Falls The Shadow

36

We were swamped.

The François Dubé murder trial was coming fast, and there was still way too much to do. Every piece of evidence had to be examined, every piece of testimony offered at the first trial had to be carefully reviewed for weaknesses. The advantage of a retrial is that you have so much information to work with, pretty much the whole of the prosecution’s case is open and available for your delectation. The disadvantage of a retrial is that you have so much information to work with, you can get buried in the details.

We had covered the conference-room table and floor with mounds of documents and files, all the pleadings and motions, all the testimony, all the police reports, all the forensics reports and crime-scene photographs. We had nicknamed the conference room, with its morass of paper, the Dubé Tar Pit, because we found ourselves stuck there all hours of the day as we tried to build some sort of defense. But as Beth and I worked our way through it all, and the shape of what we were up against became clearer, I began to feel uneasy.

“Something’s not right,” I said late one evening in the tar pit. In my hand were two photographs. The first was from the crime scene, it showed the body of Leesa Dubé sprawled across the floor of her bedroom, the walls sprayed with dark drops, the spill of blood like a halo about her head. She was wearing panties and a T-shirt, no rings, no jewelry, fresh out of bed. One arm was spread wide out to the side, the other was bent beneath her body. Her face was almost calm, pale above the bloody gash left by a bullet through her neck. The second photograph was of Leesa Dubé shortly before her murder, eyes bright, her smile dazzling and unforgettable.

“What did you find?” said Beth.

“Nothing, and that’s just it. We’re missing something here.”

“A report Mia Dalton didn’t give us? I thought we received everything.”

“No, nothing like that. But still we’re missing something.” I dropped the photographs, gestured to the piles of paper. “All this stuff is what the prosecution is going to present. The last trial was fought right here, on this battlefield, and François lost.”

“But they don’t have Seamus Dent this time,” said Beth.

“True, but Whitney Robinson said he wasn’t that great a witness. His absence isn’t enough to turn the tide. And remember, even though we get to see all of Mia Dalton’s case, she gets the chance to correct all the mistakes the prosecution made before. Frankly, she’s a better lawyer than her boss.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t want the fight to be about all this crap,” I said. “I want to change the battlefield. What we need is another suspect. Someone to shoulder the blame. It’s what Whitney said was missing in the first trial.”

“We can argue it was a burglary gone bad.”

“With nothing burgled? Break in, kill a stranger – no rape, just murder – and then run away without so much as grabbing a diamond ring? That won’t fly.”

“What else do we have?”

“Nothing, and that’s the problem. Not a damn thing.”

And I was right, we didn’t have a damn thing. But we did have the bones of something. Velma Takahashi’s apparent guilt. Geoffrey Sunshine’s shifty eyes. The strange story of Seamus Dent’s descent and redemption and death. And then there was the peculiarly coincident contacts of Dr. Pfeffer to Whitney Robinson and Seamus Dent both. I could spend every hour until the trial digging through the piles in the Dubé Tar Pit, but that wouldn’t get me one inch closer to taking those bones and gluing them together and animating some credible creature we could put in front of the jury and blame for Leesa Dubé’s death.

“You know what still puzzles me?” I said. “The stuff missing from François’s apartment that no one could account for.” It was the toys that were playing on my mind. Mrs. Cullen had mentioned toys. What kind of toys? Beanie Babies?

“François told us the landlord sold it off or threw it away,” said Beth.

“That’s what he said, but there was stuff missing even when the police searched his apartment.”

“Why is it important?”

“I don’t know. But it’s a loose end. Our only chance is to find some loose end and pull it until everything unravels.”

“If there was anything there, François would have told us.”

“You think so?”

“Of course.”

“It appears we have differing views of our client.”

“You don’t trust him.”

“And you do.”

She looked at me and there was something in her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

And what I thought just then was “Crap.”

My partner, Elizabeth Derringer, was the type of woman whose beauty couldn’t be captured in a photograph, with a glossy black ponytail and a smear of freckles across her broad cheeks. A picture showed a serious woman with serious glasses, the type that shushed you quiet in the college library. But a photograph couldn’t catch the sharp humor, the abiding sweetness, the romanticism that hid like a virus in her heart. She still believed she could find something in the markets of Istanbul or along the rugged trails in Nepal that she couldn’t find in Philadelphia. Dysentery was all, I explained to her, but still she often mused aloud of traveling the world and finding a richer self. Paying clients would be a surer route, I told her, and when I did, she would smile indulgently, as if I were a sweet little puppy who had just peed on her shoe. I was worried, just then, that her romanticism had gotten the best of her. And I had cause, didn’t I?

“It’s just another case, Beth,” I said softly. “He’s just another defendant.”

“There’s no such thing,” she said.

“You know, Beth,” I said in my best avuncular tone, “it’s hard enough to determine innocence or guilt right after a crime has been committed, but this guy has been in jail-”

“I don’t need a lecture,” she snapped.

“Maybe you do. It is not our job-”

“Don’t, Victor. Please. I know our job. He hasn’t hugged his daughter in three years.”

“It shouldn’t matter.”

“But it does.” She slapped her notebook closed, stood up. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m going home.”

I glanced at my watch, bolted to my feet. “Damn it, I’m late.”

“Hot date with Carol?”

“Hardly,” I said. “It’s with Carol, all right, but tonight is all business.”