False Testimony: A Crime Novel

by Rose Connors

  He arches his eyebrows at me, but says nothing. He doesn’t need to. I’m a broken record. And he’s not listening anymore.

  “Christmas visitors!”

  I jump a little before I realize it’s Monsignor Davis coming through the darkness. He opens his arms, welcoming us, as he approaches. “As the Magi visited the Christ child in the manger, so you’ve come to visit our Father McMahon.”

  “Damn,” Harry says, shaking the priest’s hand. “We forgot the frankincense. And the shops are plum out of myrrh.”

  The Monsignor laughs. “Not to worry,” he says. “Frank was never one to covet worldly wealth. He’d be glad just for your visit.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Harry says. “If I were Frank, I wouldn’t offer me an eggnog.”

  Monsignor Davis looks curious, but apparently decides not to inquire further. “Any word from the jury?” he asks instead.

  “Nada,” Harry tells him. “They’ve quit for the night. They’ll be back at work by eight tomorrow.”

  The Monsignor checks his watch, then heads for the church’s back door. “The pageant’s just about to begin,” he says. “Are you coming?”

  Harry starts to laugh, then catches himself. “Maybe some other time,” he says. “The camels are hungry.”

  The Monsignor waves and then turns away from us, laughing as the heavy door slams shut behind him.

  Harry drapes his arm around my shoulders again as we head back toward Old Harbor Road. “Who’re you calling a camel?” I ask.

  He lowers his head, his expression hangdog. “I knew that was a mistake.” He smiles apologetically, looks a bit abashed, even, but by the time we reach the Jeep, he’s whistling “Midnight at the Oasis.”

  If we were to continue in the same direction on Old Harbor Road, we’d eventually come upon the Kendrick estate, where I suspect Honey and Abby are in hiding tonight—from the persistent press; from well-intentioned neighbors; from the prying public. We don’t, though. Harry makes a U-turn instead, heading for Pete’s, and in the dim glow of the streetlights, he looks a little bit sad.

  “Remember,” I tell him, “even if you’re right about Holliston, you don’t have a monopoly on lying clients. I’ve got one on my hands too.”

  “So you said.” He reaches over and cups my cheek in his palm, another habit of his that warms my heart. “What makes you so sure?” he asks.

  It’s a rational question; I wish I had a better answer. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “But I am. Charles Kendrick is lying. He’s taking the rap for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “You don’t know that,” Harry says. “You can’t.”

  He’s right, of course. I can’t.

  But I do.

  Chapter 27

  Saturday, December 18

  Saturday mornings in our office tend to be busy, particularly for the Kydd. He handles most of the misdemeanors that come our way, and Friday nights—particularly the cold, dark ones—seem to foster misdemeanor mania. He has a full lineup this morning: all the usual suspects and a handful of new recruits. Minor drug busts, barroom brawls, and petty thefts fill our front office, the Kydd meeting with each of the accused in the conference room, first come, first served. The more serious cases—the ones that warrant weekend lockup—won’t surface until Monday morning.

  Harry and I pour mugs of coffee, then head upstairs to my office. Neither of us expects to get much work done today—we’re worn out from the week’s events—but we need to be here, ready to race to the courthouse, in case the Holliston jury reaches a decision. Generally speaking, jurors don’t like weekend duty, and they don’t like any duty a week before Christmas. A quick determination of Derrick Holliston’s fate wouldn’t surprise either of us.

  Harry sets his mug on the coffee table and flops on the couch. I take a seat at my desk, figuring I’ll sort through the week’s phone messages and mail, then tackle the pile of pleadings our dutiful associate has stacked neatly on my credenza. The intercom buzzes before I get started, though, and I’m surprised. I didn’t think the Kydd would come up for air for another few hours. “Marty,” he says, “there’s someone here to see you. Her name’s Helene Wilson. She says you’re not expecting her, but it’ll just take a few minutes.”

  “Send her up,” I tell him. Harry arches his eyebrows at me; we didn’t anticipate company.

