False Testimony: A Crime Novel Page 3

  The Senator looks into his coffee mug for a moment. When his eyes meet mine again, they’re angry. “That’s impossible,” he says.

  “Then you need to find a new attorney.”

  He sets his mug down, hard. “Are you threatening me?”

  “No,” I assure him. “But I am telling you I’m a defense lawyer, not a magician. I can’t protect your interests if you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

  “You’re being unreasonable,” he says. “That young woman worked for me every day for the past three and a half years and she’s vanished without a trace. You expect me to stand by and say nothing?”

  “That’s right. Until we get a handle on what’s happened here, that’s exactly what I expect.”

  He looks into his mug again, silent for now. I turn to his wife. She shifts away from me, leans sideways, the towel still taut between her clenched hands. Her shoulder presses against the glass and her gaze settles on the shingled bungalow next door. “And I expect it from both of you,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t react at first, as if she’s receiving my words via satellite. “Me?” she says at last. “What in the world do I have to do with it?”

  “Plenty. At this point, anyone who ever crossed paths with Michelle Forrester has something to do with it.”

  Honey looks over at her husband and gives him a tight, decidedly unsweetened smile. He doesn’t look back at her, though; he’s still staring into his mug. “Well,” she says, “Michelle and I certainly crossed paths.”

  I intend to find out what she means by that, but quick footsteps on the stairs in the next room make me hold my tongue. Abby Kendrick breezes into the kitchen in gray sweats and white sneakers, her long, lustrous hair in a loose ponytail. She pours a tall glass of orange juice from the ceramic pitcher on the counter before she looks up at any of us. Her pale, gray-blue eyes match her father’s; they widen as she takes her first sip. “Oh,” she says, “sorry. I didn’t know we had company.”

  “Abby”—her father lifts his coffee mug toward me—“this is Ms. Nickerson.”

  She gives me a little wave from across the room.

  “Call me Marty,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too much like Honey.

  She nods, studying me as she takes another swallow. Her expression says she’s certain she knows me from somewhere but can’t quite put her finger on it.

  I know how she recognizes me, of course, and I wonder if Abby needs her gorgeous gray-blues examined. Aside from our nine-inch height difference, Luke and I are dead ringers for each other. We share the same black hair, fair skin, and dark blue eyes. She realizes before I say anything, though. “You’re Luke Ellis’s mom, aren’t you?” she says. “God, you look just like him.”

  I nod, swallowing the urge to point out that it’s actually the other way around.

  “I had dinner with him last night,” she tells me.

  “So I heard. He managed to squeeze me in for five minutes before he dashed out to pick you up.” I have no idea what Luke would’ve wanted me to say in response to Abby’s comment, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it.

  She raises one eyebrow. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

  I nod again, amazed. My son must have mentioned his mother.

  She sets her glass on the counter, looks from one parent to the other, then frowns. “Why are the two of you talking to a lawyer?”

  Her mother walks toward her—and away from our discussion—before the question ends. “It doesn’t concern you, Abigail.”

  Abby stares at her father, her eyes saying she fully expects an answer. He hesitates for a moment, watching his wife’s back, then meets his daughter’s gaze. “We’re discussing the Forrester matter,” he says.

  “What about it?” This time the question is directed at me, but the Senator answers first. “We’re talking about the investigation,” he says. “That’s all.”

  Abby folds her arms and smirks. “Investigation? Please. No need for an investigation. I know exactly what happened.” She stares angrily at her father. “And so do you.”

  “Abigail,” her mother snaps, “this isn’t the time.”

  “Too much nose candy.” Abby fires her words at me, ignoring her mother. “That’s what happened. Too much white stuff up the nose.”

  Silence. For a moment, no one in the room seems to breathe. Even the perpetually mobile Honey is paralyzed.

  Finally, the Senator takes a deep breath and turns to me. “Michelle had a problem,” he says, “a couple of years back. But she was past that. She’d put it behind her.”

