“So it's clear, you just expressed your opinion as to the medical cause of death, not whether that death was a homicide, correct?”
“That is right.”
Steve turned and walked back to the defense table. Glided, really, Victoria thought. She remembered the poster on his office wall. The courtroom filled with water, sharks cutting to and fro. Steve was the sleekest shark in the lagoon, and these were his waters. Swimming toward the defense table, he unbuttoned his suit coat and smiled at Victoria. Now what?
“Dr. Yang, if I wanted to force Ms. Lord to wear this collar, what would I do?” Steve asked.
“Don't ask me. She's your partner.”
In the gallery, someone chuckled.
“Well, let's find out.” Steve circled behind the defense table, barely leaving a wake. He lifted Victoria's hair, wrapped the open collar around her neck, and slid the leather tongue through the loop. “Now, if Ms. Lord wants to stop me from tightening this, let's see what she does.”
Victoria reached up with both hands and worked her fingers under the collar. Steve pulled the leather through the loop, trapping her fingers against her neck. She felt her fingernails digging into her flesh. She gasped for air and Steve loosened the collar, bending close enough to her neck that she could feel his breath.
“Let the record reflect that there are fingernail marks on Ms. Lord's neck where she attempted to ward off the collar,” he said.
He turned back to the witness. “Doctor, what about Charles Barksdale? Any sign of a struggle? Any scratches, bruises, lacerations, skin under his fingernails?”
“That's five questions,” Pincher protested.
“Let's hear five answers,” the judge said.
“No. No. No. No. And no,” Dr. Yang said.
Steve stood behind Victoria, resting a hand on each of her shoulders. It was an odd sensation, feeling him there but not seeing him. The next sensation was even stranger. One of his thumbs was stroking the nape of her neck.
“No evidence of a struggle,” Steve said, in case the judge missed it. “So, apparently, Mr. Barksdale consented to being collared and to having the collar tightened.”
“Tightened up to a point, yes.”
She felt both his thumbs kneading her neck, like a Swedish massage. A pleasant, tingling sensation moved down her torso, and she squirmed in her seat.
“Isn't the bondage, the choking, the sexual paraphernalia consistent with consensual asphyxiophilia?”
“That is correct. It's in the medical journals.”
“And the reason it's in the medical journals is because of the occurrence of accidental death during these practices?”
“Accidental death is a known risk, yes.”
Steve paused. The witness had made an important concession, and a good lawyer lets helpful words hang in the air before chasing them away. Victoria allowed herself a slight smile. Steve was in control, not only of himself, but of the entire courtroom. He'd been right about one thing he'd told her early on: She could learn from him.
But her mind wasn't totally focused on legal lessons. The mini-massage was continuing, and her entire body seemed to be overheating. She wished she could take off her Anne Klein cropped jacket, maybe her silk blouse, too. Did Steve even know what he was doing? She hoped that Katrina, sitting alongside, couldn't see what was going on.
“You cannot rule out the possibility of accidental death, can you, Dr. Yang?” Steve said.
“Could be accident, that's right.”
Steve made sure the reporters in the gallery saw him smile. He gave Victoria's neck one last squeeze, released her, and sat down. “Nothing further.”
Victoria knew that her face was flushed. She wondered if anyone else noticed. Next to her, Katrina leaned over and whispered. “Before we're done today, do you think he can do that to me, too?”
Dr. Yang had left the courtroom and Homicide Detective Delvin Farnsworth was answering questions by the time Victoria felt her body temperature return to normal. She didn't know Farnsworth but had checked around. A twenty-year veteran with a brush mustache and alert, dark eyes, he had a reputation for honesty and competence. She had read his report, so there no were surprises in his direct testimony.
Paramedics had responded to Mrs. Barksdale's 911 call at 11:39 P.M. on November 16, and after attempts to resuscitate her husband failed, the police were called. When they arrived, Charles Barksdale was naked except for a leather collar and what Farnsworth called a “silver-studded leather testicles pouch with a penile opening.” A leather mask with a built-in latex dildo was on the floor nearby.
Mrs. Barksdale told detectives that she had engaged in her customary sex play involving cutting off her husband's air supply to enhance his orgasm, Detective Farnsworth testified. This time, during a break in the action, something happened, and her husband stopped breathing. That occurred when she was nearly twenty feet from the bed in a wet-bar alcove of the master suite, and she apparently did not immediately realize that her husband was in distress. The detective raised his bushy eyebrows when reciting that tidbit.
Crime-scene techs tagged and bagged various erotic paraphernalia, including leather straps and collars, chains, masks, fleece-lined handcuffs, cat-o'-nine-tails, and what an evidence form termed a “battery-operated anal stimulation device.”
Steve stood up on cross. “What was Mrs. Barksdale's demeanor when you questioned her?”
“She was crying,” Detective Farnsworth said.
“About what you would expect from a woman whose husband just died?”
“Objection, irrelevant,” Pincher said.
“Overruled,” the judge said.
“I've seen so many reactions, I don't know what to expect anymore,” Farnsworth said.
“Just what in your investigation made you conclude that the death of Charles Barksdale was not an accident?”
“The totality of the circumstances.”
“That doesn't tell us much.”
“Wasn't intended to.”
“What was Mrs. Barksdale's motive for killing her husband?”
“Objection,” Pincher said. “Improper foundation. Goes beyond scope of direct. And protected by work product.”
“I'll be the judge of that,” Judge Schwartz said. He seemed to think about it, then added, “In fact, I am the judge of that. How'd I rule on the last objection?”
“You overruled it,” Pincher said.
“Then this one's sustained.”
“Let me ask it this way,” Steve said. “Did Katrina Barksdale have any reason to kill her husband?”
“I wouldn't know,” the detective said.
“Did he deprive her of food, clothing, trips to the South of France?”
“I'd say he provided for her quite well.”
“Quite well,” Steve repeated. He opened a large portfolio and pulled out a photo blown up to poster size: the Barksdales in formal attire. “That diamond pendant Katrina's wearing at the Attention Deficit Disorder brunch. Who do you suppose bought her that?”
“Wild guess, her husband,” Farnsworth said.
Steve moved closer to the witness stand and held up another photo. “What about the aquamarine and diamond brooch she wore to the Stop Bulimia Now dinner?”
“Same guess.”
Steve returned to his table and Victoria handed him a file folder thick with receipts. Neiman Marcus. Getz Jewelers. Bavarian Custom Motorcars.
“The generosity went both ways,” Steve said. “Did you know that in the last two months before Charles' unfortunate demise, Mrs. Barksdale bought him a sapphire ring, three Zegna suits, and a Breitling Superocean
