Twisted: The Collected Stories - 1

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Mr. Hartman was pretty brave. I mean, he coulda run and saved himself but he was worried about bystanders. He was like that, always worrying about other people -- especially kids."

  Tribow wondered who'd written the script. Hartman himself, he guessed, it was so bad.

  "Then I ducked cause I thought if Valdez got the gun away he'd just start shooting like a madman and I got scared. I heard a gunshot and when I got up off the ground I saw that Valdez was dead."

  "What was the defendant doing?"

  "He was on his knees, trying to help Valdez. Stopping the bleeding, it looked like, calling for help. He was very shaken up."

  "No further questions."

  On cross, Tribow tried to puncture Abregos testimony too but because it was cleverly hedged ("It was all kind of a blur..." "I'm not sure..." "There was this rumor...") he had nothing specific with which to discredit the witness. The prosecutor planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of the jury by asking again, several times, if Hartman had paid the witness anything or threatened him or his family. But, of course, the man denied that.

  The defense then called a doctor, whose testimony was short and to the point.

  "Doctor, the coroner's report shows the victim was shot once in the side of the head. Yet you heard the testimony of the prior witness that the two men were struggling face-to-face. How could the victim have been shot in that way?"

  "Very simple. A shot in the side of the head would be consistent with Mr. Valdez turning his head away from the weapon while he was exerting pressure on the trigger, hoping to hit Mr. Hartman."

  "So, in effect, you're saying that Mr. Valdez shot himself."

  "Objection!"

  "Sustained."

  The lawyer said, "You're saying that it's possible Mr. Valdez was turning away while he himself pulled the trigger of the weapon, resulting in his own death?"

  "That's correct."

  "No further questions."

  Tribow asked the doctor how it was that the coroner didn't find any gunshot residue on Valdez's hands, which would have been present if he'd fired the gun himself, while Mr. Hartman's had residue on them. The doctor replied, "Simple. Mr. Hartman's hands were covering Mr. Valdez's and so they got all the residue on them."

  The judge dismissed the witness and Tribow returned to the table with a glance at the stony face of the defendant, who was staring back at him.

  You're going to lose...

  Well, Tribow hadn't thought that was possible a short while before, but now there was a real chance that Hartman would walk.

  Then the defense lawyer called his final witness: Raymond Hartman himself.

  His testimony gave a story identical to that of the other witnesses and supported his case: that he always carried his gun, that Valdez had this weird idea about Hartman and Valdez's wife, that he'd never extorted anyone in his life, that he bought a present for the Valdez boy, that he wanted to enlist Valdez's help in putting money into the Latino community, that the struggle occurred just as the witness said. Though he added a coda: his giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Valdez.

  He continued, with a glance at the four Latino and three black jurors. "I get a lot of hassles because I want to help minority businesses. For some reason the police and the city and state -- they don't like that. And here I ended up accidentally hurting one of the very people I'm trying to help." He looked sorrowfully at the floor.

  Adele Viamonte's sigh could be heard throughout the courtroom and drew a glare from the judge.

  The lawyer thanked Hartman and said to Tribow, "Your witness."

  "What're we going to do, boss?" Wu whispered.

  Tribow glanced at the two people on his team, who'd worked so tirelessly, for endless hours, on this case. Then he looked behind him into the eyes of Carmen Valdez, whose life had been so terribly altered by the man sitting on the witness stand, gazing placidly at the prosecutors and the people in the gallery.

  Tribow pulled Chuck Wu's laptop computer closer to him and scrolled through the notes that the young man had taken over the course of the trial. He read for a moment then stood slowly and walked toward Hartman.

  In his trademark polite voice he asked, "Mr. Hartman, I'm curious about one thing."

  "Yessir?" the killer asked, just as polite. He'd been coached well by his attorneys, who'd undoubtedly urged him never to get flustered or angry on the stand.

  "The game you got for Mr. Valdez's son."

  The eyes flickered. "Yes? What about it?"

  "What was it?"

  "One of those little video games. A GameBoy."

  "Was it expensive?"

