“Yet your brother remains on the company’s board of directors,” I continue, ignoring Edwin. “He is still therefore technically performing corporate functions.”
Edwin leans forward and bores into me with his dark wide-set eyes. “Mr. McFarland, let me make this clear. David Hanson was not—not—on company business when he had our jet fly him to Mexico. It was not for any company purpose that he looted that corporate account. None whatsoever. As for his position on the board of directors: it won’t be for long. I’ve called an emergency meeting of the board for tomorrow morning, and I can assure you that, his inherited stock in our company notwithstanding, my half brother is going to lose his position. My family is a large one, and we are all very different people. But we will not have our company used for disreputable purposes. And we will not have it run by disreputable people.”
In my peripheral vision, I can see David’s clenched jaw and fisted hands. I feel the heat radiating from his face and head. It is everything he can do not to spring from his seat and throttle Edwin.
“Easy,” I lean in to him and whisper. Then I stand to counter Edwin’s speech with one of my own.
“Objection,” I say. “I move to strike the witness’s testimony in its entirety. It was nothing more than a gratuitous slur by a jealous brother. Jealous that his younger sibling has managed to do in just a few years what the witness himself failed to do at the company’s helm in almost two decades. Namely, to build solid relationships throughout Asia, and to engineer deals that would have—and, if justice is done in this case, still may—bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to our local economy. Edwin Hanson may be CEO of his family’s company, for now, but he’s in no position to deny my client’s efforts, even under the stress of an impending trial, to further the company’s interests and the interests of our entire community.”
Now it’s Devlin’s turn to object. He demands that my own speech be stricken from the record, complaining that I’m trying to poison the jury pool, just as my client has been doing by planting stories in the media. Walker and I shout at each other, until finally Judge Henry brings us all to order with the smashing of his gavel—something entirely out of character for him. Behind me, the press is having a field day. I hear at least a dozen newsmen tap, tap, tapping the screens of their iPads, writing down everything that’s going on. I’m certain that others are recording the whole clusterfuck on their smartphones.
William Henry sits back in his chair and closes his eyes. After a long minute, he opens them and leans forward. “All right, let’s cut to the chase. We’re going to assume that the witness from the DA’s financial-crimes unit will testify the way Mr. Walker says she will. Is that okay with you, Mr. McFarland, or do you need it all played out in detail and on the record?”
“For the purposes of this hearing, Your Honor, and only this hearing, the defense will stipulate that the witnesses will so testify.”
“All right, then.” William Henry looks at me. He opens his hands and waits. After a minute, still looking at me, he says, “Well?”
I look up at the bench. “Your Honor?”
“Come on, Mr. McFarland. You can’t figure out what I’m looking for? Your client has smashed the proverbial piggy bank on the eve of trial. He’s withdrawn four million dollars in cash. My question should be obvious. If he didn’t take the money to help him flee, what did he take it for?”
“Your Honor,” I say, “if Mr. Hanson were planning to flee, he wouldn’t withdraw a bunch of cash. He’d just wire the money to another account in a bank located where he planned to go.”
“Maybe he did that, too, and we just haven’t found out about it yet,” Devlin Walker pipes in.
“I’m still waiting, Mr. McFarland,” says the judge, ignoring Devlin.
“Your Honor, I’d like a minute to speak with my client in private.”
The court calls for a break and lets me take David to a small conference room just outside the courtroom. As soon I close the door, David starts in on me. “You’ve killed me! You’ve fucking killed me! What the hell are we going to say? What’s our answer? That I needed the money to pay off a blackmailer who had a DVD of me at Jennifer’s house right around the time she was killed?”
“David—”
“You know what? Fuck it! That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’ll go back into the courtroom and tell everyone about that fucking recording. It doesn’t prove I killed her. It doesn’t prove anything. Come on!” David brushes past me toward the door, but I reach out and grab him by the arm.
“Are you out of your mind? That video will hang you. No one can ever know anything about it. No one can find out you were at Jennifer’s house at the time of the murder.”
“Find out? Everyone out there, everyone in the whole city, already thinks that’s exactly where I was when Jennifer was killed.”
“But they don’t know. Some of them think it. Some believe it. But no one knows for a fact that you were there that afternoon. And it has to stay that way for you to have any chance of staying out of prison.”
“But that’s what this whole hearing is all about. If we don’t come up with some answer for the money’s purpose, that judge is going to have me carted me off to county lockup. Today. Right now. Right? Right?”
I lower myself to one of the scratched metal seats around the scratched metal conference table. “Sit down, David. Please. We have to think this through.”
David remains standing, rubs his hands through his hair, then sits at the end of the table. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he says. “I just can’t believe it.”
Thirty minutes after he called the break, Judge Henry is back on the bench. David and I are at the defense table. Devlin Walker and Christina Wesley are seated at the prosecution table, their witnesses and a smiling John Tredesco behind them. On my side of the courtroom, Marcie Hanson sits in the first row of seats behind the bar. Tommy and Angie are a few rows behind her. Only two things are different. First, there are even more reporters than were here before the break. Apparently, the word is out that blood’s being spilled. Second, two sheriff’s deputies have appeared and are standing by the doors in the back of the courtroom.
“Have you had a chance to consult with your client?” the judge asks me.
“I have, Your Honor. And all I can say is that Mr. Hanson is well known around the world as a philanthropist. He’s also a man of his word, and he has no intention of betraying the uses to which he donated that money.”
Devlin springs to his feet. “Objection! Counsel is testifying. He doesn’t dare put his client on the stand, so he’s blowing a smoke screen.”