More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

Sonata for witness and jury.

“Maybe it’s true. But—”

“Sir, let’s go on. On that day, the second of June, after Jerry Pilsett had mowed the lawn and loaded the wood into his pickup truck to be carted off, you asked him inside to pay him, right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“And you asked him into your living room. Right?”

“I don’t remember.”

Lescroix flipped through a number of sheets in the folder, as if they were chock full of crime scene data and witnesses transcripts. He stared at one page for a moment, as blank as the others. Then closed the folder.

“You don’t?”

Cabot too stared at the folder. “Well, I guess I did, yes.”

“You gave him a glass of water.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Yes! I did.”

“And you showed him your latest possession, your new stereo. The one you later claimed he stole.”

“We were talking about music and I thought he might be interested in it.”

“I see.” Lescroix was frowning. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cabot, but help me out here. This seems odd. Here’s a man who’s been working for hours in the summer heat. He’s full of dirt, sweat, grass stains… and you ask him inside. Not into the entry hall, not into the kitchen, but into the living room.”

“I was just being civil.”

“Good of you. Only the result of this… this civility was to put his shoeprints on the carpet and his fingerprints on the stereo, a water glass, doorknobs and who knows what else?”

“What are you saying?” Cabot asked. His expression was even better than Lescroix could have hoped for. It was supposed to be shocked but it looked mean and sneaky. A Nixon look.

“Please answer, sir.”

“I suppose some footprints were there, and his fingerprints might be on some things. But that doesn’t —”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Cabot, would you tell the jury whether or not you asked Jerry Pilsett to come back the following day.”

“What?”

“Did you ask Jerry to come back to your house the next day? That would be Saturday, June third.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Lescroix frowned dramatically. He opened the folder again, found another important blank sheet, and pretended to read. “You didn’t say to Jerry Pilsett, and I quote, ‘You did a good job, Jerry. Come back about five tomorrow and I’ll have some more work for you’?”

“I didn’t say that. No.”

A breathless scoff. “You’re denying you said that?”

He hesitated, glanced at the prosecutor and offered a weak “Yes.”

“Mr. Cabot, His Honor will remind you that lying under oath is perjury and that’s a serious crime. Now answer the question. Did you or did you not ask Jerry Pilsett to come back to your house at five p.m. on Saturday, June third?”

“No, I didn’t. Really, I swear.” His voice was high from stress. Lescroix loved it when that happened since even the saintliest witness sounded like a liar. And qualifiers like “really” and “I swear” added to the cadence of deception.

You poor bastard.

Lescroix turning toward the jury, puffing air through cheeks. A few more sympathetic smiles. Some shaking heads too, revealing shared exasperation at a lying witness. The second movement of Lescroix’s performance seemed to have gone over well.

“All right,” the lawyer muttered skeptically. “Let’s go back to the events of June third, sir.”

Cabot put his hands in his lap. Purely a defensive gesture, again in response to the stress that he’d be feeling. Yet juries sometimes read another message in the pose: guilt. “You told the court that you came home about five p.m. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Where had you been?”

“The office.”

“On Saturday?”

Cabot managed a smile. “When you have your own business you frequently work on Saturdays. I do, at any rate.”

“You came back at five and found Jerry Pilsett standing in the doorway.”

“Yes, holding the hammer.”

“The bloody hammer.”

“Yes.”

“It was bloody, right?”

“Yes.”

Another examination of the infamous file, this time looking over a document with actual writing on it. “Hmm. Now the police found your car on the parking strip fifty feet from the door where you allegedly saw Jerry. Is that what you claimed?”

“It’s where the car was. It’s the truth.”

Lescroix forged on. “Why was the car that far away from the house?”

“I… well, when I was driving up to the house I panicked and drove over the curb. I was worried about my wife.”

“But you couldn’t see your wife, could you?”

A pause. “Well, no. But I could see the hammer, the blood.”

“Fifty feet away’s a pretty good distance. You could actually see the hammer in Jerry’s hand?”

Calling him “Jerry,” never “the defendant” or “Pilsett.” Make him human. Make him a buddy of every member of the jury. Make him the victim here.

“Sure, I could.”

“And the blood on it?”

“I’m sure I could. I—”

Lescroix pounced. “You’re sure you could.” Just the faintest glissando of sarcasm. He scanned another page, shaking his head. “Your vision’s not very good, is it?” The lawyer looked up. “In fact, isn’t it illegal for you to drive without your glasses or contacts?”

“I… “Taken aback by the amount of research Lescroix had done. Then he smiled. “That’s right. And I had my glasses on when I drove up to the house. So I could see the bloody hammer in his hand.”

“Well, sir, if that’s the case, then why did an officer bring them to you in the house later that evening? When he needed you to look over some items in the house. He found them in your car.”

It was in the police report.

“I don’t… Wait, I must’ve… I probably took them off to dial the cell phone in the car — to call the police. They’re distance glasses. I must’ve forgotten to put them back on.”

“I see. So you claim you saw a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer, you took off your driving glasses and you called nine-one-one.”

“Yes, I guess that’s about right.”

He didn’t notice the “you claim” part of the comment; the jury always does.

“So that means you called nine-one-one from inside the car?”

“I called right away, of course.”

“But from inside the car? You claim you see a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer and yet you park fifty feet away from the house, you stay in the safety of the car to call for help? Why didn’t you jump out of the car