“Anything else?”
“No,” Lord Dee said. “I have been waiting for further instructions but haven’t received them yet.”
And then Dee sighed deeply and added, “So—you think me a fool for believing such a metaphysical tale as this, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t call you a fool,” Blackstone said.
“Professor, I believe in the mysteries of my ancient predecessors,” Dee said. “And I will spend my very last breath pursuing their hidden secrets…until I find them.”
As J.D. Blackstone climbed into a cab to leave Great Queen Street in London and head to the airport, he had two thoughts. One was profound, and the other much more practical.
I wish I had something convincing, something tangible, to help Dee face his own mortality, was his first thought.
The second thought dealt with something he had brought with him on the plane flight over to London and had reviewed to help him prepare for his encounter with Dee.
Thank heavens I finally got around to finishing my uncle’s book on the Freemasons.
CHAPTER 58
By the time that Blackstone arrived at the office from the airport it was noon. He had scheduled a final review of the case that afternoon with Julia and Jason.
The subpoenas had all been served on the witnesses who would testify regarding the glass from Horace Langley’s office, as well as the other trial witnesses, Jason told his boss. Blackstone asked Jason to research two more court decisions he might need to finish his trial brief.
After the conversation with Jason, Blackstone met with Julia in the conference room. She reviewed the approach she would use during the penalty phase of the case, if the jury were to come in with a conviction on a death-penalty offense. Julia also went over with Blackstone the voir dire questions she thought should be put to the prospective jurors to ferret out their opinions about the death penalty.
Then Blackstone leaned back in the conference-room chair, nodded to Julia in approval, but said nothing.
“Did you get the crucial discovery you wanted from Lord Dee?” Julia asked.
“Yes,” Blackstone said. “He verified that someone is now trying to extort money from him. I had figured as much.”
“Who are the culprits?”
Blackstone fell silent again. Then after a few moments he finally spoke up.
“I don’t want you to be off ended,” he said, “but I think I’m going to have to keep some things about the guilt phase of Vinnie’s case private, even from you.”
“I’m a big girl. I’ll try not to feel hurt,” she said. “But I do find it impossible to understand, frankly. Either we are law partners, or we aren’t—at least until I make my decision on a departure date from the law firm. I think that is basically the same point you made to me once. That we still are partners for the present.”
“Partnership isn’t the issue,” Blackstone said. “Nor is it a matter of competence. I know of no one better I would like at counsel table with me on this case than you.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Julia asked, now a little demanding.
“There are some things about the way I am conducting this case that I need to shield you from,” Blackstone replied. “For your own protection. I care about you. Which is why I am trying to protect you.”
“So why does that sound so paternalistic and patronizing?” she shot back.
“It probably does sound that way,” Blackstone said. “And I’m sorry about that. But I know I’m right.”
“You always think you’re right,” she said, visibly perturbed. “Which means you always have the power to close the debate on any subject.”
“The subject right now,” Blackstone said, “is Vinnie’s defense. On other issues, I am willing to admit mistakes…sometimes grossly erroneous ones. Sometimes idiotic ones. But not here. Not on this one.”
“Because of your feelings about Vinnie? Is that it? You have to be right here, on this case, because you care so much about her?” Julia asked, her face hiding an ocean of emotion.
“Let’s get back to the facts and the evidence,” Blackstone said. “We both have some huge distractions at play that could impair our objectivity. Let’s not give in to that. Julia, I need every bit of your brains and talent at work in this defense. And if things work out the way I believe they will, then there will come a time when I will call you into my confidence. And when that happens, then you are going to have to give the best legal advice you can give. I will be depending on it. Is that a deal?”
Julia’s expression was mingled hurt and confusion. But she nodded yes nevertheless.
With that, Blackstone began focusing on one of the main players in the Smithsonian crimes, Horace Langley.
“Langley’s the silent witness here,” Blackstone began.
“Let’s not forget the obvious—he’s also the victim,” Julia said.
“Elaborate,” he shot back.
“Well,” Julia said somewhat dumbfounded. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He was shot twice in the chest. Murdered. No signs of struggle. Not an accident. So it looks like a deliberate assassination of the secretary of one of America’s most beloved and revered institutions. Langley was a nationally recognized scholar. Plus, the Booth diary pages and Langley’s notes were stolen. So the crime was a murder-theft.”
“You’re the prosecutor,” Blackstone said. “In a few sentences, how do you sell this case to the jury in closing arguments?”
Julia didn’t miss a beat.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said without taking a breath and staring directly at Blackstone, “this was a crime of cold, deliberate intention and malicious murder. Horace Langley, one of America’s most honored scholars, was most certainly the innocent victim here—shot down without pity or hesitation as part of a conspiracy to obtain the John Wilkes Booth diary. But he was not the only victim. His family lost a husband and father. His family was victimized. But even beyond that, the Smithsonian Institution has lost its chief executive officer and has also lost one of the most significant historical documents in post–Civil War American history. For those reasons, all America has been victimized.