  She appears at the top of the spiral staircase in a red cable-knit sweater and blue jeans; the Kydd must have already taken her coat. “I’m sorry to show up unannounced,” she says. “I was planning to make an appointment on Monday, but I was driving by and saw all the cars parked outside and I thought maybe you were here, even though it’s Saturday. And then I thought maybe I shouldn’t wait until Monday.”

  She’s worked up, speaking quickly, her cheeks flushed. I rummage around on my desk to find a legal pad and pen, then write: It’s fine. I’m glad to see you. If Senator Kendrick’s next-door neighbor has something additional to say, I want to hear it now, not later.

  Harry’s on his feet and I make the introductions, hers out loud, his on paper. They both sit, side by side on the couch, and I grab a chair from in front of my desk and face them, my eyes on Helene, my legal pad and pen at the ready.

  “I saw Senator Kendrick’s arraignment,” she says. “I was there, in the courthouse, yesterday.”

  Of course she was. I noticed her before we got started; I noticed her troubled eyes. But I didn’t see her—or anyone else, for that matter—in the frenzied blur that followed.

  “I also watched it on the eleven o’clock news last night,” she says. “The reporter described it as nothing short of a circus. I have to admit I agreed with him.”

  No argument here. I wait while Helene seems to search, struggle even, for her next words.

  “Is he sticking to it?” she asks at last. “Is the Senator still claiming he killed the young woman?”

  I nod again, though I’m aware that if Charles Kendrick had changed his mind during the last twelve hours, I’d probably be the last to know.

  She presses one hand to her neck and shakes her head. Again her eyes are worried, her expression distressed. “Something is terribly wrong,” she says.

  I lean forward, closer to her. Harry eyes her carefully too. Why do you say that? I scribble.

  “Because Michelle Forrester was alive and well when she left the Senator’s home on Friday morning,” she says. “I saw her leave. It was her car. I saw it.” She points at her eyes, as if she thinks I might not trust that other sense of hers. She’s wrong, though; I do. I trust all of Helene Wilson’s senses.

  Harry reaches for the pen and paper. He looks bothered, maybe even skeptical. The BMW roadster is a popular car, he writes. Maybe it’s a coincidence; maybe a different roadster happened down your lane that morning, then turned around when the driver realized it’s a dead end.

  She shakes her head before he puts the pen down. “No,” she insists, “it wasn’t. They showed her BMW roadster on the news last night. And they reported for the first time that it has a silk rose attached to the antenna, a yellow one. That was the car I saw, fake flower and all.”

  Harry and I are quiet as we absorb this information. Neither of us watched the news last night. By the time we were finished with dinner at Pete’s, we were both having trouble keeping our eyes open. Harry even considered passing on dessert, but the crème brûlée brought him to his senses.

  The intercom buzzes yet again and it takes me a moment to react. It squawks three times before I answer, and I can hear the frustration in the Kydd’s breathing even before he speaks. He’s right; we do need a secretary. He’s doing way too many things at once, a well-known recipe for malpractice. “What is it?” I ask, still staring at Helene.

  “Big Red called,” he says. “The jury’s done. You guys have a verdict.”

  Chapter 28

  Weekend verdicts tend to slip beneath the public’s radar screen—at least until the following Monday. Most journalists and courtroom a
ficionados are at home with their families on weekends, tending to household chores, watching their sons and daughters play the season’s sports, or, at this time of year, trimming a tree. So I expected the parking lot to be relatively empty when Harry and I pulled into the county complex in his Jeep on this snowy Saturday. I was wrong.

  Like the lot, the main courtroom in the Superior Courthouse is packed. Big Red is the only bailiff on duty and he’s got his hands full. The county will cough up time-and-a-half for his services today, just as it will for our stenographer and Dottie Bearse. All three of them will earn every last penny of it, none more so than Big Red. The benches and aisles are already full, so he props open the rear double doors. The overflow crowd can watch from the hallway, though it’s unlikely they’ll hear anything at that distance. He can’t send them downstairs to the conference room on a Saturday. There’s no staff on duty to monitor the room, no technician to record the proceedings.

