Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

Lesser-Included Offense

"You're gonna lose this one."

"Am I, now?" asked Prosecutor Danny Tribow, rocking back in his desk chair and studying the man who'd just spoken.

Fifteen years older and forty pounds heavier than Tribow, the defendant Raymond Hartman nodded slowly and added, "On all counts. Simple as that."

The man next to Hartman touched his client's arm to restrain him.

"Ah, he doesn't mind a little sparring," Hartman said to his lawyer. "He can take it. Anyway, I'm just telling it like it is." The defendant unbuttoned his navy suit jacket, blue and rich as an ocean at night.

The truth was that Tribow didn't mind sparring. Not one bit. The man could say whatever he wanted. Tribow wasn't going to prosecute the case against Hartman any more vigorously because of the man's arrogance than he would've held back if the man had been tearful and contrite.

On the other hand, the thirty-five-year-old career prosecutor wasn't going to get walked on either. He fixed his eye on Hartman's and said in a soft voice, "It's been my experience that what looks pretty clear to one person may turn out to be the opposite. I'm convinced the jury's going to see the facts my way. Which means you're going to lose."

Hartman shrugged and looked at his gold Rolex watch. He couldn't've cared less about the time, Tribow suspected. He was simply delivering an aside: that this one piece of jewelry of mine equals your annual salary.

Danny Tribow wore a Casio and the only message a glance at that timepiece would deliver was that this meeting had been a waste of a good half hour.

In addition to the defendant, his lawyer and Tribow, two other people sat in the office, which was as small and shabby as one would expect for a district attorney's. On Tribow's left was his law clerk, a handsome man in his twenties, Chuck Wu, who was a brilliant, meticulous — some said compulsive — worker. He now leaned forward, typing notes and observations about this meeting into the battered laptop computer he was inseparable from. The keyboarding was a habit that drove most defendants nuts but it had no apparent effect on Ray Hartman.

The other one of the fivesome was Adele Viamonte, the assistant DA who'd been assigned to Tribow in the violent felonies division for the past year. She was almost ten years older than Tribow; she'd picked up her interest in law later in life after a successful first career: raising twin boys, now teenagers. Viamonte's mind and tongue were as sharp as her confidence was solid. She now looked over Hartman's tanned skin, taut belly, silvery hair, broad shoulders and thick neck. She then turned to his lawyer and asked, "So can we assume that this meeting with Mr. Hartman and his ego is over with?"

Hartman gave a faint, embarrassed laugh, as if a student had said something awkward in class, the put-down motivated solely because, the prosecutor guessed, Viamonte was a woman.

The defense lawyer repeated what he'd been saying all along. "My client isn't interested in a plea bargain that involves jail time."

Tribow echoed his own litany. "But that's all we're offering."

"Then he wants to go to trial. He's confident he'll be found innocent."

Tribow didn't know how that was going to happen. Ray Hartman had shot a man in the head one Sunday afternoon last March. There was physical evidence — ballistics, gunpowder residue on his hand. There were witnesses who placed him at the scene, searching for the victim just before the death. There were reports of earlier threats by Hartman and statements of intent to cause the victim harm. There was a motive. While Danny Tribow was always guarded about the outcomes of the cases he prosecuted, this was as solid as any he'd ever had.

And so he tried one last time. "If you accept murder two I'll recommend fifteen years."

"No way," Hartman responded, laughing at the absurdity of the suggestion. "You didn't hear my shyster here. No jail time. I'll pay a fine. I'll pay a big goddamn fine. I'll do community service. But no jail time."

Daniel Tribow was a slight man, unflappable and soft-spoken. He would have looked right at home in a bow tie and suspenders. "Sir," he said now, speaking directly to Hartman, "you understand I'm going to prosecute you for premeditated murder. In this state that's a special circumstances crime — meaning I can seek the death penalty."

"What I understand is that I don't see much point in continuing this little get-together. I've got a lunch date waiting and, if you ask me, you boys and girls better bone up on your law — you sure as hell need to if you think you're getting me convicted."

"If that's what you want, sir." Tribow stood. He shook the lawyer's hand though not the suspect's. Adele Viamonte glanced at both lawyer and client as if they were clerks who'd shortchanged her and remained seated, apparently struggling to keep from saying what she really felt.

When they were gone Tribow sat back in his chair. He spun to look out the window at the rolling countryside of suburbia, bright green with early summer colors. Tribow played absently with the only artwork in his office: a baby's mobile of Winnie-the-Pooh characters, stuck to his chipped credenza top with a suction cup. It was his son's — well, had been, when the boy, now ten, was an infant. When Danny Junior had lost interest in the mobile, his father didn't have the heart to throw it away and brought it here to the office. His wife thought this was one of those silly things he did sometimes, like his infamous practical jokes or dressing up in costumes for his son's parties. Tribow didn't tell her that he wanted the toy here for one reason only: to remind him of his family during those long weeks preparing for and prosecuting cases, when it seemed that the only family he had were judges, jurors, detectives and colleagues.

