Page 38 of The Accomplice
Shit. A Parker hearing. I turned to Harry, and his face had fallen. Kate was shaking her head. I felt the weight of this case falling on me. We’d had a defense, and a client, not twenty-four hours ago. Now, this thing looked like a stone-cold loser.
A Parker hearing decides if the defendant can be tried in their absence. They were going to try and push the case on, with or without Carrie Miller.
We kicked our heels in the corridors for an hour and fifteen, and in that time, we made thirty plus calls to Carrie’s cell and home number. Kate had called Peltier and he provided us with a list of her friends, and the few who answered the phone hadn’t heard from her or seen her either, and they were pretty specific that they didn’t want to ever see or hear from her again. Ever since it had become public knowledge that Carrie was married to the Sandman, no one wanted to know her or even admit to having met her. She deleted all her social media accounts to protect herself from abuse and harassment, but she had not expected her friends to stop taking her calls – even her bridesmaid, who she had known for thirty years.
I put my back to a cool marble pillar, let my head fall against it. The chill from the stone didn’t ease the ball of tension in the back of my neck. It got worse as I saw White striding up the corridor, leading Bill Seong, and half a dozen prosecutors, none of them were over six feet tall but they all made White look even smaller than he was as he cockily headed the pack. He looked like a mascot. Kate sat on one of the pine benches that lined the hallway and as he passed her I saw that look again. It wasn’t exactly overt, but it wasn’t really subtle either. Kate grimaced. I joined Kate on the bench and White came over.
‘Ready to get your ass kicked, folks ?’ he said.
Kate gave him a hard stare, said, ‘My father’s cousin, Albert, was a little shorter than you. He had a wife, eight kids, ran a grocery store in Edgewater, New Jersey. Nobody who went into his store left without taking home plenty to eat. Didn’t matter if you went in with a fifty-dollar bill or a nickel. He never let anybody go hungry. When he died, his funeral procession stretched over eight blocks. Albert was exactly five feet tall, but he was a giant of a man. You, Mr. White – you’re truly a small man.’
‘Fuck the both of you. After I win this motion, this case is as good as over. Good luck.’
He turned and went into court. I was left with a horrible feeling that he was right. The evidence was stacked against Carrie, and if you never met her, or spoke to her, you’d buy that she was guilty right away. But talking to her – it wasn’t that she was convincing. She had no real argument to blow the prosecution evidence away, it was just that when she spoke you knew she was telling the truth. It’s hard to put it any other way. Without her testimony, this case was practically unwinnable.
A Parker hearing isn’t that complicated. The judge needs to be satisfied that two things have happened – the defendant has absconded of their own free will, and the defendant was warned that if they didn’t show up for trial the case would proceed in their absence.
To do this White called three witnesses. Bill Seong confirmed to the judge he had been out to Carrie Miller’s property in Old Westbury, and she was not at home, in breach of her bail conditions. Second, an assistant district attorney named Sandra Collins testified that she had called all of the medical and psychiatric hospitals in Manhattan, and those local to Carrie Miller, she had also contacted Central Booking, and so far as she could tell, Carrie Miller had not been admitted as a patient nor had she been arrested. Collins gave her answers in short order and seemed to squirm in her chair when White stared at her, especially when his gaze fell on her legs.
I asked Collins and Seong the same two questions and got the same answers from each of them.
‘Carrie Miller’s husband is wanted by the NYPD and the FBI for multiple homicide, correct ?’
They both said yes.
‘It is possible that Carrie Miller has been abducted by her husband, isn’t that right ?’
Both agreed.
And that was about the best I could do.
‘I have heard the testimony,’ began Judge Stoker, ‘and I would ask the clerk to note for my written judgement that I personally gave the defendant a Parker compliant warning when she was granted bail. She was warned and she confirmed that she understood that her trial would proceed in her absence if she absconded from bail. To that end, I am satisfied that she has absconded on her own free will—’
‘Your Honor—’ I began, but he cut me off.
‘No, Mr. Flynn. There is no evidence that your client has been abducted. I have to take an evidence-based approach. The case will proceed in her absence. We are adjourned.’
White looked over again. No lick of the lips. No sneer. No flirting this time. He simply gave a satisfied smirk and left the courtroom.
Harry sighed, said, ‘The one chance we had in this case was Carrie’s testimony. If she told the jury her story, the way she told us, they would believe her. Without Carrie Miller, there is no defense.’
I glanced at Kate, who was stuffing her loose pages back into her leather satchel, along with the iPad and her pen. Her lips were drawn tightly together, and there was a thump as she shoved each item into the bottom of her bag.
‘We need Bloch,’ said Kate. ‘She has to go find Carrie Miller and get her ass to court.’
I followed Harry and Kate out of the courtroom. In the hallway, Bill Seong was waiting for me.
‘Eddie, can we have a word in private ?’
I nodded, and we made our way to a quiet corner of the hallway, beside a barred window. The glass had turned tobacco brown from the grease, dirt and grime of the city. I looked around, saw the groups of lawyers and their clients, standing and sitting, talking, drinking bad coffee, waiting for their cases to be called. It was hard to tell who was the lawyer and who was the crook. Made me think the windows might have gotten grimy from the inside – there seemed to be a lot of dirt walking these halls.
‘I got a call from my protection detail in Teresa Vasquez’s building. Since Chester Morris was targeted, we have placed all of the witnesses under close personal protection. Bloch was seen entering Lilian Parker’s building with Gabriel Lake. You and I don’t have a beef, so this is a word of warning – your people are not safe around Lake.’
‘Why not ?’
‘Just trust me.’
‘But you trusted him enough to put him on the case, like Delaney wanted. What’s wrong with Bloch working with him ?’
