Fatal Flaw Part 33

"Let me guess, Troy. You weren't the quiet type on the basketball court."

"I did my share of verbalizing," he said with his grin before he turned for the exit, followed by the two ADAs who were a.s.sisting him. Beth and I watched as the coterie departed.

I scanned the doc.u.ment he had given me: MOTION TO COMPEL THE DISCLOSURE OF CERTAIN TELEPHONE LOGS MOTION TO COMPEL THE DISCLOSURE OF CERTAIN TELEPHONE LOGS. "You'll have to answer this tonight," I said as I handed it off to Beth.

Beth s.n.a.t.c.hed the motion with her good hand and quickly reviewed it. Her wrist had healed badly. The bones had needed to berebroken, manipulated into proper alignment, and fastened together with metal pins inserted by a huge pneumatic device to keep them in place. For her it had been a summer of pain, but it looked as though the doctors had finally gotten it right and this would be the last of her casts. She continued reading the motion as she said, "He's right, you know."

"Who, Troy? Nah, he's just talking trash."

"No he's not. He seemed almost gleeful."

"Really? I thought he seemed a bit rattled."

"Not rattled, relieved. If you had been less specific, you would have kept your options open to the end. Any big surprises could have been accounted for. Now, if the other lover walks in, we're sunk. What if he shows up and matches the DNA and then gives himself a perfect alibi? What then?"

"He won't."

"Why not?"

"He has a reason to hide. Maybe he's married, maybe he's engaged to someone else, maybe his gay lover is a jealous fiend. Whatever, he hasn't come forward yet and won't in the future."

"But he might if he thinks the real killer is getting off because of his silence. He might suffer the embarra.s.sment to stop a travesty of justice."

"He's not that n.o.ble."

"How can you be sure?"

"Trust me."

"I don't know, Victor," said Beth, staring now at the door out of which Troy Jefferson had just departed. "It's almost as if Jefferson already knew who the other lover was and was preparing to whisk him in as soon as you blundered into his trap."

"Wouldn't he have had to disclose that to us already?" I said, my voice betraying my sudden nervousness.

"Not if it was merely a suspicion that he can now send his detectives out to turn into a fact."

I wondered on that for a moment and then shook my head. "I had to do it. To win this thing I need the jury to see the missing lover behind every question, every possibility. If I just tried to offer him at the end, it would have looked like flummery. Now he's sitting right here at the defense table, ready to shoulder the blame when the evidence is equivocal. He's what the jury will see when that police technician testifies that she couldn't detect gunpowder residue on Guy's hands at the crime scene. She'll try to dismiss the result by claiming that the gunpowder washed off in the rain, but the jury will be wondering if maybe the police tested the wrong man. And when the DNA pattern of the s.e.m.e.n gets put up on the chart, without my saying a word, they'll be wondering if they're looking at the DNA of a killer. By the time I get to closing, they'll have argued the case for themselves and found reasonable doubt."

Beth just stared at me, a faint amus.e.m.e.nt at my a.s.surance in her eyes. "It sounds so easy."

"Genius always does. But in the end all our supposes don't matter." I rapped her cast gently with my knuckle, the sound sharp and hollow. "h.e.l.lo. Anybody there? This is what our client wants us to argue, he has told us so repeatedly, so this is the way we go."

"I'm not used to seeing you so deferential to the client."

"He's a lawyer, and it's his life on the line."

"Let's just hope it doesn't blow up in his face," she said. "Have you decided if Guy is going to testify?"

"He wants to, but I won't let him. He'd have to say he knew about the other man and that he hit her on the night of her murder. Those two facts would kill us."

"But what about the open door, the sudden sound? How are you going to prove up the possibility that someone else could have slipped into that house the night of the murder?"

"That's why, dear Beth, they invented cross-examination."

39.

CROSS-EXAMINATION IS a witch's brew. It most famously can be a truth serum for the untruthful, though that wasn't a problem yet in our trial. There were no liars here, no falsified testimonies being used to frame up our defendant. The case against Guy Forrest was powerfully circ.u.mstantial, and the circ.u.mstances, as presented by Troy Jefferson, were basically true. It was only the natural inferences flowing from those circ.u.mstances that we had quarrel with. But that just required a different recipe of cross, an al-chemist's potion to turn the inconceivable conceivable, the unthinkable thinkable, the improbable into a stone-cold absolute possibility, to raise phantoms and conjure them into flesh and blood. a witch's brew. It most famously can be a truth serum for the untruthful, though that wasn't a problem yet in our trial. There were no liars here, no falsified testimonies being used to frame up our defendant. The case against Guy Forrest was powerfully circ.u.mstantial, and the circ.u.mstances, as presented by Troy Jefferson, were basically true. It was only the natural inferences flowing from those circ.u.mstances that we had quarrel with. But that just required a different recipe of cross, an al-chemist's potion to turn the inconceivable conceivable, the unthinkable thinkable, the improbable into a stone-cold absolute possibility, to raise phantoms and conjure them into flesh and blood.

"NOW, MRS. Morgan," I said, "you stated in your direct testimony that you saw Mr. Forrest sitting outside his house about eleven o'clock on the night of the killing, is that right?" Morgan," I said, "you stated in your direct testimony that you saw Mr. Forrest sitting outside his house about eleven o'clock on the night of the killing, is that right?"

"That's right," said Evelyn Morgan, a well-dressed matron with hair sh.e.l.lacked in place. She was a neighbor of Hailey's, across the street and a few numbers down.

