Play Dead Part 22

"You've kept in touch?" I ask. What could that mean? Physical touch? Emotional touch? There is no level that I can't sink to.

"Andy, give it a rest. He's worked on a couple of witness protection cases. He knows how they operate. I'll give him the broad picture, no specifics and no names, and see what he says."

"Make sure he doesn't repeat any of it to his wife and six children."

"I will," she says.

"Good night, Laurie."

"Good night, Andy. I love you."

"Then come home," I say, but she has already hung up. I knew that she had, which is the only reason I had the guts to say it in the first place.

I'm on the way home when my cell phone rings. "Andy, I'm at your house." It's Pete Stanton calling, and his tone of voice sends me into an instant panic. "It was broken into, and the alarm company called-"

"Is Tara all right?"

"She's fine. I'm actually petting her while we're talking. How far away are you?"

"About ten minutes. What about Reggie?"

"That's the other dog?"

"Yes."

"What about him?" he asks.

"Is he okay?"

"He was staying at your house?" Pete asks, and the feeling of panic returns.

"Yes. Isn't he there?"

"Andy, there's just one dog here, and that's Tara. I'm reading her name off the tag."

Within thirty seconds of my getting home, it's obvious that this was a straight kidnapping.

Unfortunately, that's the only thing that is obvious. Pete considers it a professional job, yet they took no money, no possessions, and left Tara alone and unharmed. They came here for Reggie, and they got what they came for. They either knew exactly what he looked like, or read his tag.

I think this might be the angriest I have ever been, and it takes an extraordinary effort to put aside the anger temporarily and try to understand what could be behind this.

Based on Pete's feelings about the professionalism of the thieves, and the precision of the operation, I discount the possibility that it was done by teenagers or vandals. Knowing how important Reggie has been to our case, and the publicity he has received, it's conceivable that we will get a ransom demand. That is my hope.

More worrisome is the idea that somehow, Reggie could represent a threat to someone. I don't want to think about the implications of that.

I call Laurie and tell her what has happened, though there is no way she can comfort me. The fact that Reggie is out there and I can't protect him is a constant agony that starts in my head and travels to my gut. And back to my head. And back to my gut.

Next I call Karen to give her the bad news. She is just as stunned and upset as I knew she'd be, as I am. I promise to call her if I get any new information, but I'm not likely to for a while.

I'm not going to sleep much tonight. I'm going to think about what to do next, and hug Tara until she gets sick of it.

I CALL CALL K KEVIN at six a.m. and tell him about Reggie. at six a.m. and tell him about Reggie.

His reaction mirrors mine; he's angry, confused and helpless. I ask him to join me for a meeting with Richard before court begins.

I had planned this meeting even before Reggie was taken; I need to talk to Richard about what we've learned about Stacy. I don't usually like to spring things on clients until I have all the facts, but we're in the middle of trial, which means we don't have the luxury of time.

If Stacy was in the witness protection program, then by definition there were very dangerous people after her. Exactly the kind of people I can point to in front of a jury and say, "They did it, not my client." So what we will have to do is figure out a way to prove it, and get it admitted as evidence. That will be a difficult a.s.signment, and Kevin is already trying to develop a strategy.

Richard is stunned and disbelieving when we tell him our theory. What is important is not his skepticism but rather his inability to prove it wrong. He cannot come up with a single fact that would give credibility to Stacy's supposed background. He never met any of her previous friends, never visited where she had lived, and never knew her colleagues from work. She had always been vague, and Richard hadn't pressed her, because he suspected emotional trauma from which she was trying to escape.

Her need to escape may well have been more urgent than that.

As we are preparing to go into court, I make a decision. "Kevin, you need to go to Minneapolis."

He's obviously surprised. "When?"

"First flight you can get. You can check out Stacy's background personally, go to her high school, talk to her neighbors..."

He's obviously not thrilled with the prospect. "Well, I could do that... but... I've got sinus issues," he says.

"Sinus issues?"

He nods. "They're inflamed. Taking off and landing could be a problem."

"A serious problem?" I ask.

"Definitely. It could lead to an ear infection. Everything is connected."

I turn to Richard, who has been listening to Kevin's hypochondria with an open mouth. He should be careful about that, because something could enter his mouth and head straight for his ears, since everything is connected.

"Richard," I say, "Kevin has a sinus condition that could lead to an ear infection if he takes off and lands. So are you okay spending the rest of your life in jail?"

He smiles. "No problem."

I turn back to Kevin. "Richard is fine with it."

Kevin sighs; the battle is lost. "I'll call you when I get there."

Kevin leaves; I think he'd rather be on the way to Minneapolis than have to be here when I tell Richard about Reggie. I debated keeping it from him, since there's nothing he can do anyway, but I believe in being as honest as I can with my clients. Besides, with the police searching for Reggie, it's likely to come to the media's attention. If Richard is going to find out, I want it to be from me.

"Richard, something has happened, and I don't have an easy way to tell you. There was a break-in at my house last night, and they took Reggie."

He looks as if he has been hit with an emotional baseball bat, and it takes him a few minutes to recover enough to ask the obvious questions about who and why. I wish I had the answers to give him; all I can do is tell him that every effort will be made to find Reggie. He doesn't seem comforted by that, and he shouldn't be.

I head into court, though Richard has to be brought in by the bailiffs. I'll miss having Kevin next to me; he often sees and points out things that I've missed. But we need to get a handle on who Stacy really was, in a hurry.

