During the afternoon break in trial Edward reviewed his potential other witnesses, the list Donald had compiled for him the night before. Twice-convicted thief to sponsor illegally obtained bank records of Sterling Greene’s showing no large withdrawals on the day of the supposed crime. No withdrawals of any kind. Another of Donald’s friends – agg assault, robbery – to say he’d seen Donald and Sterling together on another occasion.
‘What next?’ Donald leaned into him to ask.
‘Your friends’ colorful histories make them less than sterling witnesses.’
‘They still saw what they saw, right? You can still call them.’
Yes, and he probably would. But the bank records, for example, had been illegally obtained and couldn’t be admitted in any fashion. Edward had already issued a subpoena and gotten most of the same records legally, but what did they show? Nothing. Sterling had already testified he’d gotten the ransom money from another source. Maybe just a big pile of cash in a safe. It didn’t prove or disprove anything.
He turned and saw the prosecutor in a huddle with Diana Greene and her sister Julia Lipscomb, the DA. Linda wasn’t back in the courtroom yet. Think, Edward ordered himself. Think like a prosecutor. What was he missing?
Veronica broke the huddle and came down the aisle, fixing Edward with her stare the whole way, making no pretense of any other focus. He watched her with his hands getting warm. She had a remarkable stare, very physical, like a big animal on a leash.
He stood to receive her. She motioned him aside, away from his client. Edward raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You want to improve on that ridiculous three-year offer?’ she asked immediately.
Oh, that. Edward had just said that to slow Sterling Greene’s departure from the courtroom. ‘No. Do you want to improve on your offer of die in prison?’
‘Yes, actually. Twenty-five.’
Edward stared at her. ‘Years?’
‘Yes, Edward. What else do we have to haggle over? Of course years.’
She was leaning in very close to him. There was a zone where intense antagonism edged into the same territory as lust. That was how this felt.
He stepped away. ‘Let me talk to my client.’
‘I will,’ the prosecutor said ironically. Then she stepped toward him again. ‘Edward. Don’t take this as a sign of lack of confidence in my case, or that you’ve so cast doubt I’m afraid of not getting a conviction. This is my client wanting to give your client a huge break because he didn’t hurt her. Also her anxiety to get this over with. Personally, I’m sure of victory and I could go all month.’
He nodded.
‘What’d she say?’ Donald asked when Edward sat next to him again. Edward was wondering the same thing.
‘New offer. Twenty-five.’
Donald slumped back in his chair. ‘That’s the same thing as before.’
‘No, Donald. It’s fifteen years fewer. It’s also probably a signal she’ll drop down to twenty if I press.’ An offer in the twenties probably meant the bottom line was twenty. Any double digits with a two in front. That was how plea-bargaining worked.
‘It’s the same for me,’ Donald explained. ‘Back to prison for something I didn’t do. Even twenty means I’d have to do ten. You know how old I’ll be in ten years?’
Edward looked at his client and realized he had no idea. ‘Fifty-three,’ Donald said. ‘Fifty-three and my life nearly over. No family left, nobody waiting.’ Donald shifted his stare to the jury box. ‘Tell her no.’
In Edward’s head, he already had.
Now when trial resumed Edward felt the weight of his client’s life. Fifty-three and dead. ‘Margaret Jeffries,’ he said in response to the judge’s instruction to call his next witness.
A young woman took the stand in response. Edward knew her to be thirty-three, nearly his own age, but she looked twenty. Very professional, in a navy skirt suit, her blonde hair pulled back. She carried a couple of large posters.
‘Whom do you work for, Ms Jeffries?’
‘You, today,’ she said frankly. ‘I spent five years with AT&T and two with Verizon. Now I’m a freelance consultant.’
‘In what field?’
‘Cell phones. More precisely cell towers and calls. What we call historical location data.’
‘On my behalf, did you obtain cell phone records from three known numbers?’
‘I did.’
‘Let’s start with this number.’ Edward rattled it off. ‘Is there a name on that account?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this number.’ He said another one. ‘Name?’
‘Yes. There’s one name on both those accounts. Sterling Greene. That second number is associated with a Diana Greene. Same account.’
‘And this number?’ Edward said another string of digits.
She nodded in his direction. ‘That’s the cell phone number for your client.’
Edward felt something to his left, Veronica’s table. A warmth, a focusing of attention. He kept his eyes on his witness. ‘Let’s start with Mrs Greene. Did we obtain the records of her cell phone’s location on April sixteen of this year?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do cell phones pinpoint the location of the person carrying it at all times, Ms Jeffries?’
‘No.’ She turned to the jurors. ‘They’re not tracking devices. Not entirely. But when we send or receive a call or text, the phone relays that through the nearest cell tower that has line of sight.’
‘So that pinpoints the user’s location?’ Edward was deliberately playing dumb, a trial lawyer’s common tactic. Sometimes it was intentional.
‘No. It places the phone within a triangular-shaped zone covered by that cell tower.’
‘How big is that zone, ma’am?’
