observer. He wonders again if he’s being followed. Jay swings back around in his seat. He closes his eyes and tries to recall every detail of the man’s face. He wants to know if he’s seen this man before.
The prosecutor is soon on her feet for the cross.
Detective Stone sits up in his chair, looking as if someone had just brought something to the dinner table that he might actu ally be able to stomach. He’s careful not to go so far as to smile at the prosecutor. But everything in his posture says that this is the part of the process he’s been waiting for.
“Detective, you and your partner, Detective Pete Smalls, interviewed the defendant in the days after Mr. Sweeney’s body was found, is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am. We interviewed her twice. The day the body was found, we interviewed her at her home that evening. And then again a couple of days later, the following Tuesday, I believe.”
The prosecutor nods. “Can you tell us what led you to the defendant?”
“We found her fingerprints inside the vehicle in which the deceased, uh, Mr. Sweeney, was found. We were operating under the assumption that Ms. Linsey was possibly the last to see Mr. Sweeney alive.”
“I see,” the prosecutor says. “And what did Ms. Linsey tell you, Detective, in your initial interviews with her?”
Charlie makes no objection to the breadth of the question, no motion to stop this whole line of inquiry on the basis of rel evance. Instead, he’s set back in his chair, legs crossed comfort ably, his demeanor completely unflappable.
“Ms. Linsey said, during both interviews, that she had had dinner with the deceased, at a Mexican restaurant in the Heights. She said they parted company around ten thirty that evening, and she went home.”
“How did she explain to you her fingerprints in the victim’s car?”
“Ms. Linsey said that she and the deceased had met at a Church’s Chicken parking lot and that she rode out to the Heights in his car. She claims Mr. Sweeney dropped her back off at her car when the date was over.”
“Did you ask her if she was with Mr. Sweeney on Clinton Road at any time on the night of August 1, 1981?”
“She maintained, repeatedly, to both me and Detective Smalls, that she was never at any time on Clinton Road or anywhere near the field in which Mr. Sweeney’s body was found on the night of August First or any other night for that matter. She was real clear on that.” He looks across the courtroom at Elise.
Jay turns once more in his seat. The man in the charcoal suit is staring straight ahead now, watching the prosecutor’s cross, his elbows resting casually on the seat back behind him. He’s chew ing a piece of gum, Jay can see, and more than once he glances at the headlines of an abandoned sports page resting beside him on the bench. He seems to have completely lost interest in Jay, and Jay wonders again if his mind is playing tricks on him. A moment ago, he was sure the guy was here because of him, another man with a gun on his tail. But the man in the gray suit hasn’t so much as glanced back in Jay’s direction.
“Okay, Detective,” the prosecutor says, quite courteously. She looks down at her desk, and from a mess of papers pulls a fourby-six-inch photograph. Elise sits up, nervous-like, in her chair. Charlie puts a reassuring hand on her forearm. The prosecutor asks the judge if she can approach the bench.
“What am I supposed to be looking at here?” the judge asks when she has the photo in hand. She squints at it, turning the picture this way and that.
Charlie stands. “You think I might get a look at that too?”
Judge Vroland waves Charlie to the bench, and Jay sees his chance. The judge, the prosecutor, and Elise’s attorney are all huddled at the bench. The cop is watching them from the wit ness stand. Which leaves only the bailiff to worry about. Jay waits for a moment when the bailiff isn’t looking toward the gallery. Charlie, at the bench, says something to the prosecutor. It’s a mumble at this distance. Then Jay hears, quite clearly, “You can’t even tell what this is.”
“Well, if we can let the man testify,” the prosecutor says.
Jay makes a leap forward, reaching out until his fingers almost touch the silky fabric across Elise’s shoulders. He drops the tiny white slip of paper, watching, breathlessly, as it dribbles down her side, landing on her right thigh.
He waits for her to pick up the paper, to notice it even.
Only once does he look back over his shoulder, surprised to find the man in the gray suit watching him again. Jay holds per fectly still, caught in the man’s gaze.
At the bench, the prosecutor asks to enter the photograph as “state’s exhibit A,” and Charlie returns to his seat.
“Detective Stone,” the prosecutor asks. “Did you take that photograph?”
“No, it was a crime scene technician who took this one. But I was present at the time it was taken, yes. It was a few inches from the car at the crime scene. That spot of black right there,” he says, pointing to something in the photograph the rest of them can’t see. “That’s a piece of the tire wheel right there.”
“Why don’t you tell the court what that is a picture of, in specific?”
“It’s a footprint, ma’am, measured as a woman’s size six and a half.” He points at the picture again. “That mark right here, that’s the heel dug in the ground.”
Jay’s note is still resting on Elise’s thigh. At this point, it’s likely that Charlie will notice it before Elise does.
“And what relevance did this footprint have for you at the time?”
“Well, we’d already deduced, from the condition of the body, that Mr. Sweeney was with a woman in the minutes or so leading up to his death.”
