The Fall (18 page)

“He didn’t.”

“You sound pretty certain.”

“There’s just no way, Wyatt. If you met him, you’d think the same thing.”

“Maybe not. What’s your father think?”

Rebecca made a face. “He’s so cynical. He doesn’t believe anybody anymore, except Mom, and even her only most of the time. He says I’m going to get to be the same way when I get a little more experience in the criminal law business; I should just wait. I reminded him that he’d had innocent clients. It happens. Especially when they move so fast with making the arrest.”

“Which I’m sure you’re going to argue about.”

She nodded. “I am. But I’ve got to admit, it’s not a great argument. The judge will just say if they don’t have what they need to convict, the jury in its wisdom will find Greg not guilty. If anything, he’ll say, the rush to arrest is a positive for the defense.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. So . . . if Greg is in fact innocent . . .”

“Now it’s ‘if.’ ”

“No. He is.
And that means someone else killed her.”

“Maybe.” Hunt broke a small grin. “How about the suicide angle, by the way? That sounded like a sweet moment.”

Rebecca allowed her own tiny smile. “You heard about that, huh?”

“I was talking to your proud father on another matter. But might she just have jumped?”

“Possible, barely, but no way does the jury buy it. Not with all the witnesses hearing the struggle and the scream.”

“How about the random mugger?”

“Again, possible. But that’s where the eyewitness hurts us.”

“While we’re on that, what’s your boy’s story?”

“It wasn’t him. He wasn’t there. He was home sleeping.”

“I heard they had him on the video.”

She shook her head. “Any white guy wearing a tie.”

“Really?”

“You can check it for yourself. Believe me, without Mr. Abdullah, there’s no ID.”

“The logical move, then, I suppose, would be to kill him. Abdullah, I mean.”

“It would be, I know. But it just seems a little wrong.”

“Picky, picky.” Hunt waved off her objection, then brought his boots down off the desk, straightening up. “So we’ve still got the question: What about the mugger?”

“If it was a mugger, and it might have been, then Greg’s in trouble. Unless the mugger shows up with her purse.”

“Her purse? What about her purse?”

“She had her purse with her, and it hasn’t turned up.”

Hunt shrugged. “That’s easy. She dropped it in the struggle. Somebody picked it up, took what they wanted, if anything, and threw it away.”

“Probably. And once they got on Greg’s trail, nobody looked. Which is the problem all along here. Once Greg got on their radar, with all the pressure to identify a suspect, the inspectors didn’t look at any other possibilities. I was looking through some discovery documents earlier tonight, and that’s when it hit me: There are at least a couple of unexplored leads that they just dropped after they glommed on to Greg.”

“Like?”

“Like
something was going on at the home she lived in. There was some kind of drama with another one of the girls, but after the first interviews, nobody followed up. Then there’s something about her mother and her old boyfriend, a guy named Leon. You can read the transcript of Sharla’s interview. Apparently, he sexually abused her—”

“The mother?”

“No. Anlya. When she was younger, thirteen or fourteen. In any event, the mom, Sharla, is damned evasive when she ought to be bending over to help the inspectors find Anlya’s killer, wouldn’t you think?”

“Unless she just hates cops.”

“Okay, maybe that, but still. Somebody should talk to her again and try to find out.”

Hunt cocked his head. “Is that it?”

“Not completely, no. Last is that nobody’s talked to the person closest to her. Her twin brother. Max.”

“You’re saying he’s a suspect?”

“No. I can’t see that. But they never talked to Max to see if he could give them some idea of what else might have been going on in her life. They never even asked.”

Hunt lifted and dropped his shoulders, resigned. “That’s what happens when you identify your main guy, Beck.”

“Yes, but it sure does leave a lot of unanswered questions, and I believe that one of them is going to lead to her murderer.”

“And you want me to ask them?”

She nodded. “I think you’ll turn up something.”

“Then what? They confess?”

Now she broke a real smile. “That would be ideal, though I’m not counting on it. I was thinking more you get something real and pass it along to Devin Juhle. You guys are buds, right?”

“Reasonably. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to jump on evidence I turn up.”

“Yes, he will. With all this Liam Goodman stuff in the background, if it looks like something that truly might threaten Greg’s conviction, he’ll want to know all about it, if only to cover his own ass.”

