'Lieutenant, whether it was convenient or not, I wouldn't know. I do know that questioning of men in the adjacent huts revealed no one who heard the noise from the fight. It was late. People were asleep.'
'Yes,' Tommy said. He wanted to say 'thank you.'
'Please continue.'
'Using the blade he'd fashioned, Scott stabbed Captain Bedford in the throat. Then he thrust the murdered man back into the sixth stall, where the body was subsequently discovered.
Then, unaware his clothes were stained with blood, he made his way back to the bunk room. End of story, lieutenant.
Cut and dried, like I said.'
Major Clark smiled.
'Next question,' he added.
Tommy straightened up.
'Show me,' he said.
'Show you?'
'Show all of us how this fight happened, major. Take the knife. You be Scott. I'll be Bedford.'
Major Clark rose eagerly. Captain Townsend thrust the knife toward him.
The major gestured at Tommy.
'Stand here,' he said. Then he took a position a few feet away, holding the knife in his hand as one would hold a sword. Then, in slow motion, he made a fake slash at Tommy's throat.
'Of course,' the major said, 'you are considerably taller than Captain
Bedford, and I'm not as tall as Lieutenant Scott, so…'
'Maybe we should reverse positions?' Tommy said.
'Fine,' Major Clark responded. He handed Tommy the knife.
'Like so?' Tommy asked, mimicking the mannerisms that the major had just displayed.
'Yes. That would be accurate,' the major said. He wore a smile as he portrayed the victim. Tommy turned toward Captain Townsend.
'Okay by you, Mr. Prosecutor?'
'Looks fine,' the Virginian said.
Tommy Hart gestured back toward the witness chair.
'Okay,' he said, as Major Clark resumed his seat.
'And after slashing Trader Vic's throat, Scott pushed him back into the stall, correct? And then he departed the Abort Is that how you see it?'
'Yes,' the major said loudly.
'Precisely.'
'Then tell me, how does he get blood on the back of the left-hand side of his jacket?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'How does he get blood on the left-hand back side of his flight jacket?' Tommy walked over to the prosecution's table, picked up Scott's leather flight jacket, and held it up, displaying it for the court to see.
Major Clark hesitated. The redness had returned to his face.
'I don't understand the question,' he said.
Tommy pounced.
'It would seem most simple, major,' he said icily.
'There's blood on the back of his coat. How does it get there? In your entire testimony, describing the crime, and now, in acting it out for this court, at no point do you ever suggest Lieutenant Scott turned his back on Bedford. How does that blood get there?'
Major Clark shifted about in his seat.
'He may have had to lift the body up, before shoving it back in the stall. He would use his shoulder, and that might have put the blood there.'
'You're not an expert at these things, right? You've never really been taught anything about crime scenes. Or blood patterns, correct?'
'I've already answered that.'
Walker Townsend rose to his feet.
'Your Honor,' he said, 'I think the defense is ' Colonel MacNamara held up his hand.
'If you have some problem, you can bring it out on redirect. For now, let the lieutenant continue.'
'Thank you, colonel,' Tommy said. He was surprised by MacNamara's decisiveness.
'Okay, Major Clark. Let's suppose he did have to lift the body, although that's not what you said the first time through. Is the defendant right-handed or left-handed?'
Clark hesitated, then replied.
'I don't know.'
'Well, if he opted to use his left shoulder for this heavy labor, wouldn't that suggest to you he was left-handed?'
'Yes.'
Tommy spun about, suddenly facing Lincoln Scott.
'Are you left-handed, lieutenant?' he abruptly, loudly, demanded.
Lincoln Scott, wearing a small smile of his own, reacted swiftly, before Walker Townsend had the opportunity to object.
He thrust himself to his feet, and shouted out: 'No sir!
Right-handed, sir!' And then he made a fist with his right hand and held it up in front of him.
Tommy pivoted again, abruptly facing Major Clark.
'So,' he demanded sharply.
'Maybe the crime didn't happen that way. Precisely.' He mocked the major's own word with sarcasm in his tone of voice.
'Well,' Clark responded, 'perhaps not precisely-' Tommy held up his hand, cutting him off.
'That's good enough,' he said.
'I wonder what else didn't happen precisely as you suggest. In fact, I wonder if anything happened precisely as you think it did!'
Tommy fairly shouted these last words. Then he shrugged his shoulders and raised his arms in a great questioning gesture, filling the courtroom with the elusive sense that it would be unfair to convict any man without precision.
'No further questions,' he said with as much disgust as he could manage.
'Not for this witness!'
He dramatically returned to his seat, making a clattering noise as he sat down. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hauptmann Visser paying rapt attention to the cross-examination. The German wore the same nasty half-smile that Tommy recognized from other moments. Visser whispered something to the stenographer, who quickly scratched down the Hauptmann's words on his sheet of paper.
From his seat next to Tommy, Lincoln Scott whispered, 'Nicely done.' On the other side, Hugh wrote on his own paper the single name Fenelli, followed by several dark exclamation points. The Canadian policeman knew what was coming, as well, and he wore a similar satisfied smile on his lips.
Behind them, voices were buzzing, as kriegies leaned together, like spectators at a closely played ball game, discussing the action on the field. Colonel MacNamara allowed the excited muttering to continue for a moment, then he banged his makeshift gavel down hard three times. His own face was rigidly set. Not angry, but clearly upset although with the prosecution's flimsiness or Tommy's theatrics was impossible to tell.
'Redirect?' he coldly demanded of Walker Townsend.
