Eight in the Box (9 page)

CHAPTER 24

N
ick Costa waited in the gallery while Judge Sterling Davis prepared
to send Andi Norton’s jury out for a second day of deliberations. She and Connie stood at the prosecutor’s table as the jury entered the room.

Nick tried to concentrate on his next case but could only think about Monica Hughes with her blond hair and toned legs. The way she was looking at him the other day, he knew she liked him too. Things started out rough with her asking about his trials the first day she’d met him. But by the end of that day he knew he’d impressed her with some of the bail arguments he’d made. And he’d made her laugh too. He needed to ask her out soon, though. He’d waited too long with Andi Norton and Connie had moved right in. But actually, that had worked out. Imagine if he’d wasted his time trying to hook up with Andi before finding out she had a kid. An instant family didn’t sound like a good time to him.

But now Connie was stuck with Andi, and Nick was no longer a rookie DA. He’d been around long enough to have some war stories to impress Monica. The timing of her arrival at South Bay couldn’t have been better. Maybe he’d see if she wanted to go for a walk along the Charles on Saturday and grab some lunch on Beacon Hill.

“Commonwealth versus James Watkins,” the clerk called out. Nick jumped to his feet. That was his case. Andi’s jury had already left the courtroom. Nick looked around for his witnesses. “Your Honor,” the clerk continued, “the defendant is charged with distribution of a class B controlled substance, to wit: crack cocaine.”

“Is the Commonwealth ready for trial?” Judge Davis asked.

Nick looked again for his two cops as he stepped past the bar and stood at the prosecutor’s table. He was glad to see that they weren’t in the courtroom. If they didn’t show up, the case would get dismissed. After all, it was no big deal: just a drug case. Then he could go check on Monica in arraignments. It was her first day in there alone, a good time for him to come to her aid.

“Commonwealth?” Judge Davis shouted at Nick. “Are you ready for trial? How many witnesses?”

“Two witnesses, Your Honor. Both from the Drug Unit. I haven’t seen either of them….” There was a disturbance at the back of the room. Sergeant Robert Fisher and Officer Keith Hall, both in plainclothes, walked through the room’s double doors and nodded to Nick.

Shit. Now he’d have to try the case. And he hadn’t done any prep beyond reading the police report. And that was late last night.

He and Fisher exchanged looks and Nick turned to Judge Davis. “The Commonwealth is ready for trial. I would ask for a brief recess so that I might have a chance to speak with the officers.”

“Can we resolve this short of trial?” Judge Davis directed his question to the defense attorney. “Probation tells me that this man has no prior convictions. Why don’t we take a change of plea and place him on probation?”

“Your Honor, my client doesn’t want a felony conviction on his record. We’re prepared to go to trial.”

“Commonwealth, I’ll give you ten minutes to speak with your officers and then we’ll impanel a jury.” Judge Davis stepped down from the bench.

Nick called both officers over. “Nice of you guys to show up.”

“You’re lucky we’re even here,” Fisher said. “We were up until four executing a search warrant. One of the busiest drug houses in the city. We had a nighttime, no-knock warrant. Had some information there were guns in the house. I didn’t want my guys getting hurt.”

“How’d it go?”

“Fifty grams of crack, another thirty grams of powder coke, more than five hundred packets of heroin, almost a pound of weed, two Glock 9s and a sawed-off.”

“If you guys are tired, go get yourselves some big-assed coffees because we’re going to trial. We only have a couple of minutes. Keith, you made the buy from this guy, right?”

“Yeah, I believe so,” Hall said.

“You
believe
so. What does that mean? Look over your report and then we’ll talk.”

“I read the report. It’s just that this happened two years ago.”

“You do remember the defendant, though, right?” Nick asked. “Did you look at his booking photo?”

“I did.”

“And you don’t remember him?”

“His face seems familiar to me, but I don’t remember buying drugs from him.”

“Familiar doesn’t cut it,” Nick said. This could work out. Hopefully Monica was keeping a seat warm for him.

“Keith, this is the guy that sold you the drugs,” Fisher said. “Look at his booking sheet. Read your report again.”

“I know it
should
be him, but I can’t say for sure.”