He now mused, "I offer him ten years against a possible special-circumstances murder and he says he'll take his chances? I don't get it."

Viamonte shook her head. "Nope. Doesn't add up. He'd be out in seven. If he loses on special circumstances — and that's likely — he could get the needle."

"How 'bout the answer?" a man's voice asked from the doorway.

"Sure." Tribow spun around in the chair and nodded Richard Moyer, a senior county detective, into the room. "Only what's the question?"

Moyer waved greetings to Viamonte and Wu and sat down in a chair, yawning excessively.

"So, Dick, bored with us already?" Wu asked wryly.

"Tired. Too many bad guys out there. Anyway, I overheard what you were saying — about Hartman. I know why he won't take the plea."

"Why's that?"

"He can't go into Stafford." The main state prison, through which had passed a number of graduates of the Daniel Tribow School of Criminal Prosecution.

"Who wants to go to prison?" Viamonte asked.

"No, no, I mean he can't. They're already sharpening spoon handles and grinding down glass shivs, waiting for him."

Moyer continued, explaining that two of the OC — organized crime — bosses that Hartman had snitched on were in Stafford now. "Word's out that Hartman wouldn't last a week inside."

So that was why he'd killed the victim in this case, Jose Valdez. The poor man had been the sole witness against Hartman in an extortion case. If Hartman had been convicted of that he'd have gone to Stafford for at least six months — or, apparently, until he was murdered by fellow prisoners. That explained Valdez's cold-blooded killing.

But Hartman's reception in prison wasn't Tribow's problem. The prosecutor believed he had a simple task in life: to keep his county safe. This attitude was considerably different from many other prosecutors.' They took it personally that criminals committed offenses, and went after them vindictively, full of rage. But to Danny Tribow, prosecuting wasn't about being a gunslinger; it was simply making sure his county was safe and secure. He was far more involved in the community than a typical DA. He'd worked with congressmen and the courts, for instance, to support laws that made it easier to get restraining orders against abusive spouses and that established mandatory felony sentences for three-strikes offenders, anyone carrying a gun near a school or church, and drivers whose drinking resulted in someone's death.

Getting Ray Hartman off the streets was nothing more than yet another brick in the wall of law and order, to which Tribow was so devoted.

This particular man's conviction, however, was a very important brick. At various stages in his life Hartman had been through court-ordered therapy and though he'd always escaped with a diagnosis of sanity, the doctors had observed that he was close to being a sociopath, someone for whom human life meant little.

This was certainly reflected in his MO. He was a bully and petty thug who sold protection to and extorted recent immigrants like Jose Valdez. And Hartman would intimidate or murder anyone who threatened to testify against him. No one was safe.

"Hartman's got money in Europe," Tribow said to the cop. "Who's watching him — to make sure he doesn't head for the beach?" The suspect had been released on a $2 million bond, which he'd easily posted, and he'd had his passport lifted. But Tribow remembered the killer's assured look not long before as he'd said, "You're going to lose," and wondered if Hartman conveyed a subconscious message that he was planning to jump bond.

But Detective Moyer — helping himself to the cookies that Tribow's wife had once again sent her husband to work with — said, "We don't have to worry. He's got baby-sitters like you wouldn't believe. Two, full-time. He steps over the county line or into an airport and, bang, he's wearing bracelets. These oatmeal ones're my favorite. Can I get the recipe?" He yawned again.

"You don't cook," Tribow told him. "How 'bout if Connie just makes you a box?"

"That'd work too." The cop wandered back out of the office to find some criminals to arrest — or to get some sleep — and Chuck Wu accompanied Viamonte to her office, where they'd spend the evening preparing questions for voir dire — jury selection.

Tribow himself turned to the indictment and continued to plan out the trial.

He'd carefully studied the facts of the Valdez killing and decided to bring Hartman up on three charges. The backbone of the case — the conviction that Tribow wanted most badly — was first-degree murder. This was premeditated homicide, and if convicted of it Hartman could be sentenced to death, a punishment that Tribow intended to recommend to the court. But this was a difficult case to prove. The state had to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Hartman had planned out Valdez's murder ahead of time, went looking for him, and killed him under circumstances that showed no heat of passion or emotional turmoil.

But there were several other charges included in the indictment too: murder two and manslaughter. These were backups — what were called "lesser-included offenses." They were easier to prove than murder one. If the jury decided, for instance, that Hartman hadn't planned the murder ahead of time but decided impulsively to kill Valdez, they could still convict for second-degree murder. He could go to prison for life for this type of murder but he couldn't be sentenced to death.

