The 13th Juror (24 page)

"Your Honor."

In the courtroom, Freeman's voice took on a more sonorous tone, which couldn't be anything but purposeful.  Everything Freeman did on this stage was, if possible, rehearsed, although nothing appeared to be.  Freeman's voice in other situations tended to the gruff — with a coarse edge, low and guttural.  Here, rising, the personification of gentle reason, there was authority, but the tone was that of a kindly grandfather.

Villars waited while Freeman got all the way up.  It took longer than it had to, but the trial had just begun and the judge could be expected to incline toward patience.

"Your Honor," he repeated, "it's a little early for coincidences.  No evidentiary link has been established."

As Hardy knew, motives were Terrell's weakness.  The young inspector, red-faced now, veins visible on his neck, half-stood, leaning forward in the witness box.  "The man was killed and she collected the insurance, what do you want?"

Bam bam bam.

Villars eyes were on fire, although she controlled her voice.  "Inspector Terrell, that's enough.  Mr. Freeman is addressing the court, not you.  Is that clear?"

Terrell got himself back down.  He straightened his jacket, still angry.

"I asked you a question, Inspector.  Is that clear?"

"Yes, Your Honor.  Sorry."

Villars nodded once, apparently holding no grudge, satisfied.  Even the glaring eye was gone.  Nothing personal but make no mistake — there was going to be order in her court.

For two seconds Villars looked at the ceiling, then back down to Freeman.  "The objection is sustained.  Mr. Powell, you'll have to be a little more specific."  She turned to the jury box, from firebrand to functionary in a few seconds.  "Ladies and gentlemen, please disregard the inspector's comments about coincidence.  It's up to you to make the connections between facts, remember that."  Back to the prosecutor.  "Mr. Powell?"

Powell, who had had the control of the courtroom taken from him in less than the time it took to tie his shoes, was suddenly hyper-aware.  His first witness was now a demonstrable hothead with a fraction of his original credibility and they had a long way to go.  He smiled his unruffled smile.

"Officer Terrell, let's take a new line, shall we?"

He walked Terrell — carefully, a step at a time — through the interview with Jennifer, leaving out reference to the reasons they had finally gone back and exhumed.  The jury, as Villars had said, would have to make that leap.  The fact was that they
had
exhumed, and that they had found a concentration of atropine in the left thigh.  Powell did not go near any question of how it might have gotten there.

Ned did have an insurance policy for seventy-five-thousand dollars.  Jennifer had provided a copy of the policy and the check from her tax records.  Here it is, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, People's Exhibit 1.  Jennifer was the beneficiary.  Here's her canceled check, People's 2.  That's all for the prosecution, Inspector Terrell, thanks very much.  Here comes your cross-examination.

Hardy was sure he wasn't alone in the impression that Terrell had gone up there intending to say a lot more, stay a while longer, make more of a splash.

He was still, obviously, pumped up both from nerves and adrenalin.  Freeman was playing that against him, shuffling some papers, fumbling up out of his chair, straightening his wrinkled tie.  It wasn't quite slow enough to prompt Villars into moving him along, but it clearly was playing all hell with Terrell.

Finally, finally, Freeman got to the center of the courtroom.  "Good morning," he said genially, and waited some more.  The gambit threw Terrell further off-stride, until at last he nodded and mumbled something like a greeting back.

"Now, Inspector Terrell, you have testified that Ned Hollis had a seventy-five-thousand dollar insurance policy and that Jennifer Witt was the beneficiary.  That's correct, isn't it?"

The witness looked up at the judge for an instant, then to Powell, finally back to Freeman.  "That's right."

"What did Mrs. Witt tell you would happen if she died instead of Ned, then what?"

Another pause, thinking about it.  "Then Ned would have gotten the money."

"In other words, it was a joint policy — a husband and wife, if-one-of-us-dies-the-house-is-paid-for kind of policy."

"Yes, that's right."

