The Final Judgment (47 page)

“Do you remember whether you called your mother collect or put it on your own phone bill.”?”

“Objection,” she heard Jackson say. “This is not only irrelevant, it’s petty harassment.”

“Hardly,” Caroline said to Towle. “It goes directly to this witness’s credibility on crucial matters. As I’ll show in a moment.” Towle nodded, grim-faced. “Go ahead, Ms. Masters.” Caroline turned to Megan. “Collect or not,” she snapped. Megan hesitated, hunched back in her chair. “Collect, I think.”

“Oh? And who was there to accept your calls’?” Megan’s mouth fell open and then closed again. “It could hardly be your mother,” Caroline asked, “could it?” Megan stared at her, new tears in her eyes. “What do you mean?” Caroline moved closer. Softly, she said, “That she’s been institutionalized for depression and doesn’t speak to anyone. And hasn’t for the last five months.” Megan’s face was ashen. “Did you hear me?” Caroline demanded. Megan flinched. “Yes,” she said dully. “She hasn’t been well.”

“So these conversations with your mother—the ones you told us about under oath—never happened. Were, in fact, fabrications.” Megan’s jawline set. “I was protecting her privacy .... “

Pausing. Caroline let the stillness of the courtroom build. From the bench, Towle looked at Megan with open disdain. “So,” Caroline continued calmly, “the only thing that is true is that you never talked to anyone about James Case. Ever, at any time.” Megan looked down. “I can’t remember now.” Eyes still on Megan, Caroline opened the lid of her briefcase. Almost casually, she asked, “Did you ever write about him?” Megan stared at the briefcase, as if transfixed. In a hushed voice, she asked, “What do you mean?” Slowly, Caroline reached inside the briefcase and removed the red journal. She stood it on one end, beneath her fingertips, and looked once more at Megan. Megan’s face seemed to crumble. But except for the fingers of one hand, brought suddenly to her collarbone, she did not move. Softly, Caroline asked again, “Did you ever write about your relationship to James Case?” Megan’s fingers pressed against her chest, and then she spun, looking about for Jackson. “I’d like a recess .... “ Caroline watched her. “Answer the question, please. Then you can have all the time you want.” Megan stood, voice shrill. “I won’t put up with this .... “

“Because you’re a compulsive liar,” Caroline said with cutting coldness. “I know it, you know it, and—in five minutes—everyone in this room will know it.” Hurriedly, Jackson stepped forward, his own voice taut. “The witness has been on for most of the day, Your Honor. If she’s tired, or upset, no one’s served by making her go longer. We can start again tomorrow.” Towle looked at Megan, staring from the witness stand, and then at Caroline herself. “Counsel?” Caroline’s eyes still did not move from Megan. Quietly, she said, “As soon as she admits she lied, I’ll be through with Ms. Race for the day. All that she has to say is ‘I made up everything I told you.” It won’t even take that long.”

“No.” Megan’s look at Jackson mingled fear and betrayal. “I want to talk with Mr. Watts.” Towle studied her with something like distaste, and then turned to Caroline. “It seems to me, Ms. Masters, that this witness should be allowed to consider her own position. Quite carefully. As should Mr. Watts.” Caroline gave Megan a silent look of pity and contempt. “Tomorrow morning then, Your Honor. I think I can remember my last question. As, I’m quite sure, will Ms. Race.” Towle looked from Caroline to Megan. “Very well,” he said. “Court is adjourned until nine o’clock a.m.” There was sudden movement—people stirring, a cacophony of voices. Jackson quickly went to Megan and shepherded her past Caroline. Her face was streaked with tears. Turning to Caroline, Jackson said tersely, “I want to see you, Caroline. Five minutes.” “Take your time,” Caroline answered calmly. “I think Megan has something to tell you.” Megan could not look at her. Abruptly, Jackson led her away. Brett stared at the journal. “What is it?”

“A kind of diary.” Caroline kept her voice low. “She lied about almost everything, and it’s all in here. James dumped her after you caught them together. She started following you and James, hiding beneath his window. The only way she knew about California is that she went to him, begging for another chance.” Caroline turned to her. “James said he wanted to leave with you. What you remember, at least about that, is how things were.” Brett slowly shook her head. “How did you get it?” she said at last. Through her weariness and worry, Caroline smiled a little. “That’s what Jackson wants to know.”

Jackson shut the journal and slammed it down. “What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded.

