“I guess so.”
“Neither of you was able to recall accurately what happened when you wrote your
Russell didn’t answer.
“Do you know that you and Officer Webb both misspelled the same words in your statements?”
Russell looked away from the jury and didn’t speak.
“Did Officer Webb write this report or did you, sir?”
“He wrote it.”
“Is Officer Webb going to agree with that?”
“Objection, he can’t testify to what Officer Webb will say,” Pierce interjected.
“It’s funny, Your Honor,” Beckett said, turning his back on Pierce and speaking directly to the jury, “I wouldn’t have thought there would be an issue. . maybe Officer Webb’s testimony will be more revealing than we expected.”
Several members of the jury smirked at this.
“Counsel, approach the bench,” ordered a very-annoyed Judge Sutherlin. “I warned both of you that I will not tolerate talking objections. There will be no grandstanding in my courtroom,” he growled.
Both attorneys acknowledged their reprimands and returned to their places.
“Sergeant, it seems the gun couldn’t have been in either his left hand or his right hand?”
Russell remained silent, but the jury took his silence as an admission. Normally, Beckett would have forced answers to preserve the testimony for appeal, but since an appeal was out of the question, he instead went for the dramatic attack which would stick in the jurors’ minds.
“And you certainly couldn’t have seen it hanging down behind him as you describe in the police report, could you?”
Russell still didn’t answer.
“Do you agree with me that you couldn’t have seen the gun, Sergeant?”
Russell again didn’t answer.
“I can wait all day, Officer.”
By this time, several members of the jury were visibly hostile toward Sgt. Russell, frowning at him and shaking their heads. The longer he took to answer the questions, the more their stares became glares and the greater the angry curl in their lips.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Russell finally agreed.
“So you lied on the report?” Beckett pressed him.
“Objection,” Pierce barked.
“I withdraw the question, Your Honor,” Beckett said, cutting off any need for a ruling from Sutherlin on the objection. “Let me rephrase that, Sergeant. Your report is wrong when it says you saw Mr. Beaumont holding a gun, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“And you were wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his left hand?”
“Yeah.”
“And you were wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his right hand?”
“Yeah.”
“So this statement in the report, ‘forced entry when saw suspect hold firearm’ was incorrect?”
“Yeah.”
Beckett didn’t let up. “You actually had no reason to force entry, did you?” This would mean they had no right to search Beaumont’s apartment and the documents would be legally inadmissible.
Russell didn’t answer.
“Answer the question, Officer?”
Russell remained silent.
“You lied when you said you forced entry because you saw a gun, didn’t you?”
“It was a mistake, that’s all, no lie.”
“Let’s cut to the chase, Sergeant. Beaumont never opened the door, did he?!”
“Yes, he did,” Russell responded immediately.
“You forced entry on a closed door, didn’t you?” Beckett continued in rapid fire succession.
“No, sir.”
“Beaumont never had a gun, did he?”
“Yes, he did.”
Beckett paused for effect. “One last question, Sergeant: will Officer Webb back up your version, whatever that may be?”
“Objection,” Pierce yelled.
“Withdrawn,” Beckett said, turning his back on Russell and returning to his seat.
Several members of the jury shook their heads. Most glared at either Russell or Pierce. Pierce stormed over to the podium.
“Sergeant, you saw the gun, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Russell said, staring hatefully at Beckett.
“You removed the gun from Mr. Beaumont personally, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nothing further,” Pierce growled as he returned to his seat.
Beckett rose to his feet. “Nothing further.”
“The witness is excused. Call your next witness, Mr. Pierce,” Judge Sutherlin said.
When Beckett sat down, Beaumont leaned over to him. “Why did’n chu ask him about beating me?”
“Because your story is a lie.”
Chapter 39
“The people call Maggie Smith,” Eddie Pierce proclaimed.
“Interesting,” Beckett whispered to Corbin. “I guess they haven’t found Webb yet?”
Based on the order of their witness list, comments made by Pierce during the pre-trial conference, and simple trial tactics, Corbin and Beckett expected Pierce to call Webb as his second witness, especially after Beckett successfully kept Russell from talking about Webb finding the documents. Putting Webb off would present problems for Pierce, problems an experienced trial attorney like Beckett was ready to exploit.
“Do you want me to find Webb?” Corbin volunteered.
“No, I don’t want to trigger any desire on his part to come testify. Let sleeping cops lie.”
All eyes turned to the rear of the courtroom as a bailiff opened the wooden door. In walked a Rubenesque, middle-aged woman in a slightly-dated, dark-blue, skirt suit. She wore an enormous gold watch on her wrist and smelled strongly of perfume, even from great distances. She made her way to the witness box and was sworn in by the clerk. This was Maggie Smith.
For the next ten minutes, Pierce struggled to get basic background information out of Smith. It wasn’t that Smith wanted to be difficult, but like many people who never testified before, she felt intimidated by sitting in the witness box with dozens of people staring at her. Like a million witnesses before her, this caused her to confuse simple details, to provide wrong or incomplete answers, and to sound nervous. Pierce, who had seen this hundreds of times before, patiently walked her through those details. As she became more comfortable, he moved on to more important topics.
“Now, you say you’ve been the branch manager at Penn Bancorp, down on Fulton, for five years, correct?”
“Yes.”
“In your role as branch manager, were you the person responsible for opening new accounts?”
“Right.”
