The Dooher case had enthralled much of the public and captivated the media, not only because of the bizarre set of facts in the case itself, but because it had so deeply polarized the already Balkan-like factions that made up San Francisco.
Wes Farrell had carefully manipulated the coverage, accusing Glitsky of using Dooher as a pawn in his own campaign for advancement within the police department. There was simply no case against Dooher. It was all political.
Glitsky, abetted by activist feminist prosecutor Amanda Jenkins, was simply trying to make his bones by pushing a high-profile case in front of Police Chief Dan Rigby, who was a rubber stamp for the liberal Mayor Conrad Aiken. At the same time, Glitsky was counting on the support of District Attorney Chris Locke, a black liberal supported by two gay supervisors.
On Dooher's side, he had the Archbishop of San Francisco, most of the city's legal community, a host of independent angry white males, including some very vocal radio personalities.
Dooher was white and male. Stories appeared in which people who had known him (and whom he'd fired) recounted his insensitive remarks about his own lesbian daughter. There were no gay attorneys in the firm he ran. He must be homophobic. No women had made partner in his firm, either. He was on record as being anti-abortion.
In short, Mark Dooher's public defense was that he was a modern-day Dreyfuss – exactly the kind of scapegoat an ambitious liberal zealot like Glitsky would need to bolster his reputation and advance his career. The Sergeant had taken the Lieutenant's exam and, in what was widely viewed (and roundly criticized in certain circles) as another liberal end run to enhance his prestige as a prosecution witness, he had been promoted to Head of Homicide.
Outside Judge Oscar Thomasino's courtroom on the 3rd floor of the Hall of Justice, things were heating up.
Building security had erected a makeshift sawhorse chute through which spectators at the trial would have to pass before they entered the courtroom. At the double doors, a metal detector further slowed ingress. (The metal detector at the front entrance to the Hall had been known to miss the occasional weapon, and Thomasino didn't want to take chances in his courtroom.)
So on this cold and clear Monday morning, the ninth day of December, the hallway outside Department 26 was a microcosm of the city, and it was all but unbridled bedlam.
There had already been a mini-riot between the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who supported Dooher, and the Vietnam Veterans of America, who believed Chas Brown. Seven people had to be restrained by the building cops, and two were removed from the hallway and arrested.
But that hadn't ended it. Their blood up, a couple of hippies from the VVA group waded into a contingent of Vietnamese activists who were there protesting the fact that Dooher wasn't being charged with the Trang or Nguyen murders, both of which had received enormous media attention.
It didn't help that the chute was funneling everyone into the same place.
Inside the courtroom, it wasn't much calmer. The hard wooden theatre-style fold-up seats and all the standing-room area in and around them, were crammed with print and network reporters jockeying for space. Women's rights activists wanted Diane Price's story to be heard. Pro-choice and pro-life advocates sniped at each other across the central aisle. The veterans who'd made it inside weren't getting along much better than they had in the hallway.
And this was merely for the pre-trial motion phase, before jury selection had even begun. Attorneys for both sides went before the Judge and talked about the evidence they would be presenting, about what would be allowed, what barred.
Normally, this was not a public, 'sexy' part of a trial. It was often a lot of legalese and mumbo-jumbo. But if any of the political and social issues that surrounded this trial were going to be part of it, today was when everyone was going to find out.
The Judge hadn't yet entered the courtroom, but the court reporter was at her machine in front of the Bench, the clerk sat with his computer printouts off to the side, and the three bailiffs stood at ease in their uniforms.
At the defense table, Mark Dooher was a study in careful control. He and his attorneys had come into the Hall of Justice and then into the courtroom through the back door to avoid having to confront either the reporters or the crowds demonstrating in the hallways outside. Now Dooher sat, somber and subdued, his hands folded in front of him on the table.
On his right was Wes Farrell, who'd lost his ten extra pounds and abandoned his former air of slovenliness; with his maroon tie and charcoal-gray Brooks Brothers suit, he was every inch the successful lawyer.
On the other side of the defendant sat Christina Carrera, by some accounts the 'other woman' for whom Dooher had killed his wife. This theory seemed to suffer under the burden of inspection – the two had been hounded by reporters nearly constantly for months now and they had spent little or no personal time together. They'd never been caught out at any private tryst. They denied any personal involvement with each other beyond a mutual friendship, respect, and commitment to proving Dooher not guilty.
Christina had only passed her Bar exam two weeks before but, at Dooher's request, had been on his defense team from the beginning. Over Farrell's strenuous objections.
Dooher had sprung the idea on him as they were leaving the Hall of Justice after posting bail. Farrell had laid a hand on his friend's sleeve. 'Let me get this straight. You want Christina Carrera, who hasn't even passed the Bar, to be my second chair in your murder trial?'
'She'll have passed the Bar by the time we go to trial.'
'Okay, so even then, that's your plan?'
'That's it.'
Farrell nodded, appearing to give it serious thought. 'How can I phrase my response so that it's both powerful and unambiguous and yet subtle and sensitive? Ahh, the words are coming to me: are you out of your fucking mind?'
'Not at all, Wes. It's a terrific idea.'
'It's the worst idea I've ever heard. The very worst.'
Dooher started walking, forcing Wes to tag along down off the steps of the Hall, along Bryant. 'No, listen…'
'I can't listen, Mark. It doesn't bear discussion.'
But Dooher was going on. 'We both agree We've got political issues on our hands here, right? Here we are, two old white guys, the very image of what San Francisco hates, what any representative jury is going to hate…'
'It doesn't hate-'
'No, hear me out. And at the prosecution table, we've got a woman DA and a black cop, representing the forces of justice. We need, to steal their own thunder, diversity.'
'Okay, so we'll get a second who doesn't look like us, but not her. I've already heard talk about the two of you-'
Dooher stopped walking. 'There is nothing to that. Nothing.'
'I didn't say there was, Mark. I'm telling you what I've heard other people saying.'
'Well, then, all the better. Get the rumors out of the closet. Put her on the team and we'll all be under a microscope for months, and they won't find a damn thing 'cause there isn't anything. She is very bright, you know. Law review, top of her class.'
'Bright, schmight, Mark, she's not even a lawyer.'
'We've covered that. She will be. She's got passion and brains and she'll work her ass off for you at a fraction of what you'd have to pay somebody else.'
'You mean what you'd have to pay someone else. You're telling me money's the issue?'
'No. That's incidental. I'll save a few bucks, but I want her with us. She's pretty as hell, men on the jury are going to want to be on her side.'
Farrell was shaking his head. 'Men on the jury will be jealous of you and women will be intimidated by her.'
'Not true.'
'You want to risk your life on that?'
Dooher seemed to consider that notion. 'I'm a risk-taker, Wes. My gut tells me I'm right in this case. I've lived my life believing what my gut tells me. So yeah, I guess I'd risk my life on this. That's who I am, and I've done pretty well with it, don't you think?'
Wes caught the unspoken message: Better than you have, old buddy old pal.
But this was a terrible idea. Wes couldn't make himself just roll over and accept it, though he could see where this discussion was going to lead. 'What if I can't work with her? What if we don't get along?'
'Why wouldn't you get along? Two professionals, one cause you both believe in? What's not to get along?' Then a sop to Farrell's ego. 'You'll be the man, Wes. She takes orders from you. And she'll jump at the opportunity, then through hoops if you ask her to.'
They were walking again. It was a blustery mid-afternoon and cars packed all of Bryant's four lanes; traffic lined up for the five o'clock commute across the Bay Bridge had halted. Horns and swearing.
'Why do you want her, Mark? Really?'
'I just told you.'
Farrell shook his head. 'No, I mean personally. I'm asking this as your friend, not your attorney, okay? You' ve got to see how badly this could play. Don't you?'
'Yeah,' he finally admitted. 'We've said there's a risk. I think it's worth taking.'
'But why?'
Dooher walked on for a few more steps, then put an arm around Farrell's shoulder. 'I guess the same reason I want you. I just don't feel comfortable with a hired gun.' He pulled Farrell closer to him. 'She's got faith, Wes. She believes in me.'
On the prosecution side of the courtroom, Amanda Jenkins had abandoned her trademark mini-skirt for a conservative dark blue suit. She'd let the frost grow out of her hair and now wore it shoulder-length, curled under. Next to her, helping her arrange her papers at this moment, was Lieutenant Abe Glitsky.
Glitsky had tried to put the madness of all of this out of his life over the past months – he'd had enough on his mind with his children and his new job. Batiste's prediction had come true and Glitsky had been promoted within his unit, and now he was running Homicide. The paper could say whatever it wanted about the politics of his promotion, but he knew he'd been Batiste's first choice as his successor, and he'd scored second-highest among applicants for Lieutenant. He'd earned it.
The way he saw it, Mark Dooher was unfinished business from his days as a Sergeant. He had investigated the case, assembled the evidence, and delivered it to the District Attorney. It was his case until Dooher got sentenced.
So as the DA had requested, as the investigating officer, Glitsky sat inside the rail, at the prosecution table next to Amanda Jenkins, wearing the dark suit he'd bought for Flo's funeral and hadn't worn since.
Almost seven months ago.
He was going to be there every day for the duration of the Dooher trial. California Evidence Code Section 777(c) provided that the DA could appoint an 'officer or employee' to be present at the trial, and prosecutors liked the investigating officer to be there for any number of reasons – to prepare other witnesses for what they might expect, to bounce theories and strategies off another professional, to have someone to talk to during recesses, to watch the Judge and the jury. If a juror fell asleep during testimony, for example, he'd tell Jenkins that perhaps she should go over it a second time.
But mostly he was there as a second set of ears, to hear what a witness actually said, as opposed to what everyone – except the jury – expected and therefore heard. There was a huge difference, and that's what Abe was listening for.
'All rise. Department 26 of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco, is now in session, Judge Oscar Thomasino presiding.'
Farrell stood, pulled at his tie and cleared his throat – his nerves were frayed nearly to breaking. He had been in courtrooms hundreds of times, but nothing came close to the electricity surrounding this case. And now, finally, after all the preparation, it was beginning.
Thomasino, in his black robe, ascended to the Bench. Sitting, he adjusted his robe, arranged some papers, took a sip of water, whispered something to his court reporter, who smiled. Knowing that it was undoubtedly a ritual pleasantry, Farrell still wondered what the Judge had said – if it was about any of them. Thomasino raised his bushy eyebrows to include the courtroom. Everyone was getting seated again, shuffling around, and the 'Good morning' Thomasino perfunctorily uttered went largely unheeded.
It didn't seem to bother the Judge. He turned to the court clerk, tapped his gavel once as though checking to see that it still worked, and nodded to the clerk. 'Call the case.'
The clerk stood. 'Superior Court number 159317, The People of the State of California versus Mark Francis Dooher. Counsel state their appearances for the record.'
Farrell looked at his client to his left, then further down the table to Christina, his second chair. A thumbs up, a practiced smile for her confidence, for his client's. He felt little of that confidence himself, concerned his weakness in accepting Christina as second chair would fatally harm the defense.
Christina looked good – hell, she always looked good – and she certainly was game to fight this battle for as long as it took. Farrell even had to admit she was a substantial and resourceful person with a damn good legal mind.
But so what? In spite of that, in spite of her gung-ho attitude and good humor, he wished she could simply disappear.
Because she was in love with their client, goddamn it.
Wes believed that there was nothing yet between them, but he never doubted that there would be, and privately that shook him.
This was the unspoken motive. Farrell had no indication that Amanda Jenkins was planning to bring it up during the trial – but it was the only argument for Dooher's guilt that Farrell couldn't refute.
This one question lay buried under the rational arguments in the very pit of his being. There had been nights when it rose ghoulish and woke him in a sweat.
But the time for reflection had passed.
Thomasino, all business, ostentatiously opened his folder, read for a nanosecond, and was now skewering both attorneys' tables. 'Ms Jenkins,' he began, 'Mr Farrell. Before we call the first jury panel, we've got a four-oh-two to rule on.'
Jenkins stood up at her table. 'Yes, your honor.'
The Judge was reading again. 'You've got two motions here and both of them have to do with character evidence, which you know can only be used in rebuttal by the prosecution.'
Thomasino was clarifying this technical point, but that was what 402 motions were about. As a matter of law, evidence of bad character could not serve as proof that a defendant had committed any particular crime. One couldn't say, for example, that because Joe Smith beat his dog, it followed he'd killed his wife.
The law further recognized the perhaps natural, human inclination for the prosecution to want to tarnish a defendant's reputation by bringing up every bad thing that person had ever done, so that it would seem more likely that that person had done the particular thing they were accused of. So it created a check to keep this from happening.
Unless the defense brought up evidence of a defendant's good character first, the Evidence Code forbade the prosecution from introducing evidence of bad character.
Farrell had filed his motion because Amanda Jenkins's witness list had included some of Dooher's past co-workers, not all of whom had the fondest memories of him. But most of all, the accusations of both Chas Brown and Diane Price had become joined at the hip to the actual murder charges against Dooher.
Jenkins clearly thought that these were critical to an understanding of who Mark Dooher was. The thrust of her prosecution strategy, obviously, was that Dooher was not the man he appeared to be, and without character evidence, that was going to be a tough nut. She may have thought she had enough physical evidence and a proveable theory that stood a chance of convicting him, but she wanted more if she could get it.
On the other hand, if Farrell stuck only to refuting the physical evidence that Jenkins presented, the issue of Dooher's character would never come up. The defense had to be first to bring up character or it would remain inadmissible. So it was tempting to simply forget it. Farrell wasn't sure he was going to need it, anyway.
On the other hand, Farrell knew that sometimes you could refute all the evidence and still the jury would not see it your way. Innocent until proven guilty was a wonderful concept, the prosecution had the burden of proof, all right, but the day-to-day reality of human beings was to assume that people didn't get arrested and brought to trial unless they were probably guilty. So Farrell – like Jenkins in this regard – knew it never hurt to have more.
And he had the best possible character witness he could have dreamed of – James Flaherty, the Archbishop of San Francisco. Whether or not any of the jury members turned out to be Catholic, Farrell believed that the moral authority Flaherty would bring to the witness stand would be unassailable.
He was torn.
To be safe, he'd put the Archbishop on his witness list. His 402 motion asked for a ruling – once he'd called the Archbishop and thus put character at issue, would Jenkins be allowed to call Price and Brown? Farrell obviously did not want the jury to hear from either of them.
Jenkins was responding to this. 'Your honor,' she was saying, 'Archbishop Flaherty will not be testifying that he was with the defendant on the night of the murder. He doesn't corroborate Mr Dooher's alibi for the time of the murder. Therefore, his only possible connection to this case is to serve as a character witness. And once he does that…'
Thomasino's eyebrows lifted slightly and he spoke right up. 'I know the law, counsellor. But I still question the relevance of the proposed testimony of either of your two witnesses.'
'Your honor, if the court please.' Farrell was on his feet. 'Mark Dooher has lived most of the last year under the shadow of these ridiculous accusations, unsubstantiated slander without any shred of evidence to support them. Even if the prosecution had dug up some witnesses to bolster these baseless charges, they will be talking about alleged crimes from thirty years ago. This is very remote in time.'
These remarks brought the first unanimity from the disparate factions in the gallery, and it was negative. Everyone except the reporters was here with some kind of agenda, and Farrell was trying to nip in the bud any discussion of the social issues represented by the testimonies of Diane Price and Chas Brown.
'Remote in time, my ass!' One of the gallery women yelled. 'He still raped her.' She was ejected from the courtroom for her pains.
When Thomasino had restored order, Farrell stood again and found himself making a speech. 'Your honor, any examination of these charges will involve a substantial waste of court time, litigating ancient history. This whole trial – and we see proof of this already in this courtroom – will end up being about an alleged rape and alleged homicide that happened years ago and thousand of miles from here. It's going to confuse and prejudice the jury and it's just plain not fair to introduce this flimsy stuff. How are we supposed to defend against allegations from a couple of substance abusers who say nothing for thirty years, then come out of the woodwork at the first sign of a TV camera?'
At the explosion following this question, which Farrell expected, Thomasino slammed his gavel five times, glared, did it again. He ordered three more people out. After the bailiffs had gotten them removed, a deathly silence ensued. 'I want everyone to understand this.' Thomasino's voice was barely audible, forcing everyone to listen. He pointed a finger at the back of the courtroom, waving it back and forth to include everybody. 'You people watching these proceedings are not a part of it, and any attempt to make yourselves part of it will force my hand. Any more outbursts, I will clear this courtroom.' He pointed his gavel at Farrell. 'You may proceed, Mr Farrell. Carefully.'
Farrell got the message. The Judge understood that he had purposely provoked the gallery. This wasn't going to be tolerated. He deemed it prudent to wrap it up. 'Ms Jenkins hasn't got any real evidence in this case, so she's thrown in these baseless charges in the hope of convicting my client through attrition. She would have us believe these witnesses will testify about Mr Dooher's character, but that's precisely not what they're going to be doing. They're going to be accusing him of other crimes for which the prosecution has no evidence. They have no place in this courtroom.'
Jenkins had heard enough. 'We do have evidence…'
'Then formally charge him,' Farrell shot back.
The gallery didn't exactly rumble behind them, but Thomasino held up his gavel and whatever noise was starting came to an abrupt end. 'I would ask counsel to address their remarks to the court, not to one another.' He was silent a moment, then continued. 'The defendant is on trial here for killing his wife. That is all he has been charged with, and that is what this trial is going to be about.'
Farrell nodded with satisfaction. If this were the Judge's decision – that the jury wasn't going to hear from either Chas Brown or Diane Price – it was a good sign for them.
'Therefore,' Thomasino was going on, 'it is the court's ruling under Section 352 of the Evidence Code that the proposed testimony of Chas Brown regarding the alleged murder of an unnamed person committed by the defendant is Vietnam some twenty-eight years ago is inadmissible. It is much more prejudicial than probative. Not only is the alleged event remote in time, any discussion of it would be unduly consumptive of court time. Especially, Ms Jenkins, in light of the fact that Mr Brown did not see this alleged murder, and therefore cannot testify that this murder happened at all.'
There was a muffled chorus of 'right-ons' and 'Yeahs' from the gallery, but Thomasino's glare put a quick stop to it. 'However,' the Judge continued, 'although equally remote in time, the character testimony of Diane Price regarding her alleged rape is that of a first-hand witness…'
'Your honor!' Farrell could see the way this might go, and he had to object. 'This alleged rape never took place, and even if it did, it has nothing to do with the crime Mr Dooher is charged with. You can't allow-'
'Mr Farrell! The issue is only going to arise if you bring up character in the first place. If you do, then as you know, the prosecution can bring rebuttal witnesses. If you, in turn, wish to attack the credibility of those witnesses, you may.'
'Yes, your honor, but-'
Thomasino cut him off by addressing Jenkins. 'Ms Jenkins, it is the court's ruling that you may call Diane Price as a character witness once that issue has been tendered by the defense.'
'Thank you, your honor.'
'But I must tell you that I will instruct the jury as to how to consider this proposed testimony. This is not going to turn into a rape trial.'
There was another buzz in the gallery, and this time the Judge did bring his gavel down. He looked at his watch. 'Mr Farrell, Ms Jenkins, any other last-minute motions you'd like the court to consider before we begin jury selection? No? All right, then, we'll take a twenty-minute recess while the first panel gets settled in.'
The tedium of jury selection consumed the rest of the morning, and judging from Thomasino's thoroughness as he directed the voir dire, it was going to continue to be a slow process. Sixteen prospective jurors out of the first panel of sixty had already been dismissed because of their familiarity with the case. This was an enormous percentage, indicative of the intense media coverage to date, and the trial was only beginning. It was going to get much worse.
The defense team had rented a small room next to a bail bondsman's office across the street from the Hall of Justice, and Wes split off from them on the way over to get sandwiches, which inadvertently left Christina and Mark alone. They entered the room together and closed the solid wooden door.
Christina put her briefcase on the desk and turned around. Mark had been a couple of steps behind her, and the room was cramped in any event. They stood, a foot apart.
Christina had been – figuratively – backing away for months. Suddenly now, the physical being that had been Sheila Dooher no longer stood as a barrier between them. The opening volleys in the trial signalled a new phase.
Mark had to recognize it now, too. He had to know that Christina would be there for him. She met his eyes. 'I don't know about you,' she said, 'but I could use a hug.'
Farrell could feel it as soon as he came into the room with the sandwiches. Something had transpired in here. There was a palpable sense that he'd interrupted. 'Hey, cowboys,' he said.
Christina was leaning against the window sill, combing her hair with her fingers. Mark was sitting on the desk, swinging his feet like a schoolboy. Wes decided he'd unpack the bags and keep on talking, give whatever it was a chance to dissipate. 'So I was thinking we just wouldn't call Flaherty. That'll avoid the whole can of worms.'
