'Let me see if I understand this. Mr. Campbell said in his opening statement that the murder was committed behind Hinchcliffe Stadium, and then the body was brought to the warehouse. If that's true, are you saying that somebody carried it into the warehouse?'
'It's possible.'
'How far was the body from the nearest door?'
'About forty feet,' he says.
I back him further into the corner. 'So the murderer is somebody strong enough to carry dead weight the size of an old couch more than forty feet?' I walk toward Laurie, to make it seem even more absurd that someone her size could have done this.
'I assume the murderer had a cart of some kind and then took it with him when he left. Or when she left.'
'Then why would
Dylan objects that the witness couldn't possibly know the murderer's internal reasoning, and Hatchet sustains.
'Did you see any wheel marks, or any tracks made by anything other than human feet?'
'No, but you should ask the forensic people that.'
I smile, knowing that there were no such tracks. 'Oh, I will. Believe me, I will.'
Dylan has a couple of questions on redirect, trying to repair whatever damage I may have caused.
'Officer Spencer, do you know what kind of flooring there is in this particular warehouse?'
'I believe it is cement.'
'So you wouldn't expect a gurney or a cart to leave tracks?'
'I wouldn't think so, no.'
Dylan lets him off, and after Hatchet adjourns court for the day, I head home for what will become a nightly routine. Kevin, Laurie, and I have dinner, discussing the events of the day in court. Marcus will join us when he has something to add, which I hope will be soon. After dinner we move to the den, where we discuss our plans and strategies, and then they both leave me alone with my reading and preparations for the next day's witnesses. It's a grind, but experience has shown that it works for me.
It's eleven o'clock, and I'm sitting on the couch surrounded by paperwork, when Tara comes into the room. She walks over to me and stands a couple of feet away, as if waiting for me to call her over.
'It's obvious you're here only because Laurie's asleep,' I say.
She responds by jumping up on the couch, but sitting about six inches away from me. 'I need two hands to read, so there's no way I'm petting you,' I say.
She tilts her head, as if puzzled by what I'm saying. It should be noted here that Tara has the cutest head tilt I have ever seen. If 'head tilting' had been an Olympic sport in the eighties, even the East German judge would have given her a ten.
Tara's next move is to come closer and snuggle up against me, her head resting on my thigh. It's a blatant attempt to receive pleasure, and I can see through it from a mile away. 'Nice try,' I say, 'but I'm not buying it.'
She licks my hand, so I spend the next hour reading and petting her until we both fall asleep.
I meet Kevin at the courthouse at nine in the morning, and we again go over how we're going to handle Nick Sabonis, the first witness to tie Laurie to the crime. It's important that we make a real dent in him.
Dylan takes him through his being called to the warehouse the night of the murder, and the actions that he took. They're standard and proper, which is fine, because it has nothing to do with Laurie.
Dylan then moves to the meat of the testimony, which covers the afternoon when Laurie, at my request, went to check out the evidence Stynes had said he left behind Hinchcliffe Stadium.
'She was only there a few seconds before she went toward the clothing and the knife,' Nick says.
'So it seemed as if she knew where it was?' Dylan asks.
Nick nods. 'Seemed like it to me.'
'Have you determined whose clothing it was?'
'It was the defendant's clothing. Ms. Collins.' I could argue this point, but the prosecution has fiber evidence and sales receipts, so it would seem like a losing battle to attempt to disprove that these were Laurie's clothes, especially since they were.
'And the bloodstains? Were they the defendant's blood?'
'No, the DNA report showed the bloodstains to be Alex Dorsey's.'
Dylan covers the gas can found in Laurie's garage, then starts to introduce the Oscar Garcia side of the equation, getting Nick to talk about the grudge Laurie had against Oscar. He will supplement this later with witnesses to confirm the grudge and to speak about Laurie being spotted near Oscar's apartment.
Dylan, and Kevin for that matter, seem surprised that I'm not objecting more, since a good portion of this is hearsay, but my feeling is that this is all information that the jury will come to realize is true. I don't want to be seen as trying to bury the truth, especially since I can't.
Dylan finally finishes with Sabonis and turns him over to me. I've always believed that a trial doesn't begin until there's a contentious cross-examination. If that's the case, the curtain's about to go up.
'Lieutenant Sabonis, you knew Alex Dorsey fairly well, didn't you?'
'We worked together.'
'That would be a really good answer if the question were, 'How did you and Alex Dorsey work?' You could say, 'We worked together,' and then we could move on. The problem, and I do hope it's not a recurring one, is that wasn't the question.' I pause. 'Am I going too fast for you?'
Dylan objects to my tone, but Sabonis lets the insult roll off his back. He's an experienced witness; he's not going to be drawn into a fight with me. 'I knew him fairly well, yes,' he says.
'So when you saw the body that night, you were upset that this person you worked with and knew so well was dead?'
'I didn't realize it was him. He had been decapitated and his body badly burned.'
I nod. 'So he couldn't be identified from the condition of the body?'
'Not by me. It took the DNA tests.' I can tell by Sabonis's self-satisfied expression that he's pleased to have gotten in the mention of the DNA. He no doubt thinks it makes my questioning about the body seem unimportant.
'Yes,' I say, 'we'll get to that. So if there were no subsequent scientific tests, you still wouldn't know who that poor soul was?'
'He was wearing that distinctive ring, which I noticed at the morgue. I've seen Alex wear that ring before.'
'You're not saying that you can identify a man's body by the ring on his finger, are you?'
'I'm saying it makes it much more likely that it was him.'
I take the ring, which Dylan had introduced into evidence, and hand it to Nick. 'Do you recognize this as the ring he had on that night?'
He nods. 'I believe so, yes.'
'Would you try it on, please?'
Nick puts the ring on his finger and looks up at me, as if waiting for the next command.
'Alex, we were so worried about you,' I say, wiping my brow in mock relief. 'They said you were dead.'
Hatchet admonishes me even before Dylan objects.
'I'm sorry, Your Honor,' I say, then I turn back to Sabonis. 'You
Dylan jumps up. 'Objection, Your Honor, this is frivolous. Counsel knows who the witness is.'
'Sustained,' says Hatchet, staring a hole through my forehead. 'Be very careful, Mr. Carpenter.'
Undaunted, or at least only partially daunted, I try again. 'Does it make it more likely that you are Alex Dorsey because you're wearing that ring?'
Dylan objects again and this time Hatchet overrules him.
'No, it does not.'
'But putting Alex Dorsey's distinctive ring on his otherwise impossible-to-identify body would be a good way to make you believe it was him, isn't that right?'
'There is no evidence that happened. And we have the DNA results.'
