The Beach House

MONTROSE'S ANXIOUS EYES followed Jane Davis as she strode across the stone floor, her footsteps echoing in the room.

Jane wore black dress slacks and a black blouse, and she didn't appear nervous or afraid, as she had at the inquest. She stared at Montrose, then turned to look directly at Barry Neubauer.

To show his lack of concern, Neubauer flashed a smug smile. To show hers, Jane smiled back serenely.

'The People call Dr. Jane Davis,' I announced, and she walked to where Fenton was waiting with his family's Gideon Bible. Whereas at the inquest her hands had trembled, now she seemed perfectly calm. She placed a hand on the Bible's red leatherette cover and swore 'to tell the truth.'

'Dr. Davis,' I said as she was seated, 'we appreciate the potential consequences of your testifying today. We're grateful.'

'I want to be here,' she said. 'No one has to thank me.' Then Jane leaned back and took a deep, calming breath.

'Dr. Davis,' I began, 'could you please review your education for the court?'

'Certainly. I graduated first in my class from East Hampton High School in 1988, and was a National Merit Scholar. I believe I was the first person in over a decade to be admitted to Harvard from East Hampton High, but I couldn't afford the tuition, so I went to SUNY Binghamton.'

'Where did you receive your graduate education?'

'I attended Harvard Medical School, then did my residency at UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles.'

'How are you presently employed?'

'For the past two years, I have been chief pathologist at Long Island Hospital and also the chief medical examiner for Suffolk County.'

'Your Honor,' I said, looking up at Mack, 'the People offer Dr. Jane Davis as an expert witness in pathology and forensic medicine.'

Mack turned to Montrose, who was still in a state of agitation. 'I'm sure Mr. Montrose has no objection to Dr. Davis's testimony, as he called her as an expert witness before the inquest. Correct, Counselor?'

Montrose nodded distractedly and mumbled, 'No objection.'

'Dr. Davis,' I continued, 'you performed the autopsy on my brother?'

'Yes.'

'Dr. Davis, before you came into the courtroom, Ms. Powell described her abduction before the start of this trial. I was hoping you could share your own experience before the inquest?'

She nodded. 'The night before I was to testify,' she said, 'a man broke into my home. I was in bed, asleep. He woke me and put a gun between my legs. He said he was concerned about my testimony going well. He had been sent to 'coach' me. He said if I blew any lines at the inquest, he would come back and rape and murder me.'

For the first time since she'd entered the room, Jane lowered her head and stared at the floor.

'I'm sorry you had to go through that, Jane,' I said.

'I know.'

'What did you do in court the next day?' I asked. 'At the inquest.'

'I committed perjury,' said Jane Davis, loud and clear.

She continued, 'In the course of completing your brother's autopsy, I took twenty-six sets of X rays. I performed half a dozen biopsies and did extensive blood and lab work. Peter had nineteen broken bones, including both arms and both wrists, eight fingers, and six ribs. His skull was fractured in two places, and he had three cracked vertebrae. In several cases the welts of his body showed such perfect fistprints and footprints, they looked like they had been traced on.

'On top of that, Peter's lung tissue was not consistent with drowning. The level of saturation was in keeping with someone who was dumped into the water after he'd stopped breathing. The evidence that Peter had been kicked and beaten to death, then dragged into the water, was overwhelming. That Peter Mullen was murdered is as irrefutable as that I'm sitting here right now.'

Chapter 92

MONTROSE ROSE FROM HIS CHAIR. The enormous strain was evident by the set of his jaw. I could almost hear him reminding himself that he was the great Bill Montrose.

'Is there such a thing as a fair trial that isn't quite fair?' he asked. 'Of course not. But our abductors would have you believe otherwise. 'I know it's not exactly accepted legal procedure,' Mr. Mullen suggests with an apologetic shrug, 'for defendants to be dragged at gunpoint out of their cars in the middle of the night. But give us a chance, we're just ordinary people like you. We've been driven to this because the system is broken, the system is unfair.'

'But that's not how justice works. Certainly not how it's supposed to work according to the Constitution and the laws of our country.' Montrose flinched as if he felt a threat to the Constitution as keenly as a physical blow.

'Justice,' he continued, 'is not about being slightly fairer than your expectations. It's about being fair. Period. And how can there be a fair trial when the prosecution can ambush the defense with a surprise witness like Jane Davis?'

I. had heard more than enough of Montrose's rhetoric. If Macklin was going to allow speeches, I was going to give one of my own. 'Everyone in this room understands your frustration,' I said, rising from my chair. 'We were in the courtroom last summer when Dr. Davis, after being terrorized all night, said she believed my brother's death was accidental. Just like you, the young prosecutor, Nadia Alper, was so taken aback, she wasn't prepared to cross-examine.

'But although the tactics you're facing today are almost identical to the ones she faced, there's a fundamental difference,' I said, feeling my face redden. 'At the inquest, the prosecutor was ambushed by a lie. You've been ambushed by the truth, a truth you've probably known all along.

'You love to go on about what a mockery this trial is, Mr. Montrose. What really galls you is that it's almost fair. After tirelessly defending the rich and powerful for twenty-five years, you've become so warped that anything even resembling a level playing field is offensive. I suggest you get over it.'

'All right, that's enough,' Mack finally said from his chair. 'This court is adjourned for the evening.'

Chapter 93

THIS TIME WHEN The People v. Barry Neubauer adjourned, the newsmaking machinery was stoked and ready to crank. 'The Siege on Long Island ' was the most ratings-friendly story in years. And it was convenient. Half the reporters and producers who filed stories that evening were already in the Hamptons when the day began.

The instant Channel 70 went black, the dueling anchors began addressing the nation. They rolled out the profiles their networks had thrown together in the past two hours. The country learned how Barry Neubauer had married into one of the East Coast's most prominent publishing families and extended its reach into radio and cable, theme parks, and the Internet. They heard respectful assessments of his vision from rivals like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch.

They also learned that his Yale-educated lawyer, William Montrose, hadn't lost a case in seventeen years. Montrose had cemented his reputation in a Fort Worth courtroom nine years before with his defense of a wealthy rancher who'd killed a tennis pro he wrongly suspected of sleeping with his mistress. Colleagues said Montrose so outlawyered the prosecutor that the state, which had pushed hard for second-degree murder, was grateful to get a thousand-dollar fine for possession of an unregistered firearm.

Then came the deluge about the Mullens. Interviews with prominent townspeople touched on the death of Jack's mother and father and revealed how little the pair conformed to a terrorist profile. 'The only reason I'm the mayor of Montauk,' said Peter Siegel, 'is that Macklin didn't run. And Jack is our homegrown golden boy.'