Finally Tribow included the manslaughter charge as a last-ditch backup. He'd have to prove only that Hartman had killed Valdez either under conditions of extreme recklessness or in the heat of passion. This would be the easiest of the crimes to prove and on these facts the jury would undoubtedly convict.

That weekend the three prosecutors prepared questions to ask the jury, and over the course of the next week they battled Hartman's impressive legal team during the voir dire process. Finally, on Friday, the jury was empaneled and Tribow, Wu and Viamonte returned to the office to spend the weekend coaching witnesses and preparing evidence and exhibits.

Every time he got tired, every time he wanted to stop and return home to play with Danny Junior or just sit and have a cup of coffee with his wife, he pictured Jose Valdez's wife and thought that she'd never spend any time with her husband again.

And when he thought that, he pictured Ray Hartman's arrogant eyes.

You're going to lose this one…

Danny Tribow would then stop daydreaming and return to the case.

When he'd been in law school Tribow had hoped for the chance to practice law in a Gothic courthouse filled with portraits of stern old judges and dark-wood paneling and the scent of somber justice.

Where he plied his trade, however, was a brightly lit, low-ceilinged county courtroom filled with blond wood and beige drapes and ugly green linoleum. It looked like a high school classroom.

On the morning of trial, nine a.m. sharp, he sat down at the counsel table, flanked by Adele Viamonte — in her darkest suit, whitest blouse and most assertive visage — and Chuck Wu, who was manning his battered laptop. Hundreds of papers and exhibits and law books surrounded them.

Across the aisle Ray Hartman sat at the other table. He was surrounded by three high-ticket partners in the law firm he'd hired, two associates, and four laptops.

The uneven teams didn't bother Tribow one bit, however. He believed he was put on earth to bring people who did illegal things to justice. Some of them would always be richer than you and have better resources. That was how the game worked and Tribow, like every successful prosecutor throughout history, accepted it. Only weak or incompetent DAs whined about the unfairness of the system.

He noticed Ray Hartman staring at him, mouthing something. The DA couldn't tell what it was.

Viamonte translated. "He said, 'You're going to lose.'"

Tribow gave a brief laugh.

He looked behind him. The room was filled. He nodded at Detective Dick Moyer, who'd been after Hartman for years. A nod too and a faint smile for Carmen Valdez, the widow of the victim. She returned his gaze with a silent, desperate plea that he bring this terrible man to justice.

I'll do my best, he answered, also silently.

Then the clerk entered and called out, "Oyez, oyez, this court is now in session. All those with business before this court come forward and be heard." As he always did, Tribow felt a chill at these words, as if they were an incantation that shut out reality and ushered everyone here into the solemn and mysterious world of the criminal courtroom.

A few preliminaries were disposed of and the bearded judge nodded for Tribow to start.

The prosecutor rose and gave his opening statement, which was very short; Danny Tribow believed the divining rod that most effectively pointed toward justice in a criminal case wasn't rhetoric but the truth as revealed by the facts you presented to the jury.

And so for the next two days he produced witness after witness, exhibits, charts and graphs.

By introducing all this testimony, Tribow established that Hartman had a motive to kill Valdez; he'd intended to do it for some time; he went looking for the victim the day he was shot, armed with a gun; he'd behaved with reckless disregard by attacking the man with a pistol and firing a shot that could have injured innocent people; and that he in fact was the proximate cause of Valdez's death.

"Your Honor, the prosecution rests."

He returned to the table.

"Open and shut," said Chuck Wu.

"Shhhh," whispered Adele Viamonte. "Bad luck."

Danny Tribow didn't believe in luck. But he did believe in not prematurely counting chickens. He sat back and listened to the defense begin its case.

The slickest of Hartman's lawyers — the one who'd been in Tribow's office during the ill-fated plea bargain session — first introduced into evidence a pistol permit, which showed that Hartman was licensed to carry a weapon for his own personal safety.

No problem here, Tribow thought. He'd known about the permit.

But Hartman's lawyer had no sooner begun to question his first witness — the doorman in Hartman's building — than Tribow began to feel uneasy.

"Did you happen to see the defendant on the morning of Sunday, March thirteenth?"

"Yessir."

"Did you happen to notice if he was carrying a weapon?"

"He was."

Why was he asking this? Tribow asked himself. It'd support the state's case. He glanced at Viamonte, who shook her head.

"And did you notice him the day before?"

"Yessir."

Uh-oh. Tribow had an idea where this was headed.

"And did he have his gun with him then?"

"Yes, he did. He'd run into some trouble with the gangs in the inner city — he was trying to get a youth center started and the gangs didn't want it. He'd been threatened a lot."

Youth center? Tribow and Wu exchanged sour glances. The only interest Hartman would have in a youth center was as a venue to sell drugs.

"How often did he have a gun with him?"

"Every day, sir. For the past three years I've been working there."

