The Third Victim Read online

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “A little sore but pretty good over all. I slept like a log.”

  “I bet you did. Are you ready to see the boss so we can try to straighten out this mess? Prater has been calling all morning.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I didn’t talk to him, but I was sure he’d call, so I told Susan to say that Regina was unavailable. We have to give her time to figure out what to do.”

  Robin followed Jeff down the hall to Regina’s office. Regina smiled when they walked in and motioned them to set across the desk from her.

  “So, what’s up?”

  “Prater’s been calling from the hospital,” Jeff said.

  Regina frowned. “What does he want?”

  “Probably for you to represent him in his attempted-murder case,” Robin said. “But we can’t have anything to do with Prater anymore. This is as clear a conflict of interest as you’re going to see. A member of your firm—me—put him in the hospital and is the key witness to his attempt to murder Jackson Wright.”

  Regina nodded. “Yes, that does present a problem.”

  “I also heard Jackson Wright confess to murdering Miles Poe, so I’ll be a key witness for Prater in his murder case.”

  Regina nodded again. “You’ve convinced me.”

  “You should go to the hospital and tell him that you have to get off his case,” Robin said.

  “I’ll check with the hospital to see if Prater can have visitors,” Jeff said.

  “You should be there when Regina talks to Prater,” Robin said. “I don’t think he’s going to take it well.”

  “Good idea,” Jeff agreed. “Our client doesn’t seem to have great anger-management skills. But before I find out when we can visit Prater, I want to tell you about a few things I’ve discovered that should help in Alex Mason’s case.”

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Regina said.

  “I sent our lab the glass I took from Allison Mason’s bathroom and they lifted a print. When they ran it, they turned up a five-year-old Florida arrest for prostitution under the name Alexis Cooper.”

  “That’s great!” Robin said. “Was there a conviction?”

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  “Does she have any other crimes on her record?” Regina asked.

  “Not that I’ve been able to find, but I’ll keep digging. I did find something else you can use. Allison told the police that Alex Mason paid for her plane ticket to Portland, but the airline records show that Allison paid for the ticket with her credit card. That calls into question her story that he was the one who wanted to continue the relationship. If she flew here on her own dime, you can use that fact when you argue that she was trying to trap Alex into marriage. I also have a theory about why she came here in such a hurry.

  “I’ve been suspicious about the timing of Allison’s move to Oregon ever since you told me about the attorney fees Mason’s firm received when it settled the case with the company represented by the firm where Allison worked as a temp. I had a New York PI ask some of the secretaries and attorneys at the firm about Allison. There were rumors that she was screwing one of the senior partners. What if she learned about the settlement? She’d have known that Alex was going to come into a lot of money as soon as the case was settled, and that could have been her motivation to move here to try to rekindle their romance.”

  “Good work, Jeff,” Regina said.

  “There’s one more thing. It looks like Allison may have a lover. His name is Jacob Heller and he’s handling Allison’s divorce. It’s interesting that she never mentioned she’s been screwing a lawyer who can advise her on how to get the most out of her hubby in a divorce.”

  “Is there anything else we can use to call Allison’s truthfulness into question?”

  “Not that I’ve turned up. Hopefully, we’ll know more when I learn the facts of Allison’s prostitution arrest.”

  Regina looked puzzled. “Allison has a record for prostitution?”

  Robin felt sick, and Jeff had to work at keeping his composure.

  “Remember, I ran her prints and found the old Florida case?”

  Regina had a blank look on her face for a moment. Then she recovered.

  “I thought you meant that there was more than one case,” she said.

  “No. There’s just the one.”

  “Okay. Well, it looks like Mason’s case is starting to shape up nicely. Why don’t you check with the hospital.”

  Jeff stood up. “I’ll let you know what they say.”

  When Robin and Jeff left Regina’s office, Robin was very worried. Why had Regina asked Jeff about Allison’s prostitution case when he had just told her about it?