“And in a moment I will remind you of all of the evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt why Vinnie Archmont was a key member of the conspiracy that assassinated Horace Langley just as surely as another conspiracy assassinated Abraham Lincoln nearly one hundred and fifty years ago and, in a way, victimized America’s history similarly.”
“Good,” Blackstone said. “Well done. Exactly the same way I would have played it too.”
“So what was the purpose of that little exercise?” Julia asked with bewilderment. “The point is that Horace Langley is a victim—right?”
Blackstone smiled one of his secret smiles.
“A victim?” he asked. “Clearly. But what kind of a victim? Let’s just review some of the facts we now know about Horace Langley. He was a scholar with a specialty in seventeenth-century English history. He also was an avid aficionado regarding the American Civil War. Tully called me the other day and explained that Langley owed some sizable gambling debts. Next, we learn that Langley visited Savannah, Georgia, at some point within the weeks leading up to his death. My guess was that his trip was for the purpose of doing some research. Savannah, Georgia, in Freemasons’ lore, was the birthplace of the American brand of speculative Freemasonry.”
“Yes,” Julia replied, “but we have absolutely no proof that Horace Langley was even a Freemason, do we?”
“Oh, I’m satisfied he was never a Freemason,” Blackstone said confidently. “But in any event, it is further interesting to note that the recent extortion letter to Lord Dee was mailed from Savannah, Georgia.”
“Not by Langley, obviously,” Julia said. “He was dead by then. So who mailed it?”
“The same person, or persons, who masterminded the Smithsonian crimes.”
“And that would be—” Julia started to say.
“Exactly what I can�
�t tell you right now,” Blackstone said. “You’ll just have to trust me.”
Julia had several clever retorts to that, but decided not to use them. Instead she simply asked if there was anything else he needed from her.
“Get some rest tonight, and a good sleep,” Blackstone said.
“You too,” she said as she got up from the conference-room chair.
Fat chance of that happening, Blackstone thought to himself. “See you at the federal courthouse at eight tomorrow morning,” he said as she was leaving the conference room. “And please bring Jason along to help carry the files.”
Blackstone caught up on a few details on some other cases. Then he sent a memo over to the dean of the law school regarding the fall term, as summer was coming to an end.
By late afternoon, he had left the office and headed over to the federal detention center to meet with Vinnie.
Blackstone had lost track of the number of criminal clients he had met with on the eve of trial. They would handle their anxieties differently. Some retreated into a quiet, reclusive shell. Others became talkative and overblown. A few would manage a sense of bravado. But they all had one thing in common: the ever-present feeling of dread that, by the time that the jury stepped out of the jury room to announce their verdict, their lives might be irrevocably changed.
Vinnie was visibly nervous. When he greeted her in the jail interview room and took her hand, it was ice cold, and she was shaking. She pulled herself into his chest and wrapped her arms around him for nearly a minute. He finally pulled himself away gently and motioned for her to sit down in the plastic chair across the table from him.
“I want to walk you through the process for the trial tomorrow,” Blackstone began. With that, he described when the case would begin. How the U.S. marshals would bring her into the courtroom. She said she had a nice outfit to wear for the trial. Blackstone said that was good. He said the large jury panel would report to the courtroom, and then would be sequestered into another room while the lawyers argued about “some preliminaries.”
“What kind of preliminaries?” Vinnie asked. “Can you explain that all to me?”
“I’ve filed a motion with the court that needs to be heard before the trial,” Blackstone answered.
“A motion?” she asked.
“Yes,” Blackstone replied. “It has to do with a missing piece of evidence. A drinking glass from the crime scene that appears to have been misplaced by the prosecution.”
Vinnie nodded at that, and managed a smile.
“Do you have any questions about that—about the missing glass business?” Blackstone probed.
“No, thanks,” Vinnie said, responding with another smile.
Blackstone was studying his client very carefully. He didn’t miss a thing.
He then described what would happen if his motion was not granted by the trial judge. How the voir dire questioning of the jury would be conducted. After selection of the jury, the prosecution would give its opening statement, followed by the defense opening statement. Then the government would begin presenting its case. When the prosecution rested, the defense would begin its case.
“Will I testify?” Vinnie asked.
“I am thinking not,” Blackstone said. “But we can discuss that later, during the trial.”
Blackstone described, slowly, in painstaking detail, the process by which the government lawyers and the defense lawyers would submit suggested jury instructions to the judge. The judge would decide which ones to read verbally to the jury. Then would come closing arguments and the government’s chance at a final rebuttal argument, and then the case would be in the hands of twelve jurors to deliberate and decide.
“If you are convicted on a charge that carries a capital penalty—in other words, death by execution,” Blackstone said, “then we will have to proceed to the death-penalty phase of the case. It is important that you ask me any questions you have on that.”
Vinnie’s eyes widened and, momentarily, she seemed breathless. When she regained her composure, she answered.
“That’s what your partner, Julia, has been talking with me about,” Vinnie said.
“Right.”
“She seems very sharp. Very capable.”
“She is,” Blackstone said with a smile.
Then he thought of something.