Dooher jumped right on it. 'We've got to call him,' he said. 'We get one good Catholic on the jury – and I think we can guarantee that – and the Archbishop tells that person I couldn't have done anything they said I did – which we know is the truth – and at the very least, the jury's hung. And besides, we want Diane Price to testify against me.' Christina moved from the window. 'No, Mark, we-' But, emboldened, Dooher stood, grabbed his soft drink and popped the top on it. 'I know originally we said no, but did you hear Thomasino in there? Even the Judge thinks it's bullshit. It will make Jenkins look like she's grasping at straws. It's a question of credibility. So then you, Christina, cross-examine her.'
'I do? Why not Wes?'
But Wes knew the answer to that. 'Because you're a woman. It'll be much more effective if you start talking about the drugs Mrs Price has taken and how many men she slept with in college and whether or not she ever reported this alleged rape and why it kind of slipped her mind for the intervening decades. In short, you eat her for lunch.' Shaking her head, Christina was staring at the floor.
'What?' Wes asked.
'I don't want to do that. I don't want to eat anybody for lunch. I feel sorry for her. Don't you guys understand that?'
'I do,' Mark said.
'Excuse me, but fuck that! I'm glad you two are so sensitive. It gives me a warm feeling deep down inside.' Farrell spun himself, a little circle in the tiny room. 'Here's lesson one – a trial is a war. You don't take prisoners. You destroy everything in your path because if you don't, make no mistake, it will destroy you. Sympathy does not belong here.' Farrell reined himself in slightly. 'Listen, Christina, this Diane Price is trying to send your client to jail for most of the rest of his life, and that makes her my enemy. And she's lying! That makes her your enemy.'
'I'm not used to thinking that way.'
Dooher to the rescue. 'Wes, you could do it. It doesn't have to be Christina.'
Farrell got to escape velocity in record time. 'Of course I could do it! Mister Goddamn Rogers could do it! We could phone it in and get it done. But Christina here, being a woman, could do it best, and that's what we've got to go with. Our best shot every time out. That's how you win. It's the only way you win.' Farrell glared at them both.
'All right, Wes, all right. You're cute when you're mad. Anybody ever tell you that?'
'No,' he said. 'Nobody ever has. Christina, how about you?' Farrell was gratified to see that she'd gone a little pale. Maybe she was finally beginning to understand what she'd gotten herself into. But she put up a brave front.
'No,' she said, 'I think you're cuter when you're not mad.'
When Thomasino called the lunch recess, Glitsky made his way out through the tide of humanity in the gallery and then 'No comment-ed' his way past the reporters in the hallway. He took the stairs, rather than the crowded elevator, up to Homicide, to his 120 square feet partially enclosed by dry wall. He intended to eat his bagel and apple in peace and maybe get in some administrative work before court reconvened at 1:30.
But there was Paul Thieu, up out of his own desk before Glitsky was a step into the room. And another person – long hair, eyes burning, pumped-up, unhappy and unkempt. At a glance Glitsky recognized the symptoms; this guy was cranked up, high on methamphetamines.
'You remember Chas Brown?' Thieu asked.
Glitsky was about to nod, shake his hand, be polite, but Brown didn't give him the chance. 'What's this I don't get to be a witness? All the time I spend with you guys and what do I get out of it for me, huh?'
Thieu popped in. 'Chas heard about Thomasino's ruling from his friends in the courtroom. He'd been kind of hoping he'd get a couple more days at the Marriot.' The city put its witnesses in various hotels, and Chas had evidently been looking forward to a bit of a longer vacation.
Abe was low affect. 'It wasn't our decision, Chas. We wanted you there, but the Judge ruled against us. We lose.'
'Why? The guy kills one guy, then another guy, then his wife. You're telling me they're not related?'
'No, I think they're related.'
'Then why, man?'
'No proof. No proof there was even a murder.'
'Me saying it? That's not proof?'
Glitsky kept it cool. 'You didn't see it, Chas. You weren't a witness. All the Saigon records, if any, were destroyed.' He shrugged, repeated it. 'We lose.'
'We've been over this,' Thieu said. 'What do you want us to do, Chas? You want another night at the Marriot?' He threw a hopeful glance at Glitsky.
'No, I want… I mean, I told everybody I was going to be in this trial.'
And now, Glitsky thought, even that tiny drop of limelight had evaporated. He imagined it was probably disappointing, but mostly he just wanted Chas to go away. He wasn't needed anymore, and cranked-up 800s in the Hall of Justice were something he could do without.
'And Dooher's going to get off, isn't he?'
'We hope not, Chas. That's why we're having a trial.'
'But they can't hear about the guy he killed over there?'
'No, I'm afraid not.'
'That son of a bitch,' he repeated. 'He never pays for anything, does he?'
In that moment, something shifted for Glitsky. He'd met Brown before, and always he'd been less than completely sober, but never particularly hostile to Dooher. Now, granted, he was cranked up and that could do it, but suddenly there seemed to be a different edge. 'I thought you didn't really have any personal gripe with Dooher,' Glitsky said.
Defiant. 'I don't. Who said I did?'
'You're acting like it, Chas. Nobody said it.'
'I'm not acting like anything. I haven't seen the dude in like ten years.'
This straightened Thieu up. He had interviewed Brown at least five times and had never heard this. 'I thought it had been more like twenty-five, Chas.'
Brown's eyes shined, flashed from Glitsky to Thieu. He backed up a step, put his hands into his jeans pockets. 'Ten, twenty-five, what's the difference?'
'Fifteen years,' Glitsky said.
Brown shrugged. 'So?'
'So which one is it, Chas?' Thieu picked it up. 'Did you see Dooher ten years ago?'
'Maybe. Maybe eleven, I don't know.'
Glitsky. 'What about?'
'I don't know. This same thing.'
The two Inspectors looked at each other. Glitsky nodded and Thieu talked. 'You talked to Mark Dooher about this Saigon murder ten years ago? What about it?'
Brown scratched at his beard, rolled his eyes around, let out a long breath. 'I was having, you know… like I couldn't find much work. I was looking through the paper and saw Dooher at this charity thing, and it said he did a lot of that, so I figured, hey, he's doin' pretty good, maybe he could help out an old buddy.'
'You tried to blackmail him,' Glitsky said.
'First I just asked him if he could spare a little, you know? It wasn't like strong-arm.'
'And what'd he do? Did he pay you?'
Chas was shaking his head. 'He threw me out, the son of a bitch. Said nobody'd believe a low-life like me anyway. He just laughed at me. Didn't give a shit my life was in the toilet.'
'Why didn't you ever mention this before, Chas?' Thieu asked.
'I thought it would make me look bad. I don't know.'
'And you wanted to testify to get back at him?' It made perfect sense to Glitsky. It was all about macho posturing – power and payback.
'Yeah. Show the bastard.' He looked at the faces of the two Inspectors. 'Hey, it don't mean he didn't kill the guy.'
Idon't know about you, but I could use a hug.
Dooher kept reliving the moment, savoring the sweetness of it, the smell of her, the press of her breasts up against him, her arms around him inside the coat of his suit.
They'd stood there, holding fast to one another for a long time – perhaps thirty seconds, forty. He'd started to become aroused, and she felt it, making a small noise deep in her throat, leaning into him. Then pulling back, looking up, inviting the kiss that came – tentative and gentle at first, then open-mouthed, consuming.
Then Wes was outside, saying something to someone in the hall. She crossed over to the window and he sat on the desk.
That night – the defense team was all-but living together- they'd all had dinner at a French restaurant on Clement Street. As was their routine, Farrell drove Dooher home. Both of them were beat after the long day in the courtroom. There would be plenty of time to second-guess jury selection.
Christina hadn't called him, and he hadn't called her.
Then, all day today, the sexual tension, and Farrell seemed to take extra care that Mark and Christina were never alone.
At home after another late dinner and another day of jury selection, Dooher changed into a pair of khakis and a black cotton sweater. Then, barefoot, he wandered downstairs into his library and stood at the window.
Christina was coming up the walk, through the gate into the patio. Except for the kitchen lights, the house was dark. Snooping media types might believe that the house was empty. He opened the door. 'Can you see?'
'Fine.'
They got to the kitchen. She wore the hood up on a heavy ski parka. Flipping the parka back, she blew a strand of hair away from her mouth. 'Okay, I'm nervous.'
He stepped forward and gathered her in. When he released her, there was no kiss. He gave her a wistful half-smile, then retreated to the counters. 'Can I get you a cup of coffee? Some wine? You want to take off your coat?'
She said wine would be good and shrugged out of the parka, draping it over one of the stools. Mark busied himself in the refrigerator, getting out the bottle, opening it, taking down the glasses. Coming over to her, he slid a glass before her and pulled up another stool. He held up his glass and she touched it, a ringing chime. 'Just so you understand, Christina,' he began, 'I didn't plan on this. On yesterday.'
'I didn't either. It's not the kind of thing you plan.'
Mark sipped his wine. 'And now I don't know what to do with it. I don't know how you feel. I don't know anything.'
'Do you know how you feel?'
'Not really. Confused, I suppose. Guilty as hell, though in this context that's a poor choice of words. I mean…'
She reached over and covered his hand. 'I know what you mean. You think it's still too soon.'
'I don't know what "too soon" is. But I know what this is, what yesterday was.'
'Me, too.'
He smiled at her. 'I'm not talking about the feeling.'
She squeezed his hand. 'I am.'
He moved his hand away. 'No. It's more than that, and I don't think I can trust it. I don't trust it.'
'What?'
'You and I being thrown together like this, the stress of this situation. You helping to defend me, me dependent on you. It's a false environment.'
'Driving us together through no fault of our own?'
He put his glass down and broke a lopsided grin. 'You're making fun of me.'
She leaned toward him. 'A bit.'
'Okay, but I'm being serious. I think we deserve a better chance than that. Especially, that you do.' He sighed. 'I never thought I would love anybody again, and now here it is and the timing's all wrong. Everything's all wrong.'
'Not everything,' she said.
'Almost.'
She was shaking her head. 'You feel like you love me. And I love you. That's not almost everything wrong – that's almost everything right.'
He twirled his wine glass, tiny circles on the counter. 'And if they find me guilty of murder, I don't get out of prison until you're older than I am now.'
'They won't find you guilty. You didn't do it.'
'I would have said they'd never have gotten me to trial because I didn't do it. But guess what?'
She sipped her wine. 'So what are you saying?'
He looked down, sighed again, raised his eyes. 'I'm trying to tell you I love you,' he said, 'and I've got two temptations. The first is to take you upstairs and not think about what any of it means or where it might go.'
'I choose door one,' she said.
He reached over and touched her face. 'And the second is to pretend it isn't here, none of this, to pretend that yesterday was a moment of weakness. But I don't think it was. I think it was real, so real I'm terrified we're going to threaten it.'
'And how would we do that, threaten it?'
He closed his eyes briefly and took a last deep breath. 'By doing anything about it.' He went on: 'Right now we're in a pressure cooker. I think we ought to wait until we're out of it, until we can see where we are.'
'I know where I'll be. I'll be right here.'
'If you are, so will I. So maybe we should acknowledge this – what we have, this connection – and then put it on a shelf until the time is right.'
'And when will that be, Mark?'
'When this is over. When they find me not guilty. It shouldn't be long now, a couple of weeks, a month. After the drama and the prying eyes, then we'll see where we are. But this… I don't trust it. It would be too easy for both of us to get caught up in the romance of it.'
'I don't think so.'
'It's not a matter of thinking, Christina. The reality is persuasive enough. Here I am, the classic tragic figure – innocent man unfairly accused – and you are my savior.' He softened things, covering her hand with his. 'I'm not saying the feeling isn't there. I'm saying maybe it's not us – the real people we are – feeling them. It's the roles we're in, and they're temporary. And I can't have us be temporary. I couldn't live with that.'
Her eyes held steadily on him, and suddenly a spark of humor flared. 'The last noble man in America, and I had to go and find him.' She came forward and pressed her lips to his cheek, holding them there. 'You don't trust the rush, do you?'
'The rush isn't going away, Christina. If the real stuff is here, the rush will find its way back.'
She kissed him again. 'Okay.' Searching his face. 'In the meantime, I'll be a professional, I won't feed the gossip mills, I won't give them any ammunition. But when this is over, this is fair warning. I'm going to be here. For you.'
The Chronicle photographer with the night-vision camera caught them kissing at the front door – nothing passionate, although they did stand together, embracing, for nearly two minutes, saying good night. It was plenty.
The gallery wasn't a presence for Glitsky anymore.
Mark Dooher's fate was going to be determined inside the Bar rail. Glitsky glanced across the courtroom at the defense table and felt his blood quicken with hate. It was a reaction he rarely felt. He had dealt with many despicable people, many of whom had committed heinous crimes, but his own feelings for them had almost never gotten personal.
Dooher was different. Not only had he attacked Glitsky on a variety of grounds, threatening his career and reputation – the reverberations were still echoing – but killing his wife… that struck at the heart of things.
The defendant sat, his expression serene, while on either side of him, his acolytes tried not to appear nervous and angry, though to Glitsky's practiced eye, they were failing. This, he knew, was probably in reaction to the Chronicle's story and accompanying picture – Dooher and Christina kissing on his darkened front porch.
Christina's mouth was set, her eyes cast downward. She was pretending to read from a folder in front of her, but she looked up too often to be reading.
Wes Farrell seemed somewhat cooler. He was a pro and knew you didn't show your feelings to the jurors, but Glitsky had overheard him answering one of Dooher's questions at the defense table. The two men didn't seem to be best friends anymore.
In spite of Thomasino's detailed approach to questioning prospective jurors, once he had winnowed out the people who'd known about the case and the other obvious exclusions – victims of other crimes, family members of law-enforcement people – jury selection had gone rapidly. Now it was Thursday of the first week, the lunch recess was behind them, and the show was getting under way.
Amanda had told Glitsky that she didn't subscribe to the belief that there was a fine art to picking members of the jury. In spite of all the fancy theories people had, it was more or less a crap shoot. Evidently Wes Farrell felt the same way. Amanda basically preferred married women to single men for this type of case, and Asians if she could get them, but those seemed to be her only criteria. Farrell liked men who had jobs. But both attorneys seemed inclined, mostly, to keep things moving.
And now the new and improved Amanda Jenkins was facing the panel of twelve. Glitsky tried to take some clues from the jurors' faces, but he didn't know what he might be looking for. None of them particularly avoided his gaze, although none held it either. They were focused on Amanda, not him.
There were seven women and five men. Five of the jurors – two of the men and three of the women – were what Glitsky would call well dressed. Another five had thrown on something at least marginally respectful. Of the remaining two, a younger white man with a half-grown beard and long hair wore a faded Army fatigue shirt, untucked and unbuttoned over a T-shirt. Amanda had let him stay because she guessed he'd be prejudiced against lawyers such as Dooher. It was a surprise when Farrell left him unchallenged.
Another middle-aged, very heavy-set Hispanic man wore jeans and a blue denim shirt that he evidently had gone to work in many times. Farrell had apparently wanted him because he was Catholic, and Amanda told Abe she hadn't objected because she thought he was pretending to be dumber than he was.
There were four Asians (three women and a man), two Hispanics (one and one), three African-Americans (two and one), and three whites (one and two). Glitsky had no idea what the demographics meant, and Amanda, in her no-nonsense style, had set him straight over lunch. 'Nobody has a clue.'
Now she was about to address them, and Glitsky thought that, her softer image notwithstanding, her body language put her at a slight disadvantage. She was holding a yellow legal pad for a prop, standing slightly hip-shot before the jury box.
Amanda made no bones about the fact that she did not like juries, about having to explain every fact or nuance so a moron could understand it, about the cut-throat legal world in which she found herself. Glitsky thought she wore all these feelings on her tailored sleeves, her forced smile betraying all of it. At least it did to Abe. He hoped he was wrong.
Nevertheless, no one was in this room to make friends. He supposed a serious demeanor wasn't the worst handicap a lawyer could have, although all the successful trial attorneys he knew allowed a great deal more personality to peek through when they got in front of a jury.
'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Good afternoon.'
She checked her notes – maybe the pad wasn't a prop after all – took a deep breath, and began.
'As Judge Thomasino told you, the prosecution's opening statement is to acquaint you with the evidence in the case, the evidence that the People of the State of California will use to demonstrate the facts that we will then assemble to prove, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the truth: That on June 7th of this year, Mark Dooher' – she turned and pointed for effect -'the defendant here, willfully and with malice aforethought, murdered his wife, Sheila.
'I'm going to be presenting evidence about what happened on that day, a Tuesday. The weather was exceptionally pleasant, sunny with temperatures in the low seventies, and at about four-thirty, the defendant' – throughout the trial, Jenkins would try to depersonalize Dooher by avoiding his name whenever possible – 'called his wife, Sheila Dooher, and suggested that he take off work early and they have a romantic evening together. Sounds nice, doesn't it?'
Glitsky wasn't surprised to hear Farrell's first objection – nearly guttural with some suppressed emotion, but clear enough. His focus, missing this morning, was coming back. Glitsky knew that though the alleged idyll between Dooher and his wife might have sounded nice, it wasn't up to Jenkins to portray it as such.
Thomasino's eyebrows lifted up and down. 'Sustained.'
It didn't slow Jenkins. She took her eyes off the jury to consult her pad, then went right back to it. 'In his own statement to the police, the defendant admitted what happened next. He left his office downtown and, on his way home, made a stop at Dellaroma's Liquor and Delicatessen on Ocean Avenue for a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and an assortment of meats and vegetables. He went home and he and his wife shared the champagne and the hors d'oeuvres. Then, because she was tired, Mrs Dooher went upstairs for a nap. The defendant went to the driving range.'
Listening to it, Glitsky was confronted again – it happened to varying degrees every time he came to court in other cases – with the chasm of difference between his essentially free-wheeling job of gathering evidence and the court's job of objectively analyzing it. But Jenkins evidently realized how benign it all sounded because she stopped a minute, walked to the prosecution table to break her own rhythm, and took a sip of water.
She turned back to the jury. 'That's what the defendant told the police. What the defendant did not tell police was that even then, he was planning to kill his wife.'
'The plan was a simple one.'
'The defendant had long ago obtained – for his own use – a prescription of chloral-hydrate, a strong sedative he said he needed because he had trouble sleeping. Chloral-hydrate is often commonly referred to as "knockout drugs", and that's how the defendant intended to use it. He would puncture some of the gel tabs and slip some of the drug into his wife's champagne. He would help put her to bed. He would go to a nearby driving range to establish an alibi. Then he would return, stab his wife to death in her sleep and make it look like a burglary. He almost got away with it.'
'What the defendant did not know was that his wife was already taking two other powerful drugs – Benadryl for her allergies, and Nardil for depression. When the defendant gave his wife the chloral-hydrate, the dose, combined with the alcohol and these other drugs in her system, was enough to kill her.'
There was an audible stir in the courtroom. This was evidently a surprise to people who'd only read the articles as far as the grisly stabbing. Thomasino gently tapped his gavel and quiet returned.
Jenkins continued. 'If Mrs Dooher had been allowed to remain unmolested as she lay dead in her bed, Mark Dooher would probably not be in this courtroom today, charged with her murder. But Mr Dooher is a lawyer. He is a clever man and-'
Farrell was up out of his seat. 'Your honor…'
Thomasino sustained him again. And this time Jenkins turned to the Judge and apologized to him, then to the jury. She didn't mean to characterize the defendant.
Jenkins was playing well for the jury – friendly, courteous, professional. 'Intending to stab his wife to death, the defendant instead poisoned her to death. Legally, it makes no difference – either killing is murder in the first degree.'
'Factually, it makes all the difference in the world. The defendant's miscalculation got him caught. That's because much of the evidence deliberately planted by the defendant to suggest a burglary, much of the evidence designed to explain Sheila Dooher's violent death at the hands of a knife-wielding attacker, takes on a very different light once we know Sheila Dooher was poisoned to death. It shows the calculated and methodical attempt of a cold-blooded murderer to conceal guilt…
'We're going to show you a knife – a classic "murder weapon", complete with Mark Dooher's fingerprints. You're going to hear from witnesses who help to piece together the real story of what happened on that evening of June 7th. And that is this: that the defendant, having made sure his wife would be sleeping soundly – drugged with chloral-hydrate – left his house by the side door, without activating the alarm system, and reached above the door, unscrewing the porch light so the driveway would be dark upon his return.
'Then he drove to the San Francisco Golf Club, not to the Olympic Club which is closer to his house and where he is a member, and bought two large buckets of golf balls. After hitting a few balls, he walked through a break in the fence, went to his car, and drove home.
'We know he drove home because one of the neighbors, Emil Balian, recognized his car with its personalized plates parked on the street down from his house at between eight and nine p.m.'
