False Testimony: A Crime Novel

by Rose Connors

  Warren lets out a halfhearted laugh. “Time,” he says, still cradling the bowl of his pipe. “We’ve got plenty of that.”

  Meredith crosses the room and sits beside me while her mother claims the chair next to Warren’s, a smaller, upholstered version of his. Their side-by-side recliners haven’t been new in a long time, but they’ve aged gracefully.

  “Catherine tried to explain,” Warren says, his brow knitting, “but I’m still not clear. What is your role in this…situation?” He looks down at his pipe, as if the answer might be tamped inside its bowl.

  “I represent Senator Kendrick,” I tell him.

  “Why?” he says.

  Fair question. “Because the authorities have been talking with him. And that’s entirely appropriate; they should. But anyone being interrogated in a serious investigation is well advised to be represented by counsel.”

  He nods, but the furrows in his forehead deepen. My explanation doesn’t make sense to him, but he’s too polite to say so. “We watched the Senator’s press conference yesterday,” he says instead. “We appreciate everything he’s doing. Tell him that for us, will you?”

  A guilt spasm seizes my stomach. Just a few hours ago, I put the kibosh on any future press conferences; I don’t mention that, though. “I will,” I assure the weary Warren Forrester. “I’ll tell him.”

  “That number,” Catherine says, “that eight-hundred number Senator Kendrick gave out, I think that’s going to help; I think it will make a real difference. Someone is bound to call in, someone who’s seen Michelle.”

  Catherine’s voice cracks when she says her younger daughter’s name, but she nods emphatically at each of us, dry-eyed. She means what she just said; she believes it. Hope is a relentless emotion.

  “Is it possible,” I ask, “that Michelle simply needed some time away? Felt overwhelmed by the pressures of her high-profile job and decided to escape for a while?”

  No doubt they’ve been asked this question—or some version of it—a hundred times. But I have to ask it too; there’s no other way I’ll hear their answer. The cops aren’t in the habit of sharing their files with me. Our District Attorney isn’t, either.

  “No,” Warren says. “That’s not possible.” Catherine shakes her head. Meredith does too.

  “What about college friends?” I ask. “Might she have gone to stay with an old UVA buddy?”

  All three shake their heads now. “My parents are sick with worry,” Meredith says quietly. “Michelle would never do that to them. Never.”

  “She wouldn’t,” Catherine concurs. “That’s why we’re thinking she may have had an accident. That fancy car of hers is so tiny. And she’s always had a lead foot. She could be in a hospital—unidentified—anywhere between here and Hyannis.”

  She’s not, of course. The Massachusetts and Connecticut authorities would have covered that base on day one. I don’t say so, though. I don’t intend to yank that straw, or any other, from the Forresters’ collective grasp. I change the subject instead. “Is there a boyfriend?”

  Catherine shakes her head yet again and actually smiles a little. “Boys,” she says. “Michelle always has plenty of boys around.”

  Warren nods in agreement, leans back in his chair, and closes his eyes.

  Catherine points toward the kitchen. “Most days that phone rarely rings,” she says. “But when Michelle’s home—whether for a weekend or a week—it doesn’t stop.”

  “But no one in particular?” I ask. “No one steady?”

  “No,” Catherine says. “Not that we know of.”

  Warren nods again, his eyes still closed, and it occurs to me that I’m wearing out my welcome; these people were spent long before I showed up. And besides, I’m hoping Meredith will walk out with me; I’m eager to hear whatever it was she wanted to say earlier.

  I stand, take two business cards from my jacket pocket, and hand one to Meredith, the other to her mother. “I won’t keep you any longer. But please call if you think of anything—anything at all—we might have overlooked. Senator Kendrick will do everything he can to help.”

  Warren’s eyes open at the mention of the Senator’s name. “Don’t forget to thank him for us,” he says as he stands.

  “I won’t,” I assure him.

  Meredith gets to her feet as I say my good-byes to her parents. “I’ll see you out,” she says as she walks toward the kitchen ahead of me.

  “Wear a coat,” Catherine calls after us.

