Matter of Trust (24 page)

It had something to do with the money – or Will's lack of it.

And then it hit him, with a clarity so sharp he could almost see the answer written in bright neon letters on his far bedroom wall.
He was looking at this the wrong way
. There
was
a way to salvage this thing and secure the money for its original intended purpose after all. Kincaid wasn't the problem, he was the goddamned fucking solution! Will had already decided to tell one lie about their whereabouts on the night in question – and the first lie would conveniently lay the foundations for the second. It was almost too good to be true. He'd watched enough
Law & Order
to know that it was up to the prosecution – not the defence – to establish the burden of proof. He also knew that cases were lost on the details – a lack of evidence here, a hole in the picture there. And so what if he could fill that hole – or at the very least suggest that he was willing to?

The senator had deep pockets – well,
obviously
– and Will was due for some serious compensation. Will had spent half of his life watching Chris Kincaid present a facade of humanitarianism, but recent events had confirmed what Will had always suspected – that when it came down to it, Chris Kincaid was simply looking out for himself.

So he would begin by keeping his ear to the ground, by sticking close to the Kincaid household and establishing just how dire the senator's situation was turning out to be. Life was about loyalty after all, and if the senator's lack of it helped Will in his determination to uphold it, then the man could reap what he'd fucking sowed.

T
he clock hit 9 am and the chimes rang out slowly. There were nine chimes – each playing its own part in some three-quarter-complete melody which, David gathered, finally got its full run at twelve.

He was in the Kincaid living room. Rebecca sat across from him, her knees pressed so tightly together that blood had abandoned them. Connor sat at the far end of the sofa to her right, and across the room sat one of his seemingly ever-present friends – the tall, dark-haired boy who had been introduced as Will Cusack.

The morning had been chaos – largely due to the fact that Sean had dropped his three kids at their grandmother's. Patty Cavanaugh had offered to drive the kids to school this week while Sean's wife Teresa was visiting her own mom in Vermont.

Sean carried on about being late for work, but as soon as his mom and the kids were gone, he'd spent a good ten minutes berating David for standing up for a proven goddamned murderer and kowtowing to a woman who had obviously used her extensive influence to cover the whole thing up.

‘Chris never told me,' said Rebecca, bringing David back to the present. ‘About Lorraine's passing, I mean.'

‘I understand,' said David. ‘But I don't want you to worry about it,
Rebecca. I intend to ask for a Sands Hearing given the prior charge Marshall is referring to was officially expunged.' In the state of New Jersey, if the prosecution intends to use a prior charge or conviction against the defendant at the trial, and there is a question as to whether the charge or conviction is admissible into evidence, a Sands Hearing – named for the 1978 case of State versus Sands – is held so that the judge might consider the defence counsel's argument to make the defendant's priors inadmissible.

‘But what good will that do?'

David was taken aback slightly by this new voice in the mix – the voice that came from the other side of the room, an air of authority in its timbre.

‘The story is all over the papers, Mr Cavanaugh,' continued the boy named Will. ‘So this Lorraine's death is public record, whether we like it or not.'

We.

‘That's right,' said David, his eyes flicking from Will back to Rebecca. ‘But we are a long way from empanelling a jury and it's possible we'll find people who did not read the media coverage of yesterday's arraignment.'

‘Where?' asked Will. ‘In Australia?'

But David chose to ignore him, largely because the kid – no matter how well-intentioned – was starting to piss him off.

David spent much of the next hour verifying Chris's version of events with Rebecca. He started with her and Connor's whereabouts on the Saturday night in question – Connor confirming his mom had gotten home from the movies at around 9.15 pm after which she watched some television in her bedroom and went to bed. Rebecca repeated that Connor had been busy completing an economics assignment.

‘As for the later part of the evening,' chimed in Will, his eyes darting toward Rebecca. ‘Jack and I . . . well, we sort of interrupted Connor at about eleven.' The kid turned to Rebecca. ‘I'm sorry Mrs K – but as it turned out, Connor needed a fair bit of help with his assignment so Jack gave him a hand while I went downstairs and watched a couple of DVDs. By the time they were done, it was after two, so we had a . . .' the boy hesitated, ‘. . . we shared a few beers and then Jack and I went home to crash.'

