Presumption of Guilt (31 page)

The forewoman of the jury answered, “No, Your Honor. I don’t believe our opinions will change.”

“Then, before I dismiss you, I’m going to ask each of you what your vote is. Juror number one?”

“Guilty.”

“Juror number two?”

“Guilty.”

“Juror number three?”

“Guilty.”

With each guilty vote, both Dani and Molly sank deeper into their seats, barely able to breathe.

“Juror number four?”

“Guilty.”

“Juror number five?”

“Innocent.”

So it wasn’t a complete wipeout. When the polling was finished, seven jurors had voted to convict, only five to acquit. The judge thanked the jurors for their service, and they were escorted back to the deliberation room to gather their belongings. Once they had left the courtroom, Murdoch stood up.

“Your Honor, the county requests bail be continued for Ms. Singer.”

“Are you going to reprosecute?”

“We’d like time to evaluate our case and make a decision, but it’s likely we’ll go ahead with another trial.”

“All right, I give you two more weeks to file charges again. Bail continued.” With that, the judge banged his gavel and exited the courtroom, leaving Dani, Melanie, and Molly stunned by the news.

C
HAPTER

52

T
wo weeks to the day after the hung jury, Hudson County refiled charges against Molly Singer for the murder of her parents. Dani had warned Molly they weren’t likely to let it go. Now, a week later, Dani was back in her office scrutinizing the trial transcript, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong, what she could do better.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tommy had told her earlier that morning. “You’ve said it a zillion times. Juries are unpredictable.”

It didn’t matter what she’d said—it had been her failure, so she would spend every minute going over and over the transcript, knowing cold what Murdoch would do and say the next time around, trying to come up with something to throw him off. Her head was buried deep in the transcript when her phone buzzed.

“Yes?”

“There’s someone out here to see you. Her name is Janine Manning.”

“I’m not expecting anyone. Can you palm her off on someone else? I’m tied up here.”

“She says it has to be you.”

The last thing she needed was a distraction. Molly’s new trial would begin in only three weeks. Still, she hated to turn someone away when thirty minutes of her time, maybe less, could help provide hope to a person who had none. She sighed deeply, then said, “Send her down.”

A minute later a slim woman with brown, close-cropped hair and large round dangling earrings stepped into her office. “Ms. Trumball?”

Dani smiled and motioned her to come in. “Take a seat, Ms. Manning. How can I help you?”

“My brother sent me. He’s at Napanoch.”

Dani knew she meant the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison located in Napanoch, New York. “Does he claim that he’s innocent?”

“No. He did it. Got caught red-handed.”

Dani looked at her quizzically. “Then why are you here?”

“I wish I wasn’t. Zeke, that’s my brother—my twin, actually—Zeke Williams is his full name—he made me promise I’d come. I tried talking him out of it; I’m afraid for him, you see. But I made a promise, so I’m here.”

Dani looked at this woman, so clearly conflicted about being in this office. She wanted to take the time to comfort her, ease her into her story, but looming in the back of her mind was Molly’s next trial. “What does your brother want to tell me?”

“It’s about Molly Singer.”

Dani shot up straight in her chair. Now this woman could have all the time she needed.

“He’s the one who sent Donna those anonymous letters. Well, it was me, actually. But he told me what to write, and I put it down on paper and mailed it. You see, we both went to school with Donna. She was always nice to us, to Zeke especially.”

“What does Zeke know about the murders?”

“First, you got to tell me you can protect him.”

Dani sat back and looked closely at the woman. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, her mouth set in a taut grimace, her body stiff.
She’s scared.

“Yes,” Dani reassured her. “If he knows something about the murders, if he’s willing to testify about it, then we can get him protection.”

Janine nodded slowly, took a deep breath, then said, “He knows the people who killed them.”

Dani could barely breathe. Somehow, she managed to ask, “How does he know this?”

“Because he was one of them. And Sheriff Engles was the other.”

Two days later, Dani drove to Napanoch with Cosgrove. He had arranged with the warden for Zeke Williams to be brought to his office for an interview. If his story held up, he’d be moved to a federal prison. Neither Josh nor Dani wanted to take any chance that Engles’s tentacles reached the guards at Napanoch. “Unfortunate accidents” happened all too often in prisons.

