I have a couple of days off after we completed our nine-week sting operation on the heroin trafficking, taking down over twenty people throughout Long Island, most notably a school principal at a private school in Montauk. I didn’t have anything else to do, so after my five-mile run this morning, I decided to clean up and come see “Surfer Jesus” for myself.
There he is at the defense table, scratching his beard and whispering to his defense lawyer. The press was initially intrigued with the story because Zach Stern was a victim and it happened in the Hamptons, but Noah himself has now become as interesting as anything else to the talking heads on the evening cable channels — his swarthy good looks, for one, and also his rebellious attitude, refusing to wear a suit to court, opting instead for the desert-islander look with a white shirt and blue jeans.
Taking the stand is a man named Dio Cornwall, an African American in his midtwenties with a long skinny neck and braids pulled tight against his head. He’s awaiting trial for armed robbery and had the pleasure of sharing a cell with Noah Walker during the week following Noah’s arrest, before Noah bonded out.
“It woulda been the second, maybe third night,” says Cornwall. “Guy just starts talkin’, is all. Didn’t need to ask him or nothin’. Just started talkin’.”
“And what exactly did he say about it?” asks the prosecutor, Sebastian Akers, who could double as a Ken doll.
“Says she got hers.” Cornwall shrugs. “Says the woman got hers.”
“Did you ask him what he meant?”
“Yeah. He says, ‘No bitch gonna leave me.’ He says, ‘I cut her up good. Can’t be no movie star now.’”
Oof. That’s not good for Noah. But then, nothing’s gone that well for Noah, from what I’ve read and heard on TV.
I look at him, huddling with his lawyer, and again feel something swim in my stomach. When I met him, I made him for a guy who’d grown up rough, and who didn’t hold the police department in high esteem, and yeah, someone I might like for a B-and-E or maybe an assault-and-battery. But a brutal killer? He just didn’t ping my radar that way.
But it doesn’t matter what I think anymore. It matters what twelve jurors think. The opening witness had Noah hounding Melanie at the restaurant where she worked, begging her to take him back and threatening her when she wouldn’t. The forensics came next. The knife found in Noah’s kitchen had traces of both Zach’s and Melanie’s DNA. A forensic pathologist testified that the knife had a slight jag in the tip that matched some of the cuts found on the victims.
There was no doubt, in other words, that the knife they found in Noah’s house was the murder weapon.
And now this guy, Cornwall, the second person to attribute incriminating statements to Noah.
“When he said ‘No bitch gonna leave me,’ and that she ‘can’t be no movie star now,’ did the defendant identify this woman by name?”
“Melanie,” says Cornwall. “He said her name was Melanie.”
Sebastian Akers nods and looks over at the jury box. Strong testimony for the prosecution, no doubt, but still — this guy Cornwall is no different than the first witness, a jailhouse snitch who’d probably sell out his grandmother to shave some time off his sentence.
Which makes the final witness all the more crucial for the case. The witness being my uncle, Chief Langdon James, the one who found the knife in Noah’s kitchen, and the one to whom Noah Walker confessed his guilt. Without the chief, there’s the knife and two cons who’d say just about anything.
After the chief’s done testifying, Noah Walker will be toast.
18
Langdon James takes a hit off his joint and squints through the smoke at the cable news show, where four well-dressed lawyers are talking over one another, arguing about the merits of Dio Cornwall’s testimony and the overall strength of the prosecution’s case against “Surfer Jesus.”
“If I’m Noah Walker’s lawyer, my argument is that the prosecution’s case is bought and paid for,” says one. “Remy Handleman and Dio Cornwall are criminals who would say or do anything to save their own necks.”
“But the case isn’t over, Roger. The chief of police will testify tomorrow—”
With that, the chief sees his image on TV, a stock photograph taken of him over ten years — and forty pounds — ago, walking outside headquarters, his sunglasses on, hands on his hip, head profiled to the right.
God, where did the years go? That was a different time, in so many ways. That was before Chloe left. That was back when the job was still new to Lang, when he still considered it an honor, even a thrill, to wear the badge.
That was back when his niece, Jenna, still looked up to him, following his career path into law enforcement. He remembers all those nights when Jenna was still a young girl, after her father and brother died, when she would sit with Lang, how her eyes would widen as she listened to his tales of cops and robbers, good guys and bad, fighting for truth and justice. He remembers the swell of pride he felt on Jenna’s first day at the academy, when he looked at her, eager to one day don a uniform and make the world a safer place.
The chief clicks off the TV and rubs his eyes. She’s a good kid, Jenna. He wishes they hadn’t clashed over Noah Walker. After all, she did what any good cop should do — pick up a scent and follow it — and he shot her down when she started to question Walker’s guilt.
He hated doing it, dousing her flame that way. But as good a cop as she is — she has more instinct in her pinkie finger than most cops will ever have in their whole bodies — she doesn’t always see the bigger picture. Noah Walker is guilty. He’s sure of it. Rules and procedure and evidence aside, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Is the dead hooker’s murder in the woods linked to the murders at 7 Ocean Drive? He doubts it. Hell, Jenna didn’t even know for sure — it was just a hunch, an itch she was scratching. But he makes himself this promise: He will follow that lead — soon. Just not now. Not when Noah’s defense attorney could play with it. After Noah is convicted, he’ll personally check it out.
“Oh, Jenna,” he mumbles to himself. Maybe she never should have come back here. The nightmares, the drinking — yes, he’s noticed how much she drinks — it all kicked in since she came back here. Is that just a coincidence?
No, it can’t be a coincidence.
Seven hours. He remembers it well. If there were seven hours in all the world he could remove, erase completely, it would be those seven hours from Jenna’s life.
Seven hours of hell.
And her mother never let Jenna set foot in the Hamptons again.
Until she came back as an adult, to be a cop.
And he let her do it. He thought he was helping her, after she got run out of Manhattan. He thought he was doing a good thing.
He pushes away his notes on tomorrow’s testimony. He’s testified a hundred times in court. He knows the drill, the flow of the questioning, the way to frame his answers, the phrases to avoid, the importance of maintaining the appropriate demeanor. He stamps out the remainder of the joint, feeling a little stoned but not wanting to take it too far tonight, with the big day tomorrow. Seems like these days, he’s always seeking some kind of lubricant to get through the evenings.
He kicks his feet off the bed and heads for the kitchen, for a glass of Beefeater. Just one glass tonight, no more, especially after smoking so much—