An Eye For Justice Read online

  Friedman coughed lightly, clearly concerned for Hannah’s wellbeing. ‘I think we could all do with a short fifteen minute break here,’ he said. His words broke the spell on the courtroom and there was noise again as people made a break for the coffee machine.

  * * * *

  People v Calver - Manhattan Supreme Court

  Day 4

  Scott C. Ziegler was the prosecutions CCTV expert and I thought his resume was never going to end. It was hard to believe anyone could rack up that many stellar accomplishments in just one lifetime, but this guy seemed to have it all. He told the jury he was a Nevada licensed, board certified independent security consultant specializing in hospitality, gaming and retail security environments. He had over 30 years of practical hands on experience in security and surveillance operations including being Security Director for various resorts and hotels. He was also a member of ASIS International, holding the designation of Certified Protection Professional and was currently a member of the International Association of Certified Surveillance Professionals holding the designation of Certified Surveillance Professional as well as being a member of the International Association of Professional Security Consultants. If that wasn’t enough, he was also a subject matter expert and Track Advisor for the American Gaming Association.

  Now if this guy was going to tell us the hotel CCTV was kosher, I was in big trouble, and that’s just about what he proceeded to do. There was a deal of technical jargon in what he said but essentially it boiled down to him telling the jury that the hotel had a state of the art CCTV system that was virtually impregnable to hacking or tampering. The surveillance system covering the hotel was comprehensive and comprised a number of different types of cameras, some rolling continuously, some based on motion sensors, covering all areas, including basement, parking lot and outside entrances. The only area not covered in some way or other were the guest rooms themselves and the security hub itself.

  Footage was not monitored 24/7 but was stored digitally for 7 days. There were monitors showing CCTV footage at the front desk and also in the security hub in the hotel back office. Importantly for the purposes of this case, the hotel corridors leading to the rooms were covered by motion sensor cameras, whilst cameras in the lifts were monitoring continuously. So in the corridors, cameras would only be activated and film when there was detectable movement or motion taking place in front of those cameras.

  After giving his masterclass on the hotels system, Ziegler turned his attention to Exhibit JC4, being the recovered CCTV footage of the corridors leading to Helena Palmer’s room and to my room, on the evening and early morning of the murder. He reiterated that it was motion sensored, so in fact there was not a great deal to see. The part saved covered 8 hours real time, and boiled down to about 1 hour 10 minutes of filmed movement in the corridors. Ziegler had analyzed and subjected the tape and the complete digital CCTV system itself to a plethora of tests, and he was absolutely adamant the tape had not been altered, doctored or falsified in any way whatsoever. It was one hundred per cent genuine. And if the jury didn’t get that first time around, Stahl got him to repeat it, twice. Ziegler was happy to say on oath that in his professional opinion the tape was absolutely genuine and there was no room for doubt.

  Then Stahl, with a smile, turned him over to me for cross. Where to start? We as yet had no expert of our own, so I was using Christoff. He was okay in his own way - ex-British intelligence encryption specialist after all - but I didn’t think I could use him in court, as his resume couldn’t compete with Ziegler’s.

  The problem was we could not see how they had done it, and it had got to the stage where I thought Christoff and Pascal were actually starting to doubt my honesty, because they could find absolutely nothing wrong with the tape, despite putting it through the grinder. Result: I had no idea how to attack Ziegler’s testimony, but I had to try.

  ‘Mr Ziegler,’ I started, ‘what’s to stop someone just substituting a phoney, falsified tape for the real one?’

  Ziegler smiled. He was a tall, thin, gangly man, mid-forties, with glasses and a beautifully trimmed beard, and you could tell he just loved to talk about surveillance systems. ‘That’s just about impossible with the Cyclops Surveillance system operated by the hotel,’ he said, with deep satisfaction. ‘And of course, we have clear chain of evidence testimony from NYPD confirming there has been no interference in that evidence between the hotel and the courtroom. You see,’ he waxed lyrical, with an expansive sweep of his arm, ‘the Cyclops system records everything that takes place on the system for every second of every 24 hour period. So it is not possible. Sorry, let me correct that. Yes it would be possible to falsify a tape, but as the system contains a complete record of all actions taking place on it, that falsification itself would be recorded on the system as well, and it is not possible to override that.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘ But you said, “just about impossible”, meaning, if we want to be precise, it is possible, although I accept, very difficult. How would you do it?’