  “When you get back, let’s get together,” Robin said to Jeff.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Jeff called Robin when he and Regina left the hospital, and they agreed to meet for lunch at a coffee shop near the courthouse. Robin found a table in a corner where they wouldn’t be overheard and waited for Jeff, getting more anxious with each passing minute.

  Jeff walked in twenty minutes after Robin. He searched the room, then smiled when he saw her.

  “How did things go at the hospital?” Robin asked.

  “Not well. Prater is threatening to sue everybody and he’s also going to report you to the State Bar for beating him up. Regina doesn’t think he has a leg to stand on—and that pun was intentional. Anyway, he’s hopping mad.”

  “Cut that out.” Robin laughed.

  Jeff smiled. “I think some of his bad mood has to do with getting the shit kicked out of him by a girl. You did some real damage to his self-esteem.”

  “Good. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Maybe he’ll start to understand how Mordessa felt.”

  “I doubt it. Prater doesn’t strike me as someone whose strong suits are empathy and self-analysis.”

  “Did Regina resign from Prater’s case?”

  Jeff nodded. “She refunded his entire retainer and gave him a list of attorneys. He crumpled it in a ball and threw it at her. I was tempted to tell him I was going to send you over to teach him some manners, but I restrained myself.”

  A waitress came over and took their order. “You wanted to talk about some other stuff?” he said when she left.

  Robin nodded. She felt sick as she pulled out the notes she’d been keeping on Regina’s behavior.

  “You were in Regina’s office this morning. She forgot what you told her about Allison’s prostitution arrest minutes after you’d mentioned it.”

  “She said she thought we were talking about a second conviction.”

  “That’s not how I heard it. I’m pretty sure she was bluffing. And do you remember Prater’s bail hearing?”

  “Yeah, I thought she was brilliant.”

  “Jeff, she forgot to cross-examine Anders about the fact that there were no fingerprints on the gun. I had to remind her. We went over that line of questioning right before court.”

  “Everyone forgets stuff.”

  “I don’t take this lightly, Jeff. I’ve done my homework.”

  Robin handed him a typed record of Regina’s behavior.

  “As soon as I suspected that Regina was acting oddly, I started taking notes. Earlier this week, I met with an expert on dementia.”

  “Jesus, Robin, you didn’t—”

  “I never mentioned Regina. I said there was a man I was concerned about and I disguised the incidents so the person I consulted wouldn’t know Regina’s sex or that she’s a lawyer. And the expert is also a lawyer, who I consulted as a client, so everything we discussed is covered by the attorney-client privilege. She can’t talk about it, but what she told me is disturbing.”

  The waitress brought their food. While they ate, Robin told Jeff everything she’d learned from Gabriella Winter. Then she went over her notes. When she finished, Jeff looked troubled.

  “I’m not saying I’m buying this, but you’ve got me
thinking.”

  “I’m totally out of my depth here,” Robin said. “I’m not a doctor and I’ve never tried a case. You’ve known her for years. Is this normal behavior, or is something wrong?”

  “Fuck” was all Jeff could manage.

  “What about doing what the person I consulted recommended? We could approach Regina in a nonconfrontational way and say we’re worried about her. You could explain why, since she knows you better and trusts you more than she does me.”

  Jeff put his head in his hands. “I can’t do it. The law is Regina’s life. It’s who she is.”

  “There’s a chance that Alex Mason is innocent. How are you going to feel if he’s sentenced to death because Regina is too impaired to try his case competently?”

  Jeff was quiet for a while and Robin waited. She knew what she had told him was a lot to take in.

  “You’ve convinced me that Regina could be showing signs that she’s … losing her edge,” Jeff said, unable to use any of the terms that defined Regina’s possible condition. “But we can’t confront her now—not this close to trial.”

  “This is the point where we have to confront her—before she goes to court and makes a mistake that sends Mason to death row.”