  A smile of curiosity. "Yeah, pretty expensive. But I wanted to do something nice for Jose and his kid. I felt bad because his father was pretty crazy --"

  "Just answer the question," Tribow interrupted.

  "It cost about fifty or sixty bucks."

  "Where did you get it?"

  "A toy store in the mall. I don't remember the name."

  Tribow considered himself a pretty good lie detector and he could see that Hartman was making all this up. He'd probably seen an ad for GameBoys that morning. He doubted, however, that the jury could tell. To them he was simply cooperating and politely answering the prosecutor's somewhat curious questions.

  "What did this video game do?"

  "Objection," the lawyer called. "What's the point?"

  "Your Honor," Tribow said. "I'm just trying to establish a relationship between the defendant and the victim."

  "Go ahead, Mr. Tribow, but I don't think we need to know what kind of box this toy came in."

  "Actually, sir, I was going to ask that."

  "Well, don't."

  "I won't. Now, Mr. Hartman, what did this game do?"

  "I don't know -- you shot spaceships or something."

  "Did you play with it before giving it to Mr. Valdez?"

  From the corner of his eye he saw Viamonte and Wu exchange troubled glances, wondering what on earth their boss was up to.

  "No," Hartman answered. For the first time on the stand he seemed testy. "I don't like games. Anyway, it was a present. I wasn't gonna open it up before I gave it to the boy."

  Tribow nodded, raising an eyebrow, and continued his questioning. "Now the morning of the day Jose Valdez was shot did you have this game with you when you left your house?"

  "Yessir."

  "Was it in a bag?"

  He thought for a moment. "It was, yeah, but I put it in my pocket. It wasn't that big."

  "So your hands would be free?"

  "I guess. Probably."

  "And you left your house when?"

  "Ten-forty or so. Mass was at eleven."

  Tribow then asked, "Which church?"

  "St. Anthonys."

  "And you went straight there? With the game in your pocket?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "And the game was with you in the church?"

  "Correct."

  "But no one would have seen it because it was in your pocket."

  "I guess that'd be right." Still polite, still unflustered.

  "And when you left the church you walked along Maple Street to the Starbucks in the company of the earlier witness, Mr. Cristos Abrego?"

  "Yes, that's right."

  "And the game was still in your pocket?"

  "No."

  "It wasn't?"

  "No. At that point I took it out and was carrying it in the bag."

  Tribow whirled to face him and asked in a piercing voice, "Isn't it true that you didn't have the game with you in church?"

  "No," Hartman said, blinking in surprise but keeping his voice even and low, "that's not true at all. I had the game with me all day. Until I was attacked by Valdez."

  "Isn't it true that you left church, returned home, got the game and then drove to Starbucks?"

  "No, I wouldn't've had time to go home after church and get the game. Mass was over at noon. I got to Starbucks about ten minutes later. I told you, my house is a good
twenty minutes away from the church. You can check a map. I went straight from St. Anthony's to Starbucks."

  Tribow looked away from Hartman to the faces of the jury. He then glanced at the widow in the front row of the gallery, crying softly. He saw the perplexed faces of his prosecution team. He saw spectators glancing at one another. Everyone was waiting for him to drop some brilliant bombshell that would pull the rug out from underneath Hartman's testimony and expose him as the liar and killer that he was.

  Tribow took a deep breath. He said, "No further questions, Your Honor."

  *

  There was a moment of silence. Even the judge frowned and seemed to want to ask if the prosecutor was sure he wanted to do this. But he settled for asking the defense lawyer, "Any more witnesses?"

  "No, sir. The defense rests."

  The sole reason for a jury's existence is that people lie.

  If everyone told the truth a judge could simply ask Raymond C. Hartman if he planned and carried out the murder of Jose Valdez and the man would say yes or no and that would be that.

  But people don't tell the truth, of course, and so the judicial system relies on a jury to look at the eyes and mouths and hands and postures of witnesses and listen to their words and decide what's the truth and what isn't.

