Judgment Read online

  Dedication

  For Erik

  My little angel

  A mother couldn’t hope for her son to grow into a finer man.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  Author's Note

  An Excerpt from Confession

  About the Author

  Also by Carey Baldwin

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Fifteen Years Ago

  Arizona State Prison Complex

  Florence, Arizona

  TODAY WAS CAITLIN Cassidy’s eighteenth birthday, and in twenty-­seven minutes, Thomas Cassidy was to be put to death by lethal injection for the murder of Gail Falconer: a crime so brutal, so sadistic only a monster could’ve committed it. Unable to bear the ticking off of the remaining seconds of her father’s life, Caitlin squeezed her eyes shut, willing the merciless clock on the wall of the death-­chamber viewing room to stop. Inside her chest, her heart slackened into a useless, gelatinous blob, its beat barely perceptible. With such an anemic pulse, she had no idea how oxygen still flowed to her brain. Yet vague as her heartbeat was, her thoughts were sharp and rapid-­firing around a closed circuit.

  Is he afraid?

  He couldn’t have done it!

  Is he afraid?

  A one-­way mirror served as a window into the death chamber—­a stark white room, well prepared and patiently waiting for the prisoner. An intercom transmitted sound into the viewing area. From her front-­row-­center seat, she’d be able to see and hear all that transpired as her father’s sentence was carried out. Gail’s parents, she’d been told, would be watching from a separate location. Their daughter had been left naked and beaten, her body posed for the world in the most humiliating fashion. They would not be required to sit alongside Thomas Cassidy’s daughter.

  The room suddenly colder, she shivered.

  He couldn’t have done it.

  When she was a little girl, her father would get low on one knee, allowing her to climb up his back and sit on his shoulders. Now she drew the memory around her like a warm cloak, and as the scent of his starched collar came back to her, she regained a temporary sense of well-­being. Her body tilted forward, and she recalled bouncing rhythmically atop her perch while her father trotted her around the room faster and faster. She’d sway and squeal—­delighted, but also queasy with fear. Then, sensing her terror, her father would grip her hands firmly.

  I won’t let you fall, Caity. Just hold on tight and trust me.

  His low voice had soothed her. His word had been all she needed back then.

  When her father had spoken, she’d believed him.

  Absolutely.

  But who was she to trust now?

  Her eyelids flew open, and she saw that not quite a minute had passed. The sight of the long, padded table that awaited her father inside the chamber made her stomach roll and her teeth chatter. Clamping her jaw shut, she turned away from the terrible sight and found herself looking straight into the muted brown eyes of Mr. Harvey Baumgartner. Her father’s attorney crumpled into the seat next to her and produced a wan smile. She hadn’t seen him enter the room, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have known how long he’d stood beside her with that pitying look on his face—­time was too scrambled up in her mind. The clock on the wall was her only orienting anchor, and her eyes were both drawn to it and repelled by it. She kept her gaze on Baumgartner, refusing to look at that damn clock again.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Her hands rose to cover her ears, but she quickly regained control and smoothed back her long, heavy hair instead.

  “Caitlin, dear . . .” Baumgartner’s voice was tighter and higher than usual. As his hand cruised up and down the length of his silk tie, light reflected off his fingernails, which had been buffed and coated in clear polish. His distress had apparently not affected his commitment to personal grooming. All of the Baumgartners liked to put on a good appearance, and Harvey was no exception. “I want you to understand I did all I could.”

  I know. She wanted to answer, to offer him the comfort he seemed to be seeking, but the words stuck in her throat. She didn’t know. Not really. Oh, sure, he’d tried hard to get her father acquitted, but who knew if a more experienced attorney could’ve succeeded where he’d failed. Maybe a different lawyer could’ve gotten her father’s coerced confession thrown out of court.

  But Baumgartner and his firm weren’t the only ones who’d failed her father. Maybe she could’ve done more. Both she and her mother had stood by her father, believed in him and loved him, but they’d left the matter of his defense to his legal team. A mistake she’d regret for the rest of her days. She should’ve done something. She should’ve made them see the truth—­that her father didn’t do it. He simply couldn’t have.

  “There’s not going to be a reprieve, Caitlin, you know that, right?” Baumgartner’s hand stopped cruising his tie and went to his sleek, coffee-­colored hair.

  The last-­chance hearing had already been held, and clemency had been denied. Baumgartner had explained it to her twice already, but apparently he feared she was still praying for a last-­minute miracle.

  And he was right.

  She nodded. Then her fists clenched, and pain cut through her, so sharp and real it seemed as though the shards of hope she clasped had suddenly been crushed into bits of broken glass.

  There’s not going to be a reprieve.

