As much as Danny does not get on with his father, he takes no pleasure in Jack’s misfortune. He asks me if it’s really true. I tell him that it is, and Danny floors me with his perception.
‘I guess I always knew that someday he’d get in trouble,’ he says. ‘What will happen to him?’ he asks.
I shake my head, like I haven’t a clue.
‘Will he go to jail too?’
‘I don’t know,’ I tell him. ‘That’s up to the judge.’
‘But it helped Mom’s case?’ he says. ‘I mean the information about him.’ In the tradeoffs of life Danny can live with this, his father’s conviction, if it helps Laurel.
‘It helped,’ I say. How can I tell the boy that I’m trying to put the ring of murder around his father’s neck?
‘Things are going well for your mother at the moment.’ I leave it at that and change the subject before he can pursue further. ‘You can’t stay here,’ I tell him.
‘Why not?’
‘The court in the custody case has an outstanding order,’ I say.
‘Have I done something wrong?’
‘No, but your dad has custody.’
Danny was thinking that maybe the news in the paper changed all that. I assure him that it did not. If his father is sentenced to time in prison, and Laurel is still in jail, Danny and Julie will become wards of the court. If that happens I will wade in and try for custody.
‘I’ll stay at Mom’s apartment,’ he says. ‘Nobody will look there.’ It’s like he’s already figured this out.
What can I say? ‘Why don’t you go now. And clean up. I’ll have some food sent over. Groceries,’ I tell him. Harry knows a woman who can take care of this. ‘Do you have clean clothes over there?’
He nods. ‘But I wanna know everything that’s happening,’ he says, ‘in Mom’s case.’
‘I don’t have time right now. I’ll call you. We can talk later,’ I tell him. ‘Dinner at my place tonight. You can get the Vespa then.’ This has been in my garage since Danny left Capital City.
‘I’ve already got it,’ he says. ‘Stopped by on the way over here. Hope you don’t mind?’ he says.
‘Why should I mind? Clean up and get some rest,’ I tell him. ‘You look tired.’ The boy has rings of unrequited sleep under his eyes.
‘Sure,’ he says. He turns to leave.
‘And Danny — don’t go near the jail.’ Like a seer I know what’s running through his mind — a visit to his mom. ‘They’ll nail you as soon as you sign in,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll be living with your dad again.’
I see this register in his eyes, the admission that this is probably where he was headed. He nods, and like that he is gone.
Cassidy cannot rest her case on the sour note that was Jack’s testimony and the hair-raising revelation of his criminal convictions.
Today Dana is just outside the courtroom, waiting to see what happens. As a name I had placed on my witness list, chaff for Cassidy to mull over, she cannot enter. I think her proximity here is a bad idea and have told her so. On the way in Cassidy was giving her looks to kill. Morgan knows where the information to destroy Jack came from, and Dana by her mere presence here is now rubbing salt into the open wound. This is payback, I think, for Morgan’s earlier attempts to interfere in Dana’s judicial aspirations, Cassidy’s efforts to turn the Queen’s Bench against Dana, and Lama’s shot at shifting blame for the news leaks on the bombing to Dana and her people. All of these efforts have failed, but Dana is not one to forget.
From the inception I have wondered how much of Dana’s help in our case has been inspired by her belief that Laurel is innocent, by her affection for me, and how much by her increasing enmity toward Cassidy.
As for Jack, he is nowhere to be seen today. Vega is ducking the horde of media, which I am told are camped like vandals at his condo. I have visions of fiery torches dripping tallow in the night, their holders demanding that Jack come out and talk. Now that his conviction is public, sentencing in Jack’s case has been scheduled for a week from today. Harry is offering odds that he will do time. Federal judges, says Harry, do not like to be used, and Vega’s efforts at sympathy using Melanie’s murder has the odor of exploitation about it.
While there is no question but that Jack’s testimony was originally intended to conclude the state’s case, this morning when court is called to order, Cassidy tells Woodruff that they are putting up one last witness.
She asks leave of court to recall Simon Angelo, the county coroner.
‘Is there objection?’ says Woodruff. He looks at me.
I confer with Harry, who gives me one of his patented shrugs. Harry is certain that they are back-filling, some window-dressing so they can give the illusion that they are ending on a high note. Angelo is a safe witness, somebody Morgan can control, who is not likely to do more damage to their case.
I am nervous about this. If Cassidy wants something more from Angelo, there are only two possibilities: she forgot to cover some item with him originally or his testimony is intended to shore up some major hole we have ripped in their case.
I put up an argument. ‘Your honor, if the state wants to recall the witness, it should do so on rebuttal after we’ve presented our own case.’
Cassidy argues for some latitude, some equitable setoff for being sandbagged, the surprise on Jack’s conviction. This strikes a sympathetic chord with Woodruff. He asks her how long Angelo’s testimony will take.
‘Ten minutes,’ she says.
‘I’m inclined to allow it,’ he tells me, and gestures toward Cassidy to call the witness.
Angelo takes the stand and is reminded that he is still under oath.
It is when Morgan begins anew the task of qualifying him as an expert that little shivers course up my spine. She does not do this in the broad field of forensic pathology, but instead in the narrower subspecialty of serology, the study of blood, and DNA. Bells begin to go off. It is becoming clear that there is some point to all of this, and despite Harry’s best guess, it is not cosmetic.
‘Dr. Angelo, could you tell the court, as part of your medical examination in the present case did you perform any blood tests on the victims in this case, and in particular, the John Doe, the unborn fetus?’
With the mention of the child, Laurel winces. There is a palpable shudder through her body, and I take one of her hands and hold it under the table. I have not told her about Danny’s visit to my office. She has enough to worry about for the moment. We will deal with that over the weekend, and if need be I will ship the boy back to where he came from until this is over.
‘We didn’t do blood,’ says Angelo, ‘but we did do DNA.’ He explains to the court that after his initial testimony, when questions of paternity were raised on cross-examination, he went back and conducted some tests, ‘expedited,’ as he says.
‘Could you tell the court what tests you performed and why?’
‘I carried out what are known as DNA probes to determine paternity,’ he says.
‘Your honor.’ I’m out of my chair. I’m complaining about the lack of notice on this.
‘We are not talking about exculpatory evidence here,’ says Cassidy.
Constitutional law in this country requires public prosecutors not just to convict, but to act in the interests of justice. Cassidy is under a strict requirement to share with us at an early stage any evidence that she finds that might serve to exonerate my client. The fact that they did tests and did not disclose them until now can mean only one thing — that these tests do not advance our theory of the case that Melanie had a lover. It is my hope that maybe at best the tests were inconclusive.
‘Counsel made the issue relevant,’ says Cassidy, ‘when he excoriated Mr. Vega, suggesting, I might add improperly,’ she says, ‘that the victim was engaged in some lurid love affair. Now that he has raised this ugly specter, we must deal with it,’ she says. There is a look of rebuke from Cassidy, which on her face takes on a wicked aspect.