The Last Alibi (35 page)

Drew didn’t look satisfied.

“You have two cops that saw the gun toss, Agent. And now you have a signed statement. That’s more than enough.”

“Where is Caridad Flores?” asked Agent Drew.

She was about twenty yards away from them.

“She’s in the wind,” said Kolarich. “She’s worthless. Isn’t really sure what she saw. You don’t need her, anyway.”

Drew’s lips bunched up. He read the statement and looked up at Kolarich. “By any chance would you know the immigration status of Ms. Flores?”

“Didn’t ask,” said Kolarich. “But I’ll tell you this, Agent Drew: If she’s undocumented, then she was pretty damn brave to run to the cops, wasn’t she? I’d call that heroic, wouldn’t you?”

Agent Drew studied him, maintaining that poker face they teach at Quantico, before releasing a sigh. “Fine,” he said. He removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “So where’s our guest of honor?”

“Better he hears it from me,” said Kolarich. “Give me one minute, then come in.”

Kolarich unlocked the interview room and found Marshall Rivers with his elbows on the table, his feet tapping a beat. He used the key to unlock the handcuff that tied Rivers’s wrist to the table.

“So I get to leave?” Marshall asked.

“You get to leave
here
. But you’re not going home, Marshall. You’re being taken into federal custody for unlawful possession of a weapon.”

Kolarich stood back. Marshall Rivers got to his feet and rubbed his unshackled wrist. “What?”

“You’re going to be prosecuted in federal court. You’ll receive four or five times the sentence you would’ve gotten in state court. How does that sound?”

“You
lied
to me?” Marshall’s chest rose and fell, the venomous hatred returning to his eyes. He lunged for Kolarich, his hands aiming for his throat. Kolarich brought his hands underneath Marshall’s arms, divided them, and stood Rivers up with a double forearm shiver. Then he drove Rivers backward, feeling the crunch of his body against drywall, the clacking of his teeth, the air escaping Rivers like a cushion. Kolarich grabbed his shirt, propping him up.

“Now you know how it feels to pick on someone your own size,” Kolarich whispered, “instead of a teenage girl.”

“I’ll . . . remember this,” Rivers managed through gritted teeth. “You don’t know me.”

Kolarich flipped him around so Rivers’s face was planted in the wall, twisting one arm behind his back. “I know all I need to know,” he said. “You’re nobody to me, Marshall. You get that? You’re a fucking stain on the bottom of my shoe. I’ll forget you as soon as you’re gone.”

That last part was probably true. There was little original about Marshall Rivers. There were plenty of guys like him, and there’d be more to come. And this little stunt Kolarich pulled, yes, was probably over the line, but he was planning on losing absolutely zero sleep over it.

The door to the interview room opened. “Jesus!” Agent Drew shouted. He rushed over to the corner, where Kolarich had Marshall Rivers pinned to the wall. Drew cuffed him quickly and placed a hand between his shoulder blades. “There’s a protocol for a prisoner transfer,” he said to Kolarich. “You’re not supposed to uncuff him while I’m outside the room, for Christ’s sake.”

“That’s why I like this job,” Kolarich answered, straightening his tie. “You learn something new every day.”

Kolarich left the room and walked back down the hall to the squad room. Marshall Rivers bellowed behind him, his protests slowly fading as he was escorted down the stairs and out to the FBI car waiting for him.

Lisa the translator caught up with Kolarich as he entered the squad room. “What do I tell Caridad?” she asked.

“Tell her to go home and forget she ever met us. Tell her the bad guy’s going away for a long time and we won’t be needing her.”

He felt Lisa’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good egg, Charlie Brown.”

“Counselor.” The lieutenant stuck his head out his office door and nodded at Kolarich. “We have a double homicide in Cowan Park. Rosen will take you.”

Probably a gang shooting. It would consume the next twenty-four hours of his life, at a minimum. Kolarich rolled his neck, took a breath, and nodded.

“I’m on it,” he said.

91.

Shauna

Judge Bialek denies my motion for a directed verdict after the close of the prosecution’s case, refusing to throw out the charges against Jason for lack of evidence. She gave me more than my allotted fifteen minutes to argue the motion, which was charitable of her, because she was no more likely to toss this case than she was to sprout wings and fly out of the courtroom. After breaking the bad news to me, the judge summons the jury.

“Is the defense prepared to call its first witness?”

For the first time in the trial, Bradley John rises to address the court.

“The defense calls Jason Kolarich,” he says.

Everyone takes note of Bradley’s sudden participation—the judge with a double blink of her eyes, Roger Ogren with a rifle-quick jerk of the head, the jurors with more casual looks of surprise, not having any firsthand investment in the case.

The biggest witness in the case, and the second-chair attorney, who has yet to speak before the jury, handling him? It was a mutual decision made between Jason and me. His idea, primarily, but I went along with it. A lawyer cannot knowingly suborn perjury, cannot question a witness on the stand if she knows he’s lying. Bradley, on the other hand, does not know everything I know, and in fact does not know with any certainty, one way or the other, whether the testimony Jason is about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

But I’d be lying to myself if I said this was all about ethics. As artificial and staged and thoroughly rehearsed as this conversation he and Bradley are about to have may be, it is a conversation nonetheless. Jason doesn’t want to have to answer these questions from me. He is afraid of how I will react. And maybe how he’ll react, too.

