Fatal Convictions (26 page)

71

With Khalid’s trial only eight days away, Thanksgiving was just another working day at Madison and Associates. The only member of the firm who didn’t come to the office on Thanksgiving was Ramona Madison. She had been serving the homeless Thanksgiving dinner for twenty-five straight years, and she wasn’t about to skip a year now. Alex gave her the full day off but made her promise to cook dinner for everyone else.

By six o’clock, the firm was sitting down at Ramona’s dining room table, ready to dig into the feast. Shannon generally spent Thanksgiving with her folks in Alabama, but this year she couldn’t get away. The fourth member of the group, Nara Mobassar, had never shared a Thanksgiving meal with anyone. Alex had also invited Khalid, but Ghaniyah had been reluctant to participate, so Khalid decided to stay home with his wife.

Ramona had put her best china on the table and made Alex mute the football game while they sat down to eat.

“Do you mind if we hold hands and say a brief prayer?” Ramona asked Nara. “We won’t be at all offended if you choose not to join us.”

“That’s fine,” Nara said. “Actually, I’d like to join you.” She held out her hands, and the others took the cue.

“Alex?” Ramona said, once they were all holding hands. “You’re the minister here.”

“
Former
minister,” Alex reminded her.

He kept the prayer short, focusing on the things for which they were thankful. At the end, he couldn’t resist a quick petition for success on Khalid’s case. After his amen, the others echoed the word, and the feast began.

“How did you have time to cook all this stuff and work at the feeding kitchen too?” Shannon asked as she passed around the main courses.

Ramona gave Shannon a sly smile. “I donate five hundred a year to their Thanksgiving feedings. That should entitle me to a few leftovers.”

Alex’s head jerked up from slapping the mashed potatoes on his plate. “You took food from the homeless?”

“They had plenty,” his grandmother said, somewhat defensively. “And if I do say so, I think they got the better end of the deal.”

Undeterred by the source of the bounty, the Khalid Mobassar legal team dug in with great enthusiasm while Alex periodically ribbed his grandmother about her wonderful cooking. Ramona had established one firm rule for Thanksgiving dinner—no talking about the case. Alex could tell that it was killing Shannon.

Just before dessert, with Ramona clearing the dishes, Nara provided Shannon with an opening.

“When is my mother’s case going to trial?” Nara asked.

“January tenth,” Shannon said. “But your mom will be deposed a week from Saturday. I’ve been pushing for depositions of the defendants, and the judge ruled last week that the defense lawyers get to depose Ghaniyah first.”

“I still can’t believe Judge Lewis did that,” Alex said. “I think he got intimidated by Strobel.”

They had had this same conversation around the office several times. Mack Strobel and Kayden Dendy were anxious to depose Ghaniyah. Shannon had resisted, knowing that her client wasn’t yet ready. Recently, Strobel had gone to court to complain, and Judge Lewis had ordered Shannon to make Ghaniyah available for deposition. Shannon refused to miss a day of Khalid’s trial, so a compromise was struck. Ghaniyah’s deposition would take place on a Saturday.

“She’ll make a terrible witness,” Nara said.

The comment seemed a little out of line, and for a few seconds, nobody responded. “Actually, the problem we have is that your mom might make too
good
a witness,” Shannon responded. “Her recovery is coming along great, which is a good thing. But if she does too well in her deposition, the jury might not believe she’s suffering from a serious brain injury.”

72

They finished eating by seven, and Alex was pretty sure that Shannon would head back to the office. Because Nara had ridden to Ramona’s house with Shannon, Alex offered to give her a ride home. Shannon raised her eyebrows but apparently wasn’t willing to make a scene.

Ramona had no such reservations. “Try to avoid making out in public,” she said.

“You’re fired,” Alex replied.

On the way to the Mobassars’ place, Alex had a brilliant idea. “Do you have a few minutes to go to the Virginia Beach boardwalk with me?” he asked Nara.

Nara gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

“This time of year, they line the boardwalk with Christmas lights. You drive your car down the middle of the boardwalk and see all kinds of cool stuff.” In truth, the Christmas lights were not that spectacular, but Alex was looking forward to time alone with Nara.

“Sounds great,” she said. And just like that, Alex felt as light-headed as a middle schooler on his first date.