Ms Jeffries shrugged. ‘It varies enormously. If you’re in a sparsely populated region like west Texas and the tower is tall, as they are out there, it covers a lot of territory. In a densely populated city like Houston, a tower may cover only a few square blocks. There has to be more coverage here – more towers – so calls don’t get dropped. A tower can only handle so much traffic.’
‘So we’re surrounded by towers?’ The image was a little frightening.
Ms Jeffries smiled. ‘We need to come up with another name for those. Maybe receivers. They’re not just towers. They may be some equipment on an office building, disguised into a logo on the side. Or on some already existing tower such as a radio tower. We try to make them as inconspicuous as possible. But people must have their phones.’ She looked again into the jury box, where one woman was frankly holding hers and another man was hastily putting his away.
During this explanation Edward had turned and looked into the audience. Diana was there, trying to look stony and instead conveying anxiety. Julia wasn’t there, nor Sterling Greene. Or Linda, for that matter.
‘Let’s get back to Diana Greene. Do you have something showing her phone’s movements on that day in April, the day she claims to have been kidnapped?’
‘Object to the comment by counsel,’ Veronica said, hastily on her feet.
Judge Roberts gave her an ironic look – Really? – but said, ‘Sustained. Please ignore that remark, jurors.’
Edward had just wanted to pin down for them what they were talking about.
‘I did make a chart,’ Margaret Jeffries said. Veteran witness, she carried on quickly. ‘A map. If I may?’
Edward waved a hand, master of the courtroom. Margaret set up her first chart on an easel facing the jury. Veronica leaned to see.
‘Her first call that morning was from this location. A text from an unknown number at eight forty-five.’
‘What’s that location?’
‘Well, it’s an area that includes Mrs Greene’s home in River Oaks.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, starting a few minutes after that her route is pretty well-defined. She travelled along here’ – Margaret was tracing a path on the map with a pointer – ‘and was on her phone the whole time, talking to that number that had texted her. She ended up here.’
‘And what part of Houston is that?’
‘It’s the Heights. Portions of 8th, 9th, and 10th Streets, from to—’
‘How long was she, or rather her phone, there?’
‘Some time. There were occasional pings from texts or calls that went unanswered for some four hours.’
‘Did any of those pings come from the phone number belonging to Sterling Greene?’
‘Yes, four. Finally in the early afternoon Mrs Greene returned one of those calls.’
‘Does your other chart show Mr Greene receiving that call?’
‘Yes. It lasted about three minutes.’
‘Let’s shift to that other number, Ms Jeffries. After that call, did it travel in response?’ He felt Veronica tense next to him. But this was the disappointing part.
‘No. That phone stayed where it was the rest of the day.’
Damn Sterling. He’d been the smart one, doing what Edward used to advise his clients: when you go out to commit a crime, leave your phone behind.
‘Let’s go back to Mrs Greene’s phone, then. Did she travel to another location?’
‘Yes. About an hour and a half after that last call the next ping comes from a few miles away.’
‘What does that location include?’
‘It’s known as West Gray, I believe. A commercial area that includes a CVS pharmacy, for example.’
He led her through the rest of Diana’s day, from that pharmacy where she claimed Donald had grabbed her to an area in the Third Ward that included the supposed kidnap house, where it remained for less than two hours before setting out again, eventually ending up back home for the night.
Diana had a lot of friends. She got a lot of calls and texts. Some came from an unknown number. But no more from her husband after that early afternoon call.
Edward took his witness through Donald’s phone record as well, a different chart showing a much less cluttered day. It started at about two o’clock in the afternoon somewhere in southwest Houston, then traveled to the vicinity of that pharmacy and from there to the crime scene where he was arrested. From there the phone disappeared from the records, presumably impounded by police, but it didn’t send or receive any more calls.
‘While at the house, did that phone receive any calls?’
‘Yes, including three from that same unknown number that appears in Mrs Greene’s records.’
It didn’t seem to prove much, and the testimony had lacked drama, but Edward had a reason. A prosecutor would have introduced these records. She would have nailed down her case. That Veronica hadn’t was interesting.
But then, the records wouldn’t help her case. They showed a much shorter time span at the house than Diana had claimed, for example. Edward saw Veronica already planning how to argue that discrepancy.
Edward had the two maps introduced into evidence and said, ‘Pass the witness.’
‘No questions.’
Judge Roberts glanced at the clock, then at the jurors. They looked a little worn, as if they’d bought their clothes in antique shops. ‘I think we’ll stop here for today,’ the judge said. At least a couple of the jurors thanked him silently.
As the lawyers stood and the jurors shuffled out, Edward turned to look into the audience again. Still no Sterling. Still no Linda.
‘What next?’ Veronica asked him.
Indeed. Edward just smiled at her.
Veronica leaned a little closer. ‘Want to get a drink and talk about the case?’
Edward studied her for a moment. He had no idea what she was thinking. She had a little smile, which might have been about the trial and might have been about anything else.
‘Thanks, no,’ Edward said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ He needed to find Linda.