Dylan stares a dagger at me and finishes his sentence. “… but I am concerned that this can be played to the defense’s advantage.” He goes on to explain how, accurately summarizing my reasons for wanting the protection in the first place.
Harrison takes this under consideration, then decides to order the extra protection, with a directive that it be as unobtrusive as possible. He also orders me not to mention it outside of these chambers. Unless the media are extra aware, my advantage has effectively been negated. Point to Dylan.
I’m sure it’s the first of many points that Dylan will make today. He calls State Police Detective Hector Alvarez, who led the group of four detectives who first arrived at Kenny Schilling’s house that day. He was in command until Captain Dessens was called to take charge of the explosive confrontation.
Alvarez describes a very nervous Kenny refusing to let the officers in. When they became more insistent and threatened to enter forcibly, Kenny brandished a handgun and fired a shot to fend them off. They then took out their own weapons, retreated, and called for backup support. As told, the jury could not help but think that Kenny’s actions demonstrated a clear consciousness of guilt.
Kenny has been steadfast in claiming that the officers took out their weapons first, but in cross-examination I am unable to get Alvarez to agree with that. The closest I can come is to get him to admit that his men were surrounding the house and he could not see a number of them. He claims that they would not draw their weapons without being so ordered, but they were not in his line of sight at the time.
“Detective, were any of your men shot or wounded?”
“No.”
“But a shot was fired by Mr. Schilling?”
“Yes,” he says emphatically.
“So he missed?”
“Fortunately.”
“Did you retrieve the bullet?”
He shakes his head. “No. We couldn’t find it.”
“Might he have fired into the air?” I ask.
“It’s possible.”
“As if he was trying to scare you away but not hurt you?”
Dylan objects that Alvarez couldn’t know Kenny’s motivation for firing, and Harrison sustains. I move on.
“Detective, is it possible that Mr. Schilling didn’t believe that you were police officers?”
“I verbally identified us as such and held up my badge to the peephole in the door.”
“Are you sure he was looking through it? Can you tell from the outside?” I know from examining it that it’s impossible, so I’m hoping to trap him.
“I believe he was. I can’t be sure,” he says, avoiding the trap.
“Were any of your men in uniform?”
“No.”
“So it’s possible he thought you were lying? That you were not police, but rather intruders that might cause him physical harm?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he says.
“What if he had just received a major emotional jolt, one that made him fearful, panicked, before you arrived? A jolt in which he, just for argument’s sake, found his friend murdered in a closet with a bullet in his chest? Might that have caused him to worry about your men coming at him with guns?”
“I believe he knew we were the police, and that’s why he didn’t want to let us in.” He shakes his head firmly. “Mr. Schilling’s actions were not those of an innocent person.”
“Lieutenant, does the name Luther Kent mean anything to you?”
Alvarez reacts, stiffening slightly. “Yes.”
“Please tell the jury how you came to be aware of Mr. Kent.”
In a softer voice he describes a night four years ago when he and his partner came upon Mr. Kent on a street. They approached him, since he resembled the sketch of a man wanted as a serial rapist in that neighborhood. Kent panicked and ran, and in the resulting chase he was shot and killed by Alvarez’s partner.
“Was Mr. Kent later shown to be the rapist?” I ask.
Alvarez takes a deep breath; this is not easy for him. “No. DNA tests cleared him. The actual rapist was arrested two days later.”
Dylan sees where I’m going and objects as to relevance, but he should have objected earlier in the questioning. Now that it’s gone this far, Harrison is not about to stop it, and he doesn’t.
I continue. “Did Mr. Kent have a criminal record? Any indication he had ever done anything which should have made him afraid of the police?”
“No.”
“But different people react differently to stressful situations, isn’t that right?”
“Of course, but that has nothing to do with this case.”
“Because since then you’ve become a master at predicting and judging reactions? You’ve taken a mind-reading course at the Police Academy?”
Dylan objects, and this time Harrison sustains, but I’ve made my point, and I let Alvarez off the stand.
It’s been another day of making small points that do not affect the big picture. I have absolutely no ability to prove that Kenny did not commit this murder; my only hope still rests with trying to convince the jury that it could well have been a drug killing by Quintana’s people. I can only introduce this during the defense case, so I have to be patient and bide my time.
I head back to the office to pick up some papers to read over after tonight’s meeting, and before I leave, I stop in at Sam Willis’s office. He’s been working hard with Adam, and I haven’t had a chance to thank him.
“Happy to do it,” Sam says. “He’s a natural on a computer. He can dig things up that I can’t.”
That’s obviously an overstatement, but Sam doesn’t throw praise around indiscriminately. Adam must be picking up Sam’s tricks really well.
“You’ve both been a really big help.”
“He’s doing most of it,” Sam says. “I’m telling you, he should give up this California movie bullshit and come work here. Him and me and two computers, we could rule the world.”
I smile at the image. “You told him that?” I ask.
“Sure did. I said, say goodbye to Hollywood.”
Uh-oh. That sounds like a song, but I can’t place it, and once again I didn’t prepare any material to engage in song-talking competition.