Geraldine throws her hands in the air and claims center stage again. “A defendant who’s smart enough to know better,” she says, “too smart to do something so stupid. Now there’s something we don’t see more than ten times a day.”
I stay focused on Judge Long, ignoring Geraldine’s sarcasm. “There’s not enough here, Your Honor. Her prints in her own home. It’s not enough to bind over.”
He raises his hands, palms out, to silence me. “Brief it,” he says to both of us. “I’ll hear argument in the morning. First thing.”
I turn to catch the Kydd’s eye and he’s waiting for me. He leans back in his chair and sighs, nodding repeatedly. He gets it, he’s telling me. We have a long night ahead.
The poker-faced matron returns to our table with the cuffs and directs Louisa to put her hands behind her back. Flashbulbs begin popping again as Louisa complies. She looks up at me as the cuffs clang shut, her tears flowing freely now, her eyes panicked. She has a long night ahead too. And she knows it.
CHAPTER 21
Tuesday, October 17
Nothing packs the Barnstable County Superior Courthouse like a case that gets top billing on the late-night news. The Kydd and I were in the office until well after midnight, but at eleven we flipped the conference room TV on to see if the coverage of Louisa Rawlings would be as inflammatory as we expected. It was worse.
The parking lot is full when I arrive. It takes ten minutes and more than a little creativity to find a spot. When I approach the back doors of the Superior Courthouse, a small circle of the nicotine-dependent moves aside without changing shape. Little white clouds rise up from the center of the ring. Smoke signals.
The courthouse hallway is jammed. I push my way through, doing my best to avoid reporters and photographers, but they’re everywhere. Their lights blind me and their boisterous, never-ending questions are indecipherable. Woody Timmons isn’t among them, though. I spot him as I climb the stairs to the second floor. He’s in an alcove talking with Officer Holt, their heads close together as if they might be keeping their voices low. They’re the only people in the building who’ve entertained that idea.
It’s a few minutes before eight when I reach the main court-room’s side door and I’m relieved to be here. This entry is reserved for attorneys, parties, and select witnesses. It’s protected from the press on this particular morning by a burly guard with a shaved head. He looks altogether forbidding even before the fluorescent light catches the shiny metal on his hip. He nods as I pass, never taking his eyes from the crowd.
Every seat in the gallery is already filled. Two court officers are stationed at the double doors in back, directing those spectators just arriving to line up single file against the side walls. They call out reminders to those forgetful souls who double up. The officers are trying to keep a small portion of the side aisles clear, but they’re losing the battle.
The space reserved for the press corps has tripled. Three front benches to the right of the center aisle are roped off now and most of the faces there are familiar: local guys from the small, town-based papers, even a reporter I recognize from the Nantucket Mirror. He looks a bit bedraggled; his suit coat is wrinkled and he could use a shave. He must have crossed the big pond on a Cape Air red-eye into Hyannis.
The city boys showed up too. All the major players from the off-Cape presses are here, The Boston Herald’s Lou McCabe front and center. He occupies far more than his share of space on the front bench, his physique not unlike Jabba the Hutt’s, his papers and supplies strewn around him in piles. I’m always a little uneasy when Lou shows up to cover a case I’m handling. He nurtures a flair for the melodramatic.
The first row on the left of the middle aisle is also filled with faces I recognize. Steven Collier is on the closest end. Anastasia Rawlings is next to him, dressed either in Sunday’s costume or a duplicate. The boyfriend Lance is just about sitting in her lap and I wonder if the beast Lucifer is underneath his coat. Taylor Peterson and one of his crewmen have ended up next to Lance somehow, and Glen Powers is on the far end of the bench, keeping his distance from the others.
Woody Timmons comes through the back doors, but he doesn’t take advantage of the press’s reserved seating. He goes off on his own, leaning against a side wall amid the general public. I’ve noticed this about Woody before. He keeps his distance when his out-of-town colleagues pay us a visit. This is his turf. He understands the rules of the local game better than any of them. And he plays his cards close to the vest.
The Kydd is already here. He’s on his feet in front of the prosecutors’ table, trading paperwork with Clarence Wexler, who’s standing behind it. The Kydd isn’t paying much attention to Clarence, though. He’s listening intently to Geraldine, his expression somber. Geraldine looks downright happy, comfortable and relaxed in her tall leather chair.
The Kydd turns toward me as I drop my briefcase on the defense table. He puts a hand up to stop Geraldine’s recitation and signals for me to join them. His worried blue eyes tell me to do it now, not later.
The Kydd’s mouth has been open since I walked in, his lower jaw slack. He loosens his tie, as if he’s desperate for air, as I approach. He looks dazed, peaked. I know that look; I’ve seen it on his face before, more than once. Something is wrong.
Geraldine’s ready smile is my second clue. Things for Louisa Rawlings almost certainly have taken a turn for the worse. She beams up at me as I reach her table, her green eyes aglow. “Oh, good,” she says, looking genuinely pleased. “The gang’s all here.”
“What’s up, Geraldine?” I had been hoping to sound nonchalant. I’m pretty sure it didn’t come off that way, but I pretend it did.
Her smile expands. “More lab results,” she says, pointing to the stack of new documents in the Kydd’s hands. She rolls her high-backed chair out from the table and crosses her lean legs. She continues smiling up at me, her hands steepled beneath her chin. Whatever she’s got is gloat-worthy.
“And?”
“And it seems the little missus has done quite a bit of housework,” she says.
I doubt Louisa Rawlings has done a day of housework in her half century of life, but I don’t say so. Instead, I fold my arms and wait. I know Geraldine. If she’s hell-bent on dragging this out, a five-alarm fire in the next room wouldn’t change her mind.
“The master bath,” she says, shaking her blond head, “it must have been a bloody mess.”
“The master bath?”
The Kydd hands me a new report from the crime lab. The Received stamp from Geraldine’s office says it came in an hour ago. The specimen is identified by number only. The Kydd offers me the inventory sheet, the same one we reviewed yesterday, so I can match the number with the typewritten list. The specimen came from the floor in the master bathroom, Louisa’s Queen’s Spa, a ten-by-ten cutout from the pale oak floorboards near the hot tub. The undersides of the boards contain blood. A lot of blood. Herb’s.
“She did a commendable job cleaning up,” Geraldine says. She stands, leans over the table toward me, and feigns a pout. “But it wasn’t quite good enough.”
I’m pretty sure the Kydd is no longer the only sickly looking person in the courtroom. I glance over at him, then back at Geraldine. Words fail me. And I don’t think I’ve taken a breath for a while, either.
If Herb Rawlings was attacked in the Queen’s Spa—and he was, blood evidence doesn’t lie—then Taylor Peterson’s theory is all wrong. Herb wasn’t at the helm when the Carolina Girl left the dock on Sunday. Someone else was. Someone who knew how to negotiate the cut. But someone who didn’t know a pop-up when he saw one.