Pop Goes the Weasel Read online

  ON ACCOUNT OF HIS REQUEST for diplomatic immunity, we weren’t allowed to question Geoffrey Shafer about Detective Hampton’s murder or anything else. I was incredibly frustrated. We had the Weasel, and we couldn’t get to him.

  Investigators were lying in wait for me that morning at the station house, and I knew it was going to be a long and excruciating day. I was interviewed by Internal Affairs, by the city’s chief counsel, and also by Mike Kersee from the district attorney’s office.

  Pay no attention to the craziness everywhere around you, I reminded myself over and over, but my own good advice wasn’t working too well.

  Around three o’clock, the district attorney himself showed up. Ron Coleman is a tall, slender, athletic-looking man; we had worked together many times when he was coming up in the D.A.’s office. I had always found him to be conscientious, well informed, and committed to rationality and sanity. He’d never seemed very political, so it had come as a shock to almost everyone when Mayor Monroe appointed him the D.A. Monroe loves to shock people, though.

  Coleman made an announcement: “Mr. Shafer already has an attorney, and he is one of the bright stars of our galaxy. He has retained none other than Jules Halpern. Halpern’s probably the one who planted the story that you’re a suspect—which you aren’t, as far as I know.”

  I stared at Coleman. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “As far as you know? What does that mean, Ron?”

  The D.A. shrugged. “We’re probably going to go with Cathy Fitzgibbon on our side. I think she’s our best litigator. We’ll back her up with Lynda Cole and maybe Stephen Apt, who are also top-notch. That’s my take on it as of this morning.”

  I knew all three prosecutors, and they had good reputations, particularly Fitzgibbon. They were on the young side, but nonetheless tireless, smart, dedicated—a lot like Coleman himself.

  “You sound like you’re preparing for a war, Ron.”

  He nodded. “As I said, Jules Halpern is Shafer’s defense attorney. He rarely loses. In fact, I don’t know if he’s ever lost a big case like this one. He turns down all the losers, Alex.”

  I looked directly into Coleman’s dark eyes. “We have Patsy Hampton’s blood on the killer’s clothes. We have blood in the bathroom drain, and I bet we’ll have Shafer’s fingerprints somewhere in Hampton’s car before the end of the day. We may have the wire hanger he used to strangle her. Ron?”

  “Yes, Alex. I know what you’re going to say. I know your question. It’s the same one I have.”

  “Shafer has diplomatic immunity. So why bring in Jules Halpern?”

  “That’s a very good goddamn question we both came up with. I suspect Halpern’s been hired to get us to drop the charges completely.”

  “We have substantial evidence. He was washing Patsy Hampton’s blood off himself in the bathroom. There’s residue in the sink.”

  Coleman nodded and shrank back into his easy chair. “I don’t understand why Jules Halpern is involved. I’m sure we’ll know before too long, though.”

  “I’m afraid we’ll know soon,” I said.

  I decided to leave the station by the back way that night, just in case there was press lying in wait out front on Alabama Avenue. As I stepped outside, a small balding man in a light-green suit popped out from behind the adjacent stone wall.

  “That’s a good way to get yourself shot,” I told him. I was only half kidding.

  “Occupational hazard,” he lisped. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Detective.”

  He smiled thinly as he handed me a white letter-sized envelope. “Alex Cross, you’ve hereby been served with a Summons and Complaint. Have a nice night, Detective,” he said in his sibilant whine. Then he walked away as surreptitiously as he’d appeared.

  I opened the envelope and quickly scanned the letter. I groaned. Now I knew why Jules Halpern had been retained, and what we were up against.

  I had been named in a civil suit for “false arrest” and “defamation of the character of Colonel Geoffrey Shafer.” The suit was for fifty million dollars.

  Chapter 77

  THE NEXT MORNING I was summoned to the District of Columbia Law Department offices downtown. This was not good, I decided. The city’s chief counsel, James Dowd, and Mike Kersee from the D.A.’s office were already ensconced in red-leather club chairs.