Yes, Glitsky knew Balian had said that, but he thought that if ever a witness were born to be broken, it was the neighborhood busybody, who'd already changed details in his identification story three times. Glitsky thought that Farrell would destroy him on cross-examination. But, as Drysdale had said, Balian was very nearly the key to the case. Sometimes you had to take what you could get.
'By now it was dark out, and the defendant entered his darkened house. Upstairs, in his bedroom, he plunged a knife into his wife's heart as, he thought, she lay sleeping. He tore her bedclothes and threw blankets around, simulating a struggle. He poured a vial of blood that he had stolen from his doctor's lab around the body. He tore the wedding and engagement rings from Sheila Dooher's hand, and then rifled the bureau in the room, taking other jewelry, including his own Rolex watch. Then he went back to the driving range, climbed back through the fence-'
'It's all a goddamn lie!'
Glitsky was startled nearly out of his seat. Dooher was suddenly on his feet, pointing at Jenkins, who stood open-mouthed, stunned at the outburst. And it wasn't over. 'And you're a goddamn liar!'
Thomasino, who'd been listening intently to Jenkins, reacted as if he'd been jolted by electricity. He reached for his gavel, missed it, and it fell behind the desk, so he had to stand himself. 'Mr Dooher, you sit down! Mr Farrell, you control your client, you hear me? Sit down, I said!'
Glitsky was up and the two bailiffs were moving across to Farrell's table, but Wes held up his hands, motioning them back. 'Come on, Mark, easy…' Christina, too, was up, an arm around Dooher's back, whispering to him.
But Dooher glared at one and all. 'I cannot believe I am hearing so much bull-shit!'
Everybody in the courtroom heard him.
Dooher turned to the jury and suddenly his voice was in the normal conversational range. 'None of this happened this way,' he said. 'Not any of it.'
Thomasino had found his gavel and slammed it down again. 'Mr Farrell, I'll gag your client if you don't.'
'Yes, your honor.' A hand on Dooher's arm, pulling him down. Whispering through clenched teeth. 'Mark, sit down. Get a grip, would you?'
Then, Farrell to Thomasino again: 'Your honor, if I could ask for a short recess?'
But Thomasino was shaking his head. 'Not during an opening statement, Mr Farrell. You control your client and let Ms Jenkins finish up, and if there are any more interruptions, I'll hold you in contempt. How's that – clear?'
'What the hell was that? What are you trying to do, kill yourself out there?'
Farrell, in their tiny room across the street, was himself now nearly out of control. There was spittle on his lips and he seemed almost struck with palsy – now pacing, now hovering in front of his client. Dooher, again, had hoisted himself up on to the desk. He was swinging his feet, relaxed. Christina stood at the window, arms crossed over her chest.
Thomasino was going to allow Jenkins all the time she needed to wrap up her opening statement, but it turned out that she only made it another ten minutes before she asked for a recess. Dooher's interruption had pole-axed her, and what had begun as a reasonably compelling recital of events had degenerated into a disjointed shopping list of purported evidence whose relevance and connection seemed to elude Jenkins herself. She kept referring to her notes, stumbling over her words, until she finally gave it up.
'Wes, relax,' Dooher said, 'it's all right. You're going to have a heart attack.'
'You're goddamn right I'm going to have a heart attack. I deserve a heart attack. What were you doing in there? What was that all about? How could you lose your temper like that?'
Dooher actually broke a grin. 'I didn't.'
'This is funny? There's a joke here maybe I'm missing?'
'I didn't lose my temper, Wes.'
'Well, damn, Mark, that was one hell of an imitation.'
Christina came forward, daring to speak for the first time since Wes had dressed down both Mark and herself for their incredible stupidity and duplicity and every other negativity he could think of over the kiss. She talked to Dooher. 'What do you mean, you didn't lose your temper?'
He turned to her, palms up. The grin faded. 'It was an act. I thought it would humanize me for the jury.'
Farrell seemed to sag and let out a chuckle without a trace of humor in it. His eyes went to Christina, back to the client. 'This is what, in the trade, we call a bad idea. What it did for the jury, Mark, was made you look like a guy with no respect for the law, some kind of hot-head…'
'Wait wait wait! Don't you see?'
'I don't see. Christina, do you see?'
She didn't answer.
Dooher included them both. 'All right. I'll spell it out. Jenkins is up there painting this picture. I'm cold. I plan things to the nth degree. And here I am, sitting at the defense table trying to keep some kind of impassive face while Jenkins just goes on and on, lie after outrageous lie. So I react. Who wouldn't react? It's natural. What's unnatural is just sitting there, cold and unfeeling, playing,right into their hands. I wanted to show them who I was.'
'Well, you did that.'
'You're damn straight, Wes. I looked them right in the eye and told them none of it was true. You don't think that's going to have an effect?'
'Oh, I'm sure it is. I just don't think it's going to be the one you wanted. Here you are, supposedly a good, practicing lawyer, and you're not showing respect for the system…'
'Because they got it wrong! Don't you see that? I've been falsely accused of something I didn't do and it's gotten all the way to this fiasco of a trial. How can I have respect for that? How can I even pretend to?'
'But to yell at the jury!'
'No, I didn't yell at the jury. I very carefully avoided doing that. I looked at them as people, and that's how they are going to see me.'
Farrell glanced at Christina as though he would ask for her help, but simply shook his head.
There was a knock on the door and Dooher slid off the desk and opened it. The cop from the Hall said that Judge Thomasino wanted to see Mr Farrell in his chambers, right now.
Farrell stood. 'Why don't you two try to keep your hands off each other while I'm gone,' he said, and quit the room.
Which left the two of them alone.
Dooher turned. 'He's mad at us.'
'There's a good call.'
'I suppose I should have told him before I disrupted the sacred order of the court, but the moment just came and I took it. If I'd've warned Wes, he'd have counselled me not to do it anyway. What did you think?'
'I don't know, Mark. I haven't done any other trials. I don't know how they play out. It shocked me when it happened, but now, hearing you explain it, it might work.'
'It won't hurt me, I'm sure of that. That's not what Wes is mad about anyway.'
She let herself down on to one of the wooden chairs. 'I know,' she said, 'it's us. But we told him we weren't going behind his back. It wasn't about the trial.'
'He didn't believe us.'
'You're the master of insight today, aren't you? First Wes is mad at us, and then Wes doesn't believe us.'
'Maybe we should mend a few fences?'
'I don't think that's a bad idea.'
Mark went over to the window and separated the blinds, looking out over Bryant Street and downtown beyond. 'I'm just not willing to concede,' he said, 'that there's a telescopic-sight camera set up on Nob Hill, trained on this window.'
He crossed back over to her and took her in his arms.
Judge Thomasino's chambers were neither large nor imposing, furnished as they were in functional Danish. Three tall teak bookshelves closed in the walls, and various diplomas, honors, and commendations in wooden frames seemed to have been stuck randomly on the green drywall. A robust ficus sprawled in the corner by a large window. One of Remington's brass cowboys graced a broad teak coffee table, but that was the extent of the decorative touches. The rug was faded brown Berber over the Hall's linoleum.
Jenkins and Glitsky were seated in low leather chairs in front of the Judge's desk and they both turned at the bailiff's knock. It was Farrell, and Glitsky stood, ceding pride of place to the attorneys. He was here because Amanda had asked him to be.
Farrell didn't sit, but walked to the front of Thomasino's desk. 'I'm glad you're here, Amanda,' he began. 'I wanted to apologize for my client. And to you, Judge. I'm sorry.'
Thomasino barely acknowledged the words with an ambiguous gesture, then got right to it. 'I asked you down here, Mr Farrell, to see if you can give me any reason why I shouldn't yank your client's bail. You should know that I already told Ms Jenkins that if she asked, I'd do it. I'm thinking of doing it in any event. If you want a mis-trial, your client can do sixty days next door' – meaning in jail – 'while he waits for his new court date, to contemplate whether he wants to interrupt the proceedings again.'
Glitsky wouldn't have thought Farrell could sag any further than he had when he walked in, but he did. Visibly.
Jenkins took it up. 'I'll be honest with you, Wes,' she said. 'You and I know this is the first murder I've gotten to trial. My colleagues in the DA's office are starting to wonder why I'm on the payroll if I'm never actually in trial. I don't want to wait another sixty days.'
'Minimum,' Thomasino intoned.
'Minimum,' she repeated. 'And I think the argument can be made that the outburst was potentially as prejudicial to your client as it might have been self-serving.'
A rueful nod. 'We were just discussing that,' Farrell said.
'So it's a wash,' Jenkins concluded.
Glitsky admired the way Jenkins delivered it. It sounded genuine enough, although he knew the truth was quite different. As the recess had been called, Jenkins had sent Glitsky upstairs to get Art Drysdale and tell him she was asking to get Dooher's bail revoked.
Drysdale had made a quick phone call – cryptic enough, but it must have been to Chris Locke – and then accompanied Abe back to Department 26, where Jenkins sat, still fuming, at the prosecution table.
From Glitsky's perspective, there was no question that Locke had some personal – political – connection to this case. The DA didn't want to see it postponed, to let it remain unresolved, much as he had asked for the unreasonably low bail. He was doing the Archbishop a favor.
As Drysdale had been explaining that the DA did not want to ask for bail to be revoked, Thomasino had sent word that he wanted to see Jenkins in his chambers and discuss that very thing, and Drysdale had supplied her with the reason she was to give for not wanting it.
Farrell, for his part, was a drowning man who'd just gone down for the third time, opened his eyes underwater, and saw the lifebuoy. He reached for it. 'Your honor, I will not let this kind of thing happen again.'
The glare. Thomasino growled once, settled into his chair. 'All right, now there's one other thing.' The two opposing attorneys looked at each other, wondering. 'I don't know how much control you have over your client's behavior, Mr Farrell – I'd gather not very much. But perhaps you could exert some influence over your second chair. I don't want to sequester this jury, but if we get too many more stories about Mr Dooher and Ms Carrera, I'm not going to have any choice. A man's accused of killing his wife, it's the better part of valor to keep his dick in his pants – excuse me, Amanda – at least until a jury's had a chance to make up its mind.
'Now I've told the jury not to watch television or read newspapers, but we all know what will happen if the defendant keeps getting on the front page. That's not in anyone's interest. Are we in agreement here?'
'Yes, your honor.
'Good.' Thomasino paused for a couple of seconds. He looked at his watch. 'I'm going to adjourn for today, giving you, Mr Farrell, a lot of time to make these points to your client and your associate. I'd use as much of it as you need.'
Farrell could only nod. Whatever the Judge wanted, that's what he wanted, too.
So Glitsky was off early.
It wasn't yet three o'clock on a Thursday afternoon and no one expected him upstairs, so he signed out a car from the city lot and drove himself home, found a parking spot directly in front of his duplex, and let himself in.
Rita was sleeping on the couch, which was okay. She got up with them all at 6:30, and she kept the place spotless. She also got up with Abe when any of the boys called out in the night, and if she needed to take a nap to catch up, Glitsky was all for it.
In the kitchen, a pot of thick black sauce -mole, he now knew – simmered on the stove, steaming the windows, filling the room with its heady smell. A couple of disjointed chickens were thawing on the counter.
He opened the kitchen window a crack and heard Isaac down in the trees. He was lucky with his backyard. Though he shared it with his downstairs neighbors, there was plenty of room. And along its border, a bicycle path traced the edge of the Presidio.
Back when there had been money for such amenities, the city had built a small playground – a set of swings, parallel bars, a slide – thirty yards down the path.
Glitsky let himself out the back door and down the steps, across the yard through the lengthening shadows, on to the bike path. He'd pushed pretty hard at the idea of the boys playing together, sticking together – the family – and this was one of those miraculous days when it was working.
They were seeing who could sail farthest out of the swing set – one of the activities Glitsky felt better hearing about than actually witnessing. And today they'd added a new wrinkle, a stick that two of them held while the third one sailed, going for height and distance.
And broken legs, he thought. Chipped teeth. Ruined knees.
But he watched from a small distance. Life is risk, he told himself. They're enjoying the moment. Let it happen.
And then Jacob landed sprawled in the tanbark and, rolling over, saw his father. He let out a whoop – 'Dad!' – and came running over, stopping himself a split second before what would have been an embarrassing hug. But he did let his father put his arm around him.
'What are you doing home?'
'Yeah, it's still light out.' Isaac, sauntering up, put in the barb. Glitsky knew he was working all the time, but didn't see a way to change it. And he was home now, wasn't he?
'I thought we'd go get a Christmas tree.'
O.J. stabbed a fist into the air and screamed, 'Yeah!' and was already running back toward the house while the other two tore off after him.
Even Abe broke into a trot.
At night, Rita put down the fold-a-bed and slept behind a screen in the living room in the front of the duplex. That fact wasn't in the front of Glitsky's mind when he bought the largest tree he could find, and now the never-spacious living room was all but impassable.
His own overstuffed easy chair and ottoman had been relegated to the kitchen to make space for the tree, which made the kitchen tight as well. Rita had lost more than half of her precious counter space.
The scent of the new Christmas tree permeated the house and Rita had made hot spiced apple juice. They had Lou Rawls doing Christmas out of the speakers, the lights were strung up, the old bulbs, and now the boys were hanging tinsel.
Glitsky sat hunched on his ottoman in the open doorway between the kitchen and living room, drinking his mulled cider, taking it all in as though from a great distance. Rita was on the couch, directing the boys to any open spaces on the tree.
He had come home early. He'd taken the boys out for the tree, and now he was home in the midst of his family, wishing he was anywhere else, wishing he could try harder not to show it.
Flo wasn't here. Everything else was here, and not his wife. So what, exactly, was the point?
When the telephone rang, Glitsky knew it was work – it was always work – and Isaac yelled that he shouldn't answer it, let the machine get it. But he was already up, at the wallphone in the kitchen.
It was Amanda Jenkins. 'I'm working on motive,' she said, 'and tomorrow it's fish or cut bait.'
No, 'Got a minute, Abe?' No, 'Hello,' even. But there was no fighting it. Like it or not, he was in trial time, and simple politeness suffered as a matter of course.
He took a sip of his juice – the tang of cinnamon. She was breezing right on. 'I want your take on his second chair, Carrera. I know we've been trying to decide between insurance and whether his wife was a drunk, an embarrassment, but I'm just watching the tube and this picture of the two of them kissing, it's turned up the heat.'
'I saw the picture, Amanda. We talked about it, remember? It wasn't exactly X-rated. I wouldn't even give it an "R". It's a good-night kiss.'
'At his house. They're alone, in the dark,' she countered.
'So what?'
'So in spite of all the tabloid speculation, it's really the first actual proof that these two have something going, and if they do, it's a lot stronger than anything else we've got.'
'That picture doesn't prove anything. They're not upstairs in his bedroom, half-dressed, anything like that. This is a kiss like you give your mother. Besides, even if you had major groping, how are you going to prove they had something seven, eight months ago, which is when it would have had to be?'
'I don't have to prove it,' she said. 'We can assert it, show this picture, let the jury draw the inference.'
Glitsky moved some dirty dishes to one side and seated himself on the crowded counter. He, of course, had wrested with this issue himself, so he decided to give Jenkins the argument that had stopped him. 'That assumes she was in on it, too.'
'She might have helped him plan it, Abe. Now she's defending him for it. It's not that far-fetched.'
'Then you'll have to explain why we didn't charge her, too.'
'Because there was no proof of conspiracy. We just couldn't arrest her without…'
Glitsky sipped the juice, giving her time to hear herself, to wind down. This was the last-minute panic to bolster a case that he'd seen dozens of times.
'It sucks, doesn't it?' she asked.
'Insurance,' he said. 'Juries tend to understand money.'
'You think?'
'It's your decision.'
Jenkins sighed. 'Something tells me it's her, Abe.'
'You don't need motive. Amanda. You might just want to let it go, prove the facts.'
A long pause, then, 'Okay,' and then a click and a dial-tone.
No hello, no goodbye. Trial time.
Across town in his apartment, Wes Farrell sat at his Formica kitchen table, which was littered with yellow legal pads, manila folders, three days' worth of newspapers, a manual typewriter, four coffee mugs, and a thick three-ring binder that he'd divided into sections labelled Evidence, Argument, Witnesses, and so on.
Each of these sections was further divided into subsections, and each subsection contained color-coded tabs in a particular order. Farrell had been living with this binder for the past six months and by now felt he could wake up and put his finger on anything he wanted in pitch darkness.
Bart was under the table and the clock radio, which had been keeping him company with old rock 'n roll, suddenly broke into Jingle Bells. Immediately, he reached over and turned the dial and thought he'd found another soft rock station when he realized it was Mary Chapin Carpenter telling her lover that everything they got, they got the hard way.
Somehow, he couldn't find the will to turn it off. He'd been consciously avoiding country music since he and Sam split, but this song, intelligently invoking passion and spark and inspiration, was ripping him up. Sitting back, he ran his hands through his thinning hair, then reached for one of the mugs of tepid coffee. He forced down a swallow.
His eyes roamed the empty apartment – the same blank walls, thrift-store furniture, the same space.
He'd called Sam twice after the first big fight and they'd had a couple of bigger ones after. And now Thomasino had ruled that Diane Price was going to be allowed to testify after all, and Christina was going to take her part, and Sam would probably be in the courtroom, counselling her.
Shaking his head to clear it – this was going nowhere – he flipped off the radio. He and Sam were finished. Pulling his typewriter through the debris, he thought he'd put this negative energy to some good use by working on some notes for his opening statement, but as he reached for his legal pad, he had to move the morning Chronicle, and The Picture hit him again.
Jesus, he thought, could it be?
Aside from the strategic disaster the photo represented, he was having trouble overcoming his own sense of personal betrayal. Though Mark and Christina had both denied that anything untoward had taken place between them, the fact that they'd met at Mark's house, at night, alone, without telling him about it, was more than unsettling.
It had thrown him back on his own demons.
This was the real reason for the tantrum he'd thrown at them this morning before they went to court. This wasn't just another trial for him, where he'd have to pump himself up with some second-hand, third-rate rationalization that his actions were relatively important.
It was far more personal – a last opportunity, dropped into his lap by a benevolent fate, finally to do something meaningful with his life. With the responsibility and the commitment to Mark's defense, something had already changed inside himself, motivating him to summon the discipline he needed to lose the extra weight he'd carried for years, giving him confidence to try a new face-softening mustache, a crisp and stylish haircut. He'd present the new, improved Wes Farrell to the world, and to that end had bought five new suits (one for each day of the working week), ten shirts, ten ties, two pairs of shoes. Perhaps these changes weren't fundamental, but they indicated that his image of himself, of who he could be, was changing. He even started vacuuming his apartment, cleaning up his dinner dishes on the same day that he ate off them. Unprecedented.
This trial was going to be his last chance. It was life itself, a test of all he was and could be.
He had to believe.
And then this morning he'd opened the newspaper, and in a twinkling the foundation seemed to give – psychically, it shook him as the earthquake had. And, following that, he'd sat at this table trying and failing to ignore the other signposts on the trail that had led them all to here – the party at Dooher's, Mark's decision to bring Christina on as a summer clerk, Joe Avery's transfer to Los Angeles, which had pre-ordained Joe and Christina's break-up, Sheila's death, and now, finally, the two of them – Mark and Christina – nearly united.
Viewed from Farrell's perspective, the progression was linear and ominous.
He tried to tell himself that it didn't necessarily mean what it could mean.
Wes knew Mark, who he was, what he was. And Mark could never have done what he was accused of. It was impossible.
Wes wasn't religious, but Dooher's innocence was an article of faith for him. If he didn't know Mark, he knew nothing. This was why, as the preparation for trial had uncovered enough unpleasant assertions about Mark to make even Farrell feel uncomfortable, he had never truly doubted.
Assertions were just that, he had told himself time and again. They weren't proven. People, often with axes to grind, would say things.
Farrell had tried to look objectively at all this alleged wrongdoing, and came away convincing himself that it was all smoke and mirrors. There was absolutely no evidence tying Mark Dooher to any other murders or rapes or anything else.
But now there was Christina. She was a fact, as was her connection to Mark. And worse, because of her the seed of Wes's own doubt had germinated. He closed his eyes, picturing her in his mind. A beautiful woman, no question about it. He himself was not immune to the power of beauty – what man was? But that did not mean his friend had killed to have her.
Farrell kept trying to tell himself that Mark's lifelong luck had delivered Christina to him at the moment he needed her most, after his wife was gone, for whatever comfort and hope she could give him.
But suddenly, after last night, this was a hard sell.
'Christina, this is Sam. Please don't hang up.'
'I won't.'
'I argued with myself all day about calling you.'
'I kissed him good night, Sam. That's all there was to it. This whole media frenzy is insane.'
'But you know you're… with him.'
