Act of God (43 page)

“What did you say then?”

“I said I didn’t know again.”

“Do you mean you couldn’t recognize the defendant on the television, just like you couldn’t recognize him from the newspaper?”

“Yes,” Joshua said.

“But you went to the police anyway, didn’t you?”

“Much later, after Big Dug said it was the right thing to do.”

“And when you talked to the detectives, were you able to identify the man you saw at Hill House?”

Joshua shook his head. “No. I told them it was dark, and he was too far away.”

“And what did the detectives say after you talked to them?”

“They said I wouldn’t have to come here and tell in front of people.”

“Was that because you couldn’t identify the man you saw at Hill House?”

“I guess so,” Joshua said.

Over at the prosecution table, Brian Ayres began to shift uncomfortably in his chair.

“Then what happened last Saturday?” Dana asked.

“The police came and put me in jail,” the witness testified. “Big Dug said they wouldn’t, but they did.”

“And have you been at the police station ever since?”

Joshua nodded. “Yes, but I don’t want to stay there. I want to go home. I didn’t mean to sleep at Hill House. I told them
I
was sorry. But Big Dug said I didn’t make the fire happen. If I didn’t make the fire happen, do I have to stay in jail?”

“No,” Dana said gently. “You won’t have to stay in jail. We’ll see to it that you get to go home.”

A big smile spread across his face. “That’s good,” he said. “’Cause I really miss my friends.”

“Joshua, tell me, what happened after the police came and got you on Saturday?”

“You mean after they put me in jail?”

“Yes.”

“They talked to me, first one and then another, all day. I got hungry, and I was sleepy, too, and after a while, I didn’t
know what they were saying. Then they gave me food, and let me sleep on a bed. The next day, they talked to me again, like
before, all day.”

“When they talked to you, what did they say?”

“They talked to me about the delivery man. About how bad a man he was, and how he deserved to be punished for what he did.”

“What else?”

“They showed me pictures.”

“Pictures of what?”

“Of Hill House when it was burned down. And of people lying on the ground.”

“And they told you the man who did that should be punished?”

“Yes. Then they showed me pictures of different men, lots of pictures, until I finally remembered the man I saw.”

Brian scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it to Mark Hoffman.

“Okay, Joshua, one last question, to put this all together,” Dana said. “Until the police talked to you over the weekend,
and showed you all those pictures, you couldn’t identify the defendant
as the man you saw at Hill House the night before the bombing, could you?”

Joshua thought for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “I guess I wasn’t sure about him before that.” Then he smiled brightly,
wanting to please. “But I am now.”

Mark Hoffman did Brian’s bidding and summoned Dale Tinker to the courthouse.

“Do you want us to lose this case, Tinker?” Brian charged the detective. “Is that what this is all about?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the police officer retorted.

“What you gave us was marginal at best. Did you have to compound it by coercing a witness?”

“The retard identified the guy, didn’t he?” Tinker replied. “And he stuck to it in court. What do you want from me?”

“Yeah, he identified him all right, but was it before or after you locked him up for two days and scared the piss out of him?”

The detective looked at his shoes. “I don’t know how she found out about that,” he mumbled.

“She’s not the problem, Tinker,
you
are,” Brian said. “And I’m starting to wonder whether you got any of it right.”

“You want my badge? Is that what you want?”

“I want a conviction,” the prosecutor declared. “That’s what I want.”

“We don’t have the wrong guy,” Tinker insisted. “That son of a bitch did it. I can smell it on him. And I’ve been in this
business long enough to know.”

“I don’t care what you can smell,” Brian told him. “I care what you can prove.”

“I’m proud of you,” Jefferson Reid declared over the telephone. “I’m proud that you’re my daughter.”

“Thanks, dad,” Dana said. They had spoken at least once a
week since the trial had begun, she seeking him out for guidance and support. But this was the first time he had called her.

“What you did with that eyewitness was brilliant,” he told her. “You’re taking full advantage of every opportunity they give
you.”

“It’s because I believe in Corey,” she said simply. “I believe the police either stumbled on him, or were led to him, couldn’t
believe their good luck, and just held on to him for dear life, to the exclusion of everyone else.”

“All you need is to establish reasonable doubt,” he told her. “You’ve discredited their eyewitness and you’ve given the jury
another person with means, motive, and opportunity to look at.”

“Jack Pauley had every bit as much reason to bomb the place as Corey did, and no alibi,” she said in disgust. “The police
hardly looked at him.”

“There’s one thing that still niggles at me, though,” he said.

“I know, the anonymous letter,” she said. “Not so much who sent it, as why. My investigator’s working on it. But he’s also
working on half a dozen other things that are just as important, and he’s a one-man operation.”

“I keep thinking this may be as complicated as a conspiracy,” he mused, “or as simple as someone who really knows something,
but didn’t want to come forward personally.”

“I just don’t think there’s anything to know here,” she told him. “I’m a pretty good judge of character. I know I am. And
I couldn’t be so wrong about Corey. I just couldn’t.”

“If nothing else, I admire your loyalty,” her father said with a gentle chuckle. “If I were ever on trial for my life, you’re
the one I’d choose to represent me.”

Those words meant more to her than anything.

The event was a Seattle institution, the annual black tie dinner of the Coalition for Conservative Causes. Some five hundred
people filled the ballroom at the Olympic Four Seasons
Hotel, and for a mere twenty-five hundred dollars, dined on lobster bisque and roast squab.

Each year, someone who exemplified the ideals of the organization was invited as an honored guest. On the dais this year was
the Republican nominee for president of the United States, in the middle of a ten-city fund-raising tour.