"And, in fact, did Jennifer tell you that she and Ned owned a house together at this time?"

"Yes, they did."

"And you checked it out, and that was the truth, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was."

"In your investigation, did you come upon any records on the value of that house?"

Terrell cast a what's-all-this-about look at Powell.  Freeman knew that if Powell objected to hearsay — what someone had told Terrell out of court — that the objection would be sustained.  But Freeman could prove the value of the house anyway, with other records and witnesses if he had to.  And the jury would remember that the prosecutor had tried to keep it from them.

Powell said nothing.  Terrell answered that yes, Jennifer and Ned had bought a shoebox down near Daly City, putting down twenty-thousand dollars.

"So their loan was eighty thousand dollars?"

"I don't know.  I'd assume so."

"You know they put down twenty thousand dollars, but you don't know what their loan was?"

Powell stood up, trying to save Terrell, at least for later.  "Your Honor.  Relevance?"

Villars was curt.  "I think so.  Go on, Mr. Freeman.  Inspector?"

"Their loan was around eighty thousand dollars, yes."

Freeman did a little awkward half-turn, almost a pirouette toward the jury.  "And, again in your investigations, did you discover whatever became of that loan?"

Terrell pulled at his suddenly tight collar.  "I believe Mrs. Witt paid it off."

"With the insurance money?"

"Yes.  I believe so."

"You believe so or you know so, Inspector?"

"I know so.  She paid off the loan."

"Indeed she did."  Freeman went back to his table and took out a fat photocopied document.  He had it marked as Defense Exhibit 1 and passed up to Terrell.  "You've seen this before?"  As Terrell was looking at it Freeman turned to the jury.  "In other words, Inspector Terrell, from this document you knew that Jennifer Witt did not take a year-long vacation to Las Vegas, for example."

Powell was on his feet.  "Objection."

"I'll withdraw the comment, Your Honor."  Freeman had made his point — if Jennifer had killed Ned to take some money and live the high life, she might have been expected to have kept at least some of it to party with.  "There's just one other thing I'd like to ask you about, Inspector.  You said Jennifer — Mrs. Witt — told you that Ned Hollis used drugs."

"Yes."

"She said he
experimented
with drugs, isn't that right?"

"That's right."

"You interviewed people who corroborated that?"

Powell got up again.  "Your Honor.  Hearsay.  Mr. Freeman is badgering the witness."

"Not quite, but I take your point."

Freeman waited, silent.

"Mr. Freeman?

"I was waiting for your ruling, Your Honor."

Villars was not amused.  She had the reporter read back the previous dialogue, then said that,
for the record
, the objection is sustained.

Freeman nodded, then continued with Terrell.  "How many of Mr. Hollis' friends did you interview?"

"All that I could find."

"And every single one of them confirmed hat Ned experimented with drugs, isn't that true?"

"Objection.  Hearsay."

"Sustained."

Freeman:  "Did any of them deny that Ned experimented with drugs?"

"
Objection
.  Hearsay."

"Sustained."

The old defense attorney stood for a beat.  Then:  "During your exhaustive investigation into the death of Ned Hollis, did anyone ever describe Mr. Hollis' drug use as other than experimental?"

Like a weary jack-in-the-box, Powell again rose.  "Objection, Hearsay."

Villars had had enough.  "Mr. Freeman, no matter how many different ways you ask the question, I'm going to sustain this objection every time.  Please move on."

Freeman was contrite.  "I apologize, Your Honor."  Back to Terrell with a kindly smile.  "I have no further questions."

29

"They're shooting themselves in the foot on Ned.  You notice Powell said little about it in his opening, especially, didn't even put Jennifer in the county when he died, much less the room."

Freeman chewed on his sandwich — a thick fistful of dry Italian salami on a sourdough roll.  "Villars should have bought my 995."  This was the motion he had filed before the trial, asserting that there was not sufficient evidence in the Ned situation to convict, which Villars had denied.  "Unless they've got some big surprise, this one can't fly."

