52. The Gavel Drops
Chapter 52
The Gavel Drops
Council chambers—Moments later
O nce Cerissa’s testimony finished, Tig asked Jayden to escort Kaitlyn in from the lobby. She held the door for them, then returned to her position at the end of the defense table while Kaitlyn trudged the last few steps to the witness podium on her own, her hands shaking, looking half scared out of her wits. At least twice Rolf had to ask her to speak louder as she testified. Callistus glared at her, growling low, and Tig wanted to smack the hostility off his face.
After Marcus got through the preliminaries and covered Callistus’s meeting with the thief, he asked, “Was there a recent point in time where Callistus and Gabriel left the house for a few nights?”
“Uh, yes. He locked me in my room.” Kaitlyn glanced over at Callistus, who stared back menacingly.
Tig held her breath. This was the key moment, corroboration of what they knew from the CSLI data, but with Callistus staring down the witness, she crossed her fingers that Kaitlyn stayed strong.
“Ms. Calhoun, can you tell us the dates Callistus wasn’t home?”
“Uh—”
“Ms. Calhoun, look at me. The dates?”
“A Saturday through Monday.”
“What month?”
“October. October twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-third.”
Gotcha . Tig let out a sigh of relief. Those dates meant Callistus was away from home when Petar was murdered. In addition to the direct evidence—the hair found at the crime scene—the circumstantial evidence kept piling up.
“What happened?”
“Callistus locked me in my room, and he and Gabriel left the house.”
“How do you know they left?”
“He told me he was leaving, and that Jones would watch me over the camera in my bedroom. I have—had—a small refrigerator and microwave in my room, so I had food and water, and a connecting bathroom. But he only did this when he and Gabriel had to go someplace overnight, and he refused to take me.”
“All right. I’m now submitting into evidence the series of articles the Mordida Gazette published about Sierra Escondida.” Marcus handed a folder to Liza and then to Callistus.
“Why are you offering them?” Rolf asked, his shoulders slumping lower as he leaned into the microphone.
“To lay the foundation for Ms. Calhoun’s testimony. Newspaper articles are self-authenticating, so we don’t need the reporter. We aren’t submitting them to prove the truth of the allegations made, just to show that certain facts were alleged.”
Tig watched Callistus closely. He kept glaring at Kaitlyn, and the poor woman twisted her entwined fingers nervously, but he didn’t object to the evidence.
Rolf thumbed through the folder, then passed them to the other council members. “We’ll admit these under the exception to the hearsay rule.”
Marcus showed Kaitlyn the Gazette articles. “Have you seen these before?”
The mortal opened the folder and reviewed them one at a time. “Tig showed them to me.”
“Did they seem familiar to you?”
“Yes. All of these topics—Callistus wrote FAQs on all of these topics and put them into notebooks.”
A low growl started in Callistus’s throat, and Tig leaned over to him. “Shut the fuck up,” she whispered.
“H-he, uh…” Kaitlyn started coughing.
Jayden left his station at the back of the room and handed her a water bottle from a case they kept there for witnesses, then returned to his post.
Kaitlyn took a drink, then continued. “He had me compile some notebooks assembly-line style. He didn’t give me time to read them all, but I completed fifteen sets and packaged them for shipping before he told me to go to bed. I skimmed enough to be shocked.”
“Did you discuss the documents you compiled with Mr. Tedder?”
“I—I asked him about them because I just couldn’t understand. I thought he’d hit me for asking the question— he didn’t allow me to question him—but instead he started ranting.”
Hearing the truth again, Tig wanted to strangle Callistus with her bare hands. When the Gazette first published the reports, mentioning they were based on anonymous dossiers, she’d discussed with Jayden whether Petar’s death was somehow connected. But fresh rage had filled her when she heard the betrayal confirmed two weeks ago when she interviewed Kaitlyn. No one threatened her community like that. The moment Kaitlyn revealed the truth about the dossiers, it’d taken all Tig’s self-control not to march to his cell and beat the shit out of him. Still, she’d resisted the impulse then and now.