It was during the cocktail hour, when the champagne was flowing, and three kinds of caviar were being passed around, that
Roger Roark, the executive director, happened upon an acquaintance.

“Why, Paul Cotter, you old reprobate,” he exclaimed with a friendly slap on the back. “I don’t think we’ve seen you around
here in years.”

“Roger,” the attorney acknowledged, as the rather sizable group surrounding them turned to observe.

“Come to hobnob with some of the old crowd?” Roark asked.

“Come to see the nominee in person,” Cotter replied. “If he’s going to be our next president, I wouldn’t say no to an introduction.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Roark said. “By the way, I hear your firm is involved in that Hill House trial.”

“We are.”

Roark shook his head. “Sad case,” he remarked. “In my opinion, it’s a no-win situation, any way you look at it. All those
people dead, that poor young man caught in the middle.”

“Sometimes,” Cotter suggested, with an eye on those listening, “we do things because we have to, not because we want to.”

“Of course, we do,” the executive director said, slapping the attorney on the back. “Just get the poor slob exonerated, my
man. Isn’t that right, everyone?”

The surrounding group vigorously nodded their agreement.

J
udith Purcell sat on the floor of her bathroom with her head hanging over the toilet. She could not stop vomiting. The nausea
had hit her yesterday, when she called Tom Kirby to tell him his shirt was laundered, and the residence hotel operator told
her he had checked out.

“What do you mean, checked out?” she demanded.

“I mean he’s no longer staying here,” the operator said. “He’s gone back to Los Angeles.”

“Did you say Los Angeles?” Judith asked, knowing it had to be a mistake. Kirby told her he had come from Detroit.

“Yes, Los Angeles,” the woman confirmed.

“Did he leave a forwarding address, or a telephone number?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Thank you,” Judith said automatically, and hung up. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, but perhaps it wasn’t such
a big mystery after all, the operator had just gotten it wrong and he was
going
to Los Angeles, not returning there. It made no
sense that he would have lied to her about where he came from. What reason would he have had?

And then the first wave of nausea hit, because she realized that it didn’t matter where he came from or where he was. What
mattered was that he was gone, without so much as a word.

The next witness for the prosecution was an expert from the United States Navy. He spent Thursday morning testifying, in as
great detail as possible without breaching military security, about Corey Latham’s training in weaponry, his undergraduate
work in engineering, his acumen with firearms, and his understanding of the fundamentals of precision bombing and warfare.

Dana’s questions of the expert were few and mostly perfunctory. Corey’s military training was not in dispute, and there was
little to be gained by a lengthy cross-examination.

On Thursday afternoon, Elise Latham’s sister, Ronna Keough, was called to the stand. She wore an ill-fitting navy blue suit
and high heels that made her appear taller than she was but pinched her feet.

“Mrs. Keough, will you please tell the court where you were on the afternoon of September 14 of last year?” Brian inquired.

“I was with my sister Elise,” Ronna said, clearly uncomfortable with her situation.

“Exactly where were you and your sister?”

“We were at Hill House.”

“Will you tell the court why you and your sister were at Hill House on that particular day?”

Ronna glared at the prosecutor, then glanced helplessly at Elise, seated in the first row behind the defense table. “We went
to Hill House to have an abortion,” she replied, reluctantly. “It was a terrible thing Elise was doing, and she didn’t want
to go through it alone.”

“And you stayed with her at Hill House while she had this procedure?”

“Yes. I wasn’t in the room, of course. But I waited for her out in the lounge.”

“And you took her home afterward?”

“Yes,” Ronna replied. “She was in some discomfort, and pretty emotional about the whole thing.”

“What sort of discomfort?”

Ronna sighed. “Mostly, she had cramps, and she was bleeding a bit. The doctor said she might.”

“The doctor who performed the abortion?”

“Yes. He gave her some pills to take, and he said she shouldn’t be left alone. So I took her home, made her some soup, gave
her the pills, talked to her for a while, and then put her to bed. She was exhausted. She fell right asleep.”

Suddenly, a woman rose from her seat in the middle of the spectator gallery. “She sleeps the sleep of the devil,” the woman
exclaimed. “Her soul will burn in hell for taking that life. And yours, too, for helping her!”

At that, a second woman jumped up. “Deny a woman’s right to choose,” she cried, “and you deny her the right to exist!”

Abraham Bendali banged his gavel sharply.

“Abortion is neither a right nor a choice,” someone else shouted. “Not in God’s eyes!”

The judge banged his gavel again. “That will be enough,” he ordered, in a voice that in twenty years on the bench had never
brooked an argument.

“If you can’t trust me with a choice,” a woman chanted, ignoring him, “how can you trust me with a child?”

“I wouldn’t trust you with either,” a man shouted back at her.

Bendali banged his gavel a third time, and kept on banging it, to no avail. The courtroom erupted. All the restraint of the
past month vanished, as emotions burst like water over a dam.

Allison Ackerman couldn’t believe it. The spectators were ignoring the judge and practically spitting at one another, hurling
insults as fast as they could think them up. Not even in her wildest mystery novels had she conceived of such a thing happening.
Around her, the other jurors sat wide-eyed.

Dana was astonished. She had never witnessed a scene like this, not in fourteen years of practice. “This is something that
might happen in the movies,” she murmured to Joan Wills, “but not in a real courtroom.”

“Please don’t obscure the issue here,” Raymond Kiley rose from his seat in the Hill House section to implore. “This isn’t
about abortion. It’s about a bombing.”

“That’s right,” Joe Romanadis said in support. “It’s about a man on trial for murder.”