It was the lunch recess.  They had cabbed up to the office on Sutter and were sitting on benches in the small brick-and-glass enclosed garden just outside the conference room.  Above them, in the aperture formed by the surrounding buildings, the sky burned a deep blue.  Indian summer, San Francisco's finest season.

Hardy picked at the bread of his sandwich, threw it in the direction of some sparrows foraging in the low shrubbery.

"You with us?" Freeman asked.

"Sure."  Hardy flicked another crumb.  "Just thinking."

"About the case?"

Hardy shrugged.

"You don't have to tell me, but are things all right with you?  You doing okay?  Getting enough sleep?  The first days of these trials can be tough."

Leaning forward, Hardy let out a long breath.  "I don't know what's going on at home, David.  It feels like I'm losing my wife."

"Literally?"

"I don't know.  Maybe not."

"But maybe so?"

Hardy stood up, crossed the small opening, stared at blank brick.  Without turning around he said, "Something's happened the last couple of months.  I don't think it's the trial, all this preparation.  I don't know what it is, but it scares me to death."

"You ask her?"

"Couple of hundred times, one way or the other."

"And nothing?"

Hardy shrugged, finally turned.  "Not much.  Not enough.  We've got this tradition where we go out on Wednesday nights.  Date night.  Or we had it 'til a month ago."

The birds were chirping over the crumbs and Freeman broke off a bit of his bread and tossed it across the patio.  "Something happen a month ago?"

"I wish it had.  I came home one night, thinking we were going out, and she's in a nightgown reading.  She tells me I ought to go out by myself, shoot some darts.  She's just tired."

"Maybe she was tired?"

"Time was she'd be tired on a Wednesday night, we'd grab a blanket, go out to the beach, take a nap.  This date night idea was something we'd decided to do, tired or not, kids or not.  The marriage needed it.  We need it for ourselves."

Freeman contemplated his sandwich.  "How old are your kids?"

"Two and almost one, but it's not that."  At the skeptical look, Hardy said, "I don't think it's that.  You think it is?"

"I barely know Frannie, Diz.  But she wouldn't be the first woman to decide her kids needed her more than her husband.  Priorities change."

"Well, they haven't changed with me."

Freeman allowed himself a smile.  "Life's unfair, like JFK said.  If only we could find somebody to sue."  He shifted on the bench, popped the last of his sandwich.  "Does she think
you
need her?"

"Come on, David.  Need?  Who knows need?  I love her and I think she knows that."

"I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but your kids know need.  Frannie knows need."

"Well, hell, I need her, too.  I mean, we're adults, though.  We've both got things we've got to do.  I've got this trial.  She's got the kids.  What are we supposed to do?  That's what date night was supposed to be for — to keep us connected."

"It doesn't sound like you're too connected.  You just said it — you've got this trial, she's got the kids."

Hands in his pockets, Hardy found himself pacing.  Arguing with David Freeman, proving his point that Frannie — perhaps — shouldn't feel what she was feeling, whatever it was, didn't alter the fact that something pretty fundamental seemed to have changed between them, some balance had shifted.

Maybe what Freeman had implied was true — that she didn't feel as though he needed her so much anymore.  He had to admit he wasn't giving her much sign of it — leaving for work early, getting home late, drafting motions, doing research, following up his investigations, reviewing files on weekends.

As far as that went, he didn’t feel like she was needing him much either.  She was doing her jobs, caring for the children, taking care of the home.  They were, he believed, committed to each other, and that had to be one of the main ingredients of what they both called adult love.

"I'd surprise her."  Freeman had come up next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.  "Break up the routine.  Maybe she's just burned out.  Maybe she sees you're not there for her and she's afraid you won't be and she's pulling away."

"But I
am
there.  This trial's just starting.  What does she expect?"