  “Oh, right.” Abby laughs, but it’s not a happy one. She takes her half-empty glass of juice from the counter and heads out of the kitchen. “Sure she did,” she calls over her shoulder, her ponytail bobbing. “And she gave up men too. The word on the street is she was headed straight for the convent.”

  Honey scowls at her husband, slaps her twisted towel on the counter and follows her daughter toward the living room. She pauses, though, in the doorway, and turns back to me. “I’ll be happy to abide by your instructions,” she says. “As far as I’m concerned, the name Michelle Forrester need never be mentioned again.”

  Senator Kendrick plants his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands as his wife leaves the kitchen. I set down my coffee mug, check my watch, and wait. I had two appointments scheduled for this morning. This was supposed to be the easy one.

  Chapter 6

  Derrick Holliston has had a change of heart, it seems. I’m only about twenty minutes late for our jailhouse meeting, but apparently he and Harry have already covered a lot of ground. “Maybe I won’t, then,” he says as the young guard with the crew cut pulls the meeting room door shut behind me. “Maybe I won’t.”

  “Won’t what?” I already know the answer, I think—his tone tells me more than his words—but I want to be sure.

  “Testify,” Holliston says as I join him and Harry at the rickety table. “Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth shut.”

  I’m a little concerned about what led to this switch. I’m no fan of Holliston’s—Harry’s instincts about him are dead-on, I’m certain—but like it or not, he is our client. If he wants to take the witness stand—and he sure as hell did yesterday—it’s not our job to talk him out of it. “Hold on,” I tell him as I turn toward Harry. “Fill me in.”

  “We were just going over the police report,” Harry says, tossing his pen on top of a dog-eared copy of it. “It’s in there. The whole story.” His emphasis on the last word says it all. It’s a fairy tale, as far as he’s concerned. A grim one.

  “So?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I know where this is going, though.

  “So Tommy Fitzpatrick will say it for us,” Harry answers. “The Chief questioned Holliston personally, as soon as he was picked up, and recorded his version of events. My bet is Fitzpatrick will be the Commonwealth’s first witness. He prepared the primary report and he’ll testify to its content. All of it.”

  Holliston not only waived his right to remain silent on the morning of his arrest, he spilled his guts to anyone—and everyone—who’d listen. While that’s generally not a good idea, it just might work to his advantage now. His story has been memorialized at least a half dozen times, once in painstaking detail by Tommy Fitzpatrick, Chatham’s Chief of Police.

  “So the jurors will hear what happened,” Holliston explains, as though he’s my lawyer, “but they don’t hear nothin’ about my priors.”

  His priors aren’t pretty. If the prosecutor were to line them up side by side, in chronological order, the jury would see the perfect evolution of a sociopath, each crime more violent than its predecessor. The jury won’t see anything of the sort, though, because the prosecutor can’t do that—Holliston committed all but one of his crimes when he was under eighteen.

  “Most of your priors won’t come in anyhow,” I remind him. “Your juvenile record is sealed.”

  “Yeah, but I got that assault.” He sighs. “That’ll come in. And it don’t
make me look good.” He shakes his head slowly, his lips tight, his eyes saying it’s a damned shame the world dealt him that blow.

  Holliston has only one conviction on his adult tab, an accomplishment made possible by the fact that he’s spent all but five weeks of his over-eighteen life in jail. If he takes the stand in this trial, that conviction will come in. It’s a given. And it’s a problem.

  Four years ago, the manager of one of Chatham’s premier restaurants was assaulted and robbed. Bobby “the Butcher” Frazier, longtime caretaker of Kristen’s Pub, was closing the place that February night, the off-season regulars and a handful of employees out the door just minutes ahead of him. As he stood on the snowy brick walkway inserting his key to flip the back door’s deadlock, a young white male wearing a ski mask emerged from the darkness of the parking lot. He demanded the night deposit sack Bobby had stashed under one arm.

  The Butcher isn’t a guy who takes kindly to bullies. He told the masked man to take a hike. A fistfight ensued and Bobby was stabbed during the course of it, the knife penetrating just below his right shoulder. Down but not out, he grabbed his attacker’s hand—along with the knife inside it—and continued to fight. Eventually, though, the masked man kicked Bobby to the ground and fled with the cash.

