Move to Strike (54 page)

Joe grabbed David's elbow as soon as they moved outside into the sunshine. ‘How is that going by the way? With you and Sara, I mean.'

Joe was never one to pry but David knew that after last night's heated discussions, his good friend would have been concerned about how this case was affecting him and Sara. Just the fact that he was asking told David that Joe could see just how deep this one was dragging them.

‘I asked her to marry me,' said David, immediately seeing the surprise in Joe's eyes.

‘Was that your idea of perfect timing?'

‘I've never been the violin-and-roses type of guy, Joe.'

‘No, you're more of the “
I am going to ask you to marry me before I go and get myself killed
” kind of operator.'

David smiled, despite himself. ‘Well, whatever I did, it worked.'

‘She said yes?'

‘I guess she's a glutton for punishment.'

An obviously delighted Joe took David's hand and shook it with gusto. ‘Sara is an idiot and you are the luckiest man on earth,' he said, slapping his friend on the back.

‘I know, Joe. I know.'

Moments later they were ordering coffees at a nearby café in the semi-circular Centre Plaza Building, running quickly over their immediate plans before David had to leave for court.

‘Frank, Barbara and I will be working with Katherine de Castro for most of the day – helping her with her approach to Logan, giving her some tools to maintain her calm.'

‘We need this to happen soon, Joe.'

‘I know. Today is Wednesday so we're looking at the end of the week at the latest, we want to give Logan a stretch of time to head to the Cape and those precious guns of his. A Friday evening rendezvous would be perfect – gives him the weekend to start heading south.'

David nodded. ‘I haven't heard from Tony.'

‘Give him time, it's only early. The witness list thing was a good idea.'

‘It was, but something tells me it will take more than that to rattle Logan. This guy is cool, Joe – he knows he has covered his tracks.'

‘I agree – but his mother is a wild card, David. Her name alone will give him cause to wonder.'

And then, as if on cue, Joe's cell rang – Joe immediately retrieving his worse-for-wear Nokia before putting it to his ear. ‘Mannix,' he answered.

‘Lopez, how goes it?' he said after a pause, his eyes lifting to meet David's across the table.

A few more moments passed with Joe saying close to nothing, merely
breaking up the almost one-way conversation with ‘yeahs', ‘okays' and ‘I see what you means'.

‘You think this kid will fold?' he asked, before giving the slightest of nods in acknowledgement to Lopez's response. ‘Okay then – and thanks, Lopez. Just let me know the moment you want me to shake things down this end.'

And Joe hung up just as David opened his mouth to say, ‘That was Lopez from Vegas?'

‘Yeah. I rang him yesterday to tell him about McCall's telephone call from the Cape. He offered to contact the cops in Chatham so that they could start door-to-dooring some local hotels and B&Bs. This Lopez is switched on, and it was his case from the get-go, so I saw no harm in keeping him in the loop – in fact, the guy may have just handed us a breakthrough, depending on how this plays out.'

‘How so?' asked David, moving his coffee aside so that he might lean that bit further onto the table.

‘Well, Lopez has been trying to work the Asian Boyz angle for weeks, but up until late yesterday he was having no luck. These Chinese kids are tight, David. They have a “no tolerance” policy when it comes to informing based on the premise that anyone who snitches gets his tongue cut out and is left locked up somewhere until he bleeds to death.'

‘Sounds like a deterrent, all right,' said David. ‘So what happened last night?'

‘There's this young kid – seventeen, name is Mickey Tsi. Last night Lopez arrested Tsi after he was apprehended in an alley where he'd nabbed a pedestrian, taken his wallet at gunpoint and proceeded to pistol whip the guy for good measure. That's robbery and assault with a deadly weapon – or in other words, a serious felony. And considering young Mr Tsi already has three felonies to his name . . .'

‘He is classified as a habitual offender,' finished David, Lopez's breakthrough now starting to make sense.

