With a grunt, he wrenched her head to one side. Her neck made a cracking sound.
42
Jessie watched anxiously as the shadows of the houses and trees lengthened. By the time Leary turned the unmarked police car onto Ginger Drive in Andorra, it was already 5:00 PM. Snow had begun to fall around four and now—only an hour later—blanketed the street, gleaming white under the street-lamps. The car’s tires crunched through it.
“I still don’t understand why you want to do this now,” Leary said. “I can pick her up tomorrow morning, and we can all talk at the Roundhouse or the DA’s office.”
“She could be the key to the whole trial,” Jessie said. “I want to talk to her first, before anyone else has a chance to influence what she says.”
The truth was Jessie would have come sooner, but she had not dared to miss Dr. Moscow’s testimony. She watched snowflakes twirl to the windshield. Each melted the moment it touched the glass. The wipers slashed away the tiny wet drops. Leary was leaning forward over the wheel, squinting at the numbers on the houses. She realized he didn’t know where he was going.
She said, “Didn’t you drive her home this afternoon after you took her statement at the Roundhouse?”
“No. She asked me to drop her at the Starbucks where she works after school. Uh oh.”
“What?” But one second later, an explanation was unnecessary as she saw the red and white light strobe behind a copse of trees at the edge of a property midway down the street. The pulse was distinctive, and when Leary inched the car closer, neither of them was surprised to see an ambulance idling in the driveway. Smoke rolled from its exhaust, billowing in the cold air.
“Oh shit,” she said.
Jessie waited while Leary showed his identification; then they both stepped inside. The man who’d opened the door made no attempt to stop them, nor did he close the door behind them. Jessie did it for him, sealing the cold and the snow outside.
Leary said, “What’s going on—” His voice broke off.
Rachel Pugh lay at the bottom of the staircase. Two paramedics were kneeling over her, but their hands were still. Beyond the entryway, in the kitchen, a woman rocked a toddler in her arms. Both she and the toddler were sobbing.
“Oh my God,” Jessie said.
The man who had opened the door turned to face them. The curls of his hair were in disarray. “She’s—” His breath hitched in his throat. “When Peggy got home, she found Rachel here, on the floor. She’s—” Again, he had to stop. He rubbed his forehead. “She fell and broke her neck.”
Leary glanced at Jessie, then back at the man. “Slow down. Tell me your name.”
“Fred,” he said. “Fred Pugh.”
“Fred, I’m Mark Leary. We spoke by phone earlier today.”
“What?”
One of the paramedics stepped closer and said to Leary, “ME’s on his way.” As if on cue, Jessie heard sirens, then car doors opening outside, people approaching the house.
“Let’s talk somewhere more quiet,” Leary said to Fred Pugh. “Your wife, too.” Leary guided them toward the family room. Jessie followed, hearing the deputy ME enter the house behind her.
Once they had some privacy, Leary said, “Mr. Pugh, did your daughter tell anyone about what we discussed earlier today?”
Peggy Pugh stared at her husband, confused. “What you discussed? What is he talking about?”
Fred Pugh shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Leary blinked. “Rachel and I called you from Police Headquarters.”
“I haven’t heard from Rachel since I left for work this morning,” Fred Pugh said. “And I think I would remember a call from the police.”
Jessie felt a tightening in her gut. It was becoming increasingly clear that whatever Leary thought had happened earlier in the day had not been what it had seemed. Judging by the panic creeping into Leary’s face, his thoughts were heading in the same direction. Jessie decided to be direct. “Rachel came forward today with information about the Frank Ramsey trial,” she told the girl’s parents.
“Ramsey?” Peggy Pugh said. “Isn’t he the man who attacked the Dillards?”
“Yes,” Leary said. Then, to Fred Pugh, he said, “This is not the time to keep secrets.”
“I’m not keeping any secrets!”
Leary turned away and rubbed his face. Jessie could feel his frustration. He turned and in a calmer voice, said, “I don’t know if I really spoke to you today, or if Rachel called someone else who pretended to be you. Maybe she was afraid you would try to dissuade her from coming forward, like you did two years ago. But she did come forward and we know that Rachel was out jogging the night the Dillard family was attacked. We know she saw a man run from the house. She saw his face.”
“Rachel’s never jogged in her life,” Peggy Pugh said.
“Does this have something to do with Rachel’s visits with Kristen Dillard? I knew that wasn’t a good idea,” Fred Pugh said, turning on his wife.
“They’re friends, Fred!”
“Rachel and Kristen are friends?” The feeling in Jessie’s gut worsened. As a prosecutor, she’d dealt with her fair share of deceitful witnesses. People who lied for attention, or for other motives based on agendas that had nothing to do with justice. Jessie turned to Leary. “She didn’t tell you that?”
“She said they used to be friends, but had grown apart,” Leary said.
Jessie crossed her arms over her chest. Aware that the Pughs, devastated and confused, were staring at her, she chose her words carefully. “I think we need to consider that Rachel may have been trying to help her friend.”