"Maybe the question is what does she need?"  Freeman patted his shoulder, opening the glass door back into the conference room.  "Let's get back to court.  Her Honor frowns on tardiness."

*     *     *     *     *

John Strout, the coroner for the City and County of San Francisco, was already a familiar figure to Hardy and every other professional in the courtroom.  An authority with a national reputation, the drawling, well-respected medical examiner had appeared at almost every trial, grand jury and preliminary hearing that involved a murder in San Francisco — perhaps once a week for the past thirteen years — and now he sat his lanky frame down in the witness box, comfortable and relaxed.

Powell, showing no sign of post-lunch slump, combed his white mane with his fingers and greeted Strout genially, old friends, for the jury's benefit.  Then he got right to it, preempting what Hardy thought would be Freeman's tack on cross.

"Dr. Strout, did you do the initial autopsy on Ned Hollis back in 1984?"

"Yes, I did."

"And what were your findings at that time?"

Strout backed his chair up in the witness box and crossed his legs, his broad and open face creased in a smile.  "We ran an
A
scan and returned with a finding of accidental death due to an overdose of cocaine mixed with alcohol."

"An
A
scan?  Would you explain to the jury what that is?"

Strout leaned forward and gave a two-minute explanation — most poisons and/or volatile compounds were found in the
A
scan, and it was cheapest and quickest.  If a cause-of-death could be found at the
A
level — without a police report indicating a suspicion of foul play — the scanning tended to stop there.

"And the
A
scan did find traces of cocaine and alcohol in Mr. Hollis' system, is that it?"

Strout frowned.  Making it simple for the jury wasn't his job.  He was already on the record as having missed the true cause of death in this case, and he wanted to keep it precise.  "There was a potentially lethal level of coca-ethylene, which gets a little technical, but basically it is the by-product when cocaine and alcohol mix in the blood."

"And when you determined the presence of this coca-ethylene, you stopped the autopsy?"

"Well, no.  But we stopped looking so hard for a cause-of-death.  A man's got a knife sticking out of his head, we don't necessarily go looking for a coincidental heart attack."  A brush of low laughter.  "But we didn’t complete the autopsy with that finding.  In fact, the lab tests and the physical examination are related but separate procedures."

Strout explained about blood samples being sent off to the lab while the autopsy proper concerned itself with the body and its organs.  "When we get back the lab results, we check to see if anything we've discovered in the physical examination might throw some new light on the lab's finding or vice-versa."

"And in this case?"

"Well, we found the coca-ethylene.  There weren't any appreciable amounts or physical indications of the presence of barbiturates or alkaloids.  So we had a probable cause of death at the
A
level and stopped there."

Powell nodded to Strout, then turned first to the jury, then back to the defense table, making eye contact with Jennifer again.  Hardy glanced at her out of the side of his eye.  Was she
smiling
at her prosecutor?  He touched her arm, and she stiffened, her face now a mask.

The direct examination continued without any surprises.  Both prosecution and defense counsel might have stipulated to all of this forensic detail — the facts were largely undisputed — but neither Powell or Freeman had shown any inclination to do so.  They had their reasons.  Powell wanted to make the long-ago death of Jennifer's first husband real to the jury.  He might have been dead a long time now, but when he died he'd been a healthy twenty-six-year-old man.  Powell wanted the jury to know that, to get a sense of a young life snuffed out, to watch his accused killer react to it all.  When he'd finished outlining the
C
scan and discovery of the concentration of atropine in Ned's left thigh, Powell led Strout into an area that did not strictly concern his findings in the lab or at autopsy.

"Now, Dr. Strout, atropine is a prescription drug, is it not?  It's not available over the counter?"

Strout agreed.

"And what is it's principle use?"

"It's used in anesthesia and to inhibit the flow of saliva."  Strout was good at including everybody.  He smiled all around, smooth and comfortable.

"Were you surprised when you found it in the scan you've described?"