  The Butcher was lucky; his injuries weren’t all that serious. He was treated at Cape Cod Hospital that night and released the next day, but because of his assailant’s mask he was unable to give the police a description beyond approximate height and weight. The Chatham cops suspected Derrick Holliston from the start—he’d been released from a juvenile detention facility just a few days earlier, on his eighteenth birthday—but they had precious little in the way of evidence to back up their suspicions. Until they got the results from the Commonwealth’s crime lab.

  DNA evidence pegged him. Holliston must have sustained a substantial cut during his struggle with the Butcher. Blood evidence tied him to the scene, to the victim, and eventually, to the empty cash sack retrieved from a town-owned Dumpster a block from the pub. The knife was never found, but the ski mask was, and hair follicles hammered yet another nail into his coffin. On top of all that, the unemployed Holliston had more than two grand in cash when he was arrested at the Monomoy Moorings Motel. Even so, Holliston and the unfortunate lawyer appointed to defend him relied upon what Harry calls the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It.

  The jury didn’t think so. The judge sentenced Holliston to five-to-seven and with time off for good behavior—he was a model prisoner, according to his discharge papers—he served just over four. He’d been out little more than a month when Father McMahon was murdered—stabbed and left bleeding on the sacristy floor—and St. Veronica’s Christmas Eve collection disappeared.

  “Yeah,” Holliston says, pointing at Harry, “for once you’re right. We’ll let Fitzpatrick do it. I kinda like the idea of the Police Chief tellin’ them what happened. Gives it a little…what’s the word?”

  “Credibility?” I ask.

  He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. Credibility. I like that.”

  Harry closes his eyes, shakes his head.

  “You have the cop tell it,” Holliston says.

  “Not me,” Harry answers, pointing in my direction. “Marty’s taking the Chief. And don’t worry, she’ll get the whole story from him.”

  Holliston looks at me and half laughs. “Even better,” he says. “So it’s settled. I ain’t takin’ the stand.”

  “Hold on,” I tell him for the second time in ten minutes. “This is an important decision. Don’t rush it.”

  He shrugs. “The top cop tells the jurors what I told him and as far as they know, I’m an altar boy. What do I got to lose?”

  He does have something to lose—something important. And his defense attorneys need to tell him so.

  I look across the table and Harry arches his eyebrows. It’s my turn, I guess. “Look,” I tell Holliston, “don’t get me wrong. All things considered, I think you’re making the right decision. But don’t underestimate the impact your silence will have on the panel. Jurors like to hear from defendants.”

  “But if I take the stand”—he tugs at his stubbled chin—“they hear about that other guy, too, the Butcher.”

  He’s right about that. If he testifies that he stabbed the priest only to save his own life, the prosecutor will be entitled to introduce his prior conviction—for stabbing a man in order to rob him. “Like I said,” I tell him, “on balance I think keeping your mouth shut makes sense. I just want to be sure you’re aware of the downside.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I get it. I still ain’t takin’ the stand.”

  Harry shuts his file and starts repacking his battered schoolbag. “Well,” he says, not looking at Holliston, “then we’ll see you in the morning. If you’re not taking the stand, there’s no need to prepare you for cross.”

  Holliston smiles at Harry, then at me. “Right again,” he says to Harry. “You’re on a roll.”

  Harry ignores him, bangs on the door for the guard.

  Holliston’s still smiling as he leaves. “Go ahead,” he says over his shoulder. “Take the rest of the day off. Both of you.”

  Chapter 7

  Taking the rest of the day off isn’t an option for either of us. Harry went straight back to the office when we left the county complex, to spend the rest of the day—and probably most of the evening—preparing for trial. I took the Mid-Cape Highway in the opposite direction, destination Stamford. For reasons I can’t articulate—not even to myself—I want to meet the Forresters. Maybe I want to get some sense of Michelle through her family, to find out if she might have chosen to disappear for a while, to glean some idea of where she might have gone if the worst hasn’t happened. Whatever the reason, my gut tells me to do it now, not later.