'I represent him. I'm his lawyer.'
'That's not what I mean. I know. I knew back… when we were still friends.'
'I'm sorry, I have no comment.'
'Okay, that's all right. I don't need a comment. But I just had to try to tell you – because we were friends, because you do know so much about the psychology of rape – that you and Wes are both wrong about Mark Dooher. I can prove-'
'Sam, stop! You'll get a chance to prove everything you want to at the trial.'
'That won't prove what I'm talking about. I'm telling you – sit and talk to her, you'll be convinced. She's telling the truth, she's-'
'I'm going to hang up now, Sam. Mark didn't do that. He couldn't have done that.'
'Why are you so blind? Why won't you even consider it?'
'Goodbye, Sam.'
Farrell was running on pure adrenaline. He'd slept less than five hours, but this was precisely the moment that all the nights of insomnia had been in service of.
He reminded himself that the trial was simpler than life – all he had to do here was refute the prosecution's arguments, and Mark Dooher was going to walk. He could do that in his sleep.
In California, the defense has the option of delivering its opening statement directly following the prosecution's, where it has the general effect of a rebuttal; or it can choose to wait and use its opening statement to introduce its own version of events, its case in chief. Farrell chose the former.
He didn't believe he was going to get surprised by any prosecution witness. He knew the direction he was going to take – deny, deny, deny. And he wanted to prime the jury, at the outset, that there was reason to question every single point Jenkins had raised.
He'd thought it out in detail. He would begin casually, standing beside Dooher at the defense table. He would not consult any notes – his defense was from his heart. He wouldn't use a prepared speech. His body language would scream that the truth was so obvious, and he believed it so passionately, that it spoke for itself. By contrast, Jenkins had stood delivering the rest of her opening statement for the better part of the morning, consulting her legal pad over and over, laboriously spelling out her case in chief.
Farrell sipped from his water glass and stood up.
'You've all heard Ms Jenkins's opening statement. She's given you a version of the events of June 7th that she says she's going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no way she can do that because those actions of Mr Dooher that she got right did not happen for the reasons she contends, and the rest of them she simply got wrong.
'I'm going to strip this story of Ms Jenkins's sinister interpretation, and give you the facts. On that Tuesday, Mark Dooher purchased champagne and brought it home because he was a loving husband. He made a phone call from his office to his home on the afternoon of June 7th, and asked his wife if she would like him to come home early. He made a date with her, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. After nearly thirty years of marriage, Mark and Sheila Dooher were having a romantic interlude. A date.
'Before he got home, his wife took a dose of Benadryl because she suffered from allergies. She helped herself to a glass or two of champagne. Sheila Dooher was forty-seven years old and she was neither senile nor dim-witted. She could make her own decisions, and did, on matters of what she ate and drank. She had been taking the menopause drug, Nardil, for over a year. Many times, in front of many witnesses, she drank alcohol within this timeframe. Several witnesses will testify that Sheila Dooher was skeptical of her doctor's recommendations to avoid certain foods and alcohol. Tragically, it looks like Mrs Dooher was equally careless about mixing drugs.'
Farrell sipped again from his water glass, slowing himself down. Jenkins hadn't objected once; all eyes were glued to him. He was rolling.
'What happened next? The Doohers had a late lunch. Nothing more sinister than that. Sheila Dooher went up to her bedroom to take a nap. She was tired, and she took a sedative, her husband's chloral-hydrate.
'Ms Jenkins has told you that Mark Dooher gave her the chloral-hydrate. Rubbish, absolute rubbish. There is not one witness, not one shred of evidence that even suggests that this is the case. Ms Jenkins says it is so because she needs it to be so to convict Mark Dooher. She cannot prove it because it never happened.'
Jenkins now did get up, objecting that Farrell was being argumentative.
Farrell supposed he was, but knew Jenkins had made the objection, as much as anything, to throw off his rhythm. It wasn't going to work. She was sustained by Thomasino and Farrell moved out from the desk now and went on, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth so the jury could see what a good guy he was – magnanimous at this silly interruption.
It also gave him his third opportunity to repeat the sequence that had led to Sheila's death.
After which: 'And what were Mr Dooher's actions after his wife had gone upstairs? Well, he did not set the burglar alarm in his house. A prosecution witness, Mr Dooher's next-door neighbor Frances Matsun, will tell you he then reached up and appeared to be doing something with the light bulb over the side door. Mr Dooher does not remember this. Perhaps there was a cobweb on it – he doesn't know.'
'Next he drove to the San Francisco Golf Club. Now you'll remember that Ms Jenkins made rather a big issue of the fact that Mr Dooher belongs to the Olympic Club and on this night chose not to go to his own club's driving range, but rather to a public range. It is going to be for you to decide how big an issue this was. But I will tell you that Mr Dooher is a personable man…'
'Objection.'
'Sustained.'
'I'm sorry. Mr Dooher has many business contacts at his club, and he didn't want to have to be…' he paused, smiling now at the jury, including them in the humor '… personally interactive. He wanted to spend the time working on his golf swing without interruption.'
'The golf pro at the driving-range shop will testify that Mr Dooher bought two buckets of balls and sometime later returned with two empty buckets. He will also testify that Mr Dooher and he discussed golf clubs and corrections to his swing and exchanged other pleasantries – in short, that Mr Dooher's actions appeared completely normal.'
Farrell shrugged in tacit apology to the jury for the time this was taking. He was on their side and all must agree that this was clearly a waste of everyone's time.
'When he got home, Mr Dooher did the dishes and drank a beer, after which he went upstairs and discovered his wife's body. Horrified, he punched up nine one one. We will play the recording of this call for you and again, you can decide if the voice you hear is believable or not.'
'But we are not finished yet. After the police came to begin their investigation, Mr Dooher cooperated fully with Inspector Glitsky' – and here Farrell stopped and theatrically gestured across the courtroom – 'who is the gentleman sitting there at the prosecution table. He gave a full and voluntary statement and answered every question until Inspector Glitsky had no more to ask.'
Farrell deemed this a reasonable moment to pause. Going back to his table, he took another drink of water, glanced at Dooher and Christina, and turned back to the jury box.
'Now, as to some of the other allegations and alleged evidence the prosecution has put in front of you – the tainted blood sample, the knife with Mr Dooher's fingerprints on it, the surgical glove found at the scene, and so on – we are at a disadvantage. We can't explain everything. That's one of the problems with being innocent – you don't know what happened. You don't know what someone else did.'
'Your honor,' Jenkins said. 'Counsel is arguing again.'
Thomasino scowled, which Farrell took to be a good sign. He had been arguing, no doubt, but Thomasino had allowed himself to get caught up in it, and resented being reminded of his lapse.
Still, he sustained Jenkins's objection and told Farrell to stick to the evidence.
Farrell met some eyes in the panel. 'I'm going to say a few words now about motive. The prosecution has told you that Mr Dooher killed his wife to collect an insurance policy worth one point six million dollars. This is their stated motive – I urge you to remember it.'
Farrell went on to explain that the defense would disclose all financial records of Mr Dooher personally and those of his eminently solvent firm. He was nearly debt-free, his 40IK money, fully vested, amounted to over $800,000, savings accounts held another $100,000. He owned his home nearly outright and it had most recently been appraised for over a million dollars. In short, while one point six million dollars was not chump change, so long as Mr Dooher continued with his regular lifestyle and did not plan to take up cruising the Aegean in a fully crewed luxury yacht, he didn't need any more money.
Farrell spread his hands. 'Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution cannot prove that Mark Dooher had a motive to kill his wife because he had no motive. The prosecution cannot prove he poisoned his wife because he did not. They will not prove he is guilty because he is innocent. It's as simple as that.'
'At the end of this trial, when you see that the prosecution has not proven these baseless accusations, I will ask for the verdict of not guilty to which my client is entitled.'
For lunch, Dooher – mending fences – took them all to Fringale, a tiny bistro a couple of blocks from the courtroom. They were at a table in the back corner and Wes, desultorily picking at a dish of white beans with duck, didn't seem to be responding positively to the gesture.
By contrast, Dooher was in a celebratory mood, enjoying a double order of foie gras with a half-bottle of Pinot Noir all for himself. Hell, he wasn't working – he was spectating.
Christina, oblivious to the attention she was receiving from the other patrons and their waiter (her water glass had been re-filled four times), had forgotten Sam's call and the kiss and was enthusing over Farrell's performance. 'You know, Wes, I believe you could make a living at this.'
'It was a great statement,' Dooher agreed. 'You put all that in your nine nine five.' This was a motion that Farrell had earlier filed under California Penal Code section 995 that there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict Dooher. 'I can't believe Thomasino let this turkey go on.'
Farrell kept his head bowed over his food, his shoulders slumped. Anyone seeing him would have trouble identifying him as the showman who'd worked such wonders in the court less than an hour before. 'It's a long way from over, Mark. You'll notice I did gloss over a few of what, from our perspective, are non-highlights.'
Christina put her fork down. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean the hole in the fence at the driving range, blood missing from Mark's doctor's office, Mark's fingerprints on the murder weapon…'
Dooher was concentrating on his little toast points, spreading his foie gras with perfect evenness. 'You hit all that.' He took a bite, savoring it. 'You said we couldn't know, that was the problem with being innocent. It could have been your finest moment.'
But Christina was staring at Wes, something else eating at her. She'd never heard him use this tone before, and it worried her. He must still be upset about the kiss.
She knew that Wes had been angry yesterday, but Christina had assumed that his fury would blow itself out. But now she wondered if it went deeper. She reached over and touched his hand. 'I want to tell you something,' she said quietly.
He raised his bloodhound's eyes.
'You're still mad at us and you think we've lied to you, but me going over to Mark's, that was an honest mistake. I would not lie to you. Mark wouldn't lie to you.'
Dooher had stopped chewing, listening intently. And now he eyed Farrell levelly. 'If you've got doubts on that, Wes, I want to hear them.'
Gradually, Farrell shook his head. 'I'm just tired,' he said. 'I'm going to sleep all weekend.'
'What the hell is he doing here?' Mark asked.
Christina and Wes were having coffee and Dooher was enjoying a snifter of Calvados when Abe Glitsky entered the restaurant and made his way over to their table.
Nodding all around, friendly as you please, he leaned over Farrell's shoulder. 'Ms Carrera, I'd like to ask you a few questions before court reconvenes. I wonder if you'd stop by my office on the fourth floor after you've finished your lunch.'
'How'd you know we were here?' Dooher asked.
Glitsky favored him with the scar-split smile. 'Spies,' he said. 'They're everywhere.'
Farrell was torn between the impulse to tell Glitsky to shit in his hat and curiosity over what he wanted to talk about with Christina.
He insisted he be present and Glitsky said no.
He then reminded the Lieutenant that he was entitled to all discovery in the case. This didn't rate an answer.
Glitsky simply asked again if Christina would talk to him or not. She told Farrell she wanted to go, she could take care of herself. It would be best to find out what Glitsky had on his mind.
'What's this about, Sergeant?'
'Actually, it's Lieutenant now. I've been promoted.'
'Oh, that's right, I remember. Congratulations.'
Guarded, but curious, she sat kitty-corner from Glitsky at a scarred oak table in one of the interview rooms adjoining the Homicide detail. He left the door open, and let her have the power position at the far end of the table. He took his mini-recorder from his jacket pocket and sat it on the table in front of them.
'This is Lieutenant Abe Glitsky, star number 1144,' he began, 'and I'm speaking with-'
Christina reached over and grabbed the recorder, flicking it off. 'Wait a minute, what are you doing?'
Life was a constant surprise, Glitsky was thinking. Never before had anyone – hardened criminal or anti-social cretin – ever taken his tape recorder and turned it off. He was sure this should be instructive, but didn't know what it meant. 'I thought you invited me up here to have a discussion.'
'That's correct.'
'So what's this?'
'The tape is how we do interrogations.'
'You're interrogating me?'
'You got it right the first time, Ms Carrera. We're having a discussion, but it's pursuant to my investigation of Mark Dooher.'
'Well, I'm not going to answer! I represent the man, Lieutenant. He's my client. Anything between me and Mark is privileged and you ought to know that.'
'Actually, not. You only became a lawyer a couple of weeks ago, isn't that true?' He knew it was true; he didn't have to wait for her reply. 'And even if a case could be made that you had an attorney-client relationship before that – not saying it could – that relationship certainly didn't exist before Mr Dooher got charged with his wife's murder, and that's the time I want to talk about.'
It rocked her. She sat back in her chair and took a breath, studying him. 'What for?'
'Can I have the tape recorder back?'
'I'm not going to talk to you. Are you accusing me of something?'
'No, ma'am. If we come close to that and you'd like to have your own lawyer present, we can do this some other time, but one way or another, we're going to do it.'
Her eyes narrowed. 'No, we're not. Not now, not ever if I don't choose to. Nobody ever has to talk to the police, Lieutenant – not me, not my client, not anybody. And you know it.'
Glitsky backpedalled. He didn't want to lose her. 'I thought this would be the most pleasant way. You know what the newspapers are saying. I'm the investigator in this case. When questions come up, it's my job to get an answer for them, even if it happened to be in the middle of the trial.'
'You're trying to get me to become a witness against my client.' She was getting angry herself now. 'This is the most unprofessional thing I've ever heard of, Lieutenant, and I really resent it. I met Mark Dooher on Mardi Gras of last year, say ten months ago. There was absolutely nothing between us until after his wife was dead. Does that answer your question?'
'Yes, it does,' he said.
She looked at him for a long moment. 'Lieutenant Glitsky, do you remember when I came up here to talk about Tania Willows and Levon Copes, and you sat in that chair out there,' she pointed through the open doorway, 'and laughed until tears came to your eyes? Do you remember that?'
'Sure.'
'And there was a moment right after that, after your Lieutenant came out and asked if you were okay, when you and I looked at each other and something went "click" -I don't mean sexually – where we just got something together. You remember?'
Glitsky nodded.
'So were we intimate then?'
'That's not the kind of intimacy we're talking about.'
'Well, then, Mark and I were not intimate. Are not intimate. I care about him a great deal. And while we're speaking so frankly, I don't know why you're persecuting him so horribly.'
'The evidence says he killed his wife, Ms Carrera.'
'I don't think it does. That's what you want to see.'
Glitsky held himself in check, his voice flat. 'Because of my abiding hatred of the Church of Rome and my single-handed campaign to bring it to its knees?' He gestured to the empty walls of the room they were in, the external office with all the glamour of a train wreck. 'Or perhaps it's my ambition to rise to the top of this dung heap? You pick. One of the above.'
He had gotten to her. Lowering his voice, Glitsky leaned in toward her. 'I'm trying to figure out why.'
She put her elbows on the table. Their heads were inches apart. 'Lieutenant, there's no why. He didn't do it. That's why you can't find a reason for it.'
'How about you?'
'I've told you. I don't think he did it.'
Glitsky was shaking his head. 'No. How about if you're the reason, if he killed Sheila so he'd be free to have you?'
Her eyes went dull. She seemed to stare through him. Finally: 'You know, I'm sorry, Lieutenant. You must live in the bleakest world there is. You're telling me you've got Mark killing his wife, risking a murder trial and life in prison, all on the remote chance that he'll be free to have me, who has made no commitment to him? You flatter me, but please.'
'It's not impossible.'
'It is impossible,' she said. 'It's insane. The only way that's even remotely feasible is if I…' She stopped. 'If we did it together.'
Glitsky had his arms crossed. He didn't respond except to reach over and turn the tape back on.
After a few seconds, Christina stood up. Leaning over, she turned it off. 'If you want to pursue this further, Lieutenant, next time I'll bring an attorney.'
He was watching her, her face a shifting kaleidoscope of emotions and reactions. 'I just want to say one last thing.'
He nodded. 'All right.'
'I am so sorry about your wife. I never had a chance to tell you that.'
Then she was gone.
Glitsky remained in his chair, legs stretched out, arms crossed. He had a couple of minutes before the lunch recess was over and he had to be back in court.
Reaching under the table for the second tape recorder that was hidden there, he pulled it out, stopped the tape, and rewound to the last seconds.
'I am so sorry about your wife. I never had a chance to tell you that.'
He played it back again. A third time. It had struck him as genuine when she said it. Now it sounded sincere on the tape.
Paul Thieu poked his head in through the door. 'How'd it go?' he asked.
'She looked rattled. She had to stop at the door and take a few deep breaths, then… what's the matter?'
'Nothing. She didn't have anything to do with it. Dooher did it alone.'
'How do you know?' Thieu asked.
Glitsky sat still another minute. 'I just know,' he said.
Farrell's plans might have included sleeping all weekend, but the weekend was a long afternoon away.
Jenkins called John Strout, the coroner, as her first witness. The lanky Southern gentleman was at home on the witness stand, and gave a dispassionate and complete account of the medical issues surrounding Sheila's death.
Most, if not all, of these, could have been stipulated by both parties – that is, they could have had the Judge read to the jury the undisputed facts about the details of Sheila's death – but prosecutors always wanted to have the coroner make a murder seem real to the jury, and in this case, Farrell had a small but, he thought, important point to make himself.
'Dr Strout.' Farrell's fatigue had dissipated. He was standing in the center of the courtroom, listing slightly toward the jury. 'In your testimony, you often referred to the drug overdose that was the cause of Sheila Dooher's death. Did you list this on the coroner's report, People's One?'
'I sure did.'
'Could we look at that page of People's One a minute, your honor? Let the jury pass it around?'
Thomasino hated this kind of theatrics. Of course the jury could review People's One, although there was all kinds of information in the coroner's report that had little or nothing to do with anything the jury needed to know. But Farrell wanted to keep them involved. As they were passing it back and forth, he said, 'Paying particular attention to the cause of death, which, you will notice, does list drug overdose along with a significant amount of medical jargon,' he moved over directly in front of Strout.
'Now, Doctor, we had a talk – you and I – a couple of days ago, and you gave me several other coroner's reports from different cases that you've handled over the past months, isn't that correct?'
'Yes.'
Jenkins was on her feet. 'Irrelevant. Your honor, what's the possible relevancy of the causes of death in unrelated cases?'
Thomasino leaned toward agreement. 'Mr Farrell, I'll give you about one minute to make your point.'
Farrell had the other coroner's reports entered as Defense Exhibits A through D, and then came back to the witness. 'Let's start with manner of death here in Defense A, Dr Strout. What does it say here, for the jury's benefit, please, under "cause of death"?'
'It says "drug overdose".'
Farrell did his imitation of Thomasino raising his eyebrows. 'In fact, Doctor, in each of Defense A through D, the cause of death is listed as "drug overdose", isn't that true?'
'It is.'
Satisfied, Farrell nodded and moved a step closer to the witness. 'All right.' He'd primed the pump, and now Farrell was ready to strike oil. 'Dr Strout, do a lot of people die of drug overdose every year?'
'Yes, hundreds.'
Thomasino leaned forward over the bench. 'Your minute's about up, counsellor.'
'My next question brings in Sheila Dooher, your honor.'
The Judge nodded impatiently. 'All right, go ahead.'
'And what about the overdoses that these hundreds of people die of every year? Except for the specific drugs involved, are these drug overdoses particularly different from that suffered by Sheila Dooher?'
Farrell darted a quick glance at Thomasino. At least he'd brought his questioning back to people involved in this case.
But Strout was frowning. 'I don't understand the question. Every case is different, though there are similarities if the same drugs cause the death.' He waited for Farrell to clarify what he wanted.
'In the hundreds of drug overdose deaths every year, is there a common feature that might point to a murder rather than, say, an accident or a suicide?'
Strout considered a minute. 'Generally, I'd say no.'
'And in Mrs Dooher's case, specifically, was there any medical indication that she'd been murdered?'
'No.'
'So, Doctor, correct me if I'm wrong, but based on your autopsy, it sounds to me as if you don't know whether Sheila Dooher was murdered or not, do you?'
'Well, the introduction of so many different drugs within such a limited time just shut down the respiratory apparatus. It's likely she had a malignant hypertensive response, potential cardiac arrhythmias, and then subsequently, severe hypotension.'
'Excuse me, Doctor, but in your opinion, was this a crime or an article in the New England Journal of Medicine?
'Objection!' Jenkins, he knew, was out of her seat. He didn't have to turn around.
Thomasino grunted. 'Sustained.'
Farrell shot a glance at the jury. He knew it never hurt to put in a dig when things got pedantic. Farrell was just a regular guy, a lay person, like these long-suffering jurors. There were traces of smiles on a few faces. He turned back to Strout. 'I'll repeat the question, Doctor. You don't know whether Sheila Dooher was murdered or not, do you?'
'It's somewhat unusual to see so many different drugs…'
'Excuse me again, Doctor, but it's a yes or no question. You don't know whether Sheila Dooher was murdered or not, do you?'
Strout had to admit it. 'I don't know.'
