Someone Else's Husband(63)

“Is this an opening statement or a recitation of charges, Your Honor?” Mikey Pearce asked smoothly. He suddenly seemed very magnetic. All eyes in the room were on him.

“We have murder in the first degree,” the judge said, ignoring their back-and-forth. “How does your client plead?”

“Not guilty, Your Honor,” Richard said. He sounded utterly broken. Gretchen covered her mouth with her hand. She was afraid she might start to cry if she had to hear that voice again.

The judge glared at Richard for an uncomfortably frosty moment, then pressed on. “On the matter of bail?”

“Why does the judge seem so…hostile?” Gretchen whispered to Scotty, hoping he’d dismiss her observation.

“He wasn’t the best draw,” Scotty whispered back. “Hates wealthy defendants.”

Unfortunately, Richard did seem wealthy somehow, even in his prison jumpsuit. It was his bearing, Gretchen supposed.

“The People request that the defendant be remanded without bail. Given the severity of the—”

“Your Honor, that’s absurd,” Mikey Pearce scoffed.

“We have a confession,” the prosecutor countered. “We have a bloodbath of a crime scene.”

Confession? Elizabeth mouthed angrily at Scotty. What the hell?

Scotty gestured for her to be quiet.

“Your Honor, there was no confession,” Mikey said, but almost offhandedly. “If the prosecutor is referring to my client’s so-called statements, she knows full well that they have been recanted. My client was exhausted, and they were the product of coercion. Moreover, they were made without a signed waiver of his rights. Also, we’ve seen no transcript, but from what my client has told me, calling these offhanded statements a ‘confession’ is tantamount to prosecutorial misconduct.”

“Mmm,” the judge said, narrowing his eyes disapprovingly at the prosecutor.

“Fine, even leaving aside the confession for the moment,” the prosecutor continued, regarding Mikey coolly, “we have a witness who saw Mr. Falk at the scene and clothes have been located at Mr. Falk’s residence with the victim’s blood on them.”

Gretchen must have heard that wrong. She leaned forward. But there was a whooshing sound in her ears that drowned everything else out. Bloody clothes. In their apartment?

Gretchen turned to Scotty, but he was focused on the proceedings. Finally, he reached over and squeezed her hand without looking at her. “Don’t worry.”

The judge frowned at the prosecutor. “Blood evidence would be getting warmer, counselor. But you’re still a hell of a long way from the finish line.”

“They have no way of knowing yet whether that’s even Ms. Callahan’s blood on those clothes.” Mikey Pearce turned to the table full of prosecutors. “They haven’t had time for a DNA match. Ms. Callahan was O-positive, judge. That includes nearly forty percent of the population, including me. Maybe it was my blood.”

Bloody clothes. Where could they have found those? O-positive was also Gretchen’s blood type, but she hadn’t been bleeding in the house at any time recently. It made no sense.

The judge turned back to the prosecutor. “Back to chilly, counselor.”

“Fine, then let’s focus merely on the possibility of flight, Your Honor.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “This isn’t your average defendant. He’s a multimillionaire and a world traveler. He and Ms. Callahan met in Africa.”

“Africa?” The judge did not seem to like this. At all.

“Yes, Tanzania. On a climbing expedition. Mr. Falk also travels constantly for work. And he has access to liquid assets in the tens of millions, some of which is located outside the U.S. and cannot be frozen. There has never been a greater potential flight risk.”

“Your Honor, I repeat, they have no definitive proof a crime even took place, much less a murder. They certainly have no proof that my client was responsible,” Mikey said. “Is the prosecutor suggesting that any defendant with access to significant assets can be locked up indefinitely? Just in case? Because as we all know, in U.S. v. Boustani, the Second Circuit expressly held that it was unconstitutional to hold a defendant’s financial status against them.”

The judge frowned. “Tell that to every defendant being held at Rikers for months because they can’t scrape together a few hundred dollars for bail.”

“Your Honor, Mr. Falk will happily relinquish his passport, submit to house detention, ankle-monitoring, and whatever other limits the court wishes to impose. But there is no conceivable reason why he should be held without bail. It’s unconscionable.”

“Goldman Sachs also has a private plane that the defendant has access to.” The prosecutor turned so that her pregnant belly pointed at Richard like a weapon.

“Mr. Falk is an employee of a corporation with a corporate jet used for corporate purposes. Are we really talking about holding a man in his fifties at Rikers because he works at a large company? A man who has never committed a crime in his entire life and against whom the prosecution has virtually no actual evidence?”

“Just because the defendant doesn’t have a criminal record doesn’t make him innocent,” the prosecutor said. “There’s a first time for everything.”

From the way the judge was now scowling at Richard, on this point he seemed to very much agree.