Justice, not vengeance.
“Do you know why he gave this information to mortals?” Marcus asked.
Kaitlyn nodded. “He ranted about how the notebooks were going to make your lives miserable.”
Callistus popped out of his chair again. “Objection, hearsay. That lying cunt can’t testify to what I said—I mean, to what she alleges I said.”
Tig smiled to herself. Yeah, nice save. Not.
Marcus cleared his throat. “Mr. Mayor, comments made by the defendant while explaining his actions are an exception to the hearsay rule.”
“Callistus, your objection is overruled.”
The defendant pivoted on his heels and yelled, “You bitch. When I get out of here, I’m coming for you. You’ll beg for death by the time I’m through with you.”
Rolf banged the gavel before Callistus finished, drowning out his last utterance. “Chief Anderson, put him back in his seat. Now.”
“Yes, sir.” Tig whooshed to Callistus, her hands on his shoulders, forced him down, and loudly whispered, “Do that again, and I’ll gag you and chain you to the chair.”
Jayden strode from his station by the door to stand next to Kaitlyn. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and he handed her a tissue and whispered something to her. She exhaled a shuddery breath and blotted her eyes. He remained standing at her side.
“Ms. Calhoun,” Marcus said. The poor woman jerked toward his voice. “I’m sorry for Callistus’s outburst. Do you think you can continue?”
She nodded.
“Aloud, for the record, please.”
“Y-yes.”
“Thank you. Did Callistus explain why he disclosed the dossiers to mortals? One assumes that if he exposes us, he puts himself at risk, correct?”
“N-not according to Callistus.” She stared at the podium. “He told me mortals would never believe you’re vampires—I mean, there was testimony in front of Congress that aliens exist, and everyone just kept on living their lives. And even if a few ‘whack-job vampire hunters’—his words—believed the evidence, they’d focus on the Hill.”
“But surely one community at risk puts all communities at risk.”
“He mentioned how the collection of donor blood in Poway used a different approach than the Hill, and mortals couldn’t trace it to us. We’re a smaller community, so the lack of children isn’t as obvious. We don’t run our own government—so we don’t have the same problem you do with Dr. Clarke’s age, or something repetitive like Mayor Müller only taking meetings at night. There’s no way to track that stuff with Callistus, so he said we were safe. He dismissed the threat to us. He—he thought it’d only affect the Hill.”
Tig gritted her teeth. Idiot. While Kaitlyn showed that the delusions coloring Callistus’s view of the world drove his otherwise inexplicable behavior, those delusions wouldn’t keep him safe when vampire hunters started digging deeper. All it took was one vampire in Poway on a biting spree—something common enough to happen—to put Callistus and his community in the crosshairs.
“And why did he want the Hill exposed? Did he say?” Marcus asked.
“To send all the ‘crazies’ your way to distract you. Something to do with your community harboring Anna.”
May the ancestors damn his soul.
Tig’s fingers curled into tight fists. Hearing this again was truly testing her patience. So far, Callistus’s plan hadn’t worked. The guard gate had kept the vampire hunters at bay, and Tig had let the council deal with the newspaper problem.
“All right,” Marcus said. “We’re almost done. Did Callistus prepare a blood sample to go with the notebooks?”
“Blood sample?”
“Someone provided a vial of vampire blood to mortal authorities for investigation.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes widened into two gigantic craters. “Wow. No, I didn’t see one.”
Tig uncurled her fingers and clenched them again. Callistus really had no idea what he’d handed mortals. At least Ari had rectified the situation somewhat.
“Thank you, Ms. Calhoun. Your witness,” Marcus said, and took his seat at the prosecutor’s table.
Callistus glowered in Tig’s direction.
“Go ahead,” Tig said. “But no intimidation.”
A saccharine smile curved his lips, and Callistus swung around to face Kaitlyn. “Now, my dear, how long have I been searching for Anna?”
Kaitlyn mumbled her response.
“Speak up, my dear. How long?”
“S-since she disappeared.”
