By Reason of Insanity

By Reason of Insanity - Randy Singer


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1
Quinn Newberg rose to face the jury one last time. The pressure of the case constricted his chest and pounded on his temples. He had to remind himself that he had done this more than eighty times before, with stellar results. "A legal magic act" was how one of the newspapers described him. Juries love me.
But he couldn't shake Dr. Rosemarie Mancini's words from the prior night, after his spunky expert witness had listened to a dry run of Quinn's closing. "The whole world hates the insanity plea," she said. "Ninety-five percent of these cases result in convictions." She forced a smile. "Including, believe it or not, even a few where I testified."
"Do you have any advice?" Quinn had asked. "Or just doomsday statistics?"
"Take the jury where the pain is," Rosemarie said softly. "Throw away your notes." She must have sensed Quinn's reluctance, noticed his unwillingness to even look at her as he considered this. Notes he could do without, but he had no desire to put Annie through her nightmare again. "It's our only chance," Rosemarie said.
Those words echoed in Quinn's ears as he approached the jury empty-handed, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes to gather his thoughts. He opened them again and looked at the jury--his jury. He heard the judge say his name--his honor's voice coming from the end of a long tunnel. Another moment passed, and the stillness of the courtroom became the stillness of that dank house on Bridge Street, over two decades earlier.
He started pacing even before he uttered his first word. Rosemarie was right--a good lawyer would start by describing this scene. But a great lawyer would do more. A great lawyer would take them there. . . .
By the time Annie turns thirteen, her father has been visiting her bed for nearly a year. Holidays are always the worst because they give Annie's father an excuse to drink. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Memorial Day--they all end the same. Like this night undoubtedly would: July 4, 1986. Independence Day.
Annie goes to bed early--a holiday custom of her own--hoping she won't see her father come home. She leaves the light on in her room and prays for a miracle. A car accident. A heart attack. A mugger who goes too far.
She prays that tonight her father might die.
The answer to that prayer, the same answer she has received so many times before, arrives a few minutes after midnight. She hears the sound of car tires on the gravel drive. She listens through the thin walls of the small house as the engine stops and the driver's door thuds shut. Her father enters through the laundry room, his heavy footsteps taking him into the kitchen.
Petrified, Annie lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, the covers pulled tight to her chin. She hears the television. The sound of dishes. Murmured curses.
There is silence for an hour, her father probably sleeping in the recliner, but Annie does not sleep. Eventually he stirs and wakes. He trudges up the stairs, his footsteps and labored breathing magnified by the stillness of the house. She smells him. Though she knows it is impossible because the door to her room is closed and her father is only halfway up the steps, she smells him. Stale beer on her father's breath. The putrid odor of a grown man's sweat. The stench of cigarettes and a wisp of aftershave.
Sometimes he comes directly to Annie's room. If he does, Annie will not cry out for her mother. When Annie cried out in the past, her father would violate her mom first. When he returned to Annie, it would be worse.
Tonight he walks past Annie's door and into his own bedroom. Sometimes he will stay there. But sometimes, like tonight, there is muffled shouting. Her mother begs. Annie hears the sound of fist on bone. Annie wants to run to her mother's aid, but she has tried that before too. It only angers her father more. Once he threw Annie to the floor and made her watch as he beat her mother. He called it an obedience lesson. Another time, when Annie called the authorities, her mom defended her father. The bruises were an accident, her mom said. "I fell down the steps."
Tonight there is angry yelling until it abruptly stops. Her mother will be unconscious, oblivious to further pain. The silence hangs like the blade of a guillotine.
Moments later, Annie hears the door to her parents' room creak open. Stumbling footsteps grow closer in the hallway. She hopes that tonight her ten-year-old brother will not try to be the hero. She thinks about the beating he endured the last time he tried to interfere. After subduing the boy, her father made him drop his shorts as the old man took off his belt. He promised to whip Annie's brother until he cried. Her brother, stubborn as the old man, refused to cry.
Annie hears the doorknob turn and she closes her eyes. The smell is real now. She senses her father at the threshold, lingering there for a perverse moment, breathing heavily. He turns off the light. Even with her eyes closed, Annie can feel the darkness deepen, and terror overwhelms her.



2
Quinn stopped pacing and turned to the jury, fighting back emotions that threatened to undo him. He swallowed once, twice . . . but he could not dissolve the lump in his throat or calm the slight tremor in his voice. He knew he was close to losing it altogether, right there in the courtroom for everyone to see. In the past he had made jurors cry and had even summoned a few manufactured tears of his own. But this time, the tears were real.
Quinn Newberg, legal magician, in danger of not being able to finish his closing argument. Juror number five, a single mother of two, had tears welling in her eyes too. Every juror stared intently at Quinn. The courtroom was as still as the house that Quinn had just described.
Slowly Quinn returned to his counsel table and placed a gentle hand on his client's shoulder. She had been stoic throughout the trial, but now he felt Annie's silent sobs, the small trembling of the shoulder. She dabbed at the tears with a worn-out tissue.
"Who can begin to understand what such abuse does to a young girl's soul? to her mind? to her psyche? The home is supposed to be a safe place. A father is supposed to be a protector." In control again, Quinn squeezed his client's shoulder and returned to the well of the courtroom, never taking his eyes off the jurors.