'You don't know whether Sheila Dooher was murdered? Is that your testimony?'
'Yes.'
Thank you.'
It didn't take Amanda Jenkins long to realize that Wes Farrell wasn't the modest intellect, low-rung attorney he pretended to be. He'd hurt her on his opening statement and then again with Strout. She thought it was time she put some of her own points on the board, and she stood and told the court that the people would call Sergeant George Crandall.
Crandall had been a marine and – though today he wore a business suit -still looked and acted like a marine. He stood up in the gallery and walked, a ramrod, up to the witness stand, where he pre-empted the clerk, raising his hand and swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help him God without any prompting. Obviously, Crandall had been here before.
Controlling his own show, he sat down and nodded at Jenkins.
Crandall sat up straight, but completely at home in the witness box. Knowing it was going to be a while, he unbuttoned his suit jacket, though he did not lean back in the chair, nor did he cross his legs.
Jenkins spent a moment or two establishing that Crandall was an expert homicide investigator with fifteen years of experience and was now, in fact, Head of the police department's Crime Scene Investigation Unit. He had arrived at the murder scene within an hour of the 911 call.
'Were you the first policeman on the scene?'
'No. Sergeants Glitsky and Thieu of Homicide were already there, as well as the Lieutenant and Sergeant from Taraval station and some patrolmen.'
'And had these people found anything relating to the murder by the time you arrived?'
Farrell knew Amanda would be using the word 'murder' a lot that day – trying to condition the jury to accept what she couldn't prove. He couldn't do anything about it, and let it go.
'Would you tell us, Sergeant, what you found at the scene of the murder?'
'One of the first things we found is what we did not find.'
'And what was that, Sergeant?'
'We found there was no sign of a forced entry at the side door. Or anywhere else for that matter.'
'No sign of forced entry?'
'No. We believe that egress was through the side door, by the driveway, because we found a surgical glove and a knife near that door.'
Jenkins produced these and they were entered as People's Exhibits 2 and 3.
The knife matches other knives found in the defendant's kitchen, is that right?'
Before Crandall could even think about answering, Glitsky noticed some quick back and forth at the defense table. For the first time, Christina stood up. 'Your honor, we've stipulated that the knife belonged to the Doohers.'
Glitsky moved uncomfortably in his seat. Jenkins hadn't gotten her sea legs yet and he felt for her. Her first murder case had gone high profile and sideways, and she wasn't doing well. She appeared to be groping for another direction, a specific question, but she couldn't seem to frame it except in a general way.
'Was there anything else about this side door?'
Fortunately, Crandall was on her side, inclined to help. He nodded.'The Sergeant from Taraval reported that the light over the door had been out when they arrived, but he turned it and it went back on.' This was technically hearsay, but nobody objected. 'The alarm system also was not turned on. Upstairs, in the master bedroom, Mrs Dooher was in the bed.'
'And how was she lying?'
'On her side.'
'On her side? Not on her back?'
'No, on her left side.'
Jenkins moved back to Glitsky's table and he gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up as she gathered some material. 'Sergeant Crandall, would you look at these crime-scene photographs and tell us if you recognize them?'
Jenkins handed them over and Crandall agreed that they were accurate. The jury got to look at them. Crandall continued, mentioning the tossed blanket and sheets, the missing jewelry, the blood. He then described the lividity that had been on Mrs Dooher's shoulder.
'Based on your training and experience, Sergeant, does this lividity help you reconstruct the crime scene?'
'Yes, it does.' Glitsky had known Crandall for a long time, and knew he could be personable and even funny in a cop sort of way. But here on the stand, the man was a machine. 'As the coroner has said, when a person dies, the blood settles into the down side of the skin due to gravity.'
'But didn't you just say that this lividity was on Mrs Dooher's upper shoulder?'
'Yes, I did.'
'And what does that mean?'
'It means that she was moved after she was dead. Rolled half-over.'
'And why was that?'
This time, Farrell stood on top of it. 'Objection, your honor! Speculation.'
The objection was sustained, but Jenkins was finally beginning to roll. 'Sergeant, when you first entered the room, did you have an impression of what had happened there?'
Crandall nodded. 'Yes.'
'And what was that?'
'It looked like a burglary that had been interrupted when the victim woke up, that there'd been a struggle, and in that struggle the burglar had killed Mrs Dooher.'
'But don't we know that Mrs Dooher was already dead when she was stabbed?'
'That's right. Because of the lividity, that was my assumption at the time – she was dead when she was stabbed.'
'And had the nightclothes been ripped or partially ripped from the victim?'
'Yes.'
'And had the bedding been thrown about?'
'That's right.'
'And was there blood spattered on the bed and on the floor, under the bed and so on?'
'Yes.'
'Even though Mrs Dooher could not have struggled at all because she was already dead?'
Crandall said yes again, and Glitsky thought he didn't have to provide any speculation after this testimony. What had happened ought to be clear enough.
Jenkins came back to the table for her pad. Consulting it, she faced Crandall once more. 'Now, Sergeant Crandall, let's change direction for a moment. What did you do with the blood samples you found at the scene of the murder?'
'I sent them for analysis to the crime lab.'
Farrell knew he had a hostile witness in Crandall, but it wasn't his style to pussy-foot. He got up from the defense table, crossed the floor of the courtroom, and positioned himself about two feet in front of the witness. He smiled warmly.
'Sergeant Crandall, I'd like to begin by talking about the side door, where you've testified that there was no sign of forced entry. No sign at all?'
Crandall nodded. 'That's right.'
'In your thorough investigation of the premises, did you discover anyplace else where somebody might have broken into the house?'
'No. Whoever came in appeared to just open the door.'
'So there was no sign that anyone broke in.' Farrell brought in the jury with a look. 'None. And no one had tried to make it look like a break-in either, had they?'
Crandall paused a second before answering. 'I don't know whether anyone had tried.'
Farrell appreciated this answer and he told Crandall as much. 'That is what I asked, isn't it, Sergeant?'
A nod.
'But whether or not anyone had tried, it didn't look like anyone had tried to make it look like a burglary, did it?'
'No.'
'All right, thank you. Let's leave that for a moment.' Farrell took a few steps over to the exhibit table and lifted something from it. 'I call your attention to People's Exhibit Number Two, the kitchen knife which we all agree belonged to the defendant and his wife. Did you have this knife tested for fingerprints?'
'Yes.'
'And what did you find?'
'We found the defendant's fingerprints on the knife, as well as those of his wife.'
'Anybody else's?'
'No. Just those two.'
'All right. Now did you discover anything about the defendant's fingerprints that would indicate that he held this knife during or after it was plunged into his wife's chest? For example, were there fingerprints over blood on the knife, or fingerprints in blood?'
'No.'
'Nothing at all to indicate that the defendant had ever used this knife as anything other than an ordinary kitchen implement?'
'No.'
'Nothing at all?'
Jenkins spoke from behind Farrell. 'Asked and answered?' Thomasino agreed, sustaining her.
Farrell nodded genially, glanced over at the jury and included them in his good humor. 'All right, Sergeant, I think we're getting somewhere here on all this evidence that was found at the murder scene. I'd like to ask you now about the surgical glove, People's Three, that was found outside the house, by the side door that showed no sign of forced entry. Did you submit this glove to rigorous lab analysis?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Of course. And what did you find on it? Any fingerprints?'
'No. No fingerprints. The rubber does not hold fingerprints. We did find some spots of Mrs Dooher's blood.'
'Only Mrs Dooher's blood?'
'Yes. Only Mrs Dooher's.'
'A lot of blood.'
Crandall shook his head. 'I wouldn't say a lot. A few drops, splattered and smudged.'
'But again, nothing at all that ties this piece of evidence to the defendant. Nothing at all, is that right?'
'Yes. That's right.'
'Good!' Farrell brought his hands together histrionically, delighted with the results of his questions so far. 'Now, Sergeant, don't the police routinely wear surgical gloves, just like this one, when they are investigating crime scenes?'
Jenkins stood up, objecting, but Thomasino let the question stand, and Crandall had to answer it.
'Yes, sometimes.'
'Just like this one?'
'Sometimes, yes.'
'Sometimes, hmmm. So you, personally, have access to gloves just like this one?'
'Objection! Your honor, Sergeant Crandall isn't on trial here.'
But Farrell spoke right up. 'Your honor, I'm trying to establish that the glove could just as easily have come from the police presence at the scene. Absolutely nothing has been offered to connect this glove with the defendant.'
Thomasino nodded and sighed. 'It seems to me you've done that already, Mr Farrell. Let's move on to the next point.'
Farrell bowed, acquiescent. 'Sergeant, you've told us that your initial impression upstairs – before you knew about the lividity in Mrs Dooher's shoulder – was that a burglary had occurred and she'd woken up and the burglar had stabbed her after a struggle. Do I have that right?'
'Yes.' Crandall shifted in his seat. Farrell, keeping him to short answers on simple factual questions, had succeeded in making him appear restless, edgy. And he wasn't finished yet.
'In other words, the room looked, to your practiced eye, as though a burglary had been in progress, isn't that correct?'
'That's the way it looked to me. Until I looked more carefully at the body.'
'It was made to look like a burglary?'
'Your honor.' Jenkins stood at her table. 'How many times do we have to hear the same question?'
Thomasino nodded. 'Let's move it along, Mr Farrell. You've established that the scene looked to Sergeant Crandall like a burglary had been interrupted.'
'I'm sorry, your honor. I just wanted it to be clear.'
Farrell turned to the jury and bowed slightly, an apology. Turning back, facing the Judge and the witness box, his voice was mild. 'So, Sergeant, based on your training and experience, you reached the conclusion that Mr Dooher had been the person in the room who had faked this burglary?'
Crandall did not respond quickly. 'Yes, I'd say that's right.'
'He wanted it to look like a burglary, and so he left the side door open so there'd be no sign of a burglar's forced entrance? Is that your contention?'
'I don't know why he left the door open. Or even if he did. He might have let himself in with a key.'
'Indeed he might have, sergeant. So, what evidence did you uncover that shows that Mr Dooher, as opposed to someone else, did any of this?'
'Objection. Argumentative.'
This had been Farrell's intention, so it didn't surprise him when Thomasino sustained her. Moving a step or two closer to the witness box he had his hands in his jacket pockets. 'Just to recount for the jury, Sergeant, so far we've established that none of the evidence found at the scene in any way places Mr Dooher there at the time of the stabbing of his wife, isn't that the case?'
'Not directly, but-'
Farrell held up a finger, stopping him. 'Not only not directly, Sergeant. You've testified that there was nothing at all. These were your own words: nothing at all. Then you concluded that Mr Dooher attempted to make it look as though a burglary had taken place when in fact he returned to his home to kill his wife, and yet he apparently took no great pains to create a false impression of illegal entry, which surely would have aided his deception. Then he left no evidence behind, none at all, that would implicate another person?'
'No, that's not true. There was the blood.'
Farrell gave every impression of relief that Crandall had reminded him of that thorny problem. 'Ah yes, the blood, the blood. The tainted blood. But, of course, that's not your area, is it?'
'No, it's not.'
Farrell had wounded Crandall and had him in his sights again. He was going to bring him down.
'Sergeant, in your thorough investigation of the crime scene, you must have found a great deal of evidence that Mark Dooher, in fact, lived in this house, isn't that right?'
'Yes. Of course.'
'Did you find his fingerprints, fibers from his clothing, hairs and so forth?'
'Yes, we did.'
'And would you have expected to find those things?'
'Of course.'
Farrell gave him another smile. 'A simple "yes" is fine, Sergeant, thank you. Now, did you find anything you would not have expected to find relating to Mark Dooher?'
'Like what?'
'I don't know, sir. I'm asking you, but I'll rephrase it for you. Did you find anything specific – either at the crime scene itself, or in Mr Dooher's car, or his office, or in your subsequent analysis of lab results and blood tests and so forth that, based on your training and experience, led you to suspect that Mark Dooher had killed his wife?'
Crandall didn't reply. Farrell pressed his advantage.
'And isn't it true that you found no physical evidence, either in the bedroom itself or on the person of Mrs Dooher that linked Mark Dooher with this crime?'
Crandall hated it. His face had flushed with suppressed anger. 'I suppose if you-'
'Sergeant! Isn't it true that you found no evidence linking Mark Dooher with this crime? Isn't that true?'
He spit it out. 'Yes.'
Another smile. 'Thank you.' Wes beamed up at Thomasino. 'That's all for this witness, your honor.'
Had Glitsky not encountered similar situations dozens of times before, he wouldn't have believed it. It still amazed him. Amanda's next witness, who'd been sitting out here in the hallway forty-five minutes ago, had disappeared.
So Glitsky was out in the echoing, linoleum corridor, chatting with a severely displeased George Crandall. Crandall had vented his pique about Farrell's cross-examination for a couple of minutes, and now was telling Glitsky about a book he was going to write, based on his true-life experiences as a big-city cop.
'Really, though, I don't have much more than a title at this stage. I got friends who say that's the important part, anyway. You get a good title, you sell a lot of books.'
'What's the title?' Glitsky asked him.
'Wait. First, here's the idea. You know all these celebrities who grow up and remember that somebody abused them when they were seven and that's why they've been married eight times and they've got substance-abuse problems and if all of us normal people just tried to understand them they'd be happier?'
'Sure. I worry about them all the time.'
'Exactly. So I'll call it Who Gives a Shit? What do you think?'
Glitsky liked it a lot, but didn't think it would sell very many books. He was starting to tell that to Crandall, but had to cut the discussion short. Amanda Jenkins was ascending the stairs holding the arm of a tall, disheveled young man with horn-rimmed glasses – the crime-lab specialist, the 'blood guy', Ray Drumm.
Mr Drumm, exquisite boredom oozing from every pore, endured a two-minute lecture from Judge Thomasino on the relative merits of wandering off, leaving the Hall of Justice to smoke a cigarette outside when you were due to testify in a murder trial. Contempt of court was mentioned, but didn't seem to make much of an impact. Finally, Drumm was sworn in and took his seat in the witness chair.
Like most of the professional lawpersons in the building, Glitsky had no use for Drumm. A career bureaucrat who wasn't yet thirty-five years old, Drumm was taciturn when he wasn't being simply obstinate. Perhaps he was truly brain dead, but Glitsky didn't think it was that. He had the attitude -I got my job, I can't get fired, bite me.
But Jenkins couldn't let her feelings show, though Abe knew she shared his own. Getting information from Drumm was pulling teeth under the best of circumstances. God forbid you did something to put his back up – and Jenkins had already interrupted his precious cigarette.
He sat slumped on his elbow, but she greeted him cordially, then began leading him through the blood issues, bringing him around to the samples found in the room. 'And what did you find in analyzing these samples?'
A roll of the eyes. Drumm had much more important things to do at this moment. Clearly. He sighed. 'There were two different blood types – Mrs Dooher's and another one.'
'Was the second one Mr Dooher's?'
'No.'
'Do you know whose blood it was?'
'We know it was A-positive. We ran DNA tests and-'
Farrell was up, shot out of a cannon. 'Your honor! This is the first the defense has heard about DNA testing. The prosecution has said they couldn't-'
'Just a minute, just a minute!' This was Jenkins, voice raised.
Thomasino gavelled the room quiet. Jenkins turned to the witness. 'Mr Drumm, you did not, in fact, run DNA on this blood, did you? Perhaps you were thinking of Mrs Dooher's blood.'
He shrugged. 'Maybe that was it. I thought you were talking about her.'
Jenkins looked round at Farrell – what could she do about this idiot? -and then turned back to Drumm. 'No, I was asking about the other blood sample from the murder scene, the blood type of that second sample. What was that?'
'I just said. A-positive.'
Jenkins shook her head. 'No, Mr Drumm, you just said Mrs Dooher's blood type was A-positive. Were they both A-positive?'
Drumm couldn't have cared less. 'Did I say that?'
They wasted another minute or two while the reporter read back what he'd said, and then Drumm asked to see his lab results again and Jenkins got them from her table and brought them to him. He turned a page, turned a page, turned back a page.
'Mr Drumm, have you found the blood type?'
Glitsky wanted to take out his gun and shoot off the guy's kneecap. Wake him up. Or maybe shoot him in the head, put him to sleep.
'I'm looking,' Drumm said. 'Yeah, here it is. A-positive for the second blood.'
'And while we're here, what was Mrs Dooher's blood type?'
As though he hadn't just a second before reviewed the report, Drumm scanned it again. 'She was O-positive.'
'Did you run DNA testing on the second sample?'
'No.'
'And why not?'
'I don't know. Nobody asked me to.' Jenkins was hoping against hope that Drumm would supply the useful information that they hadn't run DNA because they had nothing to compare it to – the blood had belonged to a man who was dead and cremated. But then, certainly without meaning to, Drumm gave her something. 'The DNA didn't matter anyway.'
This brought an audible reaction from the gallery – nothing approaching an outburst, more a sustained hum. Thomasino tapped his gavel and it disappeared.
'Why didn't it matter whose blood was mixed with Mrs Dooher's at the murder scene?'
'Because the blood did not come directly from a body. It came from a vial.' Jenkins questioned him to bring out the EDTA angle and the picture gradually began to emerge.
'In other words, Mr Drumm, the second blood discovered at the murder scene was brought there?'
'Looks like it.'
Farrell's direction was becoming clear. He wasn't going to take up much of Mr Drumm's incredibly valuable time. His cross-examination consisted of two questions.
'Mr Drumm, did you find any of Mr Dooher's blood in either of the two samples you analyzed?'
And: 'Mr Drumm, did you find any of Mr Dooher's blood on either the knife or surgical glove that were found at the scene?'
The answer to both was no.
Peter Harris didn't like testifying for the prosecution against one of his patients. From the witness box, he raised a hand, greeting Dooher. The jury certainly noticed.
But Jenkins needed him to put the tainted blood in Dooher's hands. 'Dr Harris, are you the defendant's personal physician?'
'I am.'
'And on what date did the defendant have his last appointment with you?'
Harris by now knew the date by heart, but he pulled out a pocket notebook and appeared to be reading from it. 'It was a routine physical, Friday, May thirty-first, at two-thirty.'
'Friday, May thirty-first, at two-thirty. Thank you. Now, Doctor, do you draw blood from patients in your office?'
'Yes, certainly.'
'Often?'
A shrug. Ten times a day, sometimes more. It's a routine procedure.'
Jenkins nodded. 'Yes. And when you draw blood, what do you do with it?'
'Well, that depends on the reason we drew the blood in the first place.'
Glitsky saw Jenkins straighten her back, take a deep breath. He was glad she was slowing herself down. Her questions weren't precise enough. She wasn't getting what she wanted. She tried again. 'What I meant, Doctor, is when you draw this blood, you put it in vials, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'And what happened to these vials?'
'We send them to the lab.'
'Good. Before you send them to the lab, do you lock them up?'
'No.'
'Are they within anyone's reasonable reach?'
Harris was uncomfortable with this, but was trying his best to be cooperative. Again, he looked over at Dooher, gave him a nervous, apologetic smile. 'Sometimes.'
'On a counter, or a tray, or by a nurse's station, something like that. Is that what you mean?'
'Yes.'
'Before you can take these vials to the lab, they are often left sitting out in your office, accessible to anyone who wanted to take one, is that right?'
A wry expression. 'Not so much anymore, but yes.'
'Do you lose a lot of these vials, Doctor?'
'No.'
'Have you ever lost a vial?'
'Yes. A couple of times.'
'Did you lose a vial on Friday, May thirty-first?'
'Yes, we did.'
'And whose blood was that, the blood missing from your office on May thirty-first?'
The patient was Leo Banderas.'
'And what blood type does Mr Banderas have?'
'A-positive.'
Glitsky shifted his gaze over to the defense table. This testimony was going to be Dooher's darkest hour. The defense team seemed to know it, too, and the three of them sat, rapt, waiting for what was going to come next.
'Do you happen to know, Doctor, what time Mr Banderas's appointment was for on that Friday, May thirty-first?'
Slowly, though he knew the answer, Harris reached for his little book and checked it one last time. 'One forty-five.'
'Or forty-five minutes before the defendant's appointment?'
For the third time, Harris made eye contact with Mark Dooher. Then he nodded to Jenkins. 'That's right.'
Jenkins glanced up at the wall clock. It was late enough that Thomasino would adjourn for the weekend the minute she let Harris go, and the jury would have a couple of days to live with this most unlikely of coincidences. Thank you, Doctor. That's all.' She turned sweetly to Farrell. 'Your witness.'
But Farrell had barely moved to get up when Thomasino interrupted.
'Ladies and gentlemen, it's a quarter to five and I think we've all had a long week. We'll adjourn now until-'
'Your honor!' There was a shrillness now to Farrell's voice, an edge of panic. 'Your honor, if the court pleases, I just have a few quick questions for this witness and then we can start out fresh on Monday morning. And the doctor won't have to come back downtown to court,' he added helpfully.
