Farrell knew that what he was supposed to do was call the attorney general's conflict staff and turn the case over to it. And if he hadn't known it, Jenkins had told him that three times in the five minutes before he took the stand.
He flat didn't care. At least if I get run out of office, he thought grimly, I can wear any goddamn T-shirt I want.
So they had cleared everyone from the room except Amanda, Farrell, and the grand jurors. What was happening here would remain secret until a transcript was prepared and turned over to the defense. And in the meantime, hopefully Ro Curtlee would be behind bars while they regrouped and formed a plan to keep him there. Even if it was the AG who ended up with the case, Farrell and his office would have done what they could.
And then it began.
Under questioning by Jenkins, Farrell told the grand jury why he was before them. "Yesterday afternoon, I received a telephone call from Cliff Curtlee, the father of Ro. He had come into the information that I was planning on convening this grand jury at its regular time next Tuesday, when I would present the evidence that you've heard today and seek a no-bail indictment against Ro."
"Tell the grand jury what he told you," Jenkins said.
"He said to me, and I remember the quote exactly. 'I don't want this grand jury thing to move forward. It would be a bad thing for you personally if it did.' "
Suddenly Farrell had to grip the front rail of the witness box, almost as though he were going to faint. Swallowing, blinking back his emotions, he struggled to regain his composure. "Excuse me," he said. "This is difficult."
Jenkins had the box he'd brought earlier into the courtroom marked as an exhibit and put it in front of him. "Tell us, please, do you recognize the contents of this box?"
"I do."
"Will you please show the contents to the grand jury."
Opening the top of the carton, Farrell reached in with both hands, lifted Gert's body out, and laid it gently on the table. Giving her a last loving pet, he looked up at the members of the jury, several of whom appeared stricken.
"This was my dog, Gert. She was on the street in front of my girlfriend's place of business yesterday."
Jenkins then asked. "Mr. Farrell, what if anything did you do with Gert's body?"
"I had it taken to the police laboratory early last night for testing."
Amanda turned to the panel and explained. "Mr. Farrell can't testify about the results of the test because he didn't do them himself, but what he was told by the lab techs explains what he did next, which is why I'm going to ask him, 'Mr. Farrell, what did you learn from the lab?' "
Farrell couldn't keep the emotion out of his voice. "Somebody poisoned my dog."
"Mr. Farrell, you talked about your partner's place of business. What is that place of business?"
"She runs a rape crisis center on Haight Street."
"Does it have surveillance equipment?"
"It does."
"Based on what the lab told you, did you go and download some photographs from that surveillance equipment?"
"I did."
Jenkins produced an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo of the BMW Z4 and had it marked as an exhibit. "According to the surveillance equipment, when was this photo taken?"
"Right about the time the dog was poisoned," he said.
"Can you see the license number on that vehicle?" Jenkins produced a certified DMV record, had it marked as an exhibit, and handed it to Farrell. "Tell the grand jurors, Mr. Farrell, based on the photo and those records, whose car was parked near the rape crisis center just before your dog was poisoned."
"The records indicate," Farrell said, "that the car belonged to Ro Curtlee."
Jenkins let a long minute pass before she concluded. "Questions from the grand jury? Mr. Farrell, you're excused."
After being admonished, like every other witness, by the fore-person not to discuss his testimony, Farrell got up and, nodding soberly as he passed Jenkins, walked out of the room. Down in his office, Wes closed and locked his door behind him. His whole body was shaking with the cynical enormity of what he'd just done. Crossing over to the foosball table, he grabbed two of the near handles and put all of his weight on them. Closing his eyes, he sucked in a deep breath, swallowing against the urge to throw up.
He'd been through difficult times before in his trials, his failed marriage, with his children, in his life, but never before had he completely abandoned his essential view of himself as a good man, an honest man, a man of good character. And he had just-willingly, knowingly, with aforethought-done exactly that.
He didn't kid himself. He knew that what he'd said and shown the grand jury might have been marginally relevant-even there he was on thin ice. But he also knew that the way he did it, appearing as a witness in his own prosecution, was at very best unprofessional if not flat-out unethical. He had done something he knew he wasn't supposed to do.
In the grand jury room, there was no check on his power. It was virtually absolute, and it had corrupted him absolutely. He remembered what Treya Glitsky had told him in his first days in office: that his predecessor Clarence Jackman had stayed on because he'd become addicted to the power. And now Farrell had a clear understanding of what she had meant.
This was his Rubicon-he was cheating, he knew he was cheating, he would cheat again under similar conditions.
And then suddenly the shaking within him stilled into a calm acceptance. He let go his death grip on the handles, got his weight back onto his feet. Surveying the shattered remnants of his conscience as though from a great height, he felt neither guilt nor pain, only a mild regret at its former gentle insistence upon the right and the fair, the last vestige of his idealistic youth.
What mattered most to him was that, in the sacred secrecy of the grand jury room, Jenkins would get her twelve votes.
34
"I'm sorry, Abe," Amanda Jenkins said. "I just can't seem to stop crying."
"Crying is okay. It's not like baseball. We allow crying in law enforcement, even encourage it. There are classes." Trying to keep it light.
It didn't work. "I don't know whether it was the dog, the stupid beautiful dog. Or relief. Or even Matt. I mean, Matt… I still can't believe…" She couldn't go on, dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
Glitsky put an arm around her. She had come down to his office to share with him what she hoped would be the upcoming good news about the indictment, except that as she started telling him it had blindsided her. In the end, she couldn't stand being cooped up inside the Hall of Justice any longer and she'd borrowed Glitsky's spare raincoat and they'd snuck out the back stairs down to Bryant, and now were walking east in the misty, cold, gray, windy early afternoon.
"You know what else I can't stop. I can't stop thinking I want them to kill him," she said. "I want this indictment so bad, and then I want him to just think about resisting arrest and have them kill him."
"Maybe they will."
They walked another half block in silence. Glitsky tightened his arm briefly around her shoulders, and then let it drop as they continued side by side.
"Assuming we get the vote, you think we'll really get him?" she asked.
"I don't see why not. We got him last time. Not without a little difficulty, but we got him. We'll get him again."
"Who's going out?"
"Lapeer's picking a couple of special teams. Assuming the grand jury decides soon enough, they'll be waiting for him when he gets home."
"Not you?"
Glitsky's mouth went up a quarter inch. "Wiser heads prevailed."