  I swept a veiled look over Stahl, and sensed a mild frown forming; good. But Ziegler was smiling. He clearly loved a challenge, and I could see the wheels turning. ‘Well now, looky here,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought about it, seeing as the system is of a really impregnable kind of a design, but I guess. I guess the only way we might be able to get in, would be to get into the original computer code of the system itself and maybe mess around with that. But again, its patented secret stuff, so I don’t see how it could be done unless you had some kind of back door access or inside track, knowledge of the system or its original design.’

  ‘So it is possible, after all?’ I said, pausing, making sure it registered with the jury.

  ‘Very, very difficult,’ he replied. ‘And as I say, we have carried out the most comprehensive testing imaginable and I stand by my assessment the tape is untampered with and genuine.’

  ‘Okay, Mr. Ziegler, but you have acknowledged that it is possible to tamper with the system,’ I said, and then carried on quickly before he had a chance to jump back in and try and qualify what he had said. ‘But I want to move on to the motion sensor issue. My understanding is that, the system allows you to alter the levels of motion that give rise to activation. So for example, if you have a camera trained outside and there are trees in the shot that move in the wind, you can set that up so the moving trees do not activate the camera, yes?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘So what’s to stop you just turning that feature off for a period, so for example, a person moving through the corridor doesn’t activate the system?’ I realized it was stupid question as soon as the words left my mouth.

  ‘You’re not listening, Mr. Calver,’ he rightly admonished me. ‘If that had been done, the system would show it, and I can confirm to the jury, after extensive testing, that, the motion sensor control was on the manufacturers suggested level of 15 which would catch all human movement in the corridor. The tape is genuine.’

  With that damp squib, I finished up and sat down, but we’d got something out of it - an acknowledgement that maybe it was possible to tamper with the tape, but it was probably too late to help. My real worry now was that the prosecution must be getting near ready to rest, meaning I would have to start putting on my defense - and I didn’t have one, other than telling the jury I didn’t do it, and that really wasn’t going cut it.

  Chapter 17

  O’Leary’s laptop. The words bounced around in Pascal’s head as she woke from a nap, her eyes snapping open and her head jerking up. She looked around; she was slumped over her computer keyboard, unaware where she was for a moment. Then her mind cleared and she clocked the familiar surroundings of the consular basement office.

  O’Leary’s Laptop. Christoff had said there was nothing on it. But he had also said that there was some low level kiddie porn on there that he hadn’t really bothered to look at, because he didn’t think it was relevant. At the time Pascal had let it go as well, tacitl
y agreeing with Christoff’s analysis. The downloading of such material was often just a misdemeanor if prosecuted, and it happened all the time; guy takes his computer in for a fix and they notify law enforcement there’s some questionable stuff on there.

  So they had simply ignored it. But now she wondered. Calver’s murder trial was turning into a slow motion car crash. Trying to discredit the CCTV footage had been a total wash-out, so they had to come at finding a hole in the prosecution case from a different angle, and once you broke it down there really was only one other logical way in: O’Leary. He had to be involved, and his meeting with Schmidt at the bar just about nailed that down. She guessed he also might be a weak link, a guy with a heavy coke habit.

  Calver was going down the pan hard, in desperate straights, facing life in prison. So they had to find something right now. Any later and it would be too late. So maybe it was time to have another good look at the stuff on O’Leary’s computer. If it was capable of being used as leverage, she would use it. Then maybe they could apply some serious pressure on Mr. John O’Leary, pressure that maybe wasn’t exactly legal.

