Page 52 of Witness 8

‘Great, go talk to the gossips. The looser their tongues are, the better. Tell them John Jackson is starting to crack. He can’t handle the thought of a public trial and against all our advice he wants to plead the case down to manslaughter, or murder two. We know he’s innocent, but he wants to plead anyway. Ask for their guidance. Tell them you’re struggling with this – it’s a moral and ethical weight on your mind. Plus, you want to make sure your ass is covered in case he changes his mind once he’s spent a year in Sing Sing, and then decides to sue his lawyers.’

Harry looked at me quizzically.

‘Kate, you go see Castro. Tell him we’re not impressed by him scorching the earth for decent ballistic expert witnesses andwe’re going to need time to find one. Tell him we want to put this trial on the back burner for as long as possible. Tell him we’re investigating possible romantic links between two alternative suspects and the victim. Don’t ask him to put the trial off as a favor. I want you to basicallybeghim for as much time as he can give us.’

‘Why me?’ asked Kate.

‘Because you’re a straight shooter and he doesn’t trust me.’

‘Hang on a second,’ said Kate. ‘Al Parish thinks we need to get this case on as soon as possible. How does this help? Isn’t that the opposite of what our client wants?’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Castro will hear the rumors from the judges that our client can’t face a trial and is thinking of making a deal. If you convince him we want to delay, that matches up with the rumors Harry has spread around. Castro will move heaven and earth to screw up our defense and get this case to trial quickly in order to put as much pressure as possible on Jackson, in the hope it forces him into taking a plea. I’d bet my life Ellis and Bale told the cops they were at the party all night, and at the time of the murder they had nothing to do with Margaret Blakemore. Those statements, on the face of it, blow our alternative-suspect theory out of the water. We’ll get a trial date within six to eight weeks and those statements within twenty-four hours.’

‘Six weeks? We’re not going to be ready for trial in sixmonths,’ said Harry.

‘We’ll be prepared. We’re not going to get a decent ballistics expert even if we waited two years. So it doesn’t matter. Castro will cut corners too. That gives us a fighting chance. Let’s do it. Bloch, you’re with me.’

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘The DA has the murder weapon in our client’s house. Our client’s DNA on the gun. He has all the evidence in the world apart from one thing. He doesn’t have a story to tell thejury. There’s no motive for John Jackson to murder Margaret Blakemore. We’re going to go find the real story behind this case.’

18

Eddie

Eating out with Gabriel Lake was not an easy endeavor. He shaved every four days, whether he needed to or not, and his hair was in a constant mess, but not enough to distract anyone from the state of his suits. There was so much going on in Lake’s head that he didn’t have room to think about ordinary everyday life. The only thing he was particular about was what went into his body. When I say particular, I mean it was bordering on some kind of condition.

Junior’s restaurant, between 45thStreet and 8thAvenue, is a hotspot for tourists who have had their eyeballs blown out in Times Square. It’s a little haven of Americana, dressed in orange, with seats at the counter, fifty tables and the best cheesecake within a hundred miles.

Bloch ordered the cheeseburger, medium, and an ice-cream soda. I said I’d have the same. The waiter, dressed in black jeans and a black polo shirt, thought this table was going to be easy. No problems. No fuss.

Lake stared at the menu.

Little did the waiter know he had inadvertently dressed for his own funeral.

‘How are the eggs cooked? Is it on the hotplate or a pan?’ asked Lake.

The waiter’s eyebrows shot up into his forehead, and stayed there for the next ten minutes while Lake went through hisrepertoire of questions that would test the patience of Mother Theresa, if she’d happened to wait tables in Manhattan. Lake wasn’t being rude, just thorough.

‘Where do your eggs come from?’ asked Lake.

‘Chickens,’ said the waiter, who was beginning to lose the will to live.

‘I meant where . . .’

‘He’ll have the omelet,’ said Bloch, rescuing the waiter.

‘She’s right. I’ll just have the omelet, five whites and two yolks, still water and a coffee, please.’

The waiter snatched the menu out of Lake’s hands.

Bloch gave Lake and I copies of the report she’d picked up from Raymond, Bloch’s tech expert.

Lake’s right heel bounced on the floor as he read.

The report discussed the burner phone Bloch found in Blakemore’s home. It had only ever called two numbers. Both of them were burners and both seem to have been disabled the day after the murder. Both of the unknown burners made calls to Margaret’s phone the day before the murder. The single SMS message on the phone was sent six or seven hours before the murder, sent to one of the burner numbers.

TRANSCRIPT OF TEXT MESSAGE EXTRACTED FROM NOKIA 3310.