"If she had shot her father in self-defense that night--July 4, 1986--who would have blamed her? Who would have been so bold as to charge her with murder?"
Quinn lowered his voice, searching the faces of the jury. "You heard the testimony of Dr. Rosemarie Mancini," he said, motioning toward the witness stand. He knew they could still picture his diminutive but flamboyant psychiatric expert--her sharp wit and confident demeanor had captured the entire courtroom. "Dr. Mancini explained that Annie did what most children would have done--she repressed those horrible acts and partitioned them off in her mind. She created an alternative reality even as her father abused her--a dreamworld where her mind could go and leave the horrors of abuse behind."
Quinn stood in front of the jury now, so close he could reach out and touch the rail. "Some say that most women marry men who are just like their fathers. For Annie, it was true. Blinded by love, she gave herself to Richard Hofstetter Jr.--a man ten years her senior. He could turn on the charm, and she fell for it. And yes, she fell for the lure of his money. He was the heir apparent to his father's Vegas empire. Annie knew he had a temper, but nobody's perfect. And he had never raised his voice at Annie, at least not until Annie and her ten-year-old daughter, Sierra, moved into the Hofstetter estate."
Quinn reached down and grabbed the poster board leaning against the jury rail. He placed it on the easel, displaying large photos of Annie's face after the second domestic disturbance call. "You remember the testimony about this 911 call," he said. His voice stayed composed, but he felt his blood pressure rising. "Richard made some calls of his own before the police arrived. I'll give him this much--the man had connections. He begged Annie to forgive him. He promised to get counseling. The police officers, instead of arresting Richard, agreed to let the couple work it out." Quinn shook his head, disgusted. "We saw how well that worked."
He sensed the jury was tiring. They had been at it for three straight weeks. Rehashing all the evidence now would probably do more harm than good.
"And you know from the testimony that it wasn't just the physical abuse," Quinn continued. "Hofstetter flirted with other women right under Annie's nose--purposefully humiliating her. He threatened to turn her in for a younger model, a smarter model. For her thirty-fifth birthday, he scheduled Annie an appointment with a plastic surgeon.
"It's a wonder she didn't snap earlier--what Dr. Mancini referred to as a psychotic break. The prosecution says she should have worked through the system. She should have called family protective services. She should have filed for divorce.
"But you don't think rationally when your thirteen-year-old daughter says that her stepfather touched her private parts. Maybe you can take your husband's abuse yourself, but you can't let him hurt your daughter the way your father hurt you. Your past comes rushing back in full Technicolor--those nights you begged God to make it stop. You thought you had worked through the painful memories, but you had only caged them in for a while. And now your abusive husband feeds the beast every time he abuses you, every time he humiliates you in public. The beast grows, and the anger feeds on itself. You drive the shame and humiliation into that same cage, and they only make the beast stronger."
Quinn was talking faster now--the words coming in an unscripted torrent that flowed from his own troubled past. "You manage the beast until your husband threatens the one thing you hold dear, the one undefiled thing in your life, the only thing worth living for. The rage and fear consume you and overwhelm your inhibitions until you become the monster your father and husband have created. Your husband becomes your father. Threatening you. Abusing you. Abusing your daughter. To protect yourself and Sierra, you must act. You must do what your own mother could not. For the sake of Sierra, you must make it stop."
He paused, lowering his voice. "And you do."
Instinctively, Quinn did something that violated every rule of advocacy--something that ran counter to every defense strategy he had ever learned. He reached down and grabbed the poster board that contained two large photos of the victim. The first showed a bloody close-up of Richard Hofstetter's face--the entry wound in the forehead, execution-style. According to Annie's confession, she had made him kneel and beg for his life. Only then had she pulled the trigger. The second photo showed Hofstetter lying on the living room floor in a pool of his own blood. He placed the two photographs on the easel, side by side.
"Do you punish a mother for protecting her daughter?" Quinn asked. "Do you punish that abused thirteen-year-old girl for finally, twenty-two years later, pulling the trigger on this new abuser? As you've heard from Dr. Mancini, at that pivotal moment in Annie's life, all of her separate realities merged into an explosive fusion--the little girl and the protective mom, the harsh reality of the past colliding with the present, the real world merging with a dreamworld of make-believe justice. In her mind, her father and husband became one.
"Did my client pull the trigger? Yes. But is she guilty? Not under the law. Not when she acted under a delusion so strong that it annihilated her ability to understand the nature and consequences of her actions."
Quinn surveyed the jury, trying to read the looks on their faces. He suddenly felt drained. "My client was legally insane when she pulled the trigger," he said softly. "The only thing more insane would be to make her pay for it. Her father abused her. Her husband abused her. Don't let the system abuse her too."
He waited there for a moment before he turned and started back to his counsel table. He stopped halfway and turned to face the jurors again. This time, he felt the tears resurface, stinging the backs of his eyes.
"Twenty-two years ago, that ten-year-old boy tried to help his sister but couldn't summon the courage to act. Instead, he listened to his dad's menacing footsteps and, alone in the dark, begged God for justice. But justice never came."
Quinn looked down, wishing he could have done more. "Today, he's begging again."
He turned in the quietness of the courtroom and took his seat. He folded his hands on the table and stared straight ahead.
