Dr. Yang's eyes flicked toward Pincher. Help! Pincher stayed in his chair, his jaw muscles clenching.
“Everything's in my report,” Dr. Yang said.
“Oh, come now, Doctor. Everything's not in your report.” Taking a stab at it, just like the ME with his scalpel.
“Objection!” Pincher yelped.
“Again?” The judge sighed and put down his book.
“The question's repetitive,” Pincher said. “Asked and answered. Argumentative. And improper predicate.”
“That all?” Judge Thornberry said.
Judges were like basketball referees, Steve thought. Some were whistle-blowers, in-your-face activists who jumped on every infraction, no matter how minor. Others just let you play, establish your own limits, create your own rhythms of the game. Judge Thornberry let you play, especially if he was otherwise engaged.
“Improper form, too,” Pincher said.
“Overruled,” the judge said.
“Everything's in the report,” Dr. Yang repeated.
Steve walked to the clerk's table. He picked up the document labeled State Exhibit 3. “This is your report, correct, Dr. Wang?” He waved it like a checkered flag at a NASCAR race.
“My final report, correct.”
“Psst.” Victoria was trying to get his attention. Steve walked back to the defense table. Victoria's face was flushed, a lioness capturing the scent of the kill. He leaned close enough to feel her breath as she whispered: “Ask him if there's a first draft.”
“I'm going to,” he whispered back.
“Ask him what was changed between the first and final drafts.”
“Gonna do that, too.”
“So go. Do it.”
“Your Honor, I must protest this starting and stopping of the inquiry,” Pincher said. “If the defense has no further questions, the witness should be excused.”
“Not so fast,” Steve said, turning back to Dr. Yang.
Flipping a page of his novel, the judge grunted at them without looking up. Steve interpreted the sound as: Keep going, Counselor. So he moved closer to the witness.
“Dr. Yang, would you reach into your briefcase and give us the first draft of your autopsy report?” Steve said.
“No can do.”
“No?”
“We destroy the first drafts when the final drafts are printed out. That way we don't mix them up.”
“But surely you have a copy stored in your computer's memory?”
Dr. Yang shook his head. “We overwrite first drafts to keep lawyers like you from picking them apart.”
“Why do a second draft at all?”
“Mostly to correct typos. The transcribers misspell medical names, get numbers wrong.”
“Who reviewed the first draft of Dr. Barksdale's autopsy?”
“I did.”
“Did you show the draft to Mr. Pincher?”
Again, a hand flew to the bow tie, fiddled with the knot. “I think I may have shown the State Attorney. Yes, I believe I did.”
“Did Mr. Pincher ask you to change anything?”
“Objection!” Pincher sang out.
“Now what?” Judge Thornberry looked up this time.
“I resent the implication of Mr. Solomon's question,” Pincher said.
“This is cross-examination,” Steve said. “If the State Attorney didn't resent the implication, I'd be guilty of malpractice.”
“Overruled,” the judge said.
“I can't recall,” Dr. Yang said.
“You can't recall if the State Attorney asked you to change anything in your report?”
“I perform many autopsies,” Dr. Yang said. “I talked to Mr. Pincher many times. It's hard to remember everything.”
“Of course, there's one way to find out,” Steve said with a slight smile. He waited a moment, letting the silence fill the courtroom. “You mentioned a transcriber. You dictated your autopsy report into a tape recorder, didn't you, Dr. Yang?”
The ME's eyes shot to Pincher, then back to Steve. The doc hadn't looked at the jury since Steve stood up. After a long moment, his head bobbed up and down.
“You have to speak audibly so Ms. Hernandez here can take it all down,” Steve said, and Sofia gave him a seductive little smile. At the defense table, Victoria rolled her eyes.
“Yes. We make tape recordings.”
“And you keep those tapes in a safe in the Records Division of the morgue, don't you?”
“Yes.”
Steve turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I request a recess.”
The judge seemed startled. “Didn't we already have lunch?”
“Yes, sir, but the state should be made to produce the original tape recording of the autopsy so we can check it against the so-called final report.”
“We object,” Pincher said. “That tape's confidential.”
Victoria, legal eagle, was on her feet. “To the contrary, Your Honor. The tape's covered by Public Records Law.”
“This is an untimely request,” Pincher said. “Discovery deadlines have passed.”
“It's the state's duty to provide all exculpatory evidence, under Brady v. Maryland, up to and through the trial,” Victoria shot back.
“You're suggesting the tape has exculpatory evidence?” the judge asked. Paying attention now.
“I'm suggesting the State Attorney is guilty of obstruction of justice,” Victoria said, and a ripple of murmurs went through the gallery.
“That's outrageous!” Pincher thundered. “I ask that Counsel be admonished.”
Holy shit, Steve thought. Wasn't she the one who said to attack with a rapier, not a sledgehammer?
With a stern look, the judge rapped his gavel and said: “Counsel, in my chambers, now!”
Forty-seven
POETIC JUSTICE
In the corridor, on the way to Judge Thornberry's chambers, Steve whispered: “You keep quiet. I'll take it from here.”
“Why?” Her feelings were bruised.
“You were great just now. But this is for the big mojito, so just cheer me on.”
“Go, team,” she said, peeved.
“C'mon. You know the first rule of arguing to judges?”
“Try to stay out of jail?”
“Know your audience. Play to their interests, fulfill their expectations.”
“That's called ‘pandering.'”
“Actually, it's called ‘lawyering.'”
