Salem Falls Part 33

"Don't shoot the messenger." Frankie gathered up her reports. "A private lab could test more systems to see if there's an elimination further down."

"And if we don't have the funding for that?"

"I'd go check your suspect's family tree."

Matt drained his milk shake and took out his wallet. "Is it his blood?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And is there a good chance that he got scratched by the victim?"

Frankie nodded.

"And you can't say that sperm sample isn't isn't his." his."

"No."

Matt tossed a ten-dollar bill on the table. "That's all I needed to hear."

The girls arrived, flushed and sweaty in their silky shorts and bouncing ponytails, like a flock of sparrows that had swept into the locker room through an open door. Chattering in twos and threes, they made their way toward the showers, ignoring the woman who stood in the entry staring at last year's varsity photo.

Jack was pictured with his team, his hair as bright as the gold that glinted off the trophy one of the girls held. His head was turned in profile, admiring these young women.

"Are you lost?"

The voice jolted Addie out of her reverie. "Sorry," a teenage girl said, smiling. "I didn't mean to scare you to death."

"No ... no, that's all right."

"Are you somebody's mother?" the girl asked.

Addie was stunned by the personal question, until she realized that she was taking it the wrong way. This girl was not talking about Chloe at all; in fact, Addie was only being mistaken, once again, for someone she was not. Why wouldn't a student invite her mother to join her after practice, maybe for a cup of tea?

"I'm a prospective mother," Addie said.

The girl grinned, a dimple showing in her cheek. It was so guileless that Addie felt her stomach cramp; she was wis.h.i.+ng that hard that this child might have been hers. "Oh. One of those," the student teased.

"What does that mean?"

"That your daughter plays all-state and that you want to talk to the coach."

Addie laughed. "Where is he, then?"

The girl's eyes darted to the photo. "She should be here any minute now."

"She?"

"We got a new coach this year. After our old one ... had to leave."

Addie cleared her throat. "Oh?"

The girl nodded and touched her hand to the gla.s.s. "It was some big horrible scandal, or it was supposed to be, anyway. But if you ask me, it was like Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, a little. You know, falling in love with the person you're not supposed to." She frowned slightly. "Except they didn't die at the end." a little. You know, falling in love with the person you're not supposed to." She frowned slightly. "Except they didn't die at the end."

"Romeo and Juliet?"

"No ... Coach and Catherine."

"Ladies! Why don't I hear water running?" A strident voice boomed through the locker room as the new coach clapped her hands and scattered her team toward the showers.

"That's her," the girl said. "In case you didn't figure it out." With a tiny wave, she jogged toward the bathroom section of the locker room.

The coach approached with a smile. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I was just looking around. If that's all right." Addie pointed toward the gleaming trophy. "That's quite a Cracker Jack prize."

"Yeah, they worked hard for it. Good group of kids."

Addie leaned closer to the photo. But instead of looking at the girls, she scanned the calligraphy of the caption. L to R: Suzanne Wellander, Margery Cabot, Coach St. Bride, Catherine Marsh. L to R: Suzanne Wellander, Margery Cabot, Coach St. Bride, Catherine Marsh.

The girl next to Jack, holding the trophy. The girl who, Addie now realized, he was staring at.

"This is a copy of your statement," Matt said, handing it across his desk to Gillian. "I want you to take it home and read it, so that you remember everything you said."

Beside her, Amos glanced at the thin leaflet. "I d.a.m.n well hope you've got more for your case than just that."

"We do," Matt answered smoothly. "But your daughter's allegations are the foundation of our case." He opened up another folder and gave Duncan a copy of Frankie's forensic report. "These results all corroborate what Gillian said. His blood on her s.h.i.+rt, the skin beneath the fingernails, the s.e.m.e.n."

"s.e.m.e.n?" Gilly whispered.

"Yes." Matt grinned. "I was delighted to hear that, too. I had my doubts, since you said he used a condom. Apparently, a swab of seminal fluid was taken from your thigh for DNA a.n.a.lysis. And that will go some distance toward establis.h.i.+ng the burden of proof."

"From your thigh," Amos repeated, and squeezed his daughter's hand.

The county attorney completely understood their astonishment. He'd told the Duncans, going into the process, that a rape conviction could be a long shot-and this dramatically altered the odds. Matt smiled broadly at Gillian and her father. "Sometimes," he said, "we just get lucky."

Thomas tossed the Airborne Express envelope onto his father's lap. "For you."

Jordan put down the joystick he was using to cream his son at Nintendo and slit open the package. "Must be the DNA," he said, and quickly skimmed the brief note Matt Houlihan had written as a cover sheet-not saying much of anything, really, which was exactly what Jordan would have done if faced with the sort of results the forensic scientist must have turned up ... namely, that Jack was nowhere near Gillian Duncan that night.