  She picked up her phone and speed dialed Christoff. She needed to see what he had on the drive, and see if it was usable for what she had in mind.

  * * * *

  Later, back at the apartment, Pascal sat at the kitchen table with her laptop and a cup of fresh coffee. She’d had to wait for Christoff to come out of the court where he was babysitting Hannah, to take her call. Following his instructions she’d located the flash drive in his bedside table and plugged it in to her laptop. Now she had a file on her desk top titled, “O’Leary - Secret Imagers I”, which Christoff said contained the clips she needed to view. File II apparently contained the secretly filmed shots of hotel guests playing away, which she didn’t need to see, at least not yet.

  It felt slightly odd to be in the apartment during the day when everyone was out, but that’s the way she wanted it, given the material she expected to be viewing in the next few minutes. She took a deep breath, double clicked on the file to open it, and then sat back on her stool to watch. Just as a face appeared on screen, her cell phone burst into life. She cursed and pressed stop on the laptop, and answered brusquely, ‘yes?’

  ‘Hey, Courtney, its Daly,’ he said, no doubt expecting a squeal of joy.

  What he got was a guarded, ‘yeah, what?’

  ‘Hey, don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘I got some news on your guy, Castro. Thought you’d want to hear it.’

  She briefly debated hanging up, but took a sip of coffee instead, and then said, ‘what you got?’

  He paused, disappointed she couldn’t summon up a little more enthusiasm, but he let it pass, still eager to impress her. ‘Following my tip-off, police in East Bronx arrested Montell Castro in a traffic stop, and found the gun. Get this: its linked to a shoot out with cops in LA, and there’s an outstanding attempted murder warrant. I don’t think Castro’s linked, these guys pass guns coast to coast, but LAPD want to extradite him out there, so he’s off the street for now.’

  Pascal relented slightly. ‘Hey, that’s great, Daly. Look I’m in the middle of something right now. Maybe we can talk later.’

  ‘That would be good, Courtney. I’ll call you.’

  ‘Do that,’ she said, clicking her phone off and pressing play again on her laptop.

  The same face re-materialized on screen, smiling at camera, then Pascal’s cell exploded in sound again. She almost screamed. She pressed stop play again and grabbed the phone up, and thinking it was Daly again, said, ‘What?’

  There was silence for a beat, and then a tentative female voice she didn’t recognize, said quietly, ‘is that Miss Courtney Pascal?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Well, this is Chantelle Latifah. Don’t know if you remember me?’ she said.

  Pascal let out a deep sigh. She needed to calm down and get a grip. ‘Of course I remember you. How you doing?’ she said, then remembering how she had reacted. ‘Yeah, look, sorry, you caught me on the hop.’

  ‘I can call later if you’re busy?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Pascal said, anxious not to lose her again.

  ‘Look, I heard Montell is gone, and maybe you had something to do with that. Don’t want to know, even if you did. But I got to thinking, about the story you told me, and maybe its time I talked about my thing. What happened, and try and help you, and your client, if I can.’

  ‘Really? That’s. I don’t know what to say, Chantelle, except, thank you.’

  ‘Well why don’t you come out here again, and we can have something to eat, and I’ll just talk. How would that be?’

  ‘That would be just fine, Chantelle. When?’

  ‘How about tomorrow night, say seven?’

  ‘Done. I will see you then,’ Pascal said, smiling and feeling good. Then her face fell as she pressed play, bracing herself.

  * * * *

  People v Calver - Manhattan Supreme Court

  Day 5

  I had been sitting for ten minutes with my yellow legal pad, desultorily doodling, trying to come up with the outlines of a speech. That’s because Stahl was almost certainly about to rest the prosecution case, and as I hadn’t made my speech at the start, I would have to make it now.

  I looked around the half empty courtroom. We weren’t due to start for another few minutes. In the past I’d always liked this time, that quiet period before the fury of judicial combat was renewed, when just the court clerk and a few ushers were quietly whispering to each other and there was just the faint sounds of rustling papers and the barely audible click of fingers skittering across keyboards. And it seemed to be the same in courtrooms the world over, but now I didn’t like it at all. It felt threatening. Like the lull before the storm.

