“No further questions,” Delilah said, regretting that Ashley would now be at the mercy of Maxfield’s attorney. She had seen how hard even the friendly questions had been for her witness. Barry Weller was a decent sort. Delilah hoped that he would not be too rough on Ashley.
“Any cross, Mr. Weller?” Judge Stillman asked.
Weller started to say something, but Joshua Maxfield touched him on the arm and whispered in his ear.
“May I have a moment to consult with my client, Your Honor?”
“Of course,” Stillman said.
Weller leaned toward Maxfield.
“We need to talk,” Maxfield said.
“I’ll ask for a recess after I cross.”
“No, now. We have to talk right now,” Maxfield insisted.
“Look, Joshua, Spencer is rattled. I don’t want to give her time to get her legs back under her.”
“Cross won’t be necessary, Barry. I want to change my plea to guilty.”
“What!” Weller said in a tone loud enough to attract attention. He looked around briefly. Everyone in the courtroom was staring at him. Barry lowered his voice.
“Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“If you plead, it doesn’t mean you’ll avoid a death sentence. You understand that the DA can demand a sentencing hearing if she still wants to go for death?”
Maxfield looked over his shoulder at the spectators. Miles Van Meter caught his eye for a moment and Maxfield looked away.
“People are listening to us,” he said nervously. “Can we go someplace where we’ll have some privacy?” He pointed at the door to the jury room. “Is that a place we can talk?”
“Let me ask the judge.”
Weller stood. “May I approach the bench, Your Honor?”
The judge summoned the attorneys to the dais. As soon as Delilah joined him, Weller leaned toward the judge.
“Your Honor, my client and I need to discuss an important matter in private. Could we take a brief recess? Perhaps we could use the jury room.”
“This young woman is barely holding on, Barry,” the judge said. “I want to get her out of here as soon as possible.”
“Without revealing any confidences, Judge, I can tell you that the outcome of our conversation might benefit Miss Spencer.”
Judge Stillman looked puzzled.
“I have no objection, Your Honor,” Delilah said. She thought Ashley could use a break.
“Very well. You can use the jury room.”
The judge called over the court guards and told them that she was going to let Weller confer with his client during the break. Two guards escorted Weller and Maxfield to the jury room while another corrections officer left the courtroom to watch the door that opened into the hallway.
Judge Stillman ordered a recess and left the bench. The spectators filed into the hall or stood chatting at their seats. Delilah walked over to the witness box.
“How you feeling?” she asked Ashley.
“I wish it was over.”
“Me too, but you were good up there and you’ll handle Weller’s cross just fine if you remember my simple rules.”
“Think before I answer, always tell the truth, don’t be afraid to say that I don’t know an answer, and always ask Mr. Weller to explain his question if I don’t understand it.”
Delilah beamed. “A-plus, young lady. You’re ready for law school right now. Come on down out of that chair and stretch your legs for a while.”
Ashley and Delilah walked over to the counsel table. Larry Birch, Tony Marx, and Jerry Philips joined them. The Van Meters asked the DA how she thought the proceedings were going. Delilah said that she had no doubt that Maxfield would be bound over for trial. She complimented Ashley again for doing so well during her direct examination.
“What are they doing in the jury room?” Ashley asked Delilah.
“I don’t know.”
Wallace did have a hunch but she didn’t want to get Ashley’s hopes up. The DA suspected that Ashley’s testimony had convinced Maxfield that he would lose at trial. She hoped that he was asking his lawyer to negotiate a deal.
“Do you think…?” Before Philips could finish his question, a man in an orange jumpsuit staggered out of the jury room. The guard stepped back, startled, before grabbing him. Delilah stared at the prisoner’s face.
“That’s Weller, the lawyer,” she shouted at the guard as she crossed the courtroom. “Where’s Maxfield?”
The guard looked confused.
Delilah pointed at Weller. “This is the lawyer. Your prisoner changed clothes with him. He’s escaping.”
The guard took one more look at the man he was holding and finally figured out what was going on.
“Watch Ashley,” Larry Birch told his partner as he rushed toward the jury room. Delilah was already inside. A conference table that seated twelve dominated the long, narrow room. The guard who had been posted in the hallway was sprawled on the floor between the table and the corridor door. Larry Birch raced past Delilah and checked the guard for a pulse. He was breathing.
“Get a doctor up here,” he told Delilah as he pulled his gun and entered the corridor outside Judge Stillman’s courtroom. Two women gasped and moved against the wall. A muscular construction worker had the opposite reaction-he looked ready to take on the armed detective. Birch held up his badge.
“I’m a police detective,” Birch said. “Did you see a man in a suit leave this room?”
The man shook his head without ever taking his eyes off Birch’s gun. The detective ran down the hall toward the wide marble stairway that led to the courthouse lobby. He held his gun at his side to avoid a panic. Most people rode the elevators. The detective guessed that Maxfield would take the stairs where there was little traffic. The few people he passed were concerned about their cases, or courthouse business, and paid no attention to him. They wouldn’t have paid attention to Maxfield, either.
Metal detectors had been set up in the lobby at the front of the courthouse. A number of security guards were screening the lawyers, employees, and litigants who were entering the building. No one was paying any attention to the people who were leaving. Birch walked outside into a crisp, cool afternoon. A summer rain had fallen a short time before, but the sun was shining now and the air was heavy with ozone. He looked up and down the street and across Fourth to the park. There was no sign of Joshua Maxfield.
When Larry Birch returned to the courtroom, Barry Weller was seated at the defense table, surrounded by Judge Stillman, the Van Meters, Delilah Wallace, Tony Marx, Jerry Philips, and Ashley Spencer.
“I walked into the jury room and put my briefcase on the table,” Weller was saying. “Maxfield was behind me. Before I could turn, he put on a chokehold. It was so tight I couldn’t shout or breathe. He wrestled me to the floor and wrapped his legs around me. It was some kind of wrestling hold. I struggled for a few seconds and passed out. When I came to, I was dressed in Maxfield’s jumpsuit and my clothes and briefcase were gone.”
“Do you have any idea where he went?” Tony Marx asked.
“No. He never said anything that made me think he’d try something like this. He was planning on writing a book about the case. He seemed resigned to going through a trial.”
Marx spotted his partner. “Any luck?”
Birch shook his head. “Did you put out an alert?”
“Yeah. It sounds like Maxfield’s been planning this for a while. Weller thinks he was hired because he looks a lot like Maxfield.”
Birch studied the lawyer for a moment. “Damn. That never occurred to me.”
“Or me,” Weller said sheepishly.
A doctor came out of the jury room followed by the guard who had been attacked. The guard looked shaky but he was walking on his own. The doctor spotted Weller and walked over to him.
“Let me take a look at you to make sure you don’t need to go to the hospital.”
Everyone moved away to let the doctor work. Delilah noticed how pale Ashley looked.