Andrew Price - Without A Hitch

“Good, we can agree then. You need to testify.”

“I will not get on the stand and lie,” Webb said defiantly.

Pierce moved closer. “Son, I don’t know what your problem is and I don’t care, but you filed a police report, and I expect you to stand by that report. Now can I count on you or can I not count on you?”

Webb didn’t respond.

Pierce glared at him. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. In my thirty years in this office, I’ve never heard of an officer doing what you are doing now.” Pierce jabbed his finger into Webb’s chest. “You need to talk to your friends, talk to your fellow officers, go pray, whatever, and get over this. You filed a police report and if you don’t stand by that, there will be repercussions. Now get out of my office!”

Webb left without a word.

Pierce called Morales into his office. “I don’t care what you need to do, make sure that guy testifies.”

Meanwhile, Corbin and Beckett sat in Beckett’s office eating Chinese take out. “I’ll bet Eddie Pierce is kicking himself for trying to make an example of Beaumont,” Corbin laughed.

“I wouldn’t be too confident just yet,” Beckett cautioned.

“What do you mean?” Corbin kept his face in the food container, but his eyes watched Beckett closely.

“This case depends on Webb.”

“I can’t see that. You made Russell look like a liar and Smith recanted. Right now the jury’s thinking Pierce set the whole thing up. Not to mention, Sutherlin sounds like he may dismiss the case. All their evidence, what little there is, is tainted by the illegal search.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Beckett said abruptly. “Webb is all that matters. If he doesn’t show up, we win. If he does. . all bets are off.”

Corbin didn’t follow up on Beckett’s comment.

Corbin rubbed the cold, steel gun against his forehead. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What?” Alvarez asked.

“Beckett destroyed their witnesses. The jury is ready to string up Eddie Pierce and personally escort Beaumont to the exit, but Beckett’s obsessed with the idea they’re going to convict. I don’t understand his thinking. He claims the only thing that matters is Webb.” Corbin tapped the gun against his forehead several times. “I think he’s lost his mind. I think he wants to turn himself in.”

“He wants to be a martyr,” Alvarez agreed. He was angry and didn’t bother hiding it.

“Yes.”

“I fucking warned you!” Alvarez spat out. “All you did was put off the inevitable and make this a thousand times more difficult. You need to act now .”

They sat in silence for several seconds.

“Do you have a plan?” Alvarez finally asked.

“I have a plan,” Corbin said coldly.

Chapter 40

Trial started promptly at 9:00 am the following morning. Much to Beckett’s chagrin, Beaumont showed up in a maroon suit. The suit had a hat, but Beckett grabbed it from Beaumont’s head and stuffed it into a briefcase. This caused Beaumont to take verbal shots at Beckett for wearing the same gray suit as the day before, though he did change his striped blue tie for a mauve paisley tie. Corbin stayed out of the argument.

Pierce spent the morning introducing two people whose identities were stolen. Both were locals. Under Pierce’s guidance, they told sob stories about the time, expense and emotional trauma it cost them to deal with this issue. Pierce got them to lay it on thick. . too thick, and the jury stopped listening. When jurors stop listening, they put down their notepads and their eyes wander around the room. All but one of the jurors reached that phase within minutes. Pierce also called Officer Sanchez to testify about the chain of custody for the gun. Sanchez explained how he took the gun from Russell and placed it into the evidence locker, where it was tagged to be produced at trial. The jury didn’t care.

After lunch, Pierce called Natasha Freet.

Freet stared at Beaumont. The jury waited for her answer. They already knew she worked at First Regional Bank as a teller. They knew she didn’t like her job or her boss. They also knew she wasn’t a very nice person. What they did not know was whether or not she could identify Beaumont.

“Yeah, that’s him,” she finally said in her thick Philadelphia accent. It sounded like she was popping gum when she spoke, even though she spit her gum out when she reached the witness box.

“Are you sure?” Pierce asked.

“Like I say, that’s him. He was wearin’ this nasty red shirt and black pants when I seen him, but that’s him,” said Freet, who wore a hot pink mini-dress that was too small for her midriff and gold hoop earrings over four inches in diameter.

“This was the man,” Pierce pointed toward Beaumont, “who asked you on June 14th of last year how to open an account?”

“Yeah,” she said impatiently.

“You remember him specifically? No one showed you any photos of him to jog your memory?”

“They showed me like photos, but I remembered him before they showed me them.”

“What happened after he spoke to you?”

“Who? The cop or him?” she pointed an excessively long, silver fingernail at Beaumont.

“Mr. Beaumont,” Pierce replied.

She shifted to the edge of her seat. “He wanted to know where to like open an account. So I pointed him to account services, and he like went.”

“Did he open an account?”

“Objection,” Beckett said calmly.

“Sustained,” Sutherlin responded without looking up.

“Yeah, he did,” Freet added after Sutherlin spoke. The smug look on her face told everyone in the courtroom she knew she was not supposed to speak.

Judge Sutherlin slapped down his file. He glared at Freet. “When I sustain an objection, you will not answer the question, do you understand me !”

Freet looked away from Sutherlin before shrugging her shoulders and snarling her lips.

Sutherlin then addressed the jury: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will disregard the witnesses’ last comment.” He picked up his file and leaned back in his chair again.

“Ms. Freet, how long would you say Mr. Beaumont stayed with the account services people, if you know?” Pierce asked.

“I’d say like maybe half a hour. I kept seeing him sitting there, fillin’ out papers and stuff.”

“Who would have opened the account for him, if you know?”

“Mindy Wright. She was like the account services lady.”

“I’m going to show you a video, Ms. Freet.” Pierce motioned to Morales, who slid a videotape into the projector. “Can you explain to the jury what this video is?”

“Yeah. It’s like the security tape from June 14th.” She began playing with one of her nails.

“That’s right,” Pierce replied. “This is a security video from June 14th from First Regional Bank.”

Beckett had previously stipulated to the authenticity of the tape so Pierce didn’t need to call a security person from the bank to verify what the tape was or explain how it was made. This allowed Pierce to treat the tape as a settled fact. Stipulation is customary when there aren’t any disputes regarding the validity of certain evidence.

“Do you see yourself on the tape?”

Freet stopped picking at her nail and looked up at the screen. “Yeah, I’m on the left at the second window.”

“Do you see a time code?”

“Yeah, it says like 1:10 pm, June 14th.”

Corbin and Beckett looked at the video. There, in the background, sat Alvarez filling out paperwork at the account services desk.

“Do you see Mr. Beaumont?”

“Yeah. He’s kind’a hard to make out, but he’s the second one in line.” The image didn’t look much like Beaumont, especially as the man had hair. But the video was also grainy, which made identification difficult.