The Rose Conspiracy (31 page)

“You mean a shrink?”

“Yes.”

“No, thanks,” she said with a kind of nervous laugh. “J.D., I've made it clear. I don't want to be at the pretrial…you be there for me. That's why you're my lawyer. Is there something I need to sign to make sure I don't have to be there and you can appear for me?”

“Interesting that you should mention it,” Blackstone said. “Yes, there is. Stop by the office tomorrow. I will have a waiver form ready for you to sign.”

“Good,” she said. “Now, I don't mean to be rude, but I've got to run to the bathroom quick,” she said. “Don't bother cleaning up. I want to do that. You just stay put.”

Then she rose and disappeared around the corner.

Blackstone got up and started meandering around the room, studying the art on the walls, most of it French impressionist, and scanning the magazines on the table and the books in her bookcase. Then he walked over to a closet that was half open.

It was a coat closet. There were a few jackets hanging there. On the floor was a stack of magazines.

He reached down with his good right arm and picked up the magazine on the top. It was
Architectural Digest.
The next one was
ArtCentric.
The one after that was an issue of
National Geographic
with one of the cover headlines dealing with ancient busts of Assyrian kings. He flipped through the pile of miscellaneous magazines, getting a closer glimpse at Vinnie's interests.

Until he was almost at the bottom of the stack. That is when he came across an anomaly.

It was a several-year-old issue of
Crime Journal.
The cover story was the Virginia-Maryland-DC sniper killings of 2002, involving Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad.

Blackstone flipped the magazine over to check out the mailing label. Then he tossed it down and placed the rest of the stack of magazines on top of it.

As he walked out of the closet he saw Vinnie rounding the corner, heading into the little dining room where they had been eating.

“What are you trying to do, tidy up my messy apartment?” she yelled out as she picked up the dishes from the table.

“No, just snooping around to find out where the dead bodies are buried,” he countered with a smile.

“Ooh, that's a little macabre, even for you, J.D.”

Blackstone strolled back to the table, where she had laid a clean dessert plate.

“Come on, sit down,” she said cajoling. “I'm serving coconut cream pie. Nothing fancy. Just the classic dessert.”

While he was waiting to be served he said, “I've got a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“What's the most memorable sculpture you ever did?”

“Hmm, that's a tough one,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, I think that Horace Langley, actually, would have been a great sculpting experience…he had an interesting face…but I never got to finish it, obviously.”

Then she thought more on it.

“There was another one.”

Blackstone was waiting.

“When those two guys, can't recall their names…the ‘Beltway snipers,' they were called. When they gunned down all those poor people like that in Virginia, and Maryland, and some in DC, I think too…anyway, a community group later came to me and suggested maybe I could do a sculpting—a kind of memorial for the victims. But it never got off the ground.”

Blackstone smiled and nodded. He had wondered about the magazine in the closet. But once again, Vinnie had the right answer. So why did he keep wrestling with doubts about her?

“Got to ask you something else,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“I was reading in the grand jury testimony about your attending that Theosophy conference in Scotland with Lord Dee.”

“Oh, that,” she groaned. “Very weird. And yet interesting, I have to admit. I just found the other presenters were not in the same league as Magister Dee. And a few were quite bizarre. A little like attending a
Star Trek
convention.”

She placed a large slice of cream pie on his plate.

“The grand jury evidence,” Blackstone said, looking around for a fork or spoon on the table but not finding one, “indicated you were very enthusiastic about the conference. You loved the whole thing. And you praised one speaker in particular—a guy by the name of Radfield Kemper. He was talking about using force and violence if necessary to hasten the—I think he called it the ‘esoteric elite.' Does any of that ring a bell?”

“Not really,” she said from the kitchen where she was fetching some clean silverware.

In a moment she was back in the dining room, standing next to Blackstone. She placed her fork down at her plate, but kept his fork in her hand.

“Look, you have to know something about me,” she said, looking down at him. “I can get enthusiastic about things…over the top even…to please people around me. I wanted to show Magister that I was into this stuff. And in a way I kind of was. I think I may have said some
things to make it sound like I was all gung-ho. But that was for Magister's benefit, I think.”

Then Vinnie, still standing next to Blackstone, took the fork in her hand, sliced into the pie on his plate, and picked up a piece on the end of the fork. She put it into Blackstone's mouth.

There was a small drop of cream pie that lingered on his lip.

Vinnie bent down and kissed it off his lips with hers.

“I'm sure you realize I want you,” she said. “I'm not very good at keeping a secret.”

But then she straightened up and with a quick change of attitude and tone of voice, she explained herself.

“But I've decided to be a good girl tonight. I'm not going to ask you to sleep over. I think you still need a little bit of space.”

“Oh?” he said taking a bite of his own from the pie on his plate.

“Yes. Maybe it's losing Marilyn, your wife. Even though it's been—what?—two years or more from what I know about it. Anyway, with the trial and everything coming up, I just thought it would be better, you know, if you slept in your own bed tonight…unless…well…unless you really wanted to stay with me tonight.”

