False Witness Read online

  Snowball was just a dog, she kept telling herself. But it was a lie. He was so much more than just a dog. The feeling of senseless loss reminded her too much of her mother’s funeral. She had lost a certain innocence with her mother’s death—the belief that things happen for a purpose, that the world was generally just, that bad things don’t happen to good people. She felt those same emotions again, along with the familiar swell of anger and the bitter taste of revenge yet to be exacted.

  At the graveside, she tried to push those emotions aside as she pursed her lips and bowed her head while Lola led them in prayer. It was the cute prayer of a child, unashamed to pray for a dog, trusting enough to believe she would see him again.

  They turned to Chris, who decided to try a eulogy. “There are good dogs, and there are great dogs,” he said, embracing the task. “Rin Tin Tin. Lassie. Shadow on Homeward Bound. But in all of dogdom, there has never been a dog quite like this one.”

  Chris had his head down, but he ventured a peek at Jamie, as if making sure his lame attempt at humor wasn’t causing more grief. “He was the all-time Frisbee champion of the universe, a world-class barker, and one of the smartest canines God ever created.”

  Jamie shook her head and gave Chris the look that said he was being an idiot but it was okay: she loved him for it. “Excuse me,” she said. “I thought I was at the funeral for Snowball.”

  Chris smiled. Amanda smiled. The girls looked confused.

  “He was a great dog,” Chris said seriously. “And you couldn’t help but love him.”

  He was all that, Jamie knew, and a lot more. Everyone at the graveside now looked at her. “In truth, he wasn’t the smartest dog,” Jamie said. “Or the most obedient. And you’d better make sure your shoes were out of reach.” Jamie glanced at Amanda, a well-known cat lover and dog tolerator. Even her eyes were wet. “But he sure was loyal. And he was the best friend anybody could ever ask for.”

  Jamie wanted to say more, but she felt the tears coming on. She choked on her words, felt herself losing control.

  “Is Snowball in heaven?” Sophie asked.

  “You bet, honey,” Chris said, bending down to brush back Sophie’s hair. “Probably playing Frisbee.”

  They stood there for another minute or two, and it suddenly hit Jamie hard—the realization she would never see him again. “Can I have a minute alone?” she asked.

  As the family filed inside, Jamie crouched beside the grave. She rubbed his ears again, the way she had a thousand times before. She ran her fingers down his back, gently calling his name. She had seen him lying like this so many nights, but always before with that barrel chest gently breathing in and out. She bent in and kissed him, whispered her thanks for a million moments of happiness, and positioned his Frisbee between his paws.

  As a final tribute, she reached down and undid the Velcro straps on her own Chacos, her favorite water sandals. They were frayed around the edges where Snowball had nipped at them as a puppy and gnawed on them as an adolescent. She had told him No! too many times to count, thrown away two other pairs of shoes he had demolished, and finally discovered a bitter apple spray that she squirted in Snowball’s mouth if he tried to take another bite at her Chacos. But here, at his graveside, she regretted every feeling of frustration, every time she had snapped at Snowball or lost her patience. She took off the sandals and placed them gently in the grave. His Frisbee. Her sandals. What more could a black Lab want? She stared for one long, last minute at her sweet companion, then stood and picked up the shovel.

  “You were a great dog,” she said. “The best ever.”

  57

  At a movie theater in Buckhead, a few miles from the law school campus, Isaiah Haywood settled into a seat at the end of the top row, middle section. Right where they had planned. They had chosen the seven o’clock showing of a horror flick that bombed the weekend before, and predictably, only a few others settled into the theater seats before the previews rolled.

  A few minutes after the opening credits, a woman arrived and walked deliberately up the steps toward him, surveying the sparse audience as she did so. She wore baggy jeans, a long-sleeved black sweater, and sneakers. Isaiah did a double take.

  Stacie had been a close-cropped brunette; this woman had curly auburn hair. She wore glasses and carried a large handbag. She took a seat next to Isaiah. When the screen brightened, he could make out the attractive silhouette of Stacie’s eyes and thin nose. The determined jaw. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” Isaiah said.

  The woman turned and looked him over. “And you are?”

  He hesitated, her unsmiling face creating a sliver of doubt. But the theater was nearly empty. And this woman did sit down right next to him. “Your male escort,” he said.

  “You hesitated,” she shot back. She helped herself to some popcorn. “That’s the best I can hope for.”

  “Maybe you should try being a blonde,” Isaiah suggested.

  “Been there.”

  Isaiah let a few seconds pass while a loud scene played itself out. He leaned toward her. “Sorry about the ruling,” he said. He had already given Stacie the gist of it over the phone. They had agreed to meet here to discuss the next steps.

  “You tried. I’m not surprised at the court’s decision.”

  The movie sound track turned quiet and foreboding, creating a mood for the grotesque figures on the screen. It seemed a fitting backdrop.

  “The U.S. attorney argued that you guys don’t really have the algorithm. That you were just trying to scam the Chinese mafia out of some money. He said if you really had the algorithm, you would have sold it to some legitimate Internet security companies.”