The Judge looked again at the clock, shook his head no, and whacked his gavel. He told Farrell and the rest of the room that court was adjourned until Monday morning at nine-thirty.
Glitsky, Thieu and Jenkins were at a subterranean table in Lou the Greek's, savoring their moment of glory. Glitsky and Thieu were nursing iced teas, but Jenkins had a double martini half-gone and another full one in front of her. It was Friday, by God, and she'd earned it.
'I love this blood thing,' Jenkins said. 'Even without the DNA on Banderas, it's pretty strong.'
Glitsky finished chewing some ice. 'It could always be stronger,' he said, 'but this is good.'
Thieu hadn't been in court, and as usual wanted to know everything. Glitsky thought if he kept up the way he'd been going, soon he would. He already knew everything about everything else.
When Thieu had been filled in, he said, 'It's a shame old Leo died and got cremated before we knew what was up. A sample of his blood to compare to what we found at Dooher's would sink our boy, wouldn't it?'
Jenkins wasn't going to cry over that spilled milk. 'The story the jury just heard – the missing vial – that's all we needed. Juries don't believe DNA, anyway. They don't understand it.'
'Paul does,' Glitsky said. 'I think he invented it, in fact.'
'What's to understand?' Thieu, in fact, had no problem with it. 'It's a fingerprint. It's there, it's you. It's not, not. Am I wrong here?'
'Nope,' Glitsky answered. 'That's the theory, and a fine one it is, too.' He started to slide out of the booth, then stopped. 'Oh, Amanda? – in the rush I forgot. The second chair, Christina? I talked to her at lunch. She didn't know about it. She's not the motive.'
Thieu leaned forward. 'I was thinking about that this afternoon, Abe, and she still could be the motive, even if she didn't know about it.'
Glitsky was shaking his head. 'Not if the two of them didn't have anything sexual going into it. How's Dooher going to know he can get her, sure enough to kill his wife for it, risk a trial, all of this? It's too much.'
Thieu shrugged. 'The guy loves games. Look at Trang, look at Nguyen, the Price woman. This is who this guy is. I could see him doing it just for the challenge, not even knowing how it's going to come out.'
With anyone else, Glitsky would have been tempted to laugh off this idea as too far-fetched, but Thieu hadn't been wrong very often so far.
'I hope you're wrong,' he said.
'Why?'
'Cause if you're right, it's only a matter of time before she's next.'
In the defense room, when the door closed behind them, Christina hung the coat of her suit over a folding chair and walked to her window as she always did. The winter night was closing in, and over the Hall across the street, Christmas lights were coming on in some of the downtown towers.
Now Mark spoke quietly. 'You're thinking I might have done it after all, aren't you?'
Still facing the night, she was silent. He slid off the desk and she felt him begin to come up behind her before she saw his reflection in the window. 'Please,' she said, 'don't.'
He stopped. 'I have no explanation for the blood, Christina. I don't know anything about it.' A pause. 'We joked about it at lunch, about it being Wes's finest hour, but in fact what he said was the truth. The problem with being innocent is you don't know what happened.'
'Yes. I've heard that a couple of times now. It's got a nice rhythm to it, as though it's a universal law, as though it's got to be true.'
'It is true.'
Crossing her hands over her chest, she barely trusted herself to breathe. Mark stood behind her. 'Christina, we've known about this blood all along. You've known about it.'
Finally, she turned around. 'All right, I've known about it, Mark. It's been there all along, no doubt. I guess I just figured there had to be some explanation, and eventually it would come out. Well, eventually just happened and nothing came out.'
He just looked at her.
'What I'd like to know is how a vial of blood from your doctor's office came to find its way into your wife's bed.'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know?' With an edge of despair.
'Don't you think I wish I knew? Wouldn't it be great if I could make something up, something you'd believe, that we could tell the jury?'
She didn't trust herself to answer, to say anything. The silence roared around her.
'I'm going to say a few things, Christina.' His voice, when it finally came, was strangely beaten down. She didn't remember ever hearing that tone before. 'I know you'll probably have thought of most of them, but I'm going to go over them again, then we'll see where we are.'
He was sitting now, behind her. She hadn't noticed when he'd moved. She held herself, cold, wrapped in her own arms.
'The first question,' he began. 'How the vial from my doctor's office got in Sheila's bed. Well, listen, how do we know that happened? How do we even know blood is missing? How do we know that, if it is, it ended up at the scene?'
She whirled. 'Don't patronize me, Mark.'
He shook his head. 'You think that's it? You think I'm condescending to you? That's the last thing I'd do, Christina.'
She waited, arms crossed.
'I'll tell you what we don't know, and the first thing is that we don't know any blood is missing. How do we know some lab technician at Harris's didn't just drop a test tube and not want to admit it? Maybe he's done it before and if it happens again, he's fired. Maybe Mr Banderas's blood is still sitting at the lab with the wrong label on it.'
He held up a hand, his voice low. 'I'm not saying it is, Christina. I don't have a clue what is anymore, but let's go on down with what else could have happened, okay? Look at what they say they have – a vial of A-positive blood. They don't know it's Banderas. They didn't run DNA, for Christ sake, did they?
'Why isn't it just as likely that the police lab here made a mistake? Did you see that guy Drumm? This is the guy whose testimony's gonna put me away? I don't think so.'
'Maybe there was some of this EDTA left on the last slide they looked at. Maybe the guy who killed Sheila had A-positive blood and bled all over the place and the lab screwed it up. Are you saying people don't make mistakes on blood tests? And if they did that to begin with, you think they'll admit it now?'
She was leaning now, half sitting against the window sill.
'So what's easier to believe? That the guy who killed my wife got hold of a vial of A-positive blood and poured it all over the room? Or that the killer just bled?'
'And why -I don't really get this part at all – why in the world would I -assuming I did all this – why would I dream up this blood idea at all? What does it accomplish? You've known me now for almost a year. Am I a moron? If I'm trying to make it look like somebody else did it, why do I use my own knife, why do I leave my fingerprints all over it?'
At last he ventured a step towards her. 'All right,' he said levelly. 'I'll admit at this point it's a matter of faith. You can't know. But why do you assume that everybody else has done their job, that nobody made a mistake, that everybody is telling the truth except me?'
She raised her eyes. 'I don't assume that, Mark. I'm trying. I'm listening.'
His shoulders slumped. His face, for the very first time, looked old to her. Diminished. This was not arrogance, she was sure, but nakedness. She was looking into the core of him.
'I didn't do this,' he whispered. He was not even pleading, which would have made him suspect. 'I swear to you. I don't know what happened.'
When the doorbell rang, Wes assumed it was the pizza delivery and buzzed the downstairs entrance. Opening his door, he stepped out into the hallway to wait. Bart came up around him, sniffed, and walked to the head of the steps, where his tail began to wag and he started making little whimpering noises.
'Bart!' Farrell moved forward, raising his voice. Delivery people got nervous around big dogs. 'It's okay,' he called out, 'he's friendly. He won't bite.'
The dog started down the steps, which he'd been trained against. 'Bart!'
'It's okay. He's missed me.' Sam stopped where she stood, three steps from the top, one hand absently petting Bart. The other hand clutched a leather satchel which hung over her shoulder. 'Hi,' she said.
'Hi.' His gut went hollow.
She was wearing a green jacket with the hood still up, hair tucked into it. Jeans and hiking boots. Her face was half-hidden, unreadable, looking up at him, and then she was fumbling with the satchel.
'I wanted to bring you something.'
'We shouldn't be talking, Sam.'
'I'm not here to talk.' She pulled a red accordion file out of the satchel. 'You need to see something.'
He knew what he needed to see. He needed to see her. To have things be back the way they'd started. But that couldn't happen. They'd come to here, and he was in the middle of a trial and she was with the enemy. He couldn't forget that, or he would lose.
'I'm pretty busy right now. I don't have time to read anything else. I've got about all I can handle, unless your friend Diane's changing her story.'
Holding the file against her, she threw back the jacket's hood. Her eyes glistened with rage or regret. 'Wes, please?'
'Please what?'
'This is important. This is critical. Not just for the trial. For you.'
But she didn't move, and neither did he. Finally, she nodded, gave Bart another pat, lay the folder down on the steps, and turned. When she got to the door, she didn't pause – as he thought she might. He would have a chance then to call out, to see if… but there was no hesitation at all.
The door closed behind her.
His intention was to leave it on the stairs. But he didn't do that.
Then, once it was inside, he decided he would just throw the damn thing in the trash, but he didn't.
He'd read all of the newspaper and magazine articles about Diane Price, and he'd about had it up to his earlobes with them. Clearly, the woman was some kind of publicity hound who'd struck gold with the touching story of the brutal rape that had cut short her promising future and forced her to a life of drugs and promiscuity.
Right.
He'd read somewhere that she'd optioned her life story to some Hollywood outfit, and he thought that was just perfect. She was a charlatan and a liar and had parlayed a couple of weeks with his famous client into a cottage industry among the politically correct. He had nothing but contempt for her and what she stood for.
But now the accordion folder was on the milk crate in the other room while he sat at his kitchen table pretending to go over Emil Balian's testimony about Mark's car as he chewed on his pizza and drank his second and third beers of the evening.
He kept the radio on low – Christmas carols. He didn't want to hear any random country music. None of Emil Balian's story made any more sense than it had the fifth and sixth times he'd reviewed it. The nosy neighbor didn't know what car he'd seen on the night of the murder.
The second period of the Warriors game was like the second period of all basketball games. Farrell was coming to the opinion that they should change the rules of pro basketball – give each team a hundred points and shorten the game to two minutes. You'd wind up with the same scores and save everybody a lot of wear and tear.
In the end, he swore to himself, flicked off the tube, then the radio, opened another beer, and sat on his futon with the folder in his lap, still hesitating.
What did Sam mean, this was for him, not the trial?
There were a lot of pages. The first was from a high-school yearbook -Diane Taylor with a beaming smile, the mortar-board graduation photo, under it the list of organizations she'd belonged to and awards she'd won -Rally Committee, Debate Society, Chess Club, Varsity Cheerleader, Biology Club, Swim Team, Bank of America Science Award, Lifetime Member California Scholarship Federation, National Merit Semi-finalist.
Wes flipped to the next pages. More yearbook, the individual photos that showed her as she'd been back then – vivacious, pretty, popular.
But so what? The newspapers were filled with file photos of mass murderers who'd looked like this and done this much in high school. You just couldn't tell. Wes had no trouble recalling his own high-school yearbook photo – with his Beatle haircut, he'd been voted 'Best Hair'. Now he was forty-seven percent bald by actual count. And that alone, he thought, pretty much said it all about the relevance of high-school pictures.
But he kept going, turning the pages within the folder, sipping his beer. A change in focus now – from photographs to Xeroxes of report cards and transcripts. Senior year – all A's. First semester at Stanford. A's. Second and third semester. A's. Fourth semester. A B, 2 C 's and an incomplete.
So something happened during the spring semester of her sophomore year. Wes had seen this, too, a million times. This was – he double-checked the date on the transcript – 1968. Drugs happened, was what. Martin Luther King got killed. Bobby Kennedy. The Chicago Democratic convention and Humphrey and then Richard Nixon. America fell apart. Wes wouldn't be surprised if 1968 set a record for grades going to hell – somebody ought to do a study, get a government grant. But what did it mean?
It meant nothing. It was yet another example of a person – Sam in this case – seeing what she was already disposed to see. He finished his beer and went to get another one. He should go to sleep.
But something tugged him back to the futon, to the folder. He owed Sam something, didn't he?
No, he didn't. She was wrong here and he was right. She had caused him all the pain, not the other way around. She was still hurting him.
The next stapled group of pages, forty-two of them, contained Xeroxes of diary entries in a confident female hand – two to a page, the first eighty-three days of the year, ending March 23rd.
He read it all. Diane was a chatty and charming diarist. She was still swimming competitively. She was taking German, Chemistry, Biology and Western Civ, and she was worried that they were too easy, that she wouldn't be prepared when she got to Med School. She had two close female friends – Maxine and Sharon – and on March 14th, she'd met Mark Dooher, the first male mentioned in a romantic context within the pages.
No drugs, no sex. No innuendos of either.
On March 17th, she went to an afternoon college baseball game with Mark Dooher. Burgers. A kiss good night.
The last line on March 22nd. Mark and I m.o. a little. First boyfriend this year. Whew! Thought it was my breath.
The last line on March 23rd. Tomorrow date with Mark. Can't wait.
Wes turned the last page of this section and frowned. The next stapled section seemed to be more Xeroxes of diary pages, again two to a page, beginning March 24th, but these pages had no writing. He flipped through, page by page.
Nothing for seventeen days, where before March 23rd, Diane had never skipped more than a day. Then, on April 10th, the handwriting had changed – subtly, but recognizable even to Wes. It was more cramped somehow, less confident.
Didn 't get out of bed. Too scared. Seeing everything different now, what people are capable of now. Since Mark. From that? I'm afraid I'll see him and then what. I've got to tell somebody. But he said he 'd kill me. I want to go home, but I can't leave school without saying why, but I can't think. I can't talk to anybody. God, my mom… how can I tell them?
And then another sheaf of blank pages until June 5th, when, presumably, school got out.
Wes was asking himself why hadn't he seen this before? Why hadn't Sam given it to Amanda Jenkins? If she'd done that, Wes would have read it in the discovery documents. But it hadn't been there.
But what did it mean anyway?
Legally, it was worthless. Purportedly, this was nothing but copies of pages, maybe from a diary, of twenty-some years before. The entire package could have been reconstructed, or originally created, in the past month. In no way was it evidence.
But, as Sam had said, it wasn't meant to be evidence. The pages weren't for the trial, they were for Wes.
On Monday morning at 9:35, Wes Farrell stood before the witness box in Department 26 and said good morning to Dr Harris. The two men had had a long talk on Sunday afternoon, discussing what they would say this morning. Harris had always liked Mark Dooher – had liked Sheila, too. The police had more or less set him up to make Mark look bad, and he was more than willing to try to work some damage control.
'Doctor,' Farrell began. 'On Friday, you testified that you lost a vial of blood from your office on May thirty-first. Have you ever located that vial of blood?'
'No.'
'In other words, it's lost.'
'That's right.'
'How did you discover it was lost?'
'It didn't come back from the lab when it was supposed to.'
'Oh!' Farrell was intrigued.'This blood then, was it supposed to go to a lab from your office?'
'Yes. We send our blood work out to the Pacheco Clinic where they've got a lab facility.'
'Is the Pacheco Clinic far from your office?'
'No. A mile, maybe a little more.'
'All right, then. Now, Doctor, how do they keep track of the blood they work on in this lab?'
'We have a requisition slip that we attach to the vials with tape. Then they fill in a report form for results.'
'Let's back up a minute, shall we? You attach your requisition slip to these vials with tape?'
'Yes.'
'What kind of tape?'
'Regular Scotch tape.'
'Scotch tape on glass vials. Hmm. Is that sticky enough, Doctor? Does the tape ever come off?'
'If the vial gets wet, sometimes, yes.'
'All right. Did you discover that this missing vial of blood – Leo Banderas's blood – never got to Pacheco lab because it wasn't logged in? Was that it?'
'No, not exactly. They're not logged in as such.'
'So you don't know whether this vial of blood ever got to the Pacheco lab?'
'No, I don't know.'
'It could have been delivered there and lost there, isn't that true?'
Jenkins objected to the question as speculation, and she was sustained, but Farrell thought he'd made his point anyway. He decided to move along. He turned to the jury and gave them a relaxed smile.
'Dr Harris, you testified that you'd lost other vials of blood from your office, is that true?'
'Yes.'
'Many of them?'
Harris thought a minute. 'Over the years, say three or four.'
'Three or four? Has it ever happened, to your knowledge, that someone has dropped a vial of blood?'
'Yes.'
'Is this something – dropping a vial of blood – that could get someone fired if it happened a lot?'
'Possibly.'
'Your honor, objection! Speculation.'
Again Thomasino sustained Jenkins, and again Farrell didn't care. He was putting points on the board.
'Dr Harris, did you have the opportunity to review the lab report that Mr Drumm signed?'
'Yes, I did.'
'And the blood in the second vial, was it the blood of your patient, Leo Banderas?'
'I don't know. There was no way to tell.'
'But the blood in the vial was A-positive, was it not?'
'Yes. But there was nothing to compare it with. Mr Banderas died several months ago and was cremated. There's no trace of his DNA left.'
'So you're saying, Doctor, that there's no way to tell if the blood in the second vial belonged to Mr Banderas or not, is that right?'
'Yes, that's right.'
'Then there is no particular reason to believe that the blood in the second vial, the blood found at the crime scene, had ever been in your office, is there?'
'No.'
In his free time over the weekend, when he wasn't chatting with Dr Harris – and amid all different kinds of soul-searching regarding Diane Price – Farrell had tried intermittently to focus on Abe Glitsky. He wished he'd had better luck formulating a plan, because the Lieutenant was in the witness box now and Farrell was approaching him and didn't know what he was going to say. Glitsky's testimony, easily delivered over two hours with Amanda Jenkins leading him every step of the way, had done some damage. This was in large part due to Glitsky's air of authority on the stand – if he had come to suspect Mark Dooher, there had to be some reason. He was a professional cop with no particular ax to grind. In fact, he was the Head of Homicide. It looked to him as though the defendant was guilty. That's why he had delivered Dooher's case to the DA, and why the Grand Jury had indicted him.
'Lieutenant, you've given us Mark Dooher's version of the events of June 7th, and then your own interpretation of those events, which led you to arrest him for the murder of his wife. For the benefit of the jury, can you tell us a specific instance of an untruth you uncovered in Mr Dooher's statement to you on the night of the murder?'
'A great deal of it was untrue. That's what all these other witnesses are here to talk about.'
'Yes. But do you have any proof you can show us that Mr Dooher lied? Say a credit-card receipt that proves he was really buying clothes downtown when he said he went to Dellaroma's Deli? Anything like that?'
'I have statements of other witnesses,' Glitsky repeated.
'And the jury will get to decide who they believe among those witnesses, Lieutenant. But to get back to my question – now for the third time – do you, personally, have something you can show us, or describe for us, that proves anything about Mark Dooher's actions on the night of the murder?'
Glitsky kept his composure, wishing that Jenkins would object about something. The testimony of the other prosecution witnesses – taken together – would constitute proof, he hoped. But he didn't have a smoking gun, and Farrell was nailing him for it. 'I don't have a credit-card receipt, no.'
'Isn't it true, Lieutenant, that you don't have anything that proves Mark Dooher told even one small lie?'
'Not by itself, no.'
'Not by itself or not at all? Do you have something specific, or don't you?'
Farrell was going to squeeze it out of him. He glanced at Jenkins. Couldn't she call this speculation or leading the witness or something? Evidently not.
'No.'
But Farrell wasn't going to gloat over this minor victory. He simply nodded, satisfied, and took aim at his next target. 'Now, Lieutenant Glitsky, as the investigator in charge of this case, did you analyze the reports of the crime-scene investigator, Sergeant Crandall, and the lab reports on blood submitted by Mr Drumm?'
'Yes, I did.'
'And yet didn't you hear both of those gentlemen testify that they found no evidence tying Mark Dooher to the scene?'
'No.'
A look of surprise. There was some whispering in the gallery. A few of the jurors frowned and leaned forward in their seats. Farrell took a step towards him. 'You did not hear them say that?'
'No, sir. That was a conclusion you drew.'
This stopped Farrell cold. Glitsky had maneuvered him into a trap. Crandall's testimony – the knife, the fingerprints – did not preclude Dooher from being on the scene. Neither did Drumm's tainted blood.
But two could play this game. They were going to do a little dance. 'Your honor,' Farrell said, 'would you please instruct the witness to answer only the questions I ask him?'
The Judge did just that – a rebuke for the jury's benefit. See? Farrell was telling them, Lieutenant Glitsky doesn't play by the rules.
Farrell inclined his head an inch. 'Lieutenant, did you hear Dr Strout identify the kitchen knife, People's Three, as the murder weapon?'
'Yes.'
'And did you hear Sergeant Crandall testify that the only fingerprints on the knife belonged to Mr and Mrs Dooher, and were entirely consistent with normal household use?'
'Yes.'
'And did you also hear Sergeant Crandall's testimony about the surgical glove found at the scene?'
'Yes, I did.'
'Well, then, Lieutenant, I must ask you. In your professional opinion, why did Mr Dooher wear this surgical glove if he knew – as he must have known – that his fingerprints were already all over the murder weapon?'
'To point to a burglar.'
'To point to a burglar?'