Annie reached over and placed her hand on top of his. "You did everything you could," she whispered. "Nobody could ask for a better brother than you."




3
For what seemed like an eternity, Quinn could feel the eyes of the packed gallery--and the ubiquitous television camera--boring into him and Annie. The proceedings, like a modern Shakespearean tragedy, had captivated the nation's fleeting imagination. Before this case, Quinn had been a rising star in the Las Vegas trial lawyer community, but nothing had prepared him for this. The insanity plea and sibling act had turned an already high-profile murder case into a national media obsession.
"Ms. Duncan?" Judge Strackman's calming voice seemed to release the hypnotic trance Quinn had beckoned. "Do you have rebuttal?"
"Yes, Your Honor. Thank you."
Carla Duncan rose to her full height and stepped confidently in front of her counsel table in the small Vegas courtroom. She was the very picture of credibility--a fifty-year-old career prosecutor who didn't try to hide her age. Tall and thin with hair streaked gray, she conveyed the sort of gravitas that age confers on leading actors and actresses. To Quinn's great regret, she had tried a nearly flawless case, an Oscar-worthy performance.
"How dare he?" she asked. "I spent my first twelve years as a prosecutor trying child- and spousal-abuse cases. I cried with those moms and daughters. I hated those monsters who did this to them. I've been called every name in the book by bombastic defense lawyers. I've been threatened by defendants. I've had midnight calls from victims, and I've cried myself to sleep after visiting them in the hospital. . . ."
Quinn had heard enough. "Objection, Your Honor. This case is not about Ms. Duncan and her career as a prosecutor."
"You're the one who put the system on trial," Carla Duncan shot back. "And I'm part of the system you're so quick to condemn."
Judge Ronnie Strackman stroked his beard, a mannerism Quinn had grown to detest. A few months from retirement, Strackman had been reluctant to rule throughout the trial--like a referee who swallows his whistle, leaving the competitors to slug it out. When he did rule, he often favored the prosecution, which Quinn found unsurprising given the amount of cash Quinn's firm had thrown at Strackman's opponent in the last judicial election.
But even Judge Strackman could stumble onto the right ruling once in a while. "This case is about the defendant's mental state at the time of the crime," Strackman said, surprising Quinn. "I will not allow it to degenerate into a referendum on our criminal justice system."
Carla Duncan thrust out her chin. "With respect, Your Honor, you already have. Mr. Newberg's defense really has very little to do with temporary insanity and much to do with whether his sister was entitled to take the law into her own hands. The system is already standing trial, Your Honor. The only question is whether you'll permit me to defend it."
When Strackman hesitated, Quinn knew another objection was lost. Sure enough, Strackman ignored Quinn's protests and Carla Duncan spent the next ten minutes lecturing the jury about vigilante justice and the rule of law. Anne Newberg could have called protective services or the prosecutor's office, Carla said. The prosecutor promised the jury that, regardless of how much money an abuser's family might have, no matter how much clout, she was prepared to prosecute him to the full extent of the law. There was no reason, Carla said, for this defendant to take matters into her own hands.
"Even a victim as despicable as Richard Hofstetter is entitled to his day in court," Carla argued. "Abused women can't just appoint themselves judge, jury, and executioner, shooting a man in cold blood while he begs for his life. Ms. Newberg's attorney and Dr. Mancini claim the defendant was delusional when she pulled the trigger. But the evidence shows a crime carefully planned right down to the smallest details.
"Ms. Newberg says she used her husband's own handgun to shoot him, a gun he supposedly purchased on the black market and kept unsecured in his closet. Does that not sound a little too convenient to you, a little too contrived? And why did the defendant send her daughter to a friend's house on the night in question, ensuring that she would be the only one there when Richard Hofstetter arrived home? Immediately after the shooting, the defendant called 911 and then her brother. Why call her brother? Because she knew she needed a lawyer. She knew she had done something terribly wrong.
"The insanity defense is designed to protect someone so delusional that she cannot appreciate the difference between right and wrong. But it was never intended as a ticket for murder. Or a get-out-of-jail-free card for somebody who has been abused.
"Find Ms. Newberg guilty of first-degree murder. You know in your hearts it's the right thing to do."
For three days Quinn and Anne Newberg waited for a verdict and took turns encouraging each other. During the first two days, Quinn stayed at the courthouse, talking off the record to reporters and just being there for his sister. On day three, Judge Strackman allowed the lawyers to go back to their offices while the jury deliberated.
When the third day ended without a verdict, Strackman sent the jury home for the weekend. As usual, the judge admonished the jury not to talk with anyone about the case and to avoid all press coverage. "Try not to even think about the case this weekend. Come in Monday with a fresh and open mind. I'm sure you'll have no problem reaching a verdict."
Monday came and went without a verdict. On Tuesday, the jury reported they were hopelessly deadlocked, and Strackman gave them a conventional Allen charge, also known as a "dynamite charge." He reminded them how much the trial had cost everyone. He told them that no other jury would be better able to render a verdict than they were. He admonished them to keep an open mind and to reevaluate every piece of evidence. He sent them back for further deliberations.