"Objection."  Freeman was up like a shot, and almost as quickly, without discussion, Villars sustained him.  Powell remained impassive.

"Dr. Strout, to your knowledge, does atropine get much use as a recreational drug?"

Hardy could see Freeman getting poised to object again, but he sat back, seemingly content to let Powell continue with this line of questioning.

"If it is, it's not a common one."

"It doesn't produce a so-called high, or anything like that?"

Again, Hardy glanced over at Freeman, Powell was leading the witness all over the place, and Freeman was sitting back in his chair, lips pursed, listening.

"No."

"So if a person were an habitual drug user, and looking to get high, he or she would not—"

Here, finally, Freeman raised a hand, keeping his voice low.  "Your Honor?  Speculation."

Again he was sustained.  Powell smiled, palms out, apologized in his gentlemanly way and nodded to both the judge and the doctor.  "That's all, then.  Thank you, Dr. Strout.  Your witness, Mr. Freeman."

*     *     *     *     *

The rumpled defense attorney, no less genial than Powell had been, although — Hardy thought — more believable in this guise, walked to where Powell had been standing, then moved three steps closer to the witness box, lifting one hand in a casual unspoken greeting to Strout, telling the jury by gesture that he and Strout, too, were professional colleagues.  Just because he was with the defense, it didn’t mean he was with the bad guys, or was one of them.

"This exhumation business… I don't suppose it's much fun, is it, Doctor?"

Strout was still relaxed.  There had been trials where he had testified for the better part of a week.  He looked on his witness time as a break from his work in the morgue.  He spread his hands.  "It's part of the job.  Sometimes it gets pretty interesting."

"Was this, the Ned Hollis exhumation, one of the particularly interesting ones?"

Strout thought for a moment, then added, "I'd have to say it was."

"And can you tell the jury why that was?"

Strout liked this, the opportunity to sit back and chat.  "Well, in any autopsy the search for a cause of death is a bit of a puzzle.  As I've explained earlier, we run laboratory scans for various substances and examine the body, hoping we can point at something when we're finished.  In a case where someone has died a long time ago, the puzzle can get complicated.  I guess that's what I mean by interesting."

Freeman, apparently fascinated, had now wandered closer to the jury box.  "What kind of complications, Doctor?"

"Well, the body decays, for one.  Certain substances break down — chemically, I mean — or turn into something else, or disappear entirely.  Evaporate.  Over time, of course, eventually you can lose almost everything."

"And had that happened with Mr. Hollis?"

"Well, to some degree, yes."

"And yet this was a particularly interesting… puzzle, I believe you called it."

The medical examiner nodded.  "That's because we believed we had another poison and we had to find it — not just the substance itself, but how had gotten into the body."  Strout, the ideal witness, was forward in his chair again, addressing the jury directly.  "During the first autopsy," he explained, "we had, of course, examined stomach contents and so on, but now we were looking to see if we missed anything the first time, so we tried again.  But there wasn't much there.  Although the scan found the initial trace of atropine, we couldn't get any concentration approaching a lethal dose."

"And your next step?"

Hardy glanced at the jury.  This was gruesome stuff, no one was sleeping.  Strout continued, showing enthusiasm for his work.  "Now here's where the puzzle gets interesting.  If there's been a recent death, you might find some needle marks, bruises and so on, but here we took samples from various locations, hoping to find a concentration, and we got lucky."

"How was that?"

Strout got technical on some muscle names and so on, but Freeman brought him back, making it clear that the injection had gone in two-thirds up the front of the left thigh.

"You're sure it was the front of the thigh?  It could not have seeped through, so to speak, from the back?"

Strout was certain.  "There's no chance of that.  The muscles aren't connected."  More medical detail, but gradually the picture came out — the lethal injection had been administered to the upper thigh.

To Hardy, it seemed like a long journey to get to something they already knew.  Until Freeman asked, "This location on the thigh, could someone self-administer an injection there?"