  Meredith is quiet as she hands me my parka and then dutifully dons her heavy black overcoat. We exit into the late afternoon cold and she pauses on the porch, at the top of the steps. “There is something else,” she says. “It’s what I wanted to tell you when you first got here. I don’t think it matters, really, but since you’re the Senator’s attorney, I guess it’s okay to mention it to you. Maybe you already know.”

  I stop one step below her and shrug, hoping to give the impression that I probably do already know. But I’m pretty sure I don’t.

  “My sister is in love with Charles Kendrick,” she says, fingering her top button. “And I believe he loves her, too.”

  This news isn’t exactly a shock. Honey’s performance this morning gave me a pretty good push in that direction. Still, I’m grateful to have my hunch confirmed. Maybe that’s why I came here in the first place.

  “They had an affair,” Meredith continues. “They started seeing each other—secretly—after she’d worked for him a couple of years. He ended it four months ago, when his wife found out.”

  I nod.

  “Michelle was distraught,” she says. “I went to D.C. and spent a few days with her right after it all fell apart. She was devastated, couldn’t even go into the office that week.”

  I nod again, thinking I need to have yet another heart-to-heart with my not-so-candid client.

  “I know it sounds tawdry,” Meredith says as she starts down the steps, “but it wasn’t. I only saw them together a few times, but there was no denying they had genuine feelings for each other. The air between them was electric.”

  I study Meredith for a moment, wondering if she’s angry with the Senator for hurting her little sister. If she is, it doesn’t show. I decide not to ask. “Do your parents know?” I say instead.

  She takes a deep breath. “At some level they do,” she says, “but they’d never admit it. They wouldn’t approve.”

  “Meredith.” I stand still in the middle of the snowy driveway and she does too. “You’re under no obligation to tell me anything. But I’d really like to know if you’ve mentioned this to anyone else.”

  She looks down at her boots. “The District Attorney,” she says. “Ms. Schilling.”

  “Geraldine.”

  She nods. “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to cause trouble for him—politically or personally. That’s the last thing Michelle would want me to do. But I couldn’t not mention it. What if it turned out to matter somehow and I had kept quiet?”

  She’s not crying, but her eyes are filled to the brim. “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “And I appreciate your answering my question.”

  She shakes my hand, then turns and heads back to her parents’ house.

  It’s barely four o’clock when I pull out of the Forresters’ driveway, but the cold December sky is near dark already. I toy with the idea of calling Senator Kendrick from the car, to ask why he insists on keeping his own lawyer in the dark, to ask why he repeatedly enables the District Attorney to stay two steps ahead of me, to ask what other secrets he’s keeping. I decide against that call, though. Some conversations should be had face-to-face.

  Chapter 8

  Wednesday, December 15

  Judge Richard Gould was elevated from the District Court bench to Superior Court just over a year ago. It was a well-deserved promotion. A highly intelligent, serious man, he runs an efficient, on-schedule courtroom. Even so, any lawyer who’s ever practiced before him knows that the procedural and substantive rights of liti
gants—particularly those of criminal defendants—are his foremost concern. Derrick Holliston is lucky to have ended up on Judge Gould’s docket. I told Holliston so before I left the House of Correction yesterday. He promised to send the Governor a thank you card.

  The judge isn’t here yet. Neither is Harry. Geraldine Schilling is, though, already set up at the prosecutors’ table with her young assistant, Clarence Wexler. They’re reviewing exhibits, leaning toward each other from time to time to whisper. They both look relaxed, confident that Holliston’s conviction is already in the bag.

  Two court officers bustle about behind us, seating sixty potential jurors in the old courtroom’s small but stately gallery. The men and women are silent as they file in, winter coats folded over their arms. Their eyes are alert, their faces somber. From them, Geraldine and Harry will select fourteen, twelve of whom will decide Derrick Holliston’s fate.

  The side door opens and a prison guard enters, heavy holster low on his hips. Our client follows and a second guard—a near-clone of the first—brings up the rear, completing the Holliston sandwich. The accused is free of hardware, wearing black slacks, a dark gray suit coat, and a white dress shirt, neatly pressed. I’m taken aback.

