The Rose Conspiracy (34 page)

I heard her call someone first. She was really angry and upset. Not crying. Just really angry. Here is what she said: “I thought you told me I was not going to be a suspect. You promised me I wouldn't be tied-in to this. What happened?” Then there was a pause, like she was listening to someone on the other end talking. Then she said, “Why did he do that? Are you sure it was Langley's computer, and not someone else's?”

Vinnie had her lips parted just slightly, as if frozen in the split second before forming the words to say.

Then she responded.

“That—what you just read—all of that is a pack of lies. You said yourself this Shelly person is a previously convicted woman with a record. She would say anything to get a break from the cops. Right?”

“Did you make three calls?”

“I told you already, no. Absolutely not,” Vinnie said, her face now flashing with anger.

“Did you make any of those statements I just read out to you—‘I thought you told me I was not going to be a suspect. You promised me I wouldn't be tied in to this. What happened?' Did you say that…or anything even remotely close to that?”

“No!”

“Did you say this—‘Why did he do that? Are you sure it was Langley's computer, and not someone else's?' ”

“No, I did not!” she said vehemently.

“Well,” Blackstone said quietly. “We have our work cut out for us. I'm not going to minimize this. We have major damage control ahead of us. Up to now their case against you was very circumstantial and thin. They've obviously been sitting on this witness from the very beginning. She could be devastating to your case.”

“You'll be able to destroy that witness, Shelly Hollsaker. Right?” she said. “You're brilliant, J.D. You will destroy her in court?”

“I need ammunition to do that,” he said calmly. “You can provide that.”

“How? Just tell me what to do.”

“You need to think back very hard to that day in the detention cell. To everything that went on. What you might have said that this Shelly Hollsaker might have misconstrued. And what you talked to Shelly about when the two of you were together.”

“I can tell you one thing,” she said. “I didn't say a word to her. I was scared to death. Why would I want to talk to another prisoner?”

Blackstone nodded. Then he gave her reassurance that her case was the primary and single focus of his office and that they were going to pull out all the stops to defend her.

After she left, Blackstone dialed the U.S. Attorney's Office and asked to speak to Henry Hartz.

When Hartz answered the call, he asked whether Blackstone had received his e-mail about Shelly Hollsaker.

“I did. That's why I'm calling,” Blackstone said. “One thing I need to know. Where's the surveillance audio of Vinnie's telephone conversations?”

“What makes you think that we record phone calls of prisoners?” he barked back.

“Come on, Henry.
Please,
” Blackstone said. “Don't insult my intelligence. You'll say it's purely for jail security. Okay. Fine. I'll buy that. Just tell me when I can get a copy.”

“Truth is,” Hartz said, “I've already checked into that. They tell me there was no audio for that time.”

“Why not?”

“I'm checking into that.”

“How convenient!” Blackstone barked back. “So the only evidence to those calls, outside of my client, is this Shelly Hollsaker. What kind of a deal did you cut with her?”

“No deal. Just what I said in the e-mail,” Hartz said. “If she testifies truthfully at Vinnie's trial, and if we think she gave us substantial assistance in the case, we'll advise the sentencing judge in her insurance fraud case and the court can take that into consideration. No other promises.”

“I'm hoping I don't have to ask the court,” Blackstone said, “to order you to produce an explanation about the missing audio of the telephone calls.”

“That won't be necessary,” Hartz said. “As soon as I find out what the story is, I will let you know in writing. Frankly, I would like to know myself what happened.”

“I'm counting on that,” Blackstone said.

“Oh, and one other thing,” Hartz added. “About Shelly Hollsaker.”

“Yes?”

“She passed a polygraph test in our office.”

“And some people with severe personality disorders, like sociopaths,” Blackstone said, pulling that one out of the hat, “are famous for being able to fool lie detectors.”

Hartz, unconvinced by Blackstone's comeback, gave a sardonic chuckle at the other end.

“Have a really good day,” he said.

CHAPTER 45

B
lackstone was getting ready to leave for the day when he ran into Julia. She looked like she was leaving too. She had something in her hand.

“Hey there,” he said, very upbeat. “Going my way? Want to catch dinner?”

“Here's the DVD of my cross-examination of Vinnie,” she said and handed it to Blackstone. “You can review it at your leisure. I think it speaks for itself.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the DVD. “And as for my question, which you adroitly didn't answer?”

“Did you want to talk about Vinnie's case?”

“Not particularly.”

“Do you want to discuss any of my other cases, which I have been struggling to keep up with while also helping you out in the Smithsonian case?” she said in a slightly irritated voice.

“No, not really,” Blackstone said.

“So this is
not
a professional conversation you want to engage in tonight then, right?”

Blackstone was getting her drift. He shook his head.

“Then in light of that, I think I'll pass,” she said and walked past him and out the front door.