The night was clear and cold, with a stiff breeze blowing in from the ocean. Alex paid the ten dollars at the end of the boardwalk and turned off his headlights. There was a little hot chocolate stand just before the vehicles pulled onto the boardwalk, and Alex bought a cup to share with Nara.

Because it was Thanksgiving night, there was a steady stream of traffic. The cars were moving at a snail’s pace, but Alex was in no hurry. Five miles per hour felt just about right.

He put in the CD that came with the experience—the sounds of the season. Hotels rose skyward on their left, and the sands of the beach spread out to the right. The sponsors of the event had done a clever job of constructing innovative light displays on each side. Santa Claus was surfing. Moving lights made it seem like sharks jumped in and out of the sand. There was a monster truck decorated in lights and fish jumping over the boardwalk in a lighted arch.

Alex occasionally glanced at his passenger. The light from the moon and stars reflected off the ocean and glimmered in her hair. Her features were silhouetted against the beach, and she looked more beautiful than ever.

He was thinking romance, but Nara apparently had other things on her mind.

“Have you researched the issue of whether our encounter with Hezbollah would be admissible?” Nara asked. The question came out of the blue while they were in the middle of a long display depicting the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Alex forced his thoughts back to the mundane matters of the law. “Technically, the statements of our captors are hearsay,” Alex said. He could have left it at that, but he didn’t want to lie to her.

“However, there are some exceptions that might apply. As I mentioned in Lebanon, statements against interest are admissible if there is corroborating evidence. We could argue that the statements our captors made to you were statements against their interest. I mean, they pretty much admitted Hezbollah’s involvement.”

Alex felt like he had just converted a romantic ride down the boardwalk into a law school lecture. Talk about breaking the mood.

“What kind of corroborating evidence do we need?” Nara asked.

“Anything, really. We took some pictures of the cut on your neck—that might work. It’d be even better if we could get some geek to hack into the hidden Internet site where they posted that video of me indicting your dad.

“We can always figure out the corroborating evidence, Nara, but that’s not the point. I’m not willing to put you on the stand unless you agree to go into the witness protection program.”

It wasn’t the first time Nara had heard this. But tonight, she didn’t reject it out of hand. Instead, she stared out the side window for a few minutes. Alex drove on in silence—the lights had lost their allure.

“The problem is that I don’t trust your government to protect me,” she said softly. Alex turned the music down a little. “This is the same government that is prosecuting my father for murder. The same government that has taped every one of his phone calls and monitored every one of his e-mails. Your government has declared war on those of us who hold my religious beliefs, and now you are asking me to trust them.”

“It’s a different part of the government,” Alex responded. “We’re talking about the U.S. Marshals, not the CIA. And they know how to keep their witnesses safe.”

“How would you know that? Do you think they actually tell you when they let a witness get killed?”

“Which proves my point,” Alex said. He kept his tone as understanding as possible, but he wanted to let Nara know he was firm on this. “I can’t put you on the stand if you don’t agree to this. No matter what happens after the trial, you would be in too much danger.”

“My father is your client,” Nara reminded him. “Your only duty is to decide whether I help or hurt his case. Am I not right about that?”

Alex kept his eyes straight ahead. This woman knew all the right buttons to push. And she happened to be right—defending Khalid was
supposed
to be the only issue. But it wasn’t.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Alex said.

His admission surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise Nara. She turned from the window and looked at him. “That’s very sweet,” she said.

She leaned over and, before he knew what had happened, gave him a kiss on the check.

His mind immediately raced to the pictures of him and Nara embracing after their paddleboarding adventure. He checked his rearview mirror and glanced at both sides of the boardwalk. It was dark, and there was no one around.

Nara smiled. “We’re safe,” she said. “I checked.”

She was right. The only things in the sand on the right were five golden rings. The car behind them had its headlights off. There was not a soul on the left between them and the hotels.

Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Alex reached over with his right, gently cradling the back of her head. He leaned toward her, and this time he was the one who initiated the kiss, something he’d wanted to do for a very long time. The alarm bells sounded—she was a client’s daughter; she worshiped a different god; he shouldn’t get emotionally involved in the middle of a case.

But he turned off the alarms and enjoyed the moment, tasting the hot chocolate on her breath, losing himself in her kiss. When she finally pulled back, she took a deep breath, smiled, and looked at him with a mixture of surprise and affection.