  All criminal defendants are permitted to “clean up” for trial—get a haircut, a shave, a set of decent street clothes—but this particular defendant cleans up exceptionally well. His once greasy brown hair has been recently introduced to shampoo. It’s trimmed short and parted precisely. The sketchy mustache is gone, as is every other trace of facial hair. His near-constant sneer has been erased. He looks like the guy next door—if the guy next door happens to be an Eagle Scout.

  A low murmur emanates from the crowded gallery as Holliston approaches the defense table, his expression blank. He settles into the seat next to mine—the one farthest from the bench—without looking at me. “Get rid of the cat-licks,” he says matter-of-factly.

  It takes a moment for me to get it. “We don’t know their religions,” I tell him. “The jury questionnaire doesn’t ask that.”

  He snorts and the familiar sneer resurfaces. “What?” he says, his voice low. “You don’t know one when you see one?”

  “I guess not.”

  He shakes his head at my incompetence. “That lady there”—he twists in his chair toward the benches behind us and the sneer evaporates again—“on the end, front row. She look like a cat-lick to you?”

  “She looks Italian,” I answer.

  He faces front and plants both hands on the table, resting his case. “You ever knowed a guinea what ain’t a cat-lick?”

  I lean back against the worn leather of the high-backed chair and close my eyes. Some conversations aren’t worth finishing.

  Harry arrives, pulls out the chair on the other side of mine, and hoists his bulging schoolbag onto the defense table. He doesn’t sit, though. “What’s up?” he asks, snapping open the bag’s metal clasp.

  “We were discussing the finer points of jury selection,” I tell him.

  He glances sideways at me as he unpacks, then blinks twice when he takes in our client’s new persona.

  “So what’s the plan here?” Holliston says from my other side. “You people got a plan or you just wingin’ it?”

  Harry laughs and tosses the pleadings file, a blank legal pad, and a few pens on the table. He says nothing.

  “Judge Gould likes to complete jury selection the first morning,” I tell our client. “And he usually does. It’ll be a late lunch break, though.”

  Holliston purses his lips; he seems not to approve of late lunches.

  “After that,” I continue, “the prosecuting attorney will deliver her opening statement. If there’s time, Harry will deliver his before we wrap up for the day.”

  “And if there ain’t time?”

  I shrug. “Then he’ll do it tomorrow morning. Either way, he’ll open. Don’t worry.”

  “Oh, I’m worried,” Holliston says, staring up at Harry. “I got good reason to worry.”

  Harry doesn’t let on he hears. He walks away from us, delivers a short stack of documents to Geraldine, another to the courtroom clerk. Judge Gould emerges from chambers as Harry returns to our table. Billy “Big Red” O’Reilly tells us to rise.

  “What the hell is that?” Holliston mutters, his eyes on Big Red.

  “He’s the bailiff,” I whisper back. Holliston knows a fair number of the courthouse players, no doubt, but he’s probably never laid eyes on O’Reilly. Big Red is the seniormost bailiff in the county complex and, as he’s fond of reminding those with less seniority, he doesn’t work kiddie court. It’s dress rehearsal.

  “We need a new one,” Holliston informs me as the judge sits and tells everyone in the room to do likewise.

  “A new what?” The words escape before I can stop them. I’m a little slow on the uptake this morning, but I don’t really need an answer to that question.

  I get one anyhow. “A new bailiff,” Holliston says. “I don’t want no mick hangin’ around my jury.”

  I turn in my chair so I can look him in the eyes. “Funny thing. You don’t get to choose your bailiff. The Bill of Rights doesn’t stretch that far.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I beat him to the punch. “Shut up,” I tell him. “A trial’s about to start here.”

  Oddly enough, he obeys.

  Judge Gould has already welcomed the sixty citizens seated in the gallery. He thanks them for their willingness to serve, then gestures to those of us seated at the tables. All four lawyers stand and face the back of the courtroom. After a signal from me, Holliston does too. Sans sneer.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge says, “before we get started, I’d like all of you to look at the lawyers and the defendant involved in this case. If you even think you might know any of them—no matter how remotely—please raise your hand.”

