interest.' It was like watching a ventriloquist at work, with an overstuffed dummy.
'I'm going to reserve judgment on that,' said Justice Hinkley. 'Step back and call your next witness.'
'The defense calls Amanda Drake,' Jaywalker announced.
All heads turned to watch Amanda enter. All but Jaywalker's, that is. His eyes were on the jury box. What he saw were nods and a bit of nudging with elbows. Just as he'd planned, the jurors had been seeing Amanda for a week and a half now, passing her in the corridor and wondering just who the tall, pretty blonde was. A few of them, the elbow-nudgers, had evidently figured it out, and were now eager to trot out their I-told-you-so's. Jaywalker had more than a passing interest in identifying them. When deliberations began, those same jurors would take over, talking about things they'd spotted in the evidence, stuff they'd figured out from the testimony. They'd be the leaders, the ones Jaywalker would have to focus on and win over.
He began gently with Amanda, getting her to talk about her career as an interior designer, her marriage to Carter Drake twenty years ago, their teenage son, and her separation from her husband about a year ago. Despite having spent a lot of time with her-a fact that Abe Firestone had already signaled he hoped to explore in detail- Jaywalker had for once underprepared a witness. Part of that had been his indecision over whether to call Amanda at all. Part had been his fear that she'd come off as too rehearsed. But most of it had been because of the impossible position the facts had conspired to put her in. As a result, up to this very moment, he still had no real idea what she'd say. Would she invite being arrested and charged herself in order to save her husband? Or would she protect herself by burying him? He knew this much: if Amanda were to lie and insist that Carter had been at the wheel, Jaywalker would have to go after her and, if need be, destroy her. It wouldn't be pretty and it wouldn't be fun, but he'd have no choice. Yes, she'd hired him, paid him generously, and even slept with him. But she wasn't his client. Carter Drake was, and it was to him that Jaywalker owed his undivided loyalty.
It was a tough rule, but a good one. Just as it was whenever parents retained him to represent their child. The parents often didn't like hearing it, but it was the child who became the client. So no, he wouldn't tell them what the child had confided to him. And no, he wasn't going to help put the kid in rehab when he could beat the case altogether, no matter how much the parents pressured him that it would be best for the child. It was why he'd largely stopped taking juvenile cases, and prostitution cases, too. Well, that and the stairwell episode. No pimp or madam was going to tell him to make sure one of the girls got a few days in jail just to teach her a lesson. And it was the same reason why he'd long ago stopped representing Mafia members and wannabes, because back when he had, he'd found himself answering to all sorts of their friends and associates, guys with bent noses and funny nicknames like Johnnie Knuckles or Vinnie Ice Pick. So Carter Drake was his client, and Amanda was only a witness. And if it came to choosing between them, there was no choice; there couldn't be.
She answered his preliminary questions flawlessly. She was just nervous enough to make her answers come off as real. She was earnest and thoughtful. And she was likable. Likable counts, Jaywalker knew. Then again, he hadn't gotten to the hard part yet. But he was about to.
JAYWALKER: Did there come a time in the early evening hours of May 27 that you received a phone call from your husband?
AMANDA: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And in response to that phone call, did you do something?
AMANDA: Yes. I called my son, Eric, who was staying at his father's at that time. And I told him to meet me downstairs in ten minutes, that we were going to pick up his father.
JAYWALKER: And did you in fact pick up Eric?
AMANDA: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And did the two of you go somewhere?
AMANDA: Yes. We drove-I drove to Nyack, to a place called the End Zone.
JAYWALKER: What happened when you got there?
AMANDA: I sent Eric in to get his father. I waited in the car. I was very angry, and I didn't want to cause a scene in the place.
JAYWALKER: What happened next?
AMANDA: Carter and Eric came out a few minutes later. I could see them arguing. I could also tell that Carter had been drinking, and had probably had too much. He gets like that sometimes. After a while, Eric came back over to my car and said, 'I give up. You deal with him.' Or something like that. So I- So I It was the first sign that she was about to lose it. Jaywalker looked at her hard, tried to will her to calm down. You can do this, he told her silently, hoping that his assurance could somehow take flight, travel the twenty paces between them, and reinforce her.
JAYWALKER: Are you okay?
AMANDA: Yes. No. I don't know.
JAYWALKER: Would you like a few minutes?
AMANDA: No. I'm all right.
JAYWALKER: Okay. So what did you do after Eric came back and told you to deal with his father?
AMANDA: I got out of my car and walked over to Carter. By that time he was standing next to his car, the Audi. He was fumbling with the keys, trying to unlock the door.
JAYWALKER: What happened next?
AMANDA: (No response)
JAYWALKER: Can you tell us what happened next?
AMANDA: We-we argued. I told him he was too drunk to drive. He refused to let Eric drive my car because he only had a learner's permit that wasn't good after dark. We yelled and screamed a lot.
JAYWALKER: And?
AMANDA: And then at some point, Eric just drove off in my car. I figured that ought to settle things. You know, the permit no longer mattered. Now I could drive the Audi. But Carter wasn't finished arguing. And we started fighting over the keys.
Knowing that the moment of truth was coming, Jaywalker paused for a moment to signal the jurors that something big was coming. When finally he asked his next question, he asked it softly, almost sadly.
JAYWALKER: And who won the fight over the keys?
AMANDA: (No response)
JAYWALKER: Who won the fight over the keys?
AMANDA: I did. I knocked the keys out of his hand. They fell onto the pavement. I picked them up before he could.
JAYWALKER: Did there come a time when the two of you got into the Audi?
AMANDA: (No response)
JAYWALKER: Mrs. Drake?
AMANDA: Yes.
Her voice was so faint that it was barely audible. Only the total silence in the rest of the courtroom allowed it to be heard.
JAYWALKER: Who got behind the wheel?
AMANDA: (No response)
JAYWALKER: Mrs. Drake?
Which was when it happened.
A tiny movement at the prosecution table caught Jaywalker's eye. He looked over and saw Investigator William Sheetz lean forward ever so slightly, reach behind him, remove something from the back of his belt, and place it on the table in front of him.
Later on, in the internal investigation that would follow the trial, Sheetz would insist under oath that he did what he did only because the item had been digging into his lower back and causing him discomfort. He'd also claim that he wasn't even aware that seconds later he began idly playing with it, the way one might play with a paper clip or a pencil, without even realizing it. The administrative judge conducting a hearing in that investigation would accept Sheetz's explanation and clear him on charges of official misconduct, obstruction of justice, and intimidation of a witness.
But everyone in the courtroom knew better.
Because the thing about it was, the item made a sound as soon as Sheetz began playing with it. And nothing, absolutely nothing, makes quite the sound that a pair of handcuffs does when one slides the business end of one