He leafed through the first page, then the second, and with a curse slapped the entire package down on the floor before getting to his feet. "I've got to go out," he muttered.

On the screen, Thomas killed off one of his father's players. "But you're winning."

"No," Jordan said. "I'm not."

Clients lie. It was the first thing you learned as a defense attorney, a rule Jordan had cut his teeth on. After all, a guy who shoots his mother in cold blood or robs a convenience store is going to be not a paragon of honor but rather someone who will do or say just about anything to save his own a.s.s. Jordan was not surprised to find out Jack had been bulls.h.i.+tting him for weeks now. What did stun him was the fact that he'd been so gullible.

His mood was markedly different from the last time he'd been sitting in this conference room, filled with the righteous belief that he was saving a truly maligned soul from the channels of the court system. Jack noticed the change, too, the moment he came in. The smile fell off his face and fluttered to the floor like the old skin of a snake.

"You know," Jordan began pleasantly, "it doesn't particularly surprise me to find out that you lied."

"But you ... you said the other day-"

"In fact, I couldn't care less. What does upset me is that you have completely f.u.c.ked yourself over by telling Saxton you weren't anywhere near Gillian Duncan that night."

"I wasn't."

Jordan slammed his palms on the table. "Then what the h.e.l.l is that soil doing in your boots, Jack? What the h.e.l.l is your blood doing on her s.h.i.+rt, your skin under her nails? And your G.o.dd.a.m.ned s.e.m.e.n on her thigh? You want to explain that to me? Or perhaps you'd like to wait and explain it to the jury when you get up on the stand and Houlihan impeaches you with an inconsistent statement."

Jack sank down into a chair, silent.

"First thing the prosecutor is going to do is ruin your credibility by dragging that up. If I were sitting on that jury and heard that a guy lied to the police ... a guy whose DNA was found all over the place, I'd vote in an instant to hang you. Why lie ... unless you had something to hide?"

Frustrated, Jordan tossed the forensic lab report toward his client and let Jack skim the results. "So," he said briskly. "I a.s.sume we're going with consent."

"What?" Jack's head swung up, slow as a bull's.

"You were obviously in the woods that night with the girl."

"I was," Jack said evenly, "but we didn't have s.e.x."

"Could we just stop with the Boy Scout act, Jack? Because frankly, I'm losing my patience." Jordan frowned. "Or are you going to pull a Clinton and come up with a creative definition of intercourse intercourse?"

"I didn't have intercourse with her, Jordan, not any kind. I was drunk, and I saw them all in the woods. And ... she was naked. She She came on to came on to me." me." Jack looked up, miserable. "Can you see why I didn't want to tell this to you? Or to Saxton? Who'd believe me?" Jack looked up, miserable. "Can you see why I didn't want to tell this to you? Or to Saxton? Who'd believe me?"

"Seems to me it didn't make much of a difference," Jordan muttered.

"All I wanted to do was get away, and she kept trying to get me to stay."

"How? What did she do? Say?" Jordan demanded.

"I can't remember! Jesus, Jordan, I try. I try so hard I think my head is going to explode. So I was there-so what? It doesn't mean I had s.e.x with her. I pushed her away from me, and then I ran."

Jordan folded his hands on the table. "And somehow, in that charming exchange, you lost several drops of seminal fluid?"

"I never got undressed. I don't know whose s.e.m.e.n they found, but it isn't mine."

"Do you have any idea how unlikely that will seem to a jury? Especially once they hear the DNA scientist say it's your blood and your skin in that rape kit?"

"I don't care," Jack said. "It happens to be the truth."

"Ah, right. The truth." truth." Jordan grabbed the papers, stuffed them into his folder, and stood up. "For how long this time, Jack?" he said, and he strode from the conference room without glancing back. Jordan grabbed the papers, stuffed them into his folder, and stood up. "For how long this time, Jack?" he said, and he strode from the conference room without glancing back.

The Honorable Althea Justice liked rare things. One-of-a-kind snuff-boxes from Europe, Chinese silk, ink made from horse chestnuts. She lived in a gla.s.s home far more suited to the beach in L.A. than the woods of New England, drove a restored 1973 Pacer, and owned a puppy that had come thousands of miles from Belarus and was rumored to be one of thirty in existence in the world. She liked to stand out in a crowd, which was a good thing. As the only black female superior court judge, she really didn't go unnoticed.

The law had been a self-fulfilling prophecy for a little girl named Justice, and although no one in her family had been to college, the pattern of her life was as true to Althea as the lines that crossed the palm of her hand. It would have been remarkable for her to ascend to the bench as either a woman or a person of color-but the fact that she was both made her New Hamps.h.i.+re's answer to equal opportunity, and a bonafide wonder.