  Four go up.

  “You, sir.” The judge points to an elderly gentleman in the front row. He’s wearing his Sunday best, right down to the perfectly pressed triangle of white handkerchief protruding from his jacket pocket. “Which of them do you know?” Judge Gould asks.

  The older man stands, points his hat at Geraldine. “The District Attorney,” he says. “She’s a neighbor.”

  “Thank you for telling us. You’re dismissed with the sincere gratitude of the court.” The judge nods to the two officers standing against the back wall and one hustles down the center aisle to usher the disqualified juror out of the courtroom.

  The elderly gentleman looks surprised at first, then nods and dutifully follows the uniform toward the back doors. This won’t necessarily end his jury service. He may find himself downstairs in one of the smaller courtrooms before the day is out, on a civil panel. If our DA is his neighbor, defense lawyers will bounce him from all criminal proceedings, even if Geraldine isn’t in the room.

  “And you, ma’am?” Judge Gould directs his question to a middle-aged woman six rows back. She points to Geraldine too. “I don’t really know her,” she says, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve just seen her on the news.”

  Most of them have seen all of us on the news, of course. But it’s Geraldine they remember. Always.

  “You may be seated,” Judge Gould says. He looks out at the whole panel. “We’re not concerned at the moment about anything you might have seen or heard through the media. We want to know about personal contact, if any.”

  A young man who looks not much older than Luke stands in the row behind the woman who just sat down. “Same here,” he says, gesturing toward her. “I just know the lawyers from TV. All of them, I think.”

  “That’s fine,” the judge answers.

  The final hand-raiser gets to his feet in the back row and the four attorneys laugh. Judge Gould does too. “Mr. Saunders,” he says, leaning back in his tall leather chair, “I guess it’s safe to say you know everyone up here.”

  Bert Saunders has been practicing law in Barnstable County since I was in high school. “Four out of
five,” he says to the judge. “Haven’t met the defendant.”

  “Well, you may as well head back to your office,” Judge Gould tells him. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of work waiting. And we all know you’re not going to serve on this panel—or any other, for that matter.”

  He’s right. Lawyers don’t let lawyers serve on juries. It’s too risky. A lawyer-juror would almost certainly have an undue influence on the others—even if unintentional. And given that Bert has spent his entire career with the criminal defense bar, no prosecutor in the country would allow him to serve on a capital case. Geraldine would sooner seat the defendant’s mother in the jury box.

  Bert bends to retrieve his briefcase, then smooths his suit coat and gives us a small salute before heading for the doors.

  “Who’s the fat guy?” Holliston asks as we reclaim our chairs.

  I wonder if he has an adjective in his vocabulary that isn’t derogatory. “Bert Saunders is one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the county,” I tell him.

  Holliston frowns, looking past me to Harry. “Too bad. I could use one of them.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge says, “I’m going to read a brief description of the case we’re about to try. When I finish, I will ask each of you to consider whether anything you’ve heard will make it particularly difficult for you to be fair and impartial. I caution you that nothing I say constitutes evidence. What I am about to read is merely a summary of the positions taken by each side.”

  It’s far more than that. Geraldine and Harry have been battling for weeks over the content of the short passage the jury is about to hear. Every word a judge utters during a murder trial is taken to heart by jurors. They have a difficult job, to say the least; they look for guidance wherever they can. And when the judge is as obviously fair-minded as Richard Gould, his summary of the case may well end up being theirs.

  “Last Christmas Eve,” the judge reads, adjusting his dark-framed glasses, “Francis Patrick McMahon, a Roman Catholic priest assigned to St. Veronica’s Parish in Chatham, was found dead on the floor of the chapel’s sacristy. The collection money from the seven o’clock Christmas Vigil Mass was gone. The Medical Examiner determined that the deceased had suffered multiple puncture wounds, one of which proved fatal. The Commonwealth accuses the defendant of inflicting those wounds. It charges him with first-degree murder, committed with extreme atrocity or cruelty.”