Brad Meltzer - Dead Even

Giving Harrison a moment to calm down, Sara waited silently. Finally, she said, “You’re right. It’s your neck on the line, not mine. But when your daughter is strolling around in that fresh California air one night and someone bashes her head in, I hope the person who sees that crime has more backbone than you do.”

Harrison stared straight at Sara. “Are you done?” she asked.

“I’ve said my piece,” Sara said, and walked away.

As she headed back down the hallway, Sara saw Jared arrive with Kozlow, who looked impressive in a pinstriped suit and stylish-but-sensible glasses. Typical Jared move, she thought. From her husband’s hand motions, it looked like he was telling Kozlow to wait at the other end of the hallway, away from Sara’s witnesses. Kozlow stayed behind and Jared came walking toward his wife.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, reading Sara’s body language.

“I’m fine,” she said. She took a deep breath.

“Are you sure?” Jared asked. He reached over to rub her arm.

Sara quickly pulled away. “Not here. Not now.”

“I’m sorry – I didn’t mean-”

“It’s not the time.”

“I understand,” Jared said, getting back to the point. “Have you thought about the dismiss and seal?”

“Of course I’ve thought about-”

“Sara!” Guff yelled down the hallway. “You’re on!”

“So?” Jared asked, looking into his wife’s eyes. “Do we have a deal?”

Sara paused and stared down at the floor.

“I have the paperwork right here,” Jared added. He had her. He could feel it.

She knew what this meant to him. And hurting him meant hurting herself. Looking up, Sara gave her answer. “I’m sorry. It’s not right.”

“But-”

“Please don’t ask me any more,” Sara said, walking toward the jury room. “You’re already hitting below the belt.”

Jared clenched his jaw and turned away.

Holding the door open for Sara, Guff said, “Good luck, boss.”

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“No can do. If I’m not a witness or a member of the New York bar, I can’t come in. Lucky for me, I’m neither. Now go kick some heinie.”

As Sara stepped into the room, she could feel all eyes turn toward her. Sitting in two rows of benches were the twenty-three men and women of her first grand jury. They were a typical New York jury: mostly retired men and women, a few older mothers, a waiter, a manager of a retail store, a young editor, a mechanic, a graduate student, and so on.

Kozlow was being seated on the right side of the room, while Officer McCabe, Claire Doniger, and Patty Harrison were all waiting in the nearby witness room. As Sara surveyed her surroundings, Jared walked in and sat down next to his client. He looked at Sara with dismay and fought to get her attention.

Refusing to make eye contact with her husband, Sara knew she shouldn’t have agreed to let him in the room. She walked toward the empty table in front, put down her briefcase, and faced the grand jury. “How’s everybody doing today?”

No one said a word.

“Okay. Great,” Sara said, opening her briefcase. As a slight blush took her face, she looked up. “Excuse me for a moment.” She walked to the door, opened it, and stuck her head into the hallway.

“What’s wrong?” Guff asked, leaning against the wall.

“The files?”

“Oops,” Guff said, pushing the rolling cart toward Sara.

Rolling it into the room, Sara once again smiled at the jury. “Here we go. Are we ready to get started?”

When Officer McCabe finished testifying, Sara was feeling somewhat hopeful. He was hardly the world’s best witness, but he kept to the story and told it well.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Sara said, still refusing to make eye contact with Jared. Unlike regular “petit” jurors who heard and decided full cases without interacting with the parties involved, grand jurors were permitted to ask their own questions of each witness, which allowed them to flesh out the story for themselves. In Sara’s view, as long as they didn’t ask about why McCabe hadn’t fingerprinted the house or gotten a proper ID of the defendant, she was home free.

A juror in the second row raised his hand first.

“Hold on, let me get there,” Sara said as she approached the juror. She leaned over and the juror whispered his question in her ear. It was the ADA’s job to screen each question and make sure it was appropriate. If it was, the ADA had to pose the question to the witness. Hearing the juror’s question, Sara reacted exactly as Conrad had taught her. No change of expression whatsoever. She turned to McCabe. “The first question is, ‘Did you check to see if the defendant’s fingerprints were in the house?’”

“We don’t have the budget to do that,” McCabe replied.

The juror whispered another question to Sara.

“But isn’t that the best way to see if the defendant was there?” Sara repeated.

“Probably,” McCabe said indignantly. “But it can’t always be perfect.”

Sara turned her back to McCabe. It went downhill from there.

By the end of Doniger’s testimony, Sara was a wreck. Sitting at the witness table with an angry look on her face, Doniger was hostile and uncooperative – hardly the sympathetic victim Sara hoped for. Trying to turn things around, Sara opened the floor to questions.

Immediately, a female juror in the first row raised her hand and whispered a question. “So you never saw Mr. Kozlow in your house?” Sara said, passing it along.

“No, I didn’t,” Doniger said.

A follow-up question was whispered. “Then you really don’t know if he’s the thief,” Sara announced.

“I definitely don’t.”

As the questions continued, Sara eventually couldn’t help herself. Hesitantly, she glanced over at Jared. From the look in his eyes, she knew what he was thinking – it didn’t take a genius to see that Sara was drowning. Then Jared pushed a piece of paper to the corner of the defense table, signaling for Sara to read it. Casually, Sara strolled toward the table and leaned on the corner of it as Doniger answered the latest question. When she looked down, Sara read Jared’s message: “Ready for the dismiss and seal? You could use it.”

Looking back up at her husband, Sara was tempted to accept – to shut Doniger up and end it right there. Even if she got the indictment, what was she proving? With witnesses like Doniger and Harrison, the trial would be an even bigger disaster. Even Conrad agreed that dismissing it was better than losing. More important, Sara couldn’t stand facing off against Jared. Playing a few harmless mind games was one thing, but watching him get hurt by her actions was ripping her apart. Maybe he’s right, she thought as she walked back to the prosecution table.

When Doniger was done testifying, Sara knew it was time to make her decision. She could dismiss the case with Jared or barrel forward with Harrison. The question was difficult, but the answer, for Sara, was obvious.

“If you can bear with us for another second, I have one last witness,” Sara said, turning away from her husband. Responsibility had to come first. “I’d like to call Patricia Harrison.”

At twelve-thirty, Guff and Sara walked into Conrad’s office. “Victor, let me call you back,” Conrad said into his phone. “They’re just walking in now.” He hung up the phone and looked at his two expressionless colleagues. “Well? Did you get the indictment?” he asked.

“What do you think?” Guff shot back.

“I think you got it, and I think you’re playing it extra cool because you have some vain hope that you can actually surprise me.”

“We are!” Guff screamed. “We nuked those commie bastards back to the Stone Age!”