attention. Not at the judge, who'd been taking notes at every damning response. And surely not at Carter Drake, who, though he still pretended to be unfazed by what he was hearing, had to be shitting bullets. Or was it sweating bullets? He could never remember, and neither one made any sense.
No, what Jaywalker was looking around for was a hole, a hole big enough to climb into and hide in until this witness would disappear and it would be safe to come out again.
But there was no hole in sight.
Jaywalker had done enough reading to know that Dr. Rudifer's calculations were pretty much on the money. He cross-examined him for twenty-five minutes, trying to create a little wiggle room on his numbers. First, he had Rudifer concede that at two hundred pounds, Carter Drake was significantly heavier than the 'average male' of a hundred and seventy-five pounds that the statistical models were based on.
JAYWALKER: Wouldn't that additional body weight dilute the alcohol in the bloodstream?
RUDIFER: Yes, but he's not far from average. The difference would be a few percentage points, no more.
JAYWALKER: Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but two hundred minus a hundred and seventy-five equals twenty-five. That's one-seventh of a hundred and seventy-five pounds. No?
RUDIFER: I'd need paper and pencil.
JAYWALKER: Here.
(Hands item to witness)
RUDIFER: Yes, you're correct.
JAYWALKER: And that's more than fourteen percent over the model your figures are based on. Isn't it?
RUDIFER: Yes.
JAYWALKER: Not just, quote, 'a few percentage points, no more.' Agreed?
RUDIFER: Agreed.
JAYWALKER: If we were to take that into account and adjust that. 20 blood alcohol estimate downward by 14.3 percent, we'd be down to an estimate of below. 17. Agreed again?
(Witness making calculations)
RUDIFER: Yes, agreed again.
JAYWALKER: Thank you. Suppose for a moment that those tequilas were watered down. Say that each ounce and a half contained a half an ounce of water with a few drops of nonalcoholic caramel food coloring. Would that fact, if true, affect your results?
RUDIFER: Yes.
JAYWALKER: Substantially?
RUDIFER: Yes, but it's my understanding that they weren't watered down.
JAYWALKER: I see. And from whom did you get that understanding?
RUDIFER: From Mr. Kaminsky and Mr. Firestone.
JAYWALKER: And is it your understanding that they were present at the End Zone?
KAMINSKY: Objection.
THE COURT: Overruled.
RUDIFER: The what zone?
JAYWALKER: How about individual tolerance? Do you agree that even without regard to gender, food intake or body weight, different individuals metabolize alcohol at different rates, resulting in varying degrees of impairment?
RUDIFER: Yes.
JAYWALKER: Have you had an opportunity to study how Mr. Drake's system, in particular, metabolizes alcohol?
RUDIFER: No.
JAYWALKER: Have you ever met a young lady named Amy Jo O'Keefe?
(Laughter)
RUDIFER: Who?
JAYWALKER: Amy Jo O'Keefe. Ninety-nine pounds, red hair. Claims she can hold her liquor with the best of them.
RUDIFER: Not that I remember.
JAYWALKER: Oh, you'd remember.
(Laughter)
KAMINSKY: Objection.
THE COURT: Yes, the remark will be stricken.
JAYWALKER: And as I understand it, again disregard ing body weight, alcohol effects women almost fifty per cent more than it affects men. Agreed?
RUDIFER: Agreed. But these are all averages, and JAYWALKER: Exactly.
RUDIFER: — you have to allow for individual variations.
JAYWALKER: So at best, we're working with esti mates here?
RUDIFER: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And those estimates are subject to indi vidual variations?
RUDIFER: Yes.
JAYWALKER: And you don't really know what was in those drinks, other than what the prosecutors asked you to assume. Correct?
RUDIFER: Correct.
JAYWALKER: And if those assumptions are off, so are your results. Correct?
RUDIFER: Correct.
JAYWALKER: Just as they were off because of the de- fendant's body weight. Correct again?
RUDIFER: Correct again.
It seemed as good a place as any to stop, so he did. Kaminsky gave it a shot on redirect, and managed to undo some of the damage Jaywalker had inflicted. By the time Dr. Rudifer stepped down from the witness stand, his testimony had been weakened a bit, but by no means seriously undercut. If the jurors chose to believe Daniel Riley's account that had he hadn't watered down the drinks, there were still three martinis and six or seven tequilas between Carter Drake and sobriety.
It was also time for the lunch break.
The afternoon session brought to the witness stand two of the first responders to the scene of the crash. The first of these was a baby-faced state trooper named Adam Faulkner. Faulkner had been on routine patrol, meaning he'd been on the lookout for speeders and other miscreants, when a broadcast had come over the air directing any troopers in the area to respond immediately to the accident site. He'd gotten there, lights flashing and siren wailing, in under four minutes.
NAPOLITANO: What did you find?
FAULKNER: I found a van, down the hill from the shoulder of the highway. It was still smoldering. I would say it was ninety, ninety-five percent destroyed.
NAPOLITANO: What did you do?
FAULKNER: I searched for signs of life.
NAPOLITANO: Did you find any?
FAULKNER: No, no. Absolutely none.
NAPOLITANO: Are you okay?
FAULKNER: Yes. No. It was pretty bad.
NAPOLITANO: Take your time. What did you do next?
FAULKNER: I emptied my unit's fire extinguisher on the wreckage. I was afraid there might be an afterexplosion. I radioed my supervisor to tell him what I'd found. And I tried to keep people from getting too close. A lot of motorists had stopped. And pretty soon EMS showed up, and other units.
NAPOLITANO: EMS?
FAULKNER: Emergency Medical Services. The EMTs and paramedics.
NAPOLITANO: Were you there when the bodies were removed from the wreckage?
FAULKNER: At first I was. Then, when I saw they were bringing out kids, children, I had to leave. They were
