84
DUNCAN STUDIED Leah as Alena announced that she’d made a recording. Even from across the room he could see the muscles in her jawline clenching. He wondered if there was any part of her that felt relief, or if she’d been willing to just keep fighting, no matter how many more crimes it meant committing and how many more people it hurt.
Duncan turned his attention to Blake, who was uncharacteristically hesitating. Blake was clearly aware that he’d fallen into a lawyer’s worst nightmare on cross. On the one hand, asking further questions was risking more unpleasant surprises, but on the other, there was no way to shove the genie back into the bottle. If Blake sat down now it would just allow Duncan to apply the coup de grace.
It was the judge who spoke first. “You recorded conversations between yourself and Jeremy Roth?” he asked Alena.
“Just one conversation.”
“And you have that tape here with you?”
“I do.”
Blake turned to the judge. “Your Honor, obviously there are issues of authenticity, of chain of custody, not to mention the legality of any purported recording.”
“New York is a one-party-consent state to recording conversations, Your Honor,” Duncan said, his mind flashing briefly to Candace and the digital recorder she kept in her pocket—the very same recorder that Alena had used. “Ms. Porter did not make this recording at the direction of law enforcement, so there’s no issue of entrapment or the like.”
“I’ll hear the recording,” Lasky said. “I’m reserving judgment on its admissibility. Let’s get all the cards on the table, then go from there.”
Alena stayed in the witness box while Duncan produced a CD containing the recording of her conversation with Jeremy Roth. There was some wrangling among the lawyers and the judge over the disc’s origins, but Alena didn’t pay attention. Those years on the runway had made her an expert at separating her mind from her body. So while she sat poised attentively in the courtroom, her thoughts went back to the events that had brought her here.
She never would have imagined that calling the reporter would ultimately bring her to the witness stand at a murder trial. She hadn’t even heard of Sean Fowler or Rafael Nazario when she’d first met with Candace Snow. If she’d had the slightest idea where it would all lead, she was pretty much certain she would’ve kept her mouth shut.
But it hadn’t been the reporter who’d made it go this far; it’d been the sudden appearance two days ago of the man who’d been waiting for her outside Ivy’s apartment. They’d talked out on the street for a few minutes, Darryl trying to get her to come with him right then to go see Jeremy. Alena hadn’t even considered doing so; she’d claimed to have an appointment for later that afternoon. Darryl clearly hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer, but was trying to seem nice about it too. She’d finally agreed to meet Jeremy for a drink that night.
Alena had felt something like terror at the thought. She’d been frightened of Darryl the whole time they were talking, even though it was on a busy street in broad daylight. She hadn’t been able to shake the thought that Jeremy must’ve found out she’d talked to the reporter. She knew too much about the Roths, and now she also knew the danger that could bring.
She was scared of Jeremy now. People who’d stood in his way ended up dead; she believed that. She recognized that there was no limit to his selfishness, nothing that restrained him from hurting other people—or causing them to be hurt—to get what he wanted. The way he had treated her before, how he had used her, was just a symptom of his larger disease.
So she’d called the reporter, told her about the man who’d been waiting for her outside Ivy’s apartment. “The first thing you should know is that you may be being followed,” Candace said. “They can probably get inside your apartment too, so don’t leave anything around you wouldn’t want them to see.”
“You’re not helping,” Alena said after a moment.
“We don’t have time for sugarcoating. How did you leave things with Darryl?”
“I said I had an appointment with someone from my agency this afternoon, but that I’d meet Jeremy tonight for a drink.”
“Then you should go meet somebody, in case they’re watching you. Listen, Alena, you can get an innocent man out of jail, help solve two murders. Are you willing to do that?”
“Jesus Christ,” Alena said. “I’m an unemployed model who doesn’t even have an apartment. I’m not a lawyer or a reporter or anything like that.”
“Which is exactly why you can do things here that we can’t.”