Leary was speechless, but she could tell by his expression that he understood what she was suggesting. Eventually, he nodded. “It’s possible.”
“You said you confirmed her story by asking her about a detail only you knew about,” Jessie said. “But Kristen would have known that detail too, right?”
Leary nodded.
Anger swelled in her. Rachel had been killed because someone had believed she would offer testimony that would incriminate Frank Ramsey. But that had been the very reason they had delayed officially processing her. Rachel’s name had not been spoken in open court, and the only people who knew her identity were Jessie, Leary, and Elliot.
“What are you saying?” Fred Pugh said, still staring at them. “None of this makes any sense. My daughter fell down the stairs. Didn’t she?” His voice cracked on the last word, and Peggy Pugh gripped her son tighter and pressed her other hand against her face.
“Please try to stay calm,” Leary told them. “The deputy medical examiner will look at your daughter’s injuries. He’ll determine the cause of death. If ... foul play was involved—”
“Oh God,” Peggy Pugh said.
A uniformed officer poked his head into the room and asked if everything was okay.
Fred Pugh rounded on the uniform. “Nothing is okay. I demand an explanation. What is going on? What does this have to do with the Dillards? What happened to my daughter?”
The uniform, startled, backed away. “Uh, sir—”
Jessie closed her eyes, trying to mentally separate herself from the chaos. Leary and the Pughs might be confused, but she thought she understood what had happened here today. Kristen had convinced her friend to lie for her, and someone who wanted Ramsey to be free had killed her before she could testify. The key to finding the killer was to find out how the killer had learned about Kristen’s friend. Jessie had told no one. She was pretty sure Leary wouldn’t have told anyone. That left one person. Opening her eyes, she took Leary’s arm and gently tugged him to a corner of the room, where they could whisper out of earshot of the Pughs.
“I think this might be Elliot’s fault. Elliot Williams. He must have opened his big mouth, told the wrong person. Or—”
He watched her. “What’s wrong?”
She remembered how eager he had been to get his hands on a copy of her opening statement. How he had asked to assist her
with the case. How quickly he had seized the opportunity to take over.
“What if Elliot’s helping Ramsey?”
“That’s ridiculous. Jessie, a young girl is dead. You’re understandably upset—”
“Don’t patronize me.”
Leary sputtered. “I’m sorry. I—”
She looked at her watch. Almost six o’clock. Elliot was probably still at the office. “I need to find him. Now.”
“I’m not telling you what to do, Jessie, but I think you should take a moment to think about what you’re saying,” Leary said. “Elliot Williams has no reason to help Frank Ramsey. He has every reason to want to win this case. To further his own career, make a name for himself in the DA’s office.”
“Someone with deep pockets is paying Ramsey’s legal bills. Maybe that person is also paying Elliot.”
Leary shook his head. “I don’t think you’re right.” But he rubbed his chin, as if struck by something that she’d said. “I assumed Goldhammer was representing Ramsey pro bono.”
“No. He told me he was being paid his regular fee. Why? What are you thinking?”
“It’s too early to say.”
His vagueness was maddening. “Leary—”
He looked at his watch. “I have to go. I’ll let you know when I hear from the ME’s office about Rachel Pugh.”
“There’s no way she fell down those stairs,” Jessie said. “Someone killed her. Someone wants Ramsey to be free.”
Leary nodded. “If that’s true, then we need to find out who that someone is. And we need to figure it out now.”
She had the strange feeling, looking at his face, that he already thought he knew.
43
After 8:00 PM, the DA’s office was quiet—most of the prosecutors had gone home for the evening—but the guards downstairs were not surprised to see Jessie enter the building, accustomed to her schedule after several years of admitting her at all hours of the night. Upstairs, Elliot’s office light was shining. She took a deep breath, summoning her strength for this encounter.
She found him hunched over his desk. In the light from his monitor, his skin looked sallow. He was poring over a transcript and didn’t notice her standing in his doorway.
His office was even smaller than hers. If she leaned forward, she could touch his shoulder from the hallway. She did and he jumped, almost falling out of his chair.
“Jesus Christ! You scared the crap out of me.” His breathing sounded uneven.
Jessie stood over his desk. She crossed her arms. “She’s dead.”
Elliot stared up at her, looking as disoriented as if she’d just woken him from a dream. “Who is?”
“Rachel Pugh.”
That seemed to penetrate. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah, holy shit. Who have you been talking to?”
“What? You think.... You’re blaming me?”
Leary’s words of doubt were fresh in her mind, and the wide-eyed, baffled innocence on Elliot’s face looked too genuine to be a ruse. “You must have given her name to someone. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, for now, and assume it was unintentional.”
“Jessie, I didn’t tell anyone. As soon as Judge Spatt sent the jury home for the day I came straight back to the office to work on Moscow’s cross.”
She leaned over his desk. The transcript in front of him was a record of the testimony Moscow had given earlier that day. It was covered in handwritten notes. Other documents—cases, photocopied pages of legal treatises, pages printed from the Web—were strewn across his desk and on every other surface in his office. A book on expert witnesses sat open on the floor near the legs of his chair.
