“Okay, then give me what you are authorized to offer.”
“I’ll drop it all down to an aggravated assault with GBI.”
“And?”
“I’ll go down to four.”
The offer was a substantial reduction but Roulet, if he took it, would still be sentenced to four years in prison. The main concession was that it knocked the case out of sex crime status. Roulet would not have to register with local authorities as a sex offender after he got out of prison.
I looked at him as if he had just insulted my mother’s memory.
“I think that’s a little strong, Ted, considering how your ace just held up on the stand. Did you see the juror who is always carrying the Bible? He looked like he was about to shit the Good Book when she was testifying.”
Minton didn’t respond. I could tell he hadn’t even noticed a juror carrying a Bible.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s my duty to bring your offer to my client and I will do that. But I’m also going to tell him he’d be a fool to take it.”
“Okay, then, what do you want?”
“A case like this, there’s only one verdict, Ted. I’m going to tell him he should ride it out. I think it’s clear sailing from here. Have a good lunch.”
I left him there at the gate, halfway expecting him to shout a new offer to my back as I went down the center aisle of the gallery. But Minton held his ground.
“That offer’s good only until one-thirty, Haller,” he called after me, an odd tone in his voice.
I raised a hand and waved without looking back. As I went through the courtroom door, I was sure that what I had heard was the sound of desperation creeping into his voice.
THIRTY-FIVE
After we came back into court from Four Green Fields I purposely ignored Minton. I wanted to keep him guessing as long as possible. It was all part of the plan to push him in a direction I wanted him and the trial to go. When we were all seated at the tables and ready for the judge, I finally looked over at him, waited for the eye contact, and then just shook my head. No deal. He nodded, trying his best to give me a show of confidence in his case and confusion over my client’s decision. One minute later the judge took the bench, brought out the jury, and Minton promptly folded his tent.
“Mr. Minton, do you have another witness?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, at this time the state rests.”
There was the slightest hesitation in Fullbright’s response. She stared at Minton for just a second longer than she should have. I think it sent a message of surprise to the jury. She then looked over at me.
“Mr. Haller, are you ready to proceed?”
The routine procedure would be to ask the judge for a directed verdict of acquittal at the end of the state’s case. But I didn’t, fearing that this could be the rare occasion that the request was granted. I couldn’t let the case end yet. I told the judge I was ready to proceed with a defense.
My first witness was Mary Alice Windsor. She was escorted into the courtroom by Cecil Dobbs, who then took a seat in the front row of the gallery. Windsor was wearing a powder blue suit with a chiffon blouse. She had a regal bearing as she crossed in front of the bench and took a seat in the witness box. Nobody would have guessed she had eaten shepherd’s pie for lunch. I very quickly went through the routine identifiers and established her relationship by both blood and business to Louis Roulet. I then asked the judge for permission to show the witness the knife the prosecution had entered as evidence in the case.
Permission granted, I went to the court clerk to retrieve the weapon, which was still wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag. It was folded so that the initials on the blade were visible. I took it to the witness box and put it down in front of the witness.
“Mrs. Windsor, do you recognize this knife?”
She picked up the evidence bag and attempted to smooth the plastic over the blade so she could look for and read the initials.
“Yes, I do,” she finally said. “It’s my son’s knife.”
“And how is it that you would recognize a knife owned by your son?”
“Because he showed it to me on more than one occasion. I knew he always carried it and sometimes it came in handy at the office when our brochures came in and we needed to cut the packing straps. It was very sharp.”
“How long did he have the knife?”
“Four years.”
“You seem pretty exact about that.”
“I am.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he got it for protection four years ago. Almost exactly.”
“Protection from what, Mrs. Windsor?”
“In our business we often show homes to complete strangers. Sometimes we are the only ones in the home with these strangers. There has been more than one incident of a realtor being robbed or hurt… or even murdered or raped.”
“As far as you know, was Louis ever the victim of such a crime?”
“Not personally, no. But he knew someone who had gone into a home and that happened to them…”
“What happened?”
“She got raped and robbed by a man with a knife. Louis was the one who found her after it was over. The first thing he did was go out and get a knife for protection after that.”
“Why a knife? Why not a gun?”
“He told me that at first he was going to get a gun but he wanted something he could always carry and not be noticeable with. So he got a knife and he got me one, too. That’s how I know it was almost exactly four years ago that he got this.”
She held the bag up containing the knife.
“Mine’s exactly the same, only the initials are different. We both have been carrying them ever since.”
“So would it seem to you that if your son was carrying that knife on the night of March sixth, then that would be perfectly normal behavior from him?”
Minton objected, saying I had not built the proper foundation for Windsor to answer the question and the judge sustained it. Mary Windsor, being unschooled in criminal law, assumed that the judge was allowing her to answer.
“He carried it every day,” she said. “March sixth would have been no dif -”
“Mrs. Windsor,” the judge boomed. “I sustained the objection. That means you do not answer. The jury will disregard her answer.”
“I’m sorry,” Windsor said in a weak voice.
“Next question, Mr. Haller,” the judge ordered.
“That’s all I have, Your Honor. Thank you, Mrs. Windsor.”
Mary Windsor started to get up but the judge admonished her again, telling her to stay seated. I returned to my seat as Minton got up from his. I scanned the gallery and saw no recognizable faces save that of C. C. Dobbs. He gave me an encouraging smile, which I ignored.
Mary Windsor’s direct testimony had been perfect in terms of her adhering to the choreography we had worked up at lunch. She had succinctly delivered to the jury the explanation for the knife, yet she had also left in her testimony a minefield that Minton would have to cross. Her direct testimony had covered no more than I had provided Minton in a discovery summary. If he strayed from it he would quickly hear the deadly