  The days of holding executions in the dead of night to allow for last-­minute maneuvering by the defense were gone. Arizona was one of a handful of states that had decided it wasn’t practical for executions to be held at midnight. No phone was going to ring. No messenger was going to come crashing through the doors mere seconds before the clock struck the hour. That kind of thing only happened in the movies, and this wasn’t a movie. This was real life.

  Real death.

  She should’ve done something to save her father, and now it was too late. Her hands twisted together in her lap. She’d never felt this helpless in her life. All she could do for her father now was to be present here today. Her mother, however, had chosen not to attend the execution. She’d begged Caitlin to stay home, too. A child shouldn’t have to watch her parent die, she’d said.

  But if death had come to her father while he lay in a hospital bed, wouldn’t they both have been by his side?

  Now Baumgartner leaned in close enough for his tobacco-­stained breath to settle humidly on her cheek.
“It’s not too late for you to leave, dear. I’ll take you home right now if you like.”

  Again, words failed her. Her throat clogged, and the desperate sob she refused to let out quaked down her body, rattling her knees and legs. Sucking in deep breaths, she jerked a glance around the room. It was a small space numbed by flat vanilla walls, rows of tan chairs, and gray floor tiles. It was a room purposely stripped of any sign of humanity, deliberately designed to quell emotion.

  More ­people straggled in, claiming seats in the back row. One of the men was tall, with highlighted hair and eyes so blue she thought they must’ve been enhanced by tinted contacts. She recognized him as a local news anchor, but the others . . . she didn’t know.

  “The state requires a certain number of witnesses, and these were drawn from a pool of volunteers,” Baumgartner whispered, seeming to read her mind.

  Volunteers!

  “Don’t look at me like that, honey. The witnesses are here to make sure proper care is taken and that . . . this matter . . . is handled as humanely as possible.”

  Her mind tried to process that information. ­People who were in no way connected to the case had volunteered to come here today and watch her father be put to death. As yet another wave of nausea rolled through her, she heard the thunder of footsteps in the hallway and the sound of a door scraping open nearby. Its earlier vagueness obliterated, her heartbeat took up the ferocious rhythm of a fighter ready for battle. If her opponent were a man, she would punch him in the face—­but her enemy was no mere mortal.

  Injustice could not be defeated with a fist.

  Through the mirror, she watched two men dressed in white medical garb enter the death chamber. Then, escorted by several prison guards, her father was led inside, his steps slowed by the short chain between his ankles. A thick belt cinched the waist of his baggy prison uniform, and his cuffed hands attached to it. But his chin was high, and his gaze active, as if he were looking to take in every last sight, no matter how ordinary—­or maybe he was just showing her he would not be cowed. His face had thinned, and his hair had changed color—­it was gray now, not blond, but he was still her father. Prison had not changed his essence. Thanks to the intercom, she heard his chains clanking, and like a clapped bell, her bones began to ring with fear. She wasn’t as brave as he. Then a voice in her head shouted:

  Do something!

  She shot to her feet and took a step toward the window. Just as quickly, a guard who’d been leaning against the wall moved toward her, and Baumgartner threw a restraining arm across her quivering chest. Though she knew her father couldn’t see her, she lifted her chin, not bothering to wipe away the tears that streamed down her cheeks. Her father’s chin rose, too, and somehow, despite the one-­way glass, their eyes met . . . and held.

  The quivering in her body subsided.

  Her father’s low, soothing voice replaced the screaming in her head.

  Hold on tight, Caity.

  Trust me.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Monday, August 26

  Superior Court Building

  Phoenix, Arizona

  HARVEY BAUMGARTNER HAD certainly changed in the fifteen years since Caitlin had last seen him, but sitting across the conference-­room table from him again in this courthouse made her feel as though she hadn’t changed at all. She was just as nauseous now as she’d been the day her father’s attorney had taken her aside and coached her on how to behave in the courtroom. If a tear falls, make sure to wipe it slowly so the jury notices. Dress more like a little girl and less like a teenager . . . and try not to look bored.

  As if she could’ve been bored by her father’s murder trial. Baumgartner had given her her first introduction to courtroom spin, and she’d done everything exactly as he’d instructed her to—­but in the end, none of it had mattered. She hadn’t been able to save her father, and neither had Baumgartner. The forlorn daughter had been disregarded. She’d sat in a courtroom just a few rooms down from this one, wearing a ponytail tied with a yellow ribbon, a simple, homemade shift and polished, patent leather shoes . . . and her father had been sentenced to death anyway. She’d actually believed if she wore the right clothes, if her expression held just the right blend of dejection and hope, her father would be spared.