  Geraldine and Clarence are seated at their table, their demeanors decidedly different than they were forty-eight hours ago. The defendant’s conviction looked like a slam dunk then. It doesn’t at the moment. And even if they pull it off—even if the jurors agree with Geraldine that her office’s failure to disclose the disappearance of the monstrance doesn’t amount to a hill of beans—the appeal will be a nightmare. Geraldine looks stressed. Clarence looks much worse.

  The side door opens and two guards usher Derrick Holliston to our table. He’s neatly groomed, as he has been throughout trial, and he seems completely composed, at ease, as if whatever is about to happen in this room is of little consequence to him. He pauses when he reaches the table, staring at something behind me, and I turn to find out what’s caught his attention. It’s Bobby the Butcher—and Monsignor Davis—side by side in the front row behind our table.

  “Sit down,” I tell Holliston. “Turn the hell around and sit down.”

  He does, but he takes his time about it, sneering at the two before he complies. When I check on them again, their eyes say it all. The Monsignor would like to save Holliston’s soul. The Butcher would like to wring his neck.

  The two jurors who were informed they were alternates at the close of the case yesterday are here too, chatting in the front row behind Geraldine’s table. One is a twenty-five-year-old landscaper who paid particularly keen attention throughout the trial. He seemed genuinely disappointed to learn he wouldn’t get to deliberate with the others. His companion is Maria Marzetti’s admirer from the back row. I suspect his presence here is only partially attributable to his interest in the case.

  Harry plants his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. He looks far more worried than Holliston does. His isn’t the usual defense attorney’s concern, though. The jurors in this case have four choices, four potential verdicts, as is true in most first-degree-murder trials. And Harry’s not sure which one of them worries him most.

  In all murder cases, the judge is obligated to instruct the jury on every lesser-included offense that might be supported by the evidence. Case law is clear that an instruction is required where any view of the evidence would support the lesser-included result. As a practical matter, this means most murder juries are asked to choose from among first-degree, second-degree, and manslaughter charges. The fourth option, of course—available only if the jurors believe Holliston acted to preserve his own life—is an outright acquittal.

  Geraldine argued yesterday that a manslaughter instruction shouldn’t be given in this case. No view of the evidence would support such a result, she said. Giving an instruction on it would do nothing more than invite a compromise verdict. And not giving the instruction would actually benefit the defendant, she claimed. If the jurors fail to find the required elements of second-degree murder, they’ll have no choice but to acquit.

  Our District Attorney’s argument was a loser. Voluntary manslaughter is defined as an unlawful killing with intent to kill, but without malice. The statute specifically provides that a killing is done “without malice” if it results from an excessive use of force during self-defense or if it occurs in the heat of passion caused by reasonable provocation. Technically, at least, the jury could be justified in finding either of those scenarios in Holliston’s case.

  Judge Gould didn’t buy Geraldine’s pitch from the outset, but he actually laughed when she purported to have the defendant’s best interests at heart. “We’re not in Las Vegas, Ms. Schilling,” he said, “and this court is not a casino. We’re not here to force the defendant to roll the dice and then live with his losses.” That was the end of the argument. And Harry never said a word.

  Big Red calls us to our feet as the chambers door opens and Judge Gould strides quickly to the bench. He’s in his robe, business as usual, but today his shirt collar is unbuttoned beneath it, the absence of a tie his only nod to Saturday. “Bring them in,” he says as he sits, and Big Red heads for the side door. Holliston watches him leave, then looks down at the table and shakes his head. “I still don’t like that guy,” he mutters.

  “Rumor has it he doesn’t think a hell of a lot of you, either,” I tell him.

  That notion seems to strike our hotheaded client as preposterous; he bolts upright and glares at me. I feel a sudden relief about reaching the end of the road in this case, no matter what the verdict might be. I’m tired of Derrick John Holliston. And I’ve had more than enough of his angry eyes.

