“So you’re going to make a charging decision based on a feeling?”
“Why not? I make decisions all the time based on your feelings. This guy has a history with Garrett but she hasn’t given it up yet, particularly with her parents hanging all over her. We’re going to have to know what that history exactly is because we’re going to hear it when I try this case. As for the other cases, we’re going to need some breaks before we can up the charges.”
O’Hara sucked in enough air to make his chest noticeably expand. “Okay, Boss. Your call. You’re the lawyer.”
Jamison understood there was a big difference between the investigators’ job and his. His investigators were untroubled by uncertainty. To arrest, they just needed a suspicion. To charge, he needed proof. It was the difference between the sound of ratcheting handcuffs and the sound of a judge’s gavel hitting the bench.
“We’ll sort it out in the morning. We’ll let her rest, and then tomorrow we talk to Elizabeth Garrett.”
Chapter 14
It had been a long night, first going over every scrap of what they had, and then writing reports. They had to get something to eat and stopped at a local hofbrau to grab a sandwich and a beer. One beer turned into several and it was after midnight by the time O’Hara dropped Jamison off at his apartment. He was drained. The exhilaration of the entry into the house had given way to the exhaustion of his adrenaline-soaked body crashing.
In the morning when Jamison arrived at the office, the front desk receptionist told him that the district attorney wanted to see him. As he walked down the hall other deputy DA’s walked out of their offices. Some shook his hand. Others applauded as he passed by, others commenting on his picture in the paper. He hadn’t seen the newspapers, but obviously they had.
He stopped by his office to see what had piled up. A copy of the newspaper was lying on his desk with pictures of the house and a photo of him from a previous case. Unnamed sources had described the rescue of Elizabeth Garrett and included him as one of the men who had crashed into the house with guns drawn. He didn’t feel heroic. Ernie and O’Hara were the heroes as he told everyone. But he had been there, and he accepted the acknowledgment from his peers and the respect that showed in their eyes.
District Attorney Gage congratulated him on the rescue and quickly moved to the issue of the investigation of the murders.
Jamison told him they were still digging and they still had problems tying all four cases together with St. Claire, but only a few on the inside were aware of this. Gage understood the difficulties, but reminded Jamison the cases were front-page news.
He left Gage’s office with the district attorney’s words hanging in the air. They needed to charge St. Claire and they needed to resolve the murders. Another clock had started ticking. Gage needed an answer for the press and Bekin was pushing for murder charges.
The rest of Gage’s words were just noise. The district attorney would handle the press conference to announce the charges, but later if the charges had to be dropped or modified, Jamison knew he’d be the one facing the cameras and the questions all alone.
Jamison was feeling the bind he was in. He had to file formal charges within twenty-four hours and those charges would determine whether he could justify the million-dollar bail he had demanded or if he could ask for a no-bail order. But the only way to get that would be to charge St. Claire with capital murder.
He rubbed his eyes as he stared at the rough draft of the charging papers. He knew what everyone was thinking, O’Hara, Ernie, Gage, and Bekin. He was thinking it too. There were striking similarities between the other three murders, but the evidence wasn’t there yet. All they had was a whiff, but suspicion wasn’t proof.
After he finished his report, Ernie stopped by Jamison’s office. Jamison could see that he wasn’t moving quickly. Crashing through a window was for young men, and Ernie was well past being able to simply stretch out the soreness of hard physical action. Jamison accepted the stapled report that Ernie had handwritten for a secretary to transcribe—the typed version would come later. It was clear from Ernie’s face something was irritating him.
Ernie got right to the point. “Okay, so I think St. Claire did those three women. Do you?”
From the intensity of Ernie’s voice Jamison knew that he needed to come up with an answer that would satisfy him. “If you’re asking me whether I think he did those women, then my answer is that I strongly suspect he did. If you’re asking me whether we can prove he did them, then my answer at this point is no.”
Ernie nodded, as Jamison continued. “Bring me something. Proving St. Claire killed those three girls will require that we prove that he kidnapped Garrett. We need this case in order to make those cases.” Jamison stabbed his pencil into his tablet to emphasize the point. “Yesterday you said you thought maybe she was holding back. You still think that?”
Ernie rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the way she talks about this guy. It’s . . . it’s hard to put my finger on it, but you know how some women who know their attacker will say ‘he did this and he did that’? She kept calling him Alex.”
“That’s it? She kept calling him Alex?”
“That’s not everything.” Ernie shrugged. “Yesterday you said we needed to have the whole story and I know I chewed on your ass about it, but there is something more there. I just know it. I believe that he kidnapped her. And I think St. Claire would have killed her, just like he killed those three women.” He looked expectantly at Jamison, waiting for some kind of affirmation.
Jamison chewed on his pencil. A woman’s demeanor when talking to the police wasn’t necessarily indicative of what happened. Not all women were hysterical. Some were very calm while others could hardly talk. But very quickly in his career he had learned to trust the hunches and instincts of experienced cops. Even if they had only an undefinable sense that something was troubling them, he had learned to respect it.