“Ask security downstairs,” he said. “I’ve been here.”
“You could have made a phone call. Sent an e-mail.” But her voice had already lost its conviction. Leary had been right—Elliot’s interest was in winning the trial, not losing it. She leaned against his wall, closed her eyes. When she opened them, he was staring at her, watching her with a wary expression.
“What happened?” he said in a quiet voice.
“She was found at the bottom of a staircase. Her neck was broken.”
“And you think Ramsey had something to do with it?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Well, I promise you that I didn’t tell anyone anything. To be honest, I haven’t thought about her at all. I haven’t even had time to start drafting the brief Spatt demanded on the appropriate use of rebuttal testimony.”
“You’ve been concentrating on Moscow?”
He waved a hand over the papers on his desk. “So far. The jury seemed to buy her routine. I’m not sure of the best way to undo that.”
“As long as I’m here, I may as well lend a hand.” Jessie removed some documents from his other chair and sat down, then took the transcript of Moscow’s testimony from his desk. “You marked this up pretty good.”
“Trying to find holes. Inconsistencies between what she said today and what she’s published in the journals.”
“Did you find anything?”
He shook his head. “For a scientist, she’s led a remarkably consistent career. All of her research points in the same direction. She’s never contradicted herself.”
“No, she wouldn’t have.” Jessie sat back in the chair, crossed her legs. “Because she’s not a scientist. Scientists are open-minded, willing to test their theories and adapt to new discoveries. Katherine Moscow isn’t interested in that. She’s interested in testifying, writing books and journal articles, attending exotic conferences, appearing on television, and getting paid.”
“I get the sense you don’t like her.”
Jessie smirked, thinking of their encounter outside the courthouse. “She’s not my favorite person.”
“How do we make the jury feel that way?”
She sat back, the chair squeaking. “You can draw attention to the number of lawsuits in which she’s participated, the amount of money she’s made. But I’m not sure how much that will sway the jury about the soundness of her theories.”
After a moment, he said, “You should cross-examine her.”
“Warren removed me from the case. I would think that you of all people would remember that.”
He lowered his head, chastised. “Sorry about that.”
Jessie stared at the snowflakes falling in the darkness beyond his window. “Don’t be. You did the right thing.” Elliot looked up. His shocked expression would have amused her under different circumstances. “By dating Jack, I was creating a perfect vehicle for Ramsey’s next appeal. I was jeopardizing the whole case. Even though Jack never violated his duty to maintain Ramsey’s confidences, the Court of Appeals could have reversed based on the appearance of impropriety.” She shook her head, disgusted with herself. “I was an idiot.”
“Technically, that’s not true.”
“Sure it is.”
“No.” Elliot stood and reached for a stack of papers piled on top of a cardboard box in the corner of his office. “I felt guilty about telling Warren, so I did some research, just to satisfy my own conscience.” He looked at her. “Turned out I was wrong, not you.”
“What?”
“It’s true that normally, your relationship with Jack would be highly improper. But in this case, it was fine. Because of the PCRA hearing.”
“The PCRA—” Then she realized what he meant. “Ramsey testified against Jack.”
“Exactly. And when a client voluntarily testifies against his lawyer, the attorney-client privilege is destroyed. Jack couldn’t have violated his duty because he no longer has one.”
Jessie took the printed cases from him. “You did this research weeks ago. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you explain it to Warren?”
Elliot shrugged. “I wanted the case for myself. It’s a career-maker.”
“So why tell me now? The case is still a career-maker.”
�
��Not if I lose.” Elliot took the documents back and returned them to their place on the cardboard box. They dropped there with a thump. “So, will you cross-examine the bitch, or what?”
“With pleasure.”
44
PCIT—the Philadelphia Center for Inclusive Treatment—occupied a stark tower near Fairmont Park. The gray stones and barred windows comprising its edifice looked more like an insane asylum than the building’s carefully selected name implied, and made a chill run through Leary’s body that had nothing to do with the freezing weather. He crunched up the snow-covered steps to the lobby doors. They were locked, but he could see a guard at a desk inside.
He knocked and held his badge up to the glass.
A moment later he was inside. He followed the guard across a threadbare brown carpet to the desk, where he signed in. The air in the lobby was tropical compared to the falling temperature outside. He loosened his tie. Snow in his hair melted and ran down his collar. “Warm in here.”
The guard shrugged, examined his entry in the log. “Too late to visit a patient.”
“I need to see her. Police business.”
He leveled a put-upon stare at Leary, then said, “Hang on.” He picked up a battered black phone, jabbed a button, spoke quietly into the receiver. After a few minutes, they were joined by a middle-aged woman in a white nurse’s uniform. She walked like a man. Leary wasn’t sure if the smudge above her lip was a shadow or a mustache.
“I’m sorry, Detective, but you’ll have to come back in the morning.”
Leary looked at his watch. It was only 8:00 PM. “I need to speak to Ms. Dillard immediately.”
“Visiting hours are over.”
“He says it’s police business,” the guard said.
“I’m sure it is. But you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“No.”
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