SUSPICION
Christiane Heggan
E X C E R P T
Chapter One As the twelve jurors filed back into the courtroom, their eyes downcast, defense attorney Kate Logan felt her heart skip a beat. Not a single one of them had looked at Tony.
"Kate . . ." Tony shot her a quick, worried glance. He was a small but wiry young man, with Latin good looks and a tough exterior that didn't match the gentle man she knew him to be.
"Stay calm," she said, wishing she could take her own advice. "Let's listen.
From her bench, the Honorable Margaret J. Hawthorne, a severe-looking woman thought by many to favor prosecutors, turned toward the jury box. "I've been advised that you have reached a verdict," she said in her resounding voice. "Mr. Foreman, is that so?"
The foreman, a middle-aged businessman who had followed the trial with a great deal of attention, rose. "Yes, Your Honor. We have."
"Please hand over your verdict sheet to my court clerk."
The clerk took the sheet of paper to the Judge, who unfolded it and read the verdict before handing it back to him. Without a change in expression, Judge Hawthorne looked at Tony. "Will the defendant please rise?"
Tony and Kate rose together. The court clerk turned to face them and read out loud.
"We, the jury, find the defendant, Antonio Fuente, guilty."
Before the people in the gallery could react, a cry of utter despair rose in the courtroom, creating instant chaos amongst the more than one hundred Puerto Ricans who had come to hear the verdict.
Kate didn't have to turn around to know that the heart- wrenching protest had come from Maria, Tony's mother.
"No!" the woman's voice echoed with the kind of anguish only another mother could understand. "You can't do that," she cried at the twelve solemn-faced jurors. "He didn't do it. My Tonio is innocent."
The Judge, who hadn't given Kate a single break during the two-week trial, banged her gavel several times in an attempt to regain control of the courtroom.
"Silence! Silence! Sit down, Mrs. Fuente. One more outburst like that and I'll have you removed from my court." She glanced at Maria over the rims of her glasses. "Is that understood?"
Reaching behind her, Kate took her housekeeper's hand, which was clasped on the wooden railing, and pulled her down, gently, but firmly. She waited until Maria was once again seated before turning back to face the bench. "We apologize, Your Honor. Mrs. Fuente is under great stress --"
"Maybe so, counselor, but I won't tolerate that kind of behavior in my courtroom."
Kate was tempted to snap right back at her. Would it have killed that cold bitch to show a little compassion? Instead, she forced her tone to be respectful. There was still a sentencing hearing to go through, and making an enemy of Judge Hawthorne now could have disastrous consequences.
"It won't happen again, Your Honor."
"Good."
Kate waited until the courtroom was perfectly quiet before adding, "May it please the Court, I move that the jury be polled."
"Very well." Arms resting on the bench, Judge Hawthorne turned her head toward the jury box again. "Polling the jury simply means that I'm going to ask each one of you to state his or her personal verdict out loud. You need not, and will not, say anything further."
After a quick glance at each juror to make sure they had understood her instructions, the Judge let her gaze rest on the man in the first seat. "Juror number one, what is your verdict?"
The man answered without hesitation. "Guilty."
"Juror number two, what is your verdict?"
"Guilty."
"Juror number three, what is your verdict?"
"Guilty."
The answer was the same with all twelve jurors, including number eight, an African-American woman with tears in her eyes and a tremor in her voice as she said the word 'guilty'. No doubt, Maria's grief had touched a few hearts, Kate thought bitterly. But it hadn't changed the verdict.
As the Judge dismissed the jurors, Kate glanced at Tony, who, as the last shred of hope had vanished, had fallen back against his chair, his eyes closed. A knot formed in her throat. She had known him since he was a small boy. She had watched him turn from a mischievous child to a rebellious teenager before finally settling down. She knew he could never hurt another human being, much less murder the woman he loved.
Kate heard the sound of rustling paper and looked up toward the bench.
"The sentencing hearing will be held in this court on Tuesday, January 2, 1996 at ten-fifteen a.m." Judge Hawthorne snapped her desk calendar shut. "Until then, the prisoner will be escorted back to his cell." Then, with a final rap of her gavel, she added, "This court is adjourned."
Oblivious of the deputy who was approaching, handcuffs in hand, Maria stumbled out of her seat and threw herself in her son's arms. "Oh, hijo," she sobbed, hugging him fiercely. "Hijo mio."
"Mom, please don't cry. It's going to be all right." Tony threw Kate a helpless look.
Too upset to talk, Kate wrapped a comforting arm around Maria's shoulders, and held her back as handcuffs were snapped around Tony's wrists.
"Take care of my mom, Kate." All signs of toughness were gone now as Tony's eyes filled with tears, not for himself, Kate knew, but for his mother, whom he adored.
"I will." She gripped Tony's arm and squeezed it. "Please don't lose faith, Tony. I know that it looks as if the system has turned its back on you right now, but this fight isn't over. First thing tomorrow morning, I'll file for appeal."
"Sure, Kate."
She watched him being led away, a proud young man who was trying desperately not to succumb to the terrible blow that had been dealt to him.
The crowded courtroom began to empty. At the prosecutor's table, Ted Rencheck, a small pretentious man with big political aspirations, was accepting congratulations from two colleagues. Knowing he wouldn't miss a chance to come over and gloat, Kate pulled out a set of keys from her purse and handed them to Maria.
