Innocence (3 page)

“I don’t remember him bein’ much of a talker. He was very preoccupied; wanted to get right down to business. Seemed like he’d done this before.”

“Objection, Your Honor, nonresponsive. Move to strike.” Dumonds looked flustered again.

“Strike away,” Maycomber said, his full attention still directed toward Abigail Prudet.

“No further questions,” Dumonds said, sitting down.

“Redirect?” the judge asked Finn, a suggestion of hope in his tone.

“None, Your Honor,” Finn replied. She’d already served her purpose.

Prudet stood up and walked out into the gallery, taking a seat halfway back in the courtroom. Maycomber paused for a moment to watch her walk before addressing the lawyers. “Any other witnesses?”

“That’s all we have, Your Honor,” Finn said. Dumonds just shook his head.

“Very well,” Maycomber replied. “Mr. Finn, this is your motion to have the prenuptial agreement excluded. Do you want to argue the issue first?”

“Certainly, Your Honor,” Finn said, rising out of his chair. “I don’t want to waste too much of your time with this. The language of the prenuptial contract is clear: The agreement is null and void if Mr. Slocum slept with anyone other than Mrs. Slocum. He did. As a result, the agreement should be kept out, and Mrs. Slocum is entitled by statute to half of the marital estate and alimony sufficient to support her in her current lifestyle. By our calculations, that’s eleven million dollars in

marital assets, and monthly alimony of twenty thousand dollars.”

Maycomber looked at Dumonds. “Counsel, I assume you disagree?”

“We do, Your Honor. The Slocums have been separated for over six months. Even if you credit Ms. Prudet’s testimony, the encounter in question took place four months into the separation. Nothing in the agreement suggests that the fidelity clause was meant to apply after divorce proceedings had been instituted. The agreement stands, and Ms. Prudet is entitled only to those assets she brought to the marriage, along with the two-thousand-dollar-per-month stipend, as specified in the agreement.”

“Excuse me, Your Honor,” Finn said. “If I might? The agreement is clear that it is null and void if Mr. Slocum has sex with anyone other than his wife ‘during the life of the marriage.’ As you well know, they are still legally married today. Whether this particular encounter took place two months ago or two hours ago, it still nullifies the agreement. To the extent that there’s any ambiguity, Mr. Slocum admitted that his lawyers drew up the agreement, and it’s well established that any ambiguity in a contract is construed against the party that drafted the agreement. They lose, Your Honor. Either way, they lose.”

“Your Honor, that’s absurd!” Dumonds exploded. “You can’t honestly think that the contract was intended—”

“Enough!” Maycomber bellowed. “I’ve heard enough.” He looked at the two lawyers with weary disgust. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to take this under advisement and issue a ruling in a few weeks. In the meantime, Mr. Dumonds, if there is a reasonable settlement offer on the table, I’d advise your client to consider it very seriously. There’s every chance that you’re not going to like my ruling.”

“Your Honor, you can’t—”

“Oh, but I can, Mr. Dumonds. Think about it. Any reasonable offer.” Maycomber put his hands to his face and shook his head. Then he picked up his gavel and brought it down on the tabletop. “Court is in recess.”

Chapter Tw
o

Finn walked out through the doors at the back of the courtroom and led his client to the elevator bay. The soon-to-be-former Mrs. Slocum was beaming. “Thank you,” she said, kissing Finn on the corner of his mouth as she stepped into the elevator. He tasted a hint of strawberry in her lipstick.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Finn replied, watching his client disappear as the elevator doors closed. “We still have a long way to go,” he said to himself.

Meghan Slocum was hardly the doe-eyed victim she portrayed so well in the courtroom, he knew. In all likelihood, she’d ranked Slocum’s bank account highly in considering his marriage proposal, and Finn had serious concerns about what he’d see crawling around if he cared to lift the sheets on Mrs. Slocum’s own personal life. She had a legitimate case, though, and he couldn’t afford the luxury of impartiality. Besides, it wasn’t as though Slocum had married a bombshell half his age for her wit or personality. As long as the sleaze dripped on both sides of the courtroom, Finn felt justified.

“Mr. Finn!”

He turned and saw a nattily dressed man hurrying after him. He looked to be seven or eight years younger than Finn—late twenties or early thirties from the look of him—and his face seemed familiar, but Finn could put neither a name nor a context to it.