When they arrived, they showed their IDs and informed the guard at the desk that they were there to see Warden Jackson. Five minutes later they were escorted to his office. Zeke Williams was waiting for them.

“Feel free to use my desk,” Warden Jackson said. “I’ve got a guard posted outside, one I trust completely. I’ve work to do elsewhere.”

They thanked him and he left the room. Zeke sat in a chair with his arms and legs shackled. He was dressed in regulation prison garb that hung loosely on his thin body. His muddy-brown hair hung below his ears, and heavily smudged wire-framed glasses obscured his eyes. Although Dani knew he was Donna Garmond’s age, he looked ten years older.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Cosgrove said when he and Dani were seated. “Tell us what you know about the Singers’ deaths.”

“I know everything about it. I was there.”

“By yourself?”

“John Engles was with me. Or, actually, I was with him. It was his job. He needed an extra man.”

“Do you know why he murdered the Singers?”

“To keep Mr. Singer from talking. About the jail money.”

“How do you know this?”

“‘Cause John told me.”

“What exactly did he tell you?”

Williams squirmed in his seat. His forehead was suddenly shiny with sweat. “Will I be protected? John has friends all over the prison system. Both guards and prisoners. Hell, half the prisoners have done jobs for him.”

“If your story bears out, we’ll move you to a federal prison. He won’t be able to touch you there. So, what did he tell you?”

Williams looked around the room, then turned back to Dani and Cosgrove. Quietly he said, “John had been approached by some people about getting union support behind a new jail. If he came through, he stood to make millions of dollars. When the state began looking into how much it’d cost, Joe Singer got nervous. He was thinking of admitting that he’d padded the bills. John said he had to be shut up—permanently.”

“Why you?” Dani asked. “Why did he take you with him?”

“I’ve known John most of my life. I got messed up with drugs in high school, couldn’t shake the habit. Before I turned around, four years had gone by, and it was costing me a grand a week. Only choice was to sell—small amounts, you know, to friends. The first time I got nabbed, I gave up my supplier and they dropped it down. Second time, that wasn’t going to fly. Under the Rockefeller drug laws, they would’ve put me away for life. Man, I was messed up.

“So, John comes to me. He says he can make the evidence disappear. I only have to do a small favor for him.”

“Help him kill Joe Singer?”

Williams nodded. “I’d never hurt anyone in my life. But I had no choice, right? It was that or the can for good.” He sighed deeply. “I should have taken the can. It busts me up what I did to those folks.”

“Describe that night,” Cosgrove said. “Everything you did and everything Engles did.”

Williams took a deep breath and stared at the corner of the room for moment, then began talking. “We got there around two a.m. Everything was dark and closed up tight. I was ready to break a window but John said no, look for a key first. I found one by the back door. We both had gloves on, you know, for fingerprints. John brought a knife and we both had baseball bats. Everything was dark inside. We made our way up the stairs. John had a flashlight. One door was closed upstairs, two were wide open, and no one was inside, and one was a bit open. John motioned for me to check the room with the closed door. I opened it quietly and saw Molly, asleep in her bed, then closed the door again behind me. John nudged open the door to the Singers’ room and swung the flashlight over the bed. There they were, sound asleep. John went over to Mr. Singer’s side and bashed his head with the bat, then knifed him four times.”

Cosgrove interrupted. “Where did he knife him?”

“The first was in the neck then three more in the chest.”

“Go on.”

“Poor bastard never even woke up. But the noise woke the missus. I stood over her, just in case. I didn’t want to be the one to kill her. So, she opens her eyes and sees me standing there and tries to get out of the bed. Before she even had a chance to scream, I knocked her out with the bat, then John came around and finished her off with the knife. Man, I was so scared, I thought I was gonna pee my pants.”

“How many times did he stab her?”

“Same as before. First in the neck, then three times in the chest.”

“What happened next?”

