After Dark (22 page)

"I think he believes you," she replied, warming to Abbie a little.

"Yes. He does," Abbie said, more to herself than to Tracy.

Tracy was surprised to find herself feeling sorry for Abbie. She had thought a lot about her as a defendant, but she suddenly saw her as a person and she wondered what it must be like to be confined, even if the prison was as luxurious as the Griffen house. Mary Kelly had portrayed Abbie as an ice princess, but she did not seem very tough now.

Tracy suddenly realized how sad it was that Mrs. Griffen had looked forward to her visit and she reevaluated her earlier opinion that Abbie was coming on to Reynolds to blind him to her possible guilt. Abbie was totally alone and Matthew was one of her few links to the outside world.

Tracy had read about hostages in the Middle East and kidnap victims, like Patty Hearst, who became dependent on their kidnappers and developed a bond with them.

The condition even had a name, the Stockholm syndrome. Maybe Abbie's enforced isolation was making her dependent on Reynolds and that was why she appeared to be playing up to him.

"Are you getting along okay?" Tracy asked.

"I'm lonely. I'm also bored to death. I tried to convince myself that this would be like a vacation, but it's not. I read a lot, but you can't read all day. I even tried daytime television." Abbie laughed.

"I'll know I'm completely desperate when I start following the soaps."

"The trial will start soon. Mr. Reynolds will win and your life will go back to normal."

"I'd like to think that, but I doubt my life will ever be normal again, even if Matt wins." Abbie stood up. "I'll get you the camera."

When Abbie went upstairs, Tracy waited in the entryway.

Abbie returned with a camera case. She handed it to Tracy.

"Thank you for having the cup of coffee. I know you didn't want to."

"No, I . . ."

"It's okay. I was hungry for company. Thanks for putting up with me."

They shook hands and Tracy took the camera. As she pulled out of the driveway, she glanced back at the house. Mrs. Griffen was watching her from the front door.

2313 Lee Terrace was a single-story brown ranch-style house with a well-tended yard in a pleasant middle-class neighborhood.

A nondescript light blue Chevy and an equally nondescript maroon Ford were parked in the driveway. As the officers assigned to raid the house drew closer to it, they could hear the muted sounds of music.

Inside the living room of the house, three young women sat in front of a low coffee table talking and laughing while they worked. In the center of the table was a large plate piled high with cocaine. The woman on the end of the couch closest to the front door picked up a small plastic bag from a pile and filled the bag with cocaine. The next woman folded over the Baggie, then used a Bic lighter to seal it. The third put the sealed Baggie in a cooking pot that was close to overflowing with packaged dreams.

Two men in sleeveless tee shirts lounged in chairs, smoking and watching MTV. One man cradled an Uzi. A MAC-10 submachine gun was lying next to the second man's chair within easy reach. Two other men with automatic weapons were in the kitchen playing cards and guarding the back of the house.

Bobby Cruz watched the women work. He was doing his job, which was to protect Raoul Otero's product. From his position he would see if one Of the women tried to slip a Baggie down her blouse or up her skirt. Cruz knew that the women were too frightened of him to steal, but he hoped they would anyway, because Raoul permitted him to personally punish the offender.

"Julio," Cruz said. One of the men watching TV turned around. "I'm going to pee."

Julio picked up the MAC-10 and took Cruz's post against the wall. Cruz knew that Julio would not be tempted to look the other way by a glimpse of breast or thigh and a promise of future delights. Once upon a time, Cruz had forced Julio to assist him while he interrogated a street dealer Raoul suspected of being a police informant. Ever since, Julio had been as frightened of Cruz as the women were.

As Cruz walked down the hall toward the bathroom, the front and back doors exploded.

"Police! Freeze!" echoed through the house. Cruz heard the women scream. One of them burst down the hall behind him as he ducked into the bedroom. There were more screams in the front room and shots from the kitchen. Someone was shrieking in Spanish. An Anglo was bellowing that he'd been hit. Cruz calmly ran through his possible courses of action.

"Put 'em down," someone yelled in the living room. Cruz opened the clothes closet and moved behind the clothes hangers.

