And Leave Her Lay Dying Read online

  “Lieutenant McGuire wants me to repeat the question,” Rosen said in a singsong manner. “And may the court note that this is at least the third time . . .” He looked back at his assistant, a smallish man with an enormous moustache, sitting at the defence desk. The assistant held up four fingers for Rosen and everyone else to see. “Correction, the fourth time during cross-examination that the attention of the witness has wandered from this vital, critical topic at hand.”

  “My attention hasn’t wandered, counsellor—” McGuire began.

  “May I remind you, Lieutenant, that my client has been charged with a brutal murder of which he is totally innocent, and has suffered assault at the hands of you and your fellow officers?” Rosen exploded.

  “Counsellor, counsellor.” The soft voice of Judge Garnett Scaife sounded from above McGuire’s right ear. “No need to flirt with hysterics here, Mr. Rosen.” The eyes of the judge crinkled behind rimless glasses. “I think that all that’s necessary is for you to repeat the question as Lieutenant McGuire requested, and I expect this time the police officer will do his utmost to listen.”

  Rosen approached the bench as though wanting to discuss a confidential legal matter. When he spoke, his voice carried far enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear without difficulty.

  “Your honour,” Rosen began, “a basis of our defence is the open hostility which has been shown towards my client—”

  Judge Scaife remained smiling but raised his hands to silence the lawyer. “Counsellor,” he said, in the same soft, indulgent manner, “your client has been charged with a particularly heinous murder. In my experience, police officers tend to be a touch belligerent with people they suspect of committing those kinds of crimes. Of course, if you wish to submit evidence of harm to your client’s person by any of the officers, I will certainly be pleased to hear it.”

  Retaining his smile, Scaife scanned the courtroom, projecting an image of a strong, kindly judge determined to show no favouritism.

  Rosen tightened his stomach and straightened his shoulders. “Your honour, my client shouldn’t even be in this courtroom,” the lawyer declared. “But as long as he is subjected to this procedure, he deserves respect from the prosecution witnesses and most certainly from the police officers.” As he spoke, he pulled the cuffs of his shirt beyond the ends of his jacket sleeves and the diamond chips on his gold cuff links danced in the courtroom lights for the entertainment of the spectators.

  “So he does, Mr. Rosen,” Judge Scaife nodded. “So he does. Now please repeat the question. We are waiting with great anticipation.” He looked up and smiled out at the courtroom once again.

  While the lawyer pleaded for justice and the judge projected wisdom, McGuire shielded his eyes and tried to hear music in his mind, a jazz tune, a chorus from a favourite Brubeck recording. Somewhere else, he pleaded silently as he recalled the music in his head. Take me somewhere else, anywhere but here.

  Removing his hand from his eyes he looked up to see Rosen’s client, a skinny acne-faced young man named Arthur Trevor Wilmer, slouched behind the defence desk in an ill­fitting polyester suit. The shirt collar was too large for his thin neck, the sleeves too long for his short arms. As McGuire watched, Wilmer picked diligently at a hangnail on his thumb; the concentrated effort forced the tip of his tongue to emerge from behind his stained, protruding upper teeth.

  McGuire knew Wilmer’s history, knew of the squalor and poverty he had been born into, knew of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and a series of her live-in boyfriends, knew of his drifting between jobs in car washes and short reformatory terms for petty thievery. He felt pity for Wilmer: a predestined loser, a social misfit fated to die clutching a wine bottle beneath a bridge in the Public Garden.

  But he felt only loathing for what Wilmer had done to a twenty-year-old Boston College student who endured three hours of rape and torture on a warm spring afternoon before Wilmer plunged a kitchen knife into her chest.

  McGuire narrowed his eyes and watched Wilmer tug at the errant hangnail, finally lifting his thumb to his mouth and biting off the sliver of skin. Wilmer raised his head and caught McGuire’s stare before dropping his hand into his lap and smiling—smiling!—at McGuire, the man who had formally arrested him and then, in the alley behind Wilmer’s rooming house, lifted him bodily and thrown him into the rear seat of the squad car.