“And during all that time, how many letters did I send to the treaty council, asking for Anna’s whereabouts?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come now, you copied each one and filed it for me. You must have a guess?”
“A hundred?”
“And did I ever receive a reply?”
“Eventually.”
“After I sent a hundred letters, correct?”
“I guess.”
“Think, my dear. You sorted and opened the mail when it came during the daytime, didn’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And you never saw a response from the treaty council until I made my hundredth inquiry?”
“I believe that’s true.”
“What did the reply say?”
“That-that Anna was in witness protection.”
“And the silver stake I received—didn’t that package get delivered a few days after the letter from the treaty council arrived?”
Tig’s shoulders tensed. What the hell did the delivery’s timing have to do with his defense?
Kaitlyn rubbed her forehead, her eyes closed. “I think so.”
“Would it help you remember if you recalled what I said when you showed me the silver stake in the box?”
“You yelled at me.”
Callistus clenched his fists. “What did I yell at you?”
Kaitlyn slid her gaze from Callistus to Tig, and back to Callistus. “You said something like, ‘That fucking Hill police chief thinks she can intimidate me? Now that I know where Anna lives, that snooty bitch won’t stop me.’”
“Very good, my dear. That’s all I have.” Then he returned to his seat.
That was all Callistus had? Tig frowned, unsure what game he was playing. Why did he think she’d sent the stake? Tig nodded to Jayden, who escorted Kaitlyn from the council chambers.
When Marcus rested his case, Callistus skipped his opening statement—the second chance he had to make it—and instead called Anna to the stand.
“Mayor, I must object.” Marcus rose to his feet. “Anna has been on the Hill the entire time and is not a witness to Petar’s murder or any of the facts at issue in this case.”
The way Rolf rubbed his eyes worried Tig. His stress level must be through the roof, and he appeared hard-pressed to think straight.
“I’ll allow the question,” he finally said.
Marcus held up his hand. “But—”
Rolf shook his head. “Callistus may present whatever evidence in his defense he wants to present.” His gaze pivoted to Callistus, and he pointed the gavel at him. “But stick to the facts. If you bully her like you did with Kaitlyn, if I feel you’re doing this to harass your child, I’ll put an end to your questions, fast.”
Callistus glared at Rolf, but nodded. Tig couldn’t figure out what the defendant was thinking. He hadn’t used cross-examination to refute any of the evidence—and when he questioned Kaitlyn, his focus on correspondence to the treaty council made no sense.
Since Anna wasn’t in the audience, Tig dispatched Jayden to fetch her from home. The trial recessed for fifteen minutes until she arrived.
When Anna finally stepped to the podium, Callistus stayed seated at the defense table. “Ms. Balmer, are you my child?”
“Aye.”
“And I made you before the treaty was signed?”
“Aye.”
“Were we still bonded last year?”
“For part of the year, aye.”
“In July of last year, notwithstanding our bond, did Tig Anderson help you leave me?”
Anna glanced in Tig’s direction. “She put me in witness protection for helping the Hill catch a mass murderer.”
“So the answer is yes?”
“I guess.” She shrugged. “If ye look at it that way.”
“That is the only way I can look at your disappearance. Did you contact me to tell me you were going into witness protection?”
“Nae.”
“Did you ask for my permission to leave, to sever our bond?”
“Nae.”
“Yet the Hill helped you to do so, isn’t that correct?”
“Aye.”
Callistus scowled at the council. “So you took Anna away from me—her maker—without my consent. That’s a treaty violation. I turned her before you even wrote the treaty, and you grandfathered me under the old rules. I have rights to her blood, which you have denied me.” He flicked his fingers at Tig where she stood by his table. “I could bring all of you up on charges.”
Tig scoffed. Fat chance of that. While the treaty allowed makers to stay blood-bonded to any children in existence when the treaty was signed, there were exceptions to the rule.
“You stole my property from me,” Callistus continued. “I had a right to find out what happened and take back what’s legally mine. If people had to die for me to assert my rights, so be it. But I’m not guilty because all I did was what any of you would do if intermeddlers tore asunder the bond you had with a child.”
