False Testimony Read Online Free PDF

closing the place that February night, the off-season regulars and a handful of employees out the door just minutes ahead of him. As he stood on the snowy brick walkway inserting his key to flip the back door’s deadlock, a young white male wearing a ski mask emerged from the darkness of the parking lot. He demanded the night deposit sack Bobby had stashed under one arm.
    The Butcher isn’t a guy who takes kindly to bullies. He told the masked man to take a hike. A fistfight ensued and Bobby was stabbed during the course of it, the knife penetrating just below his right shoulder. Down but not out, he grabbed his attacker’s hand—along with the knife inside it—and continued to fight. Eventually, though, the masked man kicked Bobby to the ground and fled with the cash.
    The Butcher was lucky; his injuries weren’t all that serious. He was treated at Cape Cod Hospital that night and released the next day, but because of his assailant’s mask he was unable to give the police a description beyond approximate height and weight. The Chatham cops suspected Derrick Holliston from the start—he’d been released from a juvenile detention facility just a few days earlier, on his eighteenth birthday—but they had precious little in the way of evidence to back up their suspicions. Until they got the results from the Commonwealth’s crime lab.
    DNA evidence pegged him. Holliston must have sustained a substantial cut during his struggle with the Butcher. Blood evidence tied him to the scene, to the victim, and eventually, to the empty cash sack retrieved from a town-owned Dumpster a block from the pub. The knife was never found, but the ski mask was, and hair follicles hammered yet another nail into his coffin. On top of all that, the unemployed Holliston had more than two grand in cash when he was arrested at the Monomoy Moorings Motel. Even so, Holliston and the unfortunate lawyer appointed to defend him relied upon what Harry calls the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It.
    The jury didn’t think so. The judge sentenced Holliston to five-to-seven and with time off for good behavior—he was a model prisoner, according to his discharge papers—he served just over four. He’d been out little more than a month when Father McMahon was murdered—stabbed and left bleeding on the sacristy floor—and St. Veronica’s Christmas Eve collection disappeared.
    “Yeah,” Holliston says, pointing at Harry, “for once you’re right. We’ll let Fitzpatrick do it. I kinda like the idea of the Police Chief tellin’ them what happened. Gives it a little…what’s the word?”
    “Credibility?” I ask.
    He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. Credibility. I like that.”
    Harry closes his eyes, shakes his head.
    “You have the cop tell it,” Holliston says.
    “Not me,” Harry answers, pointing in my direction. “Marty’s taking the Chief. And don’t worry, she’ll get the whole story from him.”
    Holliston looks at me and half laughs. “Even better,” he says. “So it’s settled. I ain’t takin’ the stand.”
    “Hold on,” I tell him for the second time in ten minutes. “This is an important decision. Don’t rush it.”
    He shrugs. “The top cop tells the jurors what I told him and as far as they know, I’m an altar boy. What do I got to lose?”
    He does have something to lose—something important. And his defense attorneys need to tell him so.
    I look across the table and Harry arches his eyebrows. It’s my turn, I guess. “Look,” I tell Holliston, “don’t get me wrong. All things considered, I think you’re making the right decision. But don’t underestimate the impact your silence will have on the panel. Jurors like to hear from defendants.”
    “But if I take the stand”—he tugs at his stubbled chin—“they hear about that other guy, too, the Butcher.”
    He’s right about that. If he testifies that he stabbed the priest only to save his own life, the prosecutor will be entitled to introduce