The Last Witness

Chapter Eighteen

At eleven o'clock that night, Mason was still sitting on the sofa in his office, staring at the notes he had written on the dry-erase board. Patrick Ortiz had presented his evidence in a smooth procession of well-prepared witnesses, finishing at five o'clock. Mason had not called anyone to testify.

Judge Pistone had said that he would deliberate in his chambers and announce his decision shortly. When he had returned fifteen minutes later with renewed pep, Mason had concluded that the judge had used the time to go the bathroom and have a cup of coffee. Resuming the bench, the judge had ordered that Blues stand trial on the charge of first-degree murder in the death of Jack Cullan and that Blues would continue to be held without bail. He had added that the case had been assigned for trial to Judge Vanessa Carter and that Judge Carter had set the case for trial beginning Monday morning, March 4.

True to form, Judge Pistone had kept his head down while announcing his order. Blues had held his head up, eyes drilling the judge. Blues had remained impassive throughout the long day, occasionally passing Mason a handwritten note in response to a particular bit of testimony. When Dr. Terrence Dawson, chief of the forensics lab, had testified that Blues's fingerprint had been found in Cullan's study, Blues had reached over to Mason's legal pad and written NO, pressing hard enough with his pen to have cut through to the next sheet of paper.

Everyone in the courtroom had stood while the judge made his exit. The media had poured from the courtroom; the print reporters had raced to meet deadlines and the broadcasters had bolted for their live feeds from the courthouse steps. Leonard Campbell had clapped Patrick Ortiz and his assistants on their backs, straightened his jacket, and left, looking for the nearest microphone. Ortiz had packed his briefcase and shaken Mason's hand, telling Mason that he'd done a good job. It was the standard empty praise of an adversary who'd won the day, and Mason had grated as Ortiz had delivered the bromide.

Turning around, Mason had seen the three deputies surround Blues again while one of them put the handcuffs back on Blues's wrists. Mason had pressed into their circle and tapped his fists against Blues's balled hands.

"Today was their day, man," Mason had told him. "Tomorrow will be ours."

Blues nodded. "Get 'em," he had said, and left with his escort.

Mason had looked around the empty courtroom. On paper, no one could have found fault with what had happened there. The state had met its burden of proof. Even Mason had conceded that. No appellate court would overturn Judge Pistone's ruling, even though Mason was convinced the judge had decided the case before breakfast. The system had worked, except for one tiling: Mason was certain that Blues was innocent. That realization had led him to another conclusion. He would have to find justice for Blues outside the courtroom.

Now, hours later, worn with fatigue and slightly buzzed from a dinner of Budweiser, Mason replayed the few points he'd scored during cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses, looking for leads. Carl Zimmerman had testified first. He was an experienced witness, directing his answers to the judge, who sat upright in his chair, watching Ortiz and Zimmerman play catch with softball questions. Mason wasn't surprised that Judge Pistone had abandoned his head-down disinterest. Murder had that effect on people.

Ortiz had taken Zimmerman through each step of the investigation, beginning with the call he had received from the dispatcher about a hysterical woman claiming to have found her employer shot to death. The woman turned out to have been Norma Hawkins, the housekeeper. Mason had started his cross-examination with that description.

"Norma Hawkins told the dispatcher that Mr. Cullan had been shot to death. Is that correct, Detective?" Mason had asked.

"Yes, sir," Zimmerman had answered.

"The body was found facedown and hadn't been moved when you arrived at the scene, correct?"

"That's right. The uniformed officers who arrived at the scene first secured the area. The housekeeper said that she hadn't touched anything in the study."

"No gun, bullets, or shell casings were found at the scene, correct?"

"Correct."

"In fact, when you arrived at the scene, you didn't see anything that told you Mr. Cullan had been shot. Isn't that correct, Detective?"

Zimmerman had stiffened as he saw the high hard pitch coming. "I suppose that's correct, Mr. Mason. But, there's no question that Mr. Cullan had been shot."

"Yet, somehow, Norma Hawkins knew that Mr. Cullan had been shot. That's what she told the dispatcher. True?"

"Well," Zimmerman had said, stalling for a better answer than the one he had, "I don't know what she told the dispatcher. I could have heard him wrong."