“Julia has gone over your personal background information with you, I know. But one thing needs to be nailed down.”
“Yes?”
“Your name change,” Blackstone asked. “What was the reason for that?”
“Well,” Vinnie said reluctantly, “I know that on my legal petition for change of my name that I filed with court, I had said it was for ‘artistic, professional’ purposes. But that wasn’t really, totally correct.”
“Oh?” Blackstone asked.
“No,” she continued. “The fact is…shortly before my parents were killed in that train accident, I had found out I had been adopted. They finally got around to telling me. So after they died, I did some checking and discovered that my biological mother’s name was ‘Archmont,’ so I decided to make that my legal name. Does that help you?”
“Immensely, and it’s pretty much what I had thought you’d tell me,” Blackstone said. Then he pulled together his notes, stuffed them into his briefcase, and got up from the chair.
Vinnie gave him one more hug.
Then Blackstone gave her a reassuring smile, and called for the jailer to let him out of the locked room.
Just before the jailer unlocked the door, Blackstone turned around to share one more thought with his client. “I am going to make your case all about truth and justice tomorrow,” Blackstone said. “So that means you should have nothing to worry about.”
Regardless of the effect Blackstone might have wanted to create in his client with that last statement, as her criminal-defense attorney stepped out of the jail interview room, Vinnie’s face was betraying a look of dread.
CHAPTER 59
The next day, early in the morning, Blackstone, Julia, and Jason were in the federal courthouse elevator. Crowded around them were several suitcase-sized briefcases and half a dozen banker’s boxes of documents. Blackstone and Julia were each carrying the laptops they would use during trial to retrieve detailed information out of the morass of facts, evidence, and records in the case of United States of America v. Vinnie Archmont.
They watched the numbers appear consecutively on the elevator screen as they climbed their way to the floor where Judge Templeton’s courtroom was located. No one was talking. Finally Julia broke the silence.
“J.D., promise me just one thing,” she said.
“What’s that?” Blackstone replied.
“Please don’t let this case get to the death-penalty phase. Do that for me, will you?”
“That’s the plan, my dear friend,” he replied, with only a mere trace of a smile on his face.
When the elevator door opened, the small defense team could see that the hallway outside of the courtroom was jammed with reporters. Judge Templeton had already issued a decision barring cameras from the trial. But that didn’t prevent print journalists from several dozen newspapers and magazines from showing up. There were also reporters from television stations milling about. They would sit through the case and then do stand-up summaries in front of the camera on the courthouse lawn at the end of each day’s proceedings.
Blackstone, Julia, and Jason carted their boxes and briefcases through the crowd and into the courtroom. When the reporters began firing questions at Blackstone in the hall, the law professor simply smiled, kept walking, and said only one thing: “Ladies and gentlemen, hang on tight to your notepads. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”
Henry Hartz was already at the prosecution counsel’s table, flanked on either side by two other Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Sitting behind him were FBI Special Agent Ralph Johnson and DC detective Victor Cheski. Behind them was a row full of law-enforcement agents and officials.
On the other side of the courtroom, several dozen potential jurors had been seated in the benches by the bailiff.
Blackstone and Julia took their seats at the defense counsel table. Jason was sitting in the bench right behind them. A few minutes later, Tully Tullinger scooted into the courtroom with a leather case, took off his straw panama hat, and sat down next to Jason.
In the far corner of the courtroom, Blackstone’s defense expert, Dr. Cutsworth, was seated there with his briefcase in his lap.
Finally, Vinnie was led into the courtroom. She was not manacled, and she was wearing a smart blue pin-striped suit with a bright red silk blouse—probably the most conservative outfit Blackstone had ever seen her wear.
Vinnie took her seat between Blackstone and Julia.
A few tense minutes passed slowly.
Then the clerk called out, “All rise!”
The courtroom thundered with more than a hundred feet as the occupants quickly rose to a stand.
Judge Templeton, without emotion, entered the courtroom in his black robe, nodded to the audience, and sat down at the bench. The courtroom full of people sat down.
The clerk called the case, and Henry Hartz and J.D. Blackstone, each in turn, rose to their feet, entered their appearance, and indicated they were ready to proceed.
“The first order of business is a preliminary matter,” Judge Templeton said. “Bailiff, please escort the jury panel to the waiting room until I call for them.”
When the group of potential jury members had all filed out of the courtroom, the judge continued.
“Professor Blackstone, your motion is before me,” the judge said. “It is a motion to dismiss.” Then he turned to Henry Hartz.
“Has the government had a chance to review this motion?” the judge asked.
“We have,” Hartz replied. “Honestly, we are astounded at the blatant audacity of Mr. Blackstone, Your Honor.”
“Well, you had better get used to that,” the judge said, shaking his head. “Apparently, defense counsel Blackstone specializes in audacity.” A handful of reporters snickered at that, but Templeton leaned forward and barked out a warning for the press to maintain “total and complete silence—I mean, the only thing I want to hear from the media during this trial is the occasional scratch of a pen on a notepad. Am I making myself clear?”
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