Лиза Гарднер - Never Tell - A Novel (A D.D. Warren and Flora Dane Novel)

Phil, who considered himself the voice of reason to D.D.’s more aggressive ways, hadn’t been thrilled when she’d announced she’d recruited Flora to be her new confidential informant. Clearly, his opinion on the matter hadn’t changed.

“Flora recognized the victim,” D.D. announced bluntly, in order to cut off Phil’s arguments at the pass. “She met Conrad Carter at a bar, when she was with Jacob.”

Her strategy worked. Phil went from fatherly disapproval to immediate investigative interest.

Flora didn’t like Phil any more than Phil liked her. “That’s as much as I’m saying on the subject,” she said.

Phil returned to fatherly disapproval, for both Flora and D.D.

“I want her to see Evelyn,” D.D. said. “Maybe that will jog something. Or help her know what exactly we’re dealing with here.”

Phil accepted that. “Her mom’s here,” he said.

“But of course.”

“Real lawyer, too. No public defender. Criminal defense attorney Dick Delaney.”

“Great.” D.D. rolled her eyes. She’d been involved in cases represented by the silver-haired lawyer before. He was very good.

Phil opened the door. They were hit first by a heat wave of humanity, then by the harsh pounding of the judge’s gavel as she sought to keep some semblance of order in what was by definition an assembly line of procedures. Already two court officers were leading a young woman, gaunt, stringy hair, wild eyes, from the room, as a door opened to the side and two more officers appeared.

No prison clothes this time. Instead, Evie Carter appeared, pale, slightly trembly, clad in black slacks and a demure cream-colored button-up cardigan that strained slightly over her rounded belly. The Evie D.D. had met sixteen years ago had been a scared teenager. The woman she’d become still had the same dirty-blond hair, but cut short, in a fringed style that emphasized her large brown eyes. The clothes, D.D. was already guessing, had been supplied by Evie’s mother, Joyce, who sat in the front row, every frosted blond hair in place as she gazed at her only child.

Evie, D.D. noticed, didn’t look at her mother at all, but took her place beside her lawyer at the defense’s table. Her hair was mussed, her eyes bruised. For all the dress-up clothes, nothing could change the fact she’d spent the night in the slammer.

“That’s her?” Flora whispered in D.D’s ear. “She doesn’t look anything like I expected.”

“Her mother dressed her,” D.D. whispered back.

Flora nodded, as if that explained everything.

“Your Honor,” the Suffolk County ADA Danielle Fitzpatrick began. “The people are pursuing charges of murder one against the accused, Evelyn Carter, in the shooting death of her husband. We request she be held without bail, given the severity of the charges.”

“Your Honor!” Delaney was already on his feet. “That charge is ludicrous. The people lack sufficient evidence for a charge of premeditated murder, let alone given the delicate state of my client—”

“The ‘delicate client,’” Fitzpatrick intoned drolly, “shot her husband three times. As for evidence, the police found her at the scene, still holding the murder weapon. In addition, her hands tested positive for GSR as well as human blood. We are confident in our case, Your Honor, and that’s without delving into Mrs. Carter’s previous history—”

“Objection! Inadmissible and not even relevant. Continue to make such underhanded references”—Delaney glared at Fitzpatrick—“and I’ll be forced to demand a change of venue given your deliberate contamination of the jury pool.”

The judge banged her gavel again. “Sustained, though I’m not sure what underhanded references you two are bickering about. Feels to me we have enough to discuss with the case at hand.”

Flora looked askance at D.D., who murmured in the woman’s ears, “Evie shot and killed her father when she was sixteen. It was ruled accidental at the time and no charges were ever filed—I should know, as I was the investigating detective. Delaney’s right: Given that, the incident is inadmissible. But Fitzpatrick isn’t playing to the judge. She’s playing to the press, who I can guarantee you are right now scrambling to figure out what about ‘Mrs. Carter’s previous history’ is worth such a fuss.”

“Your Honor,” Delaney was saying. “My client does not deny being at the scene of the crime, nor even holding the murder weapon. In fact, she’ll even concede she fired the gun. What ADA Fitzpatrick has failed to mention is the slight problem with the police’s timeline of events.”

The judge turned, regarding ADA Fitzpatrick with interest, while on the other side of D.D., Phil stiffened. D.D. got it a second later. “Oh shit.”

“Your Honor,” Fitzpatrick began, but Delaney was already on a roll.

“Eight minutes, Your Honor. There’s an eight-minute gap between the time neighbors first called in the report of shots fired, and the police arrived on the scene and also heard shots fired. That’s because there was not one shooting last night but two. The first was the fatal shooting of my client’s beloved husband and father of her unborn child. We can prove, in fact, Your Honor, that my client wasn’t even home at the time of her husband’s death. She arrived minutes later, discovering the dead body. At which point, she did pick up the gun. She fired the weapon.

“She committed the second shooting, Your Honor. Except her victim was a laptop. Which, let’s face it, we’ve all wanted to shoot at one time or another. So, yes, my client handled the murder weapon and, yes, she had GSR on her hands. But she did not kill her husband. We demand the dismissal of all charges as well as my client’s immediate release at this time.”

The judge regarded Delaney, then the ADA, whose face was now set in a grim line, then Delaney again. “Well,” the judge said, “it sounds like we have plenty to discuss at trial. Given there is sufficient evidence worth presenting, charges are not dismissed. However, I will grant bail. Five hundred thousand, cash bond.”

The judge banged her gavel. Evie Carter, who’d never looked left or right, was led from the room. A moment later, every reporter in the place had leapt to his or her feet and was racing to the door.

Phil, D.D., and Flora stood to the side to let the rush pass.

“I’ll be damned,” D.D. murmured. “She’s gonna do it.” She glanced at Phil, who nodded his agreement.

“Do what?” Flora demanded.

“For the second time in her life, Evie Carter’s gonna get away with murder.”

Chapter 6 FLORA

MY FATHER DIED WHEN I was young. Traffic accident. So long ago, I no longer really remember him. The images in my mind are less from real memories than from the photos my mother still has up around the house.

Jacob, on the other hand, the man who kidnapped me, raped me, tortured me … six years later I still dream about him three or four nights a week.

Samuel Keynes, my victim specialist and a trained psychologist, has done his best to explain it to me over the years. Something about the omnipotence of an abductor. It wasn’t just that Jacob snatched me off a beach or locked me in a coffin-sized box for days on end. It was his total control over every facet of my life. I ate when he willed it. I drank when he permitted it. I lived, second by second, day by day, because he decided, for that instant, to allow it.

Stockholm syndrome is when a victim starts to bond with her captor, partially due to the captor’s role of complete power over her life. Did I bond with Jacob? The question isn’t as simple as I’d like it to be. I hated him. I still hate him. I worked hard every day on my own survival. Counting backward and forward in the long hours I was trapped in a box. Wiggling my toes, moving my limbs as the space would allow. Then, when he finally let me out, I observed, I learned, I adapted.