Quinn tried to take his mind off the case by returning phone calls and e-mails that had stacked up during the trial. He divided them into four stacks--media, friends, other cases, and potential new clients. The last stack was the thickest. Over the course of his career, Quinn had developed a reputation as a flashy criminal defense attorney for white-collar crooks. But Annie's case had generated so much national publicity that it seemed Quinn was now the go-to guy for insane defendants of all stripes. Apparently there were a lot of crazy people in the world.
The call he had been waiting for came at ten minutes after three on Wednesday afternoon. "Judge Strackman would like you back in the courtroom," the clerk said. "We have a verdict."



4
Catherine O'Rourke felt her Stomach Clench when she heard the news, almost as if she were the one standing trial. She knew firsthand the type of pain that Annie Newberg had experienced and found it hard not to project her own feelings onto the defendant in the Newberg case. In some ways, it felt like the Newbergs were speaking for all abuse victims, for all victims of sexual crimes.
She tried to maintain a reporter's objectivity as she settled into her third-row seat next to the other beat reporters. Her paper had been randomly selected under a lottery system for one of the coveted media seats inside the courtroom for this latest "trial of the century," a media phenomenon that veteran observers compared to the Scott Peterson trial.
Courtroom 16D was a small, modern courtroom with only three rows of bucket seats for spectators. Most reporters had to watch via closed-circuit TV.
Catherine typically wrote for just one paper in Norfolk, Virginia--the Tidewater Times--but on this case her employers had decided to leverage her presence in the courtroom. Her stories on the trial appeared in all four newspapers owned by the McClaren Corporation, and she did stand-up reports "live from Vegas" for the three McClaren television stations as well. The feedback, especially on the television side, was surprisingly positive. "You've got a face for television," a news producer once told her. He'd tried to talk Catherine into using her nickname on air--"like Katie Couric does"--but Cat O'Rourke sounded too informal for a serious reporter.
Stuart Sheldon, seated on Catherine's left, covered the case for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and therefore had one of the seats reserved for local media. He also ran the reporters' pool. When the jury first retired, Quinn Newberg had been a three-to-one underdog. "It's the insanity defense," Stuart had said, as if no further explanation were needed.
Most reporters had shared Sheldon's skepticism. Nevada insanity law did not favor defendants. "This state is a little unusual," Catherine had explained during one of her stand-up reports, "in that the jury has the option of returning a verdict of guilty but mentally ill. The defendant gets basically the same punishment, but also gets psychiatric treatment while in jail. Some experts are predicting that type of verdict here."
But that comment was before Quinn's closing argument and this prolonged stalemate by the jury. Now, Sheldon's pool had the odds at
fifty-fifty.
Cat jotted down a few words to describe the moment--tension, fatigue, stress--they all seemed so inadequate.
The Hofstetter family had settled into their usual seats in the first two rows on the other side of the courtroom, behind the prosecution table. They had been outspoken in their criticism of both Quinn Newberg and Carla Duncan. Newberg because he was trying to spring their son's killer. Duncan because she had painted an unflattering but truthful figure of Hofstetter as a womanizer and abuser, just one step above plankton in the prosecutor's view of the world.
Richard Hofstetter Sr. had taken to the airwaves in an effort to rehabilitate his son's name. Richard Jr. was an exemplary businessman. He gave to charity. He provided for his wife, giving her every material thing she craved--no small feat for a man married to someone as extravagant and greedy as Anne Newberg. Yes, he should have sought help in controlling his anger. But the arguments went both ways. Anne was no saint either.
It was enough to make Catherine O'Rourke sick. Smear the victim. She knew how that game was played.
The air hummed with tension when Quinn and Anne Newberg entered the courtroom looking grim, their eyes straight ahead. Resolve, Catherine jotted down as the Newbergs took their seats. Anne Newberg seems resigned to her fate.
The young woman had already lost both parents--her estranged father in a single car accident when he was forty; her mom to a heart attack nearly ten years later. Now she faced the potential loss of her freedom and, along with it, the opportunity to raise her only child.
The trial had exacted its toll on Quinn, too. His face looked drawn, and his expensive suit seemed to hang a little looser on his frame. Quinn was just over six feet, angular and lean, with the fluid movements of an athlete, though Cat's research did not reveal any sports background. He had this mysterious look, not unlike a Vegas illusionist, with straight black hair and a trim beard that covered only the tip of his chin. Dark eyebrows shaded the man's best feature--the expressive almond eyes that seemed to dance and spark in ways that made Cat feel like nodding her head when he spoke.
Quinn's sister reflected his dark allure in her own feminine features. In Cat's view, this accounted for much of the nation's fascination with the case. The Menendez brothers. Scott and Lacie Peterson. The Simpson case. They all had one thing in common--the leading players were easy on the eyes.
Would anybody have cared, Catherine wondered, if the Newbergs had been poor, rural, and not quite so dashing?
Quinn felt his stomach corkscrew while his heart slammed against his chest. On the inside, turmoil. But on the outside, another day at the office. He leaned back in his chair, left leg crossed over right, and kept an eye on the door behind the judge's dais.
"How can you stay so calm?" Annie whispered. "Feel this." She touched Quinn's cheek with the back of an ice-cold hand.
"It's out of our control," Quinn said, though he knew this wasn't entirely true. He still had one more ace to play, something that would keep the legal commentators wagging their tongues for a long time. If he had the guts to lay it down.
