Author's Note: I'm starting to think that the cause of my writer's block was that I wasn't moving through time very quickly. So, I've decided to start this chapter a month after the last one left off. This chapter begins with Maxwell Robinson's trial.
Now for a quick recap. Maxwell Robinson was the junior partner at the law firm Bretz and Coven, and was the mastermind behind the financial scam there. Working for him were Brian Watson, Jason Caldwell, and Angela Crawford, who were all killed by an assassin known as the Shadow Fox. Alexandra "Alex" Stevens works for Hardy and Drew Investigations, and was investigating the scam under the alias Jessica Gardner. She was the daughter of Scott Murray, one of Rathborne's victims. She was attacked by the Shadow Fox, but survived. Now for the Castle characters: Beckett and Castle are together, Alexis is at Stanford, Martha has moved into her own place, Ryan and Jenny are married, and Esposito and Lanie are engaged. Everything clear? Good! Let's get to the next chapter.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Castle, or the characters. Just borrowing them for a while.
Chapter 11
Beckett and Castle entered the courthouse half an hour before the trial was scheduled to begin. They checked their coats before proceeding to a third floor courtroom, where Maxwell Robinson's trial was scheduled to begin.
Castle was confused. "I'm still trying to figure it out. If Robinson confessed, why is he going on trial? Do all confessions end up with a trial and I only know about the ones where you are called on to testify?"
Beckett rolled her eyes. I have to explain this again? "Castle, his lawyer convinced him that with the special circumstances removed, he can try to get a shorter sentence by going to trial. The thing is, because Robinson decided to go to trial, the D.A. put the special circumstances back on. If he gets convicted, he'll get the needle."
Castle looked incredulous. "If?"
"Okay, when. We gathered enough evidence to convict him. That must be the prosecuting attorney." Beckett had just caught sight of a woman in a tailored power suit with her hair pulled up standing outside the courtroom. "Councelor."
The woman turned around and smiled. "If I ever decide to change careers, I may just become one."
Castle glanced at her appreciatively. "Wow. You clean up nice."
Beckett embraced her, stunned. "Alex, I didn't expect to see you here."
Alex shrugged. "Well, with Angela, Brian, and Jason dead, I'm the only other person that has enough dirt on Robinson to get him convicted. So, here I am. I'm just waiting for him to be brought in."
Just then, Robinson, his lawyer, and a couple prison guards rounded the corner. Robinson had been allowed to wear a suit instead his prison jumper for the trial. He caught sight of Alex and glared at her with a look that clearly displayed how much he hated her. Alex calmly watched as he entered the courtroom, then sighed.
Alex turned to look at Beckett. "I hear that because he is going to trial, the D.A. reinstated the death penalty as a possible sentence." Beckett nodded. "Is he aware of that?"
Beckett shrugged. "Well, I'm sure the D.A. will approach them with a deal at the first recess. Until then, we do our duty."
Opening arguments had taken most of the morning. Alex was hoping for a break when she was called to the stand. The bailiff swore her in and she took her seat. Strappfield, Robinson's lawyer, was the first to cross examine her.
He approached the witness stand with confidence. "Is your name Jessica Gardner?"
Alex returned his confidence with calm assurance. "No."
Strappfield wanted to undercut Alex's credibility as a witness. "Did you gain employment at Bretz and Coven, LLP under the name Jessica Gardner?"
"No." Alex's answer drew a couple murmurs from the jury and gallery.
Strappfield turned to look at the jury. "Are you sure? Because that's the name my client knows you as, and it is the name on the account that your paycheck was sent to. From where I'm standing, that is the name under which you gained employment at Bretz and Coven."
Alex wasn't about to be provoked. "My name is Alexandra Stevens and I work for Hardy and Drew Investigations. Mr. Clarence Fishbourne, the senior partner for the firm, hired my company to investigate the possible existence of a fraud ring within his firm. I was assigned to be the investigator; Jessica Gardner was a false identity that was created to protect my true identity. I was hired by Mr. Fishbourne under my real name, and was then assigned a false one."
Strappfield turned back to Alex. "And why would you need a false identity?"
Alex smiled slightly. "When I was working in Chicago, I used my own name. An employee at a company I was investigating realized what I was doing and attacked me. I have used false identities ever since as a precaution."
Now it was time to dispute the evidence from Alex's investigation. "During your investigation, was my client ever a suspect?"
Alex nodded. "Yes, I had my suspicions, but I wasn't able to find sufficient proof."
Strappfield returned his gaze to the jury. "So you have no proof that says my client was involved?"
Alex tilted her head slightly. "I said I never found any, not that there wasn't any."
Strappfield glanced back at Alex. "And what's the difference?"
Alex began to lay out the evidence. "Angela Crawford recorded conversations that she and Mr. Robinson had concerning the scam. She gave them to me, and I gave them to the police. She also collected documentsā¦"
Strappfield interrupted. "You are not answering my question."
Alex sighed and launched into her explanation. "The difference is that I was not the one who collected the evidence that proves Maxwell Robinson was involved with the scam. Angela Crawford and the police gathered that evidence. I had gathered enough evidence to prove that Brian Watson, Jason Caldwell, and a dozen others were involved. I had also gathered enough evidence to prove that the scam went higher than those I had identified. If I had more time, I would have gathered sufficient proof."
Strappfield realized that Alex knew more than he previously thought and began to grasp at straws. "But isn't it true that you were also involved in the scam?"
Alex shook her head. "No, it is not."
"So you never accepted bribe money from my client or his alleged associates?" Strappfield emphasized the word alleged to distance Robinson from the scam.
