been broken.
Jennifer stared at it, horrified. ‘I – one of your men – gave me –’
‘Which one of my men?’
‘I – I don’t know.’
‘But you know he was one of my men.’ His voice rang with disbelief.
‘Yes. I saw him talking to you and then he walked over to me and handed me the envelope and said you wanted me to give it to Mr Stela. He – he even knew my name.’
‘I’ll bet he did. How much did they pay you?’
It’s all a nightmare, Jennifer thought. I’m going to wake up any minute and it’s going to be six o’clock in the morning, and I’m going to get dressed and go to be sworn in on the District Attorney’s staff.
‘How much?’ The anger in him was so violent that it forced Jennifer to her feet.
‘Are you accusing me of –?’
‘Accusing you!’ Robert Di Silva clenched his fists. ‘Lady, I haven’t even started on you. By the time you get out of prison you’ll be too old to spend that money.’
‘There is no money.’ Jennifer stared at him defiantly.
Thomas Colfax had been sitting back, quietly listening to the conversation. He interrupted now to say, ‘Excuse me, Your Honor, but I’m afraid this isn’t getting us anywhere.’
‘I agree,’ Judge Waldman replied. He turned to the District Attorney. ‘Where do you stand, Bobby? Is Stela still willing to be cross-examined?’
‘Cross-examined? He’s a basket case! Scared out of his wits. He won’t take the stand again.’
Thomas Colfax said smoothly, ‘If I can’t cross-examine the prosecution’s chief witness, Your Honor, I’m going to have to move for a mistrial.’
Everyone in the room knew what that would mean: Michael Moretti would walk out of the courtroom a free man.
Judge Waldman looked over at the District Attorney. ‘Did you tell your witness he can be held in contempt?’
‘Yes. Stela’s more scared of them than he is of us.’ He turned to direct a venomous look at Jennifer. ‘He doesn’t think we can protect him anymore.’
Judge Waldman said slowly, ‘Then I’m afraid this court has no alternative but to grant the defense’s request and declare a mistrial.’
Robert Di Silva stood there, listening to his case being wiped out. Without Stela, he had no case. Michael Moretti was beyond his reach now, but Jennifer Parker was not. He was going to make her pay for what she had done to him.
Judge Waldman was saying, ‘I’ll give instructions for the defendant to be freed and the jury dismissed.’
Thomas Colfax said, ‘Thank you, Your Honor.’ There was no sign of triumph in his face.
‘If there’s nothing else …’ Judge Waldman began.
‘There is something else!’ Robert Di Silva turned to Jennifer Parker. ‘I want her held for obstructing justice, for tampering with a witness in a capital case, for conspiracy, for …’ He was incoherent with rage.
In her anger, Jennifer found her voice. ‘You can’t prove a single one of those charges because they’re not true. I – I may be guilty of being stupid, but that’s all I’m guilty of. No one bribed me to do anything. I thought I was delivering a package for you.’
Judge Waldman looked at Jennifer and said, ‘Whatever the motivation, the consequences have been extremely unfortunate. I am going to request that the Appellate Division undertake an investigation and, if it feels the circumstances warrant it, to begin disbarment proceedings against you.’
Jennifer felt suddenly faint. ‘Your Honor, I –’
‘That is all for now, Miss Parker.’
Jennifer stood there a moment, staring at their hostile faces. There was nothing more she could say.
The yellow canary on the desk had said it all.
Jennifer Parker was not only on the evening news – she was the evening news. The story of her delivering a dead canary to the District Attorney’s star witness was irresistible. Every television channel had pictures of Jennifer leaving Judge Waldman’s chambers, fighting her way out of the courthouse, besieged by the press and the public.
Jennifer could not believe the sudden horrifying publicity that was being showered on her. They were hammering at her from all sides: television reporters, radio reporters and newspaper people. She wanted desperately to flee from them, but her pride would not let her.
‘Who gave you the yellow canary, Miss Parker?’
‘Have you ever met Michael Moretti?’
‘Did you know that Di Silva was planning to use this case to get into the governor’s office?’
‘The District Attorney says he’s going to have you disbarred. Are you going to fight it?’
To each question Jennifer had a tight-lipped ‘No comment.’
On the CBS evening news they called her ‘Wrong-Way Parker,’ the girl who had gone off in the wrong direction. An ABC newsman referred to her as the ‘Yellow Canary.’ On NBC, a sports commentator compared her to Roy Riegels, the football player who had carried the ball to his own team’s one-yard line.
In Tony’s Place, a restaurant that Michael Moretti owned, a celebration was taking place. There were a dozen men in the room, drinking and boisterous.
Michael Moretti sat alone at the bar, in an oasis of silence, watching Jennifer Parker on television. He raised his glass in a salute to her and drank.
Lawyers everywhere discussed the Jennifer Parker episode. Half of them believed she had been bribed by the Mafia, and the other half that she had been an innocent dupe. But no matter which side they were on, they all concurred on one point: Jennifer Parker’s short career as an attorney was finished.
She had lasted exactly four hours.
She had been born in Kelso, Washington, a small timber town founded in 1847 by a homesick Scottish surveyor who named it for his home town in Scotland.
Jennifer’s father was an attorney, first for the lumber companies that dominated the town, then later for the workers in the sawmills. Jennifer’s earliest memories of growing up were filled with joy. The state of Washington was a storybook place for a child, full of spectacular mountains and glaciers and national parks. There were skiing and canoeing and, when she was older, ice climbing on