Quinn placed a blank yellow legal pad on the table and wrote "Verdict:" at the top of the page, drawing a line next to the word. He checked under the last page of the legal pad just to make certain his ace was still there--a single sheet of paper, folded in half and signed under oath.
"All rise! This honorable court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Ronald Strackman presiding."
Strackman took his place on the bench. "Be seated." He paused, took a sip of coffee, and surveyed the courtroom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have a verdict in this case. I'm going to say this only once. I will not tolerate any outbursts when the verdict is read. I have full contempt powers to control this court, and I will not hesitate to use them."
Under the counsel table, Annie put a trembling hand on Quinn's leg.
He reached down and held it. "Remember," he whispered, "all that stuff about whether or not the jurors look at the defendant as a way to determine their verdict is meaningless. On a case like this, they'll have their poker faces on."
Annie nodded bravely and squeezed Quinn's hand.
"Bailiff," Judge Strackman said, "bring in the jury."
Catherine O'Rourke watched the jury members file in--eyes downcast, a mask of solemn duty on every face. Juror five, the single mother of two, had been crying again.
"Is it too late to put twenty bucks on the prosecution?" Catherine asked.
When Stuart Sheldon shrugged, she slipped a twenty into his greasy hand and made another note on her legal pad. The pain she felt as she did so reflected her own assessment of the case.
Guilty, she wrote.
"Ladies and gentlemen, do you have a verdict?"
"We do," answered the forewoman. She was a schoolteacher with four grown kids. Quinn had found her impossible to read.
She handed the verdict form to the bailiff, who handed it to the judge. Strackman looked over the form, his face expressionless. He took another swig of coffee and handed the form to the court clerk.
"Will the defendant please rise?" the clerk said.
Quinn and Annie stood shoulder to shoulder, like two prisoners facing the firing squad, as the clerk read the verdict aloud.
"On the count of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant, Anne Newberg . . ." The clerk paused for what seemed like an inhumane length of time. ". . . guilty as charged."
Gasps came from the gallery. Somebody in the Hofstetter section said, "Yesss!" Quinn's knees nearly buckled, but he managed to stand tall and keep his chin up. He glanced at his sister and saw a look of uncomprehending shock.
He couldn't believe it had come to this.
Quinn reached down and picked up his legal pad, removing and unfolding the single sheet of paper. The reporters were probably too busy scribbling down their reactions to even notice. If only they knew. Juries delivered verdicts every day. But if Quinn followed through on this next move, it would be unprecedented.
"I have a motion to make, Your Honor."
"Yes, of course," Strackman said, undoubtedly expecting a routine motion for a new trial based on an assortment of evidentiary rulings. "But before you make that motion, would you like me to poll the jury?"
"Sure," Quinn said, gladly taking his seat. He needed another minute to think. Once he launched his grenade, there would be no taking it back.



5
As Strackman polled the jury members, asking them one by one if this represented their verdict, Quinn tried to sort through his jumbled emotions. Anger. Despair. Heartbreak for his sister, sitting next to him in shell-shocked silence. Apprehension about whether to make this next move--a self-destructive bombshell, but one that might gain his sister's freedom.
"Juror number three, is this your verdict?"
"Yes."
"Juror number four, is this your verdict?"
"Yes."
Quinn stared at each juror, trying to shame them into changing their minds. But like every other case he had ever lost, they ignored him and looked straight at the judge, affirming the verdict like good little soldiers.
"Juror number five, is this your verdict?"
The woman swallowed hard and hesitated. Tears rimmed her eyes, and a brief flicker of hope stirred in Quinn. C'mon. . . . C'mon. . . . I know you didn't want this.
"Yes."
Another gut punch--the cruelty of hope created and shattered.
"Juror number six, is this your verdict?"
"Yes."
"Juror number seven--" Judge Strackman stopped midsentence, his face twisted with concern. Juror five had her hand in the air. "Yes?" Strackman asked.
"It's not my verdict," the woman blurted out. She stole a glance at Quinn, who quickly nodded his encouragement. "I'm sorry, Your Honor. I only agreed to the verdict so I could get this ordeal over with--to get these people off my back. It's not my verdict. I think she's innocent."
A few of the other jurors shook their heads in disapproval; the Hofstetters let loose with a few muted curses. The entire courtroom buzzed with excitement. This was better than Cirque du Soleil!
Energized, Quinn jumped to his feet, demanding a mistrial. Carla Duncan stood as well, but the look on her face said it all. Juror five had just blown this trial right out of the water.
"Order!" Strackman barked, banging his gavel with uncharacteristic force. "Order in the court!"
He glared at the juror, and Quinn knew what was coming. "Ms. Richards," the judge began, taking the unusual step of calling the juror by name, "you have just nullified this entire trial, causing this court a tremendous amount of frustration, wasted tax dollars, and wasted time. If you had reservations, I wish you would have stayed in the jury room and tried to work them out. As it is, I have no choice but to declare a mistrial."
Julia Richards, juror five, nodded solemnly. But she held her head up, as if she might actually be proud of what she had just accomplished. Though she wasn't really his type, Quinn wanted to walk over to the jury box and kiss the woman.