Alex responded coldly. "I don't accept bribes. It would be a breach of policy, and I don't play dirty."
Strappfield suddenly changed tactics. "You were dating Brian Watson for a while, is that correct?"
Alex was confused. "Yes."
Strappfield pounced. "So why should we believe that you were not involved with the scam?"
Alex returned to a calm demeanor. "At Bretz and Coven, I was an Accounts Supervisor. I was receiving documents from some accountants that appeared to be altered. Brian was one of those accountants. I started dating him to gain access to the original copies of the documents he was giving me."
Strappfield tried to catch her off guard again. "Were you sleeping with him?"
Alex was confused again. "I don't see how that is pertinent to this trial."
Strappfield held up one hand. "Just answer the question."
Alex's response was almost defiant. "No. I was not sleeping with him."
Strappfield shrugged and held up his hands. "Why not?"
The District Attorney stood up. "Objection. Relevance?"
Judge Markaway nodded toward the D.A. "Sustained."
Strappfield sat down. "She's all yours."
The District Attorney stood up and approached the witness stand. "Hello Alex. It's good to see you again."
Alex smiled. "Nice to see you again, Counselor."
Cyrus Vance, the D.A., started to slowly pace in front of the jury stand. "I'd like to start with two of the reasons Mr. Robinson is on trial; First degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Alex, if you would, I would like you to show the members of this jury the injures you sustained when an assassin known as the Shadow Fox attacked you."
Alex shrugged out of her tailored blazer and unbuttoned the sleeves of her Oxford blouse before rolling up her sleeves and displaying the scars left behind from the defensive wounds she had sustained a month earlier. A camera that was displaying her image onto a large screen helped to show the jury and audience what would have been too difficult to see otherwise. There were several gasps from the jury and the gallery and several members of the jury looked appalled. Alex quickly unrolled her sleeves and pulled her blazer back on and the Judge banged his gavel for order. Her calm demeanor never wavered, but Beckett noticed that the fear and pain wasn't gone from her eyes yet.
Vance nodded his thanks while she put her jacket back on. "Thank you, Alex. Now, I noticed a long scar that runs from your wrist to your elbow on your right arm. Was that sustained during your assault?"
Alex shook her head. "No, that was from the incident in Chicago."
Vance stopped pacing for a moment. "Let's turn to the financial scam itself. How was that run?"
Alex sat up straighter. She was in her element now. "Well, it is a variation of what the FBI call White Collar Corporate Fraud. A client comes to the offices to talk about a claim. They are given a price to pay to receive our companies help. The account they pay the money to looks like it is for the company, but is just a dummy account set up to skim a certain amount of money from the client before their payment is deposited into the real company account. The paperwork that the client signed is then doctored to hide the amount skimmed off the top and the scammers get away with a nice percentage."
Vance turned toward Alex. "How did Mr. Fishbourne become aware of the scam?"
Alex started to gesture with her hands as she talked. "He was getting complaints from clients. Let's say Client A would come in and pay $400 for a notarization on a will. They would then tell their friends about the great service they got from Bretz and Coven. The friend, Client B, would come in to get their will notarized, but they would be charged $500. Later Client A would ask Client B if they liked the service. Client B would tell Client A that it was a little higher than they were expecting to pay; Client A would ask what they were charged. That conversation would reveal that Client B was charged an extra hundred dollars for a notarization. So they would call and complain. Mr. Fishbourne would have the records pulled, but it would show that Client B was charged the same amount that Client A was charged."
Vance turned toward the jury and then back to Alex. "Which would make people very unhappy. How did you catch it?"
"As I said earlier, in my position, I received documents from various accountants. From my previous experience with similar cases, these documents, which were just copies of the originals, looked doctored. I needed to see the original copies to make sure."
Vance nodded and faced the jury again. "Which is when you started a relationship with one of the employees you suspected was in on the scam. What happened to the original documents?"
Alex shrugged. "Usually they were destroyed. I did make several photocopies of various original documents as proof of the scam though."
Vance turned back to Alex. "And what happened with that evidence?"
Alex glanced at Beckett. "I turned it all over to the police."
"Thank you Alex. No further questions, your Honor." Alex left the witness stand. Vance turned toward Judge Markaway. "Now, I don't know about you, but I'm a little hungry. Otherwise, I'd love to move on to our next witness."
Markaway grinned. "I agree, Counselor. Court is in recess until 2:30." He banged his gavel and everyone stood up.
Counselor Vance moved across the aisle and spoke to Strappfield. "Strappfield, you are going to lose. Why is your client risking is life on a trial where he can't possibly hope to come out on top?"
Robinson stood up. "What do you mean 'risking my life'? Strappfield, what is he talking about? I thought the death penalty had been taken off the table?"
The D.A. turned to Robinson. "That was as long as you took the plea and went to jail. But you decided to fight the charges, which means you are eligible for the needle, my friend. Now, I am willing to offer you a deal. Take the life without parole and let's end this suit now. Otherwise, I wish you luck. Think about it. You have until 2:15."
A/N: Wow, this chapter was hard to write. It started off okay, but then the prosecution got involved (Vance was really the current D.A. for Manhattan when I wrote this, by the way) and it was harder to write. I was trying to find the name for the scam, but apparently there isn't a name like a Ponzi or Pyramid Scheme. The FBI's website refers to it as White Collar Corporate Fraud, so I guess that is what it's called. Not as catchy as Ponzi schemeā¦
I promise that we will be done with Robinson in the next chapter. Then we get to move on with other stuff. Any suggestions? If not, I'll figure something out, but I would love to hear what you guys want to see. We'll see more from the Shadow Fox too...
