'Of course.' As Shelton paused, turning to address them, Mauriani felt the jury's close attention. 'To begin, Thuy Sen was asphyxiated by approximately five cc's of ejaculated semen which collected in her throat. At the defendants' house—along with a green thread consistent with her sweater, and a partial print from her right index finger—we found traces of semen and saliva on the carpet. We found the same thread, and the same traces, in the trunk of Fleet's car. And Thuy Sen's body washed up approximately where, according to the Coast Guard, it would have had it been dumped where Fleet claimed it was. With what appeared to be a pubic hair caught in her barrette.'
In the jury box, Henry Feldt had begun nodding. 'I can't tell you,' Shelton concluded, 'whose ejaculation caused this child's death. But the physical evidence is consistent with the testimony of Fleet and Flora Lewis.
'Thuy Sen was in the brothers' living room. Her body was in Eddie Fleet's trunk. And she choked to death on semen—just as, according to Fleet, Rennell Price said she did.'
And that, Mauriani thought, was the perfect coda to his case.
As his final witness stepped down, he looked toward Thuy Sen's parents, hoping to convey at least some comfort. But they were huddled together in abject misery and did not see him.
Glancing at Eula Price, he detected tears glistening in her eyes.
A deep pity overcame him. She, too, struck Mauriani as a victim, perhaps even more alone than the Sens. Though part of her purpose in suffering this ordeal must have been to humanize the brothers, at whatever pain to her, there was no one to give her comfort—James had taken no note of her since the trial began and neither, with the exception of the ill-timed smile from Rennell, had her own grandsons.
Nor did they now. Liz Shelton's testimony seemed to have driven home to Payton how desperate were his circumstances, displacing his look of anger with a dead-eyed stare at nothing. Rennell simply scribbled on his yellow pad.
* * *
'Those questions about blood type,' Carlo said now, 'Mauriani was covering for the defense lawyer's screwups.'
Nodding, Terri put down the felt-tipped pen she used to underline key questions. 'Mauriani didn't want a verdict based on prejudicial error, or a record so bad that the verdict might be reversed for ineffective assistance of counsel. You can almost feel him wishing James were better, then deciding that the only certain answer is self- help.'
'Not so certain,' Carlo answered. 'James's cross-examination was terrible, pretty much all the time. Like the stupid way he climbed all over Thuy Sen's mother.'
Terri made a wry face. 'If terrible and obnoxious were enough, our job would be a whole lot easier. At least James was awake—too awake, probably, because he was all coked up. Aside from constantly wiping his nose, grandiosity and lack of judgment are the hallmarks of a cokehead.
'But that's our take. The Attorney General's Office will call his tactics the aggressiveness of a dedicated advocate fighting for his clients' lives. In fact, they did say that, on appeal, and our state Supreme Court agreed. The Court also said the evidence was so overwhelming that nothing James did or didn't do would have changed the verdict.'
'Amazing.'
Terri gave him the jaded smile of a lawyer who had seen far too much of this. 'Only mildly amazing,' she rejoined and tossed him another transcript. 'Take a look at James's defense.'
NINETEEN
THE SOLE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE WAS TASHA BRAMWELL.
In Lou Mauriani's estimate, she made a good impression. Neatly dressed, well-spoken, and unusually composed, Tasha, by her relationship with Payton, suggested a man very different from the menacing crack dealer the jury saw before it. In a manner quiet but unequivocal, she told the courtroom that the brothers had been with her on the day Thuy Sen had vanished.
'So you're completely confident,' James summarized, 'that Payton and Rennell spent the afternoon of September twenty-seventh inside your home.'
'Yessir,' Tasha answered and addressed the jury with her first hint of passion. 'The very next night, at work, I saw that little girl's picture on TV. I'll never forget that as long as I live. I can tell you two things—Payton would never do that, and Rennell and him couldn't have done it. We were together.'
Rising to cross-examine, Mauriani could read the jury's puzzlement. The task before him was delicate—though Tasha Bramwell could not account for the evidence placing Thuy Sen in the brothers' living room, her certainty must give the jurors pause, and her demeanor created sympathy. It would not do to attack her.
He stood some distance from the witness, amiable and pleasant, hands in the pockets of his suitcoat. 'The afternoon of September twenty-seventh,' he began, 'the three of you watched TV.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Do you remember what programs?'
'Soap operas, mostly. I remember Days of Our Lives and General Hospital—Rennell likes those.'
At the defendants' table, Mauriani noted, Rennell smiled to himself. 'Did the brothers hang out with each other a lot?'
'Yes, sir. I mean they lived together.'
'Would you call them inseparable?'
Bramwell seemed to turn the question over in her mind. 'I'd call them close. Where Payton went, there'd usually be Rennell.'
'So even though you were Payton's girl, Rennell spent time with both of you.'
