Random flashes of lightning still illuminated the night beyond the high basement windows, but he couldn’t hear the thunder.
Slowly he rose from the cold, wet floor. Something like a hand touched the back of his neck, and the sweat coating his skin turned to ice. Something nudged him in the back as if to make him turn around to see a surprise.
Lightning burst outside the windows like the flash of a camera, and the image was forever imprinted on his brain. A memory that would never fade, never lessen in its impact or in its horror: the bodies of two children hanging from the ceiling beams, their lifeless eyes staring sightless into his.
1
“HE SLAUGHTERED a mother and two children.”
Hennepin County prosecutor Chris Logan was a man of strong opinions and stronger emotions. Both traits had served him well in the courtroom with juries, not always so well in judges’ chambers. He was tall, broad shouldered, athletic, with a thick shock of black-Irish hair now threaded with silver. Forty-five years old, Logan had spent twenty of those years in the criminal court system. It was a wonder he hadn’t gone entirely white.
“I’m sorry,” said the defense attorney, his sarcasm belying the expression of shock. “Did I miss something? When were we suddenly transported to the Dark Ages? Aren’t the accused in this country still innocent until proven guilty?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Scott, could you spare us the act? We’re all adults. We all know each other. We all know you’re full of shit. Could you spare us the demonstration?”
“Mr. Logan…”
Judge Carey Moore gave him a level look. She had known Chris Logan since they had both cut their teeth toiling as public defenders-a job neither of them had the temperament for. They had moved on to the county attorney’s office as quickly as they could, and both had made their names in the courtroom, prosecuting everything from petty theft to rape to murder.
Sitting in the other chair across from her desk was another cog in the public defender’s machine. Kenny Scott had gone in that door and had never come out, which made him either a saint battling for justice for the socially disadvantaged or a pathetic excuse for an attorney, unable to rise out of anonymity and go on to private practice. Having had him in her courtroom numerous times, Carey suspected the latter.
He looked at Carey now with the eyes of a mouse in a room full of cats. Perspiring, nervous, ready to run, scrambling mentally. He was a small man whose suits never fit-too big in the shoulders, too long in the sleeves- which somehow emphasized the impression that he was overwhelmed by his job or by life in general.
By the luck of the draw, he had gotten stuck with the job of defending the most hated man in Minneapolis, if not the entire state: a drifter named Karl Dahl, accused of the most heinous murders Carey had encountered in her career.
The scene had been so gruesome, one of the uniformed officers who had responded to the original call had suffered a heart attack and had subsequently retired from the force. The lead homicide detective had been so affected by the case, he had eventually been removed from the rotation and put on a desk job, pending the completion of psychiatric counseling.
“Your Honor, you can’t allow Mr. Logan to circumvent the rules of law,” Scott said. “Prior bad acts are inadmissible-”
“Unless they establish a pattern of behavior,” Logan argued loudly. He had the fierce expression of an eagle.
Kenny Scott looked like he wanted nothing more than to bolt from the office and run for his life, but to his credit, he stayed in his seat.
“Mr. Dahl’s previous offenses have nothing to do with this case,” he said. “Criminal trespass? That hardly establishes him as a violent offender.”
Logan glared at him. “What about possession of child pornography? What about breaking and entering? Window peeping? Indecent exposure?”
“He never killed anyone with his penis,” Scott said.
“It’s an escalating pattern of behavior,” Logan argued. “That’s what these pervs do. They start small and work their way up. First they get their jollies whacking off while they look at little kids in their underwear in the JCPenney catalog. When that doesn’t do it for them anymore, they move on to window peeping, then to exposing themselves. Next they need to have physical contact-”
“And they jump from weenie wagging to evisceration?” Scott said. “That’s absurd.”
He turned back toward Carey. “Your Honor, there is nothing violent in Karl Dahl’s record. The information regarding his prior convictions would be prejudicial and inflammatory. The jury would be ready to convict him based on Mr. Logan’s theory, not fact, not evidence.”
Logan ticked his facts off on his fingers. “We have his fingerprints at the scene. We have a complaint filed by one of the neighbors, reporting him for looking in her windows. We know he knew the victims, that he’d been hanging around the neighborhood. He had the victim’s necklace in his possession at the time of his arrest-”
“He was doing odd jobs,” Scott said. “He admits to having been in the Haas home the day of the murders. Mrs. Haas paid him thirty-five dollars to install some curtain rods. He stole a cheap necklace. Big deal. Other than the one neighbor, no one in the neighborhood had any complaint against him.”
Logan rolled his eyes dramatically. “Every one of them said the guy was strange, that he gave them the creeps-”
“That’s not against the law-”
“Good thing for you,” Logan muttered.
Carey warned him again. “Mr. Logan…”
He gave her a familiar look from under the heavy dark eyebrows. “An eyewitness puts him at the scene-”
“At least five hours after the murders had been committed,” Scott pointed out.
“Coming back to review his work,” Logan said.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Coming back that late in the day, when people would be arriving home from work-”
“So he was back to kill the father and the oldest kid-”
“Just where did you get your crystal ball, Logan?” Scott asked. “Maybe we can all run out and get one. Maybe the state can buy them in bulk and distribute them to every law enforcement agency-”
Carey arched a brow in disapproval. “Put the sarcasm away, Mr. Scott.”
Logan jumped in again. “This is a clear exception to the rule, Your Honor. The man is a serial killer at the front end of his career. If we don’t stop him now-”
Carey held up a hand to stave off any more arguments. Her head ached as if it had been crushed by a millstone. Through law school and the years working her way up the ranks, her goal had been to sit in these chambers, to wear the robes, to be a judge.
At that moment, she wished she had listened to her grandmother and honed her secretarial skills as a fallback should she not land a suitable husband.
Presiding over felony proceedings was a responsibility she had never taken lightly. Because she’d come from a successful career as a prosecuting attorney, people expected her to be biased toward the prosecution-an expectation she had worked hard to dispel.
As a prosecutor it had been her job to vigorously pursue the conviction of defendants. As a judge, her job was to preside fairly, to take no sides, to keep the scales of justice in balance so that every verdict was reached based solely on the relevant facts and evidence presented.
Carey couldn’t take sides, no matter what her personal feelings might be. In this case she had her work cut out. Two children had been brutalized, tortured, murdered, left hanging by their necks from the ceiling of a dank basement.
She was a mother herself. The idea of someone harming her daughter evoked an emotion so strong there