Alena had closed her eyes, trying to figure out how she’d gotten herself in the middle of this. The reporter couldn’t stop Jeremy; neither could the lawyer. Both had admitted they didn’t have the ammunition. And neither could even begin to penetrate the layers that insulated him from the actual violence. There was only one person who could slip through, Alena realized. There was only her.
She was scared, but also angry, and she had never really had a chance to help someone like this. “What is it you want me to do?” she’d heard herself say.
As arranged, Alena had waited an hour and then walked up to a coffee shop called Mud, a few blocks from Ivy’s apartment. A few minutes later a man she’d never seen before had come in, looked around, and then hesitatingly come over to her. He’d introduced himself as Alex Costello, said he was a reporter at the Journal. He’d made a call on his cell phone, and then handed it over to Alena. The lawyer, Duncan Riley, had been on with Candace, and they’d walked her through the plan they’d scrambled together. Costello had given her a small padded envelope containing a digital recorder, telling her not to open it until she was home.
At nine o’clock she’d met Jeremy at the Flatiron Lounge, a deliberately retro bar in Chelsea that Jeremy had always been partial to—Alena suspected it was because the drinks were so strong. Jeremy was already there, seated at a far back table, nobody else near him. He’d stood in greeting upon seeing her, kissing her awkwardly on the cheek. Jeremy was dressed in a suit without a tie, and seemed as eager as a teenager on a first date as he got her a drink.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while,” he said. “I’m glad you agreed to meet. I’m sorry for whatever misunderstanding we had before.”
She wasn’t here to fight with him, Alena reminded herself. She wasn’t going to get what she’d come for if she reacted honestly. “Okay,” she said, unable to come up with something more that would seem even remotely plausible.
“That’s what you were mad at me about, leaving the bar that night? I was just tired, is all, and Mattar wanted to stay out and I needed to be on his good side. He was harmless, though, right?”
“I’m not sure ‘harmless’ is a good word to describe Mattar,” Alena said. “He didn’t end up doing business with you, did he?”
“But I mean nothing weird happened? I tried calling you a few times later on that night, but you never picked up.”
Christ, Alena thought, Jeremy was actually jealous of Mattar after leaving her alone with him. She didn’t know how to respond, especially given her awareness that every word was being recorded and might end up on the front page of a newspaper. “Mattar was just f*cking with you, you know,” she said. “It was a power play is all. They’d already decided not to buy in.”
“It’s not like I liked him either,” Jeremy said, Alena surprised by his lack of reaction. “I just had to hang out with him. It was always business. Did he make a move on you that night?”
“I left a few minutes after you did,” Alena said, wondering if the whole reason Jeremy had been so desperate to see her was simply because he needed to know whether she’d slept with Mattar. She doubted that Jeremy was self-aware enough to know it, if that was the case. “But listen, before we talk more about anything else, there’s something I’ve got to tell you about. A reporter tracked me down yesterday. She said some pretty wild things.”
Jeremy’s reaction was immediate: he leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “Was it the woman from the Journal?”
“Yeah, it was the reporter you guys sued. She’s still going after you, I guess.”
“Why the hell was she coming to you?” Jeremy said. “How did she even know who you were?”
“Beats me,” Alena said. “She wouldn’t explain any of that—just showed up at my door. Apparently I’m not that hard to find,” she added, but Jeremy was too worried to catch the reference.
“So what did she want to talk to you about?”
“She’s digging into you, Jeremy. She said you were taking money out of the Aurora, and that somebody who was part of it—a guy named Fowler, she said—was blackmailing you.” Alena paused, looking Jeremy in the eye. It wasn’t just about getting something on tape: she wanted to know if Jeremy really had a man killed, if he was capable of that. “She said the guy who was blackmailing you was murdered.”
Jeremy picked up his drink, then immediately put it down. Even in the dimly lighted room Alena could see sweat at his temples. “What did you tell her?” Jeremy asked, his voice tight. He was afraid, Alena realized.
“I didn’t tell her anything. I mean, I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. It’s not like I know anything about stuff like that. Jesus, Jeremy, is it true?”