“I'm really not sure what you're saying,” Blackstone said.

“To tell you the truth,” Vinnie said, running a hand through her curled locks, “I really don't know what I'm saying.”

Blackstone swallowed the bit of pie, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and stood up.

“Then, in that event,” he announced with a smile, “I'll take my leave. Until you can figure out what you're saying, or not saying.”

Blackstone was at the door when Vinnie spoke to him one last time.

“Darling,” she said. “When can we do this again?”

“I'll call you,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We have a criminal trial to prepare for.”

CHAPTER 42

T
wo days later, in the chambers of U.S. District Judge Robert Templeton, J.D. Blackstone was seated in one of the large red-leather chairs across from the judge's expansive mahogany desk. Julia, as co-counsel, was seated next to him.

On the other side, also facing the judge, was Henry Hartz, along with another assistant federal prosecutor.

In two chairs in the far corner of the room were FBI special agent Johnson and DC Detective Victor Cheski.

It was Blackstone's first day with his shoulder out of the sling. It was stiff, but he tried not to show it.

“Client not here?” the judge said with a measure of dissatisfaction.

“No, Your Honor,” Blackstone replied. “My client has signed a waiver. I've filed it with the clerk.”

“Yes, I know,” the judge said, still perturbed. “I've read it. But I can't imagine a client in a death penalty case just choosing not to show up. Can you?”

“I'm not in a position, Your Honor, to detail our attorney-client conversations.”

“I'm not asking you to,” the judge snapped. “But for heaven's sake, Blackstone. Can't you control your client? Tell her she needs to be here. I don't want some post-conviction motion being filed—if she's convicted, I mean—arguing that she should have been advised of this or that in the pretrial conference.”

“That's the purpose of a waiver,” Blackstone said with a small measure
of condescension. “Waiver, being defined as the informed, voluntary, and deliberate relinquishment of a known right.”

“Don't play law school with me,” the judge snapped.

“Mr. Blackstone,” Hartz said, interjecting with disdain in his voice. “Are you sure she is still in the jurisdiction? Has she fled from the country, perhaps? Jumped bail?”

“You'd love that, wouldn't you, Henry?” Blackstone shot back. “That would do a nice job of bolstering your sagging little case.”

“Alright, that's enough,” Judge Templeton barked. “Let's get on with the business here.”

“Henry,” the judge said, turning to the prosecutor, “have you provided all the necessary discovery to Professor Blackstone?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

“Judge,” Blackstone interjected. “I still have two requests outstanding.”

“Which are?” Henry Hartz snapped.

“Well, first,” Blackstone said, “I asked for discovery relating to the drinking glass that the FBI 302 report of Agent Johnson says was on the victim's desk.”

“You have a copy of the crime lab report,” Hartz shot back. “There were no fingerprints on that glass. So the glass is obviously irrelevant. What's your complaint?”

“I would like to know where the glass went,” Blackstone said.

With that, Blackstone turned and looked behind him. In the far corner of the room, FBI agent Johnson was stone-faced. Next to him, Detective Cheski has a pleasant smile on his face.

“The glass is obviously in the evidence inventory,” Hartz said with a twisted smirk.

“Not according to your inventory sheet,” Blackstone replied. “It's not listed.”

“You must have been looking at the wrong evidence inventory sheet.”

“Henry,” the judge said. “I want you to give an accounting of this drinking glass issue in forty-eight hours. In writing. To the court, and a copy to defense counsel. Okay, next?”

“My demand for exculpatory evidence,” Blackstone announced.

“There is no exculpatory evidence in this case,” Hartz announced brazenly. “Your Honor, this is one of the few cases I can remember where I couldn't disclose
any
exculpatory evidence to the defense. The more we dig, the more incriminating evidence we find against the defendant, Vinnie Archmont. Rest assured, Judge, if we come across any evidence that tends to support in any way the innocence of the defendant, we will be sure and produce it to Mr. Blackstone.”

“Alright, next?” the judge said.

“The government's witness list,” Blackstone continued. “I recognize every one of the witnesses on their list because they all testified in the grand jury—all, that is, except one.”

Then he lifted up the government's witness list and tapped a name on the list with his pen.

“Who is this woman Shelly Hollsaker?”

Henry Hartz was silent. Then he explained.

“She is the person who overheard a statement made by your client.”

“I know that,” Blackstone volleyed back. “It says that right here on your witness list. I want to know
who this gal is
—stop playing games here, Henry.”

“She's a prisoner,” Henry said. “In the lockup. She shared a cell with your client after her arrest.”

“And you don't think the fact that a prosecution witness just happens to be a federal prisoner is exculpatory?” Blackstone said, his voice simmering with anger.

“Gentlemen,” the judge interjected. “Please. Actually, Henry, your description of the evidence you intend to elicit from Ms. Hollsaker is a little scant. Please submit a more exhaustive description of what she is going to testify to. In writing. Within forty-eight hours. Okay?”