He thought about that old cliche--a tie is like kissing your sister. But after hearing the word guilty, this "tie" felt like cause for celebration. He placed his arm around Annie's shoulder and settled for a reserved hug. Then, ever so carefully, he folded the single piece of paper in front of him and slid it back into the legal pad. Still abuzz, the reporters all thought they had a blockbuster story for the evening news.
They should have seen the one that got away.


6
Catherine O'Rourke watched the dueling public statements on the shaded steps of the Las Vegas Regional Justice Center.
Richard Hofstetter Sr. appeared first, a cinder block of a man with dyed black hair, his face red with anger. "Justice failed our family and my son," he stated. "A cold-blooded killer remains free on bond, and her brother continues to defame my son and our family. Who stands up for the victims in this court? Certainly not District Attorney Duncan, who took the allegations of abuse at face value. The victims have no choice but to fend for themselves."
As soon as the man stopped for a breath, the reporters shouted their questions. He ignored them all, holding his wife's hand and pushing his way past the microphones, down the steps, and toward the black sedan waiting at the curb. Cat played the angles right and managed to intercept him just before he arrived at his car.
"What did you mean by your statement that the 'victims have no choice but to fend for themselves'?" she asked, thrusting her microphone at him.
To her surprise, Hofstetter stopped, assessing her with the steely gaze of a man not used to being crossed. Something about the look made her blood curdle.
"I'm not taking questions," he growled. Then he brushed away the mike and helped his wife into the car. After one more disturbing look at Cat, he climbed in the backseat and closed the door.
Catherine and her crew scrambled back up the broad steps to catch the next performance, this time featuring Carla Duncan. The subdued prosecutor expressed her disappointment in the mistrial but vowed to retry the defendant "as soon as humanly possible." The fact that eleven out of twelve jurors were ready to convict was a testament to the strength of the prosecutor's case, she said. Class act, Catherine jotted down.
Quinn and Anne Newberg emerged next, and Cat thought they might get crushed by the mob of reporters. Quinn issued a brief statement thanking Julia Richards for her honesty and courage. He called on Carla Duncan to drop the case and spend her time and resources chasing real criminals. He asked the press to give his sister a little private space in the days ahead. "All of the intimate details of her life have just been paraded in front of the entire world," he said. "Is it too much to ask for a little privacy for my sister and niece now that the trial's over?"
From the way the press hordes followed Quinn and Anne down the steps and across the street to the parking garage, shouting questions and capturing their every move on film, Catherine assumed that the answer was yes, it is too much to ask. Catherine and her own cameraman stayed back, preparing for a stand-up report from the steps of the Justice Center.
Bubbling with adrenaline, Cat tried to control her emotions and focus on her report. She would do three separate stand-ups for three different television stations, each one cutting live to the courthouse in rapid sequence. And it was almost as if central casting had constructed the Regional Justice Center for these special television pieces. The broad concrete steps angled up to a plaza in front of the eighteen-story glass building. Decorative palm trees provided shade for the afternoon camera shots. Cat found an open spot on the steps a few feet from one of the palms, put in her earpiece, and watched for the small red light on the top of the camera. A few seconds later, the anchor desk kicked it to her.
"Well, Richard, the last few hours have been filled with controversy and chaos here in the eighth judicial circuit in the city of Las Vegas," she began, looking earnestly at the camera. "Some might say that insanity carried the day. . . ."



7
After a celebration dinner with his sister and a dozen others who had helped on the case, Quinn hailed a cab and rode in the backseat with Rosemarie Mancini to her hotel. Rosemarie didn't really need an escort--she could handle herself--but this was Quinn's subtle way of thanking her. The dynamic little psychiatrist had served as both expert witness and unofficial counselor to the Newberg family, not to mention the thankless role of trying to serve as Quinn's conscience. As they rode, Quinn felt giddy and exhausted at the same time, the euphoria of avoiding defeat slowly succumbing to the reality that they still had a long road in front of them.
Quinn had watched Rosemarie at work during dinner and afterward, while others joked and swapped stories in the small, private room at the MGM Grand that Quinn's assistant had quickly reserved. Rosemarie had pulled aside Sierra, Quinn's thirteen-year-old niece, and spent most of the time with her. Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn noticed his niece smile for the first time in weeks. Rosemarie had been counseling Sierra for the past few months, and the two had somehow bonded, despite the generational differences between the fifty-five-year-old psychiatrist and her teenage client.
"How long before the retrial?" Rosemarie asked as they approached the Embassy Suites where she liked to stay--away from the strip. "I need to block some dates on my calendar."
"If I'm any kind of lawyer," Quinn said, "it won't be until after August thirty-first. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the day that Strackman retires."
"Why is he out to get you?" Rosemarie asked.
Despite what Quinn considered to be Strackman's obvious bias, Rosemarie had never asked this question before. Maybe she didn't want to know prior to taking the stand and testifying. Maybe she did better if she could just assume the system was fair. "Vegas is a juice town," Quinn said, watching the casinos pass by. "And our firm has no juice with Strackman."
"A juice town?"
"A few years ago, the L.A. Times wrote an article about the way we elect our judges in Nevada--the fact that 90 percent of the donations for the judges' campaigns come from lawyers and casinos. The article named names and gave examples of judges who had ruled in favor of lawyers who had been some of their main fund-raisers. The money quote in the article was from a friend of mine who said what all Vegas lawyers know but never state publicly: 'Vegas is a juice town, not a justice town. Financial contributions get you "juice" with a judge--not a guaranteed win, but at least the benefit of the doubt.'"