Caroline-shrugged. “Exposing perjury. She really is quite mad, you know.” In the spare office Caroline and Brett had used, Jackson stared at her across the tarnished desk. “You could have come to me with this.”

“I could have. But would you have dismissed the case with prejudice? I doubt that, somehow.”

“So instead you let me put on a lying witness and just watch me do it, waiting to destroy her So that the prosecution seems like such a travesty that we look bad if we even consider pursuing it.”

“You will.” Caroline’s voice was steely now. “Once I’m finished with Megan.”

“Sorry. She’s so hysterical now that she’s incoherent. I’m withdrawing her as a witness—”

“Too late. She’s under subpoena, and she’s mine. By noon tomorrow, that girl’s going to be far more than a pathetic liar. She’ll be the best murder suspect you’ve ever overlooked.” Softly, Jackson answered, “Not unless you use this diary.”

“Which I’ve every intention of doing.” Jackson shook his head. “You’ve already destroyed her,” he said. “Use that diary tomorrow, and you destroy yourself. Megan saved you by imploding.” Caroline was silent for a moment. “My story is that it came to me in the mail. Which Betty can confirm.” Jackson’s face was stained with anger. “Don’t insult me, Caroline. You mailed it to yourself. Though Betty may not know that.”

“So file a case. But first you have to finish this one.” Caroline paused for emphasis. “I want her back, tomorrow morning. Or I want the case against Brett dismissed with prejudice.” Jackson’s mouth set. “I can’t do that. Megan may be a liar, but that doesn’t make Brett innocent. So you’ll have to make a public fool of me. And risk your reputation and maybe your career” His eyes were keen. “You did it your-

self, didn’t you? Broke in with a credit card and searched until you found this thing.” Caroline stood. “I told you about Larry. I asked you to check Megan out. Asked—no, begged—you to search her place. But you didn’t want to offend her Because she was such an important witness ...”

“She looked credible, damn it.” Caroline waved a hand, contemptuous. “Sorry. I’d forgotten that I’m morally disqualified from throwing this back at you.”

“Fuck you, Caroline. You withheld evidence and used it to set me up. Even though, for you, it’s a suicide mission. You should have brought this to me the day that you first had it.” Jackson caught himself, looked at her hard again. “There’s something else to this, isn’t there?” Caroline stood. “Just have her here tomorrow,” she said, and left.

Caroline removed the envelope from beneath the seat of her car and spread the sheaf of pictures in her lap. Joe Lemieux had done well, she thought. Satisfied, she rearranged them: from the top, a close-up of Megan Race gazed up at her, as vivid as in life. And then Caroline replaced them in the envelope. It was dusk, a little past eight, and Caroline was alone. Tomorrow would be bad for all of them—Jackson, Megan, Caroline herself. And then, after that, they would each live with the consequences. But that was for tomorrow; before finishing with Megan, there was one more thing to do. She could have sent Lemieux. But the defense of Brett possessed her now; this was not a task she wished to delegate. She smiled mirthlessly, remembering the young Caroline, the impatient, sometimes impetuous lawyer who did her own investigation. This was far more than that, she knew—more, even, than Brett. Every instinct Caroline had said that she should do this alone. She turned on the ignition and left Resolve behind. The road to Heron Lake was, she guessed, much as it had been for Brett that night—winding, tree-shrouded, dusk becoming a film of gray, then darkness. Caroline’s headlights cut the dark; a first moon, brightening silver, appeared in the break of trees above the road. Passing the dirt road to Brett’s lot, Caroline slowed but did not turn. The road became darker, narrower. Perhaps a quarter mile farther, Caroline saw the neon sign of a gas station and convenience store. The successor, no doubt, of the Resolve General Store. A few yards past it was the head of Mosher Trail. Caroline turned there. The road had several switchbacks, twisting among the trees; for a strange, disturbing moment, Caroline remembered the road at Windy Gates; her mother. Then the road opened, and she found herself on a gentle slope of dirt and rock, gazing at Heron Lake. Caroline got out. The moon was yellow now, its pale light moving slowly in the water. She walked to the edge. There was a soft wind; water lapped gently at Caroline’s feet. In the swirls of time, it seemed not so very different from some summer night with Jackson, when she had been younger than Brett was now. Turning, Caroline gazed toward the lot that had once been hers. She could see, in the curve of the lake, a shadow between the lake and trees, the soft grass of the glade. Perhaps she hoped for too much, or feared too much. There were too many pieces missing. But, standing here, it was not hard to imagine someone silently walking the shallows of the water’s edge, moving toward two lovers in the grass. There were still too many pieces missing, and one that was not—a knife. Unless, in the dark recesses of her memory, she had confused one knife with another. Megan could have followed them. Assuming that she knew the lake, she might even have found them. There was a chill in the air, Caroline thought. She returned to the car, checking-the photographs once more. Then she left the lakeside, driving slowly to the trailhead, until she saw the neon light of the gas station.