‘It's alright, Will,' said Rebecca. ‘It was kind of Jack to help out. Connor works so hard,' she reached out to take her son's hand. ‘You could have told me your friends came over.'

‘I would have,' replied Connor. ‘But it's just that – with everything going on, I didn't think to . . .'

‘Of course,' she interrupted, squeezing his hand. ‘I understand.'

David wished for the millionth time that Chris hadn't locked that goddamned study door – for then he would have had several witnesses to his client's presence at home.

Rebecca was clearly desperate to back her husband a hundred per cent. She even seemed disappointed when David assured her that Chris had been completely honest with him, explaining that Rebecca had come home from the movies and gone straight to bed.

‘I know Chris is doing the right thing by being so truthful,' said Rebecca. ‘But . . . I cannot see . . . what harm it would do . . . if I said that I woke later, and came downstairs and knocked on the study door to check if he was . . .'

‘No, Rebecca. I know you want to help Chris out, but—'

‘What if we came downstairs and saw him?' interrupted Connor then. ‘Yeah,' his eyes darted toward Will. ‘Don't you remember? We came down, and looked in on him, and he was—'

‘Chris told me he locked the study door, Connor,' said David. ‘He said it was a habit, a way of stopping your sisters from interrupting him when he was . . .'

‘Okay, time out here.' It was Will again – making an oversized ‘T' with his broad, olive-skinned hands. ‘I mean seriously, Mr Cavanaugh, we're all on the same team here, right? And we all
know
the senator is innocent. So what's it going to hurt to bend the truth just a little – for the sake of justice, that is?' The boy smiled.

‘In my experience, Will,' said David, finally turning in his seat to acknowledge the kid, ‘no matter how confident you are in a lie, it still is what it is – and it will always come back to bite you.'

The boy met his eye, saying nothing until, ‘Of course. You're the lawyer, David.' He used David's first name with ease. ‘Whatever you say.'

And David, trying to contain his exasperation, turned his attention back to Rebecca. ‘Do you have any explanation as to how Marilyn's sandal ended up in your car?'

‘Of course I do. Someone is trying to frame Chris.'

‘And how did they get into your car?'

‘Sometimes, if my hands are full, I forget to lock it,' she said, her eyes
darting every which way. ‘Why just the other day, after I allowed Connor to drive me to the market . . . he's on his provisional licence and . . . remember, honey?' She turned to her son once again. ‘Our arms were full of groceries and . . . I left it unlocked all night before I realised that . . .'

David hated to do it, but he knew he had to stop her there. ‘Chris told me he was the last person to drive your car, Rebecca. He drove it up the end of the street because you were re-paving your drive.'

‘Yes . . . but I . . .' Rebecca's nod turned into a shake. Her breathing quickened as her cheeks began to flush. ‘The thing is,' she looked up to meet David's eye, ‘what if someone knew about Chris and Marilyn?' Her eyes darted to her son. ‘I mean, over the years, Chris wasn't exactly . . . discreet.'

Despite the sorrow in her voice, David was almost relieved that she had said it, even though he could see that she understood exactly what she was admitting – the fact that she had known about Marilyn all these years and, by failing to object, had basically condoned their affair.

‘I am sorry, Rebecca,' said David as Connor slid toward his mother – just as the boy named Will caught everyone's attention by getting to his feet.

‘Mr Cavanaugh,' he began, ‘this is crazy. Mrs Kincaid is not a witness for the prosecution, and I don't think there's any need to distress her like this. Surely the senator is the one to whom you should be addressing these questions. I mean, what does
he
have to say about the possibility that he's being framed? Does he have a theory on a possible culprit? Has he confirmed the last time he was with the victim? Was there anyone else she might she have been seeing?' Will took a breath. ‘But of course you
have
asked him those things haven't you, Mr Cavanaugh? It's just that you have chosen not to share his answers with the people who care about him most.'