Hunt chewed the side of his cheek for a moment. “I don’t want to seem
unenthusiastic, and I could use the work, but you realize it is overwhelmingly likely that I won’t find anything and it all might get us nothing?”

“I don’t think that. I think there’s something out there that nobody’s looked at, and that’s why Anlya died.” She reached down and opened her briefcase, extracting a thick folder and reaching over to place it on Hunt’s desk. “Something’s in there,” she said. “Give it a look. See what you think. What do you say?”

“I say I’ll do what I can. I’ll read all that tonight.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“Always a pleasure.” He stood up, and they shook hands over the desk. “By the way,” he said, “do you want to hear a coincidence?”

“Always.”

“You know that third-party culpability we were talking about earlier? At your dad’s last trial, when he had three of them lined up—you want to guess who one of them was?”

“Mr. Abdullah?”

“Beck. Come on. Seriously.”

“I am serious. You said it was a coincidence.”

“And it is.”

“Okay. I give up.”

“Liam Goodman.”

Rebecca reeled, almost as though she’d been slapped. “Really?” Then, considering it further, “As a suspect in a murder case?”

Hunt nodded. “Your dad knows all about it. I went and talked to Goodman. You’ll love this. Somebody was blackmailing him. His blackmailer wound up dead. But no evidence tied him to the actual perpetration of the crime, so the judge never let us get him on the stand.”

“Wow,” Rebecca said. “That is interesting.” She took another beat, thinking. “Do you have any idea what, if anything, it means in the context of this trial?”

“No clue,” Hunt said. “Or if it has any meaning at all. It might be just one of those things.”

“Wow,” Rebecca said again. “Small town.”

•  •  •

I
N HER NIGHTGOWN,
Frannie came into the bedroom from the adjoining bathroom, and Hardy closed his hardback copy of Karen Joy Fowler’s
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
and put it on the bedside table. “Are you
going to read this when I’m done?” he asked.

“I’m planning to. I love her stuff. Is this one good?”

“No. It’s great. But I want to warn you, whatever you do, don’t read the jacket. They ought to have a banner ribbon around the damn thing saying, ‘Spoiler Alert.’ Why don’t they just tell me the whole story so I don’t need to read the actual book? Except that I
want
to read the book without knowing what happens next. Is that so hard?”

“Apparently so. And I am now forewarned. Why don’t we just throw the jacket away so I’m not tempted? Here, give it to me. I’m not kidding.”

He grabbed the book, took off its cover, and handed it across. “Don’t even glance at it! You might pick it up by osmosis.”

“I’ll be careful.” Frannie crushed the paper in her hands and went to throw it in the bathroom’s wastebasket.

Also next to Hardy’s bed, the phone rang. Hardy checked his watch: 11:20. “Got to be The Beck.” He reached over to pick it up. “Isn’t it slightly late?” he said by way of greeting.

It was, in fact, the Beck. “I don’t know . . . Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”

“It’s okay, sweetie. What’s up?”

Frannie reappeared from the bathroom. “Is she all right?” she whispered.

“Are you all right?” Hardy repeated, nodding at his wife, then spoke into the phone. “Are you still at the office?”

“No. I’m home now. Were you asleep? I’m sorry. I’ll let you go.”

“No. That’s all right. We’re night owls tonight. Uncle Abe and Treya came by and we ate your mom’s paella and it ran late. What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to let you know that I’ve gone ahead and put Wyatt on something with Greg.” In a few sentences, she laid out her idea. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Well,” Hardy said, “that’s why we have a private investigator. If you think it might do some good, it’s probably worthwhile. If anybody can get results, it’s Wyatt. But maybe you want to think now about hitting the sack, since if I’m not mistaken, you’ve got another day in court tomorrow.”

“I don’t see how I’m going to get any sleep. I’m too wound up.”

Hardy took a deliberate breath, slowing himself down. “Sleep is part of the gig, Beck. You’ve got to give it a try. Are you still in your work clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe get them off, put on some pajamas, and lie down. That might be a start.”

“Good idea. I’ll do that.”

“All right. Sleep tight. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Say hi to Mom.”

“Hi, Mom. Now you, Beck, go to bed.”

