The Voice Inside

9

Frost sat in the last row of the courtroom.

He’d already testified for two hours that morning, questioned by Rudy Cutter’s attorney and then cross-examined by Hang Li, the San Francisco district attorney. He related the whole story, including his temptation to destroy the watch that first night on the Golden Gate Bridge. He stuck to the facts of what he’d found, but facts didn’t matter to the stone faces of victims’ families packing the courtroom.

To them, he was the enemy. He was the man who’d brought the monster back to life.

The media filled the courtroom, too. Print. TV. Radio. Bloggers. To them, he was a study in contradictions. Brother of a victim. Cop. Whistle-blower. They’d made the story front-page news for days, and they all wanted interviews with him. He’d turned them down. The last thing he wanted was publicity.

Yolanda Rhodes followed him on the stand. She testified about her brother, Lamar, giving her the watch with the funny inscription on the back. When the attorney showed her the watch, she identified it right away and confirmed that she’d been wearing it since long before the other watch was found in Rudy Cutter’s ceiling.

“That’s it. That’s mine. I wish I could get it back, too.”

And then Jess came.

Frost didn’t know what Jess would say. That was the mystery of the day that made everyone hold their breath. He wondered if she’d lie and try to hide behind the blue wall. She could say that Frost was mistaken, that Yolanda was lying, and that the watch Jess had found was the one and only watch belonging to Melanie Valou. Melanie’s mother, Camille, would probably back her up.

Instead, she told the truth.

Her testimony caused a gasp of disbelief among the spectators. She admitted the entire conspiracy. The watch never belonged to Melanie. She planted it in Rudy Cutter’s house. She perjured herself during his trial. She never flinched once as she laid out what she’d done, and the entire time, she stared at Frost in the back row. When her testimony was over, she marched out of the courtroom with her back straight, ignoring the shouts and taunts that followed her as the judge swung his gavel hard for silence.

Now it was almost done. The final arguments. And then the ruling.

District Attorney Hang Li stood in front of Judge Elwood Elgin.

Li was small, slim, forty years old. He had a shock of black hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and an expensive brown suit.

“Your Honor, I’m not going to defend Lieutenant Salceda,” Li told the judge. “She falsified evidence. She lied to the court. The police have already dismissed her from her job, and I assure you, she will face legal consequences for her actions, too. The watch that she planted in the defendant’s house no longer has any evidentiary weight against Mr. Cutter. However, I would argue that the other evidence that was presented at trial would be sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict against him. Simply put, the jury did not need the watch to reach their decision. As such, the fraudulent behavior by Lieutenant Salceda — while illegal and inexcusable — shouldn’t prejudice the rest of the case against Mr. Cutter.”

Cutter’s attorney rose to his feet with outrage turning his face red, but Judge Elgin calmly waved him back to his chair. “Save your breath, Counselor,” the judge told him in an unflappable voice. “I’ve got this.”

Frost knew what was coming. Everyone did.

Judge Elgin was a long-time member of the San Francisco Democratic political establishment, an environmental lawyer with roots in Nancy Pelosi’s congressional office. He was fifty years old, a white-bread liberal who spoke softly but wielded a big stick from the bench. He’d railed against the excesses of police misbehavior in the city for twenty years, and Hang Li had just handed him a cut-and-dried case of a rogue police officer rigging the justice system.

“Mr. Li, do you know what you get when you add rat poison to a steak?” Judge Elgin asked.

“Your Honor, I don’t really understand—”

“You get poisoned steak,” the judge continued, emphasizing each word. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a perfect prime-cut ribeye. Once you put poison on it, you have no choice but to throw it out. And that’s what we have here. Lieutenant Salceda’s actions have compromised the case against Mr. Cutter in its entirety. Your argument about the other evidence would be insufficient on its face, because the watch was the linchpin of your case, and we both know it. But even if you had other compelling evidence against Mr. Cutter, the police misconduct would void it. It’s distasteful to both of us, but I have no choice but to vacate the guilty verdict against him.”

The crowd erupted. The judge pounded his gavel.

“Your Honor, we ask that you keep Mr. Cutter in custody while we prepare to refile charges against him,” Li pleaded. He was grasping for legal straws.

“Denied. If you’re able to build evidence for a new criminal case, I’ll examine the question of bail at that time.”

“In that case, Your Honor, I’d like to raise the issue of electronic monitoring,” Li went on.

Judge Elgin leaned forward on the bench. “Also denied. Mr. Li, you seem to be under the impression that you still have some sort of case against Mr. Cutter, and let me be clear. You don’t. This is not a question of pasting together prior evidence without the watch that was planted in Mr. Cutter’s house. I’m throwing it all out. If you refile charges based on evidence gathered or supervised by Lieutenant Salceda, then I will be forced to dismiss the case, and at that point, I’ll do so with prejudice. Her behavior has poisoned the entire investigation.”

“Your Honor!” Li protested.

“Enough. We’re done here. Everyone who has touched this case should be ashamed of themselves. If you think Mr. Cutter is guilty, and you want to put him back in San Quentin, then you and the police have one job. Start over.”

And that was that.

Katie’s killer was free.

Frost found himself unable to move. He wanted to get up and leave the courtroom immediately, but the awful reality of what he’d done pinned his feet to the floor. He sat in the back row, in the aisle near the walnut door, as spectators filed past him. The media shouted questions that he ignored. Family members of the victims swore at him. One man, a father, spat in his hair. The guards tried to create a bubble around Frost, but he didn’t care what they did or said.

He blamed himself, just like they did.

Slowly, the courtroom emptied. Rudy Cutter, surrounded by police protection, was the last to leave. Frost wondered if someone from the families would be waiting outside the courthouse with a gun. Or a knife. He had to dig inside himself to ask whether there would be anything wrong with vigilante justice right now.

It didn’t matter what the judge said or what Jess had done. Cutter was guilty. Nothing changed that.

Frost realized that Cutter had stopped right next to him. He stared back at the man, eye to eye, cop to killer. Cutter had cleaned up for his court appearance; his face was smoothly shaved, his blond hair neat, his suit and tie pressed. He could have been Daniel Craig, a suave and sexy spy, not a serial killer. Cutter was whistling under his breath, but loud enough for Frost to hear it. The tune was familiar. The police tried to herd the man away, but he lingered in the aisle, not moving, and then he bent down so close to Frost that no one else could hear what he said. Frost felt the heat of the man’s breath.

“Tick tock, Inspector,” Cutter whispered.

Then he was gone, still whistling. The doors closed on him. The courtroom was empty and silent. Frost was alone.

It took him a moment to identify the tune that had been on Cutter’s lips, and when he did, the chill of it made him clench his fists. Cutter was taunting him, daring him to notice what he was doing. It was a confession that no one else would understand or believe.

Cutter had been whistling the Scott McKenzie song, “San Francisco.”

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

That was the song Frost and Katie had joked about — the song that had led him to buy the tiara with the pretty rhinestone flowers that was now hidden away in a box in Frost’s upstairs closet. The tiara had been nestled in Katie’s hair when he found her body at Ocean Beach, but he was the only person in the world who knew that.

Other than her killer.