“Okay,” Hellman said. “Denton should accept that.”
Their attention was suddenly diverted as Elliott and Jonah came downstairs wearing their Masters of the Galaxy costumes.
“C’mon, Dad. Let’s play!”
Madison looked over at Leeza.
“Oh, go ahead. I’ll keep your dinner warm.”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and then took off after the boys, chasing them through the living room and dining room, around chairs and underneath the table before finally catching them.
Leeza turned to Hellman. “It’s time to put this matter to rest, Jeffrey.”
Hellman looked at Madison wrestling with the boys on the floor, and then nodded.
CHAPTER 52
IT WAS A MONDAY morning, two weeks and five days since Kurt Gray had begun testing the samples. Trying to keep focused, Chandler went to the lab and pretended to work; Nick sensed what was bothering him — Chandler had told him all about the case when he first returned to New York — and he tried to take his partner’s mind off it.
A couple days shy of three weeks, Chandler couldn’t wait any longer. He glanced at his watch. Given the time difference, it would be a few hours before the Sacramento lab would be open.
At eleven o’clock, Chandler walked over to his desk and dialed Palucci.
“Lake Tahoe cabin, huh?”
“I needed him to run the test, Lou, and Gray was being a total asshole.”
“Why, because he wanted to go by the book? Things are different out here, remember? You used to work here. All that New York smog has clouded your judgment or something. This could really get me in deep shit if it ever got out — ”
“Lou, I’d love to shoot the breeze with you, but the wait is killing me. I haven’t slept in three nights.”
“Your guy is clean. No match on the DNA. But that other sample is another story. Whoever’s DNA that was is a dead ringer. Good match with the saliva on the beer cans.”
Chandler sighed relief. “Lou, you’ve just helped bring the wheels of injustice to a grinding halt.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not for publication. Just keep it between you, me, and the bedpost, will you?”
“Of course,” Chandler said. “Take care of yourself, man.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“And tell Gray I said thank you.”
“Be best to leave him out of this.”
Chandler hung up and immediately dialed Hellman. In a deposition.
Interrupt him.
Can’t do that.
Interrupt him. He’ll thank you later.
Hellman came to the phone. “You got it?”
“No match on Phil. Dead ringer on Harding.”
Hellman let out a shrill yell that probably caused his entire staff and the visiting attorneys to turn their heads toward his office.
“You okay?” Chandler asked.
“I’m on cloud nine.”
“Go back to your deposition.”
“Deposition? It’ll wait. I have to call Phil.”
They agreed to talk in a few days.
“Oh,” Hellman said, “when is the lab report going to be ready on the DNA? I’ll need to turn it over to Denton.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. It’s an issue of discovery, you know that.”
“Jeffrey, there’s not going to be any report. If they produced a report, all hell would break loose.”
“What are you talking about? Chandler, where did you have these tests run?”
“At the lab.”
“What lab?”
“You know,” Chandler said, “the lab.”
Hellman was silent a moment, then said, “The state lab? Chandler, you know they’re not supposed to run tests for us. We need to go through a private lab — ”
“Jeffrey, we needed the results and we needed to have it done by a lab where the methods and techniques were the same. We had to be sure before we went public with your accusations. I had the connections. Bottom line, I got it done.”
“But now I don’t have a report to take to Denton.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’ve got enough. He’ll buy the case motive alone. Tell him to do a DNA test on her and that he won’t be disappointed.”
“Chandler — ”
“We hold all the cards. We know the results of a test that officially hasn’t been run yet. I told you I’d get the job done, and I came through. Now the case rests in your hands. Do your thing. Get the charges dropped.”
Hellman told Chandler it wasn’t that simple — and that a lot of things had to happen in order for Madison to walk away from this a free man. “I think you fucked up on this one, Chandler.”
“Regardless of what I should have or shouldn’t have done, bottom line is you’ve got what you need to get Phil off.”
UPON HANGING UP AND clearing his mind, Hellman realized that Chandler was right — he had to focus on the task at hand. He had all the tools and evidence he needed: all he had to do was convince Denton to look at Harding as the prime suspect. Considering Denton’s ego and political aspirations, he would need to make a compelling argument in order to convince him to abandon his high-profile suspect. But if he approached Denton properly, subtly giving him a choice between losing his high-profile case and prosecuting the wrong man, a prominent surgeon, Denton would opt to make the right call.
He dialed Madison and told him he had the results. He started to tell him a story about a case he once had handled in order to give the test results some perspective, but Madison would have nothing of it.
“Just tell me.”
After Hellman relayed the good news, he heard Leeza crying in the background.
Hellman reminded them that they still had hurdles to overcome, a speech that really would have been better expressed by the brief anecdote he had tried to relate a minute ago. But Madison said they couldn’t think about that now. They just wanted to enjoy the moment.
Hellman couldn’t blame them. “I’ll call you later when I’m done with my deposition.”
MADISON AND LEEZA MADE immediate plans for a baby-sitter — and went to Mikuni, a well-known Sacramento sushi restaurant that never disappointed.
Madison was uncomfortable calling this a celebration. He felt he should try to temper his emotions until the charges were formally dropped. For now, they would relish the good news and try