“Okay. I will. Promise. Bye.”

Hardy hung up, let out a deep breath. “Have I told you how glad I am that this is The Beck’s trial and not mine? Not that I wish the insomnia on her.”

“And not that you ever had it yourself. Or still don’t sleep too well when you’re at trial.”

“Which is why I’m glad I’m not.” He shook his head. “She hired Wyatt Hunt.”

“To do what?”

“To find out who killed Anlya.”

Frannie sighed. “Well, I hope he does.”

“Me, too,” Hardy said. “Notice, though, I’m not holding my breath.”

O
F COURSE,
R
EBECCA’S
lucky break on the suicide question with Dr. Strout was by no means where the first day of testimony had ended. They’d been back from the lunch recess only twenty-five or so minutes by the time Strout was done, and Braden hadn’t wasted any time trying to get away from that fiasco by calling Eric Waverly and walking him through the visit to Anlya’s apartment, finding the photo, and the interview with Greg Treadway. It had been a slow process, almost as long in the telling as it was in the living, and the court had adjourned for the evening just after Waverly’s description of visiting Anlya’s group home on the day after her death.

And now here it was, day two of the trial proper. Hardy and a bleary-eyed and somewhat spacy Rebecca were getting set up at their table, the client in the holding cell behind the courtroom, when Hardy nudged her, directing her attention to the prosecutor, who was limping up the center aisle in the gallery. As he was pushing open the gate, letting himself into the bullpen, Braden kept his eyes straight ahead, all business. He wore a portable cast on his right foot.

Hardy, suddenly on the verge of the kind of hysterical laughter that could only bloom in an inappropriate and restricted setting, had to cover his mouth and look down at the grain of the desktop in front of him.

Rebecca turned to him. “What?” Then “What happened to Braden’s foot?”

Hardy kept his hand over his mouth, leaned forward on his elbow, and looked to his right, away from the prosecution table. His shoulders shook with his silent laughter. “Oh God,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes.

“What?” Rebecca asked again. “What’s so funny?”

At last Hardy got his breathing under control and risked a glance across to where Braden was arranging his props—legal pads, pens and
pencils, briefcase. “Last night Abe told me that Phil was so mad about the suicide thing when he got back to his office that he kicked a chair and broke it. I thought he meant he broke the chair. But I guess not.”

She looked over at Braden, made a face of commiseration, came back to her father. “That is so not funny, Dad,” she whispered.

“No. You’re right.” But he couldn’t do anything about his reaction as he turned away, giggling, his eyes tearing up again. It was exactly like the time during a super-serious lecture in the strictest teacher’s class in his all-boys’ high school when the guy behind him had passed a note that said, “Smile if you’re wearing a bra,” and Hardy had just lost it. Laughed so hard he cried, got sent to the office, pulled a week of JUG—Judgment Under God. And totally worth it to laugh that hard.

“Not funny,” he now said, nearly recovered. “My bad. Not funny at all.”

•  •  •

“I
F YOU CAN
stand it, one last last-minute tip.” Hardy was leaning over, whispering to Rebecca, still before Greg had entered the courtroom. “This just occurred to me as I’ve been sitting here, so I might be wrong and you can overrule me, but you’re going to have a lot of opportunities to talk about the actual crime, the scene of the crime, the night of the crime, the gravamen of the crime, and so on.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, you might want to think about convincing yourself not to call it ‘the crime.’ ”

“What do I call it, then?”

“Anything else. The incident. The accident. The death. The street location. Anything but crime. You might even try potential suicide. And so let’s say Braden objects. Regardless of whether the judge sustains or overrules, the jury gets to hear again that this was a possible suicide. And if he doesn’t object, then you’ve got the jury halfway to believing it might have been an accident of some kind, not a murder. Either way, you win. You might just consider it.”

Rebecca knew that her dad had years of experience, but sometimes, she thought, he got carried away with esoteric minutiae. “You really think one word like that matters?”

“Guilty. Not guilty. One-word difference,” he said. “Just give it some thought. That’s all I’m saying.”

•  •  •

B
RADEN FINISHED UP
with Waverly in the first hour. With no break for a
recess, Judge Bakhtiari turned to Rebecca and said, “Ms. Hardy. Cross-examination?”