David knew that Nevada had their own version of California's famous ‘Three Strike Rule' in the form of the Habitual Offender Stature or the NRS 207.010. Basically, the statute stated that any person charged with a felony and who had been convicted previously for three felonies can be classified as a ‘habitual criminal' and face severe penalties such as life imprisonment.

‘The kid's going away for life,' said David. ‘Unless he gets a sympathetic prosecutor willing to cut him a break and not file for habitual criminality when he goes for an indictment.'

‘Exactly,' said Joe. ‘Which means our man Lopez has a bit of rope to play with. The local ADA is a friend and Lopez has already spoken to him about playing a little tit for tat.'

‘So they are going to ask this Tsi to give up who gave the order on McCall in return for Tsi getting a break with the ADA.'

‘That's the idea.'

‘And when will they . . . ?'

‘Today. Lopez wanted the kid to sweat overnight.'

David nodded. ‘If we can link Logan to those Asian Boyz we have him, Joe.'

‘I know,' said Joe. ‘But let's take this one step at a time . . . speaking of which . . .'

‘I have to go,' said David, draining his lukewarm coffee before rising to his feet.

‘Who's up today?' asked Joe, referring to Carmichael's witness list.

‘Carmichael's calling that psychologist from the TV show – Professor Hinds from Harvard. The ADA's going to spend most of the day painting my old friend as the abusive bitch from hell – by getting Hinds to run commentary as she runs that video on a loop.'

Joe shook his head before looking up at David once again. ‘We're making progress,' he said. It was his attempt at comfort.

‘I know, but we're still flying blind, Joe, and in the end I can't help but think this whole thing will come down to luck.'

‘Then maybe today will be your lucky day?'

‘Maybe, Joe. Maybe.'

I
t had started when that excuse for a lawyer Charles Harrison had offered his plea, and reappeared last week when Cavanaugh had come to her door – that tiny little niggle. But Tony's unexpected arrival in the early hours of this morning had now made it stronger than ever – that feeling that not all was right with the world, that she was missing something or rather, that something was missing
her
.

Logan's reaction had surprised her. She had spoken to him at length last night and his calm nonchalance was nothing short of unsettling. He said he knew no one on Cavanaugh's supposed list besides the Garretsons – and that was only because he had heard their names mentioned in the process of pre-trial investigations.

‘I don't see the problem, Miss Carmichael,' he had said. ‘Cavanaugh is obviously bluffing. He and Bishop are old friends, you know – in fact I believe they both may have slept with my late wife at one time or another, which is rather troubling in its own way, don't you think?'

And that had pretty much been it – Logan had basically disregarded Carmichael's concerns outright which should, at least in theory, reassure her that there was nothing to worry about. Except for the fact that she knew Cavanaugh was above dirty tricks like bluffing – which meant those names had to mean something . . .

‘
Miss Carmichael
,' boomed a rosy-cheeked Kessler over the hubbub. And Carmichael noted a slight lift in the judge's normally gruff tone this morning. ‘Are you ready to call your next witness?'

‘Yes, Your Honour,' said Carmichael, now shelving her private concerns so that she might rise to her feet and approach this day as she did any other – with confidence. ‘The Commonwealth calls Professor Georgia Hinds.'

Amanda watched as the members of the press sat up at the ready, and the gallery fidgeted in hope, and she knew everyone in this packed courtroom was praying she would be rolling out that now infamous birthday video which had been screened only once on the Doctor Jeff
Newsline
special before being banned from any further viewings for fear of its potential to influence the trial.

And despite her recent misgivings, she would not disappoint them. In fact she would be using that incriminating masterpiece to tilt her approach to the case as a whole. For she could see only one problem in the way her prosecution was progressing to date – the fact that the general public, the media, and the all-important sixteen seated and wide-eyed to her right, were lacking one key ingredient that would guarantee their decision to convict . . .

‘Professor Hinds,' said Carmichael, after allowing the much celebrated physician to spend a good ten minutes outlining her academic record. ‘I believe your area of specialty is emotional abuse.'