"And your firm didn't back Strackman?"
"Let's just say we would have had serious juice with his opponent."
"How can you operate like this?" Rosemarie asked, disgust evident in her voice. "What if we had lost and Strackman had been the one to sentence Annie?"
"That was my fear," Quinn said. "But we learned our lesson. Now we have some lawyers in our firm hosting fund-raisers for both candidates in any contested race. Guaranteed juice no matter who wins."
The cab pulled in front of the Embassy Suites, and Rosemarie handed a twenty to the driver. Quinn had lost enough battles trying to pay for Rosemarie's dinners and cab rides that he didn't even reach for his wallet.
Rosemarie opened the door and waited for her change.
"Thanks," Quinn said. "For everything."
Rosemarie looked at her friend and, as she seemed to do so often, must have read his mind. "They're going to be okay, Quinn. Annie and Sierra are going to be okay." She took her change and handed a five back to the cabbie. "It's you I'm worried about."
She climbed out of the cab but leaned back in before closing the door. "If I paid you an extra twenty, would you promise to take this man straight home to the Signature Towers?" she asked the cabdriver. "He's got a round of national television interviews tomorrow morning that start at about 4 a.m."
"Sure thing," said the driver. "Unless he pays me an extra forty after you're gone."
"That's what I was afraid of," said Rosemarie, closing the door.
Quinn smiled. He loved this town! Even the cabbies understood the concept of juice. "To the Venetian," he ordered. No sense wasting a lucky day.



8
Two months later
The Avenger of Blood waited patiently for Marcia Carver, a woman who was perhaps the proudest grandmother in all of Hampton Roads, Virginia, to return from the Princess Anne Country Club, where she had just finished showing off the twins. Her husband, of course, would still be at the office, figuring out some new trick for springing the rapists and murderers and drug dealers who paid for his three-million-dollar mansion at the north end of Virginia Beach.
The Avenger crouched in the shrubs, checking the handheld device that used GPS signals to track the small transponder attached to the frame of Marcia Carver's Lexus. She was less than ten minutes away. Her husband's car, according to a similar device the Avenger had appended there, had yet to move from the office parking lot.
Two weeks ago, Marcia's son Bobby and her daughter-in-law, Sheri Ann, had returned from China with the heirs to the Carver family legacy. Twins! According to the young couple's Web site, they had told the adoption agency they would be open to twins but hadn't found out until they arrived in China that they would indeed be the proud parents of two thirteen-month-old twins--a chubby little round-faced girl named Cail Ying and her brother, Chi. The American names were predictably presumptuous--Callie Ann Carver (a takeoff on her new mother's name) and Robert Carver III.
The Avenger assumed that the Carvers had paid somebody off and bought the twins with a hefty bribe. Adoptions of twins were rare in China, especially when one of the twins was a boy. The Avenger wasn't fooled by the sweet little adoption journal Sheri Ann Carver had put online for the world to read. Or the blow-by-blow description of their tour around China so the Carvers could better appreciate their babies' homeland. Or the hundreds of photos of the twins, showing Callie Ann constantly smiling, toothless, and bright-eyed, her brother wearing a perpetual look of confusion, his little mouth forming an O as he clutched a tattered blanket.
Sheri Ann was a spoiled Southern belle, not the kind of woman who could tolerate mommy duties for long. As a result, the Avenger could have taken the kids when they were in the care of their nanny much of the past ten days, during Sheri Ann's many absences for her tennis matches or gym workouts or pedicures. But that wouldn't drive home the point the way this plan would. Grandma and Grandpa needed to share the pain. Blood money had bought them all this happiness. Justice demanded that it also bring them pain.
Breathless, the Avenger hunkered low behind the shrubs as the Lexus approached. The automatic driveway lights, normally triggered by the headlights from the car, did not illuminate. The Avenger wondered if Marcia would notice.
Marcia parked the car and climbed out the driver's side. She opened the rear door and started cooing over her grandkids. It was almost too easy. Staying low, the Avenger came up behind her, put a gloved hand over her mouth, and twisted her neck, at the same time driving a needle into the small of her back. From behind, the Avenger held Marcia in a chokehold until she went limp, then lowered her to the pavement.
The Avenger glanced in the backseat of the sedan at the twins and worked hard to stay unemotional. The little girl smiled at the Avenger, extending her arms as if the Avenger might free her from the car seat. The little boy looked confused, clutching his blanket and contorting his frightened little face as he began to cry. The Avenger shut the car door, drowning out the noise at least temporarily.
Quickly, efficiently, the Avenger dragged Marcia into the bushes and raked over the footprints. Popping the trunk, the Avenger threw the rake inside. Then the Avenger fired up the Lexus and climbed in, trying to ignore the little boy's loud crying as the car backed down the driveway.
Later that night, the Avenger watched the Carvers' televised pleas for the return of their babies. The Avenger shrugged off the million-dollar reward the Carvers immediately offered for anyone who had information that might lead to a safe rescue of the twins. This wasn't about money. Justice demanded this.