Bradley organizes his notes while Jason takes the witness stand and is sworn in. After giving his name for the record, Bradley cuts to it.

“Jason,” he says, “did you murder Alexa Himmel?”

“No, I did not.”

“Did you have anything to do with her murder?”

“No, I did not.”

Jason likes to say he is the son of a con artist, which is true, and he likes to say he can bullshit with the best of them, also true. But there is an earnestness to the way he answers these questions, no flash or sizzle, no overwrought emotional appeal, not even a puppy-dog face for the jury, that works. I think it works. I’m doing my best to retain a clinical perspective, a lawyer’s objectivity, to view this through the eyes of the jury and not from my own memories.

“You watched segments of your interrogation with Detective Cromartie?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You heard the testimony about your handgun, the prints being wiped off?”

“Yes.”

“You heard the testimony about the e-mails Ms. Himmel sent you and the many phone calls she made to you in the days leading up to her death?”

“I heard it all. And I have to say, if all I knew about the case was the evidence the prosecution has shown the jury, I’d probably think I was guilty, too. But I’m not guilty. I didn’t kill her.”

“Will you address this evidence with me today?”

“I’ve been waiting all week.”

“Do you know who
did
kill Ms. Himmel?”

“I believe I do, yes. I didn’t, when the police questioned me, but I do now.”

Roger Ogren stiffens in his chair.

“Will you discuss that with me today, as well?”

“Yes, I will.”

The jury is at full attention. This is Jason’s one chance. The evidence against him has been pretty solid. The jury has to be leaning toward conviction, if they aren’t all the way in, hip-deep, by now.

Bradley peeks at his notes. “Okay, then, let’s get to it,” he says.

92.

Shauna

Bradley John begins the substance of his direct examination with the videotaped interrogation, Jason’s lies to Detective Cromartie about his relationship with Alexa.

“It was stupid of me to lie about that,” Jason says. “But I was trying to protect her. It was—obviously, from everything we’ve seen here—a very difficult time for Alexa after our breakup. I would think she’d find it embarrassing, humiliating, really, for others to know how she behaved afterward. I felt like that was between Alexa and me, and nobody else needed to know. I felt bad enough about our breakup already and I thought I owed her some respect.”

“But Jason, this was a murder investigation.”

“I know. I understand. But I knew I didn’t kill her, so I didn’t see how the status of our relationship really mattered in terms of catching the killer. I mean, what I did was wrong, but I only did it out of respect for Alexa. I certainly wasn’t covering
up
anything.”

“Jason, you worked as a prosecutor here in this county, did you not?”

“Over eight years,” he says. “And then I’ve been in private practice for about three years.”

“In that time, on either side of the criminal justice system, have you seen occasions when phone records, like the ones we’ve seen in this case, were used by law enforcement to help solve crimes?”

“Of course. So many times, I’ve lost count.”

“And what about searching Internet servers for e-mail correspondence?”

“It’s a routine part of investigations, especially more recently, as Internet usage and e-mail have skyrocketed.”

“Is there any reason why this case would be any different in that regard?”

“No, not at all. And I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make. If I killed Alexa and was trying to cover it up, why would I lie about something that I
knew
the police would discover? Why would I say our relationship was just fine when I knew that she’d called me hundreds of times after the breakup, phone calls that I knew were on some provider’s records ready to be subpoenaed? When I knew there were e-mails out there that showed that our relationship had ended, and ended badly? I mean, if I’m a diabolical killer who carried out this crime and tried to cover it up, I’m the dumbest diabolical criminal who ever lived.” Jason opens his hands. “But I wasn’t thinking of any of that, because I wasn’t covering up any crime. I was just trying to show Alexa some respect.”

Good. That was almost verbatim how Bradley and Jason practiced it. I think it sounds reasonable, convincing. And if
I
find it convincing—knowing, as I do, that Jason had an ulterior motive for what he told Detective Cromartie in that interrogation—the jury might buy it, too.

Roger Ogren stands as Jason nears the end of his speech. “Your Honor, I’m trying to be patient, but I have to object to this speech and move to strike. This has moved from a direct examination to a summation, a monologue.”

The judge nods. “I’m going to overrule, Mr. Ogren. I understand your point, but this is the defendant testifying.”

That’s what Jason predicted the judge would say. Criminal defendants get more leeway when testifying in their own defense, with their liberty at stake and the Bill of Rights waving like the Stars and Stripes at its most magisterial.

“However, Mr. John,” the judge adds, “let’s resume the Q-and-A, please.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Bradley comes from a school where you thank the judge for everything she says to you, even if she just called you an idiot and held you in contempt.

“Next, Jason, let’s talk about one of your least favorite subjects: OxyContin.”