  The jury in the case of the State v. Hartman had been out for two hours. Tribow and his assistants were holed up in the cafeteria in the building across from the courthouse. Nobody was saying a word. Some of this silence had to be attributed to their uneasiness -- if not outright embarrassment -- at Tribow's unfathomable line of questioning about the game Hartman had allegedly bought for the victim's son. They would probably be thinking that even experienced prosecutors get flustered and fumble the ball from time to time and it was just as well it happened during a case like this, which was, apparently, unwinnable.

  Danny Tribow's eyes were closed as he lounged back in an ugly orange fiberglass chair. He was replaying Hartman's cool demeanor and the witnesses' claims that they hadn't been threatened or bribed by Hartman. They'd all been paid off or threatened, he knew, but he had to admit they looked and sounded fairly credible to him; presumably they'd seemed that way to the jury as well. But Tribow had great respect for the jury system and for jurors on the whole and, as they sat in the small deliberation room behind the courthouse, they might easily be concluding at this moment that Hartman had lied and coerced the witnesses into lying as well.

  And that he was guilty of murder one.

  But when he opened his eyes and glanced over at Adele Viamonte and Chuck Wu, their discouraged faces told him that there was also a pretty good chance that justice might not get done at this trial.

  "Okay," Viamonte said, "so we don't win on premeditated murder. We've still got the two lesser-includeds. And they'll have to convict on manslaughter."

  Have to? thought Tribow. He didn't think that was a word that ever applied to a jury's decision. The defense had pitched a great case for a purely accidental death.

  "Miracles happen," said Wu with youthful enthusiasm.

  And that was when Tribow's cell phone rang. It was the clerk with the news that the jury was returning.

  "Them coming back this fast -- is that good or bad?" Wu asked.

  Tribow finished his coffee. "Let's go find out."

  *

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?"

  "We have, Your Honor."

  The foreman, a middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and dark slacks, handed a piece of paper to the bailiff, who carried it to the judge.

  Tribow kept his eyes on Hartman's but the killer was sitting back in the swivel chair with a placid expression. He cleaned a fingernail with a paper clip. If he was worried about the outcome of the trial he didn't show it.

  The judge read the slip of paper silently and glanced over at the jury.

  Tribow tried to read the jurist's expression but couldn't.

  "The defendant will rise."

  Hartman and his lawyer stood.

  The judge handed the paper to the clerk, who read, "In the case of the People versus Raymond C. Hartman, on the first count, murder in the first degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the second count, murder in the second degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the third count, manslaughter, the jury finds the defendant not guilty."

  Complete silence in the courtroom for a moment, broken by Hartman's whispered, "Yes!" as he raised a fist of victory in the air.

  The judge, clearly disgusted at the verdict, banged his gavel down and said, "No more of that, Mr. Hartman." He added gruffly, "See the clerk for the return of your passport and bail deposit. I only hope that if you're brought up on charges again, you appear in my courtroom." Another angry slap of the gavel. "This court stands adjourned."

  The courtroom broke into a hundred simultaneous conversations, all laced with disapproval and anger.

  Hartman ignored all the comments and glares. He shook his lawyers' hands. Several of his confederates came up to him and gave him hugs. Tribow saw a smile pass between Hartman and his choirboy buddy, Abrego.

  Tribow formally shook Viamonte's and Wu's hands -- as was his tradition when a verdict, good or bad, came down. Then he went over to Carmen Valdez. She was crying softly. The DA hugged her. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "You did your best," the woman said and nodded at Hartman. "I guess people like that, really bad people, they don't play by the rules. And there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes they're just going to win."

  "Next time," Tribow said.

  "Next time," she whispered cynically.

  Tribow turned away and whispered a few words to Detective Moyer. The prosecutor noticed Hartman walking toward the front door of the courtroom. He stepped forward quickly, intercepting him. "Just a second, Hartman," Tribow said.

  "Nice try, Counselor," the larger-than-life man said, pausing, "but you should've listened to me. I told you you were going to lose."

  One of his lawyers handed Hartman an envelope. He opened it and took out his passport.