  “We’ve got the algorithm,” Stacie said. It was still a whisper, but it was an emphatic one.

  Isaiah waited a moment for further explanation. None came.

  “Why didn’t you sell it to someone safe? Why go to the mafia?”

  “We didn’t.”

  Isaiah again waited for more detail but none came. “That’s it—we didn’t?”

  “It’s complicated, Isaiah. And there are things I can’t say. But I can tell you that I’ve changed in these last four years. There’s no way I would let David risk our lives just to scam the triads out of money.”

  Isaiah felt frustration gnawing its way to the surface. He had risked a lot for the Hoffmans—he deserved more than a trust-me speech. In a different setting, he might have been more forceful. But whispering in a movie theater had its limits.

  “The government says they’re willing to be proven wrong,” he whispered. “Snead has talked with the U.S. attorney. If we give the feds a copy of the algorithm, they’ll give you continued protection and a new identity. They’ve given us twenty-four hours to consider it—”

  “No way.”

  “Stacie, you need to at least think this over. What good is this algorithm if you don’t live long enough to cash in?”

  “It’s not about the money, Isaiah.” She was whispering louder now, intensity riding on every syllable. “The man who created this algorithm died protecting it. Don’t you understand why we wanted you to work this case for us? This is the same government that traces its own citizens’ phone calls without a warrant. The government that makes innocent citizens like David and me testify against the mob and then acts like they’re doing us a favor when they make us hide for the rest of our lives. Do you really want them to have the most powerful decryption tool ever discovered? One that allows them to decipher secret messages sent over the Internet? Do you really want to be the one to destroy the right to privacy as we know it?”

  Isaiah didn’t really know what to say. He shared Stacie’s distrust of authority, but this sounded a little like the rant of an anarchist. A conspiracy theorist. New world order, and all that other nonsense.

  “Isaiah, that algorithm is the only thing keeping us alive. It’s our insurance policy. Once we give that up, we’re expendable.”

  As they talked, a middle-aged man cradling a tub
of popcorn and a soda entered the theater from the left—twenty minutes after the movie had started. He surveyed the theater before taking the aisle seat on the last row of the front section. Nobody sits in the front section when there are plenty of elevated seats left in the back.

  “How do you think the triads located us again in the first place?” Stacie asked.

  Isaiah took another drink of soda to give himself a few seconds to think. It sounded like a trick question. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Your theory about a leak in the marshals’ office makes sense.” What Isaiah didn’t say, because this wasn’t the time to pick a fight, was that Carzak’s theory made even more sense.

  “The feds are using us as bait, Isaiah. Their raid on the triad’s hiding place four years ago was a fiasco. The government managed to keep a lid on it with regard to publicity, so it never became another Ruby Ridge, but it’s one of their greatest internal embarrassments ever. The triad’s U.S. leader, Huang Xu, and several of his top lieutenants escaped. Professor Kumari was killed. Now they’re using us to lure Xu back out in the open.”

  Isaiah watched the images flash across the screen—contrived horror, otherworldly. But the lady next to him, if she was telling the truth, was trapped in her own horror show. A government sworn to protect her, using her as bait. The triads hunting her down.

  “David and I have given this a lot of thought,” Stacie continued. “Maybe the feds thought that Xu ended up with the algorithm. One way to find out would be for them to send a letter to Johnny Chin saying that we wanted to sell it. They leak our location to Xu and then they watch. If he kills us, it means he already has the algorithm and wants to dispose of any competitors. If he tries to kidnap us, it means he doesn’t have the algorithm and wants to torture it out of us.”

  Isaiah’s head was spinning. “If you really believe that, why did we even file this lawsuit? What makes you think the government wouldn’t leak your new identity as well?”

  “That’s why we wanted court oversight, Isaiah. As long as this witness protection program operates in the shadows, David and I have to rely on the good faith of the U.S. attorney and the U.S. marshals. But with Parcelli hand-selecting the persons who would be involved in our case and the court appointing a trustee to oversee our protection, there would be little chance of another leak.”

  They talked for a few minutes about appealing the court’s ruling. Isaiah thought they might have a good chance, but Stacie was ready to let it drop. She thanked Isaiah for trying. It was time for her and David to take matters into their own hands, she said. She would rather have done this with the government’s help, but she was prepared to do it without them.

  As they talked, Isaiah watched the man in the front section of the theater. At one point, the man turned and glanced around. Maybe it was just the movie, but Isaiah was getting the creeps.

  “What do you think of that guy down there?” Isaiah asked.

  “Front section?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You leave first,” Stacie said. “I’ll follow in a few minutes. Call me on my cell in ten minutes so we can check on each other.”

  Isaiah insisted that Stacie leave first. The man in the front didn’t even seem to notice when she did so. Isaiah followed a few minutes later and called Stacie from his car.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “And I don’t think I’m being followed. But next time, let’s go see a comedy.”

  Isaiah checked his mirrors again. Next time?

  58

  After hanging up with Stacie, Isaiah called Snead at home. The professor answered on the third ring, his gruff voice saying, “Walter Snead,” as if he were still answering the phone in his private law firm. Somebody needs to get a life, Isaiah thought.

