Sean scoffed and stood. “I think we’re done here.”
Hellstrom held up his hands in retreat. “Please, Mr. Serrat…”
“If your client is innocent, I’m sure he’ll be in great hands with you as his lawyer. I just don’t see what you hope to achieve by—”
“I’m not sure myself why I’m here,” Hellstrom said. “It’s the damndest thing. I just kept thinking of that video of you and something compelled me to walk over. Please, if you’ll just hear me out.”
Sean gave an exasperated sigh and sat back down.
“You’re not the decision maker, and the government’s gonna do what it’s gonna do with this case. But this is your daughter. And, unlike all the defendants I’ve ever represented, I’ve never felt the terror I’m feeling with Malik Montgomery. Nothing we say here goes beyond this room and I won’t be telling anyone you spoke with me. I just ask you to consider something.” Hellstrom raised two fingers. “They have only two pieces of evidence as far as I can tell: One, Malik was at the Supreme Court the night your daughter was murdered. And two, her phone was found at his home.”
“No, that’s not all,” Sean countered. “He lied. He lied about being at the scene of the crime. I know, I was there. Malik looked me in the eye and he lied.”
Hellstrom gave a sympathetic gaze. “More than a hundred people were in the court that evening for a reception. Malik should’ve told the FBI he went in to speak with your daughter, but by that point he was scared and knew the direction things were headed. Malik may be affluent, but he’s still had to grow up in this city as a black man. He has good reason to fear the police.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get into a debate about race and the justice system. I think there’s a much simpler reason why your client lied: he murdered Abby and deleted incriminating evidence from her phone, which was found hidden in his house.”
“Let’s think about that one, Mr. Serrat. This kid’s a Rhodes Scholar. A Georgetown Law graduate. And a Supreme Court law clerk. If he murdered your daughter, why the hell would he keep her phone? And why hide it at his home when he would know witnesses at the restaurant would place him as the last person seen with her? And if he was such a computer expert that he could wipe the phone clean, why would he be dumb enough to leave the device on so it could be tracked to his house?”
Sean shook his head. “They arrested him for a reason. And there is no one else who—”
“Do you know whether they even looked for anyone else? They arrested him the morning after you found your daughter and after questioning the kid all night. Just twelve hours later. Did you know your daughter was in a relationship that she was keeping secret? That someone had been harassing her? And that she was doing some type of confidential research project concerning nominees for the Supreme Court?”
Sean had heard some of this from Malik that night, but it was the first he’d heard of any research project. “All this according to who?” Sean asked. “Your client?”
At that Hellstrom made no reply.
Sean continued, “They looked for other suspects—and I’m sure that they’re still looking.”
Now Hellstrom gave Sean a disappointed look.
“After an arrest, Mr. Serrat, the police tend not to look for other suspects. Old codgers like me use that kind of thing to show that even the police have reasonable doubt. If there’s no doubt he’s the one, there’s no reason to look elsewhere.”
“Then tell me, why? What use would it serve to arrest the wrong man? Why not go after the real killer?”
Hellstrom held Sean’s stare. “Now, Mr. Serrat, you’re starting to ask the right questions.”
CHAPTER 17
Sean took a seat in the back of a lecture room in McDonough Hall at Georgetown Law. He looked down at the rows and rows of twenty-somethings transfixed by Jonathan Tweed. Tweed’s secretary had said that Tweed was giving a guest lecture to a colleague’s Constitutional Law course. In the nosebleed section of the hall, Tweed appeared much shorter than six foot two. But his boyish good looks were apparent even from this distance, if not from the gazes of the young law students attending the class.
“Professor Barnhizer asked me to talk today about freedom of the press,” Tweed said. Sean shook his head. Not a good day to hear about freedom of the press given the group that had been stationed outside his house.
Tweed considered the crowd. “But who would rather talk about something else—let’s say, perhaps … sex.”
That elicited a low rumble from the students.
Tweed held a microphone and worked the room like a televangelist about to pass the collection plate. “No, I wouldn’t want to disappoint Professor Barnhizer. How about we compromise? Let’s talk about both freedom of the press and sex.”
The students clapped at this and someone whistled.