“All you have to do is testify to what’s in the report. Anything outside the report you can say you don’t remember. You don’t have to make anything up,” Fisher said.

“I can’t do that,” Hall said. “I’d be making the whole thing up. How’s that any different from lying?”

“It’s not lying if you’re testifying from your own report,” Fisher said.

“Keith is right. He can’t read off a police report. The report is to refresh his memory so that he can testify as to what he actually remembers. If he doesn’t remember James Watkins selling him crack, he can’t get up and state under oath that he does. In fact, I won’t even call him to the stand.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Nick?” Fisher shouted. “This is the guy. Look at the booking photo and reports. They have the same complaint number. Watkins is our guy. We can’t let him off.”

“If he’s a bad guy, he’ll be back out there selling drugs and we’ll get him next time. If not, no big deal. Keith can’t take the stand and testify to something he doesn’t remember. How can I ethically try to prove it to a jury, when Keith doesn’t believe it beyond a reasonable doubt?” Maybe bringing ethics into the argument would get Fisher to back off.

Instead Fisher turned back to Hall. “Listen, Keith, you identified him that night and we arrested him and booked him based on
your
ID.”

“I know you want to win this one, Sarge,” Nick said. “But no case is worth the three of us losing our credibility.” He looked up at the clock. The ten minutes were up. He turned back to Hall. “Do you need another minute to look at the reports?”

“I’ve been looking at them all morning, Nick. I don’t remember anything.”

“Court, all rise,” the court officer announced as Judge Davis retook the bench.

The Judge asked Nick, “Is the Commonwealth ready to proceed?”

“No, Your Honor, the Commonwealth is not ready for trial.”

“Mr. Costa,” Judge Davis said, “you weren’t misleading the court when you told me you were ready, were you?”

“No, Your Honor. After speaking with my officers, I realize that we have insufficient evidence to proceed against this defendant.”

“Could you be ready if I granted a continuance?” the judge asked.

“I don’t believe so, Your Honor.”

Judge Davis frowned. “Could both attorneys approach the bench?”

At the sidebar Judge Davis leaned in toward Nick. “Mr. Costa, what happened?”

Nick tried to explain, but Judge Davis cut him off. The defense attorney barely suppressed a grin.

Judge Davis turned his attention to the defendant. In a clear, stern voice he said, “Mr. Watkins, it appears that you have a guardian angel. You had better not let me see you before this court again. This matter is dismissed.”

Nick was glad to be rid of the case, but he didn’t want Fisher to know it. He turned, planning to commiserate with the sergeant, but only saw Fisher’s back as he swung the courtroom doors open and disappeared. Hall shrugged his shoulders like a kid who’s lost the game for his team but doesn’t really care. He followed Fisher through the doorway.

Nick gathered up his files. On to Monica and her arraignments.

CHAPTER 25

A
lves dangled the bag in front of him, and Mooney looked up from
the clutter on his desk. “Thai food?” he smiled. “From The King and I? My favorite. Hope you got me a fork. I’m not eating with sticks. How can you be so good to me after I’ve been riding you all week?”

“This is a thank-you for letting me go to the party the other night. That saved my marriage. Besides, I’m not being that good to you,” Alves said. “I dropped a bag of food off for Marcy and the kids so she wouldn’t have to cook tonight. We usually do pizza on Fridays, but I figured this would be a special treat for her. Marcy wasn’t happy, but she seemed to understand. Luckily she blames you for everything.”

“I’ll take the hit for you, as long as you keep feeding me,” Mooney said. “Let me give you some money.” He took his ratty old wallet, bound together with rubber bands, out of his back pocket.

“Sarge, your money is no good here,” Alves said. He waved Mooney off. “And, what’s with the wallet? It’s falling apart. When’s your birthday? I’ll buy you a new one.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this wallet.” Mooney took the white containers out of the bag and set them up on the day’s edition of the
Boston Globe.
“Elastics make it harder for a pickpocket.”

“So does the gun on your hip. You really think someone’s going to steal a wallet from a cop?”

“You can never be too careful. Now sit down and pass the pad thai.”