  So was Chief of Detectives Pittman, who was putting on quite a show from his front-row seat. “You mean to tell me that because Shafer has diplomatic immunity he can avoid criminal prosecution in criminal court? But he can traipse right into our civil court and get protection against false arrest and defamation?”

  Kersee nodded and made clucking noises with his tongue and teeth. “Yessirreebob, that’s it exactly. Our ambassadors and their staffs enjoy the same kind of immunity in England and everywhere else around the world. No amount of political pressure will get the Brits to waive immunity. Shafer is a war hero from the Falklands. Supposedly he’s also pretty well respected inside the Security Service, though lately he seems to have been in some trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “They won’t tell us.”

  Pittman was still badgering the lawyers. “What about that clown from the Baltic Embassy? The one who wiped out the sidewalk café? He went to trial.”

  Mike Kersee shrugged. “He was just a low-level staffer from a low-level country that we could threaten. We can’t do that with England.”

  “Why the hell not?” Pittman frowned and thumped his hand hard against the arm of his chair. “England isn’t worth shit anymore.”

  The phone on Dowd’s desk rang, and he raised his hand for quiet. “That’s probably Jules Halpern. He said he’d call at ten, and he’s an efficient bastard. If it is him, I’ll put him on the speaker box. This should be about as interesting as a rectal exam done with a cactus.”

  Dowd picked up and exchanged pleasantries with the defense attorney for about thirty seconds. Then Halpern cut him off. “I believe we have matters of substance to discuss. My schedule is rather tight today. I’m sure you’re hard pressed as well, Mr. Dowd.”

  “Yes, let’s get down to business,” Dowd said, raising his thick, curly black eyebrows. “As you know, the police have a qualified privilege to arrest anyone if they have probable cause. You simply don’t have a civil case, Counselor—”

  Halpern interrupted Dowd before he had finished speaking. “Not if that person identifies himself from the outset as having diplomatic immunity, which my client did. Colonel Shafer stood in the doorway of his therapist’s apartment, waving his British Security Service shield like a stop sign and saying that he had immunity.”

  Dowd sighed loudly into the phone. “There was blood on his trousers, Counselor. He’s a murderer, Counselor, and a cop killer. I don’t think I need to say any more on the subject. With respect to the alleged defamation, the police also have a qualified privilege to talk to the press when a crime has been committed.”

  “And I suppose that the chief of detectives’ statement in front of reporters—and several hundred million others around the world—isn’t slander per se?”

  “That’s correct, it isn’t. There’s a qualified privilege with respect to public figures such as your client.”

  “My client is not a public figure, Mr. Dowd. He is a very private individual. He is an intelligence agent. His very livelihood, if not his life, depends on his being able to work undercover.”

  The chief counsel was already exasperated, possibly because Halpern’s responses were so calm, yet always delivered rapidfire. “All right, Mr. Halpern. So why are you calling us?”

  Halpern paused long enough to make Dowd curious. Then he began again. “My client has authorized me to make a very unusual offer. I have strongly advised him against it, but he maintains his right to do so.”

  Dowd looked startled. I could tell that he hadn’t been expecting any kind of deal offer. Neither had I. What was this about?

  “Go ahead, Mr. Halpern,” said Do
wd. His eyes were wide and alert as they roamed around the room looking at us. “I’m listening.”

  “I’ll bet you are, and all your esteemed colleagues as well.”

  I leaned forward to hear every word.

  Jules Halpern continued with the real reason for his call: “My client wants all possibility of a civil case being brought against him waived.”

  I rolled my eyes. Halpern wanted to make certain that no one could sue his client in civil court after the criminal court case was concluded. He remembered that O. J. Simpson had been set free in the one court only to be bankrupted in the other.

  “Impossible!” said Dowd. “There’s no way in hell that will ever happen. No way.”

  “Listen to me. There is a way, or I wouldn’t have broached the subject. If this is done, and if he and I can be convinced of a speedy route for a criminal trial, my client will waive diplomatic immunity. Yes, you heard me correctly. Geoffrey Shafer wants to prove his innocence in a court of law. He insists on it, in fact.”

