Page 136 of Two Kinds of Stranger

This was it.

There was no more time.

Christine and Kevin sat at the defense table, unaware of what would happen next. Eddie had deliberately kept them in the dark. They knew he had something up his sleeve, as he almost always did, but they didn’t know what.

Kate stood, took a moment to look at her clients.

Good people. They hadn’t harmed anyone. Kevin had done the right thing for his old client and had drawn the ire of a deranged killer. She couldn’t blame him for what he had done. He could not have known the risks that came with his actions. No one could. In fact, Kate surmised that if she had been in Kevin’s shoes, she would have done the same thing.

She had a decision to make.

Save these good people.

Or obey the law.

Harry stared straight ahead. He would say no more to her. He had made his mind up. He knew what had to be done. Perhaps, she thought, Harry always had a mild disrespect for the law. And it was only when a young con artist appeared in his courtroom, and he and Eddie had become friends, that this innate underlying rebellious streak had come forward.

Kate’s father had been an NYPD cop for most of his life. He had taught her right from wrong. If her father knew the decisionthat faced her, she guessed he would tell her to stick to the law. Don’t take a personal risk for a client, no matter who they are. Don’t compromise your professional ethics.

She hung her head.

Listened to Castro whispering to his assistants.

Detective Withers cleared her throat.

They were all waiting for Kate.

Some people on the jury coughed or shuffled their feet.

In the midst of the hum of the courtroom, Kate closed her eyes, thinking of Amy living with her father, while Kevin and Christine spent the rest of their lives in a hellhole prison.

She opened her eyes, and looked at Detective Withers with a determination she had never felt before.

Kate said a silent apology to her father and asked her first question.

‘Detective, you are aware that the deceased, Arthur Cross, was suspected of murdering his wife very recently. I think we established this?’

‘He was suspected, but no charges were brought.’

‘To be specific, it was suspected that Mr. Cross had paid an associate of his, Bruno Mont, twenty thousand dollars to kill his then elderly wife, Betty Le Saux?’

‘That was the suspicion. That was all it amounted to. Suspicion.’

‘Do you know the amount Mr. Cross stood to inherit?’

‘I’m not sure, but I believe it was many millions of dollars.’

‘How about twenty million dollars?’

‘I will take your word for that.’

‘The defendant, Kevin Pollock, managed to get the will overturned, and a previous will through probate so that Mr. Cross inherited nothing. Correct?’

‘Correct.’

Kate tapped her laptop. A financial statement appeared onscreen.

‘This is Mr. Cross’s bank statement. We can see here a payment, before Betty Le Saux’s murder, to Mont Salvage of twenty thousand dollars. And another payment, just recently, of fifteen thousand dollars. Do you see that?’