The closet was crowded with dresses because two of the women who were packaging the cocaine lived here. Cruz pressed himself into a corner of the closet and waited. The odds were that someone would search the closet. If it was his fate to be arrested, he would go peacefully and let Raoul fix things later. But he would try to cheat fate if that was at all possible.

There were heavy footfalls in the bedroom. He heard the voices of two men. The closet door opened. Cruz could see a man in a baseball cap and a blue jacket through a break in the dresses.

He knew these jackets. They were worn on raids, and POLICE was stenciled on the back in bold yellow letters.

"Sanchez, get in here," someone called from the hall. "This asshole claims he doesn't habla inglds."

The man at the closet door turned his head to watch Sanchez leave. When he turned back, Bobby Cruz stepped through the curtain of dresses and calmly stuck his knife through the officer's voice box. The policeman's eyes widened in shock. His hands flew to his throat. He tried to speak, but he could only gurgle as blood and spittle dripped out of his mouth. Cruz pulled the policeman through the dresses and laid his body on the floor. He was still twitching when Cruz worked off his jacket, but he was dead by the time Cruz adjusted the baseball cap and slipped out of the bedroom into the hall.

A policeman rushed by Cruz without seeing him. Cruz followed the man into the kitchen. Two men lay on the floor, their hands cuffed behind them. They were surrounded by police. A wounded officer was moaning near the sink and several men huddled around him. A medic rushed through the back door into the kitchen. Cruz stepped aside to let him in, then drifted into the backyard and faded into the night.

Two houses down, Cruz cut through the backyard, dropping the police jacket and cap. Then he headed toward a bar that he knew had a phone.

In the three years Raoul had been using 2313 Lee Terrace they had never had any problems. The people at the house were all family or trusted employees and they were all extremely well paid. They might cop some cocaine, but they would never go to the police. But someone had, and whoever it was knew a lot about Raoul's operation if he knew about Lee Terrace.

Chapter TWENTY

Matthew Reynolds chose five o'clock on the Friday before the trial to review the questions he would ask during jury selection.

Tracy knew better than to complain. With the trial so close, all hours were working hours.

Reynolds was explaining his system for questioning jurors about their views on the death penalty when his secretary buzzed to tell him that Dennis Haggard was in the reception area. "Do you want me to leave?"

Tracy asked.

"No. I definitely want you to stay. This could be very interesting."

Dennis Haggard was balding, overweight and unintimidating.

He was also Jack Stamm's chief criminal deputy and an excellent trial attorney. Reynolds walked over to Haggard as soon as the secretary showed him in.

"Don't you ever quit?" Haggard asked as he looked at the files, charts and police reports strewn around Matthew's office.

Matthew smiled and pointed to his associate. "Do you know Tracy Cavanaugh?"

"I don't think we've met."

"She just started with me. Before that, she clerked for Justice Sherzer."

As Haggard and Tracy shook hands, Haggard said, "The Department of Labor takes complaints. If he works you more than seventy-six hours straight, there's a grievance procedure."

Tracy laughed. "I'm afraid we're way past seventy-six hours, Mr.

Haggard."

Reynolds seated himself behind his desk. Tracy took a stack of files off the other client chair so Haggard could sit on it.

"What brings you here, Dennis?" Reynolds asked.

"I've come because Chuck Geddes wouldn't."

"Oh?"

"He's still mad about the bail decision and this put him through the roof."

"And 'this' is?"

"A plea offer, Matt. Geddes wouldn't consider it, but the AG insisted.

Then Geddes said he'd quit rather than make the offer, so everyone agreed I would carry it over."

"I see. And what is the offer?"

"We drop the aggravated-murder charge. There's no death penalty and no thirty-year minimum. Abbie pleads to regular murder with a ten-year minimum sentence. It's the best we can do, Matt. No one wants to see Abbie on death row or in prison for life. Christ, I can't even believe we're having this conversation.

But we wanted to give her the chance. If she's guilty, it's a very good offer."

Reynolds leaned back and clasped his hands under his chin.

"Yes, it is. If Mrs. Griffen is guilty. But she's not, Dennis."

