Part 24 (1/2)

I nod. ”Right. The precedent would be that dead witnesses no longer need to be protected from the revelation that they were witnesses. I think our system could survive such a precedent. And if you are able to keep your future witnesses alive, it will never come up again.”

”Our methods and procedures could be compromised,” she says. ”If it is known that someone was in our system-even after they are deceased-an enterprising criminal might be able to learn how we go about protecting our people.”

It's a good point, and I don't have a great comeback for it, but I give it a shot. ”Your method is to provide the witness with an apparently normal background. There is no way to penetrate that unless someone first identifies the person they suspect is in the program, as we did with Stacy Harriman. Additionally, everything you present will be under seal, and the court can protect your methods and procedures.”

Judge Gordon gives Hawpe the chance to intervene, and he speaks for about a minute without saying anything of consequence. Then Ma.s.sengale and I kick it around for a while more, without breaking much in the way of new ground.

Judge Gordon finally says, ”It is the decision of this court to order the U.S. Marshals Service to turn over any and all doc.u.ments relating to any period of time when the woman known in this trial as Stacy Harriman was under the control of the U.S. Marshals Service in the witness protection program. Because of the urgency created by this ongoing trial, I will suspend my order for forty-eight hours to allow time for appeal.”

It's a victory for our side, and a surprising one at that. The downside is what Judge Gordon has acknowledged, which is the right of the Marshals Service to appeal up the line, all the way to the Supreme Court. It can be time consuming and could easily exceed the length of the trial.

Ma.s.sengale's only response to the ruling is, ”May I have a moment, Your Honor?”

Judge Gordon grants her the moment, and Ma.s.sengale and her group huddle up and talk among themselves. After perhaps five minutes, she turns and addresses the judge.

”Your Honor, in the interests of justice, and with the promise of the court to keep the entire matter under seal, I am declaring to the court that the woman known in this trial as Stacy Harriman was never under the control of the U.S. Marshals Service, in the witness protection program. Therefore, the doc.u.ments you are requesting do not exist. We will not be appealing your ruling.”

It's not a bombsh.e.l.l, but close, and it certainly defines the term ”hollow victory.” We've prevailed in our efforts to force them to reveal what they have on Stacy, only to find out that they have nothing.

”What are we going to do now?” Richard whispers.

”We're going to find out who Stacy really was, and why she went to such lengths to hide it.”

KAREN E EVANS AND Willie Miller are waiting for us in the hallway outside the courtroom. Willie Miller are waiting for us in the hallway outside the courtroom.

Karen has been going crazy at not having been allowed inside during the hearing, and her first question is, ”Did we win?”

I nod without enthusiasm. ”We won...”

Before I can get the rest of the story out, Willie interrupts. ”See? I told you,” he says to Karen. ”My man don't lose.”

”Unfortunately, there's more to the story,” I say. I don't want to talk about it in this public hallway, so I tell Karen she should come back to the office and I'll fill her in. Willie will drive her because when he is protecting someone, he doesn't leave them for a minute. And he certainly wouldn't trust Kevin and me, since for some reason he doesn't regard us as physically intimidating.

We all meet back at the office, and I take a few minutes to bring Karen up to date on what took place. When I tell her that the Marshals Service denied that Stacy was under their control, she says, ”Maybe they're lying.”

I shake my head. ”No, lying to the court is a felony; there's no way their lawyer would risk that. Besides, they had much more they could do legally to fight the judge's order. There would have been no reason to lie now.”

”So Stacy was really Stacy?” she asks.

”No. That's no longer possible.”

”So is this terrible news?”

I shake my head. ”Disappointing but not terrible. We can still go to the jury with what we know about her faked background. It's very obvious she was hiding from something, which certainly helps our case.”

What I'm saying is technically the truth, but the reality is that the ruling today is very disappointing. If Stacy had been in WITSEC, it would have meant that the U.S. government was essentially testifying for us, saying that dangerous killers were after Stacy Harriman and that she needed protection from them.

Willie says, ”Can't you dig up her body and get some of that DNA stuff?”

”It wouldn't help,” I say. ”We already have her DNA; it's how her body was identified. But there aren't national DNA registries; it's not like she would have had her DNA on file before this.”

”So it's not like fingerprints?” he asks.

Sometimes I'm so slow to see things right in front of my face that it frightens me. ”Willie, you're a genius.”

”You got that right,” Willie says, though he can't have any idea what I'm talking about.

”Of course,” Kevin says, realizing where I'm going. ”Fingerprints.”

I ask Karen, ”Is there anything that Stacy touched, maybe that she handled a lot, that you'd still have?”

”You mean fingerprints can last that long?” she asks.

”Depending on the circ.u.mstances, absolutely.”

Karen starts thinking out loud. ”The house was sold... maybe some things in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but I don't know what the new owners have done... the cabin! We were up there all the time!”

”Where is it?”

”Up near Monticello. I didn't want to sell it; I always had this picture of Richard getting out and going up there, and I wanted to keep something that was his.”

”So it's been empty all this time?”

She nods. ”There's a guy who maintains the outside, but he doesn't have a key. And I haven't been able to get myself to go there without Richard.”

She goes on to say that Stacy was at the cabin many times. It was her favorite place; she liked it even more than the boat. She particularly loved cooking there, so any prints on the pots and pans would be hers.

I call Laurie and ask her to recommend somebody around here who would be competent to retrieve the fingerprints. She suggests George Feder, a forensics specialist recently retired from his position with the New Jersey State Police. She had heard that he was doing private work to supplement his retirement income.

I call Feder, but he says that he would be too busy to go up to Monticello for at least a week. I offer to double his fee, and his schedule experiences such a sudden clearing that I can't help but wonder if it would also work on Kevin's sinuses. Kevin, Karen, Willie, and Feder will go up to the cabin tomorrow morning, while I'm in court.

I call Pete Stanton, figuring I might as well take the abuse in advance. He tells me that he had been in a panic; I hadn't called him for a favor in almost twenty-four hours, and his fear was that he had offended me.

”Don't worry,” I say, ”I am a man who believes in forgiveness.”

”The bigger they are, the nicer they are,” he says.

”And to show there are no hard feelings, I'm going to let you do me another favor. I need a fingerprint run through the national database.”

”Where's the print?” he asks.

”I don't have it yet.”

”Oh. Well, what I'll do is put a stop to all fingerprint work around the country, and then the system will be ready for you when you get your hands on the print.”

”Works for me,” I say.

He asks if I'm going to Charlie's tonight, and I say that I'm busy with the trial but that I'm thinking of stopping by for an hour or so.