Jason smiles and grimaces at the same time. He takes the jury through the highlights, the knee surgery, the recuperation, ultimately the addiction. “You don’t admit it to yourself,” Jason says. “It’s happening right in front of your eyes, and a part of you knows it, but you make excuses to everyone around you and suddenly you’re believing those same excuses.”

Bradley nods. “Jason, did there come a time when you finally admitted the addiction to yourself?”

“Yes. It was the Friday before Alexa died.”

“Friday, July twenty-sixth.”

“Correct.”

“And how is it that you remember that date so clearly?”

“Because, for one thing, it was the day that Alexa and I broke up.”

“Can you explain how the one has anything to do with the other?”

Oh, does Roger Ogren want to object. He knows, I think, what Jason’s going to say, and he doesn’t want his victim getting trashed, an age-old tactic of the defense bar. But he’s also built his entire case around this relationship, this catastrophic breakup, and if he jumps up and keeps the jury from hearing something directly germane to that topic, he looks like he’s hiding something, like he’s afraid of some fact. That’s how I’d feel, at least, if it were me.

“I think, by the time it had reached that point, it was obvious to everyone close to me that I had a problem,” Jason says. “I’d lost a lot of weight, I was losing focus, I was moody all the time, I was really a completely different person. I think it was obvious to Alexa, too. It
had
to be. But she made excuses for me as much as I was making them for myself. In rehab, they call that person an enabler. And if I was going to beat this addiction, I couldn’t be with an enabler. I needed to break free of the drugs and break free of her. I needed people surrounding me who would say to me,
Don’t take drugs
, not,
Here, honey, have some more
.”

“You’re not blaming Alexa for your addiction?”

“God, no. The blame for my addiction falls on me and only me. All I’m saying is, I had to get out from under that spell. I had to win that fight or I’d lose my life. It really came down to that for me. It was going to kill me, sooner or later. And I needed people around me who would help me fight it. Alexa, for whatever reason, and she had a good heart deep down, but . . .” Jason shakes his head, like he’s reliving a sad memory. “She always told me it was okay to take the pills, it was okay to want to feel good. I needed someone yelling ‘Stop!’ at the top of their lungs.”

Bradley allows for an appropriate pause before he moves on.

“In any event, Jason, you and Alexa did break up in the days preceding her death.”

“Yes, we did. The previous Friday.”

“Friday, July twenty-sixth?”

“I guess that’s the date,” says Jason.

“I’d like to refer you to People’s Eighteen, Jason.” Bradley references the chart on the screen, previously set up. “This is a summary chart of Call Detail Records from that date, is that correct?”

“Yes,” he says. “You can see that on the CDR for that Friday, the phone calls begin happening in earnest at 2:47 in the afternoon. You can work back from that time. I went to her house at some time around one or so, give or take. I told her our relationship had to end, that I was going to get clean, and I wasn’t going to change my mind. She started calling me within the hour, and as you can see . . . she didn’t stop.”

“Did these calls go into voice mail, Jason? Or did you answer them and speak with her?”

“Mostly voice mail. I talked to her a couple of times. Not on Friday, I don’t think. But Saturday, I believe I answered one of the calls in the afternoon. I can’t be sure of which one.”

Bradley references the Call Detail Records for that Saturday. Like Friday, every call was less than a minute in duration, thus receiving the rounded-up
1
in the duration column.

“A short conversation, I take it? Less than a minute?”

“Very short,” Jason says. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had a bad breakup,” he says, ostensibly to Bradley but really to the jurors. “Whether you’re the one who breaks up or the one who got dumped, it’s an awful thing. So . . . on the one hand, I had to be firm, I had to let her know that we wouldn’t be getting back together. My life depended on that, I thought. But on the other hand, I’m human. I felt terrible about how things went with us. I knew she was hurting. So I just wanted to answer a call or two, not to give her false hope, but to let her know that I was sorry. Maybe give her a tiny pep talk, for lack of a better word. You know, ‘It will all work out, it will take some time but you’ll be fine,’ that kind of thing.”

“I see,” says Bradley. “Now, Jason, that Friday, and the next day, Saturday, and all of those days, what were
you
doing?”

“I was trying to wean myself off the painkillers,” he says. “I was trying to quit. It was . . . it was hell, actually. It’s physically painful, it’s mentally tortuous—I vomited, I cramped up badly, my skin burned—but I was dealing with it.”

“And were you dealing with this alone, or did you have any help?”

“Alone,” Jason answers. His eyes remain fixed on Bradley, deliberately avoiding mine. This was the subject of a heated debate, to say the least, Jason wanting to remove me entirely from the equation, pretending that I wasn’t with him during those initial days of his withdrawal, not wanting to risk the possibility that I might become a witness.
You can’t be my lawyer and a witness,
he said to me, stating the obvious.
I need you as my lawyer.

That was his stated reason, anyway. We both knew, I think, that his reasoning ran deeper. He didn’t want to put me in the position to have to testify under oath. He didn’t want to put me in a position where I would have to lie.

Or where I would tell the truth.