Nobody would notice something every day for three years. He was lying. Hartman had gotten to the doorman.

"We got a problem, boss," Wu whispered.

He meant this: If the jury believed that Hartman always carried the gun, that fact would undermine Tribow's assertion that he'd taken it with him only that one time — on the day of the murder — for the purpose of killing Valdez. The jury could therefore conclude that he hadn't planned the murder, which would eliminate the premeditation element of the case and, with it, the murder-one count.

But if the doorman's testimony endangered the first-degree murder case, the next witness — a man in an expensive business suit — risked destroying it completely.

"Sir, you don't know the defendant, do you?"

"No. I've never had anything to do with him. Never met him."

"He's never given you anything or offered you any money or anything of value?"

"No, sir."

He's lying, Tribow thought instinctively. The witness delivered his lines like a bad actor in a dinner- theater play.

"Now you heard the prosecution witness say that Mr. Hartman was going to quote 'get' the victim and that would take care of all his problems."

"Yessir, I did."

"You were near the defendant and that witness when this conversation supposedly took place, is that right?"

"Yessir."

"Where was that?"

"Cibella's restaurant on Washington Boulevard, sir."

"And was the conversation the same as the witness described?"

"No, it wasn't," the man answered the defense lawyer. "The prosecution witness, he misunderstood. See, I was sitting at the next table and I heard Mr. Hartman say, 'I'm going to get Valdez to take care of some problems I've been having in the Latino community.' I guess that witness didn't hear right or something."

"I see," the lawyer summarized in a slick voice. "He was going to get Valdez to take care of some problems?"

"Yessir. Then Mr. Hartman said, 'That Jose Valdez is a good man and I respect him. I'd like him to explain to the community that I'm concerned for their welfare.'"

Chuck Wu mouthed a silent obscenity.

The lawyer pushed his point home. "So Mr. Hartman was concerned for the welfare of the Latino community?"

"Yes, very much so. Mr. Hartman was really patient with him. Even though Valdez started all those rumors, you know."

"What rumors?" the lawyer asked.

"About Mr. Hartman and Valdez's wife."

Behind him Tribow heard the man's widow inhale in shock.

"What were those rumors?"

"Valdez got it into his head that Mr. Hartman'd been seeing his wife. I know he wasn't, but Valdez was convinced of it. The guy was a little, you know, nuts in the head. He thought a lot of guys were, you know, seeing his wife."

"Objection," Tribow snapped.

"Let me rephrase. What did Mr. Valdez ever say to you about Mr. Hartman and his wife?"

"He said he was going to get even with Hartman because of the affair — I mean, the supposed affair."

"Objection," Tribow called again.

"Hearsay exception," the judge called. "I'll let it stand."

Tribow glanced at the face of Valdez's widow, shaking her head slowly, tears running down her cheeks.

The defense lawyer said to Tribow, "Your witness."

The prosecutor did his best to punch holes in the man's story. He thought he did a pretty good job. But much of the testimony had been speculation and opinion — the rumors of the affair, for instance — and there was little he could do to discredit him. He returned to his chair.

Relax, Tribow told himself and set down the pen he'd been playing with compulsively. The murder-two charge was still alive and well. All they'd have to find was that Hartman had in fact killed Valdez — as Tribow had already proven — and that he'd decided at the last minute to murder him.

The defense lawyer called another witness.

He was a Latino — a grandfatherly sort of man, balding, round. A friendly face. His name was Cristos Abrego and he described himself as a good friend of the defendant's.

Tribow considered this and concluded that the jury's concerns about Abrego's potential bias were outweighed by the fact that the suspect, it seemed, had "good friends" in the minority community (a complete lie, of course; Hartman, Anglo, saw minorities not as friends but only as golden opportunities for his extortion and loan-sharking operations).

"Now you heard the prosecution witness say that Mr. Hartman went looking for Mr. Valdez the day of the tragic shooting?"

"Tragic?" Wu whispered. "He's making it sound like an accident."

"Yessir," the witness answered the lawyer's question.

"Can you confirm that Mr. Hartman went looking for Mr. Valdez on the day of the shooting?"

"Yessir, it is true. Mr. Hartman did go looking for him."

Tribow leaned forward. Where was this going?

"Could you explain what happened and what you observed?"

"Yessir. I'd been in church with Mr. Hartman —"

"Excuse me," the lawyer said. "Church?"

"Yeah, him and me, we went to the same church. Well, he went more than me. He went at least twice a week. Sometimes three."

"Brother," an exasperated Adele Viamonte said.

Tribow counted four crucifixes hanging from the necks of the jury, and not a single eyebrow among these men and women rose in irony at this gratuitous mention of the defendant's piety.

"Please go on, Mr. Abrego."

"And I stopped in the Starbucks with Mr. Hartman and we got some coffee and sat outside. Then he asked a couple of people if they'd seen Valdez, 'cause he hangs out in Starbucks a lot."

