The Advocate's Daughter (28 page)

When the door clicked shut, Emily buried her head in Sean's neck and began sobbing. Sean tried to keep it together, if only for her. He was having a hard time absorbing everything, his mind and body overwhelmed with adrenaline and confusion over Malik's testimony. “We can go,” he said at last, in a sort of fight-or-flight haze. “We don't have to listen to this.”

“No.” Emily was firm. She pulled away from him and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. She took a deep breath and collected herself. “We'll stay until the judge calls the hearing.”

So they waited. A half hour, then an hour. All the while they replayed what they'd heard. Malik Montgomery now admitted to seeing their daughter moments before she was murdered. A belated truth or a desperate lie? It had to be a lie. Why else would he have waited to identify an alternative suspect? Abby's phone was found in his home. He'd lied about being at the scene. And he'd just lied under oath about being read his Miranda warning and his statements to Pacini.

But they couldn't shake the feeling that something didn't fit. Hellstrom was right. This was a smart kid. Why would he keep the phone after going through the trouble to wipe it clean? Why would he erase the surveillance footage except for the images showing him entering the building? And why kill Abby over the breakup of a relationship that everyone agreed wasn't serious? Sean had another surging thought. Malik's story about seeing Abby with another man in the library was consistent with two facts: First, Abby was seeing someone, a mystery man. Second, the draft e-mail arranged a rendezvous at the Supreme Court library the night she was murdered.

Cecilia popped her head in. “The judge will be back on the bench in five.”

Sean and Emily stood.

Cecilia looked conflicted. “I have a client meeting this afternoon and was gonna leave, but I can stay if you—”

“No, you should go,” Sean said. “We'll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

Sean took Emily by the hand. They laced fingers and both nodded.

“We'll be fine,” Sean said. Truth be told, although Sean appreciated her support, he was happy to see Cecilia go. She was loud in the courtroom, whispering and sighing. And that was nothing compared to the scoffs or guffaws she'd made when Hellstrom said something she didn't like, catching the hard glare of the judge and even Patti Fallon.

Sean and Emily returned to the stiff wooden pews in Courtroom 4. Malik Montgomery came in next, accompanied by his father. Malik hugged his dad and shuffled through the swinging door. Malik's father gave Sean a quick glance and then looked away before returning to his front-row spot on the other side of the gallery. So many wounded parents. Emily and Sean. John Chadwick's mother. He'd heard that even Blake Hellstrom, Malik's lawyer, had lost a child. And now Malik's dad.

The room filled again, and Fallon and Hellstrom appeared from the door behind the bench. School children returning from the principal's office. Hellstrom in particular lacked his usual rumpled swagger.

The loud chime came again from the ceiling and all stood. Judge Chin took her seat and glowered at the two lawyers before her.

“Counsel, any more questions for your witness?” the judge said to Hellstrom. It was more of an accusation than a question.

“No, Your Honor. Nothing further.”

Malik, who had returned to the witness chair, gave a confused look to his lawyer. Judge Chin's eyes locked on Fallon.

Fallon approached the witness box. Before Fallon began, the judge cautioned, “Let's make it quick.”

Fallon nodded, lowering her eyes to a yellow legal pad. “When Mr. Serrat showed up at your door that night and told you Abby was missing, you just testified, and I quote, you ‘wanted to help,' correct?”

“That's right.”

“And you said—and I'm quoting you here—‘you had nothing to hide' in your home, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“So it would have been natural, in those circumstances, to let Mr. Serrat and Mr. Pacini look around your home, correct?”

As Malik contemplated how to respond, Fallon added, “You would have
wanted to help,
including a search of your home. After all, you had
nothing to hide.
” It was a good question, one that seemed to have only one reasonable answer. One that could result in a government victory on the motion because if Malik had consented to the search there was no Fourth Amendment violation.

Malik raised his shoulders into a tiny shrug.

“And you have to agree—since you say you wanted to help and had nothing to hide—that all the circumstances indicate you
would have
consented if asked, isn't that right?”

“Ob-jec-tion,”
Hellstrom said. He leaned back casually in his chair. “She's asking him to speculate.”

