Betrayal полностью

"And, on one hand," Washburn added, "why would they? They had a suspect they could convict, and may as well send him down for one murder as for three, without the risk of losing on the other two."

"You mean they never questioned anyone else about the Khalil murders?"

"I assume they must have, a few people anyway. But certainly not everyone they could have." He took in a huge lungful of the pungent air. "You're forgetting, though, and I wonder if Mr. Bowen did as well, that you can't base your appeal on evidence that isn't discussed in the record. The Court doesn't know anything that the court reporter hasn't taken down."

"I'm not forgetting that," Hardy said, "but then who killed the Khalils?"

"Well, if you believe Evan, Ron Nolan did."

"Did you believe Evan?"

Washburn seemed to be considering it for the first time in a long while. "You know, now that you mention it, yes, I think I do. Evan just didn't smuggle small arms and grenades out of Iraq as souvenirs. He was only over there a matter of weeks. In the brief time he had there, he couldn't have both found a source for these things and arranged to find a way to send them home. Especially when you consider he was airlifted out of there unconscious and with no warning. I'd be surprised if he got out with his own socks, much less all this hardware." He studied his cigar's lengthy ash. "No," he repeated, "it beggars belief. That just didn't happen."

"So where did that stuff in Nolan's closet come from?"

"It must have been from Nolan himself, wouldn't you think? He could move about a lot more freely, and he had both more time and a lot more contacts than Evan ever did."

Hardy sat back in his chair, his elbow on the armrest, his hand resting over his mouth, in deep thought. "Okay," he said in a faraway voice, "let's go with Nolan killing the Khalils for a minute. I don't want to jump too far ahead of ourselves here. Can we take that as fact?"

After a small hesitation, Washburn nodded. "I do."

"All right, then, here's the million-dollar question. Why did he do it?"

"I don't know."

"Was there any speculation you heard?"

Washburn shook his head, now troubled by this as well. "Somehow that just never became part of the discussion, did it?" Asking himself. He turned to face Hardy. "Even when everyone was taking it for granted that Evan had killed them, I don't remember anyone stopping to examine the why of it too closely." He drew on his smoke. "I think there was more or less an assumption that it was something that had happened in Iraq that we would never find out about. Maybe it was something personal or maybe he just hated Iraqis in general for what they had done to him. And at the same time he could frame Nolan for the murders and eliminate his rival for Tara. It was a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone if you happened to be a psychopath, which some people thought Evan was."

"But nobody asked the hard questions?"

"Apparently not."

"Even though the FBI was all over this thing?" It wasn't really a question. "Does that strike you as the FBI we all know and love?"

Clearly, Washburn, too, had caught the bug. His eyes were alight with possibility. "If Nolan did in fact kill the Khalils," he said contemplatively, "then certainly anyone in the Khalil family-Iraq being the tribal culture that it is-would have had not just a motive but an obligation to kill him."

Hardy, low-watt electricity running through him, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "What do you think are the odds that the FBI never talked to any of the Khalils?"

"Zero. And yet now that you mention it, all the interviews we got were from the Redwood City police. And it was a pretty perfunctory job."

"So you're telling me the FBI would have relied on the locals to talk to witnesses in a potential terrorism case? I don't think so."

Washburn nodded and nodded. "Son of a bitch," he said, unmistakable glee in his voice. "You're talking Brady."

Hardy, his mouth set, tried to keep his elation low-key. "You're damn right I am."

The reference was to what was commonly called a Brady violation. In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a defendant had a right to any evidence that was in the possession of the prosecution that might cast doubt on his guilt, whether or not it was eventually to be used at trial. The prosecution was absolutely required to turn over any background, testimony, evidence, interviews-anything-that could exculpate a defendant. If the prosecution withheld any of this discovery, and the withheld material was reasonably likely to undermine confidence in a guilty verdict, then these were grounds to reverse a conviction. Of course, evidence of such a violation was never found in the court's records. The whole point was that the prosecution had withheld the evidence and the defense didn't find out about it until sometime after the trial.

This opened up an entirely new strategic element.