Alves piled some food on a plate and took a bite before flipping through some missing-persons reports. He hated not having dinner with the family, especially on pizza night. The kids loved pizza. Angel had to have pepperoni and Iris had to have extra cheese. He’d barely seen his family all week. He actually missed giving the kids their baths and arguing with them to brush their teeth and tucking them into bed. Most of all he missed the quiet time he and Marcy had together once the kids were asleep, even if it was only an hour or so before they went to bed themselves.

Alves looked at Mooney. The sergeant seemed wiped out. Five days had gone by and they were no closer to catching Susan McCarthy’s killer.

“Sarge, I’ve gone back more than a year on the missing persons. The only one remotely close is Emily Knight. The one similarity is that she’s a professional, white woman. But she’s much younger, twenty-two. Never married, lots of boyfriends, nothing serious. She’d been renting an apartment in a two-family.”

Mooney looked up, interested. “What’s the story on her disappearance?”

“She leaves work on a Friday night last fall and never shows up for work the following Monday morning. No one reports her missing until her boss calls us.”

“Did she like her job?”

“She made decent money, but a few of her co-workers said she hated the work. Apparently the stress was getting to her and she felt like she was wasting her life. Looks like she may have taken off to get away from everything.”

“Did she take any of her belongings?”

“She didn’t have much to take. Some old furniture she got at yard sales and the clothes she wore to work. She could be hitchhiking across the U.S. of A. for all we know. Remember those two jackass college students who took off to Florida a couple of years ago? Their parents got the police to launch a nationwide search for the two idiots. Based on what her friends and family said about her flightiness, I can see Emily Knight doing something like that.”

“If you think it’s a dead end, don’t bother looking into it anymore.” Mooney took a bite of his pad thai.

“I don’t think it’s going anywhere, Sarge, but right now I feel like everything’s a dead end. We interviewed everyone on the list we got from New Balance and have nothing. What does it matter if Eunice can make a match to the mold if we can’t find the shoe?”

“I’ve checked local mailmen, milkmen, garbagemen, meter readers, census takers and paperboys. You name them and I’ve talked to them. None of them has a record and they all seemed genuine in what they told me. If we keep at it we’ll eventually make our own luck and get this guy.”

“I think I’ve gotten everything I’m going to get out of these missing-persons files,” Alves said.

“What about the sex offenders? Anything there?”

“I’ve got a good list of possibles, but it’s a long list. I ran their records, pulled their police reports and made a file for each guy.”

“We need to pay each one a visit,” Mooney said. “We can start in the morning. For now, why don’t you go home and get some rest?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You’ll probably feel better in the morning. New day, all that shit. I’ll stay here and look through those sex offender files.”

Alves gulped down one last mouthful of noodles and went for the door before Mooney could change his mind. When he turned back to say good night, Mooney was looking out over the lights of Ruggles Station and Northeastern University, eating the rest of the pad thai out of the carton.

CHAPTER 26

C
onnie raised his glass above his head as the crew from the office
gathered around him for a toast. What better way to end the week than to unwind at Doyle’s? One of Boston’s most historic bars, the walls were lined with pictures of famous local politicians: the Fitzgeralds, the Kennedys and former mayors Kevin White and Ray Flynn. The place was packed. The gang from the DA’s office had staked out their usual corner of the bar. “To Andi Norton, the best prosecutor-who’s-not-really-quite-yet-a-lawyer-but-still-managed-to-kick-some-serious-ass-in-court-this-week-by-keeping-a-jury-out-for-three-days-before-finally-getting-a-guilty-on-her-first-shot-at-putting-eight-in-the-box,” Connie said without taking a breath.

The room cheered.

“You were most excellent in court today!” Brendan shouted from behind the bar. Brendan had been tending bar at Doyle’s since he was hired as a prosecutor. Like all the bartenders at Doyle’s, he doubled as a bouncer. A lot of young prosecutors worked second jobs—one taught Irish step dancing, another sold real estate, a couple coached high school sports.

Connie glanced at Andi. She didn’t like being the center of attention, but he’d convinced her she needed to come out for a drink. She’d done a great job on her first trial and she had to let everyone congratulate her. It was tradition.

Mitch chanted “Speech! Speech! Speech!” and everyone joined in.

