idea how long the prosecution would take with these witnesses, or the length of time to allow for closings, but whatever it took, he was desperate the case not go to the jury. Chances were, they’d need more than a day to deliberate. But he’d seen juries come back in an hour, and if Emil Stavros was sent to prison any time before Monday, Anderson knew he’d be a dead man.
He wondered what Kane meant by not having to worry about Butch Karp come Monday. No, I don’t want to know, he told himself. I just want this trial to be over, but not just yet. At the same time, this was a high-profile case that he wanted to win; both to beat Karp and Guma, something rarely accomplished, and because Stavros, who didn’t trust Kane’s plan, had promised him a quarter-million-dollar bonus for an acquittal.
Anderson glanced at the back of the courtroom to check on the blond reporter. He tried to set up their date that night after court the day before, but she’d hemmed and hawed and said “something came up” and she might not make it. Bitch was saying you took a beating in court, lost your manhood, and is going to see how you do today, he thought. Fuck her. What I need to do today is survive, then I’ll worry about the blonde.
As everyone else in the courtroom waited for Thoms to enter, Anderson looked over at where Karp sat reviewing notes on a legal pad. Mr. Clean, he thought, but not without a twinge of envy. He, too, had come out of law school with high ideals, driven by the sense of purpose that every accused person deserved a competent, vigorous defense. That it was solemn duty to make the state prove its case before it took that most precious commodity, a man’s freedom. But he’d also been driven to do whatever it took to become a partner in a prestigious law firm so that he could afford a lifestyle that included cocaine and beautiful women. If that had meant conflict with his conscience, well, it had become easier over time. He’d even talked himself into considering it a sort of strength that he’d learned to accept that he was one of the bad guys; the idealistic young lawyer had been suffocated by poor choices and buried where no one would ever find him, not even the scientists with 221B Baker Street, Inc.
“I’d like to get this into the hands of the jury this afternoon,” Judge Lussman said as they waited. “I have another homicide trial on the docket with jury selection scheduled for early next week.”
Anderson felt his heart skip a beat. Not if I can help it, he thought. However, he said, “My client would like that as well, Your Honor. The election is a little more than a month away, and there’s a lot of work to do.”
“He’ll be fine,” Guma said. “There aren’t many distractions in a prison cell, though he may be limited on his use of the telephone.”
Lussman cleared his throat meaningfully. “Okay, now that we’ve drawn this morning’s line in the sand, gentlemen, let’s knock off the cat fighting. Ah, I believe Dr. Thoms has arrived.”
A short, attractive woman with what appeared to be prematurely gray hair entered the courtroom nervously looking around until she saw Karp, whom she first met in person that morning, smiled, and walked forward. The judge indicated with his hand the witness stand and invited her to have a seat where she was sworn in.
“Good morning, Dr. Thoms,” Karp began. “Would you tell the jury a little about yourself?”
“Yes,” she replied. “My name is Sally Thoms, and I am a professor of fashion design at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.”
“Do you have any particular area of expertise?” Karp asked.
“Yes. My specialty is fashion history-trends, styles…sort of who wore what and when,” Thoms said.
After several more questions to establish her area of knowledge, Karp asked that the court accept her as an expert in the area of fashion history. Normally, the request would have been ignored by the defense with little or no questioning. However, Anderson spent an inordinate amount of time questioning Thoms until the judge grew irritated, at which point the lawyer said, “No objection that I haven’t registered before.”
Karp frowned for a moment as he looked at Anderson. The tactics were an obvious part of the delay game. But why? He turned back to Thoms.
“Were you asked by the prosecution to review evidence in this case?” he asked.
“Well, Dr. Gates asked me to look at some items that I understand were located in a grave,” Thoms said.
“And what were those items?”
“Buttons,” Thoms said. “Snap-type buttons approximately a half inch in diameter.”
“Were you asked to look at any other items of clothing?”
Thoms shook her head. “No, just the buttons.”
“There was no cloth? Nothing to which the buttons were attached?”
“No, nothing else. It’s my understanding the…remains…had been in the ground for approximately fourteen years which, depending on the type of material, it’s very likely the material would have decomposed given New York’s climate, as well as insect activity, chemical additions to the soil…. I understand the grave was dug in a garden.”
“So there is no way of knowing what sort of material, or article of clothing, the buttons were attached, too?” Karp asked.
“Well, no, actually, I did have some luck in that area,” Thoms said. “If you would show the first slide, please.”
Karp did as told and a photograph of a half dozen buttons appeared on the screen. Several had what appeared to be mother-of-pearl faces, but the facing had fallen off the rest revealing rusted metal underneath.
“These are the buttons as they were discovered in the grave,” Thoms said. “As you can see, there is no material around the edges, the material having disintegrated. Next slide, please.”
The second slide showed the buttons as having been pried apart. “When these buttons are created, the tops-the part with the mother-of-pearl inlay-is snapped over the cloth onto the portion with the ‘nub’ that would be on the inside of the piece of clothing. The nub is the part that snaps into a hole in a third part of the button ensemble to hold the article of clothing, such as a shirt or dress, together.”
“Why is this important?” Karp asked, as if he were hearing this for the first time and had not received the report from Thoms more than a month earlier and questioned her both on the telephone and, that morning, in person.
“Well, because the inlay and metal on the top part of the button, when snapped into the second part, actually protected the cloth between them,” Thoms said. “Next slide, please…. Here you can see the small circular pieces of cloth I removed from the interior of two of the buttons. They are about a half inch in diameter and blue in color.”
“So the piece of cloth the buttons were formerly attached to was blue?” Karp asked. He turned to catch the reaction at the defense table and was pleased with what he saw. Emil Stavros looked stunned, while Anderson’s mouth hung open.
“Yes,” Thoms agreed.
“Is there anything you can add to this?” Karp said.
Thoms pointed to a large object on a stand that was covered with a sheet. “Would you reveal-”
“Objection!” Anderson said, gathering himself. “Foundation? I have no idea what the prosecution is attempting to uncover here, and I’d prefer the jury didn’t see it until we’ve established that it has anything to do with this case.”
Judge Lussman looked at Karp. “Counselor?”
“Very well, Your Honor, let’s lay a little foundation,” Karp said. “Dr. Thoms, can you illuminate us on what you did after prying apart the buttons and finding the pieces of blue material.”
“Yes,” she said. “Actually, it was quite a fun detective story. First, I determined that the blue material was silk…a very expensive type of silk imported from China.”
“You can tell that?” Karp asked as though surprised.
“Indeed,” Thoms said, warming up to the subject. “Like many other things in our lives, there are different qualities of silk both at its inception-i.e., the silkworms that produce the raw material, the quality and density of the weave, those sorts of things.”
“So did that lead you somewhere else?”
“As a matter of fact, it did,” Thoms said, enjoying herself now. “The mother-of-pearl inlay was very nice, as was the quality of the silk. And, very helpfully…next slide please…”
Karp hit the projector button and a magnified back of one of the buttons appeared on which several numbers were identifiable.
