Seventy

JUDGE WALTER McCabe adjusted his eyeglasses and looked over a courtroom filled to bursting. “The court is prepared to rule,” he said.

The hearing had lasted three days. My testimony took up the first day. Kate’s filled the second day and part of the third, as defense lawyers poked and probed and came at Kate ten different ways, trying to challenge her surprising revelation that she had followed two of the prostitutes home from the brownstone one night, gathered their information, and discovered their criminal rap sheets. Why didn’t you ever document that information? they asked. Why didn’t you tell your partner, Detective Harney? Could it be that we’re hearing this for the first time, suddenly, conveniently, after Detective Harney’s testimony didn’t go so well?

The courtroom was still. I heard the static ringing in the air that silence often produces. Or maybe that ringing was inside my head. The judge’s ruling would determine the rest of my career.

“The court finds that the search of the brownstone was valid,” said the judge, reading from prepared text.

I released a long breath.

“The detectives’ surveillance gave them some reason to suspect that the brownstone was not a residence but a brothel, a house of prostitution. More important, Detective Fenton’s testimony—that she surveilled two of the women working at the brownstone, ran background checks, and determined that they were prostitutes—was credible, and it was sufficient to establish probable cause. On the night of the raid, the officers had probable cause to believe a crime was in progress, and they had reason to believe that, in the time it would have taken to secure a warrant, those men would have been gone and the evidence of the crime, so to speak, would have been destroyed. The court finds probable cause, coupled with exigent circumstances. The defense’s motion to suppress is hereby denied. State?”

Amy Lentini rose from her seat. “State stands ready for trial, Your Honor.”

“Mr. DeCremer?” the judge asked the mayor’s lawyer, who seemed to be the de facto leader of the defense team.

Shaw DeCremer stood up. “Could we put off the jury selection until tomorrow, Your Honor?”

The judge gave a slow nod. He understood. So did Amy. There wasn’t going to be a trial. They took their shot on a legal technicality and lost. If they went to trial, a dozen cops and a dozen prostitutes—all of whom had been granted immunity for their testimony—would take the stand and publicly reveal every little detail of what happened that night behind closed bedroom doors. Kinky, humiliating details. The embarrassment far outweighed the minuscule chance for an acquittal. Every one of them would plead guilty.

Already, Shaw DeCremer had approached Amy, followed by other defense lawyers. They were lined up like customers outside a Toys“R”Us on Black Friday, hoping to get their hands on the newest version of the Xbox.

“The mayor will be pleading guilty,” said DeCremer, keeping his voice low, though I was sitting in the front row of the courtroom, so I could hear him whisper to Amy.

“I’ll draw up the papers,” she said, shaking his hand. She might as well have called out, Next? It happened one after the other, all these lawyers who had drawn their knives and tried to slash me to bits copping their pleas and hoping for mercy from the prosecutor on an agreed disposition.

I looked behind me at Kate, who got to her feet and mouthed two words at me.

You’re welcome.

I should have enjoyed this more. The eyes of the nation were on this courtroom, and we had won. Maybe the path we took was a little rocky, but I had told nothing but the truth, and Goldie was right—justice prevailed.

But I still had my briefcase at my feet, and it still contained an eight-by-ten photograph of Amy Lentini walking up the steps of the brownstone. I hadn’t yet said a word to Amy, because all our focus had to be on this hearing, but now the hearing was over, and I felt something in the pit of my stomach, splashing and simmering.

When the last of the lawyers had given his notice to Amy and the courtroom was otherwise empty, Amy looked at me, relieved but not satisfied. “I’d give anything to know how Kate’s testimony came about,” she said.

“I don’t think you would,” I said.

Her eyebrows twitched. “She swore to me it was true.”

“I know she did. She swore under oath, too.”

When Kate first told Amy what she planned to say under oath, Amy didn’t take it well. She pressed Kate over and over. She told Kate she would not suborn perjury; she would not let Kate testify falsely. But Kate never backed down. She swore it was the truth. They went back and forth like that for more than an hour, and Amy was clearly skeptical, but she didn’t—and couldn’t possibly—know that Kate was lying.

Amy even pulled me aside and asked me if Kate was lying. But Kate, quite skillfully, had kept me out of it by saying that she never told me about her surveillance of those two women. So I didn’t have to lie. I told Amy the truth: it sounded like bullshit to me; I was pretty sure she was lying, but I wasn’t there. I’d gone home. I couldn’t say for certain what Kate did or didn’t do once I went home after the stakeout.

Amy ultimately decided to accept Kate’s testimony. She didn’t really have a choice.

From the look on her face, Amy had a pretty strong feeling that the card game she’d just won was played with a stacked deck, but she didn’t know it for sure, and so she played the hand she was dealt.

“Well,” she said, warming up to her victory, letting it wash over her. “Should we celebrate?”

I looked around the courtroom to ensure that we were alone. Then I reached into my briefcase, pulled out the manila envelope, and produced the glossy photo of Amy walking up the steps of the brownstone. I held it up for her to see, but when she reached for it, I drew it back. It was my only copy.

Her expression dropped, her posture stiffened. “Where did you—”

“Where did I get this photo? It’s hardly the most important question. Hell, it’s not even in the top ten.”

Amy blinked hard and took a step back. Her eyes worked along the floor, but finally, after a long moment while my heart drummed so hard in my throat that I doubted I could speak, Amy’s eyes drifted up to mine.

Her voice flat, her eyes hooded, she whispered to me.

“Not here,” she said.