She was six-two in her stocking feet, which was the way she usually trekked through Carroll County Superior Court. Under all those black robes, who cared whether she was wearing shoes, and if anyone did, no one had the b.a.l.l.s to bring it up to her. Attorneys who entered her courtroom did so knowing that they weren't going to be able to put one by her. A woman didn't get to where Althea had by falling for snow jobs.

Her new secretary was a young man who actually believed that kissing her a.s.s was going to get him something ... she didn't quite know what. A good position in the county attorney's office? A break, when it came his turn to try a case in front of her? He had a habit of running off at the mouth and citing little-known rulings that came from b.u.mf.u.c.k, Iowa, and other distant locales, as if Althea's life on the bench could only be better served by knowing such minutiae. The only task she'd a.s.signed him so far was to walk her monster of a puppy on days when she was stuck in trial for hours, something for which he didn't really need a JD, but that he seemed to take as a windfall all the same.

It had been a rotten morning-her Belarussian ridgeback had peed in front of the kitchen sink, she'd been awake for over an hour and still hadn't had anything caffeinated to speak of, and to top it all off, she had gotten her period, which meant that smack in the middle of her schedule today she was going to be good for nothing but a hot water bottle and an OD of Midol.

"In ten seconds or less, Mark, and by all means time yourself: What have you got for me?" Althea asked, folding her bare feet beneath her.

"Black," her a.s.sistant said, handing her coffee. "Just the way you like it." Then he blushed the shade of pomegranate. "I didn't mean that to be a racial comment."

Althea regarded him over the lip of the mug. "It wasn't until you just said so."

"I'm sorry." Mark colored again. These white boys, with their face a whole palette.

Althea decided to take him off the hook. That way, she could always bait him again. "Tell me what we have today."

"Motions hearing in State of New Hamps.h.i.+re v. Jack St. Bride State of New Hamps.h.i.+re v. Jack St. Bride."

She took the proffered file. "The rape case?"

"Yes." Mark took a deep breath. "If you look in there, you'll see the research I've done, and some of my opinions."

"Well, matter of fact, I do want to know if any of the counsel has been snooping around you, trying to size me up."

Again, that blush. "Well, Your Honor, there've been a few questions ..."

"Prosecution or defense?"

Matt looked at his polished shoes. "Both, ma'am."

When Althea Justice smiled, which wasn't all that often, it transformed her face, like a valley being touched by the sun. She knew of this case; h.e.l.l, with the reporters swarming on the steps of the courthouse like bees at a hive, it would be impossible not to know of it.

She thought of Matt Houlihan and Jordan McAfee, the counsel that would be standing in front of her a few hours from now, at the mercy of a big bad black b.i.t.c.h. "Mark," Althea said, grinning, "this may turn out to be a fine day after all."

An hour after the motions hearing in the St. Bride case, Jordan lay on his back in the woods, watching the sun leap from branch to branch like an iridescent squirrel. He could feel the moisture from the ground sinking into his skin, right through the shoulders of his dress s.h.i.+rt. The dirt smelled like dying things, but Jordan conceded that maybe his current state of mind was coloring his senses. He had a case that completely sucked, a dead end of a defense, and a client who wasn't willing to budge in any of the directions that would lead to a plea. Jack St. Bride hadn't hadn't had s.e.x with Gillian Duncan in this very spot, in spite of the fact that his skin was under her nails and his blood was on her s.h.i.+rt. Maybe if Jordan stayed here long enough, the aliens that had apparently come down to rape Gillian would return to zap him with a death laser, so some other hapless attorney could be appointed to Jack's case. had s.e.x with Gillian Duncan in this very spot, in spite of the fact that his skin was under her nails and his blood was on her s.h.i.+rt. Maybe if Jordan stayed here long enough, the aliens that had apparently come down to rape Gillian would return to zap him with a death laser, so some other hapless attorney could be appointed to Jack's case.

"I had a feeling I'd find you here."

Jordan sat up, squinting. "Oh, it's you," he said dully.

"You think Lancelot got that kind of reception?" Selena muttered, grunting as she tried to haul Jordan to his feet.

"You're my white knight?"

"Well, I'm trying to be. You're not exactly making it easy."

She had wrapped herself around him to get him upright. Jordan could smell the soap she used-honey, and some kind of flower, mixed together and sitting cozy next to his own bar of Ivory. "What are you saving me from?"

"Yourself," Selena said. "Despair. Root rot. Take your pick." She regarded Jordan thoughtfully. "I heard you had a lousy hearing."

"Lousy?" Jordan laughed. "I wouldn't say it was lousy. Downright abysmal. This judge has a chip on her shoulder the size of the whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned courthouse. She ruled against my motion to suppress Jack's statement about not being with the girl that night. But she granted Houlihan's motion to admit Jack's prior conviction for s.e.xual a.s.sault."