“Sure,” Detective Penance takes the paper from Shawn.
“7:30pm, Talbot Lexington:
Hey dude, something came up, not going to be able to make it.”
“7:30? That’s shortly after Lennox was stabbed, is that correct?”
“Yes, but the cell phone records retrieved from Mr. Lexington pinged from up—”
“Yes will suffice.”
“Objection,” Astrid speaks out. “Argumentative. All of it. We see what Mr. Connelly is trying to do here. The cell phone ping is directly correlated to Mr. Connelly’s reasoning behind this line of questioning. Talbot was nowhere near the scene of the crime, and the jury should hear from the detective on this matter. We ask the court to allow him to continue.”
“Sustained,” rules the judge. “Detective, you may continue.”
“Thank you, your Honor,” Detective Penance responds. “We had Mr. Lexington’s cell phone records pulled, and the ping came from Midtown at the northern edge of Chelsea, so there’s no way he could have also been on the Chinatown edge of the Lower East Side.”
“Thank you, Detective. And could you please read the second transcript from James West, Lennox’s boss?” asks Shawn.
“8:30pm, James West:
Hey old boy, just saw your better half. Call me when you get this. It’s important.”
“Mr. West says ‘your better half,’ which is Micah, his husband, whom he’d just seen at the event, correct?”
“That is a fair assumption.”
“Do you have any idea what that was about? What’s so important on the night he was killed?”
Even though he and Astrid had discussed this scenario, Detective Penance reflects on an appropriate answer.
“We pursued that with Mr. James West.”
“Pursued?” asks Shawn. “What does that mean? How did you pursue it?”
“We interviewed James West roughly two weeks later, and he was cleared with a solid alibi.”
“Where did you interview him?”
“At his office, Élan headquarters.”
“So not at the police station?”
“No.”
“And during this interview, did you ask him specifically what he meant by the message he sent to his employee the night he was murdered? What he deemed as ‘important’?”
“No, we did not.”
“Thank you. Nothing further,” Shawn says, heading back to his chair next to Micah across the room.
“Ms. Lerner, your witness,” says the judge.
“Thank you, your Honor,” replies Astrid. “Detective Penance, your interviews, collection of evidence and alibi confirmations is enough to clear Mr. West of any wrongdoing in this case, is that correct?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Furthermore, could you tell me why you cleared Mr. West as having an alibi, and why you did not clear Micah Breuer?” Astrid asks.
“Micah was the one we found over his dead husband’s body, was the last one to see him alive, and was the one who confessed to the murder,” Detective Penance replies.
“We have nothing further for this witness,” Astrid says.
“Who’s next?” asks the judge.
“The People would like to call Josh Harrison to the stand,” Astrid says.
Josh, with his perfectly coiffed blonde wavy hair, in blue jeans and a tweed blazer over a crisp white button-down, brushes arms with Detective Penance, who is on his way out of the courtroom. Josh walks in front of Astrid’s table, smiles at her and then the jury, and sits in the witness stand.
As he is sworn in, Shawn, still reeling from the one-two punch he’d just experienced, looks at his watch. He’s surprised that Judge Wilson is still going strong so late in the day. Shawn was expecting Josh to be tomorrow, and wants to ask the judge if it’s possible to postpone this witness, yet he’s concerned how that might look to the jury. Instead, he turns to Micah and begins writing on a small pad between them.
Thought Josh was tomorrow. Mostly prepared. Don’t worry.
Micah looks at him and closes his eyes in a long blink. He grabs the pen and writes.
We got this.
Shawn smiles and sits back in his chair.
“Mr. Harrison, did you have an altercation with the defendant in the summer of 2015?” Astrid Lerner starts.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please tell us what happened.”
“Yes, ma’am. For one thing, the guy is nuts.” Josh tries to make as much eye contact with the jury as possible. “Like if there was a scale like this, he’d be like this.”
Josh maneuvers his hands to represent some sort of invisible machine with a flittering needle that moves so much it blows up.
Shawn notices the improper character evidence and wants to object. He doesn’t. This should be fun.
“Who is ‘the guy’ you are referring to, for the jury please?”
“That man right there.” He points to his left, directly at Micah.
“Let the record reflect the witness is pointing to the defendant,” says the judge.
“What makes you say he’s nuts?” Astrid asks. She, too, notices the leeway, and takes advantage.
“He threatened to kill me.”
“How so?”
“He said if I ever came near Lennox again, he was gonna kill us both. He meant it. With, like, these psycho eyes I’ve never seen before. Complete douchebag.”
“Do you really think he wanted to kill you both?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.” Josh nods so hard he hears his neck pop.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because then he told us how he was gonna do it. He said he was gonna stab us both in our sleep.”
Light but audible gasps are heard from both the jury and the courtroom. Shawn and Micah act unshaken.
Noticing the violent reaction from his captive audience, Josh repeats himself using different words with a more dramatic emphasis.
“He threatened to take my life,” Josh says. “I had this, this feeling, you know, that he was serious and would follow through with it, especially when he said, ‘I’ll kill you both in your sleep. Or maybe just one of you,’ he said. ‘So the other will know what it feels like to lose everything you love,’ or something like that. Still sends shivers down my spine.”
“And what was the date of this altercation again?” Astrid asks.
“July, I think, of 2015,” Josh replies.
Astrid pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to the jury foreman.
“What I’ve just handed to you is a copy of the life insurance policy dated July of 2015,”