"Do you know why the defendant wanted to see Valdez?"

"He wanted to give him this game he bought for Valdez's kid."

"What?" the widow, behind Tribow, whispered in shock. "No, no, no…"

"A present, you know. Mr. Hartman loves kids. And he wanted to give it to Valdez for his boy."

"Why did he want to give Mr. Valdez a present?"

Abrego said, "He said he wanted to patch things up with Valdez. He felt bad the man had those crazy ideas about him and his wife and was worried that the boy would hear and think they were true. So he thought a present for the kid'd break the ice. Then he was going to talk to Valdez and try to convince him that he was wrong."

"Keep going, sir. What happened next?"

"Then Mr. Hartman sees Valdez outside his store and he gets up from the table and goes over to him."

"And then?"

"Ray waves to Valdez and says, 'Hi,' or something like that. 'How you doing?' I don't know. Something friendly. And he starts to hand him the bag but Valdez just pushes it away and starts yelling at him."

"Do you know what they were yelling about?"

"Valdez was saying all kinds of weird stuff. Like: 'I know you've been seeing my wife for five years.' Which was crazy 'cause Valdez just moved here last year."

"No!" the widow cried. "It's all a lie!"

The judge banged his gavel down, though it was with a lethargy that suggested his sympathies were with the woman.

Tribow sighed in disgust. Here the defense had introduced a motive suggesting that Valdez, not Hartman, might have been the aggressor in the fight that day.

"I know it wasn't true," the witness said to the defense lawyer. "Mr. Hartman'd never do anything like that. He was really religious."

Two references to the archangel Raymond C. Hartman.

The lawyer then asked, "Did you see what happened next?"

"It was all kind of a blur but I saw Valdez grab something — a metal pipe or a piece of wood — and swing it at Mr. Hartman. He tried to back away but there was no place for him to go — they were in this alley. Finally — it looked like he was going to get his head cracked open — Mr. Hartman pulled out his gun. He was just going to threaten Valdez —"

"Objection. The witness couldn't know what the defendant's intentions were."

The lawyer asked the witness, "What, Mr. Abrego, was your impression of Mr. Hartman's intention?"

"It looked like he was just going to threaten Valdez. Valdez swung at him a few more times with the pipe but Mr. Hartman still didn't shoot. Then Valdez grabbed his arm and they were struggling for the gun. Mr. Hartman was yelling for people to get down and shouting to Valdez, 'Let go! Let go! Somebody'll get hurt.'"

Which was hardly the reckless behavior or heat of passion that Tribow had to show in proving the manslaughter count.

"Mr. Hartman was pretty brave. I mean, he coulda run and saved himself but he was worried about bystanders. He was like that, always worrying about other people — especially kids."

Tribow wondered who'd written the script. Hartman himself, he guessed, it was so bad.

"Then I ducked cause I thought if Valdez got the gun away he'd just start shooting like a madman and I got scared. I heard a gunshot and when I got up off the ground I saw that Valdez was dead."

"What was the defendant doing?"

"He was on his knees, trying to help Valdez. Stopping the bleeding, it looked like, calling for help. He was very shaken up."

"No further questions."

On cross, Tribow tried to puncture Abregos testimony too but because it was cleverly hedged ("It was all kind of a blur…" "I'm not sure…" "There was this rumor…") he had nothing specific with which to discredit the witness. The prosecutor planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of the jury by asking again, several times, if Hartman had paid the witness anything or threatened him or his family. But, of course, the man denied that.

The defense then called a doctor, whose testimony was short and to the point.

"Doctor, the coroner's report shows the victim was shot once in the side of the head. Yet you heard the testimony of the prior witness that the two men were struggling face-to-face. How could the victim have been shot in that way?"

"Very simple. A shot in the side of the head would be consistent with Mr. Valdez turning his head away from the weapon while he was exerting pressure on the trigger, hoping to hit Mr. Hartman."

"So, in effect, you're saying that Mr. Valdez shot himself."

"Objection!"

"Sustained."

The lawyer said, "You're saying that it's possible Mr. Valdez was turning away while he himself pulled the trigger of the weapon, resulting in his own death?"

"That's correct."

"No further questions."

Tribow asked the doctor how it was that the coroner didn't find any gunshot residue on Valdez's hands, which would have been present if he'd fired the gun himself, while Mr. Hartman's had residue on them. The doctor replied, "Simple. Mr. Hartman's hands were covering Mr. Valdez's and so they got all the residue on them."

The judge dismissed the witness and Tribow returned to the table with a glance at the stony face of the defendant, who was staring back at him.

You're going to lose…

Well, Tribow hadn't thought that was possible a short while before, but now there was a real chance that Hartman would walk.

Then the defense lawyer called his final witness: Raymond Hartman himself.

