‘Wait!’ insisted Jackson.
The usher shifted, uncertainly. ‘I shouldn’t leave him. I’m responsible.’
Parnell said: ‘You mind not talking across me, like I don’t exist?’
‘Just give us a moment,’ Jackson asked Parnell, no longer demanding. ‘You’ll understand soon enough.’
It was only a moment. Parnell straightened at the returning approach of Jackson and the court officer. Another man and a woman walked with them almost to his car before detouring to another vehicle, predictably a Toyota.
‘All set,’ announced Jackson, coming heavily into the back seat beside Parnell. ‘They’re going to follow. Manager and the gal whose job it is to pick up all the weekend messages. And did she do a hell of a good job!’ He held up another cassette. ‘Rebecca’s voice is on it. I didn’t want you to have to go through hearing it more than once, later in court.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Parnell. ‘And thanks.’
Parnell was by now accustomed to the waiting media scrum, to which Jackson repeated what he’d said outside the apartment. Everyone from the morning arraignment was already waiting inside. Parnell took the seat he’d previously occupied. Jackson sat the two Acme garage employees in the first row beyond the separating court rail, beside two men to whom he spoke after shaking hands. Finally he crossed for a whispered conversation with Vernon Hanson, showing the prosecuting attorney the two tape loops and indicating the four beyond the rail. They were interrupted by the court usher, returning from the judge’s chambers. At once the two lawyers followed the man back through a door from which he’d just emerged. The usher continued on, gesturing to the two men whom Jackson had greeted. One, a slightly, studiously bespectacled man, pushed through the rail and followed the usher with an awkward, stiff-legged walk.
It was ten minutes before they returned, the usher with a tape replay machine under his arm. Bending close to Parnell, Jackson said: ‘Judge Wilson listened to the tapes and heard who I intended to call. Hanson wanted to withdraw the charges there and then but I argued it should be done in open court and the judge agreed. It’s payback time for Jacob Meadows… and you…’
Everyone rose to the judge’s entry and this time the lawyer gestured for Parnell to sit immediately after the man was settled. There was a momentary uncertainty before Hanson rose, hurriedly but no longer with jack-in-the-box urgency, and announced that in the light of new evidence, of which the judge was aware, he wished to withdraw all the charges.
‘I am aware of what has developed,’ agreed the black-gowned judge. ‘And in view of the considerable publicity this matter has already aroused, I believe, in fairness to Mr Parnell, that these new facts should be entered into the public domain. I also think there are other matters that have been brought to my attention that should be discussed in open court. After that, you may withdraw your charges, Mr Hanson, but not before…’ He turned into the court. ‘I believe there is another attorney who wishes to make an application before me. I understand that neither Mr Jackson nor Mr Hanson has any objection?’
Both lawyers shook their heads as the man who had seen the judge in private pushed once more through the separating rail and walked unevenly to the stand. The man gave his name on oath as Edwin Pullinger and identified himself as a counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had been made aware of evidence that had been produced in court concerning an Air France flight that had been the subject of an inconclusive terrorism investigation both in the United States and France. The FBI, in conjunction with the Office of Homeland Security, were responsible for investigations into terrorism, and he was making formal application for the death of Ms Rebecca Lang to be officially transferred by the court from Metro DC police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
‘Mr Hanson?’ questioned the judge.
‘There is no objection from the prosecution,’ immediately surrendered the lawyer.
‘Mr Jackson?’
‘I am anxious for it to be transferred,’ said Parnell’s lawyer.
‘Before this court so orders, there are other matters for it to consider. Mr Jackson?’
Parnell’s lawyer stood with a legal pad in his hand but did not appear to need the notes. His client had been arraigned on totally false charges as the result of an investigation that was this afternoon to be exposed as initially wrongly and too hastily conducted, incompetent and potentially criminal in intent, and which could have resulted in a serious miscarriage of justice. That was not strictly a matter within the FBI remit into the terrorist aspect that had emerged, but he hoped their enquiries extended to what had clearly been a criminal attempt to incriminate his client. He intended further to invite the court to order a separate examination into the conduct and competence of the Metro DC police department and its claimed expert witnesses.
As Jackson spoke, Parnell pointedly turned, looking first to Vernon Hanson and then, more intently, to the two Metro DC officers. All three were staring, unfocused, directly ahead. So was the forensics professor, Jacob Meadows.
Parnell was surprised, although he supposed he shouldn’t have been, at Jackson recalling him to the stand formally to give evidence of his having discovered the answering-machine message from the Toyota-approved garage at his apartment that morning, which was confirmed by the court official, who followed him to the stand. Hanson shook his head, tight-lipped, at the overly courteous invitation to cross-examine. It was the usher who operated the tape machine to play back the repair-shop message, directly after which Jackson called its manager. The man testified that the voice on the tape was his and that he had been responding at eight-thirty on the previous day, Monday morning, to a message that had been left on their answering service timed at five thirty-two on the Saturday afternoon. The girl followed her manager to the stand. She described accessing the recorded messages as her first job of the day. Their machine had a time counter, which was how they could be so precise on Ms Lang’s Saturday call coming at five thirty-two p.m. At Jackson’s demand, she stopped, for the usher to insert into the replay machine the tape recovered that morning from the repair shop.
Rebecca’s voice echoed into the hushed court, rising and falling, Rebecca obviously doing something else at the same time. ‘ A friend’s car got hit, in his firm’s car lot… he’s very busy, will let it go if someone doesn’t fix it for him… please call him… ’ She dictated the apartment number. Then: ‘ If he asks how, why, you called, tell him a friend. It’s a surprise…’
The coughing, gulping emotion welled up within Parnell, who knew most people in the court were looking at him, as he’d known there would have been faces at the Dubette windows yesterday. His eyes misted in his effort to subdue the coughing, which he did, trying to wipe them at the same time as blowing his nose, which he needed to do. That’s why she hadn’t told him on the Sunday: she’d wanted an innocent, simple surprise for someone too work-obsessed to do anything for himself.
‘This court rules in favour of the FBI application,’ announced Judge Wilson. ‘To prevent any future prejudice in what is now to be, at my formal request, an ongoing FBI investigation, I will not comment, beyond making clear my deep and profound disappointment at having such a case brought before me in the manner in which it was, even at a remand stage. I do, however, require for any future action I might consider, separate explanations from both the Metro DC police department and the attorney’s division of this city, detailing how such a situation arose…’ He nodded to Parnell, who hurriedly stood to Jackson’s prompting. ‘You, Mr Parnell, leave this court a totally innocent and vindicated man, with the apologies of this court for the experience to which you were subjected. I further order that complete and full costs be paid for your defence, irrespective of any separate action you and your legal advisors might contemplate. You also have the court’s sympathy for your personal loss…’