“Scott Finn,” the man said. “Mark Dobson.” Finn nodded and held out his hand without a word. “From Howery, Black,” Dobson continued. “I’m an associate in the Trial Department; we never worked together, but I was a third-year when you left.”

“Of course,” Finn said, feigning recollection. “I think we met at some point.”

Dobson nodded. “Once at a firm dinner. It’s nice to be remembered.”

“Well, there was usually a fair amount of drinking at those dinners,” Finn said. The young man nodded again without saying anything, and Finn began to feel awkward. “So, what brings you up here? If you were a third-year when I left, you must be a fifth-year now. Aren’t you still a little young to be let out of the library without a partner’s supervision?” It was a targeted poke at the lack of responsibility junior associates were given at large firms, and Dobson’s expression told Finn it had struck its mark.

“I’ve been dealing with a pro bono matter” was all he said. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

Before Finn could respond, Slocum and his lawyer came around the corner. Slocum saw Finn and headed straight for him, like a journeyman heavyweight coming out of his corner at the sound of the bell. Dumonds put a hand in front of his client as if to restrain him, but the size differential between the two was too great for the gesture to have any impact. “Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?” Slocum yelled, getting right into Finn’s face.

Finn remained calm. He was used to dealing with angry litigants— both those he represented and those he didn’t. He gave a crooked smile. “Sure. You’re the cement head, right?”

“Do you have any fucking idea who I’m friends with?” It sounded like a threat to Finn. He turned to Dumonds, who had caught up to his client.

“Counselor,” Finn said, “would you explain to your client that it would be inappropriate for me to engage him in conversation, please? You can also remind him that you have our latest offer to resolve this for eight million, and we’ll be waiting for your response shortly.”

“You arrogant asshole!” Slocum bellowed. “You want my fucking response? I’ll cram my fucking response up your ass right now!”

Dumonds was pulling at his client. “Sal,” he was saying, “this isn’t helping. Let me deal with this.”

“Yeah, Sal,” Finn agreed. “Let Marty handle this.”

Slocum allowed Dumonds to pull him away, but before they headed for the elevators, the large man turned back to Finn and wagged a finger at him. Finn responded with a curt wave. Then he turned back to Dobson. “Sorry about that,” he said. “You were talking about a criminal matter?”

“I was. It’s a criminal matter I’ve been handling for a little while.”

Finn frowned. “Are you really qualified to handle a criminal case?”

Dobson’s expression shaded toward defensiveness. “I’ve been a member of the bar for over four years, Mr. Finn. That means I’m licensed to handle criminal matters in court.”

“Licensed and qualified are two different things.”

Dobson tried to hold his indignant look, but Finn could see fear there, too, and after a moment Dobson dropped all pretense. “That’s why I’m here. It’s a matter I’d like some help with—I’ll even refer it to you officially, as long as I can stay involved in some capacity.”

Finn smiled. “What’s wrong? Don’t the partners at Howery still go to court? When I left, there were over a hundred attorneys in the Trial Department.”

“They do, but . . .” Dobson seemed to be searching for an answer that Finn would buy, and Finn guessed what that meant.

“But no one over there wants to take on a dog of a pro bono criminal matter that’s going to cost them hundreds of hours, right?” Finn guessed.

“No,” Dobson protested. “It’s just that some of the people at the firm said this might be more up your alley.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t intend that as a compliment.”

“Please, Mr. Finn, you’re wrong. Howery would be willing to provide some support, but the consensus is that you’d be more appropriate as trial counsel.”

Finn looked Dobson over carefully, trying to gauge the man’s motivations. Before he had a chance to respond, Abigail Prudet approached him with Tom Kozlowski in tow. “Where’s my money?” she demanded. Her voice was quiet but determined.

“She wanted to see you,” Kozlowski said. “I tried to explain it to her.”

Finn turned, embarrassed, toward Dobson. “Mark, I’d like you to meet Abigail Prudet. And this is Tom Kozlowski, a private investigator I work with on many of my cases. Koz, Abigail, this is Mark Dobson, a lawyer at the firm where I used to work.” He hoped a formal introduction might convince Abigail to alter her tone. He was wrong.

“Where’s my money?” she seethed again.

Finn took her by the elbow. “Did Detective Kozlowski explain to you how this works?”