"There is another explanation, isn't there, Detective?"

"What's that, Mr. Mason?"

"Norma Hawkins shot Mr. Cullan."

"Objection!" Patrick Ortiz had said. "The question calls for speculation. There is no evidence that Norma Hawkins committed this crime. She's an innocent woman who doesn't deserve to be smeared by Mr. Mason."

"The police and the prosecution rushed to judgment in this case," Mason had shot back. "They picked their suspect at the beginning and disregarded any other possibilities."

"Sustained, unless you've got better evidence than that," Judge Pistone had said. Mason didn't.

Norma Hawkins was the next witness. She was a slightly built white woman in her late thirties whose rough hands and sloped shoulders testified to the hard work she did and the hard life she led. Norma spoke slowly and softly, in the upstairs-downstairs tradition of domestic help, describing her daily routine at Jack Cullan's house. Then Ortiz asked her about finding the body.

"What happened when you came to work on Monday morning, December tenth?"

Norma had leaned forward in the witness box and clutched the hem of her dress. "Well, it was like I told the detectives. The alarm wasn't on, so I figured Mr. Cullan was still home. He usually wasn't there when I got to work, so I'd have to turn off the alarm. He gave me the code 'cause he knew he could trust me, you know. I been cleaning people's houses since I was fifteen. Everybody gives me their alarm codes. I never had any trouble till that morning."

"What did you find when you went inside the house?" Ortiz asked.

"First thing I noticed was that it was freezing in that house. I kept my coat on, it was so cold. I went looking for Mr. Cullan to find out why the furnace wasn't working, and I found him lying facedown on the floor in his study. I turned him over and could see that he was dead. I called 911."

"Did you know that he'd been shot?"

"I saw blood. I didn't know what else to think."

Ortiz had placed the enlarged photograph of Jack Cullan's body on an easel. Cullan was lying facedown in the photograph, a dark pool of blood seeping around his head and out into the carpet.

"Does this photograph accurately depict what you saw when you entered the study?" Ortiz asked her.

Norma trembled and turned away, nodding her head. "He was a good man, always treated me fair."

"No further questions," Ortiz said as he sat down, leaving the photograph on the easel. The buzz from the spectators was like crickets on a summer night.

Norma had explained why she had assumed that Cullan had been shot, and Mason knew he wouldn't get anywhere chasing the slim chance she had killed Cullan. Instead, he walked to the easel, took the photograph, and leaned it, facedown, against the front of the jury box. Ortiz had used it for the press, not Norma Hawkins. Mason waited for Norma to gather herself before probing gently on cross-examination about minor matters, more for the purpose of blunting the emotional impact of the photograph than anything else. Norma admitted that Cullan often forgot to set the alarm. It was a small thing, but Mason knew that credibility was built on a foundation of small things. The more he could chip away at it, the more likely it would crumble.

Pete Kirby, resplendent in a dark green suit and cranberry vest, described the fight in the bar. When he quoted Blues's threatening to tear Cullan's head off and stuff it up his ass, a ripple of laughter cut through the audience, causing Judge Pistone's bailiff to rise and glare the offenders into silence. Kirby admitted on cross-examination that he hadn't taken Blues's threat seriously.

"Yeah, it was jive," Kirby said. "Except with Blues, it was real serious jive. The man was making a very heavy point"

Dr. Terrence Dawson, the forensics examiner, was the last witness. He was a thin man with a sharply angular face who had risen through the ranks of the police laboratory over twenty years to become the director of forensic science. He explained on direct examination how he had matched Blues's blood and tissue samples to those found under Cullan's fingernails, and how he had matched Blues's fingerprints to one that had been lifted from the corner of the desk in Jack Cullan's study.

Mason had not had time to pore over the technical details of Dr. Dawson's report, or to consult with any experts who might poke holes in his analysis. That would have to wait for the trial.

"Dr. Dawson, I assume that other fingerprints were found at the scene besides the ones you claim belonged to Mr. Bluestone?" Mason asked him.

"Yes. That's quite common."

"I'm certain that it is," Mason agreed. "Whose prints did you find?"

"The victim's and the housekeeper's, of course."