  Wilmer hadn’t complained about his treatment. He would never have mentioned the incident at all except in response to intense questioning by Rosen, his court-appointed lawyer. McGuire’s action had been just another part of Wilmer’s world, a world which had no room for pleasantries or careful deportment, where there were few expectations and fewer courtesies.

  Rosen scanned the jury, ensuring that each member had absorbed his loud and passionate declaration of his client’s innocence, before strolling back to the defence table where Wilmer now sat, self-consciously erect. The lawyer scooped a sheaf of papers from the desk and ambled towards McGuire.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, scanning the papers as he approached, “you stated that you visited Mr. Wilmer’s apartment on Tuesday, the sixteenth of May, the day prior to his arrest.” He smiled coldly at the detective. “Is that correct?”

  “That’s correct,” McGuire responded. “We had a proper warrant, documented and—”

  “I’m not interested in the warrant, Lieutenant.” Rosen waved the idea away with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “I am interested only in what happened at Mr. Wilmer’s apartment in his absence.”

  McGuire frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean to make two points, Lieutenant.” The expression remained frozen on the lawyer’s face, less a smile than a tightening at the corners of his mouth. “Point number one. When no one answered your knock on Mr. Wilmer’s door, what did you do?”

  McGuire shifted in the chair. “I asked his landlady to unlock the door for me. Our warrant dearly stated—”

  “Please, Lieutenant, please!” The smile broadened into something even colder and more cynical. Rosen lifted his hands to his ears as though trying to shield himself from McGuire’s words. “We’ve heard enough about your warrant. Let’s not bore everyone here with the details of your warrant, shall we?” Dropping his hands, the lawyer turned to the jury again. “Kindly tell the court exactly what Mrs. Hoskins did when you made the request.”

  McGuire ran his hand through his hair again as the invisible hatchet blade worked its way deeper into his skull. He lifted his eyes to look at Rosen, who was studying the jury with an expression of pained patience, and replied in a flat voice, “She unlocked the door for us.”

  Rosen snapped his head in McGuire’s direction, his eyes burning. “And you entered Mr. Wilmer’s room?”

  “I have testified to that.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “A mess.”

  “Is Mr. Wilmer charged with being a poor housekeeper?” Rosen asked in an icy tone.

  “No, he’s not, counsellor—” McGuire began.

  “Then let’s not treat this matter so lightly, shall we? The point is, Mr. Wilmer was not at home, was he?”

  “No, he was not.”

  Rosen walked casually back to his desk where he dropped the papers and thrust his hands in his trouser pockets. “We have heard that Mr. Wilmer’s quarters consisted of one room with one small closet,” he said over his shoulder. “He shared a bathroom with other tenants. Is that right, Lieutenant?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And how long were you in Mr. Wilmer’s room during that first visit?”

  “Long enough to convince myself that he wasn’t there.”

  “More specific, please.”

  McGuire shrugged. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  Rosen turned to face the jury and the corners of his broad mouth tightened once again. But this time the eyes crin
kled. This time there was warmth in the smile McGuire could not see. “Did Mr. Wilmer reside in a penthouse, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  His smile erased, Rosen looked sharply at the witness stand. “Did his residence cover several hundred square feet?”

  “Hardly.”

  “In fact, it was one small room, wasn’t it?” Rosen took a step in McGuire’s direction.

  “As I have testified, yes.”

  Another step. Rosen was bearing down on him like a . . . like a snake, McGuire thought. Body smoothly gliding, eyes unblinking, confident. A snake. “And you did conduct a thorough search, did you not?” Another step.

  McGuire folded his arms across his chest. He breathed deeply and slowly, trying to prevent anger from inundating his voice, trying to avoid the unpardonable sin of losing his professional demeanour, his calculated and aloof coolness under pressure. “You know we did not, counsellor,” he said, hearing the edge in his voice, feeling a tightening in his larynx. “Our warrant did not cover a search. It authorized us only to arrest Mr. Wilmer or to confirm his absence in the event—”

  “For the last time, Lieutenant, we know about the warrant you had sworn out with only the most tenuous of evidence—”

  Don Higgins, the prosecuting attorney, stood and called out in a weary voice, “Objection—”

  “We had a witness—” McGuire began.