  Dowd was shaking his head in disbelief. So was Mike Kersee. His eyes were glazed with astonishment as he glanced across the room at me.

  None of us could believe what we had just heard from the defense attorney.

  Geoffrey Shafer wanted to go to trial.

  Book Four

  TRIAL AND ERRORS

  Chapter 78

  CONQUEROR HAD WATCHED her work High Street in Kensington for nearly six weeks. She became his obsession, his fantasy woman, his “game piece.” He knew everything there was to know about her. He felt—he knew—that he was starting to act like Shafer. They all were, weren’t they?

  The girl’s name was Noreen Anne, and a long time ago—three years, to be exact—she had traveled to London from Cork, Ireland, with lovely dreams of being a fashion model on the world stage.

  She was seventeen then, nearly five-ten, slender, blond, and with a face that all the boys and even the older men back home told her was destined for magazine covers, or maybe even the cinema.

  So what was she doing here on High Street at half past one in the morning? She wondered about it as she forced a coquettish smile and occasionally waved a hand at the leering men in their slowly passing cars that made the rounds of High Street, DeVere Gardens, Exhibition Road.

  They’d thought she was pretty, all right—just not pretty enough for British or American magazine covers, and not good enough, not classy enough, to marry or have as a girlfriend.

  Well, at least she had a plan, and she thought it was a good one. Noreen Anne had saved nearly two thousand quid since she began to walk the streets. She thought she needed another three thousand or so, and then she would head back to Ireland. She’d start a small beauty shop, because she did know the secrets of beauty, and also a lot about the dreams.

  So, here I am in front of the Kensington Palace Hotel in the meantime, she thought. Freezing my fine bum off.

  “Excuse me, miss,” she heard, and turned with a start. She hadn’t heard anyone come up on her.

  “I couldn’t help noticing you standing here. You’re an extraordinary beauty. But of course you know that, don’t you?”

  Noreen Anne felt relief the moment she saw who it was. This one wouldn’t hurt her, couldn’t if he tried. She could hurt him, if it came to that.

  He was old, in his late sixties or seventies; he was obscenely fat; and he was seated in a wheelchair.

  And so she went off—with Conqueror.

  It was all part of the game.

  Chapter 79

  THE AMERICANS had promised a speedy route to trial, and the fools had actually delivered.

  Five months had passed since the murder of Detective Pasty Hampton. Alex Cross had been shuttling back and forth to Bermuda, but he still had no idea where Christine had disappeared to. Shafer was out of jail but on a very short leash. He hadn’t played the game once since Hampton’s murder. The game of games had been on hold, and it was driving him mad.

  Now Shafer sat in his black Jag in the parking lot directly under the courthouse, feeling hopeful. He was eager to stand trial on the count of Aggravated, Premeditated Murder in the First Degree. The rules of play had been established, and he appreciated that.

  The suppression hearing weeks before was still a vivid memory for him. He’d relished every minute of it. The preliminary hearing was held before the jury selection, to determine what evidence would be allowed at the trial; it took place in the spacious chambers of Judge Michael Fescoe. The judge set the rules, so in a way he was the gamemaster. How fabulously droll, how delicious.

  Shafer’s lawyer, Jules Halpern, argued that Shafer had been in a therapy session at Dr. Cassady’s home-office, and therefore had every right to privacy. “That privacy was violated. First, Dr. Cassady refused to let Detective Cross and the other officers come inside. Second, Colonel Shafer showed his identification to the detective. It proved that he was with the British Embassy and had diplomatic immunity. Cross barged into the therapist’s office anyway. Consequently, any evidence obtained—if indeed any evidence was obtained—is the result of unlawful search.”

  Judge Fescoe took the rest of the day to consider, then announced his decision the next morning. “As I listened to both sides, it seemed to me that the issues were straightforward and not all that unusual in a murder case. Mr. Shafer does indeed have diplomatic immunity. However, it is my opinion that Detective Cross acted in a reasonable and lawful manner when he went to Dr. Cassady’s apartment. He suspected that a grave crime had been committed. Dr. Cassady opened the door, allowing Detective Cross plain view of Mr. Shafer’s attire. Colonel Shafer has insisted all along that his diplomatic immunity denied Detective Cross permission to enter the premises.