O’Hara lumbered into the office, sat in the chair next to Ernie, and slid his long legs out in front of him. “Okay, Boss, Pooch is walking the paperwork over from the sheriff’s office and rumor has it that the sheriff told him to ask for murder charges. So what’re you going to do?”
Jamison shifted uneasily in his chair, pulling a legal tablet directly in front of him and unconsciously putting a number one at the top. “We have enough to charge assault with a deadly weapon and kidnap. Maybe we can add attempted rape, but right now we don’t have anything but suspicion about murder. We could charge it but a lot is going to have to come together before we can make murder charges stick. Ernie says he thinks she’s holding something back about St. Claire but he isn’t sure what. Just a feeling . . .”
Finishing the sentence for him, O’Hara interjected, “Either way it leaves a hole in her story that McGuiness is going to drive a truck through.” O’Hara watched for Jamison’s reaction. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Tom McGuiness?” The lead on Jamison’s pencil broke as he pushed it down into the tablet.
McGuiness won a lot of criminal cases and every prosecutor knew that if a defendant had money and was guilty, he hired McGuiness, although McGuiness would say all his clients were innocent. At least that’s what he would maintain after he got his retainer—in cash of course. And that was what he would say when the cameras were rolling.
But it was the expression on his face when he turned away from the cameras that irritated Jamison the most, that sly smile—like someone bet his rent check in a poker game, and then McGuiness watched the person fold when he couldn’t make the raise.
O’Hara watched the play of emotion on Jamison’s face. “My friend Frankie Lara at the jail called to tell me that St. Claire had a visit from McGuiness and that McGuiness told the jail sergeant there would be no further questioning of his client without his being notified. So what’s the plan?”
Jamison looked down at his legal tablet with only the number one written on it and nothing more. “We have to talk
to Garrett, and we have to know about her relationship with St. Claire—all of it, from day one. As for murder charges, it’s way too soon for that, and if the sheriff’s office pushes for that, I’ll tell Bekin to come up with the evidence. We haven’t even found the link between St. Claire and these other women and, well, there’s something about this guy—I was watching him. He’s like a block of ice.”
From the expression on his investigators’ faces Jamison could tell that he was pulling on a scab. It couldn’t be helped. “First we make the Garrett case.”
O’Hara leaned forward. “This asshole is our guy. I can feel it.”
“Bill, maybe you can feel it, but I have to prove it. Right now the Garrett case is full of cracks and even a third-rate defense attorney could find them, let alone a shark like Tom McGuiness.”
O’Hara leaned forward and waved his hand slowly in the air for emphasis like a karate chop. “Listen to me, Boss. I will get the evidence.”
Jamison squirmed at O’Hara’s promise to get the evidence as O’Hara pressed ahead. “Charge him with the murders, Matt. Puccinelli is bringing over those charges and I can tell you right now Sheriff Bekin is on Pooch’s ass to force our hand on this. Either we charge St. Claire or Mover Bekin is going to be holding a press conference and the district attorney down the hall is going to be looking for you. You and I both know if you want to make a pig squeal you have to pull on his tail first.”
Jamison knew O’Hara had a point. Even a defense attorney who thought he had a good case was smart enough to know there’s always a chance he could lose. And at this point, McGuiness had the advantage of knowing what they didn’t know about his client. If they raised the stakes, even a little, they might draw a reaction from McGuiness that would tell them he knew something about his client that concerned him. That might make the defense attorney want to make a deal before the prosecution figured out what they hadn’t yet found.
He thought about it. He could add attempted rape to the charges but not murder. There was enough evidence from the circumstances to imply rape as a motive and it was the kind of charge that would make McGuiness squirm when they turned on the cameras. It was difficult to claim consent when the woman was found tied to a bed. But Jamison calculated that when the press asked him the inevitable question if there was any link to the other murders, he would simply say that he was not prepared to comment. It was a perfectly ethical response but the unspoken inference would send out big ripples when it hit.
So that was the game. The law trumped feelings, common sense, and even the most experienced gut. Jamison’s emphatic tone didn’t leave any room for misinterpretation. “I’ll NCF any request for murder charges if Puccinelli brings them over. You might let him know that before he walks in my door.” NCF meant no charges filed and it would be stamped in big red letters across the charging request.
O’Hara kept his eyes level on the younger man. “As long as I know you think he killed those three women and you’re only holding back on the murder charges at this point because of some lawyer bullshit, then you and I are on the same page.”
“Yeah, well that lawyer bullshit is called proof. You get that for me, Bill, you and Ernie, and I’ll take a murder charge to the wall. You know that.” Jamison noted both investigators were waiting expectantly for him to decide how to proceed. “Okay. Let’s go talk to Garrett, and then we come back and meet with the rest of the team and see what we got.”
Jamison blew out a long sigh.
Chapter 15
It was still early in the morning, hours before visitors were allowed. The halls were strangely quiet except for the hum of a machine a janitor was using to wax the floors. The three men walked toward the nursing station and saw that somebody had ordered a uniformed officer to be seated outside the door to room 412.
Jamison stood at the nursing station desk and held out his badge. The nurse on duty studied it carefully before saying, “We let her family come in before visiting hours, and her mother’s in with her. The father’s down in the cafeteria.” Jamison thanked her and led the way.
