I nod. “Just the facts… gotcha. Lieutenant Hundley, how many times have you cut yourself in the last three years after which you’ve bled, even a bit, from a little accident? Could be a paper cut, splinter, torn fingernail, shaving your legs, whatever.”
“I really wouldn’t know.”
“Then guess,” I say.
“Maybe four or five.”
I smile approvingly. “Then you’re very careful; in my case it’s a lot more. How many times have you had a little accident that caused you to lose brain matter or skull fragments?”
“Never.”
I nod. “Same here. So people bleed all the time, but they rarely get their heads blown up. Walter Timmerman could have left traces of blood in his son’s car at any time, but if he had left brain or skull in there, that would have been rather significant. Don’t you think?”
“That’s not for me to determine.”
“And it’s equally significant that those things were not there, don’t you think?”
“That’s not for me to determine,” she repeats.
I nod. “Because you just report the facts.”
“That’s correct.”
“Is it a fact that you found clothing of Steven Timmerman’s that was covered with his father’s blood?”
“No.”
“Did you factually find any of that blood in Steven Timmerman’s house?”
“No.”
“Not in the drains, or the washing machine?”
“No.”
“And that’s a fact?”
“Yes.”
I turn to the scene at the house, though there is little fertile ground for me to cover. As part of my questioning, I ask if all the damage had been done by one explosion, and she tells me that if there were any additional explosions, she is unaware of it.
When I let her off the stand, Richard stands for what I assume will be a redirect examination.
Instead he says, “Your Honor, may we have a discussion in chambers?”
“YOUR HONOR, we believe we have located the murder weapon. I was informed of it moments ago.”
“How convenient for you,” Hatchet says. “Where did you find it?”
“In the defendant’s downtown loft, where he makes and sells his furniture.”
This is not making sense to me. “Richard, I’ve seen the reports of a previous search of the loft. It didn’t turn up then, but it suddenly appeared now?”
“My information on this is not complete; I just thought I should inform the court and defense immediately when this was brought to my attention. But there was apparently a secret, or at least a hidden, compartment in the leg of one of the tables the defendant made. The police discovered the gun in there.”
Hatchet obviously finds this as strange as I do. “What made them decide to do another search in the first place?”
Richard is himself looking uncomfortable with this. “There was an anonymous tip, I believe in the form of a phone call.”
I argue that the gun should not be allowed to be introduced as evidence, though I really have no solid grounds on which to base my objection. Hatchet delays his decision until the gun is confirmed to be the weapon that killed Walter Timmerman, but he will rule against me. I can tell he’s not pleased with this turn of events, but just as I can’t come up with a good reason to keep the evidence out, neither can he.
I ask Hatchet if we can adjourn for the day, so that I can talk to my client about this while the tests are run. Richard backs up my request, since if the gun is shown to be what we all think it will be, he’ll want to introduce testimony to that effect immediately. Hatchet grants the request, and the jury is sent home until tomorrow.
I arrange to meet with Steven in an anteroom. In a normal situation, I might start by telling him that his loft was searched again, and I would be looking to gauge his reaction for any obvious worry. But once again this case is different; I know that Steven didn’t kill his father, Childs did. So it therefore isn’t possible that Steven hid the murder weapon.
“They think they found the murder weapon,” I say. “It was hidden inside a piece of furniture in your loft.”
He recoils as if shot. “That isn’t possible. Oh, my God. How is this happening?”
“Do you ever build hidden compartments into your furniture?”
He nods. “Sometimes, when people request it. But it’s not for hiding things generally, it’s often for storage.”
“Who would know about that?”
“Almost anyone who’s ever bought a piece of furniture from me.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” I say.
“How bad is this?” he asks. “Is there any chance we can recover?”
“We’ll have a better idea about that tomorrow.”
When I finish meeting with Steven, I go back into the courtroom, where Kevin is waiting for me. Also there is Martha Wyndham, who tells me she was in court today. I left word for her to come over to the house after court, and I ask if she’d mind meeting me there. She’s fine with that.
I stop at the supermarket before going home, since the four hundred people who seem to be staying at my house have, if anything, started to eat even more than before. I’m not sure, but I think I saw Marcus gnawing on the garage the other day.
Martha beats me home, and Laurie has let her in. When I get there Martha is playing with a crazed Waggy. I could wait for Waggy to calm down before talking to her, but by then Steven would be up for parole.
“Waggy looks terrific,” Martha says.
I nod. “And he’s matured a lot.”
She starts to ask me some questions about the trial, and how I think it’s going. Since I don’t want to be honest about it, I fend off the questions, including the one about why court was adjourned early. I want to keep the information about the murder weapon quiet until tomorrow, though obviously I have only limited control of that.
I finally get the conversation around to where I want it, which is Charles Robinson. “Did you spend any time with him?”