  “It’s Isaiah. You asked me to report in after meeting with Stacie Hoffman at the movies.”

  “Yes. Well, what’s the verdict, Mr. Haywood?”

  “Two thumbs down,” Isaiah said. He couldn’t resist, though he knew Snead wouldn’t laugh. “Too much demon possession and blood, though the vampires are hotties.”

  Snead didn’t respond.

  “Sorry. As for the legal case, the client does not want to appeal.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Snead said. “Do they want to take the government’s deal?”

  “No. They really believe the government has already outed them once and is using them as bait. They think the algorithm serves as sort of an insurance policy. They want to keep the algorithm and still get new identities.”

  Snead sighed into the phone, as if he were talking to a renegade adolescent. “Did you tell them that particular deal’s not on the table?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “It’s the only deal they’re willing to consider.”

  “I see,” Snead said, though Isaiah was pretty sure he didn’t. “Let me ask you a question, Mr. Haywood. And I want your gut-level, honest response.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you believe them? Do you think the government is leaking information and using Mr. Hoffman as bait?”

  Isaiah pondered this for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Snead said. “Maybe we should up the ante and find out.” He couldn’t have surprised Isaiah more if he had just announced his engagement to Jessica Simpson. “Instead of suing for specific performance of the memorandum of understanding, a case in which the government has nothing to lose, we could file for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act.” Snead’s gruff voice grew excited by the genius of his own idea. “We could take depositions and issue subpoenas—get to the bottom of this thing. We could sue for nine or ten million based on fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

  Only Snead would think that a good tort suit could solve all of our problems, Isaiah mused. “It’d be an even stronger case if the Hoffmans ended up dead,” he said sarcastically.

  But Snead missed the tone of voice, intoxicated as he was with trial lawyer greed. “Yes, but it’s still pretty strong. The Hoffmans are in fear for their lives. I’ve tried some asbestos cases where we recovered for fear of cancer even though the patient had no manifestations. Fear-of-AIDS cases for bad blood transfusions. There’s precedence out there . . .” Snead trailed off as if he had been talking to himself all along.

  “I’ll call Wellington immediately,” Snead said, changing direction. “I’ll get him started on the research and the pleadings. They gave us twenty-four hours to respond. We’ll give them a shot across the bow.”

  “I’m sure Wellington’s got nothing better to do,” Isaiah said.

  Allan Carzak was eating a late dinner at one of his favorite Italian restaurants, regaling some friends with courtroom stories while his wife rolled her eyes. His cell phone rang, the ringtone from Mission: Impossible, and he checked the caller ID. Sam Parcelli, FBI, still on the job late at night.

  The Hoffman case was the first time he had worked with Sam, but the man was living up to his reputation. Intense, tenacious, uncompromising. Sam never gave it a rest. He had called Carzak several times late at night or on the weekends—the clock and calendar apparently of no consequence.

  Carzak answered and asked Parcelli to hang on for a minute. “I’ll be right back,” Carzak said to his dinner companions, then left the restaurant so he could hear Parcelli better.

  “Somebody killed that young female lawyer’s dog tonight; what’s her name? Hang on . . .”

  “Jamie Brock,” Carzak said.

  “Yeah, Jamie Brock. She left the dog with her brother in north Georgia. Somebody poisoned it, left her a note. ‘You should have called.’”

  Carzak thought about this for a second, scrunched his forehead. “Any leads?”

  “We’re assuming it’s the same guys who assaulted her the other day. We’ve got sketches out and we’re working with the locals, but so far we’ve come up dry.”

  “How would the triad know about the h
earing?” Carzak asked.

  He waited while Parcelli collected his thoughts. The FBI agent was always precise and calculating—in what he said, in how he investigated cases, and especially during phone calls with U.S. attorneys. “That’s an open question. Lots of possibilities. We’re running some background checks on everyone who was in that courtroom today as well as Judge Torriano’s law clerks. We’ll look at the court staff in the clerk’s office who had access to the initial pleadings. Somebody could have tapped into the clerk’s computers, followed one of the law students or the professor around . . . Who knows? There’re a thousand ways these guys could have found out. Sealed proceedings are still a sieve; you know that.”

  Carzak couldn’t argue with him. How many times had sealed negotiations or the amounts of confidential settlements or the testimony from secret proceedings found their way into the press? Virtually every high-profile grand jury hearing Carzak had handled, for starters.

  “We need to take exclusive jurisdiction of this investigation,” Carzak said. He had shifted into problem-solving mode. “Witness tampering, obstruction of justice—we’ve got three or four grounds for running off the locals.”

  “We’ve already done that. It’s our case.”

  There was defensiveness in the agent’s voice—one of the weaknesses Carzak had already discovered. With other agents, Carzak had managed to build trust quickly; they were on the same side, after all. Often, Carzak and the agents became friends. But with Parcelli, there was an invisible wall. Because of the importance of the case, Parcelli was reporting directly to the FBI’s deputy director. He chafed at any direction from Allan Carzak.