“Well, John wanted me to check on Molly again. I opened her door, and she was in the exact same position as before, still asleep. You gotta understand, John never expected Molly to get fingered for the murders. But he was happy when she did. Took the heat off of us. Poor kid. It’s always eaten away at me, especially her being pregnant and all.”

“What happened to the knife and bats?”

“John brought a pillowcase with him. He stuffed them in the bag, our gloves, too. They had blood all over them. John brought a clean pair with him. We left by the back door, locked it up, and returned the key. We drove over to McAdams Park and gathered some rocks to put in the bag. The Hudson was just below the park, but it was a steep incline down to it, so John gave me the bag, told me to dump it in the river while he stayed on top of the bluff and watched.”

“Why now?” Dani asked.

Zeke looked at her blankly.

“Why are you telling us this now? Molly’s first trial was twelve years ago.”

“See, I wasn’t locked up then. And my habit was real bad. But a year ago, I started breaking into houses, take some stuff to fence. I needed money for the dope. It was going good, then one job, this lady walks in on me. She starts screaming, and I swear, I just wanted to quiet her down. I grabbed her head and put my hand over her mouth. That crazy lady bit my hand. I just reacted—I didn’t think. I twisted her head, and she dropped to the floor and didn’t move. I’d broken her neck. Never meant to. I never meant to hurt anyone. But they caught up with me, and here I am.

“It’s hard in here. And I got to thinking again about Donna’s sister doing time for something me and John did. I wanted to help, but, man, you know, John scares the shit out of me. Still, it didn’t sit right with me that Molly was in prison, especially since I’m in for murder anyway now.”

“So you sent the anonymous letters to Donna.”

“Yeah. I thought it would get things going. And I guess it did. I followed the case in the papers. I thought for sure Molly would get off with a new trial. What a bunch of a-holes, those jurors. Pardon the expression, but they sure are.”

“I believe you were there that night,” Cosgrove said. “You know some details that were in the file but not released to the media. But why should I believe that Engles was with you?”

Williams broke out in a grin. “’Cause I never trusted that he wouldn’t try to pin the whole rap on me. So, when I got down to the river with that pillowcase, I slipped one of his gloves out of the bag and into my jacket pocket. It was too dark, and I was too far away for John to catch me doing it. I bet you can get his fingerprints off it. And blood from the bodies.” Suddenly, his face paled. “It’ll still be good after all this time, won’t it?”

“We’ll see.”

“You know, Engles still has others doing his dirty work. I read about Paul Scoby in the paper. I’d bet I know who he used to take him out.”

“Who’s that?”

Zeke grinned slyly. “Well, see, I figure I owed it to Donna to own up about Molly’s parents. But this here’s separate information. What can I get for it?”

Cosgrove sat back in his seat and eyed Zeke. He picked up his pencil and twirled it in his fingers, watching as Zeke fidgeted in his chair.

“Come on, man. It’s got to be worth something.”

“Here’s the problem, Zeke. You’re serving time on state charges. The murder of Molly’s parents is also a state crime. I’m not sure how I can help you out.”

“But the feds are interested in who killed Scoby. Aren’t they? Can’t you talk to the DA?”

“I suppose I can, but I can’t promise you anything. If the information you give me pans out, the best I can do is ask the DA to take that into consideration in offering you a deal on the murders of the Singers. Press him for the sentence to run concurrent with what you’re already doing.”

“Do you think he’ll go for that?”

“Probably. And we’ll see that you do your time in a federal prison.”

Zeke let out a breath. “Okay, then. Talk inside is that Danny Childs is doing work for Engles now.”

“Who is he?”

“Danny? He runs the drugs in Andersonville. Engles keeps his crew out of jail, and Danny does jobs for him.”

As Cosgrove pumped Zeke for more information about Childs, Dani tried hard to contain her excitement. Whether Cosgrove could prove Engles had been involved in the deaths or not, she now had proof of Molly’s innocence—the confession of one of the murderers.

C
HAPTER

53

I
t took Cosgrove only a week to put together a sting against Danny Childs. “Child’s play,” he’d told Dani, then laughed at the inadvertent play on the target’s name. “Nothing like the drug traffickers in New York City.” After his arrest, Cosgrove sat down across the table from him and laid out Childs’s options.