Jeremy used both hands to lift his drink this time, taking a long sip. It was true; Alena could tell just by looking at him. She’d come here believing it, but that still hadn’t quite prepared her for this moment. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this shit,” Jeremy said.
“That’s all you have to say? How am I supposed to even be here if you’ve done something like this?”
“I didn’t kill anyone, obviously, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The reporter wasn’t saying you shot the guy yourself, just that you were behind it.”
Jeremy had recovered at least a little of his composure. “We’re not going to talk about this,” he said.
Alena had expected Jeremy to want to confess. But he wasn’t just looking to tell her. She was going to have to dig it out of him.
“That’s basically the same as admitting it,” she said, studying Jeremy as she spoke. “You’re not that sort of person. Are you?”
“There’re some things that happened at the Aurora. Yeah, I took some money out—but it was my goddamn money anyway. If my father wasn’t such a hard-ass I never would’ve needed to use Pellettieri to take it.”
“So you knew he was skimming?”
“It happens all the time on construction,” Jeremy said. “The only difference here was that I was getting my fair share. It’s not like I can really rob myself, can I? And no, I didn’t kill anyone, or order somebody to kill them, or anything like that.”
“Then why is the reporter writing a story that says you did?”
“Because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Jeremy said. He seemed angry now, although at what exactly Alena couldn’t say.
“But she’s not just making the whole thing up,” she protested. “You’d told me you were being blackmailed before, and then you told me it was over with, the guy deserved what he got. Was he killed?”
For a moment Jeremy just looked at her, a violence in his eyes. “None of it was f*cking me, okay? None of it. I mean, yeah, I f*cked up a little bit at the Aurora; that’s on me, but I didn’t have shit to do with the rest of it.”
“The reporter told me that somebody’s on trial for the murder. She said he’s got nothing to do with it, that he’s been set up.”
“Just don’t talk to her, okay? If she comes back, I mean. Did you tell her anything?”
“I admitted that I knew you, before I had any idea what she wanted to talk about. I didn’t say anything once she got going. She just kept throwing new stuff out there—kept piling on. She seemed sure I already knew about it.”
Jeremy looked ashen. “Was there anything else she said about the murder?” he asked.
“She said your security guards did it. That was the other thing. Do you have people who do these things for you, really?”
Jeremy didn’t answer, cradling his drink in his hands. The idea that the reporter had this much clearly had him scared. Alena decided it was time to play her final card. “That wasn’t even the end of it. The contractor you were working with, the police were about to arrest him and he disappeared?”
“Jack Pellettieri? He went on the run, yeah, so what?”
“She said his body just washed up in New Jersey.”
Jeremy seemed equal parts puzzled and afraid. “Pellettieri’s dead? I don’t know anything about that.”
“You said you wanted to see me again, Jeremy. That you wanted to fix things. I can’t have someone make these accusations about you and then just pretend that I haven’t heard them.”
“It wasn’t me,” Jeremy said again, his voice fraying.
“But it did happen, didn’t it?” Alena said, not having to act to show her own fear. “God, Jeremy, you know, don’t you?”
“I can’t talk to you about this.”
“Meaning you don’t trust me?” Alena said, aware of the absurdity of asking for the trust of a man she was secretly recording.
Jeremy looked at her, and Alena could see in his face the burden he’d been carrying. Then something broke in him; she watched it break. Jeremy was not somebody built for carrying around a terrible secret; his nature wasn’t self-contained enough for it. He needed to confess.
“It was my sister,” Jeremy said, his voice trembling. “Fowler was involved in skimming money, and then after the accident he came to me with his hand out. I paid him off, but the f*cker came back. So I told my sister what was happening with Fowler, and she said she’d take care of it. Then she went to our security guy, Darryl, told him what Fowler was up to. I didn’t know what they were going to do; I didn’t know what was happening. You can’t ever talk to the reporter again, not one word. You understand? I won’t be able to protect you if you do.”