Andi put her glass down on the bar and stood up. “I want to thank you guys for being supportive.” She was showing class, being so humble. Especially with Nick and Mitch in the room. Lately, neither one could get a conviction. She really was a nice person, and Connie admired that about her. “You have made it fun to come to work. I only won this trial because of everything you taught me. Thanks.”

One more loud cheer from the group and they went back to their drinks. Andi worked her way over to Connie. He leaned in close to her and said, “I want you to know I’m proud of you. You really did a nice job. You don’t need to decide right now, but I want you to second-seat me on the Jesse Wilcox trial. I need your help doing some research for the motion to suppress too.”

Andi looked stunned. “Sounds great. Can we talk about it next week? I need to get going,” she said. “My mom was good enough to babysit for me, but I can’t leave her with Rachel all night. It’s not too early for me to take off, is it?”

“Eight o’clock. You made your appearance and gave your speech. This is a perfect time to exit. Don’t say good-bye to anyone except Liz. Otherwise you’ll never get out of here. Nick’s quite a yapper when he’s had a few.”

Andi laughed. “Nick’s preoccupied with Monica. Haven’t you noticed that he’s been hitting on her all week? It looks like she might be caving in to his charm.”

“I’m sure he’s using his ‘I do this work because I want to see justice served’ line or some other bullshit to make her think he’s not just trying to get up her skirt. Are you good to drive?”

“I only had one beer that I’ve nursed for two hours.”

“Drive carefully. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He kissed her. Not a long one, more of a peck on the lips. He didn’t want to make a scene or give the guys ammo, but he wanted her to know how he felt about her.

Connie turned back to the bar to look for Mitch.

“Your little protégée did a nice job.”

Connie saw that Nick had come up behind him.

“She’s not even a lawyer and you give her more advice than you’ve ever given the rest of us.”

Connie didn’t like the tone of Nick’s voice. “I help out anyone who wants the help. Ask Mitch and Brendan how I taught them to prepare a case. It’s just that some people think they already know everything and don’t need any advice.”

“I’m not looking for your advice.”

“Then, what are you doing?” Connie moved closer to Nick, crowding him. He could smell the beer on his breath. He knew he should just step away.

“I’m just making an observation that you spend more time with Andi than anyone else. Maybe your relationship with her is getting in the way of your job. You’re the senior lawyer. You should be mentoring all of us. Not just the intern you happen to be fucking this week.”

Connie bumped him backward and Nick sprawled freely, barely managing to catch himself on a chair. “I’m going to ignore what you just said because you’ve had one too many. But if you ever say anything like that again”—Connie paused, trying to count to ten but only getting to four—“you’ll be one sorry fuck. I understand you might be jealous of Andi, but that’s no reason to get nasty.”

“Jealous?” Nick laughed. “What the hell would I be jealous about?”

“Maybe the fact that you suck as a lawyer? Maybe the fact that you’ve had ten trials and have yet to convict anyone? Then Andi walks in and on her first trial hooks the guy. If you want to start winning some trials, I’d be more than glad to take on another protégé.”

“Fuck you. Those cases I took to trial were dogs. I don’t care what the end result was. It’s not about wins and losses, it’s about justice.”

“Is that what you told Monica when she asked you about your record? That’s your standard line, isn’t it? You’re right about me not mentoring enough of the younger lawyers. I’m going to start with Monica right now. I think she’d be much better off learning from me. Don’t you think?”

“Stay away from her, Connie.”

“I’ll leave Monica alone if you stop fucking with me and Andi. Otherwise, I’ll let her know what a fraud you are.”

“All right, boys,” Brendan interrupted them. He put a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’ve been watching you two for the last couple of minutes and it looks like you both have your beer balls. Nobody can win this one. The DA could stop in here any minute and you’ll both be looking for jobs. Besides, I don’t want to have to toss you out on your asses.”

“Everything’s fine. Isn’t it, Nick?” Connie said. “We just had a talk and we’ve reached an understanding.” Connie stared at Nick, who nodded his head in agreement. “See? Everything’s peachy keen.” Connie put his hand on Nick’s back like they were old buddies.

Nick shrugged him off and angled his way through the crowd back to Monica.

Connie smiled at Brendan. “I’ll have another club soda,” he said.