As soon as he'd repeated Glitsky's answer, Farrell realized it was a critical mistake. Glitsky jumped on it before he could stop him. 'Without the glove there's no evidence of a burglar.'
Farrell kept his poker face on, but these, suddenly, were bad cards. He couldn't let it rest here. 'And yet, Lieutenant, didn't Sergeant Crandall testify there were no fingerprints on the glove?'
'Yes.'
'There was absolutely nothing connecting this glove to Mr Dooher?'
Glitsky had to concede it. 'That's right.'
Farrell decided that wisdom dictated a shift of emphasis. This was where, Farrell knew, it was going to get serious in a hurry, and he took in a breath, slowing down, coming to a stop in the center of the courtroom. In the jury's eyes, here was a man wrestling with a moral dilemma.
Finally, he turned back to Glitsky, having come to his difficult decision. 'Lieutenant, do you ever wear surgical gloves when you investigate a bloody crime scene?'
Jenkins stood and objected, but Thomasino overruled her.
The Lieutenant nodded. 'Yes.'
Farrell saw no need to say more. He had larger prey in his sights. 'In the early portion of this year, and especially in the latter half of April, did you have occasion to spend a great deal of time in St Mary's Hospital?'
Jenkins slammed a palm on the table and was up out of her chair. 'Your honor! I object. What does that question have to do with the death of Sheila Dooher?'
But this time, Farrell wasn't going to wait meekly for a ruling. 'I'm afraid it has everything to do with it, your honor. Its relevance will become clear during my case. Either I make the point now or I'd like permission to re-call Lieutenant Glitsky at that time.'
The Judge's eyes were invisible under his brows. He called a recess to see the attorneys in his chambers.
Glitsky stayed in the witness box. There was no place else he wanted to go, anyway. No one he wanted to talk to.
Across the courtroom, Dooher and Christina had their heads together, conferring in whispers, their body language so intimate it was embarrassing. He tried to imagine Dooher objectively in that moment – a middle-aged white male in the prime of his life. He kept himself fit. He looked good. And clearly, he could attract a beautiful younger woman.
Studying him, Glitsky tried to imagine the moments of rage. Or had it been calm deliberation? How was it possible that none of it showed? And yet there was no visible sign, no way to see what Dooher had done except in what he'd inadvertently left behind.
And yet Glitsky knew.
Dooher looked up, perhaps feeling the long gaze on him. His eyes came to Glitsky for a fraction of an instant – flat, completely without reaction, as though Glitsky didn't exist – and then he was back in his conversation with Christina Carrera.
In the gallery, the huge crowds from the pre-trial had slimmed somewhat with the judicial rulings on what issues were going to be allowed, but still, every seat appeared to be taken, although just at the moment a knot of reporters had congealed around the bar rail. They smelled a fresh kill coming, and Glitsky was afraid it was going to be him.
'All right, Lieutenant. Do you remember the question I asked you, if you'd had occasion to spend a lot of time in St Mary's Hospital in the spring of this year, around the time of Sheila Dooher's murder?'
A wary look. 'Yes.'
'How many days?'
'I don't know exactly. Thirty or forty.'
Farrell was damned if he was going to ask why and get the sympathy flowing for what Glitsky had gone through. His wife had been dying of cancer. The jury didn't need to know that. For Farrell, this was a tough moment – personally he felt for Glitsky's grief. But so be it. He had to have the testimony.
'Were you a patient or a visitor there, Lieutenant?'
'A visitor.'
'And during those thirty or forty days, were you ever near a nurse's station?'
'Yes.'
'Did you ever witness blood being drawn?'
Glitsky knew where this was going, and cast a cold eye on Jenkins. But the attorneys must have slugged this one out in chambers. The cavalry was not on the way.
'Yes.'
'Do you remember ever seeing any vials of blood, sitting out on a tray, or a table, or at a nurse's station?'
'Yes.'
'And were these vials guarded in any way? Or under lock and key?'
'No:
'All right. Thank you, Lieutenant. That's all.'
Lunch was a somber affair.
A fierce, cold, wet storm had blown in off the Pacific while Glitsky had been on the stand during the morning, and Christina was standing at her window, watching the rain slanting down while her two companions sullenly finished their take-out Chinese.
She'd flown down to Ojai on Saturday morning, back again last night. She'd needed to get some perspective, get out of the glare of all of this. To a degree, it had worked.
But now the heaters had come on and smelled musty in the tiny room, and Mark and Wes still hadn't gotten back to the people they'd been before she'd kissed Mark on his doorstep.
That kiss had changed Wes profoundly. In spite of his skills in the courtroom, he appeared more distracted with every passing day, more upset with her and, especially, with Mark.
She wanted to shake Wes out of his doubts. She'd had her round of them on Friday, all about the blood. Glitsky's testimony had opened up another whole universe of possible explanations. Doubts had to be part of it – if the prosecution didn't have some decent facts, it wouldn't get cases past the Grand Jury. And hadn't Wes been the one who'd drilled into her the notion that the facts aren't as important as how you interpret them? Why couldn't he see that now?
She knew what was bothering Wes. This case wasn't about the facts to him. It was about his confidence in Mark. And the kiss had undermined that.
She turned from the window, about to say something, try to lighten things up, but just then the cop from the Hall knocked and said they were reconvening.
Emil Balian had dressed well, in a conservative dark suit with a white shirt and rep tie. Amanda Jenkins had paid for his haircut, which eliminated the unruly shocks of white hair which normally emanated, Einstein-like, from the sides of his scalp. Most importantly, Glitsky thought, he'd shaved, or someone had shaved him. Abe thought, all in all, he looked pretty good – respectable, grave, old.
Abe had met Balian on the day after the murder. With Paul Thieu, he'd gone back to the scene early in the afternoon and there was an elderly man in plaid shorts and Hawaiian shirt standing in the driveway. 'Saw all about it on the television,' he said without preamble as they'd gotten out of their car. 'You guys the cops?'
Balian introduced himself, saying he lived a couple of blocks over on Casitas. So this was the place, huh? Too bad about the lady. He'd known her a little. He knew just about everybody, which was what happened when you walked as much as he did. You got to know people, stopping to chat while they worked on their gardens or brought in groceries or whatever.
Emil worked for forty years as a mail carrier and just got in the habit of walking, plus he had a touch of phlebitis and he was supposed to stroll three or four miles a day, keep his circulation up.
Balian wasn't shy. He talked incessantly, telling Glitsky and Thieu all about his life in the neighborhood. He bought into St Francis Wood back when a working man could afford a nice house. Eleanor, his wife, had a job, too – and this was in the days before women worked like they do now. They hadn't had any children, so pretty much had their pick of neighborhoods. Money wasn't much of a problem back then, not like it is now being on a fixed income.
During this extended recital, Glitsky kept trying to back away, get to the house. He knew they were going to have to canvass the area sometime for witnesses anyway. He was reasonably certain that this old man was talking for the sheer pleasure of hearing himself talk.
But it turned out better than that.
Jenkins crossed the floor and came to rest a couple of feet in front of the witness box. 'Mr Balian,' she began, 'would you tell us what you did on the evening of June 7th of this year?'
'I sure will. I had supper with my wife, Eleanor, at our home on Casitas Avenue, and after supper, like I always do, I went out for a walk.'
'And what time was this?'
'It was just dusk, maybe a little before, say eight o'clock, thereabouts. We always eat at seven sharp, used to be six, but about ten years ago we went to seven. I don't know why, really, it just seemed more civilized or something. So it was seven.'
'So to get the timing right, was it seven o'clock when you began dinner, but near eight when you started your walk?'
'That's right.'
'Was there any other way you could mark the time? Did you check your watch, anything like that?'
'No, I don't usually wear a watch. In fact, I don't ever wear a watch. After I retired, I said what do I need a watch for anymore and threw the old thing in my drawer…'
'Yes, well, was there any other…?'
'The time. Sure. As I said, it was near dusk. When I left it was still light out and when I got back home, maybe an hour later, it was dark. While I was out, the street-lights came up, so that ought to pinpoint it.'
'Yes, it would, thank you.'
Jenkins turned back to where Glitsky sat at the prosecution table and he gave her a reassuring nod. The way Balian answered questions drove Amanda crazy, and she didn't want to lose patience with him. After all, he was her witness, the backbone of her case. She took a breath, turned and faced him again.
'All right, Mr Balian. Now on this walk, did you happen to notice anything unusual?'
'Yes, I did. There was a different car parked out in front of the Murrays'.'
'A different car. What do you mean?'
'I mean the Murrays don't own that car, or else they just bought it, so I wondered who it was might be visiting them, was how I come to notice it.'
'Can you describe the car, Mr Balian?'
'It was a late-model, light-brown Lexus with a personalized license plate that read ESKW.'
Jenkins entered a photograph of Dooher's car into evidence. The vanity plate was meant to be sort of a humorous rendering of ESQ, for Esquire – Dooher's advertisement that he was a lawyer.
'And what street was this car parked on?'
'Down the end of my own street, Casitas.'
'Which is how far from Ravenwood?'
'Two blocks.'
'And did you ever see this car again?'
'I sure did. The very next day, which was how I remember it so clear.' Balian was getting caught up in his story, enthusiasm all over him. Glitsky knew that this was where he tended to embellish, and hoped Jenkins would be able to keep him reined in.
'And where did you see this car?'
'It was parked in the driveway at 4215 Ravenwood Street. That's why I was still standing out front when the police got there the next day. I thought I'd go by and see the house where there'd been the murder- it was all on the TV – and there was this same car the next day in the driveway, so I was looking at it, wondering what the connection was.'
Farrell got his blood up when it was time to perform. Leaning over to both Dooher and Christina as Jenkins handed him the witness, he whispered, 'It's almost unfair.'
He rose slowly and made a little show of pretending to be reading something from a file in front of him, getting his questions down. From the table, finally, he raised his head and smiled at the witness. 'Mr Balian. On the night we've been talking about, June 7th, before you took your walk, you had dinner with your wife at your home. Do you remember what you had for dinner that night?'
At the opposite table, Christina saw Glitsky and Jenkins exchange a look. They must have known what would be coming, but that didn't make it any easier to sit through.
On the witness stand, Emil Balian crossed his arms and frowned. 'I don't know,' he said.
Farrell looked down at the file before him again and creased his own brow. 'You don't know? And yet in your second interview with the police, didn't you tell Lieutenant Glitsky that you'd had corned beef and cabbage for dinner on that night?'
'I think I said that, yes, but-'
'I've got the transcript of that interview right here, Mr Balian. Would you like to see it?'
'No, that's all right, I know I said it.'
'But in a later interview, were you as sure of what you had for dinner?'
Balian nodded. 'Not really. But that was a week or so after I first talked to the police, and Eleanor reminded me she thought we'd had pork chops and applesauce that night, Tuesday, if it was going to be important. The night before was corned beef. It doesn't have anything to do with the car,' he added petulantly.
'Do you remember now which dinner it was, the corned beef or the pork chops?'
'No. I'm not sure.'
Farrell put his pad down and walked around the table, out into the center of the courtroom. 'Mr Balian, would you have had a drink with either of these dinners? Let's say the corned beef?'
'Usually with corned beef, I'd have a beer.'
'One beer? A couple of beers?'
'Sometimes a couple of beers.'
'And how about pork chops? Would you have a drink with pork chops?'
'Sometimes. White wine.'
'A glass or two?'
'Yes.'
'But on this night, you don't remember what you ate or if you had anything to drink exactly, do you?'
'Not exactly, no.'
'You do admit, however, that you probably had a couple of drinks – that was your habit with meals – regardless whether it was corned beef or pork chops.'
'That's the first thing I said, wasn't it? That I didn't know?'
'Yes, it was, Mr Balian. That was the first thing you said, that you didn't remember what you'd eaten. But now, let's get on with what you say you do remember, the car with the ESKW license plates. You saw this car parked on your street on Tuesday night, June 7th?'
On more solid ground for a moment, Balian settled himself in the witness chair. He loosened his collar at the knot of his tie. 'I did. It was in front of the Murrays' house.'
'And where were you? Did you walk right by it?'
A pause. 'I was across the street.'
'Across the street? Did you cross over to look at this car more carefully?'
'No. I could see it fine. I didn't study it or anything. I just noticed it, the way you notice things. It wasn't a car from our street.'
'Okay, fair enough. Is Casitas a wide street, by the way?'
The petulance was returning. 'It's a normal street, I don't know how wide.'
Farrell went back to his table and turned with a document in his hand. He moved forward to the witness box. The questions may have been barbed, but his tone was neutral, even friendly. 'I have here a notarized survey of Casitas Avenue' – he had it marked Defense E – 'and it shows that the street is sixty-two feet from side to side. Does that sound right, Mr Balian?'
'If you say so.'
'But you had to be more than sixty-two feet away when you saw the license plate that read ESKW, isn't that true?'
'I don't know. Why?'
'Because you couldn't read the plate from directly across the street, could you?' Balian didn't answer directly, and Farrell believed the question might have struck him ambiguously. So he helped him out. 'From directly across the street, you'd only see the side of the car, wouldn't you? You would have had to have been diagonal to it to see the license plate, isn't that so?'
'Oh, I see what you're saying. I guess so. Yes.'
'Maybe another ten, twenty, thirty feet away?'
'Maybe. I don't know. I saw the car…' Balian paused.
'So how far were you from the car, Mr Balian? More than sixty feet, correct?'
'I guess.'
'More than eighty feet?'
'Maybe.'
'More than a hundred feet?'
'Maybe not that much.'
'So perhaps a hundred feet, is that fair?' Farrell smiled at him, man-to man. There was nothing personal here. 'Now, when you saw this car from perhaps a hundred feet away-'
'Objection.' Jenkins had to try, but she must have known the objection wasn't so much for substance as it was for solidarity. Her witness was beginning to shrivel.
Farrell rephrased. 'When you saw this car from across the street, was it at the beginning of your walk or more toward the end of it?'
'The end of it. I was coming around back to my street.'
'And so the street-lights were on, were they not?'
After another hesitation, Balian responded about the street-lights. 'They had just come on.'
'They had just come on. So it was still somewhat light out?'
'Yes. I could see clearly.'
'I'm sure you could, but I'm a little confused. Haven't you just testified that you walked for an hour, and when you got back to your house, it was dark? Didn't you tell that to Ms Jenkins?'
'Yes. I said that.'
'And this street you live on – Casitas – is it a long way from the Murrays' house, where you saw this car, to your own home?'
'No. Seven or eight houses.'
'And did you continue your walk home after you saw this car in front of the Murrays'? You didn't stop for anything, chat with anybody?'
'No.'
'And you've said it was dark when you got home?'
'Yes.'
'Well, then, I'm simply confused here – maybe you could explain it to us all. How could it have been light, or as you say, just dark, when you were seven or eight houses up the street?'
'I said the lights were on.'
'Yes, you did say that, Mr Balian. But you said they were "just" on, implying it was still light out, isn't that the case? But it wasn't light out, was it? It was, in fact, dark.'
'I said the street-lights were on, didn't I?' he repeated, his voice now querulous, shaking. 'I didn't tell a lie. I saw that car! I saw the license plates. It was the same car I saw the next day.'
Warfare, Farrell was thinking. No other word for it. He advanced relentlessly. 'And it was a brown car, you said, didn't you? You knew for sure that the car you saw the previous night had been brown because it had the same license plates.'
'Yes.'
'When you first saw the car that night, could you tell it was brown in the dark?'
'What kind of question is that? Of course it was brown. It was the same car.'
'Couldn't it have been dark blue, or black, or another dark color?'
'No. It was brown!'
Farrell took a moment regrouping. He walked back to the defense table, consulted some notes, turned. Then. 'Do you wear glasses, Mr Balian?'
The witness had his elbows planted on the arms of the chair, his head sunken between his shoulders, swallowed in the suit. 'I wear reading glasses.'
'And you see perfectly clearly for normal activities?'
'Yes.'
Twenty-twenty vision?'
Another agonizing pause. 'Almost. I don't need glasses to drive a car. I've got fine vision, young man.'
'For a man of your age, I'm sure you do. How old are you, by the way, Mr Balian?'
Chin thrust out, Balian was proud of it. 'I'm seventy-nine years old, and I see just as good as you do.'
Farrell paused and took a deep breath. He didn't want Balian to explode at him, make him into the heavy, but he had to keep going. A couple more hits and it would be over. 'And then the next day, at what you knew was a murder scene, you saw a similar car in a driveway to the one you'd seen the previous night, in the dark, after you'd had a couple of drinks, and Lieutenant Glitsky showed up and suddenly it seemed it might have been the exact same car, didn't it?'
'It was the same car!'
A subtle shake of the head, Farrell indicating to the jury that no, it wasn't. And here's why. 'When was the first time you talked to police, Mr Balian?'
'I told you, the next day.'
'And Lieutenant Glitsky asked if you'd seen anything unusual in the neighborhood, right?'
'Right.'
'And you told him about the car, and Lieutenant Glitsky pointed to the brown Lexus parked in Mr Dooher's driveway, and asked you if that was the car, didn't he?'
'Yes.'
'And it looked like the car, didn't it?'
Balian sat forward, tired of all this. 'I'm pretty sure it was the same car.'
Farrell nodded. 'You're pretty sure. Thank you.'
One of Archbishop Flaherty's predecessors had organized The Corporate Santa Claus Party to give a year-end tax incentive for businesses to help provide toys, games, clothes, and various other Christmas presents for the underprivileged children in the city and county of San Francisco. This year the St Francis Yacht Club was hosting the event, which was the society set's unofficial launch of the season's hectic party schedule. Over 300 guests – the cream of the city's business community – had gathered for an evening of dining and dancing to big-band music.
Mark Dooher, in his tuxedo, was in his element, among friends. The room, like the people in it, was elegantly turned out. Dessert and coffee had been cleared away and the band had kicked into what some guests had decided was a danceable version of Joy to the World.
Christina had been amazed and gratified by the volume and apparent sincerity of expressions of support and sympathy for Mark. Now they were alone at their table. She held his hand under it.
'Look at Wes,' she said to Mark. 'It looks like he's finally having some fun.'
The bark of Wes Farrell's laughter carried across the room, even over the band. Everybody who wanted to buy Wes a drink had succeeded, and he wasn't feeling much pain.
Dooher looked over benevolently. 'He deserves it. He's been doing a hell of a job, but the guy's been killing himself. I didn't really know – even knowing him my whole life – that he had all that fight in him. I think he's going to have himself a career after this.'
Christina squeezed his hand, was silent a moment, then said, 'I don't know if I am.'
Surprised, he looked at her. 'What do you mean?'
She shrugged. 'I don't think this is the kind of law I want to do.'
'Why not? You're getting an innocent man off. Don't you feel good about that?'
'Sure, I feel great about that. But how it has to be done.' Her free hand reached for the salt shaker and poured a small pile of it on to the linen, then traced circles with what she'd poured. 'Last night I couldn't get my mind off poor Mr Balian, how he looked when Wes got finished with him. And bringing up that stuff with Lieutenant Glitsky… I know it has to be done. They got it wrong, but-'
'I can't tell you how much good it does me to hear you say that again. I thought you'd given up faith in me.'
Again, she squeezed his hand. 'You were right,' she said. 'It is faith. There's unanswered questions about almost everything else in life. It's just here they seem so ominous.'
'I know. Sometimes, the past couple of months, they almost had me thinking I did it after all. I mean, I remembered being at the driving range. I remember coming home and finding Sheila. But when I first heard about Balian, or the blood, I wondered where those things could have come from. Maybe I blanked, went sleepwalking, something. Maybe I did it.' He squeezed her hand. 'But I didn't. I can't blame you for having your doubts.'
'It's just so hard to see these other people – Glitsky and Mr Balian and Amanda Jenkins – doing what they do. I have to think they really believe they're right.'
Dooher was silent for a moment, wrestling with it. 'People get committed to their positions. Glitsky got himself committed, and he sold it to Jenkins. I think that's what's got us to here. But we can't let them ruin our lives. We've got to fight back. That's the world, Christina. Misunderstandings. I don't know if people are malicious -I don't like to think so. But sometimes they're just wrong, and what are we supposed to do about that?'
'I know,' she said. 'But seeing Wes take them apart, that's hard for me. And if we do get to this Diane Price as one of their witnesses, it'll be me up there, and it will feel personal, and I don't know if that is me.'
'You'll do fine.'
But she was shaking her head. 'No, not that. I'm not worried whether or not I can do it. I know what I'm going to be asking her – I've rehearsed it a hundred times. As you guys say, I'll eat her for lunch. But I have to tell you, I'm not comfortable with it. This isn't what I feel I was born to do.'
He covered her hand with both of his, leaned in toward her. 'What do you think you were born to do, Christina?'