  Baumgartner had convinced her appearances would do even more to persuade a jury than facts. The thought was more than enough to raise the temperature of her blood and banish the ghost of her teenage self—­a ghost that appeared to have been hovering inside the Superior Court Building just waiting for her return. But that version of herself, the naïve young girl, had died along with her father.

  She willed her mind to focus on the present, and the churning in her stomach disappeared. Pushing her shoulders back, she sat up taller in the chair and made her heart stiffen along with her spine. Maybe she hadn’t been able to control the outcome of her father’s trial or his sentencing, but one thing she had learned to control was her own emotional response—­to the sense of helplessness this place brought back, to Harvey Baumgartner, to anything she put her mind to. The old Caitlin Cassidy had been a weak wreck of a girl. The new Caitlin Cassidy did not rattle. Hauling in a steadying breath, she studied the alterations in Harvey Baumgartner’s appearance.

  His once-­luxuriant brown waves were now heavily threaded with gray and had grown brittle, but the substantial expanse of forehead revealed by his receding hairline only lent him a more distinguished air. Less flattering was a new, ruddy complexion that telegraphed too much scotch. Still, he’d been the only man who’d stood up for her father, and his personal habits were none of her business anyway.

  She quirked her lips into a professional, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Baumgartner, but I’m afraid I won’t be of any use to your client. I don’t advise you calling me as an expert witness in the Kramer case.”

  The attorney had been doodling circles on his notes, but as soon as she’d started to speak, he’d stopped and waved his hand in protest. “No. No. No. Caitlin, you and I go too far back to stand on formalities. Please, call me Harvey.”

  Until a few weeks ago, she hadn’t seen or heard from Harvey Baumgartner since her eighteenth birthday, and though they’d spoken by phone several times since she’d agreed to act as a case consultant for his client, Judd Kramer, this was their first face-­to-­face meeting. She figured formality was her friend in this situation. It was hardly easy to disappoint the man who’d taken on her father’s case pro bono. But no matter how Harvey wanted to spin it, she wasn’t here to do him a personal favor—­nor did she owe him one. Her father had been put to death, and Baumgartner had no marker to call in. Her only purpose here was to act as a forensic psychiatrist, a consultant who’d provide a professional opinion—­and her opinion regarding this defendant would be anything but useful to his attorney.

  “Caitlin, dear, you must reconsider.”

  Considering Harvey Baumgartner had first met her when she was thirteen years old, she hardly expected him to address her as doctor, but the dear felt manipulative—­as if he wanted her to feel like that young girl still under his influence, still looking to him to guide her. She dusted her hands together, then gathered up her notes and squared her gaze with his. “My decision is final. I don’t presume to know all the facts of the case”—­though she did know a good many of them—­“and I don’t presume to know whether or not Mr. Kramer is guilty or innocent.”

  Baumgartner’s wiry eyebrows rose high in an unsubtle challenge. “I would hope you know better than that, dear.”

  Again with the dear. She didn’t need him to remind her that innocent men and women were railroaded into prison and worse every day. In addition to what’d happened to her own father, she’d worked several cases in conjunction with the Innocence Project and acted as a private consultant to many other defendants who’d been falsely accused. She knew what was at stake, and he kne
w she knew.

  Biting back a sarcastic reply, she kept her tone matter-­of-­fact and firm. “What I do have for you is an informed opinion.”

  “And?”

  “In my expert opinion, Judd Kramer lacks what the jury would call a conscience . . . or what Freud would call a superego. Your client feels no remorse for wrongs done—­in fact, he doesn’t believe those acts he admits to were wrong at all.”

  Baumgartner leaned forward, and even from across the table, his breath revealed the fact that he’d not given up smoking cigars. “To what wrong acts did Kramer admit?”

  Her hand went to her stomach. “He didn’t confess to murdering Sally Cartwright and taking a piece of her skull for a trophy, if that’s what you want to know.” But Kramer’s recounting of his sadistic fetishes had made her feel as though maggots were swarming over her flesh. As for his behavior toward his family—­well he wasn’t the first man to skip out on his child’s birthday party or seduce the babysitter. But the way he’d admitted, with a smile on his face, without so much as breaking eye contact, that he’d fantasized about putting his wife through a meat grinder and serving her to the children for dinner left no doubt in Caitlin’s mind. “If you call me to the stand, I’ll say Kramer has exactly the type of psyche that would permit him to commit the horrific crime of which he’s accused.”

  “The man’s never been in trouble a day in his life. He’s a police officer, for Chrissake. I know this isn’t the type of case that typically interests you. There’s no coerced confession . . . no confession at all in fact. Maybe, like others in this city, you think the department went easy on him because he’s one of their own. But this is a capital case.”