The building was white and the fluorescent lighting from within gave it a bright, unearthly glow. When Caroline pulled up to the gas pump, a slender man in a baseball cap

came out from the store and walked over to her window. He stepped beneath the light above the gas pumps, and Caroline saw that he was barely out of his teens, with a goatee and a ponytail that somehow only made him look younger. “Fill it up?” he asked. “Thanks.” He went to the tank and inserted the hose, and then began cleaning her front window with a squeegee. Caroline stuck her head out the driver’s side. “There was something I wanted to ask you.” With a flick of the wrist, he erased a squashed bug. “Sure.” Caroline propped her head on her chin. “I’m a lawyer, working on the murder that happened out at Heron Lake. You’ve heard about that?” He stopped, curious. “A little. I just got back last night—been in Florida, seeing my mother.” He paused a moment. “Who you working for?”

“Brett Allen, the defendant, who’s about your age. I don’t think she did it, and I’ve been trying to figure out if someone in the area saw anything that might help.” Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, my boss said there was a guy out here the other day. I guess the night this other guy was killed was the last night I was on. Before vacation.” He peered more closely at Caroline. “What you looking for.9”

“Anything.” Caroline made herself sound bemused, a woman at sea. “Like a car, or a person you’d never seen before. Or maybe someone turning down Mosher Trail.”

“Boy.” His show of teeth was reflexive, the surprise of someone asked to find significance in a mundane night three weeks in the past. “I mean, I was just sort of shuffling between the tanks and in there, thinking more about vacation than anything else. I wasn’t really watching the trail.” The nozzle of the hose clicked off. The boy went back, gave the nozzle a final squeeze, and replaced the hose on the pump. Caroline gave him her credit card and watched him walk to the building. He returned with a charge slip and a pen. Neatly, Caroline wrote her name and said in a hopeful voice, “Maybe pictures would help. Think you could look at some?” He paused, reluctant to be involved in this, and then his better nature seemed to overtake him. “Okay,” he said. “Sure.” Slowly, Caroline took the pictures from the envelope. Pausing, she reshuffled them. “Let’s try vehicles first,” she said. “Okay.” She flicked on the inner light of the car and handed him three photographs. The boy leaned inside, squinting at the black-and-white blowups. He went through the pictures, once, then twice. He paused at the last one. “Where was this taken?” he asked. “The Connaughton County Courthouse.” He exhaled softly, puffing out his cheeks. “Because I’ve seen this van before. Or one like it, anyhow.” Caroline kept her voice calm. “When?”

“That night. When the driver stopped for gas.”

“Man or woman?” The boy hesitated. “Woman. I’m pretty sure.” Don’t react, Caroline told herself. Think of all the witnesses who get things wrong. “Is there some reason you remember her?” Silently, the boy nodded. “I remember she seemed upset.” His eyes narrowed with the effort of memory. “I’m pretty sure it was the one in the van.” Caroline tilted her head. “Upset ...”

“Yeah. I always like to do a good job on the windows. But this one, she told me to stop, like she didn’t have time, and her voice was real sharp.” What did she look like? Caroline wanted to ask. She stopped herself. “Could you recognize her from a picture?” The boy turned to her. “Is this important?” Caroline picked up the remaining photographs. “It could be. Yes.” The boy scrutinized her another moment and took the

pictures from her hand, leaning back through the window into the light. He shuffled the first picture, then another, then another. At the fourth one, he stopped. “What is it?” The boy’s mouth closed, then opened again. “That’s her.” Caroline’s throat constricted. “You’re sure?” “Yeah. I mean, she looks upset in this picture. Like she did that night.” Caroline sat back in her seat. “After that, did you see where she went?” Her voice, she thought, sounded calm enough. But the boy looked at her with new suspicion. “Will I have to testify or something?”

“I don’t know. I hope not.” Pausing, he gazed at the picture. “Well, I don’t know where she went, or what direction. But I’d have to say I remember her.” In the shadows of the car, Caroline collected herself. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer that you not mention this to anyone. After all, it may be nothing.” He looked relieved. “No problem.”