Judge Chin frowned again. “Move on, counsel.”

Fallon flipped the page on her legal pad and asked, “On the Miranda warning, you told Frank Pacini that you didn't need the warning like you were some dumb black kid, isn't that true?”

“Absolutely not. That's not something I would say.”

“Let me ask you this. You say you wanted to help and had nothing to hide, so wouldn't you have voluntarily talked to Frank Pacini and Mr. Serrat if you'd been given the full Miranda warning?”

Malik thought. He touched his chin. “I suppose.”

Fallon had a satisfied look. She had what she needed. “Let's talk about the video from the library.”

“Tread lightly, counsel,” the judge said.

“As a law clerk for the Supreme Court, it's fair to say that you were in the building late at night all the time, isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“Later than most court personnel?”

“That's correct.”

“You ever explore the building? I mean, it's a historic place, didn't you ever scout around late at night?”

Malik pressed his lips together. “When I first started at the court, I suppose I did that. All of the clerks did. It's an interesting building, a lot of history.”

“As a clerk, you had access to the chambers of the justices? And the police offices? You knew the security codes to most spaces in the building, right?”

“Yes, me and at least a hundred other people who work at the court.”

Fallon seemed to ponder whether to ask the next question. She looked over to her hound-faced colleague, who nodded. Then: “Mr. Montgomery, I'm handing you what's been marked as Government Exhibit One and ask you to look at it.” Fallon walked to Malik and handed him a sheet of paper. She then paced over to Hellstrom and slid a copy of the document across the defense table.

Sean noticed Hellstrom's wrinkled brow as he examined the document.

“Do you know what that is?” Fallon asked.

Hellstrom was already on his feet, but Fallon managed to sneak in her last question. “Isn't that an interview report from the Supreme Court Police showing that the day Abby was killed she'd alerted the police that a law clerk had been harassing her? Had threatened her?”

Before Malik said a word, Judge Chin said, “Don't answer that.” She shook her head at Fallon:
You know better than this, Patti.
“I assume, Mr. Hellstrom, you're going to object to this as lacking foundation, hearsay, and completely irrelevant to this motion?” the judge asked.

Hellstrom gave a nod:
I should say so.

“Sustained.” The judge looked at Fallon. “And I take it that
you
have no more questions, Ms. Fallon?” Another question that answered itself.

Fallon opened her mouth to speak, but seeing the judge's expression, she simply nodded and sat slowly back down in her seat. An unceremonious end, but Sean assumed that Fallon had made the calculated decision that, like Hellstrom, she too should play to the media in the courtroom. To put some cold water on whatever flames Hellstrom had stoked.

There was more prattle from the gallery. Abby's visit to the police station the day she was murdered was truly damning for Malik. Sean wondered momentarily if it was true, thinking about how the police chief winked at him. But the chief wouldn't be so foolish as to fabricate evidence, would he?

 

CHAPTER 74

Judge Chin excused Malik Montgomery from the witness chair. “I'll take the motion to suppress under advisement and issue a decision shortly. Mr. Hellstrom, I understand you had one other matter you'd like to take up?”

Hellstrom stood. “Thank you, Your Honor. Yes, the defense requests that the court issue an order to allow the subpoena of records from Google concerning a Gmail account. The government recently advised us that Abby Serrat had an e-mail account that we had not been previously informed about. If you log on to the e-mail account, there are no sent or received messages. But there is one e-mail in the Drafts folder. The draft e-mail invited an unknown recipient to meet the drafter at the Supreme Court library on a Sunday, the same day Ms. Serrat was murdered. If I may approach the bench?”

Hellstrom was masterfully bringing the proceedings back to the question posed by Malik's testimony: Who was in the library with Abby? Hellstrom walked to the bench and handed the judge a sheet of paper.

“I've marked as Defense Exhibit One a copy of the draft e-mail printed from the Gmail account,” Hellstrom said.