Ann Garrett was seated by the side of the bed, holding her daughter’s hand. As they drew closer, she looked up and offered a weak smile of recognition.
Jamison cleared his throat. “Mrs. Garrett, do you remember me, Matt Jamison from the district attorney’s office? I think you know Ernie here and remember Bill O’Hara.”
He calculated that her family would be most cooperative with the man who had crashed through a window to save their daughter. He could tell that he was right by Ann Garrett’s grateful smile when Ernie extended his hand in greeting.
Jamison then directed his gaze to the young woman sitting up in bed, pillows piled behind her. A small gauze covering was taped to the left side of Elizabeth Garrett’s neck, more bandages and blood-flecked nicks covered parts of her left arm. The thing that struck him immediately was how much she resembled Ventana, Johnson, and Symes, something that hadn’t been as clear in the frantic minutes of the day before. Her hair framed her face, long light brown strands falling in waves. Something about the way she looked at him immediately distracted him, and instinctively he filled the unsettling moment with a rush of words. “Ms. Garrett, my name is Matt Jamison. I’m a deputy district attorney. You know Ernie and perhaps remember Bill O’Hara. They’re both investigators working with me.”
Both investigators nodded their heads and smiled.
“I’m sure you must be tired but I need to talk to you if I can. I’d like to go over a few things.” He turned to Mrs. Garrett. “We should do that in private if you don’t mind. I’m sorry, Mrs. Garrett, but we really need to talk to your daughter alone for a few minutes.”
Ann Garrett bent over to kiss her daughter’s cheek before rising to leave the room. Her eyes never left Elizabeth’s.
Elizabeth grabbed at her mother’s hand. “It will be all right, Mom. Don’t worry about me.”
Jamison paused a moment before speaking. “Ms. Garrett, we realize you’ve been through an unimaginable ordeal but I have some important decisions to make. Sometimes it’s easier to talk about what happened with us than it is to talk with your family and friends present.”
She said nothing at first, slowly smoothing the blanket in front of her while fixing her eyes steadily on Jamison. “I understand,” she began softly. “I’ve told Detective Garcia what I remember. I haven’t talked to anyone else. My dad wanted to know what happened, and I even told him that I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
Jamison kept silent, trying to decide where to begin. “We found your car near the cemetery. Why was it there?”
Her eyes filled with tears. She began breathing more rapidly and Jamison assumed she was reliving the moment in her mind. He needed to be careful to keep her from breaking down. After a violent encounter, some women did, but either way, the retelling of their story was always emotional and painful.
Elizabeth continued slowly, with deliberation, explaining that she had been adjusting the radio and missed her turn, ending up on the road near the cemeteries. She had stopped because of flashing headlights from a car as it came up behind her. Elizabeth vaguely remembered a red light that made her think it was a police car but couldn’t describe the vehicle any better because of how dark the area was. By the time he got to the car it was too late. “I couldn’t see his face at first. He kept moving the knife back and forth in front of me.” She turned her head and closed her eyes.
“I could hardly breathe. When I saw the knife I realized he wasn’t a policeman but when I heard his voice I knew it was Alex.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Remember me?’ It was his voice. There was something in his voice that almost didn’t sound human.” She pulled the blanket close to her face as if to hide from the memory. “He was so close to the door and there weren’t any lights. I didn’t need to see his face to know it was Alex. He put the knife against my neck and I could feel it pressing into my skin.” She began to cry, touching the si
de of her neck and pressing against the bandage.
Jamison waited, reaching for a tissue by the side of the bed and handing it to her. “May I call you Elizabeth? It might make it easier if we were less formal. I’m Matt.”
She squeezed the tissue but didn’t put it against her face. “Beth. My friends call me Beth.”
Jamison concentrated intently on her reactions. “I know it’s hard to talk to strangers about things like this, Beth, but . . .” Jamison hesitated, trying to frame the question as gently as he could. “Were you sexually assaulted?”
She studied Jamison for a few seconds before answering. Her voice was flat and emotionless. “I don’t think Alex raped me but I was unconscious most of the time. I felt like I was drugged. I really don’t remember much. He touched my face. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in a dark room. It was completely black. I only remember bits and pieces. I really only remember waking up on the bed and then Detective Garcia coming through the window, all the glass flying and the shouting.”
When she said “Alex” there was something that Jamison couldn’t quite identify about her tone. The way she said it seemed out of place with the circumstances. He decided he needed to know now.
“Beth, we understand you knew Alex St. Claire before this happened.” He said it as a statement of fact. “Something happened between the two of you years ago when you were in high school. We need to know about that.”
She seemed momentarily startled at the mention of their awareness of the previous relationship. Beth turned her face toward the window as she answered, her words a whisper. “Yes, I knew Alex when I was in high school. He was in college.”
She turned back, looking closely at Jamison before the words spilled out of her in a torrent. “It was stupid and foolish of me but I was so young then. He was handsome and brilliant, and he wanted to be with me. I was flattered and vulnerable. I knew my parents wouldn’t approve. When they found out, that was the end of it.
Fractured Justice Page 12