  "Must've cost you a lot to bribe those witnesses," Tribow said amiably.

  "Oh, I wouldn't do that," Hartman frowned. "That'd be a crime. As you, of all people, ought to know."

  Viamonte leveled a finger at him and said, "You're going to stumble and we're going to be there when it happens."

  Hartman replied calmly, "Not unless you're moving to the south of France. Which is what I'm doing next week. Come visit."

  "To help the minority community in Saint-Tropez?" Chuck Wu asked.

  Hartman offered a smile then turned toward the door.

  "Mr. Hartman," Tribow said. "One more thing?"

  The killer turned. "What?"

  Tribow nodded to Detective Dick Moyer. He stepped forward, paused and gazed coldly into Hartman's eyes.

  "Something you want, Officer?" the killer asked.

  Moyer gripped Hartman roughly and handcuffed him.

  "Hey, what the hell're you doing?"

  Abrego and two of Hartman's bodyguards stepped forward but by now a number of other police officers were next to Tribow and Moyer. The thugs backed off immediately.

  Hartman's lawyer pushed his way to the front of the crowd. "What's going on here?"

  Moyer ignored him and said, "Raymond Hartman, you're under arrest for violation of state penal code section eighteen point three-one dash B. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney." He continued the litany of the Miranda warning in a rather monotonous voice, considering the frenzy around him.

  Hartman snapped to his lawyer, "Why the hell're you letting him do this? I'm paying you -- do something!"

  This attitude didn't sit well with the lawyer but he said, "He's been acquitted of all charges."

  "Actually not all charges," Tribow said. "There was one lesser-included offense I didn't bring him up on. Section eighteen point three one."

  "What the hell is that?" Hartman snapped.


  His lawyer shook his head. "I don't know."

  "You're a goddamn lawyer. What do you mean, you don't know?"

  Tribow said, "It's a law that makes it a felony to have a loaded firearm within one hundred yards of a school -- Sunday schools included." He added with a modest smile, "I worked with the state legislature myself to get that one passed."

  "Oh, no..." the defense lawyer muttered.

  Hartman frowned and said ominously, "You can't do that. It's too late. The trial's over."

  The lawyer said, "He can, Ray. It's a different charge."

  "Well, he can't prove it," Hartman snapped. "Nobody saw any guns. There were no witnesses."

  "As a matter of fact there is a witness. And he happens to be one you can't bribe or threaten."

  "Who?"

  "You."

  Tribow walked to the computer on which Chuck Wu had transcribed much of the testimony.

  He read, "Hartman: 'No, I wouldn't've had time to go home after church and get the game. Mass was over at noon. I got to Starbucks about ten minutes later. I told you, my house is a good twenty minutes away from the church. You can check a map. I went straight from St. Anthony's to Starbucks.'"

  "What's this all about? What's with this goddamn game?"

  "The game's irrelevant," Tribow explained. "What's important is that you said you didn't have time to go home between leaving the church and arriving at Starbucks. That means you had to have the gun with you in church. And that's right next to the Sunday school." The prosecutor summarized, "You admitted under oath that you broke section eighteen thirty-one. This transcript's admissible at your next trial. That means it's virtually an automatic conviction."

  Hartman said, "All right, all right. Let me pay the fine and get the hell out of here. I'll do it now."

  Tribow looked at his lawyer. "You want to tell him the other part of eighteen point thirty-one?"

  His lawyer shook his head. "It's a do-time felony, Ray."

  "What the hell's that?"

  "It carries mandatory prison time. Minimum six months, maximum five years."

  "What?" Terror blossomed in the killer's eyes. "But I can't go to prison." He turned to his lawyer, grabbing his arm. "I told you that. They'll kill me there. I can't! Do something, earn your goddamn fee for a change, you lazy bastard!"

  But the lawyer pulled the man's hand off. "You know what, Ray? Why don't you tell your story to your new lawyer. I'm in the market for a better grade of client." The man turned and walked out through the swinging doors.

  "Wait!"

  The detective and two other officers escorted Hartman away, shouting his protests.