His testimony gave a story identical to that of the other witnesses and supported his case: that he always carried his gun, that Valdez had this weird idea about Hartman and Valdez's wife, that he'd never extorted anyone in his life, that he bought a present for the Valdez boy, that he wanted to enlist Valdez's help in putting money into the Latino community, that the struggle occurred just as the witness said. Though he added a coda: his giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Valdez.

He continued, with a glance at the four Latino and three black jurors. "I get a lot of hassles because I want to help minority businesses. For some reason the police and the city and state — they don't like that. And here I ended up accidentally hurting one of the very people I'm trying to help." He looked sorrowfully at the floor.

Adele Viamonte's sigh could be heard throughout the courtroom and drew a glare from the judge.

The lawyer thanked Hartman and said to Tribow, "Your witness."

"What're we going to do, boss?" Wu whispered.

Tribow glanced at the two people on his team, who'd worked so tirelessly, for endless hours, on this case. Then he looked behind him into the eyes of Carmen Valdez, whose life had been so terribly altered by the man sitting on the witness stand, gazing placidly at the prosecutors and the people in the gallery.

Tribow pulled Chuck Wu's laptop computer closer to him and scrolled through the notes that the young man had taken over the course of the trial. He read for a moment then stood slowly and walked toward Hartman.

In his trademark polite voice he asked, "Mr. Hartman, I'm curious about one thing."

"Yessir?" the killer asked, just as polite. He'd been coached well by his attorneys, who'd undoubtedly urged him never to get flustered or angry on the stand.

"The game you got for Mr. Valdez's son."

The eyes flickered. "Yes? What about it?"

"What was it?"

"One of those little video games. A GameBoy."

"Was it expensive?"

A smile of curiosity. "Yeah, pretty expensive. But I wanted to do something nice for Jose and his kid. I felt bad because his father was pretty crazy —"

"Just answer the question," Tribow interrupted.

"It cost about fifty or sixty bucks."

"Where did you get it?"

"A toy store in the mall. I don't remember the name."

Tribow considered himself a pretty good lie detector and he could see that Hartman was making all this up. He'd probably seen an ad for GameBoys that morning. He doubted, however, that the jury could tell. To them he was simply cooperating and politely answering the prosecutor's somewhat curious questions.

"What did this video game do?"

"Objection," the lawyer called. "What's the point?"

"Your Honor," Tribow said. "I'm just trying to establish a relationship between the defendant and the victim."

"Go ahead, Mr. Tribow, but I don't think we need to know what kind of box this toy came in."

"Actually, sir, I was going to ask that."

"Well, don't."

"I won't. Now, Mr. Hartman, what did this game do?"

"I don't know — you shot spaceships or something."

"Did you play with it before giving it to Mr. Valdez?"

From the corner of his eye he saw Viamonte and Wu exchange troubled glances, wondering what on earth their boss was up to.

"No," Hartman answered. For the first time on the stand he seemed testy. "I don't like games. Anyway, it was a present. I wasn't gonna open it up before I gave it to the boy."

Tribow nodded, raising an eyebrow, and continued his questioning. "Now the morning of the day Jose Valdez was shot did you have this game with you when you left your house?"

"Yessir."

"Was it in a bag?"

He thought for a moment. "It was, yeah, but I put it in my pocket. It wasn't that big."

"So your hands would be free?"

"I guess. Probably."

"And you left your house when?"

"Ten-forty or so. Mass was at eleven."

Tribow then asked, "Which church?"

"St. Anthonys."

"And you went straight there? With the game in your pocket?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And the game was with you in the church?"

"Correct."

"But no one would have seen it because it was in your pocket."

"I guess that'd be right." Still polite, still unflustered.

"And when you left the church you walked along Maple Street to the Starbucks in the company of the earlier witness, Mr. Cristos Abrego?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And the game was still in your pocket?"

"No."

"It wasn't?"

"No. At that point I took it out and was carrying it in the bag."

Tribow whirled to face him and asked in a piercing voice, "Isn't it true that you didn't have the game with you in church?"

"No," Hartman said, blinking in surprise but keeping his voice even and low, "that's not true at all. I had the game with me all day. Until I was attacked by Valdez."

"Isn't it true that you left church, returned home, got the game and then drove to Starbucks?"

"No, I wouldn't've had time to go home after church and get the game. Mass was over at noon. I got to Starbucks about ten minutes later. I told you, my house is a good twenty minutes away from the church. You can check a map. I went straight from St. Anthony's to Starbucks."

Tribow looked away from Hartman to the faces of the jury. He then glanced at the widow in the front row of the gallery, crying softly. He saw the perplexed faces of his prosecution team. He saw spectators glancing at one another. Everyone was waiting for him to drop some brilliant bombshell that would pull the rug out from underneath Hartman's testimony and expose him as the liar and killer that he was.