"Can I take it that you're rejecting the offer?"

"You know I can't do that without talking to Mrs. Griffen."

Haggard handed Matthew a business card. "My home number is on the back.

Call me as soon as you talk to Abbie. The offer is only good for forty-eight hours. If we don't hear by Sunday, Geddes takes the case to trial."

Haggard let himself out. Reynolds turned back to his notes on jury selection. When he looked up, Tracy was staring at him.

"What's wrong?"

Tracy shook her head.

"If you're concerned about something, I want to know."

"You're going to advise Mrs. Griffen to reject the offer, aren't you?"

"Of course."

Tracy frowned.

"Say what's on your mind, Tracy."

"I'm just . . . That was a good offer."

Reynolds cocked his head to one side and studied his associate like a professor conducting an oral examination.

"You think I should advise Mrs. Griffen to accept it?"

"I don't think you should reject it out of hand. I can't help remembering what you told me in Atlanta."

"And what was that?"

"When I asked you why you accepted the plea bargain for Joel Livingstone, you said that the objective in every death penalty case was to save our client's life, not to get a not-guilty verdict."

Reynolds smiled. "I'm pleased to see you've learned that lesson."

"Then why won't you advise Mrs. Griffen to take this offer?"

"That's simple. Joel Livingstone murdered Mary Harding.

There was no question of his guilt. Abigail Griffen is innocent of the murder of Robert Griffen. I have never advised an innocent person to plead guilty."

"How can you know she's innocent?"

"She's told me she's innocent and until she tells me otherwise, I will continue to believe in her innocence."

Tracy took a deep breath. She was afraid to ask the next question and afraid not to.

"Mr. Reynolds, please don't take offense at what I'm going to say. I respect your opinion and I respect you very much, but I'm concerned that we're making a mistake in not recommending this plea."

Tracy paused. Reynolds watched her with icy detachment.

"Go ahead," Reynolds said, and Tracy noticed all the warmth was gone from his voice.

"I can't think of another way to put this. Do you think it's possible that you're being influenced by your personal feelings toward Mrs.

Griffen?"

Reynolds colored angrily. Tracy wondered if she had overstepped her bounds. Then Reynolds regained his composure and looked down at the jury selection questions.

"No, Tracy," he said, his calm restored. "I am not being influenced by personal feelings. And while I appreciate your concern, I think we've spent too much time on this matter. Let's get back to work."

The days and nights were endless. Minutes seemed like hours.

Abbie never expected it to be this way. She prided herself on being able to live alone. When she lost her parents, she built a shell around herself to keep out the horror of loneliness. Then she survived the death of her lover, Larry Ross. When her aunt passed on, she pulled inside the shell once more and she had been able to walk out on Robert Griffen without a backward glance, because she needed no one but herself. But now, trapped in the house, virtually helpless and almost totally deprived of human contact, her shell was cracking.

Even the weather was conspiring against her. The sunny days of summer had given way to the chill of fall and it was often too cool to sit outdoors. She would have given anything to take a walk, but the bracelet on her wrist was a constant reminder that even such simple pleasures were forbidden to her.

On Friday night, the weather was balmy. A last-gasp attempt by nature to fight off the cruel and depressing rains that were sure to come.

Abbie sat on the patio, close to her invisible electronic wall, and watched the sunset. A large glass of scotch rested on the table at her elbow. She was drinking more than she wanted to, but liquor helped her sleep without dreams.

A flock of birds broke free from the trees at the edge of her property and soared into the dying light in a black and noisy cloud. Abbie envied them. Her spirit was weighted down by the gravity of her situation and confined to a narrow, airless place in her breast. Even Matthew's boundless confidence could not give it wings.

The sound of tires on gravel made Abbie's heart race, as it did whenever there was any break in the monotony of her routine.

She left the glass of scotch on the table and hurried to the front door.

She smiled when she saw that it was Matthew. He had been so good to her, visiting almost every day on the pretext that he was working on her case, when she knew that most of what they discussed could have been covered in a short phone call.

"How are you?" Matthew asked, as he always did.