and go see what was going on? See about your wife?”
“Well, I did.”
“But after you called nine-one-one.”
“I don’t know. I… Maybe I called later.”
“But then your glasses wouldn’t have been in the car.”
Cabot was now as disoriented as a hooked pike. “I don’t know. I panicked. I don’t remember what happened.”
Which was, of course, the complete truth.
And, accordingly, of no interest to Lescroix.
He walked ten feet away from the witness stand, stopped and turned toward Cabot. The jury seemed to be leaning forward, awaiting the next movement.
“At what time did you leave the office on Saturday, June third?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you arrived home at about five, you claimed. It’s a ten-minute drive from your office. So you must have left about four-thirty. Did you go straight home?”
“I… I think I had some errands to run.”
“What errands? Where?”
“I don’t recall. How do you expect me to recall?”
“But you’d think it’d be easy to remember at least one or two places you stopped during the course of two hours.”
“Two hours?” Cabot frowned.
“You left the office at three p.m.”
The witness stared at his inquisitor.
“According to the video security tape in your building’s lobby.”
“Okay, maybe I did leave then. It was a while ago. And this’s all so hard for me. It’s not easy to remember…”
His voice faded as Lescroix opened the private eye’s report and found photocopies of Cabot’s banking statements and canceled checks.
“Who,” the lawyer asked pointedly, “is Mary Henstroth?”
Cabot’s eyes slipped away from the lawyer’s. “How did you know about…?”
I do my goddamn homework, Lescroix might have explained. “Who is she?”
“A friend. She—”
“A friend. I see. How long have you known her?”
“I don’t know. A few years.”
“Where does she live?”
“In Gilroy.”
“Gilroy’s a fifteen-minute drive from Hamilton, is that right?”
“It depends.”
“Depends? On how eager you are to get to Gilroy?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained. Please, Mr. Lescroix.”
“Sorry, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Cabot, on June third of this year, did you write a check to Ms. Henstroth in the amount of five hundred dollars?”
Cabot closed his eyes. His jaw clenched. He nodded.
“Answer for the court reporter, please.”
“Yes.”
“And did you deliver this check in person?”
“I don’t remember,” he said weakly.
“After you left work, you didn’t drive to Gilroy and, during the course of your…
“I might have.”
“Have you written her other checks over the past several years?”
“Yes.” Whispered.
“Louder, please, sir?”
“Yes.”
“And did you give these other checks to Ms. Henstroth in person?”
“Some of them. Most of them.”
“So it’s reasonable to assume that the check you wrote on June third was delivered in person too.”
“I said I might have,” he muttered.
“These checks that you wrote to your ‘friend’ over the past few years were on your company account, not your joint home account, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So is it safe to assume that your wife would not be receiving the statement from the bank showing that you’d written these checks? Is that correct too?”
“Yes.” The witness’s shoulders dipped. A slight gesture, but Lescroix was sure a number of the jurors saw it.
They all saw the prosecutor toss his pencil onto the table in disgust. He whispered something to his sheepish assistant, who nodded even more sheepishly.
“What was this money for?”
“I… don’t remember.”
Perfect. Better to let the evasive answer stand than to push it and have Cabot come up with a credible lie.
“I see. Did you tell your wife you were going to see Ms. Henstroth that afternoon?”
“I… no, I didn’t.”
“I don’t suppose you would,” Lescroix muttered, eyes on the rapt jury; they loved this new movement of his symphony.
“Your Honor,” the prosecutor snapped.
“Withdrawn,” Lescroix said. He lifted a wrinkled piece of paper from the file; it contained several handwritten paragraphs and looked like a letter, though it was in fact an early draft of a speech Lescroix had given to the American Association of Trial Lawyers last year. He read the first paragraph slowly, shaking his head. Even the prosecutors seemed to be straining forward, waiting. Then he replaced the letter and looked up. “Isn’t your relationship with Ms. Henstroth romantic in nature, sir?” he asked bluntly.
Cabot tried to look indignant. He sputtered, “I resent—”
“Oh, please, Mr. Cabot. You have the gall to accuse an innocent man of murder and you
“Objection!”
“Withdrawn, Your Honor.”
Lescroix shook his head and glanced at the jury, asking, What kind of monster are we dealing with here? Lescroix paced as he flipped to the last page of the file. He read for a moment, shook his head, then threw the papers onto the defense table with a huge slap. He whirled to Cabot and shouted, “Isn’t it true you’ve been having an affair with Mary Henstroth for the past several years?”
“No!”
“Isn’t it true that you were afraid if you divorced your wife you’d lose control of the company she and her father owned fifty-one percent of?”
“That’s a lie!” Cabot shouted.
“Isn’t it true that on June third of this year you left work early, stopped by Mary Henstroth’s house in Gilroy, had sex with her, then proceeded to your house where you lay in wait for your wife with a hammer in your hand? That hammer there, People’s Exhibit A?”
“No, no, no!”