"Go wait for me in the car, Maria. I won't be long."
She was gathering her papers and stuffing them into her briefcase when Rencheck approached her. "You should have taken my deal, Kate."
"Some deal." She closed her briefcase, remembering the long, drawn-out argument they'd had in his office three weeks earlier. "You wanted my client to plead guilty when you knew damn well he was innocent."
"He could have gotten twenty years and been out in seven. Now he could get twice that." Rencheck paused, for effect. "Or he could get life."
Kate turned to face him, forcing a thin smile. "And then again, he might get off on appeal."
Rencheck laughed. "Appeal? On what grounds?"
"You'll have to wait and see, won't you?"
The assistant U.S. Attorney let out another chuckle and walked away, his female assistant running to catch up with him.
"Jerk," Kate murmured under her breath. As she turned around to leave, her eye caught a movement to her left. Glancing in that direction, she saw that Mitch Calhoon, the detective who had investigated the case, was watching her.
Kate had met the homicide detective six months ago when Tony had first been apprehended. Although there was something appealing about the man -- a latent strength combined with a rather boyish sincerity -- she had quickly come to realize how wrong first impressions could be.
Mitch Calhoon had been concerned with only one thing -- to have Tony convicted. Even under her cross-examination, which had been brutal at times, he hadn't wavered from his steadfast insistence that Tony had murdered Lilly Moore.
She wasn't surprised to see him in court today. Most detectives insisted on hearing the verdict first hand. Calhoon was no exception. It was common knowledge that his arrests/ convictions ratio was higher than anyone else in the Washington Metro Police Department. No doubt he wanted to keep it that way.
Aware that he was still looking at her, she strode down the aisle, pushed the double doors open and hurried toward the exit.
A blast of frigid December air hit her as she stepped outside; but it wasn't the cold that instantly commanded her attention.
Held back by a half dozen uniformed policemen, more than two hundred people, most of them of Hispanic origins, had assembled in front of the courthouse in protest of Tony's verdict. Some were carrying placards proclaiming Tony's innocence. Others were more verbal.
Maria stood facing the demonstrators, her rapid-fire Spanish eloquent and passionate as she tried to appease them, but they weren't listening. They were accusing the justice system of having used Tony as a scapegoat, and Kate knew why. Two weeks ago, just as Tony's trial had begun, three young Puerto Ricans had blasted through a Washington delicatessen with machine guns, killed the two Italian owners and had run off with eight hundred dollars in cash. Although the police knew the perpetrators and had searched their neighborhood with a fine tooth comb, they hadn't found them. Either the three youths had fled across the state line or someone in their neighborhood was hiding them.
Afraid that this latest act of violence would jeopardize Tony's trial, Kate had made every effort to postpone it. Rencheck, true to form, had refused to delay the proceedings.
Pushing through the crowd, a female reporter for Channel 4 shoved a microphone in Kate's face. "Mrs. Logan, do you feel that Antonio Fuente's verdict was a retaliation for the killing of those two men two weeks ago?"
"No, I don't," Kate said, anxious not to have this demonstration escalate into a riot. "As you well know, the jury included two Hispanic-Americans --"
"As well as three men and women of Italian origin," the reporter interjected.
The demonstrators, either tired of listening to Maria, or inflamed by Kate's presence, suddenly turned hostile.
"You sold out, lady," a man in the front row shouted at Kate. "It's all your fault Antonio got the shaft."
"That's true." A dark-haired woman elbowed her way forward. "Whose side are you on anyway?" They moved closer, angry-faced men and women who looked as though they could explode at any moment.
Before Kate could respond, a strong hand had gripped her arm, pulling her back. Startled, Kate turned and saw Mitch Calhoon. He held her tightly, with an understated possessiveness she wasn't accustomed to.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, trying to free her arm.
He didn't answer. And he didn't relax his hold. Instead, he turned to the officer closest to him. "What the hell is this?" He had to shout to be heard. "What are those people doing here?"
"They have a permit, Detective. It's in order. I checked it myself."
"A permit for what?"
"Peaceful demonstration."
"Peaceful my ass. I want them out of here." He motioned to another policemen. Now."
The officers responded immediately, drawing their baton and gesturing for the crowd to step back. At first, the demonstrators resisted, but after a few minutes, the placards and the fists came down and they walked away.
"May I have my arm back now, please?"
As if he hadn't realized that he was still holding her, the detective glanced at Kate, then at her arm. "Sorry," he said, releasing her. The dark blue eyes moved quickly over her face, lingering longer than necessary on her mouth. "Are you all right?"
"Of course I'm all right." She'd be damned if she was going to admit to him that, for a brief moment, she had been afraid. "They weren't going to lynch me if that's what you thought."
"Maybe not, but I've seen too many such demonstrations turn sour to take a chance." He glanced at the dissipating crowd. "Where is your car?"
"Across the street, and I can get there by myself," she said, anticipating his offer to walk with her. Not wanting to sound ungrateful -- he had, after all, helped her through a potentially dangerous situation -- she gave him a brief nod of her head. "Thanks for your help, Detective Calhoon. I suppose you're right about crowds. One never knows which way they'll turn."
Then, signaling to Maria, who had been standing discreetly aside, she waited until her housekeeper had joined her before taking her arm and heading toward the parking lot.
1998 by Christiane Heggan