Judge Chin inspected the exhibit. Hellstrom continued, “It is a common practice, started by terrorists, that to avoid electronic detection or tracking of e-mails sent over the Internet, they will open an e-mail account, write an e-mail and place it in a draft folder, but never send it. The sender then gives the e-mail account login and password to the message's recipient. The recipient logs onto the e-mail account, reads the draft e-mail, then deletes it. This reduces the electronic footprint since the draft e-mail never transmits over the Internet and is erased after it is read.”

Judge Chin eyed Hellstrom skeptically. “So you think Ms. Serrat was wise to the ways of al Qaeda?”

Hellstrom gave the judge a serious look. “It may not have been Ms. Serrat's idea—she could have been the recipient of the message. The sender could have just given her the e-mail account information and told her what to do. That's why we need information from Google.”

“You know the statute places limits on subpoenaing e-mail service providers, and this seems like a fishing expedition. I just can't imagine any person not in law enforcement would know how to do—”

Before Judge Chin finished her sentence, Blake Hellstrom said, “With respect, Your Honor, this is not an unknown communication method. Teenagers use it. And the Supreme Court this term issued a decision that discussed the very practice I'm talking about here. The opinion in
United States v. Ahmed
spelled it out in detail.”

Sean was pleased that Hellstrom was pursuing the e-mail, and that he'd mentioned the
Ahmed
decision, a case involving the constitutionality of the government's controversial surveillance program. Sean's good friend, Michael Freeman, the deputy solicitor general, had argued the case on behalf of the government. It was a five-four decision, with the minority submitting a vitriolic dissenting opinion. A dissent
The New York Times
had taken the rare step of reprinting in full.

And then Sean's blood turned cold.

The fragments all came together. A portrait of Abby's mystery boyfriend. Someone older, someone she admired. Someone she needed to protect, to keep their relationship a secret. Someone who knew how to send surreptitious messages through an e-mail account.

Sean got up to leave. Emily frowned as people in the gallery started looking at them. Even Hellstrom paused a beat.

“Where are you going?” Emily whispered.

Sean reached for her hand. She must have read it in his face because she let him virtually pull her out of her seat. Heads in the gallery snapped after them as Sean and Emily hurried out of the courtroom.

In the corridor of the Prettyman building, Emily turned toward her husband. “What's going on?” She looked into his eyes. “What's wrong?”

“I know who was with Abby in the library that night.”

 

CHAPTER 75

Sean charged into the Supreme Court, the wind whooshing into the entryway doors. It was the first time he'd been in the building since
Before.

The ground floor still gleamed with white marble, John Marshall still sat stoically in bronze, the eyes on the portraits of past justices still seemed to follow as you walked by. Sean headed to the elevator and waited. He kept his head down. The court was a friendly place, a community of people who cared about the institution and one another, and he didn't want to have to engage in obligatory small talk or condolences. The elevator door opened and he had a rush of emotion, recalling the last time he'd glided up to the library that dark night. Today, though, the attendant was present. Esther was an elderly black woman who'd spent the better part of her life working in the seven-by-five-foot paneled box, crouched on a stool pushing buttons for people. Sean was surprised when Esther didn't say anything, but lifted herself up from the stool, gave him a hug, and returned to her station. It was one of the most genuine responses he'd received to Abby's death.

The elevator doors opened and Sean stepped into the library. He paused a beat, bracing himself, before he crossed the hall to the librarian stations. He fought off the image of his daughter's twisted and lifeless body, stuffed away in the shelf. He needed to stay sharp.

The library staff fluttered around, whispering and staring, until one of the librarians approached and asked Sean if he needed assistance.

Sean asked for the location of the court's most recent opinions from the term. It would be too soon for the opinions to be in the bound
U.S. Reports,
Sean knew. The opinions would still be in the small booklets printed by the court. And sure enough, the librarian led Sean into the Reading Room to a cache of booklets stacked on a shelf near the front of the room. She averted her gaze from the back, which had a scrim that hung from the vaulted ceilings cordoning off the scene of the crime. Sean wasn't sure whether it was sealed off by the investigators or whether it was now a construction area. Sean presumed that the court's curator would order a fresh redesign of the back of the library as soon as possible, to prevent the staff at One First Street from having to imagine the grisly events.