The Ex(44)

I found myself smiling. I literally got in the last word at the bail hearing, right before Judge Amador issued the gag order. Now Temple wasn’t allowed to say anything in response.

“You got my discovery demand?”

“That’s why I’m calling. What’s up with all this surveillance video? The entire waterfront between Battery Park and Chelsea Piers for the day of the shooting and one month prior?”

“Correct.”

One of the great myths about criminal cases is that prosecutors have to give defense attorneys access to all their evidence. Don called it the nonexistent “law of Cousin Vinny.” In reality, prosecutors were generally allowed to keep the defense in the dark until we got closer to trial, but had to turn over “material, exculpatory evidence”—called Brady evidence. They could keep the stuff that hurt us as long as they turned over the big stuff that might help us.

Scott was clearly skeptical. “An entire month of video is Brady evidence?”

“Are you willing to bet it isn’t without seeing it?” Evidence that might look unremarkable to a prosecutor could be a gold mine to a defense attorney.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “And by the way, Chandler told me you made it sound like we were stonewalling you on this.”

“You’ve got your job, I’ve got mine. Judge Amador won’t be happy if I don’t get my videos.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

Against my better instincts, I tried again to shoot straight with him. “I know the GSR evidence looks bad, but it was only on his shirt. If he was smart enough to wash his hands, he could have changed clothes. If we sit down and talk—”

“I only called because I respect you, Olivia. You’re backing the wrong horse on this one. The case is tight. I asked around, by the way, after you called me down to the precinct. I talked to Jacqueline Meyers from the drug unit.” I recognized the name from my law school class. “She told me that you and Harris were engaged.”

I saw no reason to hide the truth. “In case you’re wondering, I already checked whether there was an ethical conflict. If you’re even thinking about moving to remove me as counsel—”

“Whoa, stand down, Olivia. I wasn’t going there. My whole point was, maybe you should ask yourself why you’re so sure this guy’s innocent.”

“I know him, Scott. He didn’t do this.”

“No, you knew him twenty years ago.” I let the line be silent. “Just take a fair look at the evidence as it comes in, okay? I have a feeling we’ll be talking about a plea at some point.”

When I hung up, I closed my eyes again and ran through everything I knew about the case against Jack. That damn GSR. I had witnesses who could testify that Jack was at the gun range, but it was a full month before the shooting, and I had no proof it was for research instead of target practice. And I had seen Jack’s closet; he owned a lot of shirts. At least when I knew him, Jack never re-wore a shirt without washing it.

I had called Scott after Jack’s arrest for a reason. I trusted him.

I wiggled my computer’s mouse and pulled up the Paperfree website’s log-in page. I checked my notes for Madeline’s e-mail address: [email protected]

I had Jack’s standard password committed to memory: jack<3smollybuckley

The account and/or password information is incorrect.

What had I been expecting?

Still, the fact that I had bothered to check whether Jack’s habitual password might open “Madeline’s” e-mail account meant that Scott’s words had gotten to me. So had Ross Connor’s: It’s like to your face, he’s all honest and thoughtful . . . But there’s a dark side there.

Which brought me to the simplest explanation of all: maybe Jack tested positive for GSR because he shot three people hours before his arrest.

The padded envelope waiting on my desk was two inches thick, delivered by messenger. I could see from the label that it was from Gary Hannigan, the civil attorney in the Penn Station lawsuit.

Inside was a spiral-bound copy of the transcript of Hannigan’s deposition of Malcolm Neeley. The case had not proceeded far enough for Neeley’s lawyers to have deposed the plaintiffs, so I didn’t need to worry about a written record of anything Jack may have said. But I wanted to make sure there was nothing in Neeley’s deposition that indicated any kind of personal confrontation with Jack.

Twenty pages into the transcript, I could see that Hannigan believed in the “what did you eat for breakfast” approach to depositions. Some lawyers—Hannigan clearly included—believed that asking witnesses left-field questions could lead to areas of inquiry the lawyer would oth erwise have never pursued. As a criminal litigator, I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of meandering. I could only question witnesses in front of the jury, where every answer needed to be one I could predict in advance.

Some topics of the deposition were obvious: Neeley’s knowledge of his son’s increasingly erratic behavior and social isolation, his failures to follow up on numerous suggestions that the boy get mental health treatment, his decision to buy Todd guns and encourage shooting as a hobby. But Hannigan also asked Neeley open-ended questions about his work, occasionally interrupting to ask how he was able to act as a father to Todd and his brother Max while building a successful hedge fund. Though the questions seemed general and conversational, the strategy was remarkably effective. While Neeley’s attorneys had prepared him to give rehearsed and controlled responses to the obvious questions, when he was allowed to go off script and talk about himself as a financier and a father, the results were damning. He was a selfish, crappy parent.