Dean Koontz 2-Book Thriller Collection: Innocence, The City. Dean Koontz

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       Thirty-seven

      IN THE LAND ROVER, SURROUNDED BY THE CITY, I thought the falling snow began to seem ominous, as though it might be the same storm in which Father had died, the wind having circled the world uncounted times in those six years, returning now for me.

      As we headed for the haven to which Gwyneth had fled from her apartment near the Commons, she said, “When Walter lost Claire, it changed him. The brutality of her murder followed by the travesty of the not-guilty verdicts radicalized him.”

      Of the three rapists—Orcott, Sabbateau, and Clerkman—the last was the son of the longtime president of the union representing the city’s police and firemen. The press and all responsible authorities agreed that Clerkman’s family connections would in no way affect how the district attorney’s office would build a case and prosecute it.

      In court, the police chain-of-custody records for evidence in the case showed that the nurse’s cap and panties were found with her other garments near the pond. The officer who tagged and bagged those items had since retired and moved out of state; he was too ill to be subpoenaed. For reasons not explained, the prosecution was confident that the evidence records hadn’t been altered, that the cap and panties found in the van were not those of the nurse. Therefore, the defense attorney proposed that the aunt of Orcott, Verbina Orcott, who claimed to have found the garments, had foolishly planted them in the flower-shop van to incriminate her nephew, whom she detested and believed to be a heavy drug user. Wasn’t it true that she thought her husband was naive and far too financially generous with their nephew? Wasn’t it true that they often argued about his generosity? Wasn’t it true that subsequent to her giving this trumped-up so-called evidence to the police, her husband filed for divorce? In sworn testimony, Verbina declared that the cap and panties shown to her in court were not the ones she found under the seat in the van, but when subjected to relentless cross-examination, she at times became befuddled.

      Although initial statements by the police-department spokesman had mentioned mattress-related DNA evidence matching that of the three defendants and the victim, by the time the trial was under way, the prosecution had no match to the victim or to Orcott, and the DNA evidence regarding Clerkman and Sabbateau was inconclusive. Because the nurse had floated for hours in the pond, water had invaded her every orifice. The deputy coroner testified that he could not obtain perpetrator DNA from the cadaver. For some reason unspecified, the chief coroner was not called to testify.

      With such supposedly flimsy evidence, the case might never have been brought to trial, if not for Sabbateau’s confession. In court, the defendant claimed he had made a false confession because the two interrogating detectives threatened and psychologically tortured him, so that he feared for his life. And they had not allowed him to call an attorney. Two psychologists testified that Sabbateau had a below-average IQ and suffered from an inferiority complex; as a consequence he was timid and inclined to be fearful even in ordinary situations. They didn’t go as far as to claim that Orcott and Clerkman hung out with the pathetic Sabbateau solely because of their kind hearts, but such noble intentions were implied.

      The two accused detectives, Hines and Corzo, each other’s best friend, didn’t acquit themselves well on the witness stand. After the jury returned the not-guilty verdicts, the detectives were eventually suspended for a year without pay. In spite of having no income, Hines and Corzo endured no obvious decline in their living standards, and in fact they rented a bachelor’s pad in Las Vegas and spent most of the year enjoying everything that city had to offer, whereafter they returned to their duties, chastened and contrite.

      Now, piloting the Land Rover through the steadily thickening snowfall, Gwyneth said, “When the girl found in the Dumpster wasn’t protected by the court, when Judge Gallagher started the process of having the feeding tube removed, Walter felt the system was failing her as it failed Claire. Without my name ever being used, Gallagher was persuaded to allow an irrevocable trust to be set up to care for the girl. Custody of her was quietly granted to Walter and to his sister, Janet, so that they could care for her in the house I provided through the trust.”

      Considering the burden of her social phobia and the restrictions that it placed upon her, I marveled that Gwyneth could accomplish so much. I supposed that she had been taught competence and courage by the father of whom she spoke so highly, as I had been by my father.

      “But how could the judge be persuaded to do all that without knowing who funded the trust?”

      “Judge Gallagher’s mother, Rose, has big influence, because he’ll receive a huge inheritance when she dies. The person Rose trusts most in this world isn’t her son, who often defies her, but Teague Hanlon.”

      “Your guardian.”

      “He told her what could be done for the child if the judge allowed it. Rose was sick that the girl might be starved to death. Never mentioning who had advised her, she told her son that if Walter and Janet weren’t given guardianship, a new will would be drawn, granting him a quarter of her estate rather than all of it. The court saw the wisdom of compassion. The wheels of justice turned with express-train speed.”

      I said, “So much money and effort for a girl you didn’t know.”

      “What else is money for if not for things like this? Besides, you saw her. She’s special.”

      I remembered the face that inspired in me thoughts of peace СКАЧАТЬ