The Murder Rule(84)

Parekh looked appal ed. “Jesus Christ. You did what? You broke in?”

“When you took me onboard, you said you were taking me on because I was the kind of person who did things other people wouldn’t do. That I’d go the extra mile, think outside the box, whatever. Wel , now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve got the evidence you need to turn this case around and you’re too afraid to use it. I’m tel ing you. Let me do this and it’s al over. Let me do this and Michael goes free. If you don’t . . . wel , I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know Pierce and Engle are awful y good at making problems go away. Do you want to win this thing, or don’t you?”

Parekh wavered just for a moment, but Hannah could see he was going to refuse her and her heart sank.

“Let her do it,” Dandridge said.

Parekh turned on him.

“Let her do it, Rob. I trust her. And it’s my case, after al . My life.”

There was yet another knock on the door, more insistent this time.

Parekh held her gaze for a long moment, then he threw his hands up.

“Why not? If nothing else, you’l have grounds for an appeal for incompetent counsel, right?” He spun away, thrust open the door, and before Hannah quite knew what was happening, he was back in the courtroom, asking the judge for permission to cal Pierce again, asking that Hannah be al owed to question him. It took some persuasion for the judge to agree. It helped that Jackson Engle seemed more bemused than concerned. He turned to look her over.

The judge was watching her too. Hannah took a breath, closed her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

“I hope you know what the fuck you’re doing,” Parekh hissed at her as he returned to his seat.

Jerome Pierce took the stand. His pale eyes met hers and she had to shake off a feeling of impending doom. Christ, he was intimidating. Oh God, this was actual y going to happen. She’d talked herself into this situation. Now she had to deliver. It was harder even than she had imagined, standing alone in the middle of the courtroom with every eye on her. She wanted just one more quiet moment alone, to order her thoughts and strengthen her nerve, but there was no more time. It was now or never.

Before entering the courtroom Hannah had placed the evidence bag from the Sarah Fitzhugh file in Pierce’s garage inside another clear plastic bag, to protect any fingerprint evidence there might be.

She took that bag from her backpack and carried it across to Pierce, placing it in front of him.

“Sheriff Pierce, can you tel me what this is?” she said, her voice clear and loud and carrying across a suddenly hushed courtroom.

He looked at the evidence bag and back at her. He searched for words and found none.

Engle jumped to his feet. “Judge, this is a preliminary hearing, not a trial. This is not the time for the defense to try to enter new evidence.”

Hannah turned to Burrel . She made sure that she was very calm, very professional, and very clear when she responded. She also made sure that she pitched her voice loud enough that the journalists at the back could hear her. “I’d ask the court for a little leeway, Your Honor. I’m afraid we have come across evidence of a decade-long cover-up by the sheriff. The evidence already put before the court today in an effort to indict our client is a deliberate attempt to mislead you. I’m not trying to enter new evidence, just to demonstrate that the evidence already put before you is false.”

Burrel looked over Hannah’s head to Robert Parekh. Hannah resisted the temptation to turn to him too and kept her eyes on the judge. After a moment, Burrel said—“A little leeway, Ms. Rokeby, but let’s not get carried away. And I hope you’re going to back those very strong words up with very strong evidence. We don’t malign the character of long-serving police officers in the courtroom without good reason.”

Hannah inclined her head and turned back to Pierce. “Sheriff Pierce, do you recognize that evidence bag?”

He cleared his throat. “I do not.”

“Okay, let’s go back a bit. Do you recal a breakin and attempted rape of a woman named Lana Cantrel in Victory Hil in 2009?”

Hannah raised her voice again for the benefit of the gal ery. “Lana was at home alone with her baby late at night. A man broke into her home and attacked her. Luckily, Lana’s husband came home unexpectedly from a business trip and interrupted the attack.

According to the police report the attacker escaped and left no DNA evidence behind. Do you recal that case?”

“I do,” Pierce said gravely. “Not al of the detail. It was a long time ago, but I recal the case.” God he was good. He came across like an upstanding guy. The kind of serious, measured, feeling person you’d want to have running your town’s law enforcement. Hannah thought about that moment in the bar after Sean had been beaten to a pulp. Now, Pierce. Now you get what’s due.

“Do you recal then that your crime scene officers did in fact recover hair evidence from the Lana Cantrel case?”

“No, I don’t. As you said, there was no DNA evidence in that case.”

“You don’t recal that hair evidence was recovered from the scene in the ordinary way and logged into evidence by an officer named Nicola Pandy?”

“I . . . no. I don’t recal .” For the first time, Pierce looked uncertain.

“You don’t recal going to Officer Pandy and threatening her?