Move to Strike (47 page)

‘But you,' Amanda continued, lifting her hands from the railing before bringing them back down as if in punctuation, ‘you have the tough call of doing what is necessary. You have the difficult job of facing the two defendants – two young people who admittedly appear more like children than the adults their crime states them to be – and doing what is
right
.

‘For you see, ladies and gentleman, sadly the great seventeenth-century philosopher, Baltasar Gracian, was right when he said things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Sadly, some hide behind the
appearance of innocence and take advantage of those of us who would love to absolve them of their guilt.

‘But each and every time you look into J.T. Logan's eyes, each and every time you glance upon Chelsea Logan's face, I want you to see not just Stephanie Tyler who was almost disintegrated by a bullet that propelled her body halfway across a room, but also the defendants' father, Doctor Jeffrey Logan who, despite his tireless efforts to protect his children, has been betrayed by the two people who he loves most.'

In that moment David knew that despite his desperate pleas, there was no way the ambitious Amanda Carmichael was going to let an opportunity such as this pass her by. For as she pivoted to return to her seat, the entire jury turned towards their beloved Doctor Jeff, and their devotion, their loyalty, their unbridled
commitment
to this man they so obviously adored was unmistakable.

After the ADA's flawless opening soliloquy, David had told the court that he had decided to delay his own statement until the prosecution had presented their evidence. This was his prerogative (in fact the defence were not obliged to give an opening statement at all), but he knew it had made them look undecided, disorganised, weak.

‘I should have known there was no point in approaching her,' said David, as Sara and Arthur and the newly arrived Barbara Wong-McGregor joined him in a small courtside conference room for the morning recess. David had come to trust Barbara wholeheartedly, and even if he had not, was not sure if he would have been able to restrain his frustration in any case.

‘She's going for it, Arthur,' he said, turning to face his boss. ‘And that two-faced homicidal maniac has got her back.'

‘You're right,' said Arthur. ‘Which is why, as much as you abhor it, you have to consider . . .'

‘No,' David snapped. ‘There is no way I am going to paint Stephanie as the abuser.'

‘But the woman is
dead
, David,' argued Arthur. ‘And maybe, if she
could
communicate with you, she would be begging you to sell her reputation up the river for the benefit of her kids.'

David looked at Sara who, after hesitating ever so slightly, looked back
towards Arthur. ‘David was the one who knew Stephanie, Arthur. The children trust him. This has to be his call.'

David was more grateful than ever.

‘I'm sorry, Arthur,' he said. ‘But I won't walk into that courtroom and lie.'

Despite himself, Arthur nodded.

‘Well,' said Barbara, perhaps sensing it was time she weighed in, ‘I wish I had something positive to lift your spirits. But what I have come up with . . . let's just say I am not even sure if it is an option.'

Barbara had compiled a comprehensive report on Jeffrey Logan which she had delivered to them late last week. It basically outlined the psychosis of an identity such as Logan – a man she had diagnosed as a ‘charismatic psychopath' – or as her report had put it,
a morally depraved individual whose mental state could not be explained in terms of antisocial rearing or development
.

‘As Sara noted when she read my analysis, people like Logan are “born bad”,' began Barbara, ‘. . . meaning they represent the “monsters” in our society, people whose actions cannot be explained by the influence of normal human emotions.'

‘Which makes them almost impossible to catch – or even treat,' Sara offered.

‘Right, and that's part of the problem. Their lack of emotion reflects a detached, fearless, dissociated state. It's even difficult to pinpoint what motivates them – control and dominance, possibly. But their grandiose demeanour and attitude of superiority, well, don't forget they are called
charismatic
psychopaths for a reason – they are often charming and attractive, fast-talking persuaders who use their talents to bait.'

David nodded, anxious for Barbara to go on.

‘One of the greatest challenges you face in coming up against a man like Logan is his fearlessness. Such boldness in the face of danger is a core characteristic of personalities such as his – in fact some psychiatrists describe them as high-speed vehicles with ineffective brakes.