  Michelle’s mother was hesitant when I called from the road. No doubt Geraldine Schilling advised the family to speak only with representatives of law enforcement, whether from the Commonwealth or the State of Connecticut. After a few minutes of conversation, though, Mrs. Forrester relented. She muffled her telephone’s mouthpiece, consulted with her husband in hushed tones, and then agreed they’d meet with me at their home this afternoon. I was pretty confident they would. Generally speaking, parents of missing people will talk with just about anyone.

  Traffic is light—no surprise in the middle of a snow-blown weekday—and I find myself pulling into the Forresters’ gravel driveway a little past three, less than four hours after leaving Barnstable. I park my tired Thunderbird next to a blue Jaguar, shiny beneath a thin coat of fresh snow, in front of a buttoned-up, two-car garage. I’m not the only visitor, it seems. I grab my briefcase and walk back toward the Forresters’ front entrance, wondering what in the world I’ll have to say when I get there.

  Their colonial is large, though not as imposing as other houses I passed on this block, with cream-colored clapboards and hunter green shutters. Dormant rosebushes ramble along the sides of the house and into the spacious backyard, tented with multiple layers of straw-colored burlap. A full-size, in-ground swimming pool is sealed for the season, dead leaves scattered across its blue vinyl surface. And a screened deck above the pool, off the back of the house, is elegantly furnished for al fresco dining.

  The front door is already open when I reach the short flight of wooden steps leading to the porch. “Attorney Nickerson?” A woman in jeans and a black turtleneck hurries outside, not stopping for a coat.

  “Marty,” I tell her, extending my hand. She’s about thirty, obviously not Michelle Forrester’s mother. The sister, I realize after a moment; she’s the older sister who spoke briefly with TV reporters last night. She’s not pretty, exactly, certainly not the way Michelle is. But she’s striking in a more subtle, maybe even more interesting way.

  “Meredith Forrester,” she says as she shakes my hand. “Michelle’s sister.”

  Her shoulder-length hair is jet black like mine, but thicker, more lustrous, like Michelle’s. He
r complexion is flawless and her pale blue eyes don’t quite match; one’s a little lighter than the other. “My mother called me at work after she spoke with you,” she says. “She asked me to leave a little early and come over; both my parents wanted me to be here for your visit. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not a bit,” I assure her.

  “I want to mention something to you,” she says, folding her arms at her waist, “before we go inside.”

  “Meredith, you’ll catch your death of pneumonia! Why in the world won’t you girls wear coats?” It’s Michelle—thirty-five years from now. She’s in the doorway, frantically waving at both of us, telling us to come in from the cold.

  “This is my mother,” Meredith says as we enter. “Catherine.”

  I shake Catherine’s hand, then look back at her elder daughter. I want her to hold on to that before we go inside thought she wanted to mention. She nods at me; she will. She takes my parka when we enter the foyer and motions for me to follow her mother, who’s already into the next room. “Warren,” Catherine says, “Mrs. Nickerson is here. The lawyer who called earlier.”

  Warren is on his feet when I enter the living room, in front of a brown leather recliner, his cardigan unbuttoned and his pipe unlit. He turns my way and I realize he’s the source of Meredith’s slightly mismatched eyes. He looks older than his sixty years; no doubt he’s aged a decade in the past few days. His handshake is firm, his lined face exhausted. I’ve seen this haunted look before—more than a few times—but I’ll never get used to it.

  “Call me Marty,” I tell him.

  “Marty it is,” he says. His words are flat, without inflection. He points the stem of his pipe at a small sofa. “Please,” he says, “have a seat.”

  “Can I get you anything?” Catherine asks. “A cup of tea, maybe?”

  I shake my head as I settle on one end of the sofa, next to the welcome warmth of a crackling fire. The last thing Catherine Forrester needs foisted on her now is hostess duty. “Thank you, but no,” I tell her. “I’ll only stay a few minutes; I won’t take too much of your time.”