Again, he was twisting what the treaty allowed. Tig looked to Rolf to see his response, but Anna didn’t give the mayor a chance to answer Callistus’s assertions.
“Wanker! Ye flippin’ arsehole. You thought you’d get to control me for the rest of my existence? Well, the laugh’s on you.”
Callistus swiveled to face Anna, and his expression softened. “I just wanted to take care of you, babe.”
“Ha! You git. What a laugh. I’ll take care of myself better than you ever would.”
“That’s what you think. You’ll see.” He waved his hand at the crowd. “You’ll end up at the mercy of these idiots.”
“There’s where ye’re wrong. Now that ye’re finished, I can move anywhere I want. I could move back to the Poway community. As yer heir, with our combined vineyards, I’ll be the largest holder there. Maybe I can turn Poway into a place like the Hill.”
Anna turned her back on him and took a seat in the audience.
Rolf huffed out a breath. “Mr. Collings, please have Chief Anderson answer these assertions.”
Marcus nodded, calling Tig back to the stand. “Please explain the steps you went through to put Anna under witness protection.”
“As the council may recall, there are exceptions which allow us to use police power to separate a maker from his child. Witness protection is one of them, with the concurrence of three community leaders. We submitted the Hill’s request to the San Francisco, San Diego, and New York communities, and they approved her status. So Callistus had no right to reclaim her.”
Marcus nodded. “But Anna didn’t tell him she was in witness protection?”
“Correct. Anna was afraid of Callistus. He has a history of abusing both his child and his mate. So I helped her disengage.”
“And did you notify Callistus that Anna was in witness protection?”
“I believed telling him might compromise her safety. But the treaty council disagreed, and copied me on its letter last month, notifying Callistus that Anna was in witness protection.”
“But what of his defense that he killed Petar to find his child, to claim his rights under the treaty?”
Tig narrowed her eyes. “There is nothing in the treaty that allows him to torture and kill to assert any such right. Had he declared open war against the Hill, maybe. But he didn’t.”
“What about his attempt to expose us to mortals?”
“The treaty strictly prohibits that, and there are no exceptions.”
“And did you send the silver stake to Callistus?”
“No. I have spoken to his maker, Inanna, and she is the one who sent the stakes as thank-you gifts to those who helped contain Jonathan’s madness, or as honorariums to her children.”
“Why isn’t she here to testify to that?”
“We notified her that her child faced charges and she declined to attend. At the time, we didn’t know Callistus would accuse the Hill of sending the stake. If it makes a difference to the tribunal, we could get her on videoconference.”
Marcus turned to Rolf, who shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Thank you,” Marcus said. “No further witnesses.”
Rolf tapped the gavel when voices rumbled through the crowd. “Mr. Tedder, do you have any rebuttal witnesses?”
“Why bother?” Callistus spat on the floor again. “You made up your minds before I walked in here.”
“Then we are in recess while the council adjourns to decide the matter.”
Tig returned to her station at the end of the defense table. The council took all of ten minutes. When they returned to their seats on the dais, Rolf focused on Callistus. “We unanimously find the defendant guilty on all counts. He’s remanded into custody until execution. We’ll recess for fifteen minutes, and then the council will resume our regularly scheduled agenda.”
Rolf handed the gavel to Liza, rose to his feet, and left the dais. Tig signaled to Zeke to watch Callistus, and she matched steps with Rolf, who was heading out the back exit behind the council.
“Rolf.”
“I’m leaving. Liza will chair the rest of the meeting. Talk with her about whatever it is.”
“I wanted to speak to you.” She gripped his shoulder. “How is Karen doing?”
“Not good.” He shrugged off her hand, but paused. “I’m afraid to go to sleep in the morning, because each time I wake, she looks worse.”
“I’m sorry. Truly.” Should she ask the question? She didn’t want to stir things, but if there was any way she could help, she’d try. “She still won’t let anyone turn her? I’d be willing—”
“No.” A sharp flash of pain crossed Rolf’s face before it became impassive once more. “And I’ve stopped asking.”