‘But,' Barbara hesitated as if trying to express herself carefully, ‘this very same fearlessness that gives him an advantage could . . .
maybe
, also give you an edge. Men like Logan,' she continued, turning to David now, ‘have an excessive need for stimulation – a constant craving for rousing, thrilling, ego-fulfilling highs. And these sorts of individuals tend to take
risks – risks that see them walking the line between going unnoticed and getting caught, between escaping and getting snagged in the trap.'

‘You think we can catch Logan while he is in the middle of taking one of these risks?' asked David, starting to see a lifeline but finding it very difficult to hold on to. ‘But time is so short, Barbara, how in the hell do we create a situation where he wants to roll the dice?'

‘Well, that's where it gets a little tricky,' she said, ‘because in order to do so, you have to take some pretty serious risks yourselves.'

Without even meeting her eye, David could practically feel Sara bristle. ‘How so?' he asked.

‘Well, when it comes to charismatic psychopaths, I suppose if you went looking for a single flaw it would come in their inability to suppress urges – and their frustration at anyone who restricts them from fulfilling such urges, by standing in their way. These personalities often feel a need to be close to something that has never failed them, an object or set of objects that they have collected and trusted for much of their lives.

‘What I mean to say is,' Barbara hesitated, and David got the feeling that she was almost too scared to voice what she was proposing, ‘if someone identified this something, and prevented him from accessing it, from feeding his urge . . . then . . .'

Sara shot a look at David, and in her eyes he saw an unspoken plea that he stop this now, that he turn back
immediately
before it was too late.

‘Chelsea and J.T.,' said David, who despite his need to do otherwise maintained Sara's gaze with an expression that told her he needed to see this through, ‘they told me that on occasion their father would disappear for a weekend, leaving Stephanie strict instructions as to her routine but giving no details of where he was going. He must have been . . . I mean, what if he was going to check on his guns? Logan has sought comfort in shooting since childhood. From what Blackmore told us, he has been purchasing guns for decades – and if that is the case, they must be stored somewhere . . .'

‘And you think if we find these guns,' said Sara, her blue eyes now falling resignedly away from David's, to face Barbara front on, ‘and we get
between
him and them, that he will . . . ?'

‘That he will be so angry that he has no choice but to reveal himself,' nodded a serious-faced Barbara, ‘. . . as the murderer he actually is.'

‘T
he Commonwealth calls Lieutenant Joseph Mannix,' said Amanda Carmichael, as she rose from her seat to officially begin the presentation of the prosecution's evidence.

She was shaking, not outwardly but internally. It was a new sensation, and one that scared her – just a little. She knew she should be celebrating, for her opening statement was nothing short of spectacular, but the truth was, what David Cavanaugh had told her last Friday night had unsettled her; his warnings about Logan, the man she could almost
feel
breathing down her neck as she sat at the prosecution's table, had rung bells of clarity and panic, all at the very same time.

But as she rose to her feet, and as she felt every eye in the room watch her approach Joe Mannix, who was now seated in the witness stand, she realised that she had to bury these feelings of uncertainty if she was to reach her ultimate goal. If anything, Cavanaugh had given her a free ticket to victory when in a moment of weakness (or perhaps sincerity) he carelessly confided in her his own theory of the Stephanie Tyler shooting. Despite the overwhelming affinity she had felt with him in that one raw moment of truth, she knew that tossing away such opportunities would be stupid. And Amanda Carmichael had never acted out of emotionally motivated stupidity – never had, and never would.

‘Lieutenant Mannix,' she said, after asking Joe to state his name, position and give a basic summary of his duties as head of Boston PD Homicide for the benefit of the now focused jury. ‘You and your fellow homicide investigator Detective Frank McKay were the first detectives on the scene of Ms Tyler's murder on the night of Friday the eleventh of May, were you not?'

‘That's right,' Mannix responded.

‘And you attended the scene after responding to a communication from your police officers who had reacted to a 911 call made by Doctor Jeffrey Logan at 8.20pm – a mere four minutes after he arrived home.'