  “Your honour, I must object,” Higgins called out.

  “But not a witness to the murder!”

  Thwack!—a slap from Judge Scaife’s gavel. Rosen ignored it and jammed his fists against his hips.

  “You had a lonely old woman sitting by her window who believed she saw—”

  “Counsellor . . .” Scaife said in a voice he might use to caution a young and impetuous boy.

  The hatchet cleaved deeper into McGuire’s skull and he tried to shout down the pain. “She didn’t believe it, damn it, she testified—”

  Two strokes of Scaife’s gavel failed to halt Rosen’s momentum, and his words were derailed only momentarily by McGuire’s interruption. “Who believed she saw Mr. Wilmer enter the building—”

  THWACK! THWACK! The gavel pounded louder, the strokes stronger and closer together. “Mr. Rosen, for God’s sake, get to the point!” the judge thundered. “It’s on the record that Lieutenant McGuire and other officers entered the premises of the accused and they were authorized to do so. Now tell us why you are pursuing this line or I will direct you to discontinue cross-examination.”

  McGuire glanced over at Higgins. The prosecuting attorney shrugged his shoulders and sat down slowly. Let Scaife handle it, his expression said. Let the judge do our blocking for us.

  “My point is this, your honour.” Rosen strode back to centre stage again, where he spoke with equal attention to the judge and jury. “Lieutenant McGuire and his partner both confirmed the absence of Mr. Wilmer from his apartment. Considering the modest size of the room, this should have taken only seconds. Yet they remained in the room for at least fifteen minutes. My question is simple: Why?”

  The judge sighed audibly. “Answer the question, Lieutenant.”

  “We questioned the landlady,” McGuire replied. “Her answers are on the record—”

  “Wrong, Lieutenant.” Rosen spoke in a weary voice as though dredging up a last reservoir of patience. “It wasn’t ‘we.’ Mrs. Hoskins has testified that your partner questioned her. My question, Lieutenant, is this: What were you doing during this time?”

  “I was looking.”

  “At what?”

  “At the room. At the posters on the wall, the pornography on the bed—”

  “And you touched nothing?”

  “Nothing I didn’t have to touch.”

  Rosen turned away and studied the floor as he spoke. “Isn’t it interesting, Lieutenant, that when Mr. Wilmer was arrested the following morning and you finally had a search warrant in hand, you directed your colleagues to one specific shelf in Mr. Wilmer’s closet?”

  The prosecuting attorney rose to his feet, calm and assured. “Your honour, there has been no testimony to this effect—”

  “My client will testify—” Rosen snapped, spinning to face Higgins.

  “Mr. Rosen—” Judge Scaife began in his pleasant voice.

  Rosen’s arm shot out in McGuire’s direction, his finger extended. “—that when Lieutenant McGuire entered his premises and arrested him—”

  Scaife banged his gavel with little enthusiasm. “Mr. Rosen, I cannot permit the introduction of evidence—”

  “—and directed two officers—” Rosen roared on, his finger still pointing at McGuire but his words directed to the jury.

  “Counsellor, I’m warning you!” The judge’s voice rose in pitch and he banged his gavel while Higgins sputtered objections from the prosecution table.

  “—to one specific shelf for the only evidence—”

  “DAMN IT, COUNSELLOR, SHUT UP!”

  The court bailiffs turned in surprise to stare first at the red-faced judge, then at each other. They raised their eyebrows and tightened their chins in unison; no question about it, Rosen had gone too far this time.

  But the outburst worked. Rosen turned slowly to glare at McGuire and lower his arm to his side. The courtroom spectators remained frozen, the jury leaned forward in fascination, and prosecuting attorney Higgins stood with one hand raised.

  Judge Scaife took a deep breath to regain his poise. He seemed on the brink of apologizing, then stood up quickly and looked at Rosen and Higgins in turn. “I want to see both of you in chambers,” he instructed, and exited quickly through a side door, followed by a frowning Higgins and a confident Rosen.

