Kolarich shook his head. “Dead end.”
“Dead end? Let me talk to her. She saw the gun.”
“No,” said Kolarich. “The cops saw the gun.”
“It says in this report she saw the gun. It says he stuck it in her baby’s face.”
“The report’s wrong. She didn’t.”
Drew didn’t look satisfied.
“You have two cops that saw the gun toss, Agent. And now you have a signed statement. That’s more than enough.”
“Where is Caridad Flores?” asked Agent Drew.
She was about twenty yards away from them.
“She’s in the wind,” said Kolarich. “She’s worthless. Isn’t really sure what she saw. You don’t need her, anyway.”
Drew’s lips bunched up. He read the statement and looked up at Kolarich. “By any chance would you know the immigration status of Ms. Flores?”
“Didn’t ask,” said Kolarich. “But I’ll tell you this, Agent Drew: If she’s undocumented, then she was pretty damn brave to run to the cops, wasn’t she? I’d call that heroic, wouldn’t you?”
Agent Drew studied him, maintaining that poker face they teach at Quantico, before releasing a sigh. “Fine,” he said. He removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “So where’s our guest of honor?”
“Better he hears it from me,” said Kolarich. “Give me one minute, then come in.”
Kolarich unlocked the interview room and found Marshall Rivers with his elbows on the table, his feet tapping a beat. He used the key to unlock the handcuff that tied Rivers’s wrist to the table.
“So I get to leave?” Marshall asked.
“You get to leave here. But you’re not going home, Marshall. You’re being taken into federal custody for unlawful possession of a weapon.”
Kolarich stood back. Marshall Rivers got to his feet and rubbed his unshackled wrist. “What?”
“You’re going to be prosecuted in federal court. You’ll receive four or five times the sentence you would’ve gotten in state court. How does that sound?”
“You lied to me?” Marshall’s chest rose and fell, the venomous hatred returning to his eyes. He lunged for Kolarich, his hands aiming for his throat. Kolarich brought his hands underneath Marshall’s arms, divided them, and stood Rivers up with a double forearm shiver. Then he drove Rivers backward, feeling the crunch of his body against drywall, the clacking of his teeth, the air escaping Rivers like a cushion. Kolarich grabbed his shirt, propping him up.
“Now you know how it feels to pick on someone your own size,” Kolarich whispered, “instead of a teenage girl.”
“I’ll. . remember this,” Rivers managed through gritted teeth. “You don’t know me.”
Kolarich flipped him around so Rivers’s face was planted in the wall, twisting one arm behind his back. “I know all I need to know,” he said. “You’re nobody to me, Marshall. You get that? You’re a fucking stain on the bottom of my shoe. I’ll forget you as soon as you’re gone.”
That last part was probably true. There was little original about Marshall Rivers. There were plenty of guys like him, and there’d be more to come. And this little stunt Kolarich pulled, yes, was probably over the line, but he was planning on losing absolutely zero sleep over it.
The door to the interview room opened. “Jesus!” Agent Drew shouted. He rushed over to the corner, where Kolarich had Marshall Rivers pinned to the wall. Drew cuffed him quickly and placed a hand between his shoulder blades. “There’s a protocol for a prisoner transfer,” he said to Kolarich. “You’re not supposed to uncuff him while I’m outside the room, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s why I like this job,” Kolarich answered, straightening his tie. “You learn something new every day.”
Kolarich left the room and walked back down the hall to the squad room. Marshall Rivers bellowed behind him, his protests slowly fading as he was escorted down the stairs and out to the FBI car waiting for him.
Lisa the translator caught up with Kolarich as he entered the squad room. “What do I tell Caridad?” she asked.
“Tell her to go home and forget she ever met us. Tell her the bad guy’s going away for a long time and we won’t be needing her.”
He felt Lisa’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good egg, Charlie Brown.”
“Counselor.” The lieutenant stuck his head out his office door and nodded at Kolarich. “We have a double homicide in Cowan Park. Rosen will take you.”
Probably a gang shooting. It would consume the next twenty-four hours of his life, at a minimum. Kolarich rolled his neck, took a breath, and nodded.
“I’m on it,” he said.
PEOPLE VS. JASON KOLARICH
TRIAL, DAY 4
Thursday, December 12
91
Shauna
Judge Bialek denies my motion for a directed verdict after the close of the prosecution’s case, refusing to throw out the charges against Jason for lack of evidence. She gave me more than my allotted fifteen minutes to argue the motion, which was charitable of her, because she was no more likely to toss this case than she was to sprout wings and fly out of the courtroom. After breaking the bad news to me, the judge summons the jury.
“Is the defense prepared to call its first witness?”
For the first time in the trial, Bradley John rises to address the court.
“The defense calls Jason Kolarich,” he says.
Everyone takes note of Bradley’s sudden participation-the judge with a double blink of her eyes, Roger Ogren with a rifle-quick jerk of the head, the jurors with more casual looks of surprise, not having any firsthand investment in the case.
The biggest witness in the case, and the second-chair attorney, who has yet to speak before the jury, handling him? It was a mutual decision made between Jason and me. His idea, primarily, but I went along with it. A lawyer cannot knowingly suborn perjury, cannot question a witness on the stand if she knows he’s lying. Bradley, on the other hand, does not know everything I know, and in fact does not know with any certainty, one way or the other, whether the testimony Jason is about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
But I’d be lying to myself if I said this was all about ethics. As artificial and staged and thoroughly rehearsed as this conversation he and Bradley are about to have may be, it is a conversation nonetheless. Jason doesn’t want to have to answer these questions from me. He is afraid of how I will react. And maybe how he’ll react, too.
Bradley organizes his notes while Jason takes the witness stand and is sworn in. After giving his name for the record, Bradley cuts to it.
“Jason,” he says, “did you murder Alexa Himmel?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you have anything to do with her murder?”
“No, I did not.”
Jason likes to say he is the son of a con artist, which is true, and he likes to say he can bullshit with the best of them, also true. But there is an earnestness to the way he answers these questions, no flash or sizzle, no overwrought emotional appeal, not even a puppy-dog face for the jury, that works. I think it works. I’m doing my best to retain a clinical perspective, a lawyer’s objectivity, to view this through the eyes of the jury and not from my own memories.
“You watched segments of your interrogation with Detective Cromartie?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You heard the testimony about your handgun, the prints being wiped off?”
“Yes.”
“You heard the testimony about the e-mails Ms. Himmel sent you and the many phone calls she made to you in the days leading up to her death?”
“I heard it all. And I have to say, if all I knew about the case was the evidence the prosecution has shown the jury, I’d probably think I was guilty, too. But I’m not guilty. I didn’t kill her.”
“Will you address this evidence with me today?”
“I’ve been waiting all week.”
“Do you know who did kill Ms. Himmel?”