  “What if you’re wrong? Confronting her would really upset her, and she has to be sharp to win this case.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  “You’ll be at Regina’s side every minute of the trial. You have to admit that she did great in Prater’s bail hearing, even though she did forget to cross on the lack of fingerprints on the gun. If she does have dementia, it’s in the early stages. You can be her safety net. Regina at her best is Mason’s best chance to win. She’s still his best chance, even if she’s lost a step, especially with you there to help her.”

  “We’re taking a huge risk if we don’t get this right.

  “I agree, but let me ask you this. Are you one hundred percent certain that Regina has Alzheimer’s, that her forgetfulness isn’t normal for someone her age?”

  “I…” Robin shook her head. “No. I don’t have the medical background to make that call. Winter told me we would need a specialist to make the diagnosis.”

  “Then I say we wait and watch.”

  They talked a little longer. Then Jeff said he had to get back to the office. Robin was too upset to go back. She asked Jeff to use the fight with Prater as her excuse if Regina asked where she was.

  Robin decided to walk home to clear her head, but it didn’t work. Regina Barrister was an icon in the State Bar. Robin had never tried a case, and Jeff was asking her to baby-sit one of the nation’s best defense attorneys. It was insane and she didn’t know if she could go through with it.

  But what was the alternative? Confronting Regina without a professional’s opinion would just upset her and could cost Robin her dream job. And Regina’s career could be ruined if even a hint of what she was thinking leaked. This was a no-win situation. Alex Mason’s life would be in Regina’s hands, but his death might be on Robin’s head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Regina, Robin, and Jeff had worked at a fever pitch during the weeks leading up to Alex Mason’s trial, and Robin felt like she’d been a student in an upper-level seminar on death-penalty litigation by the time the team went to court to pick the jury.

  Citizens usually receive a summons to report for jury duty on a specific day to a room reserved for them. During the day, a clerk sends jurors to courtrooms, where they are questioned by the attorneys for the parties. The jury selection process is called voir dire, after the French verbs for “see” and “tell.” After a lawyer questions a potential juror, he or she can reject the person for cause or use a set number of peremptory challenges to dismiss the juror for no specific reason.

  Jury selection in death-penalty cases is different. Potential jurors for Alex Mason’s case were summoned to Judge Martha Herrera’s courtroom and not to the room where all other jurors reported. The judge’s bailiff handed each of them a questionnaire that had been specially prepared for death-penalty cases. It was twenty pages long and it asked the jurors to answer questions about their jobs, families, education, military service, religion, politics, physical condition, their views on capital punishment, and many other topics that the attorneys for the defense and prosecution needed to know about in order to make an informed decision on whether or not to keep a juror on the panel. As soon as they were completed, the questionnaires were sent to the defendant’s attorney and the DA so that the lawyers could decide what jurors they wanted to keep or dismiss.

  Regina, Robin, and Mark Berman spent a day going through the questionnaires, looking for the most desirable and least acceptable candidates. Then Regina and Kyle Bergland spent two contentious days in Judge Herrera’s courtroom before settling on twelve jurors and six alternates. The alternates sat through the trial but did not vote unless they took the place of a juror who was dismissed after the trial started.

  When the jury was in place, Judge Herrera recessed court. The next morning, Kyle Bergland gave his opening statement. Bergland’s presentation had been understated and businesslike, punctuated for contrast with graphic photos of the victims and the torture room in Alex Mason’s cabin. The prosecutor laid out his evidence in chronological order, starting with Tonya Benson’s disappearance and the discovery of her body and ending with an account of the testimony he expected from Meredith Fenner.

  When Regina walked to the jury box to give her opening statement, Robin was as tense as she’d been at the start of any of her fights. Even though Regina radiated confidence, Robin worried that she would lose her train of thought or forget a key point. She also knew that the case against their client was very strong and the arguments for acquittal they had discussed in the conference room at Regina’s office were weak.