‘That's right,' said Hinds, her emerald blouse complementing her bright green eyes.

‘Could you explain to us what led you to become interested in this specific field of behavioural psychology?'

‘Certainly. I suppose I have always had a fascination with extremities in human behaviour, particularly in those in positions of power. More specifically, I was interested in the role of parents in children's development and what might cause a mother or a father – someone who should have an inherent instinct to nurture – to in fact do the opposite and parent by violence, cruelty and threats.'

‘So you're interested in the area of physical violence?'

David knew Carmichael was asking only so she could be corrected.

‘No, in fact to the contrary. The violence I refer to is of the emotional variety – the one that leaves deep, lasting scars which, if left untreated, can alter the course of a young person's life. Some might even end up mimicking their abuser's aggressive tendencies – with their violence in retaliation taking alternative forms.'

‘So emotional violence from a parent can result in the victims – in this case the abuser's children – to lash out physically, viciously, in an attempt to counteract . . .'

‘
Objection
.' David was up before an open-mouthed Hinds could respond. ‘Your Honour, the prosecution is leading the witness.'

‘He's right, Miss Carmichael. Objection sustained.'

But Carmichael did not falter, merely nodded her head before moving on. She spent the next half-hour asking Hinds question after question about the different types of emotional abuse and their consequences, and Hinds – with her flawless skin, shiny auburn hair and intelligent green eyes – had the jury mesmerised. The professor was not only an expert in her field, but a brilliant communicator as well, so much so that David noted a number of the sixteen were now perched on the edge of their seats, nodding in agreement with her every word.

‘And, Professor, I know you have seen the video tabled in this case as exhibit twelve – the home recording taken on the night of Doctor Jeffrey Logan's birthday. Would you say Stephanie Tyler's behaviour in this video was typical of the types of abusers you have studied in your research?'

‘Most definitely,' agreed Hinds. ‘In the video in question, Stephanie Tyler displays many characteristics of the psychological bully – even the physicality of her presence, the only one standing in a room of three seated people – tells us reams about her self-allocated role in the family dynamic.'

‘Only because Logan directed her that way,' whispered a frustrated David to Arthur.

‘Patience, David,' returned Arthur. ‘Our time will come.'

‘The video also shows us many things about the psychology of the three subordinate family members,' Hinds went on, ‘the father figure trying to placate in order to prevent further agitation, the children subservient – but not out of respect, out of fear.'

‘And what on earth would make a mother turn on her children like
that, Professor?' asked a seemingly perplexed Carmichael. ‘For as you mentioned earlier, such behaviour is not the norm.'

‘There are many reasons and I am afraid, given Ms Tyler's demise, we may never know the true cause of her psychological condition. Some people are born with such inbuilt tendencies, others abused as children grow to mimic the environment in which they were raised. And still others are sadly influenced by neurological factors – factors over which, without the right treatment, they simply have no control.'

And in that second Carmichael turned, ever so slightly, to meet David's eye. It was a look that said ‘hold on to your hat' – a glance that told him she was about to pick up the jury and run with them so that they were well and truly beyond David's reach.

‘And given your extensive experience, Professor,' Carmichael turned back to the witness, ‘your personal assessment of Stephanie Tyler would be . . . ?'

‘Well, by all reports she was reared in a loving environment, and those who knew her in her youth say they saw no evidence of aggression or a dogged need to dominate. So my guess is that Ms Tyler was most likely suffering from some form of neurological disorder – something that resulted in her . . .'

‘
Objection!
' Finally David could see it. Carmichael was even cleverer than he thought. The ADA was trying to convince the jury that the ‘abusive' Stephanie was not to blame for her sadistic behaviour – that she was
sick
, that she went
untreated
, that
none of this was her fault
!

Carmichael had found the only missing piece of her puzzle, the one that would give the jury a conscience-free reason to convict – she was giving the sixteen a reason to feel
sympathy
for the victim, for the poor mentally ill woman who was unceremoniously blown to bits.