In my borrowed heart, I found myself cheering for the Crown prosecutor. I wanted that bastard Conrad to pay for having stolen my life and then bashing my brains in. I had to remind myself that Conrad wasn’t the one on the stand here today, but Shannon. My best friend who’d had nothing to do with my death.
But it was hard.
I aimed an encouraging smile in what I hoped was Shannon’s direction, although of course I couldn’t see her. Dante gave me a thumbs-up from the back of the courtroom. He looked worried, though, and kept glancing at the empty space beside him. Had she faded further since I’d donned this mortal body?
Then Detective Leo took the stand. He’d been first on scene the day of my murder. “The chain of evidence” as he called it, remained unbroken. That meant the stapler had been in police possession since it had been secured by hospital security at the crime scene. Oh, look at
The Crown picked up a big baggie, dangling it in the witness’s face. “To the best of your knowledge, Detective Leo, is this stapler the murder weapon with which poor Kirsty d’Arc, having just awoken from a yearlong coma, was savagely beaten to death?”
Hammerhead leapt to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. My esteemed colleague is using pejorative descriptions and leading the witness.”
“Sustained. If there were a jury involved, I’d direct them to ignore the Crown’s offensive adjectives, but since this is only the preliminary hearing, I’ll just direct myself. Is that okay?” She glared at Hammerhead, absolutely not asking for his approval.
He blushed a nice dark red that matched my bruises, mumbling, “Thank you, Your Honor.”
“If you could just answer the question, Detective.”
“It is, but—”
“And on this stapler, laid down in layers, were found the fingerprints of a number of people, were there not?”
“Yes, but—”
“And whose were the final set of fingerprints on this vicious—I apologize, Your Honor. On this . . .” He paused to let everyone fill in the blank with their own pejorative adjective. “Stapler.”
Somebody snickered in the back of the room. I whipped my head around, but several of the observers appeared to be barely keeping it together. What was funny about a stapler being used to bash in my brains?
My head began to throb again.
I should have tossed that thing out the window the day it reared up and slashed my hand instead of kidding myself that it had been a hangover-induced hallucination. No doubt Conrad would just have grabbed a handy IV pole to use to club me to death instead. Or worse, a bedpan! Then everyone would be laughing.
“The final set of fingerprints on the stapler are those of Shannon Iver. But—No, don’t cut me off again. Something new was discovered this morning.”
Hammerhead leapt to his feet again. “Your Honor, we were not apprised of new evidence. We declare a mistrial.”
“Neither were we, Your Honor. For once, the Crown and defense agree. Mistrial.” The Crown had the very bad sense to actually return to his seat and begin gathering his papers like he was done for the day.
“Hold on there, Counsel. Nobody’s going anywhere. This is my courtroom and I’ll decide what’s permissible and what’s not. Since both sides were unprepared for this, I figure that makes you even, so we
Detective Leo reached for the plastic baggie. He unzipped it and drew the plastic off the stapler, still holding it by one corner of the bag.
“As you can see, this stapler is constructed of three metal components all hinged at one end. This is the top. For description’s sake, we’ll refer to it as the ‘upper jaw.’” He pulled a pen from his pocket and used it to point at the top section, where the name of the manufacturer was printed in sprawling cursive. “Next, you have a chrome channel where you insert the rows of staples.” He pointed at the silver metal component. “The ‘lower jaw’ if you will.”
“Lastly we have the black metal base. On this particular model, if you press this button, here . . .” He flipped it over, struggling to pull the plastic baggie out of the way, keep hold of the stapler and point with the pen. Somehow he managed. Kali would be impressed. “It swings out of the way so that you can use it like a staple gun. Like for instance to staple papers to a cork board.”
Around the courtroom, people were nodding. The judge looked ready to kick the detective into higher gear.
“Our initial forensics processing revealed that the final prints on the stapler are Shannon Iver’s, as I’ve just said. But we had then sent this stapler to a consulting company with highly specialized equipment. We only received the results this morning along with the stapler itself.”
He now used his pen to pry open the stapler’s evil jaws. The spring-loaded metal clip that forced the staples forward squealed as it retracted, sliding along the metal edges of the “lower jaw.”
Shudders crawled up and down my spine. The back of Theresa’s hand throbbed as if she’d been the one bitten that day in my office.
“The thing we found out was that while there was blood and brain tissue on the outside of the stapler, there was none inside where the staples are housed. So it appears that the stapler’s ‘mouth’ was closed when it was used to bash—I mean, bring an end to Ms. d’Arc’s life. Afterward, the assailant must have then dropped the stapler. The jaws would have sprung open. We experimented with another stapler of the same model and it tended to open when dropped. So, according to the evidence, it was at that point that Ms. Iver picked up the stapler.”
“Objection!” the Crown cried.
The judge rolled her eyes. Unlike Judge Julius, she didn’t remove them first in order to do so. “Is there more, Detective?”
“Yes. Upon examination, we were able to determine that one of Conrad Iver’s fingerprints is divided here. Half on the top part of the stapler—the ‘top jaw.’ And half is on the silver part. The upper and lower jaws were obviously closed when Mr. Iver held it. Where his fingerprints lie, there is neither blood or brain matter.”
“And Ms. Iver’s prints?” Judge Wilson prodded.
“Yes, getting there, Your Honor. Shannon Iver’s prints are only on the top part, actually wrapping around the ‘upper jaw.’ That clearly demonstrates that she held the stapler while it was open. All of her prints overlay the body fluids.”
“And you didn’t notice this the first time.” The judge peered down at him, her face bland while her eyes bore into him.
Detective Leo was also an old hand in a courtroom. He remained unfazed. “We performed all of the required forensic tests within the extremely limited time frame. Normally we have more than ten days to produce results. There are long lead times for the equipment, you know. It’s not like those TV shows where the forensic techs just sit around waiting for evidence to come in or are willing to jump the processing queue as a favor.”
The judge sighed and sat back. “Yes, I do know that, Detective. Thank you for rushing the tests to accommodate this hearing. Mr. Hammerhead, any more questions for this witness?”
Gill rose, shot his cuffs and straightened his jacket. Before he’d been confident, now he was insufferable. “So, to be perfectly clear, Detective. This new forensic evidence—evidence that was derived using highly sophisticated equipment and is therefore irrefutable . . .”
“Yes?” Detective Leo responded. It hadn’t really been a question.
“This new evidence definitively supports my client’s description of events leading up to the unfortunate death of Ms. d’Arc. Is that right?”
“Yes. The evidence shows that it was the late Conrad Iver and
“Thank you, Detective. No more questions, Your Honor.”