David had finally had enough. ‘Forgive me for being upfront here, Will, and correct me if I am wrong, but your last name is
not
Kincaid – so unless you've completed a law degree in between sitting your SATs . . . ?'

‘I can't show concern for the family?'

‘Sure, but . . .'

‘My father was a career cop, Mr Cavanaugh, and he taught me a lot about what it takes to beat a rap. Chris Kincaid has been arrested for something he did not do, and I just think,' the boy hesitated, ‘if you share the information you have, then the senator's family might have a better idea of where his case stands.'

There was silence as the chimes kicked in again, this time feeding them one more note – a high one that left the melody stranded.

‘I apologise, Mr Cavanaugh,' said the boy sitting down again. ‘I have a tendency to get a little defensive when it comes to Senator Chris Kincaid. In case you didn't know, the senator has been like a second father to me, and Connor like a brother, since my own dad died in 9/11.'

‘Your dad died in 9/11?'

‘He was one of the first on the scene.'

David realised he may have misjudged the outspoken kid.

‘I just want to help them is all,' Will continued. ‘To show them the same support they've always shown me. In fact, I was going to say to you, if the senator needs character witnesses – me and our friend Jack Delgado,' Will looked to Connor, ‘who also lost his dad on 9/11, we'd be happy to step up for him – in court, I mean.'

David nodded. ‘That's a kind offer, Will, and I'll definitely consider it. I'm sorry if I was short. I've known Chris Kincaid for a long time and I guess I just want to help him too.'

And that was when Rebecca Kincaid began to cry.

‘It's okay, Mom,' said Connor.

Rebecca nodded, her eyes now staring fixedly at her lap.

‘You can go see him if you want to,' said David returning his attention to Rebecca – angry at himself for playing tit-for-tat with the kid. ‘County allows visitors on a family priority basis, Monday to Friday, one till three. I have a meeting after this,' he added. ‘But I should be back at County by four.'

Rebecca lifted her chin. ‘But Gloria said he couldn't have any visitors until tomorrow. She said she was going down there this morning to . . .'

‘You're his wife, Rebecca,' said David, now understanding why the control freak known as Gloria Kincaid was not present. ‘And wives are one step ahead of mothers in the visitor's pecking order.'

Despite herself Rebecca smiled. ‘There is a first time for everything, then,' she said, meeting David's eye.

And in that gaze, he saw the Rebecca of old, the shy kid with the timid demeanour who simply wanted to please.

‘It's time to put your hand up, Rebecca,' he said. ‘Probably has been, for a while.'

‘Yes,' she smiled again. ‘Thank you, David. I'll try.'

‘W
e have a problem,' said Newark's Northern Regional Chief Medical Examiner Salicia Curtis. Curtis was sitting straight-backed behind her crowded but tidy wood laminate desk, dressed in a dark grey pantsuit and a pale green blouse that complemented the milky brown colour of her skin.

‘What is it?' asked McNally. Sal had done him the courtesy of asking him to meet her in her office a good fifteen minutes before FAP Marshall was due – perhaps sensing that giving McNally a heads-up on what she needed to discuss would in the very least prepare him for Marshall's inevitable meltdown.

‘The DNA under her fingernails isn't his,' she replied. ‘The skin tissue, under her right pointer and index fingernails – it doesn't belong to Chris Kincaid.'

‘I don't believe this,' said McNally, his hands contracting involuntarily into fists. First the news that there was no semen present in the body of the victim – and now this.

‘I'm sorry,' said Sal. ‘At the very least I have copies of the DNA for you to run through the state databank. If this unknown person has a record, you can find him.' Sal took a breath before: ‘There's more.'

McNally met her eye.

‘The head injury – the brain haemorrhage that might have killed her if she hadn't been drowned – in my opinion, it wasn't caused by a blunt-force trauma to the head. You never found anything you could have identified as a weapon, did you? In her apartment, I mean?'