Tribow took a deep breath. He said, "No further questions, Your Honor."

There was a moment of silence. Even the judge frowned and seemed to want to ask if the prosecutor was sure he wanted to do this. But he settled for asking the defense lawyer, "Any more witnesses?"

"No, sir. The defense rests."

The sole reason for a jury's existence is that people lie.

If everyone told the truth a judge could simply ask Raymond C. Hartman if he planned and carried out the murder of Jose Valdez and the man would say yes or no and that would be that.

But people don't tell the truth, of course, and so the judicial system relies on a jury to look at the eyes and mouths and hands and postures of witnesses and listen to their words and decide what's the truth and what isn't.

The jury in the case of the State v. Hartman had been out for two hours. Tribow and his assistants were holed up in the cafeteria in the building across from the courthouse. Nobody was saying a word. Some of this silence had to be attributed to their uneasiness — if not outright embarrassment — at Tribow's unfathomable line of questioning about the game Hartman had allegedly bought for the victim's son. They would probably be thinking that even experienced prosecutors get flustered and fumble the ball from time to time and it was just as well it happened during a case like this, which was, apparently, unwinnable.

Danny Tribow's eyes were closed as he lounged back in an ugly orange fiberglass chair. He was replaying Hartman's cool demeanor and the witnesses' claims that they hadn't been threatened or bribed by Hartman. They'd all been paid off or threatened, he knew, but he had to admit they looked and sounded fairly credible to him; presumably they'd seemed that way to the jury as well. But Tribow had great respect for the jury system and for jurors on the whole and, as they sat in the small deliberation room behind the courthouse, they might easily be concluding at this moment that Hartman had lied and coerced the witnesses into lying as well.

And that he was guilty of murder one.

But when he opened his eyes and glanced over at Adele Viamonte and Chuck Wu, their discouraged faces told him that there was also a pretty good chance that justice might not get done at this trial.

"Okay," Viamonte said, "so we don't win on premeditated murder. We've still got the two lesser-includeds. And they'll have to convict on manslaughter."

Have to? thought Tribow. He didn't think that was a word that ever applied to a jury's decision. The defense had pitched a great case for a purely accidental death.

"Miracles happen," said Wu with youthful enthusiasm.

And that was when Tribow's cell phone rang. It was the clerk with the news that the jury was returning.

"Them coming back this fast — is that good or bad?" Wu asked.

Tribow finished his coffee. "Let's go find out."

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, Your Honor."

The foreman, a middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and dark slacks, handed a piece of paper to the bailiff, who carried it to the judge.

Tribow kept his eyes on Hartman's but the killer was sitting back in the swivel chair with a placid expression. He cleaned a fingernail with a paper clip. If he was worried about the outcome of the trial he didn't show it.

The judge read the slip of paper silently and glanced over at the jury.

Tribow tried to read the jurist's expression but couldn't.

"The defendant will rise."

Hartman and his lawyer stood.

The judge handed the paper to the clerk, who read, "In the case of the People versus Raymond C. Hartman, on the first count, murder in the first degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the second count, murder in the second degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the third count, manslaughter, the jury finds the defendant not guilty."

Complete silence in the courtroom for a moment, broken by Hartman's whispered, "Yes!" as he raised a fist of victory in the air.

The judge, clearly disgusted at the verdict, banged his gavel down and said, "No more of that, Mr. Hartman." He added gruffly, "See the clerk for the return of your passport and bail deposit. I only hope that if you're brought up on charges again, you appear in my courtroom." Another angry slap of the gavel. "This court stands adjourned."

The courtroom broke into a hundred simultaneous conversations, all laced with disapproval and anger.

Hartman ignored all the comments and glares. He shook his lawyers' hands. Several of his confederates came up to him and gave him hugs. Tribow saw a smile pass between Hartman and his choirboy buddy, Abrego.

Tribow formally shook Viamonte's and Wu's hands — as was his tradition when a verdict, good or bad, came down. Then he went over to Carmen Valdez. She was crying softly. The DA hugged her. "I'm sorry," he said.

"You did your best," the woman said and nodded at Hartman. "I guess people like that, really bad people, they don't play by the rules. And there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes they're just going to win."

"Next time," Tribow said.

"Next time," she whispered cynically.

Tribow turned away and whispered a few words to Detective Moyer. The prosecutor noticed Hartman walking toward the front door of the courtroom. He stepped forward quickly, intercepting him. "Just a second, Hartman," Tribow said.

"Nice try, Counselor," the larger-than-life man said, pausing, "but you should've listened to me. I told you you were going to lose."

One of his lawyers handed Hartman an envelope. He opened it and took out his passport.

"Must've cost you a lot to bribe those witnesses," Tribow said amiably.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Hartman frowned. "That'd be a crime. As you, of all people, ought to know."