  McGuire slumped in the witness chair with his eyes closed for several minutes before opening them to watch Arthur Trevor Wilmer clean his fingernails. The ritual, he told himself. The importance of the ritual cannot be ignored. We are following a ritual here, each of us knowing Wilmer belongs out of society, each of us forgetting the innocent victim whose life he took, because the ritual demands it. It’s not truth or justice that counts, it’s the ritual that must be followed. . . .

  The door to Judge Scaife’s chambers burst open and the judge entered the courtroom, grim-faced, followed by Higgins and Rosen.

  Rosen won, McGuire realized. Look at him, he’s practically strutting.

  The judge scanned the courtroom, scowling back at every eye caught in his gaze. “Mr. Rosen has convinced me of the validity of his line of questioning and I have determined that it may continue, within limits.” He looked at McGuire and added, “I shall remind the Lieutenant that he is still under oath.”

  Rosen smiled at Judge Scaife, then avoided McGuire’s eyes as he spoke.

  “Lieutenant, we were discussing your presence at the arrest of Mr. Wilmer. We have heard your colleague testify that he found a brassiere, which he claimed belonged to the murder victim, on a closet shelf in Mr. Wilmer’s apartment.”

  Rosen continued to scrutinize the floor as he walked towards McGuire.

  “At that time, you were in possession of a second warrant to search the apartment in question, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct,” McGuire replied.

  “And you arrived back at the apartment just as your partner was arresting Mr. Wilmer, is that correct?”

  “I have testified to that, yes.”

  “And you, along with two uniformed officers and two members of the Identification Bureau, were present, as I recall. At which time, in the presence of my client, you directed Sergeant Burns of the Identification Bureau to a specific drawer in Mr. Wilmer’s closet by saying ‘Check the top drawer, Izzy,’ did you not?”

  McGuire shifted in the chair.

  Jesus. He couldn’t be suggesting . . . “I can’t recall,” McGuire said, looking up at the courtro
om ceiling. “We had a blanket search warrant that time.”

  “Of course you did.” Rosen walked casually over to the witness chair and spoke directly to McGuire for the first time since leaving the judge’s chambers. “You’re very thorough in your application of search warrants, aren’t you? Just as you were very thorough in your search of the victim’s apartment, weren’t you?”

  McGuire glanced over at Higgins. What the hell’s going on? he asked with his eyes, but the prosecuting attorney folded his arms across his chest and looked away.

  Rosen was leaning closer. McGuire could smell peppermint on the lawyer’s breath. “In fact, Lieutenant, you visited the victim’s apartment at least three times after the initial discovery of her body, didn’t you?”

  Use her name, McGuire wanted to shout back at him. She wasn’t a victim until that scumbag, your client, mutilated her. She was young and beautiful and a good person and her name was Diane Linda Hope and she had made the Dean’s List at Boston College working towards a master’s degree in psychology, use her name, damn it.

  Without waiting for a reply, Rosen pressed on, his eyes growing wider as he spoke. “Another fact. After your first visit to Mr. Wilmer’s apartment you visited the murder scene for the last time, didn’t you? You met Sergeant Burns there and sent him on to Mr. Wilmer’s apartment alone, saying you would meet him there shortly. Is that not correct, Lieutenant?”

  It was correct. After Burns left, McGuire had stood in the victim’s room staring at the floor where Diane Linda Hope had screamed silently into a knotted towel through a warm spring afternoon. McGuire had listened for the echoes of her screams, tried to feel the depths of her agony, tried to make them as real as the brown and crusted stains on the carpet at his feet.

  “We’re waiting, Lieutenant.”

  McGuire blinked away the memory. “That is correct.”

  “And you arrived at Mr. Wilmer’s apartment from the scene of the murder, entered Mr. Wilmer’s closet, and when Mr. Wilmer arrived a few moments later you instructed Sergeant Burns to examine a specific shelf, didn’t you, Lieutenant?” Rosen leaned even closer as he spoke, so close McGuire could feel the other man’s breath on his cheek.