  Big Red returns in seconds, the jurors filing into the courtroom behind him in complete silence. Most of them avert their eyes—they look at their hands, the clock, the floor—as they take their seats in the box. Not all, though. Robert Eastman and Alex Doane stare directly at us—at Holliston, in fact—as soon as they enter the room. Maria Marzetti does too. I scan the panel quickly, searching for the telltale white paper, and it takes only a few seconds for me to spot it. Gregory Harmon clutches the form in his right hand. It’s the verdict slip; the one guy Harry would have kept off the panel had Holliston not called the shots is our foreman. He stares straight ahead as he sits; his expression reveals nothing.

  Judge Gould bids the jurors good morning as they take their seats and they all return the sentiment. He nods to our table and Harry and I get to our feet. Holliston takes his time joining us, as if this is our moment of truth, not his. The guards who ushered him into the courtroom have been standing near his chair since they got here, but they inch closer to it now, their readiness palpable.

  The judge pauses to allow Dottie Bearse to recite the docket number and then he turns back to the panel. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “have you reached a verdict?”

  Gregory Harmon stands. “We have, Your Honor.” His eleven compatriots remain seated, nodding in agreement. There’s not a sound in the room. If the spectators are breathing, they’re doing it on the sly.

  Big Red hustles to the jury box, retrieves the verdict slip from Gregory Harmon, and ferries it across the courtroom to the bench. Judge Gould reads in silence, his expression a well-rehearsed neutral.

  The judge passes the form back to Big Red, then turns to Dottie again. This time she stands at her desk. “Mr. Foreman,” she says, “in the matter of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Derrick John Holliston, on the charge of murder in the first degree, murder committed with extreme atrocity or cruelty, what say you?”

  Holliston drums his fingers on the table. He’s impatient; it seems he’s got other matters to attend to. I step on his foot, hard. He glares at me yet again, but at least he stops drumming.

  Big Red returns the verdict slip to Gregory Harmon and the foreman opens it to read. He doesn’t need to do that, of course; he knows what it says. “On the charge of murder in the first degree,” he intones, “we find the defendant, Derrick John Holliston, not guilty.”

  The courtroom erupts. More than a few of the spectators shout angry criticisms at the jurors. An even greater number actually boo. The Barnstable County Superior Courthouse sounds like Fenway Park during a Derek Jeter at-bat.

  Ju
dge Gould bangs his gavel repeatedly, but it has little effect. Holliston turns around and half sits on our table, a small smile spreading across his lips. I turn too, to take in the scene. Most of the spectators are on their feet, and more than a few of the shouters have their fists in the air. Big Red hurries down the center aisle, pulling the worst offenders from the benches, steering them toward the back doors. He’s having a hard time ejecting them, though. The overflow crowd has the exit blocked.

  The judge is on his feet now too, his gavel working like a jack-hammer. He calls for quiet repeatedly, and the free-for-all settles down a bit after a half dozen of his pleas. “We’ll sit here all day,” he shouts, “and we’ll eject every last one of you, if that’s what it takes to restore order.”

  Holliston lets out a little laugh beside me; he’s enjoying this.

  Monsignor Davis isn’t. He and the Butcher may be the only two people in the room who are still in their seats. The Monsignor’s eyes are closed, his head bowed and his lips moving rapidly. Silent prayers, I presume, for everyone in this courtroom. The Butcher’s eyes are closed too—they’re squeezed shut, in fact—and his fists are clenched. I’m glad he’s not standing in either of the side aisles. If there were a wall anywhere close to him, I’m pretty sure he’d punch a hole in it. Whatever modicum of confidence he may have had left in our judicial system after his own ordeal with Derrick Holliston has just gone up in smoke.

  Big Red has managed to part the lobby crowd, creating a path by which his dozen or so worst offenders can exit. The noise level drops a notch once they’re gone, but the judge keeps hammering. “Quiet,” he shouts, “this instant.” And this time, for some reason, he gets it.

  “Another outburst like that,” he says, still catching his breath as he sits, “and we will empty the gallery.” He waits, letting his words sink in, like an angry parent threatening to ground a wayward teenager. “Ms. Bearse,” he says at last, “you may proceed.”