  I looked up as Stahl breezed in with his retinue, followed a minute later by Judge Gonzalez and then the jury. Stahl rose to his feet and said, ‘Your honour. The prosecution rest.’

  My heart sank. I was back in it again, fighting for my life.

  But then judge Gonzalez surprised us all. Looking up and addressing us, she said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I hate to do this, but something has come up in the judicial calendar that I must personally attend to, and this will necessitate a brief adjournment of today and tomorrow’s proceedings.’

  As I watched Stahl’s face fall - just like me, he’d had no prior warning - I offered up a little prayer of thanks. As Pascal had said, all we needed was time, and now the judge had given us a little. Okay it was only a couple of days but every little bit helped. ‘So,’ Judge Gonzalez finished up. ‘Take these couple of days. Have a holiday, forget the case and don’t talk about it to anyone. Back here Thursday morning at ten sharp. Thank you.’

  ‘All rise,’ the Bailiff said, and we were out.

  * * * *

  Pascal sat in Starbucks watching the hotel entrance, her stomach pulled tight into a series of taut knots. She had watched the hidden clips taken off O’Leary’s laptop and they had sickened her. Images of him laughing and grinning as he had raped a female child of perhaps 8 years old. But it was possible there was something even worse going on. She’d seen a photograph of a child on O’Leary’s desk when she’d taken the laptop, and although she wasn’t certain, she thought it was the same girl.

  Right on time a few minutes later she watched O’Leary some way off, making his way down the sidewalk towards the hotel entrance. From a distance he looked calm and collected. She watched him for a second, trying to quell the anger that was rising up within her. Then she got up and left, taking a line so she’d reach him about twenty metres from the entrance. As she closed on him she could see he was rubbing his nose and his eyes looked bloodshot, even from a distance, and then she was standing in front of him blocking his path.

  He made to pass by her side, eyes vacant, but then there was a flash of recognition. She moved over into his path again. He stopped. ‘You want something, lady?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, as i
t happens, I do. I want to talk to you about a video clip I have of you raping a young girl, who I believe is your daughter.’

  She watched fear crowding onto his face, flooding his eyes. His mouth worked. He said, ‘what do you want?’ in a tired, strangled voice. ‘You know,’ he added. ‘I knew it wasn’t looters who took the laptop.’

  ‘Good for you. We can’t talk out here. Lets go up to your room,’ she said.

  He nodded and walked away. She watched him for a moment then followed.

  * * * *

  In the lobby Mayberry Wilkins sat on one of the settees pretending to read a newspaper. When he saw O’Leary he checked the wall clock. The guy was right on time. But then Wilkins started as he clocked Pascal following him. As they entered the lift and the doors closed, Wilkins lifted his cellphone and pressed call for Schmidt

  * * * *

  In the lift O’Leary ignored Pascal, pretending to read messages on his phone, but she could tell he was thinking hard, weighing his options. As they entered the room Pascal studied the photograph on the desk. It was the same girl, no doubt about it.

  She glanced around the room. The bed look pretty much the same, unused and covered in clothing and detritus. She noticed now though that the desk against the wall was not standard hotel furniture, it was large and executive style, and it had bundles of paperwork strewn across the surface. And there was also another non-standard addition to the room, a microwave oven, sitting on top of the minibar, and there was evidence of O’Leary’s home cooking scattered around the room, moldy remains of turkey burgers on dirty plates. Pascal guessed that the hotel maids did not have access to the room.

  ‘You want a drink, check in the fridge,’ O’Leary said as he flung himself into a chair.

  Whilst Pascal looked around the unkempt room, O’Leary removed a small baggy of white powder from his pocket and carefully cut himself a line. A moment later he snorted loudly, hoovering up the white powder into his nostril off an old credit card. He grimaced, closed his eyes and leaned right back in the executive style leather chair, face peaceful.