A package arrived at Robert Carver Sr.'s office two days after the kidnapping. It contained a note from the kidnapper and a piece of Chi Ying's tattered blanket. DNA tests would confirm that the bloodstains on the blanket belonged to both Cail and Chi.
For strategic reasons, the police insisted, and the Carvers agreed, that information about the blanket and accompanying note should not be released to the public. They continued the manhunt as if the babies might still be alive, though the Carvers had already begun the grieving process.
The note was generated by an HP inkjet printer and contained a quote from the Bible, complete with a reference:
For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Exodus 20:5.
At the bottom of the note, the kidnapper had typed a signature--a biblical allusion that ripped at the heart of the parents and grandparents. The Avenger of Blood.



9
Catherine O'Rourke stared at her computer screen. The day after the Carver kidnapping, her article had appeared on the front page of the afternoon edition. The next day, in both the morning and afternoon editions, her story about the history of the twins' adoption had again been front page, above the fold. Now Catherine's editor was breathing down her neck for yet another story on day three, something worthy of another front-page placement, and Catherine was drawing blanks.
The investigation had stalled. A press conference held by Virginia Beach Police Chief Arthur Compton just a few hours earlier had been a waste of time. The police were following all leads. There had been no ransom demand. They had not been able to find any footprints, fingerprints, or DNA evidence.
Cat stared at the photos of cute little Chi Ying and Cail Ying, photos she had tacked up on her cubicle wall. The twins had round, pudgy faces and bright little eyes. She couldn't believe that anyone would harm them. Money had to be the motive. But why no ransom note? Would the babies be sold on the black market instead?
Cat put the final touches on her sidebar story about the Carver family. The Carvers' law firm, of course, was prominently featured. Three generations of Carver men had made their mark as criminal defense lawyers. There was no case too controversial for the Carvers, Catherine had written. To beef up the story, she had quoted a few respected defense attorneys whom she had called earlier that day. A young lawyer named Marc Boland had given her the best sound bite: "The Carvers believe in the Constitution. They believe they are doing the dirty work that our founders envisioned when they set up our legal system. Their primary operating principle is that somebody has to represent those who can't speak for themselves."
The sidebar contained a paragraph of titillating speculation about the Carvers' nefarious clients and numerous enemies. Could the kidnapping be an act of revenge?
But sidebars didn't make the front page. Cat needed a story.
Her source at the police department called thirty minutes before deadline. She wanted to rush him, but she knew from experience that she couldn't short-circuit his routine.
"Are you using your earpiece?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Take it out and pick up the handset."
Catherine waited a moment. He was a great source, but his paranoia could be frustrating. "Okay."
"This is off the record, not for attribution, and not for publication unless I specifically say so."
"Right."
"You would go to jail, if necessary, before disclosing my name."
"Absolutely."
"You won't give me up to your editor, your fellow writers, or even the paper's attorney."
"Especially the paper's attorney." Catherine checked her watch. One more set of questions before he would start talking.
"Even in the face of extreme torture, you will protect my confidentiality."
The first time he had said this, Catherine thought he was serious. She had since learned it was just his quirky way of driving the point home. "Do you have anything in particular in mind?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact, I was researching this torture method perfected by the Romans. They would strap a person to a dead body, face-to-face, until the decay from the dead body started rotting the live person."
"Ugh," Cat gasped. "Where do you come up with these things?"
"Would you talk under those circumstances?"
"Of course."
The source paused, another part of the game. "Okay, I'll take my chances."
"I'm listening." Catherine wedged the phone against her ear, freeing her hands to type.
"This is not for publication, but we have a note."
"I thought the chief said there was no ransom note."
"There isn't. That's the problem." The source paused again, and Catherine heard the seriousness in his tone. Fun and games were over. "We believe the kidnapper has killed the children."
Catherine glanced at the photos and felt her chest tighten. "Based on what?"
"I can't say. There are things we have to withhold for strategic reasons."
Cat hated these games, but she kept her tone even. She could not afford to alienate her source. "What can you say, then?"
"This kidnapping is not an isolated event. We believe it's related to another kidnapping that took place in northern Virginia about two months ago. The powers that be don't want a widespread panic, but I can't justify withholding this from the public. If I had little kids, I'd want to know."
"Does that mean I can publish the link?"
"As long as you don't identify me."
Cat sucked in a breath as her fingers flew across the keyboard. Serial kidnappings! "How do you know this?" she asked.
"I can't say."
"But you've got to give me something. If I can't corroborate this, my editors will never let me run it."
The source paused to give the impression he was thinking this through. Catherine waited him out. She knew he had already anticipated this concern.
"The kidnapped baby in Washington, D.C., was Rayshad Milburn, a three-month-old baby taken in a parking garage from his mother, Sherita Johnson. The father is a twice-convicted felon named Clarence Milburn who beat a rape and murder charge several months ago based on an invalid warrantless search. The cops thought they had exigent circumstances, but the judge disagreed."
Cat typed furiously while processing this new piece of the puzzle. "Was he represented by the Carvers?"
"No. But the MOs for the crimes were very similar. In both cases, a victim was immobilized and then injected with the same type of powerful sedative. There are other connections, but that's all I can say for now."
"What other connections? What else can you give me?"
"We never had this phone call," her source said. "Not unless you get tied to that rotting corpse."
"I understand," Catherine said.
Without another word, her source hung up the phone.