"And Mr. Forrest wasn't wearing much, isn't that right?"

"Not from what I could see, though there were shadows, so I couldn't tell to the last inch."

"Good thing for the shadows, right, Mrs. Morgan? Were the upstairs lights on then, do you remember?"

"Yes, they were on. Or at least I think they were on. I noticed that because earlier I seemed to remember that the upstairs window was dark."

"And that window is to the master bedroom?"

"I was never invited inside, but I think so."

"Good enough. And then later, after you first spied Mr. Forrest, you saw a man in a raincoat go up the steps, talk with Mr. Forrest, take something off the cement step, and then go inside. And you said that man was me?"

"As best I could tell," she said.

"You've got good eyes, Mrs. Morgan," I said. "I notice you wear gla.s.ses. Were you wearing them that night?"

"Yes I was. I wear them until I go to sleep every night. And I don't sleep as much as I used to."

"Fine. Now, when you saw me go up those steps, was I holding an umbrella?"

"Not that I remember."

"A bag of some sort, any object I could have laid down beside the doorway when I went inside?"

"No, sir."

"And I wasn't inside long, was I, before I came out again?"

"Not that I remember."

"And the police came soon after."

"Yes, they did."

"It must have been quite a sight."

"Well, it is normally a very quiet neighborhood."

"You're married, aren't you, Mrs. Morgan?"

"Yes I am, for thirty-three years now."

"Thirty-three years. My, oh, my. And you have how many children?"

"Four, and two grandchildren, with two more on the way."

"That is something, yes. And with all that, and of course the volunteer work you testified about, you don't have much free time, do you?"

"I'm kept busy."

"I bet you are, Mrs. Morgan. I can see that you're not one of those sad, pathetic ladies who spend all their days sticking their noses out the window spying on their neighbors."

"I should say not."

"You've got too much going on in your own life to be like that."

"Yes I do, Mr. Carl."

"Which is why you say you saw Mr. Forrest sitting on the steps but you didn't see him actually leave the house, because you were busy living your life, not twitching curtains to see what the neighbors were up to."

"Yes, that's right."

"So if somebody had walked right up those steps and into the house, somebody, let's say, with an umbrella or a bag, you wouldn't have noticed, would you?"

"Maybe not, I don't know."

"In fact, a whole army could have gone in and out and you wouldn't have seen it, because you were living your life, not sitting by the window like a spy."

"I suppose."

"Thank you, Mrs. Morgan. That is all."

NOW, IT wasn't a sham defense I was presenting with my witch's brew, no, not at all. I'm never above presenting a sham defense, of course, poking holes in an airtight case just to create some doubt where none should exist is a defense attorney's job, but this wasn't that. Hailey had been murdered and if Guy was innocent, as I now believed, then some other person had come into that house, climbed those stairs, shot her dead. The man I was blaming hadn't done it, I knew that with perfect knowledge, since I was broadening the boundaries for the defense bar and, in effect, blaming myself, leaving my name out for propriety's sake. But someone had indeed killed her, someone, surely, and my job, as I perceived it, was to take the simple testimony that Jefferson presented and create a hole big enough for that murderer to walk through and do his dark deed. wasn't a sham defense I was presenting with my witch's brew, no, not at all. I'm never above presenting a sham defense, of course, poking holes in an airtight case just to create some doubt where none should exist is a defense attorney's job, but this wasn't that. Hailey had been murdered and if Guy was innocent, as I now believed, then some other person had come into that house, climbed those stairs, shot her dead. The man I was blaming hadn't done it, I knew that with perfect knowledge, since I was broadening the boundaries for the defense bar and, in effect, blaming myself, leaving my name out for propriety's sake. But someone had indeed killed her, someone, surely, and my job, as I perceived it, was to take the simple testimony that Jefferson presented and create a hole big enough for that murderer to walk through and do his dark deed.

"NOW, OFFICER Pepper, in your report you say when you made a quick examination of the house after finding the corpse, you noticed a small patch of carpet by the side of the door that was wet." Pepper, in your report you say when you made a quick examination of the house after finding the corpse, you noticed a small patch of carpet by the side of the door that was wet."

"That is correct."

"And it was about a foot square, isn't that right?"

"Approximately. I didn't take out the tape measure."

"Was the roof at that part of the house leaking?"

"Not that I noticed."

"The wall?"

"No."

"So this spot of carpet, it had been wetted by an umbrella, maybe, or a coat thrown to the ground, or a pair of boots."

"Yes, I suppose."

"Did you check it for fibers or debris?"

"It was checked, but I didn't do it. From what I understand, nothing unusual was found, other than some small stones which could have been there previously."

"Now, in that corner there was no umbrella stand or coatrack, was there?"

"No, sir."

"So this wasn't the place where Miss Prouix or Mr. Forrest usually dropped their wet things."

"Objection," said Troy Jefferson.

"Sustained," said Judge Tifaro.

"You're sustaining the objection just like that, Judge? No argument, no explanation given?"

"That's right"

"I'm just trying to show it was highly unlikely that either Miss Prouix or Mr. Forrest would have left anything there, that's all."

"Not with this witness. Objection sustained, move on."

"Wow, okay. I'll try. Now, Officer Pepper, isn't it possible, based on the size and location of that spot, that someone, anyone, came into that house that night and dropped something wet there, like a bag, or an umbrella, or their boots, on their way up the stairs?"