I call it cold-blooded murder, Scofield responded. We have the rule of law here, Bobby. Guilt is decided at a trial. You remember, a jury of your peers and all that shit?
You think I did this? Vasquez asked, pointing at the jar and its ghoulish resident.
You're a suspect, McCarthy answered.
Mind telling me why? Vasquez asked. He leaned back in his chair, trying to look cool, but McCarthy could read the tension in his neck and shoulders.
You had a real hard-on for Cardoni. You screwed up your career to get him. Then Prochaska shot you down and Cardoni walked.
What? I' m gonna kill everyone who beats one of my cases?
You wanted this guy bad enough to burglarize his house and lie under oath.
Vasquez looked down. I' m not sorry Cardoni is dead, and I' m not sorry he was chopped up. I hope the sick son-of-a-bitch suffered. But I wouldn't do it that way, Sean. Not torture.
Where were you on Thursday night and Friday morning? Scofield asked.
Home, by myself. And no, I don't have anyone who can vouch for me. And yes, I could have driven to the cabin, killed Cardoni and returned unnoticed.
McCarthy studied Vasquez closely. He had means, motive and opportunity, just like they say in the detective movies, but would Vasquez saw off a man's hand for revenge? There McCarthy was undecided. And if they could not decide, they were left where they started, with suspects but no grounds for an arrest. Art Prochaska denied murdering the physician and even had an alibi. Prochaska's lawyer had faxed over a list of five witnesses who would swear that they were playing poker with Prochaska from six P.M. on Thursday night until four A.M. Friday morning. The problem with the alibi was that all five witnesses worked for Martin Breach.
What's your next question? Vasquez asked.
We don't have any for now, Scofield answered.
Then let me ask you one. Why are you so certain that Cardoni is dead?
McCarthy cocked his head to one side, and Scofield and Mills exchanged glances.
Vasquez studied the hand. You've moved to reopen the motion to suppress, right, Fred?
Scofield nodded.
What's the chance that Judge Brody will grant the motion and reverse the decision to suppress?
Fifty-fifty.
If you win, Cardoni goes back to jail. What are your chances at trial?
If I get to trial with what we found in the cabin and his house in Portland, I'll send him to death row.
Vasquez nodded. There's a rumor that Martin Breach has a contract out on Cardoni because he thinks Cardoni was Clifford Grant's partner and stiffed him on the deal at the airport.
We've heard the rumor. Where is this going?
Can a doctor amputate his own hand? Vasquez asked.
What? Sheriff Mills exclaimed.
You think Cardoni chopped off his own hand? McCarthy asked simultaneously.
He's got a contract out on him placed by the most relentless son of a bitch I've ever dealt with. If he escapes Breach's hit men, he's looking at a stay on death row. The only way the law and Martin Breach will stop looking for Cardoni is if they believe that he's dead.
That's ridiculous, Mills said.
Is it, Sheriff? Vasquez paused and looked at the hand again. There are animals that will gnaw off their own limb to get out of a trap. Think about that.
Chapter 32
At eight o' clock on a blustery Friday evening, Amanda Jaffe parked on the deserted street in front of the Multnomah County courthouse, showed her bar card to the guard and took the elevator to the third floor. Two weeks ago it had taken only one hour for the jury to find Timothy Dooling guilty of a horrible crime. The same jury had been out two and a half days deciding whether Dooling would live or die. What did that mean? She would soon find out.
In the five years she had been working in her father's firm, the county courthouse had become Amanda's second home. During the day its corridors and courtrooms hummed with drama, high and low. Every so often there was even a little comedy. At night, absent the hustle and bustle, Amanda could hear the tap of her heels on the marble floor.
As Amanda approached Judge Campbell's courtroom, she remembered the mob of reporters that had filled the Milton County courthouse during State v. Cardoni, her first death penalty case. The sad truth was that death penalty cases had become so common that Dooling's case merited the attention of only the Oregonian reporter with the courthouse beat.
This was not the first time that Amanda had thought about Vincent Cardoni during the four years that had passed since his mysterious disappearance. The case had made her wonder whether she really wanted to practice criminal law. She stayed on the fence for two months. Then her legal arguments helped win the dismissal of unwarranted rape charges against a dirt-poor honor student who now attended an excellent college on scholarship instead of rotting in a cell for a crime he did not commit. The student's case convinced Amanda that she could do a lot of good as a defense attorney. It also helped her understand that every defendant was not like the deranged surgeon, although her present client came pretty close.
Amanda paused at the courtroom door and watched Timothy Dooling through the glass. He was sitting in his chair at the counsel table, shackled and watched by two armed guards. It seemed absurd that anyone would be wary of a slip of a man barely out of his teens who tipped the scale at 140 pounds, but Amanda knew the guards had good reason to keep a careful watch on her client. The slight build, the wavy blond hair and the engaging smile did not fool her, as it had the young girl he had murdered. Even during those times when she felt relaxed in his company, the presence of the jail guards made her feel a lot more comfortable. She liked to think that Tim would never hurt her even if he had the chance, but she knew that was probably wishful thinking. The psychiatric reports and the biography Herb Cross had compiled made it very clear that Dooling was so badly broken that he could never be put together again. From the earliest age, his alcoholic mother had abused him physically. When he was barely out of diapers, one of her boyfriends had sexually assaulted him. Then he' d been abandoned and placed in one foster home after another, where he had been the victim of more sexual and physical abuse. It was not an excuse for the rape and the murder, but it explained why Tim had become a monster. No one in her right mind would argue that Dooling should ever be let out of maximum security, but Amanda had argued that he should be allowed to live. There were good arguments against her position. Mike Greene, the prosecutor, had made all of them.
Dooling turned when Amanda walked in and looked at her expectantly with big blue eyes that begged to be trusted.
How are you feeling? Amanda asked as she set down her attachT case and took her seat.
I don't know. Scared, I guess.
There were times, like now, when Amanda actually felt sorry for Dooling, and other times when she actually liked him. It was the craziest thing, something only another criminal attorney would understand. He was so dependent on her; in all likelihood she was Tim's only friend. How pathetically sad must a man's life be, Amanda thought, when his attorney was the only person in the world who cared about him?
The bailiff rapped his gavel, and the Honorable Mary Campbell entered the courtroom through a door behind her bench. She was a bright, no-nonsense brunette in her early forties with short hair and a shorter temper who ran a tight ship. With Campbell running the show, her client had received a fair trial. That was bad news if the verdict was death.
Bring in the jury, the judge told the bailiff.
Across the way, Mike Greene looked grim. Amanda knew that he was feeling the tension as much as she was. She found this comforting, because Greene was a seasoned prosecutor. Amanda liked Greene, who had barely heard of her father when he moved to Portland from LA two years ago. It had been hard for Frank Jaffe's daughter to establish her own identity and reputation. Mike was one of the few DAs, lawyers and judges who did not think of her initially as Frank Jaffe's little girl.
When the jurors filed in, Amanda kept her eyes forward. She had long ago quit trying to guess verdicts by studying the expressions on the faces of the jurors.
What happens now? Dooling asked nervously, even though Amanda had explained the process to him several
