A Fool for a Client (28 page)

Justine turned and met his eyes coldly.

“You could end the war with surrender just as easily as with victory.”

“But why should we?
You say peace is a value in its own right.
But when I lost my wife I lost the one woman who represented all that peace has to offer: the peace of a happy home.”

“And you think that because you lost that gift, you had the right to take it from others?”

“What right do
you
have to condemn me?
By your own admission you know very little about Irish history.
So what right do you have to pass judgement?”

Justine spun away and flung her glass away.
It shattered on the ceramic tiles by the pool.
Murphy recoiled.
He had expected a retreat not a counter-attack.

“Do you know about the life histories of your victims!” she asked coldly.
“Do you know anything about
their
causes before you blast them off the face of the Earth?
You say that I have no right to condemn you unless I know about the history of
your
country and
your
cause.
Yet you feel free to terminate human lives without knowing anything about their
personal
histories!”

“Do you think I
’
m proud of what I did?” he whined, begging for her understanding. “Do you think I
’
m happy that two innocent people were killed because of me?
Do you think I don
’
t go to sleep every night regretting that I took the life of an innocent child and a man who helped others?”

They stood there facing each other in anger and bitterness.
She feared that she had let it go too far too soon.
Without the poison it wouldn
’
t work. She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness and sighed, as if surrendering to the force of his self-righteous indignation.
Murphy
’
s heavy breathing grew lighter, as the anger of the moment passed.

“And how long have you been an evidence technician at the forty sixth precinct?”

“For seven years.”

There were empty seats in the spectator
’
s section for the first time since the trial began, as if public interest was waning.
The proceedings were degenerating into their technical phase and could no longer compete with the glamour soaps to hold the public
’
s attention.
Also, the trial didn
’
t seem to have a sex angle as some of the tabloids had promised.
The public felt cheated and were voting with their feet for a more interesting form of entertainment.
If the DA couldn
’
t satisfy them with a saga of lust and greed, then they
’
d go elsewhere for their titillation.

“Now could you tell us about the events of the night of September the seventh.”

“Detective Reilly gave me a plastic bag containing a bottle which from the label appeared to be a bottle of tequila.
It was closed by a cork but the bottle was not full.

The witness was Lieutenant Hogarth.
Unlike many other evidence technicians he was college educated and but for departmental politics would have headed the police laboratory in his precinct.

“Do you see Detective Reilly in this courtroom?”

He looked around quickly.

“Yes sir I do.”

“Could you point him out please.”

“That man over there,” he said, pointing to Reilly.

“Let the record show that the witness pointed to Detective Reilly.

“So ordered,” said the judge.

All of this was to establish chain of custody over the bottle until the point when fingerprints were identified.

Hogarth was twenty eight years old, and presented a very conservative image with the judge and jury alike.
He wore a dark suit like a man accustomed to such attire and with his neatly trimmed hair he looked the perfect picture of the upcoming young corporate executive, a yuppie who played by the establishment
’
s rules.

“What did you do with the bottle when you received it?”

“I removed it from the bag onto a clean formica surface and spray dusted it with fine black powder for fingerprints. I then photographed the fingerprints with a fingerprint camera.”

“Who developed the pictures?”

“I developed them myself in the dark room adjacent to the fingerprint lab.”

“Is this the usual procedure?”

“No, it
’
s more usual to delegate.
But on the graveyard shift we have only a skeleton staff, if you
’
ll excuse the pun, so I did it myself.”

Rick made a note and thrust it in front of Justine.
It read: “staff shortages, most violent crimes committed at night, work pressure, could have caused mistake, let me cross-examine.”
Justine shoved it away contemptuously.

“Did you compare the fingerprints in question with the defendant
’
s fingerprints?”

“I did.”

“With what result?”

“I found four total and seven partial prints belonging to the defendant.”

“Did you compare the fingerprints on the bottle with those taken from the body of the deceased Sean Murphy as contained in the autopsy file?”

“I did.”

“With what result?”

“I found seven total and nine partial prints belonging to him.”

“Were there any other prints?”

“Yes I identified others belonging to Doctor Stern and Professor Ostrovsky.”

“Could you tell
when
the defendant
’
s prints were made in relation to the others?”

“There is no direct procedure for determining this but some of the partial prints of the defendant were partly covered by those of Sean Murphy and Doctor Stern and some of those of Sean Murphy were partly covered by those of Doctor Stern and Professor Ostrovsky.”

He then used an overhead projector with enlarged slides and pointer to show this in more detail.