  The defense team had agreed that Regina’s opening should be brief and should emphasize the fact that Alex did not have to present any evidence or examine any of the State’s witnesses because the State alone had the burden of proving the accusations against her client. In the end, there were no missteps, but Robin knew that Regina’s vague opening and lack of facts had given the first round to Kyle Bergland.

  * * *

  Robin slept fitfully the night before the State was going to call its first witness. At 6:00 A.M., she finally gave up trying. She did calisthenics for half an hour and took a freezing cold shower, but she still had cobwebs wrapped around her brain. A pancake breakfast and several cups of black coffee helped a little, but she was feeling dull when she arrived at the courthouse.

  The previous night, she’d called her mother to tell her that she was helping Regina try a big case, but she’d been depressed when the call ended.

  “Who did this Mr. Mason murder?” Robin’s mother had asked.

  “He says he didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Then why did the police arrest him?”

  “Three women were kidnapped and tortured and two of them were killed. The crimes occurred at Mr. Mason’s cabin, but he says he doesn’t know anything about it.”

  “And you’re going to help him?” Robin’s mother asked. The question sounded like an accusation.

  “Defend him, Mom. I told you: He says he didn’t do it and the law presumes that he’s innocent.”

  “What if he isn’t? What if he really tortured those women?”

  Robin could see where this was going. “Everyone is entitled to a fair trial, even a murderer. A jury will decide if he’s guilty.”

  “I see.”

  “Mom, this is what defense attorneys do. We make sure that every American gets a fair trial and we protect people who are falsely accused. You read the papers. Look at how many people are released from prison after spending years in a cell for something they didn’t do.”

  “But this man … I know you’re doing important work, but, if he did what they say and you get him off…”

  “I don’t get anyone off, Mom. A jury or judge will decide if Mr. Ma
son is guilty. Miss Barrister just keeps the State honest and presents Mr. Mason’s side of the story.”

  “Well, okay,” her mother had said before they’d changed the subject, but Robin could tell that she hadn’t convinced her.

  Robin had been through this before. Her mother had been proud of her law degree, but she’d hoped Robin would pursue one of the more “respectable” areas of law. Robin had tried everything to get her mother to accept the fact that representing people accused of a crime could be a noble profession, but she had yet to succeed.

  * * *

  Regina had already fought her way through the reporters and spectators who crowded the corridor outside Judge Herrera’s courtroom when Robin walked in. At the prosecution’s table, Kyle Bergland was engaged in a whispered conversation with Vanessa Cole, a middle-aged African-American who was a veteran in the DA’s office and had been lead counsel or second chair in over a dozen death cases.

  Just as Robin walked through the gate that separated the spectator section from the bar of the court, the guards brought Alex Mason into the courtroom. When he was at the defense table, the guards unlocked his handcuffs and leg chains. Mason was dressed in an expensive charcoal gray suit, white silk shirt, and red-and-blue-striped Hermès tie, and the manacles looked strange on him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Mason,” Robin said. Mason looked harried and he only nodded. He had been cold and distant during jury selection and opening statements and Regina had had to remind him frequently to appear to be engaged in his own trial.

  Robin and Mason were just sitting down on either side of Regina when Judge Herrera called the court to order and had the jurors brought in.

  “Are the parties ready to proceed?” she asked when the jurors were seated in the jury box.

  “We are,” Regina and Bergland replied.

  “Then call your first witness, Mr. Bergland.”

  * * *

  During the morning session, Bergland put on Carrie Anders, who gave an overview of the investigation into the deaths of Patricia Rawls and Tonya Benson and Meredith Fenner’s kidnapping that included the dates on which the three victims had been abducted. She also told the jurors about Meredith Fenner’s identification of Alex Mason’s cabin as the place where she had been held and about the arrest of Alex Mason. Regina elicited the fact that Alex Mason had denied any involvement in the crimes when questioned.