‘That's correct,' said Mannix, and Carmichael sensed that he knew she was trying to rule out any notion that Jeffrey Logan could have been involved in his wife's murder from the get-go.

‘And as such the case became yours – and by that, I mean you and Detective McKay continued to be the lead investigators on the case.'

Joe answered in the affirmative again.

‘And as the lead investigator on the case, and as an officer with decades of experience in attending homicide scenes, could you tell us what you saw when you entered the family kitchen? And while I appreciate the scene was particularly gruesome in nature, I would ask you, for the jury's benefit, Lieutenant, to be as detailed as possible.'

David listened in horror as his friend described the scene that was the Logan's Beacon Hill kitchen – and despite Joe's obvious attempts to keep his account as clinical as possible, it came across as a scene from a gory Halloween movie.

He knew what Carmichael was doing; research showed that jurors presented with gruesome evidence – including detailed descriptions and photographs of murder scenes that showed the most horrific of human mutilation – were five times more likely to convict than those who were not. An Australian study carried out by the respected University of New South Wales even found that undue emphasis on such evidence was linked directly to prejudicing the jury against the defendant – resulting in the twelve making biased decisions influenced by an overpowering need to punish.

He also knew that Carmichael's referral to Logan's arriving home only
four minutes before the shooting (and even David had to admit that four minutes sounded tight – but he also knew a lot could happen in 240 seconds, when lives were on the line), meant that she had no intention of even considering the possibility that she should, as a representative of the people, explore the possibility of Jeffrey Logan's involvement. For while David had sensed that Amanda Carmichael the woman had opened her mind – her
fears
– at least briefly, to such a possibility, Amanda Carmichael the prosecutor would never let her admit it.

Ten minutes later, after several long-winded questions regarding the physical appearance of the victim, the jurors' faces were as white as sheets. Carmichael then went on to question Joe about J.T. Logan's appearance – about the blood spatter that had covered his clothes, his hair, his eyes.

‘So would it be fair to say, Lieutenant, that despite the fact that Doctor Jeffrey Logan actually confessed to his wife's shooting – an incident he described as an accident involving the cleaning of the rifle given to him by his wife – there was no doubt in yours or Detective McKay's minds that J.T. Logan was the shooter.'

Joe took a breath. ‘The Logan boy appeared to be the most likely suspect on the night,' said Joe.

‘Appeared to be?' questioned Carmichael, with a slight shake of her head. ‘Come on, Lieutenant, the boy was the only one in the room covered in blood spatter. In fact, isn't it true that on the following morning you and Detective McKay came to visit me at the DA's office and told me, in no uncertain terms, that you believed the father was covering for the son? That . . .' Carmichael held up a finger indicating that she needed to clarify something further before Joe gave his response, ‘and I quote,' she said, as she moved back to her desk to retrieve a yellow piece of paper, ‘ “the blood spatter pattern alone points singularly at the boy”. After which Detective McKay confirmed that under normal circumstances you would have arrested the boy at the scene, but when his father confessed, when he offered himself up
selflessly
in his child's stead, you had no choice but to . . .'

‘Objection.' David had had enough. ‘With all due respect, this is not an episode of some B-grade daytime soap opera. Miss Carmichael's opinions as to the motives of the children's father are irrelevant and . . .'

‘He's right, Miss Carmichael,' interrupted Kessler. ‘Objection sustained.'

Carmichael nodded in apology, David noticing that despite his mini-victory the jury were now looking even more admiringly at their Good Samaritan Doctor Jeff.

Fifteen minutes later, Carmichael was winding up, her examination of Joe having gone exactly as David had expected – the later part of her questioning hammering home the fact that the forensic evidence alone was enough for her to secure a grand jury indictment. She stopped short of questioning Joe about the insurance or ‘change of will' matters, simply because by the time these pieces of evidence had come to light, she had basically cut Joe from the case. But David knew these elements would be examined in detail tomorrow, when she called her FBI expert to the stand.