“Did any of the prints of the defendant cover any of the others?”

“No.”

“And is it possible to draw any heuristical conclusions from these facts?”

“It is highly probable that the defendant touched the bottle before Sean Murphy the deceased and that Doctor Stern and Professor Ostrovsky handled the bottle after Murphy.”

“Thank you Lieutenant Hogarth.” He turned to Justine.
“Your witness.”

“No questions.”

He had taken the dishes into the kitchen.
For Justine the chance had finally come.
She pulled the vial out of her pocket, snapped off the lid and poured the contents into the bottle.
The “contents” was enough pyrethrum to kill a horse, the pyrethrum
that she had so painstakingly extracted from the cans of insecticide.
She could hear the clattering of dishes in the kitchen and knew that he was still there, but she quickly returned the vial to her pocket.
She then threw away the contents of her new glass in a flower pot, refilled the glass from the bottle and positioned both the bottle and her glass next to her place, well out of Murphy
’
s immediate reach.

Murphy emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray on which stood a steaming china pot and two small cups.
A minute later, they were facing each other across the table, drinking coffee.

“So how did the British get onto you then?” asked Justine.

“They caught the man who sold me the explosives, and the bastard snitched.
They almost arrested me.
But I gave them the slip and signed up on a
U.S.
bound freighter in
Liverpool
.”

“But how did you manage to stay here?”

“I married an American girl.”

Justine looked around, as if expecting to see his wife there.

“Oh don
’
t worry it didn
’
t last.
But it gave me a residence permit.
I think she was more attracted to my money than to me, after I sold my book.”

The book in question was To Fight for Freedom, written by Sean Murphy “with Martin Resnick.”
It was a quintessentially American product, the outgrowth of a collaboration between a ghost writer and a “celebrity”.
And Murphy was as much a celebrity as any anorexic model strutting down the catwalk, or any hooker giving a blow job to an actor.

Some British politicians called his book “The memoirs of a terrorist.”
Murphy had supplied the raw material, along with rambling political polemics which meant little to the American reader.
The “co-writer” had toned it down and turned it into a fast-paced piece of popular journalism.

“But if the British know you
’
re here,” asked Justine, “can
’
t they apply for your extradition?”

“They tried,” Murphy replied with a smile.
“The judge threw the case out.”

“On what grounds?”

Murphy smiled again.

“Well you can
’
t be extradited from
America
to stand trial for a political crime, just like you can
’
t be tried for one
here
.
I had one hell of a smart lawyer:
Morris
Hershkowitz.
He
’
s one of those high profile lawyer
’
s who specializes in representing celebrities.
He argued that my crime was political and the judge accepted his argument.”

She had heard it all before and it didn
’
t impress her.
But by now the game of cat and mouse had run its course.
The ballet had completed it
’
s set-piece choreography and now nothing remained of this verbal pas-de-deux but the grand finale.
She sat forward, smelling blood, her heart racing and her nerves tingling.
It had been so easy to plan and prepare, driven as she was by anger.
But it was not so easy now.
Not so easy to take a human life, however miserable and unworthy that life may be.
This was the time for the final confrontation, and if she didn
’
t do it now, she wouldn
’
t do it at all.

“Blowing up a radiologist and a three-year-old child?”

He went white and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“You know about the child?”

He remembered that he hadn
’
t mentioned the child
’
s age.

“I know about the whole thing.
Why do you think I let you pick me up in that nightclub?”

“Let me... pick you up?” he stuttered, a tinge of confusion creeping into his tone.

She nodded silently, her implacable eyes confirming her power and her silence underscoring her victory.

“It was a setup?” he asked, grasping the beginnings of her plan, but uncertain of where it was leading.

“Right from the word go.”

“But why?” he asked, the confusion ceding ground to a faint trace of fear.

“You forfeited the right to ask that question when you murdered two people whom you didn
’
t even know.”

Her eyes remained unyielding, holding him a prisoner on the spot where he sat.

“Knowing them has nothing to do with it.
It wasn
’
t a
personal
matter.
Can
’
t you understand that?
It was
political
.”

“Murdering a child is political?” she asked incredulously, the
resurgence
of anger sweeping over her like a tidal wave, even though she had heard this kind of nonsense a hundred times before.

“Well it was politically motivated.”

“On that basis,” she said, “I could kill an American soldier to protest American policy in
Central America
and claim immunity from prosecution.”

“Sounds like you
’
re preaching again,” he said sneeringly, trying to play down his confusion.

She reached out towards the bottle and fingered it delicately, almost lovingly.