“He wants to be a martyr,” Alvarez agreed. He was angry and didn’t bother hiding it.
“Yes.”
“I fucking warned you!” Alvarez spat out. “All you did was put off the inevitable and make this a thousand times more difficult. You need to act
They sat in silence for several seconds.
“Do you have a plan?” Alvarez finally asked.
“I have a plan,” Corbin said coldly.
Chapter 40
Trial started promptly at 9:00 am the following morning. Much to Beckett’s chagrin, Beaumont showed up in a maroon suit. The suit had a hat, but Beckett grabbed it from Beaumont’s head and stuffed it into a briefcase. This caused Beaumont to take verbal shots at Beckett for wearing the same gray suit as the day before, though he did change his striped blue tie for a mauve paisley tie. Corbin stayed out of the argument.
Pierce spent the morning introducing two people whose identities were stolen. Both were locals. Under Pierce’s guidance, they told sob stories about the time, expense and emotional trauma it cost them to deal with this issue. Pierce got them to lay it on thick. . too thick, and the jury stopped listening. When jurors stop listening, they put down their notepads and their eyes wander around the room. All but one of the jurors reached that phase within minutes. Pierce also called Officer Sanchez to testify about the chain of custody for the gun. Sanchez explained how he took the gun from Russell and placed it into the evidence locker, where it was tagged to be produced at trial. The jury didn’t care.
After lunch, Pierce called Natasha Freet.
Freet stared at Beaumont. The jury waited for her answer. They already knew she worked at First Regional Bank as a teller. They knew she didn’t like her job or her boss. They also knew she wasn’t a very nice person. What they did not know was whether or not she could identify Beaumont.
“Yeah, that’s him,” she finally said in her thick Philadelphia accent. It sounded like she was popping gum when she spoke, even though she spit her gum out when she reached the witness box.
“Are you sure?” Pierce asked.
“Like I say, that’s him. He was wearin’ this nasty red shirt and black pants when I seen him, but that’s him,” said Freet, who wore a hot pink mini-dress that was too small for her midriff and gold hoop earrings over four inches in diameter.
“This was the man,” Pierce pointed toward Beaumont, “who asked you on June 14th of last year how to open an account?”
“Yeah,” she said impatiently.
“You remember him specifically? No one showed you any photos of him to jog your memory?”
“They showed me like photos, but I remembered him before they showed me them.”
“What happened after he spoke to you?”
“Who? The cop or him?” she pointed an excessively long, silver fingernail at Beaumont.
“Mr. Beaumont,” Pierce replied.
She shifted to the edge of her seat. “He wanted to know where to like open an account. So I pointed him to account services, and he like went.”
“Did he open an account?”
“Objection,” Beckett said calmly.
“Sustained,” Sutherlin responded without looking up.
“Yeah, he did,” Freet added after Sutherlin spoke. The smug look on her face told everyone in the courtroom she knew she was not supposed to speak.
Judge Sutherlin slapped down his file. He glared at Freet. “When I sustain an objection, you will not answer the question,
Freet looked away from Sutherlin before shrugging her shoulders and snarling her lips.
Sutherlin then addressed the jury: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will disregard the witnesses’ last comment.” He picked up his file and leaned back in his chair again.
“Ms. Freet, how long would you say Mr. Beaumont stayed with the account services people, if you know?” Pierce asked.
“I’d say like maybe half a hour. I kept seeing him sitting there, fillin’ out papers and stuff.”
“Who would have opened the account for him, if you know?”
“Mindy Wright. She was like the account services lady.”
“I’m going to show you a video, Ms. Freet.” Pierce motioned to Morales, who slid a videotape into the projector. “Can you explain to the jury what this video is?”
“Yeah. It’s like the security tape from June 14th.” She began playing with one of her nails.
“That’s right,” Pierce replied. “This is a security video from June 14th from First Regional Bank.”
Beckett had previously stipulated to the authenticity of the tape so Pierce didn’t need to call a security person from the bank to verify what the tape was or explain how it was made. This allowed Pierce to treat the tape as a settled fact. Stipulation is customary when there aren’t any disputes regarding the validity of certain evidence.
“Do you see yourself on the tape?”
Freet stopped picking at her nail and looked up at the screen. “Yeah, I’m on the left at the second window.”
“Do you see a time code?”
“Yeah, it says like 1:10 pm, June 14th.”
Corbin and Beckett looked at the video. There, in the background, sat Alvarez filling out paperwork at the account services desk.
“Do you see Mr. Beaumont?”
“Yeah. He’s kind’a hard to make out, but he’s the second one in line.” The image didn’t look much like Beaumont, especially as the man had hair. But the video was also grainy, which made identification difficult.
“You’re absolutely sure that’s Beaumont?” Pierce asked theatrically.
“Yeah, I remember him. Then they showed me the photos and I pointed him right out. Then the cops like showed me the video and I pointed him out there too.” Freet went back to picking at her nail.
“Let’s move the video forward,” Pierce said to Morales.
As the jury watched, the man approached Freet’s window. They spoke briefly before he went to account services. The video continued to run for several more minutes as he sat down at the account services desk with a woman, who was presumably Mindy Wright, filled out some paperwork, and left.
Pierce leaned against the podium on his left arm. His right hand was still thrust into its permanent place in his pocket. “You’re 100 % sure that was Mr. Beaumont?”
“Absolutely.”
All eyes turned to Beaumont.
Beckett looked almost bored when he approached the podium. “I’ve just got a couple quick questions, Ms. Freet,” he said, placing his notes on the podium.
Freet visibly stiffened in her chair. Clearly, she viewed Beckett as the enemy.
“What color was Mr. Beaumont’s hair. . it’s difficult to tell from the video.”
“Black.”
“Can you describe it? Was it thick, thin, was he wearing a wig?”
Freet smirked and let out a derisive laugh. “No, he wasn’t wearing no wig. It was black and kind’a like thinning.”
“He doesn’t have hair today-”
“No, he must’a shaved it off,” Freet interrupted him.
“Did Mr. Beaumont give you anything to open the account?”
“Why would he give me somethin’?”
“You tell me?”
“No, he didn’t give me nothin’. He just asked where he could open an account, and I told him. He did’n give me nothin’.” She scrunched her lips at Beckett. Several members of the jury shook their heads at her hostility.
Beckett started to leave the podium, but stopped. “One more thing, Ms. Freet. Do you think you could tell the