Alex realized that he had just crossed every acceptable social and professional boundary—not to mention biblical. He started to say something—maybe an apology—but Nara put a finger on his lips. “Let’s just enjoy this moment,” she said. “We can analyze it later.”

She was right again. He reached over and placed his right hand on top of hers, and they intertwined their fingers. They rode in silence for a few minutes, and for the first time in weeks, Alex forgot about the case. He focused instead on the electricity that seemed to flow from her hand to his. He smiled to himself at the absurdity of it all.

Bing Crosby was playing on the CD, dreaming of a white Christmas amid the shimmering sand of Virginia Beach. They were passing two turtledoves on the left, approaching a partridge in a pear tree on the right, and Alex was falling in love with a woman from the other side of the world whose culture was practically at war with his own.

And in one week, he would be defending her father in the biggest murder case Virginia Beach had ever seen.

* * *

Hassan Ibn Talib could not have been more disgusted. He drove slowly through the holiday lights display on the boardwalk, two cars behind Alexander Madison’s truck. It didn’t surprise him that Nara Mobassar was spending time alone with her father’s American lawyer. Her liberal views had never represented the true Muslim faith. It seemed to Hassan that she was close to taking the final step and rejecting the faith altogether.

She certainly knew better. There would be a special place in hell for those like Nara who led so many people away from Allah. Hassan had already beheaded women who had done far less damage.

As far as Hassan was concerned, Nara Mobassar was a Muslim in name only. Sure, she claimed to be a follower of Mohammed. She prayed five times a day, and she said all the right things. But it was only a facade—all designed to hide the heart of an infidel.

She had fooled many people. Hassan was not one of them. He knew better. Often, the most dangerous deception was the one that looked the most like the truth.

73

The days between Thanksgiving and the start of Khalid’s trial passed in a giant blur of paperwork and trial prep. Alex arrived at the office every day by 8 a.m. and was typically the last person there, frequently leaving after midnight. He had witness notebooks to prepare, subpoenas to issue, exhibits to review, and an opening statement to write. Meanwhile, Shannon took the lead on pretrial motions, jury instructions, and collecting information on the prospective jurors.

Alex spent three entire afternoons preparing Khalid for his turn on the stand. During one of those afternoons, Shannon conducted a mock cross-examination, and they videotaped Khalid’s answers.

Complicating matters was the fact that Alex was not as focused as he needed to be. Though he and Nara both tried to act as if the Thanksgiving night kiss had never occurred, he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. The others on the trial team could apparently sense that things had changed dramatically between Alex and Nara. For one thing, they were no longer constantly at each other’s throat about trial strategies. In fact, Nara was so supportive of Alex that it became a little awkward for everyone else. All of this only made Shannon more businesslike; Alex thought he detected a slight tinge of jealousy in the air.

Late one afternoon, Alex’s grandmother mentioned something about it. “It’s really none of my business what goes on between you and Nara,” Ramona said, “except I do know that your grandfather had some pretty strict rules about fraternization with clients.”

“I’m not fraternizing with her,” Alex said.
And it
is
none of your business,
he felt like adding.

Ramona took a quick glance around. Alex could sense that she had been debating whether to say anything at all. “I just don’t want to see you mess up things with Shannon,” she said. “I always thought you two would make a great pair.”

The comment caught Alex a little off guard. He and Shannon had developed an amazing friendship. But even before Nara had arrived on the scene, he had decided not to ruin a special friendship by making another attempt to date her. “Shannon and I are really good friends, Grandma. And we work great together. But we’ve kind of got an unspoken pact that we won’t jeopardize that by trying to turn it into something more.”

“I see,” Ramona said. “And like I said, it’s really none of my business. I’m just not so sure that Shannon remembers signing that pact.”

* * *

Three days before trial, Judge Rosenthal surprised Alex by ordering the federal government to immediately turn over Fatih Mahdi’s telephone calls, text messages, and e-mails. Boxes of CDs and documents arrived the next day. Ramona and Nara immediately began the mind-numbing task of listening to every telephone conversation and reviewing every e-mail and text message Fatih had sent or received.

As the trial grew closer, Alex vacillated about whether to put Nara on the stand. The torment of that decision was exacerbated by the fact that he couldn’t discuss it with anyone except her. On the eve of trial, they agreed to play it by ear. Nara would take the stand only if it looked like they might otherwise lose the case.