Page 128 of The Right to Remain

The response was as expected, which was no response at all.

Julianna Weller smiled thinly. “You seem to have a quieting effect on your client. He was eager to speak before you arrived.”

“Yes, eager to confess just as the case took a big turn in his direction,” said Jack. “Curious timing, don’t you think?”

“He would have confessed long ago if his lawyer hadn’t been on a mission to blame someone else.”

“I see it differently,” said Jack. “The only reason Elliott wants to confess is to stop me from naming the killer.”

Jack, along with the law enforcement side of the table, waited for a reaction of any kind from Elliott. There was only silence.

Beckham asked, “Are you here to tell us that your client is offering a false confession to protect Helena Pollard?”

“I’d rather not tell you anything,” said Jack. He pushed away from the table, went to the whiteboard on the wall behind him, and grabbed a marker. “I prefershowing, if you’ll indulge me.”

“Be my guest,” said Beckham.

Jack faced the board and wrote just one word:sebum.

“Who is Sebum?” asked the state attorney.

“Not who. What. It’s the reason the killer’s fingerprints were not on Helena Pollard’s handgun.”

It was lost on no one in the room that Helena’s printswereon the gun.

“A little late for you to start pointing the finger at someone other than Helena Pollard,” said Weller. “What do you expect us to do, erase all your evidence from our minds?”

“Not all of it,” said Jack. “I’m just asking you to rethink one phone call.”

“Which one?” she asked.

Elliott was sitting with his back to Jack, but the visible tension in his shoulders signaled that he was listening. Jack spoke principally to the state attorney, as it was obvious that Beckham was the only one on the other side of the table he had any chance of persuading.

“Elliott’s cell phone records confirm that he received two phone calls from the Pollard landline. The first was in the morning. We know from Helena’s testimony that her husband called Elliott and warnedhim to stay away from Austen. The second was in the evening, while Helena was still at her mother’s house. We have no way of knowing what was said to Elliott. But we know from Austen’s testimony that Elliott showed up at the Pollard house after the call.”

“Yes, and the only thing that matters is that your client showed up,” said Weller. “We don’t carewhyOwen called a second time.”

“You should,” said Jack. “Because there was no conceivable reason for Owen to make that second call.”

“How can you say that? Maybe he was calling to reinforce what he said that morning.”

“Owen called Elliott a freak and warned him to stay away from Austen. There was no reason to call again and say it a second time.”

“The point is that he called, Elliott came to the house, things went downhill, and your client ended up shooting Owen with Helena’s gun.”

“There are two flaws with your argument,” said Jack. “The first is that Owen was already dead by the time Elliott got to the Pollards’ house. We know that because of the second flaw in your argument: Owen didn’t make the second call to Elliott’s cell phone. The shooter did.”

“The shooter being who—according to you?”

Jack sensed they weren’t ready to hear it, so he laid more groundwork. “Let me ask you a question: Who is the only person I’ve mentioned so far who didnothave access to a gun destruction facility?”

No one answered.

“Let me ask it another way,” said Jack. “Who would bury the murder weapon under a few inches of dirt in the yard rather than destroy it or just pitch into ten feet of muck in the Everglades?”

Still no answer, so Jack put an even finer point on it.

“Who... but a child?”