The testimony about Stacy that Hawpe elicits from his witnesses is no more impressive than in the first trial. He starts with two neighbors and two people from Stacy's gym. All speak highly of her, though it is only the last woman, Susan Castro, who describes herself as Stacy's "dear friend." She had not described herself in that way during her testimony in the first trial, so unless she's been attending a lot of seances, she's been influenced by the publicity surrounding this one.

My questions for the first three witnesses are perfunctory, designed to elicit that they really didn't know what was going on in Stacy's life, that they were shocked by her death, and that they knew and liked Richard.

I decide to go further with Susan Castro, since I may need to point out later in the trial that Stacy deliberately avoided having any "dear friends," because she was living a lie. I also do it for the childish reason that I don't like Ms. Castro; she is essentially making this friendship up to draw attention to herself. The fact that Richard's life is on the line is clearly not her first priority.

"You and Stacy Harriman were dear friends?" I ask.

"Yes, we certainly were," she says.

"What does it mean to you to be 'dear friends' with someone?"

She seems taken aback by the question but then says, "I suppose it's a willingness to share innermost feelings, to confide in a person and have them confide in you. To provide and receive comfort and support."

"I see. Let's go through a list of innermost feelings that your dear friend Stacy may have confided in you. Where was she born?"

Castro looks stumped by the first toughie of a question. "I'm not sure; I believe Kansas... or Wisconsin."

I nod sympathetically. "I always get those two confused myself. How many siblings did she have?"

"I'm not sure; she didn't mention any."

"Where did she go to college?"

"Objection, Your Honor, relevance."

"Your Honor," I say, "Mr. Hawpe took the witness through a speech about how close she and the defendant were. I have every right to demonstrate that her testimony was completely misleading in that regard."

Judge Gordon overrules the objection, but instead of telling me which college Stacy attended, she says, "We didn't talk about those kind of things."

"Right, you talked about more intimate, innermost stuff. Was she ever married before?"

"I think so... maybe not."

"Got it. Previous marital history-yes and no." I have a little more fun with this and then let her off the stand. Hawpe calls Gale Chaplin, the neighbor I had visited in her house to discuss her testimony in the first trial.

Chaplin's recounting is once again damaging. She talks about Stacy's admitting that she and Richard were having problems, and her concern about his temper. She comes off as credible because she makes no claims of great friendship. In fact, she says that she was surprised that Stacy confided in her at all.

Chaplin's testimony is troubling to me on two levels. Most important is the negative impact it can have on the jury. But I'm also puzzled about why Stacy would have had this conversation with someone who was not a close friend. Why make your whole life a secret and then pour things out to a relative stranger?

In my cross I press Chaplin on the level of friendship she and Stacy had, as a way of diminishing the credibility that Stacy would have opened up like that. I'm not very effective, because Chaplin openly and repeatedly admits that they weren't close.

"Did Stacy tell you where she was from?" I ask.

Chaplin nods. "Outside of Minneapolis, which is not far from where I'm from as well."

"So you two discussed your hometowns, maybe common friends and experiences?"

"No, she didn't seem to want to talk about that at all," Chaplin says, consistent with what she told me at her house.

I brought this up in case I am able to bring before the jury that Stacy's background was fabricated. Her reluctance to talk about her supposed hometown will fit in well with that.

It's a small point, the only kind I seem to make these days.

WEEKENDS ESSENTIALLY DO not exist during a trial. not exist during a trial.

While court is closed, I still treat Sat.u.r.day and Sunday as full workdays, unless, of course, it's an NFL Sunday and the Giants are playing.

Since this is a non-NFL Sat.u.r.day, I'm reading and rereading my case files within a few minutes of returning from the morning walk with Tara. It's weird, because he was here only a short time, but the house seems empty without Reggie. Even Tara seems depressed about it.

But I have to force myself to focus. The trial is going to kick into a higher gear on Monday, and even though I feel that I'm ready for it, there are different levels of "ready."

Kevin calls at about eleven o'clock from Minneapolis. He gets right to the point. "She never lived here, Andy."

"Tell me about it," I say.

He hesitates. "You'll have to speak a little louder; since the landing I've lost most of the hearing in my left ear."

I yell, "THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD HOLD THE PHONE TO YOUR RIGHT EAR!"

It's not the answer Kevin was looking for; he was hoping I'd ask sympathetic questions about his sinus issues. When it's obvious I won't, he gets down to business.

"I went to the home address listed. It's a garden apartment complex, and the specific apartment has been lived in by a married couple for thirty-one years. Neither they nor the superintendent of the complex ever heard of Stacy Harriman, and they didn't recognize her picture."

"How many people did you ask?"

"At least two dozen," he says. "All people who have been here for years. She never lived at this address, Andy."

"What else did you find out?"

"She never went to the high school, either. No teachers ever heard of her, and she's not listed in the yearbook."

"But she has a transcript," I say.

"The school administration wouldn't talk to me about it; they said the records are confidential."

"That's bulls.h.i.t."

"That's what I told them, but they weren't impressed. But the bottom line is that unless she was invisible while she was here, then her background is faked."

"Have you got doc.u.mentation?" I ask, knowing that he must.

Kevin confirms that he has a folder full of doc.u.ments and sworn declarations that we can use in court as evidence for what he has found out, if we get the opportunity. "Andy, I never thought I'd say this, but I think Reggie was right."

"What do you mean?"

"Richard is innocent."