"Anyone else's?"

Dr. Dawson glanced at Patrick Ortiz. Mason also looked at Ortiz, who had suddenly become interested in a stack of papers on his table.

"There were a number of fingerprints found throughout the house; most of them were too smudged or incomplete for identification," he said after Ortiz failed to help him by objecting to Mason's question.

"But not all of them, right, Doctor?"

"That's correct. We were able to identify fingerprints belonging to Ed Fiora and Beth Harrell. We matched them with their fingerprints on file with the Missouri Gaming Commission."

"Where in Mr. Cullan's house were those fingerprints found?"

"Mr. Fiora's fingerprints were found in the kitchen. Ms. Harrell's fingerprints were found on the headboard of the bed in Mr. Cullan's bedroom."

His answer made Mason feel like a boxer wearing cement shoes. Patrick Ortiz had spent the entire day dancing around him, landing jabs to his midsection and uppercuts to his chin. Mason had been unable to get out of his way. Dr. Dawson had sucker punched him without knowing it. The press would draw every salacious inference possible about the relationship between Jack Cullan and Beth Harrell. Mason couldn't blame them. The image of Beth in Cullan's bedroom crowded his own memory of the embrace they had shared. He didn't have room for both.

The assignment of Blues's case to Judge Carter had been the last kidney punch of the day. Judge Carter, a former prosecutor, was a conservative Republican with a reputation for harsh treatment of criminal defendants, an African-American woman with ambitions to become a federal judge. Mason was worried that she would use Blues's case as a stepping-stone.

Mason studied the dry-erase board. In the last three weeks it had become a jumbled patchwork of lawyer's graffiti. He drew red circles around the key words and phrases-Cullan's secret files-pictures of Beth-blackmail by Flora- Blues' fingerprints-Harry and Blues-why kill me? He was convinced that the identity of the killer lay within those scraps. The last of them, the question about whether he himself would live or die, shook him more than he cared to admit. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was just that he was truly alone this time.

Mason went down the hall to Blues's office, using the key to his own office to get in. Blues had told Mason, when he signed the lease, that the locks on their two offices used the same key, and had asked Mason whether he wanted a new lock. Mason had declined, taking comfort in the connection.

Blues's office was furnished in strictly utilitarian metal- bookshelves, file cabinet, and desk. The floor was bare hardwood and the walls were decorated with a calendar. The only concession to emotion was the digital electric piano that sat against one wall. When Blues played, it was like decorating the room with a bucket of rainbow paint.

Mason closed the door behind him and turned on the ceiling light. He pushed the piano away from the wall, and used another key Blues had given him to open a small safe hidden in the floor. As he knelt on the floor, his back blocked the light and cast a deep shadow into the safe. He lingered over the contents of the safe, his hands sweating as he fought with himself. Shivering at the too recent memory of the river's cold grip, he reached into the safe and picked up the gun Blues had given him a little over a year ago.

"It's a.44-caliber semiautomatic with a nine-shot magazine," Blues had told him. "Fits in a holster that goes in the middle of your back. Wear a jacket or a loose shirt over it and no one will notice."

Missouri had joined the states that had made it legal to carry a concealed weapon. Mason had barely survived the death of his old law firm and, along the way, had shot a hired killer named Jimmie Camaya who was supposed to have added Mason to the law firm's obituary list. Camaya had been arrested, but later escaped. Blues had convinced Mason that he should carry the gun for his own protection. Mason had reluctantly agreed, and Blues had taught him how to handle the gun. After a few months, Mason had returned the gun to Blues.

"I'm not going to spend the rest of my life walking around waiting to shoot it out with someone who's probably forgotten all about me. I'm a lawyer, not a gunslinger."

"And this isn't Dodge City," Blues had answered. "It's Kansas City, but I'll tell you something, Lou. You've got a real talent for pissing off people who don't know the difference. I'll keep the gun for you. My money says you're going to need it sooner or later."

Now, alone in his office with his gun and holster sitting on his desk, he wished he had a corner man to patch him up, rub him down, and shove him back into the ring when the bell rang for the next round. Blues was his corner man and Mason needed him. Bone-weary, Mason lay down on his sofa and let it wrap its arms around him.