Alena felt a chill. “Are you threatening me?”
“Of course not. But once you know about something like this, you’ve got to keep it to yourself.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t you, Jeremy,” Alena said. “I’m glad the reporter’s got it wrong. I mean, it’s still pretty f*cked up that you let it happen, but it’s good you weren’t directly involved. But is it true that some innocent guy is being charged with killing Fowler?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. Darryl ran the show. Leaving it unsolved was too risky, I guess, but nobody asked me my opinion. I mean, you do something like this, the idea is to get away with it.”
“But you’re letting it happen. You could stop it if you chose to.”
“It’s too late. Things take on a momentum of their own. I can’t change any of it now.”
LOST IN thought, Alena barely noticed that Duncan had stopped the tape, the courtroom falling silent. As the room came back into focus the first thing Alena noticed was the cool hatred in the gaze of Leah Roth. Steven Blake stood, though more slowly this time. Alena thought the lawyer had to know the game was lost, that he wasn’t going to spin his clients out of this.
“There are multiple issues with this recording, Your Honor,” Blake said. “We don’t know for a fact that the voice on the tape is Jeremy Roth. We don’t know if this recording has been spliced or altered in some way. It is also clear that Ms. Porter is being deceptive, at best, in the recorded conversation. And even if the tape is what it purports to be, it’s still hearsay. There is no supporting evidence to the claims made on the recording.”
Judge Lasky looked exasperated by Blake’s arguments. “Are you suggesting that Mr. Roth was lying on that tape? And as to whether it’s his voice, you know him personally, do you not?”
Blake hesitated. “He’s my client, yes.”
“Standing before me as an officer of the court, did you think it was him?”
Blake clearly didn’t want to respond. “It sounded generally like him, but I am by no means an expert in such matters.”
Lasky offered Blake a withering look before turning to the DA’s table. “Would the People like to be heard?”
Castelluccio stood, looking shell-shocked. “Your Honor, I have no way of knowing whether that tape is what it purports to be. At a minimum, I would like to have our technical experts review it. Obviously too we can simply ask Jeremy Roth whether he disputes it.”
“Where does that leave Mr. Nazario in the meantime?” the judge asked.
Castelluccio hesitated. “It would be premature for my office to make a decision as to what, if any, effect today’s hearing has on the case against Mr. Nazario. This tape by itself does not exonerate him, though it certainly raises questions.”
Duncan had told himself to be quiet for as long as he could, see how things were shaking out. Now he stood and faced the judge. “This tape does not raise questions, Your Honor. It establishes that the defendant was framed, by whom, and why.”
“It does no such thing,” Castelluccio said. “I would remind the court that Mr. Nazario was prepared to plead guilty to this crime. It remains to be seen whether this new information will actually exonerate him.”
Judge Lasky looked at Castelluccio, then over at Rafael for the first time. After a moment he turned back to the ADA. “Even on its own, this tape is pretty much fatal to your case against Nazario,” he said. “Reasonable doubt is certainly established by it. You don’t have a case here anymore, counsel.”
“It would be premature to dismiss this case entirely,” Castelluccio said quickly.
“Jeopardy hasn’t attached, Your Honor,” Duncan said. “You can dismiss without prejudice, and the DA will be free to refile if they come up with anything.”
“There would be a risk of flight,” Castelluccio said.
“My client has no resources to speak of,” Duncan said, realizing that he’d mistakenly called Rafael his client but not feeling any need to correct it. “He doesn’t even have a passport. And why on earth would he run, under the circumstances?”
Judge Lasky looked over at Rafael. “The defendant shouldn’t have to be in jail while the police try to build this case all over from scratch,” he said at last. “And the goal should be trying to figure out what actually happened here, not keeping this prosecution alive. People v. Nazario is hereby dismissed without prejudice. Mr. Nazario, you are free to go.”
Duncan walked over to Rafael, ignoring Walker, and put his hand on Rafael’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home,” he said.