Andrew Price - Without A Hitch

An annoyed Corbin returned to the office, where he found Beckett watching television in the conference room.

“Guess what?” Beckett pointed to the television.

Eddie Pierce, the District Attorney, was on television talking about Beaumont’s case. Behind him stood the grim Hillary Morales. “Yes, this is part of our zero-tolerance policy,” Pierce said. He had the manner of a circus ringmaster with the permanent smile of a car salesman. “I’m determined to get these criminals off our streets no matter what it takes. If that means taking them down for less serious crimes, that’s fine by me. Every day someone like Mr. Beaumont is off the streets, the safer our community will be. It worked with Al Capone, it will work here. Sometimes the tried and true methods are the best.”

“Could you give us some background on Beaumont,” asked one of the reporters.

“Certainly, Beaumont’s been implicated in a series of crimes in the past. He’s the sole suspect in a double homicide that occurred two years ago, though he could not be prosecuted when the witness against him turned up beaten to death in the river.”

“Do you have enough evidence to convict him on this new charge?” asked another reporter.

“That’s up to the jury. All I can say is I’m confident of our case.”

“How long would he serve?”

“If convicted of all charges, he could serve up to seventy-five years.”

“‘Seventy-five years!” Corbin exclaimed.

“Yeah, they added a bunch of charges,” Beckett said, pointing to a package which had been delivered by courier only a few minutes before. “See what you can come up with to dismiss some of these charges or suppress the evidence. I’ve got a couple ideas already.”

“I’ll add that to the list,” Corbin said bitterly.

Beckett turned off the television. “Let’s split up the videos. There’s a lot of footage there and we should check it all.” Beckett pointed at a box containing half a dozen bank surveillance video cassettes. These were delivered by the same courier. “Verify the notes they gave us about what’s supposed to be on the tapes and look for anything suspicious.”

Corbin took two of the tapes. “I hope these have a better plot than the first tape.”

“What’d they want?!” Sgt. Warner Russell demanded, accosting his former partner the moment Webb stepped into the police station.

“Who?” Webb asked, pushing past Russell.

“Beaumont’s attorney!” Russell grabbed Webb’s arm to stop him.

Webb shook Russell’s hand from his arm. “How would I know?”

“You met with ’em,” Russell said in a low, accusing voice.

“I haven’t met with anybody.”

“Don’t give me that shit! They wanted to meet with you, and now they ain’t asking to meet with you’se no more. That means you met with ’em.”

“No, it doesn’t, and no, I didn’t.”

“Don’t fuck with me, rookie,” Russell barked. “I got a right to know what they wanted.”

“You’ve got a ‘right’?”

“Yeah, I got a right ’cause my ass is in the sling on this one, and don’t you forget, your ass is first in line. You signed that report, so you better be straight with me if you want this thing to go away.”

“Why, Russ? Are you gonna turn me in?” he laughed.

Russell snapped his head around quickly to see who might be listening. “Keep your damn voice down. All I’m saying,” he was whispering now, “is your name is on that report. If you want to keep this from blowin’ up on you, we gotta stick together.”

“Uh huh, sure.” Webb ran his tongue over his lips. “I called Beaumont’s lawyer and told him I had nothing to say. What about you? What did you tell him?”

“They never asked to talk to me.”

Webb raised an eyebrow, but didn’t follow up. “All right, let me know if that changes,” he said and walked away.

Russell watched him leave. “Fucker,” he said under his breath.

Corbin pointed to the television screen. They were watching the surveillance video from First Regional. “Here it comes. There, see it. . the guy in the red shirt.”

“That’s not Beaumont,” Beckett agreed.

“No, not even close. But that’s who they’ve identified as Beaumont. The time code corresponds with the transaction Beaumont supposedly made, and I’ve looked at every frame of the video, frame by frame, for two hours in either direction. This is the only guy it could be. He’s even wearing the red shirt the teller mentions in her statement.” Corbin chose not to mention that Alvarez could be seen standing slightly behind the man in the red shirt in the video.

“You’re sure Beaumont isn’t anywhere else on the tape?”

“Absolutely. I’ve seen every frame of it. Same thing with the Penn Bancorp tape. I don’t see anything that looks like Beaumont.”

“Is this all they gave us? No other surveillance tapes? No ATM videos? There should be dozens of those.”

“These are the only tapes they’ve given us. My guess is they stopped asking for tapes when Beaumont didn’t show up on the tapes they had.” Corbin handed Beckett some papers. “I’ve got a request for the prosecutor to identify everywhere they looked for tapes. I’ve also started working on some motions. I’ve got a motion to suppress the manager’s testimony because she didn’t identify Beaumont until after they showed her a photo of Beaumont. That’s an illegal line up. I’ve got some motions about the tapes and one about the gun. I don’t know how you want to handle the teller, the one who identifies Beaumont as the guy in the red shirt? She’s clearly wrong about it being Beaumont, but that’s not a legal reason to keep her testimony out.”

“No, we’ll have to deal with that at trial,” Beckett agreed.

“We could still try, kind of a shot in the dark?”

“No, let’s not tip our hand. If we get to the point where the prosecution is thinking about dismissing the case, then it might be the shove we need. But anything short of that, we’re better off saving that surprise for trial.” Beckett scratched his chin. “On the Penn Bancorp video, if the judge refuses to exclude the manager’s testimony, then we need to show the whole tape to show he’s not there.”

“That’ll be fun,” Corbin said sarcastically. “We have eleven hours of tape from Penn Bancorp that day. I’ll write something up.”

“What else have you got?”

“I’ve got a motion to dismiss the gun charge for lack of evidence. I can’t see the judge granting that one, but it’s worth a shot to remind him they need to prove every part of the crime.” Corbin flipped through some of his notes. “I’ve got a motion to keep out any mention of prior crimes or suspicions of crimes. I’ve got a request for the complete file on Beaumont; we only have parts of it.”

“That’s not unusual. Prosecutors like to play games.”

“That’s all I have for now, but I’m still working.”

Judge Immanuel Sutherlin’s office was stiflingly hot. Two radiator heaters near the door to the hallway clanked and sizzled all day, causing the windows to steam up. The windows were tall, but not wide. Beneath the windows ran a knee-high, built-in shelf from one end of the twenty foot office to the other. A series of legal books sat on top of the shelf, as did three plants, one under each window. A large mahogany desk dominated the room, though it was buried under two dozen files. Photos and various certificates hung on the walls. On the other side of Sutherlin’s desk were two studded leather chairs with rounded wooden arms. They looked like something you might find in a museum to the 1930s. Another four identical chairs stood against the wall, opposite Sutherlin, by the radiators. A green and gold Persian rug covered the floor. It lay over the gray commercial carpet found throughout the rest of the building’s offices and in the courtrooms; the hallways were tile, which made them incredibly noisy as people’s footsteps echoed. To Sutherlin’s right was another door, which led to a smaller office where his clerk and his secretary worked.