senator always marvelled at how men like trustworthy Ed could bend their ideals for personal gain and then convince themselves it was all in the best interest of others. Haynes would not be asking much. He would start by flattering the man with false reports of his stellar real estate reputation. He would suggest that he had many friends who could not seem to find an honest realtor and were in desperate need of assistance in selling their properties. And then he would move on to the subject of Teesha’s party and how, whilst Christina was the victim on the day, it could well have been one of the other girls – Mariah or, God forbid, his own dear Francine.
He would say how grateful he was that the Washingtons had put aside their distress to speak honestly to the media, and he would hope they would continue to do so, as a favour to the Senator, his wife Elizabeth and his dear departed daughter. In fact, the Senator had a friend who worked at the Boston Tribune. Perhaps he could call on Francie and get her side of the story, say tomorrow morning, as a sort of tribute to Christina.
After all, it was really a matter of duty. There were millions of good American fathers who wanted to make sure that all teenagers in this fine country were protected from irresponsible people who failed to watch over their children. Yes indeed. God Bless America.
5
Loretta Scaturro was in a very awkward position. It was early Monday morning and she had just hung up from Senator Haynes. Rayna Martin’s arraignment was scheduled for 4pm that afternoon. She had spoken with Judge Stein himself. He had done as she requested and cleared his busy docket for her, in recognition of the public interest in the case and as a personal favour to her.
