Betrayal

'Thank you.'

24

When they all got back to their tables after a short afternoon recess, Washburn noticed that Mills seemed to be losing her sense of humor as the day wore on. But whether Mills was enjoying it or not, she was putting on the kind of straightforward, linear case that juries tended to like. Her next witness was Evan's direct superior in the police department, Lieutenant Lochland, who, alarmed at Scholler's absence from work, had found him in his apartment, drunk and covered in blood, and eventually placed him under arrest.

'Lieutenant,' she began, 'Defendant was under your direct supervision while he worked with the police department. Isn't that so?'

But Washburn and Evan had talked about this coming testimony on the break, and the old lawyer was on his feet before she'd finished her question. 'Objection! Relevance. Three fifty-two, Your Honor.'

Tollson turned a questioning look down to Mills. 'Counselor?'

'Foundational, Your Honor,' she said.

'That's fairly broad. Can you be more specific?'

'Goes to Defendant's state of mind leading up to the act. Also foundational to the break-in at Mr. Nolan's.'

The judge, in what Washburn was beginning to recognize as something of a pattern, pulled his glasses off to ponder for a minute.

Before he could put them back on and render his decision, Washburn said, 'Your Honor, if you will, I'd like to request a sidebar.' If Mills was getting tired or losing her chops due to low blood sugar, if this was her afternoon tendency-and her body language made it appear to be-Washburn wouldn't hesitate to use that against her.

A shorter pause this time, until Tollson nodded. 'Very well. Counsel may approach.' When the two attorneys had gotten in front of the bench, Tollson peered over it. 'What's the problem, Everett?' he said.

'Your Honor, there's no possible relevance to Lieutenant Lochland's relationship to my client. The only thing this will get the People is negative character stuff. That Evan was angry, that he lied to his superiors when he broke into Nolan's place, that he disobeyed orders, maybe got drunk on duty. There's nothing possibly relevant there and even if it is, it's far more prejudicial than probative and opens up a whole number of cans of worms.'

'Ms. Whelan-Miille?'

Clearly, Washburn's attack on this point had blindsided her. But she wasn't about to give up any ground without some kind of a fight. 'The lieutenant's a hostile witness, Your Honor. You think he wants to be up here testifying against another cop, and one that worked for him? He's not going to say anything bad about Evan's character. At worst, he'll say he was mixed up and still recovering from the wounds in Iraq. And that will, if anything, incite sympathy from the jury. This is all part of Mr. Washburn's case anyway. How can he want to put it in through his own witnesses and keep it out with mine?'

'If it was all that sympathetic,' Tollson said, 'I doubt if Mr. Washburn would object to the testimony. And in that case, why do you want it?' the judge asked. When Mills couldn't come up with an answer in the next ten seconds, Tollson stepped back in. 'Let's move on, shall we? How's that sound?'

Washburn inclined his head. 'Thank you, Your Honor.'

Back at the defense table, he pulled his yellow legal pad over in front of him and drew a happy face that he showed to his client under his hand. At the same time, Mills tried to pick up with her witness. 'Lieutenant, it was you who arrested Defendant, was it not?'

'Yeah. That was me.'

'Can you tell the jury the specifics?'

'Sure.' He turned to face the panel and began in a conversational tone. 'Lieutenant Spinoza-he's the head of the homicide detail-called me at home as a courtesy on that Saturday to tell me he was worried about Patrolman Scholler. He'd been called on the Ron Nolan homicide and remembered that Patrolman Scholler had looked up that name on the police computer in the past few days. Spinoza wondered if I'd heard from him and I told him I hadn't. Patrolman Scholler hadn't been into work on Thursday or Friday, so when I got Spinoza's call, I was a little worried myself.

'I thought the best bet would be to go check out his apartment, so I drove up there-he lived in one of those units along Edgewood Road. All the blinds in the windows were pulled down, so there was no seeing in. I knocked and called out his name, and nobody answered, but I heard some movement inside, like something, some object, falling over.

'Now I'm starting to think something's wrong. I get out my cell phone and call his number and the phone inside starts ringing, and I started pounding on the door, calling for him.'

Washburn could have objected to this narrative, but again knew it was coming in, and was just as happy to get through it as quickly as possible.

'And finally I hear, 'Yeah, one minute,' and a few seconds later Patrolman Scholler opens the door, just like that. Then I take a look at him and he's all beat up. So I ask him what happened? But he didn't seem to understand the question. So then I asked him if he knew about a guy named Ron Nolan, that he'd been killed.' Lochland stopped, sat back, clasped his hands in his lap.

But Mills wouldn't have called him up if he didn't have something she needed. So she asked. 'And did he have any reaction to that, Lieutenant?'

'Yes, ma'am. He swore.'

'He swore. What exactly did he say, Lieutenant?'

Washburn knew the answer to this question, and came halfway out of his chair as he objected and, much to the displeasure of both Mills and Tollson, requested another sidebar.

When both attorneys were again in front of the judge, Mills started right in. 'Your Honor, this is a frivolous objection if we've ever heard one. Mr. Washburn knows what Defendant's words were upon learning about Mr. Nolan's death, and the jury needs to hear them.'

Washburn shot back at her. 'There is no need to subject the jury to vulgarity, Your Honor. The defense will stipulate that Evan used language that some might find offensive, in spite of the fact that even that admission might taint him in the eyes of some of the jury members.'

'Oh, please.' Mills rolled her eyes. 'The man's on trial for murder, Your Honor. He's broken into the victim's house. He's admitted to beating him with brass knuckles-'

'Fighting him with brass knuckles,' Washburn replied calmly. 'The evidence supports a fight between two professional warriors, not a beating.'

'This is hair-splitting of the most obvious kind, Your Honor. And in fact, on reflection, I wonder if Mr. Washburn didn't help prepare Lieutenant Lochland in his testimony so that he would set up this objection, rather than simply repeat Defendant's words, which he'd always used with me in my preparation.'

'Your Honor.' Washburn's face reflected his sadness that his opponent had stooped so low as to accuse him of coaching her witness, although of course he had done just that. If he could somehow keep Evan's unfortunate choice of words, uttered in an alcoholic stupor, out of the record, it would be a significant victory. 'I strenuously object to Counsel's intimation that I may have acted unethically.'

'I'm not saying that, Your Honor. I'm saying that the jury knows that Defendant did all these other pretty questionable things, plus he lied to his boss and his locksmith friend. The fact that he used a mild swear word isn't likely to stain his reputation at this point.'

Tollson put his glasses back on and scowled down through them. 'I agree, Counselor. The witness can answer the question.'

'Your Honor,' Washburn said, 'allowing a witness to use vulgarity on the stand is a slippery slope that…'

'Counselor, I don't believe…we're not talking about the f-word, the c-word, or the n-word, are we?'

'No, Your Honor,' Mills said.

'We can't know that yet, Your Honor, the witness hasn't answered yet.'

But this last comment, finally, got under Tollson's skin. 'Don't toy with me, Counselor. I've made my ruling. Stop wasting the Court's time.'