  “I am therefore going to allow the prosecution to use the clothing Colonel Shafer was wearing on the night of the murder, as well as the blood on the carpet outside the apartment door, as evidence.

  “The prosecution may also use any evidence found in the parking garage, both in Detective Hampton’s car and in Colonel Shafer’s,” Judge Fescoe continued, and this was the key part of his ruling: “I will not allow evidence found once Detective Cross entered the apartment against the stated wishes of both Colonel Shafer and Dr. Cassady. Any and all evidence discovered during the initial or subsequent searches is suppressed and will not be allowed at the trial.”

  The prosecution was also told not to make any reference, during the trial, to any other uncharged murders that Shafer was suspected of having committed in Washington. The jury was to understand that Shafer was under investigation only for the murder of Senior Detective Patricia Hampton. Both the prosecution and the defense claimed victory at the end of the suppression hearing.

  The stone steps outside the courthouse were swarming with a buzzing, unruly crowd on the morning of the first day. Shafer’s “supporters” were wearing UK/OK buttons and waving crisp, new Union Jacks. These wondrous fools made him smile as he clasped both hands high over his head in victory. He enjoyed being a hero immensely.

  What a glorious time. Even if he was a little high and spacey on a few choice pharmaceuticals.

  Both sides were still predicting “slam dunk” victories. Lawyers were such fabulous bullshitters.

  The press was touting the outrageous charade as the “criminal trial of the decade.” The media hype, expected and ritualistic, thrilled him anyway. He internalized it as tribute and adulation. His due.

  He purposely cut quite a dashing figure; he wanted to make an impression—on the world. He wore a soft-shouldered, tailored gray suit, a striped bespoke shirt from Budd, and black oxfords from Lobb’s, St. James’s. He was photographed a hundred times in the first few moments alone.

  He walked into the courthouse as if in a dream. The most delicious thing of all was that he might lose everything.

  Courtroom 4 was on the third floor. It was the largest in the building. Closest to the double set of public doors was a gallery that held around a hundred and forty spectators. Then came the “
bar area,” where the attorneys’ tables were situated. Then the “judge’s bench,” which took up about a quarter of the room.

  The trial began at ten in the morning, and it was all a rattle and hum to him. The lead prosecutor was Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Marie Fitzgibbon. He already yearned to murder her, and wondered if he possibly could. He wanted Ms. Fitzgibbon’s scalp on his belt. She was just thirty-six, Irish Catholic, single, sexy in her tight-assed way, dedicated to high-minded ideals, like so many others from her island of origin. She favored dark-blue or gray Ann Taylor wardrobes and wore a ubiquitous tiny gold cross on a gold chain. She was known in the D.C. legal community as the Drama Queen. Her melodramatic telling of the gory details was meant to win the sympathy of the jury. A worthy opponent indeed. A worthy prey as well.

  Shafer sat at the defendant’s table and tried to concentrate. He listened, watched, felt as he hadn’t in a long time. He knew they were all watching him. How could they not?

  Shafer sat there observing, but his brain was on fire. His esteemed attorney, Jules Halpern, finally began to speak, and he heard his own name. That piqued his interest, all right. He was the star here, wasn’t he?

  Jules Halpern was little more than five-four, but he cut quite a powerful figure in a court of law. His hair was dyed jet-black and slicked back tightly against his scalp. His suit was from a British tailor, just like Shafer’s. Shafer thought, rather uncharitably, he supposed, Dress British, think Yiddish. Seated beside Halpern was his daughter, Jane, who was second chair. She was tall and slender, but with her father’s black hair and beaked nose.

  Jules Halpern certainly had a strong voice for such a slight and small fellow. “My client, Geoffrey Shafer, is a loving husband. He is also a very good father, and happened to be attending a birthday party for two of his children half an hour before the murder of Detective Patricia Hampton.

  “Colonel Shafer, as you will hear, is a valued and decorated member of the British intelligence community. He is a former soldier with a fine record.