Dobson cleared his throat. “Perhaps I should give you folks a minute alone,” he suggested. “I wouldn’t want to get involved . . .” His voice trailed off.

Abigail Prudet shot a glare at him, her brow drawn in indignation at the perceived slight. “I don’t lie, mister.” She spoke clearly and met Dobson’s surprised eyes. “But I don’t tell the truth for free, either.”

“Go back to your hotel, Abigail,” Finn said. “Enjoy the evening. Have a good dinner; maybe see a show. Then, tomorrow, you bring all your receipts by the office. I’ll need the records, though—legally, I can’t pay you a dime without them. I’ll cut you a check for your outof-pocket costs, and another for your appearance fee.” He looked back at Dobson. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, would we?”

Prudet’s frown deepened. “You don’t want to fuck with me,” she said quietly.

“Seems to be a trend today,” Finn agreed. “Besides, I don’t think it would be legal outside of Nevada.” He nodded to Kozlowski, and the detective hooked her under her arm and escorted her to the elevator. The elevator doors opened and she stepped in, turning to look at Finn.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Finn replied. The three men watched as the elevator doors closed slowly. The woman’s eyes never left Finn’s before she disappeared. Now it was Finn’s turn to clear his throat. “My practice has become more colorful since I left the firm, as you can tell,” he said to Dobson. “Now, I believe you wanted to talk to me about a referral?”

“I did.” Dobson nodded. He looked at Finn with a combination of envy and revulsion. “Yes, I think you’re exactly the lawyer I’m looking for.”

Chapter Thre
e

“His name is Vincente Salazar.”

Dobson took a file out of his briefcase and slid it across the table toward Finn. They had moved to one of the courthouse conference rooms reserved for lawyers and their clients. It was a bare cell with plain, dim green walls, solid wooden chairs, and a sturdy laminate table: designed in all respects for the endless stress and abuse suffered by those caught in the gears of the legal system. Finn, who was sitting next to Kozlowski and opposite Dobson, flipped open the file.

“You may remember the case,” Dobson continued. “It was big news back in the early nineties. Salazar was an illegal from El Salvador, part of a wave of immigrants who poured into the country during the final years of the war down there. A sizable community grew along the Dorchester-Roxbury border. A task force was formed in 1992 to root out many of those who were in the country illegally. It was a joint enforcement program between the INS and the Boston Police Department. Salazar’s name hit the list, and he was targeted for deportation.”

“I remember.” Finn nodded. “He shot a cop, right? A woman?”

“That’s what he was convicted of,” Dobson replied. “Allegedly, he tried to rape her, and then he shot her with her own gun. Madeline Steele was her name; she was part of the task force, stationed out of B-2, and she was the one going after Salazar—that was the motive provided at trial. She identified him, and they had his fingerprints on her gun—that was the evidence that put him away. He was sentenced to fifty years, no parole.”

Finn turned to look at Kozlowski. “You were stationed out of B-2 for a while, weren’t you?”

Kozlowski nodded, his features granite.

“You know Steele at all?”

Kozlowski nodded again.

Finn turned back to Dobson. “Sounds like a pretty clean case. So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that a lot of the other evidence doesn’t line up. Salazar had an alibi—a solid one. Plus, another witness saw the perp running from the scene and said it wasn’t Salazar.”

Finn shrugged. “That’s why we have juries, right? If the jury saw it differently, who am I to argue?”

“There was a rape kit done at the time. No fluids turned up, but they apparently took scrapings of blood and skin from underneath the Steele woman’s fingernails.”

“And?”

“They never tested it. Never even told the defense it existed.”

“I’m still not seeing a basis for a new trial,” Finn said. “DNA or not, it seems like this guy was most likely right for the shooting. Why would I want to get involved now, fifteen years later? Why would you, for that matter?”

Dobson leaned back in his chair. “I do a lot of pro bono work with an organization called the New England Innocence Project.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard of it. A bunch of do-gooders trying to get felons out of jail, right?”

“Wrong, Mr. Finn. It’s a bunch of do-gooders trying to get innocent people out of jail. We identify cases where physical evidence exists that could prove definitively the guilt or innocence of people who have been convicted of a crime. If the evidence shows that the person is guilty, we close the books on that case. If it shows they’re innocent, though . . .”