picture in it, was on his night table.
“Ma’am, we know that he will be here soon. I must ask you to come with us. I’m sure you didn’t know what was happening, and you’re not in any trouble. But we are going to make a telephone application for a search warrant so that we can search Mr. Arnott’s home and arrest him.”
Gently, Agent Rose led the bewildered Maddie to the waiting car.
“I can’t believe this,” she cried. “I just didn’t know.”
89
At twelve-thirty, a frightened Martha Luce, who for twenty years had been bookkeeper to James Forrest Weeks, sat twisting a damp handkerchief as she cowered in the office of U.S. Attorney Brandon Royce.
The sworn statement she had given to Royce months ago had just been read back to her.
“Do you stand by what you told us that day?” Royce asked as he tapped the papers in his hand.
“I told the truth as far as I knew it to be the truth,” Martha told him, her voice barely above a whisper. She cast a nervous sidelong glance at the stenotypist and then at her nephew, a young attorney, whom she had called in a panic when she learned of the successful search of Barney Haskell’s home.
Royce leaned forward. “Miss Luce, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how very serious your position is. If you continue to lie under oath, you do so at your own peril. We have enough to bury Jimmy Weeks. I’ll lay out my cards. Since Barney Haskell has unfortunately been so abruptly taken from us, it will be helpful to have you as a living witness”-he emphasized the word “living”-“to corroborate the accuracy of his records. If you do not, we will still convict Jimmy Weeks, but then, Miss Luce, we will turn our full attention to you. Perjury is a very serious offense. Obstructing justice is a very serious offense. Aiding and abetting income tax evasion is a very serious offense.”
Martha Luce’s always timid face crumbled. She began to sob. Tears that immediately reddened her pale blue eyes welled and flowed. “Mr. Weeks paid every single bill when Mama was sick for such a long time.”
“That’s nice,” Royce said. “But he did it with taxpayers’ money.”
“My client has a right to remain silent,” the nephew/attorney piped up.
Royce gave him a withering glance. “We’ve already established that, counselor. You might also advise your client that we’re not crazy about putting middle-aged women with misguided loyalties in prison. We’re prepared, this one-and only this one-time, to offer total immunity to your client in exchange for full cooperation. After that, she’s on her own. But you remind your client”-here Royce’s voice was heavy with sarcasm-“that Barney Haskell waited so long to accept a plea bargain offer that he never got to take it.”
“Total immunity?” the nephew/lawyer asked.
“Total, and we’ll immediately put Ms. Luce in protective custody.
We don’t want anything to happen to her.”
“Aunt Martha… “the young man began, his voice cracking.
She stopped sniffling. “I know, dear. Mr. Royce, perhaps I always suspected that Mr. Weeks…”
90
The news that a cache had been found in a hidden safe in Barney Haskell’s summer home was, to Bob Kinellen, the death knell of any hope of getting Jimmy Weeks an acquittal. Even Kinellen’s father-in-law, the usually unruffleable Anthony Bartlett, was clearly beginning to concede the inevitable.
On this Tuesday morning, U.S. Attorney Royce had requested and been granted that the lunch recess be extended an hour. Bob suspected what that maneuver meant. Martha Luce, a defense witness, and one of their most believable because of her timid, earnest demeanor, was being leaned on.
If Haskell had made a copy of the books he had kept, Luce’s testimony swearing to the accuracy of Jimmy’s records was probably being held as a weapon over her head.
If Martha Luce turned prosecution witness in exchange for immunity, it was all over.
Bob Kinellen sat silently looking at every possible thing in the room other than his client. He felt a terrible weariness, like a weight crushing him, and he wondered at what moment it had invaded him. Thinking back over the recent days, he suddenly knew. It was when I delivered a threat concerning my own child, he said to himself. For eleven years he had been able to keep to the letter of the law. Jimmy Weeks had the right to a defense, and his job was to keep Jimmy from getting indicted. He did it by legal means. If other means were also being used, he did not know nor did he want to know about them.
But in this trial he had become part of the process of circumventing the law. Weeks had just told him the reason he’d insisted on having Mrs. Wagner on the jury: She had a father in prison in California. Thirty years ago he had murdered an entire family of campers in Yosemite National Park. He knew he intended to hold back the information that juror Wagner had a father in prison and make that part of Weeks’ appeal. He knew, too, that was unethical. Skating on thin ice was over. He had gone beyond that. The burning shame he had felt when he heard Robin’s stricken cry as he struggled with Kerry still seared him. How Kerry explained that to Robin? Your father was passing along a threat his client made about you? Your father’s client was the man who ordered some bum to terrify you last week?
Jimmy Weeks was terrified of prison. The prospect of being locked up was unbearable to him. He would do anything to avoid it.
It was obvious that Jimmy was wildly upset. They had lunch in a private room of a restaurant a few miles from the courtroom. After the orders were taken, Jimmy said abruptly, “I don’t want any talk about plea bargaining from you two. Understand?”
Bartlett and Kinellen waited without responding.
“In the jury room, I don’t think we can count on the wimp with the sick wife not to buckle.”
I could have told you that, Bob thought. He didn’t want to discuss any of this. If his client had tampered with that juror, it was without his knowledge, he reassured himself. And Haskell was the victim of a mugging, an interior voice mocked.
“Bobby, my sources tell me the sheriff’s officer in charge of the jury owes you a favor,” Weeks said.
“What are you talking about, Jimmy?” Bob Kinellen toyed with his salad fork.
“You know what I’m talking about. You got his kid out of trouble, big trouble. He’s grateful.”
“And?”
“Bobby, I think the sheriff’s officer has to let that prune-face, uptight Wagner dame know that her daddy, the murderer, is going to make big headlines unless she comes up with some reasonable doubt when this case goes to the jury.”
Lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas. Kerry had told him that before Robin was born.
“Jimmy, we already have grounds for a new trial because she didn’t reveal that fact. That’s our ace in the hole. We don’t need to take it any further.” Bob shot a glance at his father-in-law. “Anthony and I are sticking our necks out by not reporting that to the court as it is. We can get away with claiming that it only came to our attention after the trial was over. Even if you’re convicted you’ll be out on bail, and then we delay and delay and delay.”
“Not good enough, Bobby. This time you’ve got to put yourself on the line. Have a friendly chat with the sheriff’s officer. He’ll listen. He’ll talk to the lady who already is in trouble for lying on her questionnaire. Then we have a hung jury, if not an acquittal. And then we delay and delay and delay while you two figure out a way to make sure we get an acquittal next time.”
The waiter returned with their appetizers. Bob Kinellen had ordered the escargots, a specialty here that he thoroughly enjoyed. It was only when he finished and the waiter was removing the plate that he realized he hadn’t tasted a thing. Jimmy isn’t the only one who’s being backed into a corner, he thought.
I’m right there with him.
