Judge Gordon grants her the moment, and Massengale and her group huddle up and talk among themselves. After perhaps five minutes, she turns and addresses the judge.
“Your Honor, in the interests of justice, and with the promise of the court to keep the entire matter under seal, I am declaring to the court that the woman known in this trial as Stacy Harriman was never under the control of the U.S. Marshals Service, in the witness protection program. Therefore, the documents you are requesting do not exist. We will not be appealing your ruling.”
It’s not a bombshell, but close, and it certainly defines the term “hollow victory.” We’ve prevailed in our efforts to force them to reveal what they have on Stacy, only to find out that they have nothing.
“What are we going to do now?” Richard whispers.
“We’re going to find out who Stacy really was, and why she went to such lengths to hide it.”
* * * * *
KAREN EVANS AND Willie Miller are waiting for us in the hallway outside the courtroom.
Karen has been going crazy at not having been allowed inside during the hearing, and her first question is, “Did we win?”
I nod without enthusiasm. “We won…”
Before I can get the rest of the story out, Willie interrupts. “See? I told you,” he says to Karen. “My man don’t lose.”
“Unfortunately, there’s more to the story,” I say. I don’t want to talk about it in this public hallway, so I tell Karen she should come back to the office and I’ll fill her in. Willie will drive her because when he is protecting someone, he doesn’t leave them for a minute. And he certainly wouldn’t trust Kevin and me, since for some reason he doesn’t regard us as physically intimidating.
We all meet back at the office, and I take a few minutes to bring Karen up to date on what took place. When I tell her that the Marshals Service denied that Stacy was under their control, she says, “Maybe they’re lying.”
I shake my head. “No, lying to the court is a felony; there’s no way their lawyer would risk that. Besides, they had much more they could do legally to fight the judge’s order. There would have been no reason to lie now.”
“So Stacy was really Stacy?” she asks.
“No. That’s no longer possible.”
“So is this terrible news?”
I shake my head. “Disappointing but not terrible. We can still go to the jury with what we know about her faked background. It’s very obvious she was hiding from something, which certainly helps our case.”
What I’m saying is technically the truth, but the reality is that the ruling today is very disappointing. If Stacy had been in WITSEC, it would have meant that the U.S. government was essentially testifying for us, saying that dangerous killers were after Stacy Harriman and that she needed protection from them.
Willie says, “Can’t you dig up her body and get some of that DNA stuff?”
“It wouldn’t help,” I say. “We already have her DNA; it’s how her body was identified. But there aren’t national DNA registries; it’s not like she would have had her DNA on file before this.”
“So it’s not like fingerprints?” he asks.
Sometimes I’m so slow to see things right in front of my face that it frightens me. “Willie, you’re a genius.”
“You got that right,” Willie says, though he can’t have any idea what I’m talking about.
“Of course,” Kevin says, realizing where I’m going. “Fingerprints.”
I ask Karen, “Is there anything that Stacy touched, maybe that she handled a lot, that you’d still have?”
“You mean fingerprints can last that long?” she asks.
“Depending on the circumstances, absolutely.”
Karen starts thinking out loud. “The house was sold… maybe some things in the basement, but I don’t know what the new owners have done… the cabin! We were up there all the time!”
“Where is it?”
“Up near Monticello. I didn’t want to sell it; I always had this picture of Richard getting out and going up there, and I wanted to keep something that was his.”
“So it’s been empty all this time?”
She nods. “There’s a guy who maintains the outside, but he doesn’t have a key. And I haven’t been able to get myself to go there without Richard.”
She goes on to say that Stacy was at the cabin many times. It was her favorite place; she liked it even more than the boat. She particularly loved cooking there, so any prints on the pots and pans would be hers.
I call Laurie and ask her to recommend somebody around here who would be competent to retrieve the fingerprints. She suggests George Feder, a forensics specialist recently retired from his position with the New Jersey State Police. She had heard that he was doing private work to supplement his retirement income.
I call Feder, but he says that he would be too busy to go up to Monticello for at least a week. I offer to double his fee, and his schedule experiences such a sudden clearing that I can’t help but wonder if it would also work on Kevin’s sinuses. Kevin, Karen, Willie, and Feder will go up to the cabin tomorrow morning, while I’m in court.
I call Pete Stanton, figuring I might as well take the abuse in advance. He tells me that he had been in a panic; I hadn’t called him for a favor in almost twenty-four hours, and his fear was that he had offended me.
“Don’t worry,” I say, “I am a man who believes in forgiveness.”
“The bigger they are, the nicer they are,” he says.
“And to show there are no hard feelings, I’m going to let you do me another favor. I need a fingerprint run through the national database.”
“Where’s the print?” he asks.
“I don’t have it yet.”
“Oh. Well, what I’ll do is put a stop to all fingerprint work around the country, and then the system will be ready for you when you get your hands on the print.”
“Works for me,” I say.
He asks if I’m going to Charlie’s tonight, and I say that I’m busy with the trial but that I’m thinking of stopping by for an hour or so.
“Make sure it’s the hour that we ask for the check,” he says.
I agree to the request; I could use the relaxation that comes with beer drinking and sports watching, and it will give me a chance to ask Pete for an update on the investigations into Karen’s shooting and Franklin’s death.
I head home to walk and feed Tara, and then go over some files I need to be familiar with for court tomorrow. Once I feel fully prepared, I drive over to Charlie’s, getting there at about eight thirty.
Vince and Pete have not exactly been waiting for me to start; the table is filled with empty beer bottles and plates. Once he sees me, Pete calls out to the waitress the request that she change the beers to more expensive, imported ones.
“Well,” I say, “if it isn’t my two favorite intellectuals. What have you two been discussing? Literature? Fine art?”
“Shit, yeah,” says Vince.
It takes mere minutes for me to stoop to their level, which is not far from my natural state. Actually, because of the need to stay alert for tomorrow’s court session, I don’t fully match their behavior. So while I eat, drink, watch TV, and leer at women, I don’t drool or spit up my food when I talk.
I’m also ready to leave before they are, so I attempt to turn the conversation to the Franklin investigation. “How close are you to making an arrest?” I ask Pete.
“How close are you to being an Olympic shot put champion?”
“I came in third in the nationals.”
Pete goes on to tell me what he has told me before, that this appears to have been a professional job and that no leads of any consequence have come to light.
“What about Franklin’s job at customs? Have they opened up their records about his work? Because I would guess that’s where the answer is.”