Viamonte leveled a finger at him and said, "You're going to stumble and we're going to be there when it happens."

Hartman replied calmly, "Not unless you're moving to the south of France. Which is what I'm doing next week. Come visit."

"To help the minority community in Saint-Tropez?" Chuck Wu asked.

Hartman offered a smile then turned toward the door.

"Mr. Hartman," Tribow said. "One more thing?"

The killer turned. "What?"

Tribow nodded to Detective Dick Moyer. He stepped forward, paused and gazed coldly into Hartman's eyes.

"Something you want, Officer?" the killer asked.

Moyer gripped Hartman roughly and handcuffed him.

"Hey, what the hell're you doing?"

Abrego and two of Hartman's bodyguards stepped forward but by now a number of other police officers were next to Tribow and Moyer. The thugs backed off immediately.

Hartman's lawyer pushed his way to the front of the crowd. "What's going on here?"

Moyer ignored him and said, "Raymond Hartman, you're under arrest for violation of state penal code section eighteen point three-one dash B. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney." He continued the litany of the Miranda warning in a rather monotonous voice, considering the frenzy around him.

Hartman snapped to his lawyer, "Why the hell're you letting him do this? I'm paying you — do something!"

This attitude didn't sit well with the lawyer but he said, "He's been acquitted of all charges."

"Actually not all charges," Tribow said. "There was one lesser-included offense I didn't bring him up on. Section eighteen point three one."

"What the hell is that?" Hartman snapped.

His lawyer shook his head. "I don't know."

"You're a goddamn lawyer. What do you mean, you don't know?"

Tribow said, "It's a law that makes it a felony to have a loaded firearm within one hundred yards of a school — Sunday schools included." He added with a modest smile, "I worked with the state legislature myself to get that one passed."

"Oh, no…" the defense lawyer muttered.

Hartman frowned and said ominously, "You can't do that. It's too late. The trial's over."

The lawyer said, "He can, Ray. It's a different charge."

"Well, he can't prove it," Hartman snapped. "Nobody saw any guns. There were no witnesses."

"As a matter of fact there is a witness. And he happens to be one you can't bribe or threaten."

"Who?"

"You."

Tribow walked to the computer on which Chuck Wu had transcribed much of the testimony.

He read, "Hartman: 'No, I wouldn't've had time to go home after church and get the game. Mass was over at noon. I got to Starbucks about ten minutes later. I told you, my house is a good twenty minutes away from the church. You can check a map. I went straight from St. Anthony's to Starbucks.'"

"What's this all about? What's with this goddamn game?"

"The game's irrelevant," Tribow explained. "What's important is that you said you didn't have time to go home between leaving the church and arriving at Starbucks. That means you had to have the gun with you in church. And that's right next to the Sunday school." The prosecutor summarized, "You admitted under oath that you broke section eighteen thirty-one. This transcript's admissible at your next trial. That means it's virtually an automatic conviction."

Hartman said, "All right, all right. Let me pay the fine and get the hell out of here. I'll do it now."

Tribow looked at his lawyer. "You want to tell him the other part of eighteen point thirty-one?"

His lawyer shook his head. "It's a do-time felony, Ray."

"What the hell's that?"

"It carries mandatory prison time. Minimum six months, maximum five years."

"What?" Terror blossomed in the killer's eyes. "But I can't go to prison." He turned to his lawyer, grabbing his arm. "I told you that. They'll kill me there. I can't! Do something, earn your goddamn fee for a change, you lazy bastard!"

But the lawyer pulled the man's hand off. "You know what, Ray? Why don't you tell your story to your new lawyer. I'm in the market for a better grade of client." The man turned and walked out through the swinging doors.

"Wait!"

The detective and two other officers escorted Hartman away, shouting his protests.

After some congratulations from the police officers and spectators, Tribow and his team returned to the prosecution table and began organizing books and papers and laptops. There was a huge amount of material to pack up; the law, after all, is nothing more or less than words.

"Hey, boss, sleight of hand," Chuck Wu said. "You got him focusing on that game and he didn't think about the gun."

"Yeah, we thought you'd gone off the deep end," Viamonte offered.

"But we weren't going to say anything," Wu said.

Viamonte said, "Hey, let's go celebrate."

Tribow declined. He hadn't spent much time with his wife and son lately and he was desperate to get home to them. He finished packing up the big litigation bags.

"Thank you," a woman's voice said. Tribow turned to see Jose Valdez's widow standing in front of him. He nodded. She seemed to be casting about for something else to say but then she just shook the prosecutor's hand and she and an older woman walked out of the nearly empty courtroom.

Tribow watched her leave.

I guess people like that, really bad people, they don't play by the rules. And there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes they're just going to win…

But that means sometimes they're not.

Danny Tribow hefted the largest of the litigation bags and together the three prosecutors left the courtroom.