Alone, Blackstone locked up the office, turned off the lights, and headed home in his convertible.

On the way home he kept mulling over Julia's interaction with him.
And assessing his relationship with her over the last year and a half. And then there was Vinnie. Her case. What lay ahead if she was convicted at trial. And his thoughts about her as a woman—thoughts that stretched far beyond the strategies of his criminal defense.

And then there were the inevitable, haunting memories too, about Marilyn. Everything he thought about other women always took him back to her. And then, like a landslide, that gravitational force, the aching for his daughter, Beth, that would immediately follow.

Blackstone took a drive over to his college campus. He parked his car in his faculty parking spot. Then he headed up to his uncle's office. He told himself that he needed to catch up with Reverend Lamb about his expert opinions regarding the Langley note.

That is what he told himself.

Reverend Lamb was in his office with a young man. Blackstone waited in the chair outside. He could hear snatches of their conversation. The student sounded like he was thinking of dropping out of school.

After fifteen minutes, the student left and Blackstone entered his office.

“Got a minute, Uncle?” he asked.

“Always for you, J.D.”

Blackstone sat down on the little couch that was in front of a cluttered bookshelf.

“I had told you previously that I've retained you and one other expert, on the Langley note.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Frieda will schedule a kind of face-off with both of you in my office.”

“Face-off?”

“Well, that's what I'm calling it,” Blackstone said. “I figured ‘gun-fight at the OK Corral' would be a little melodramatic.”

Reverend Lamb laughed.

“Here's the layout,” Blackstone said. “I think I can only use one of you—or neither of you, depending on your conclusions. But I won't be able to use both of you under any circumstances. It's fatal to a criminal defense to give alternative, inconsistent theories.”

“I think I follow you,” Reverend Lamb said. “You want both of us to
present our findings on what the Langley note meant—that is, decipher the Booth diary page that he copied—and we are to do that in front of each other and with you. Right?”

“That's the gist,” Blackstone said.

“Why the ‘face-off' format?” his uncle asked. “Do you want each of us to take potshots at each other's conclusions?”

“Something like that,” Blackstone said. “Look, I know scholars like you guys detest this kind of situation. But your expert opinions have to be forensically defensible in the most intensively combative environment imaginable. At trial, your credentials will be challenged. Your methodology will be ridiculed. Every published word you've ever written will be held up to scrutiny. That's the playing field when you testify as an expert witness in a criminal case.”

“I understand,” Reverend Lamb said. “Don't worry about criticizing my opinions. I've got thick skin.”

Lamb paused for a minute to study Blackstone, who was reclining on the couch, gazing out into space.

“So, apart from the case,” Lamb said, “how's life, Nephew?”

“Challenging,” Blackstone said.

“I've never known you not to enjoy a good challenge.”

“Then maybe I'd better pick a different word.”

“You're a good communicator. What word would you pick?”

“Struggling.”

Then Blackstone thought of something.

“That college kid that you were talking with in your office—let me guess, he was a freshman wondering about continuing on this fall as a sophomore?”

“Yes, he was,” Reverend Lamb said. “He's struggling, to borrow your word. Wants to jump ship. Had some bad grades and thinks he wants to give it up. Quit college.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Oh, nothing very profound. I just told him that it's never a good idea to make decisions out of desperation. That he needs to get a higher perspective on what he wants to do with his life, his talents, and his opportunities.”

“It's hard to be objective,” Blackstone said, “when you're drowning.”

“Yes. That's true,” his uncle said. And then, without fanfare, he walked into a subject matter laden with land mines for his nephew.

“You must be lonely without Marilyn and Beth.”

“Yup.”

“We never talked, you and I,” Reverend Lamb said, “about the two of them, and me, and what you thought about all of that.”

“No, we didn't,” Blackstone said.

“After the funeral,” Lamb said, “I don't think the two of us ever mentioned their names in conversation. I wanted to. But I knew how upset you were that Marilyn and Beth had been attending my chapel services.”

“She was a grown woman. Marilyn could make up her own mind about things. I wasn't going to try to stop her from going to church. That would've been moronic.”

“But I am sure you wondered why she thought she needed Christianity.”

“That did cross my mind.”

“What did you finally conclude?”

“Every one of us has a vulnerable point,” Blackstone said. “For some, fear. For others, insecurity. An unfinished part of our personality. She must have had some little wound that needed a Band-Aid. Religion…your brand of Christianity obviously provided some soothing salve. It wasn't my right to deny her that.”

“Well,” Reverend Lamb said with a smile, in a quiet voice. “I don't think that was why she embraced Christ. Why, she accepted Him as her Savior, right here in my office one day. Confessed that Christ died on the cross for her and received Him into her heart by faith.”

“Oh?” Blackstone said in a biting tone. “And what is your explanation? What do you think she needed?”

“Forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness from
what
?” Blackstone said, irritated.