'I don't know really. Something less confrontational, I guess. There must be something in the law-'
'No,' he interrupted, 'I don't mean with the law. I'm not talking about your professional life. You'll do fine there, whatever you decide. I mean you personally. What were you born to do?'
Her finger went back to spreading the salt around. The band finished one song and started another. 'I don't know anymore, Mark. I don't think about that.'
'But you used to know?'
She shrugged. 'I used to have dreams. Now…' She trailed off, biting down on her lip. 'It's stupid. You grow up and all the variables have changed and what you thought you wanted isn't really an option anymore.' She met his eyes.
He raised her hand and turned her palm to him, kissing it gently. 'You're thinking an old man like me – hell, nearly fifty, there's no way I'd want what you used to think you were born for…'
'I don't…'
He touched her lips with his index finger. 'Which is babies, a family, a normal life like your parents have, is that it? Is that what you used to think you were born for?'
She pressed her lips together. Her eyes were liquid with tears, and she nodded.
'Because,' he said, 'we could do that. We could have all the kids you want. I didn't do so well the first time around, maybe we could both start over. Together.'
She leaned her head in against his. He brought his arms up around her and felt her shoulders give. Holding her there against him, he whispered, 'Whatever you want, it's do-able, Christina. We can do it. Whatever you want. Anything.'
Nat Glitsky left a message for his son at Homicide, then braved the new storm that had just arrived air mail from Alaska. He got to Abe's duplex, where he told Rita she could take the night off. He was driving his three grandsons downtown where they were going to meet their father at the Imperial Palace in Chinatown for dim sum, Nat's treat.
It had been a tough-enough year for the family, and after Abe's testimony at the trial, Nat's personal seismograph – sensitive to these things – had picked up rumblings with the boys that made him uncomfortable. Now they were all on the first round of pot stickers. Their father hadn't shown up yet, and the rumblings were continuing. 'What I don't get,' Jacob was grousing, 'is no matter what time we plan something, Dad's late, even if it's like five minutes from where he works.'
'Your old man's busy, Jake, he's in the middle of a trial on top of his regular job.' But it bothered Nat, too, and checking his watch every five minutes, he wasn't entirely successful at hiding it. 'He'll be here. He's coming.'
'So's Christmas.' Isaac really wasn't saying much lately. His mother's death had carved out a hole in his personality where the kid used to be, and now a sullen, gangly, hurt teenager glared across the table at his grandfather. Isaac was the oldest and having the worst time of it, but in Nat's view none of the boys was doing very well.
A waitress came by, as one of them did every couple of minutes, with a new selection of foods – all kinds of sticky buns, chicken, beef and pork dishes, various seafoods (Nat didn't keep Kosher all the time), vegetables and noodles, each served on a small white plate, a pile of which were accumulating quickly at the side of the table. At the end of the meal, the waiters would count the plates and compute the cost – simple and efficient.
'So you been reading about your father in the newspapers?' Nat wasn't going to side-step into it. He knew what the undercurrent was about and knew there wasn't any solution except to talk about it. But none of the boys answered, so he persisted. 'You taking grief at school?'
O.J., sitting next to Nat, was the youngest and looked across the table to his older brothers for cues, but they were pretending to be busy peeling aluminum foil from some chicken wings, so he piped up. 'I don't think Dad's a liar. I don't think he cheated.'
'Shut up, O.J.,' Jacob said. 'He's doing what he's got to do, that's all. He's a cop. It's not the same.'
'What's not, Jake?'
'The rules.'
Nat didn't like hearing that. 'Your dad's not breaking any rules, Jake. He's got the same rules as everybody else.'
Isaac snorted. 'You read the newspaper, Grandpa? You watch any television?'
'Yeah, I've seen it.'
'Well?'
'Well, what?'
'Well, what do you think?'
'I think this man Dooher killed his wife and he's got a smart attorney. Your dad arrested him because he thought he did that. You know he didn't take any blood from the hospital.'
Isaac looked down, unconvinced. Jacob spoke up. 'It doesn't really matter, Grandpa. Everybody thinks he did.'
'Not everybody,' Nat said. 'I don't. You boys shouldn't. Anybody starts telling that stuff to you, you tell them they're full of baloney.'
'But why do they keep saying it?' O.J. wanted to know.
'Because people don't know your father. And people do know, or they like to believe, that there are cops out there who do bad things, who cheat and lie and plant evidence so they'll win their cases. But that's not your father. You guys gotta believe in your old man. He's going through a hard time right now, just like you all are. You got to help him get through it.'
But Isaac was shaking his head, disagreeing. 'Why? He doesn't help us with anything. He's gone in the morning, gone at nights, gone on the weekends. Work work work, and he dumps us off on Rita. He just doesn't want to be with us. It's obvious. We remind him of Mom.'
'If he did,' Jake added, 'he'd be here.'
O.J. was having a hard time holding back tears. 'I just wish Mom would come back. Then we wouldn't even need Dad. Then it would be all right.'
Nat reached out a hand and put it over his youngest grandson's. 'You do need your dad, O.J. Your Mom really isn't coming back.'
'I know,' he said. 'Everybody always says that.' His voice was breaking. 'I just wish she would, though.'
'I don't think we do need Dad, Grandpa,' Isaac said. 'I mean, look right here. Where's Dad now? Who cares? We're taking care of each other. Quit crying, O.J.'
'I'm not crying.'
'Leave him alone, Isaac.' Jacob pushed at his older brother. 'He can cry if he wants to.'
'I'm not crying, you guys!'
'Shh! Shh! It's okay.' Nat smiled at the customers around them who were looking over at the disturbance. 'Let's try to keep restaurant voices, all right? Oh, and look, here comes your dad now.'
Eleven o'clock, Glitsky's kitchen.
'Abraham, they need you.'
'Everybody needs me, Dad. I'm sick to death of people needing me. I don't have anything to give them.'
'Just some time. That's all they need. Some of your time.'
'I don't have any time. Don't you understand that? Every minute of my days and nights…'
'But this is your own blood. You signed on for this.'
'Not this way I didn't!'
'Any way, Abraham. They didn't ask to be here either, not like this.'
Glitsky stopped pacing and lowered himself on to the ottoman which filled the centre of the small room. His dad leaned against the refrigerator. The two men's voices were low and harsh. They didn't want to wake Rita, sleeping in the dim light of the Christmas tree in the next room.
'You know what went on in this trial today, Dad? To me? You have any idea?'
'Of course.' Nat touched his brow. 'You think I've got Swiss cheese up here? But you know what's going to happen in the next couple of months here, Abraham, you don't start paying attention? You're going to lose these boys. Now which is more important?'
'I'm not going to lose them.'
Nat shook his head. 'Were you listening tonight? They're losing sight of you, son. They read about you in the newspaper, they hear bad stories on the tube. How do they know what to think?'
'They know,' Glitsky said. 'They've got level heads. They know me.'
'This, Abraham, is malarkey. They don't know anymore, not for sure. Jacob tonight said you don't have the same rules as everybody else. Is that your message? Is that what you want to teach them?'
'He doesn't think that.'
'He said it. You gonna say he didn't mean it? It sounded like he meant it. He needed some answer for his friends saying you broke the rules, so that's what he came up with. You're allowed to – because you're a cop.'
Glitsky hung his heavy head. After a minute, he raised it again. 'Lord, Dad, I'm tired. When's this Dooher madness going to end? I keep thinking if I could just find more evidence, something that's not ambiguous… because otherwise, he's gonna walk. We're going to lose.'
Nat pulled a kitchen chair up in front of his son. 'So then he walks, Abraham. It's not the end of the world. It's one bad man, that's all.'
'But it will look like me, don't you see? It will look like all the accusations against me are true.'
'Which they're not. The people you work with, they know that.'
Glitsky barked a short, humorless laugh. 'That's a beautiful theory, Dad, it really is. But the truth is this could be the end of my credibility.'
'First, you won't lose your job, Abraham. Even if you do, you'll do something else.'
'But I'm a cop, Dad. That's what I do, it's what I am.'
Nat shook his head. 'Before you're a cop, you're a father. After you stop being a cop, you're a father. Your boys, especially now, they need a father.This is your main job. The rest,' he shrugged, 'nobody knows the rest.'
There was a rush to winning, no doubt about it.
Wes was still at the bar at the Yacht Club, pounding some more Yuletide cheer. Mark had prodded him into coming along. The public appearance would be important, he'd said, especially for after the trial.
Yesterday, after Wes had continued his onslaught against the prosecution, taking apart Emil Balian on the stand, the television news had picked up on him, on the 'brilliant' defense he was conducting. This morning's Chronicle headline had read: Key Prosecution Witness Founders in Dooher Case. The pundits were unanimously calling for a quick verdict of Not Guilty, and Wes was enjoying the celebrity.
Suddenly the world seemed to understand that Wes Farrell was in fact the champion of the underdog and a tiger of a defense lawyer. After five months of tedious trial preparation, hours upon days spent studying transcripts and analyzing evidence in his dingy office or his dirty apartment, after the breakup with Sam and the doubts about his friend, now at last he was getting some recognition for who he was, for what he did – the sweet, sweet, sweet nectar of success that had eluded him for so long.
It was nearly one o'clock and the party was basically over. The staff was folding up tables behind him. The band was breaking down. Wes was alone at the bar just enjoying the living hell out of his sixth or seventh drink, thinking that maybe it had all been worth it, after all.
Christina and Mark had taken the limo home, and he'd need to get a cab later, but that was all right. He wasn't quite ready to call it quits yet.
Mark – his old pal – had been right about coming down for this party. Mark and Christina might have opened a few eyes when they walked in, but it was he, Wes Farrell, who'd been the sensation. Everybody had read the paper today, watched the news over the past nights. Front page, thank you. Yes, it appeared he was winning, winning, winning. Kicking ass, taking names.
Jocko, behind the bar, had become his close personal friend. Imagine, Wes Farrell the working-class guy here all buddy buddy with the bartender at the St Francis Yacht Club. In his wallet, Farrell had at least half a dozen business cards of people he should call, who might know some people who'd need his services. Where had he been hiding, they all wanted to know.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and the Archbishop of San Francisco was asking Wes if they could have a nightcap together. Wes was finally, after a lifetime of mediocrity, moving into Dooher's circle. God, it was intoxicating!
And certainly one more drink, with Jim Flaherty, wouldn't hurt – a little more of that Oban single malt. They touched their glasses together. 'Great party, Your Excellency. I hope you raised a million dollars.'
'Three hundred and ten thousand in pledges,' he said. 'A new record. This is such a generous city.' Flaherty savored his drink. 'It looks like you had a pretty fair night yourself. I saw you holding court in here most of the evening. You're going to get Mark off, aren't you?'
'It looks like it. I don't want to jinx it, but we've certainly got them on the run.'
The Archbishop sighed. 'How did it even get to this?'
Farrell looked sideways at him. 'It's bad luck to make enemies in the police department. Glitsky's a bad cop.'
'Who just got promoted.'
Again, a sidelong glance. What was Flaherty getting at? He couldn't figure it exactly, so he shrugged. 'He's black. It's his turn.' Then, on a hunch, the new Farrell blurted it right out. 'You having doubts?'
'About Mark? Never. It's just the accusations. You can't help but have them affect your view a little, can you?'
'No, I don't think so. I've had a few myself – doubts – tell the truth. You wonder how many other cases, witnesses show up out of the woodwork who say they saw something, or heard it, or smelled it. What is it, power of suggestion?'
'I think it must be.' The Archbishop sipped his drink.
'Your Excellency,' Farrell said quietly. 'You're not getting cold feet about testifying for us, are you?'
'No, of course not.'
'Good, because I don't know if we're going to need you, but if we do, I wouldn't like to open the door and then have it close on us.'
'No, I understand.'
They both stared out through the rain-pocked glass. Faintly, they heard the wind as it pushed the cypresses nearly to the ground.
'Lousy night out there, isn't it?' Flaherty said. Then, 'You know, when this is over and Mark is found Not Guilty, we ought to try to make this up to him somehow. First he loses his wife, which is horrible enough, then the burden of this trial. He's been through the wringer. I don't know how he's surviving.'
'Well, Mark's a survivor.'
'Plus, he's in love again, I think.'
Farrell sipped his drink and nodded. 'You noticed,' he said laconically. 'Though I suppose if you've got to be in love with somebody, she'd do.'
'Although the timing could be better, couldn't it?'
Farrell agreed that it could. Sitting together at the bar, each harboring his thoughts, the two men sipped at their drinks. The ship's bell behind the bar chimed once, and Jocko said it was last call.
'No, I'm good,' Farrell said, and asked the bartender to call him a taxi.
Bill Carrera wasn't sleeping. His daughter's visit the previous weekend had brought to a head the fear that he had been living with since finding out she'd joined up with Dooher's defense team.
So now, downstairs, looking out over the few remaining lights that remained on at this hour in Ojai, he sat in his deep wingchair, the one he called his Thinking Chair. In spite of the fact that Bill was the kind of man who named things – his Bronco was Trigger, for example; his tennis racket was Slam – he was not without intelligence or insight.
And he was worried sick about Christina.
The light came on in the hallway and after a minute he felt a hand on his shoulder, Irene saying, 'You should have just got me up. How long have you been down here?' She came around and sat on the arm of the chair.
'Forty-five minutes, an hour.'
He was suddenly aware of the ticking of the grandfather clock, and then his wife said, 'She wouldn't be with him if she thought he did it, Bill.'
'I'm not worried about whether she thinks he did it. I'm worried about if he did it.'
'I think we have to trust her judgment on this.'
'Like with Brian? With Joe Avery?'
'Come on, Bill, don't start that. They were different.'
'But not so very different, were they? I wonder if we've failed her somehow, that she can't-' He stopped.
'It's not her. She hasn't met the right man.'
'And Mark Dooher's the right man? God help us.'
'Bill! We haven't even met him…'
'But he's on trial for killing his wife, hon! I'm sorry, they don't usually get to there unless…'
'Usually.'
He took a breath and let it out. 'Jesus. So what are we supposed to do?'
Irene draped her arm over his head. 'Stand by her, I think, don't you? Hope she finally gets happy. Hope he's found Not Guilty.'
'But that's just the law. How do you ever really believe it after all this?'
'I don't know if you do. But if he's found Not Guilty, we've got to support them. Don't you think that?'
'I don't know. I don't understand why her life changed, how it got so complicated and sad. It just breaks my heart.'
'Mine, too.' She sighed. 'Which is why we've got to be with her, Bill. If it's right, if finally this Mark Dooher can make her happy.'
But he was shaking his head. 'People don't make other people happy. People make themselves happy. That's what I'm worried about.'
She tugged at his hair gently. 'You make me happy.'
'No, you were happy when I met you, and we get along. We're lucky. Christina's got to decide that it's up to her. She's still thinking it's all centered, one way or another, around some man. And it's not.'
'It is for me,' Irene said. 'It really is. Maybe I'm not a highly evolved life form, but I believe choice of mate is relatively important in the scheme of things. And that's why I'm going to embrace them if it all works out, and do everything I can to see that it does. And you should, too.'
On Wednesday afternoon, Amanda Jenkins rested for the prosecution, having never really recovered – or established – her momentum. She had called all of her witnesses.
The maintenance man at the San Francisco Golf Club had shown the jury the cyclone fence by the end of the parking lot. It had a large hole in it.
Jenkins had trotted out Paul Thieu and the Taraval cops and the next-door neighbor, Frances Matsun, who (it turned out) had never gotten along with Mark Dooher very well, and who hadn't actually seen him screw the lightbulb from on to off at all.
On cross-examination, Farrell clarified it – Dooher had reached up, fooled with it, done something. It looked like he might have unscrewed it.
Jenkins tried not to show it, but it was clear to Glitsky that she'd been beaten down by the relentless barrages that Farrell had launched against her witnesses. She was still trying to believe that the blood alone would be enough to convict and, further, that Emil Balian had convincingly put Dooher near the scene. It was a brave front: Jenkins pretending that the jury would come back with a Guilty verdict, especially if they got to call Diane Price on rebuttal, if they could get her to paint the picture of a very different Mark Dooher. Glitsky admired her for not crumbling in public, but she was getting killed and everybody knew it.
Certainly, the newspapers and television had reached their verdict. This morning, driving to work, Glitsky had heard his name on the radio while he'd been channel-surfing, and had forced himself to listen to his friendly local conservative radio talk jock who opined that the decision to bring Mark Dooher to trial at all on such shoddy evidence was an example of affirmative action's failure in the halls of the city. Glitsky, a black, and Jenkins, a woman, had been promoted beyond their levels of competency, and let's hear from you callers out there who think we ought to put an end to this nonsense and get back to hiring and promoting on merit alone.
The current had shifted.
Nevertheless, the morning began with a set-back for the defense. As soon as Jenkins had finished her case-in-chief, Wes Farrell had filed a motion for directed verdict of acquittal, which asked the Judge to find that no reasonable juror could convict on the evidence presented by the prosecution.
This motion was routinely filed by the defense when the prosecution rested, and was almost never granted. If the Judge did rule favorably on this motion, he would dismiss the case, and Mark Dooher would be free. Thomasino opened by denying the motion, and Jenkins whispered to Glitsky, 'The blood.' He nodded, non-committal.
Farrell, having elected to give an opening statement in rebuttal to Jenkins's at the outset of the trial, stood and told Thomasino that the defense was ready to present its case and would like to start by calling the defendant, Mark Dooher.
This was a calculated gamble, but it showed the level of Farrell's confidence. The defendant had the absolute right not to testify, but a sympathetic demeanor and good story could go a long way toward humanizing a defendant, and this was to the good.
Also, after Dooher's outburst on the first day, he'd worn a mask, careful to show no emotion. Quietly paying attention to every word and nuance, he would occasionally confer with his two attorneys when some point struck him. He was interested and unbowed, though not yet a person to the jurors.
Dooher leaned over to Christina and whispered, 'Wish me luck,' then placed a fraternal hand on Farrell's shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and walked around his attorney. He approached the witness box in long strides. To all appearances, he was confident, even eager – finally – to tell his story.
Farrell came forward to the center of the courtroom and walked him through the familiar territory of the early afternoon, the hors d'oeuvre, the champagne, and so on.
'And after Sheila said she was going upstairs for a nap, what did you do then?'
Dooher looked toward the jury for a minute. He didn't want to include them too often – it would appear insincere, as though he was playing for them. But he knew it wouldn't hurt – for it was only natural to acknowledge their presence. 'I moped around the house for a while, then I decided to go to the driving range. So I went out to my car…'
'Just a minute, Mark. You went out to your car. But before that, at the back door, do you remember what you did?'
'I don't remember anything specific, no.'
'And yet we've heard Mrs Matsun testify that you stopped and did something with the electric light above the door. Do you remember doing that?'
'No. There may have been cobwebs up in the light. Sometimes they gather there. I might have cleared them away, but I don't specifically remember doing anything.' A quick look towards the jury, explaining, 'I may have.'
This, of course, had been rehearsed. Dooher wasn't denying anything that Frances Matsun had testified to. He was being reasonable, telling his own truth without attacking hers. It played, as they knew it would, very well.
'Mark, your house has an alarm system, doesn't it?'
A wry shake of the head. 'Yes, it does.'
'Did you turn it on when you left the house on this day?'
These carefully prepared questions would defuse Jenkins's contentions before she could even make them. 'No. I just walked out of the house.'
'Didn't you lock the door behind you, either?'
'No.'
'Was this unusual? Why didn't you do either of these things?'
Dooher sat back a minute, phrasing his response. 'I guess the real reason is that neither of them even occurred to me.'
'Why not?'
'Well, first, it was light out. I wasn't thinking about somebody breaking in. We'd never been broken into before.'
'But you didn't lock the door?'
'I go out to work every morning and don't lock the door behind me. It wasn't like I was leaving an empty house. Sheila was there. It never occurred to me she couldn't take care of herself. We live in a safe neighborhood, or I thought we did. When I do check the locks, it's usually before turning in at night, you know, like people do.'
'What about the house alarm?'
'Sheila doesn't – didn't – like the alarm.'
'Why not?'
'Because when we first got it installed, three or four times she opened a door to walk outside to take out the garbage or whatever, and it went off, and she had some trouble overriding the turn-off switch or something – anyway, it was a hassle for her. We didn't tend to use it unless we went on vacation, or away for the weekend, something like that. I wasn't about to turn it on when she was just taking a nap upstairs. If she woke up and went out for some reason and it went off, she'd have killed me.'
Then to the driving range, where Dooher bought two buckets of balls. Yes, he remembered specifically which mat he'd hit from. He wore his most self-deprecating expression. 'I'm afraid that before all this' – an inclusive gesture indicating the world they were in – 'I used to be vain about my… about how I looked. I didn't like to appear to flounder. And this included my golf game. I didn't want people – anybody – to see me when I was working on my swing, maybe over-correcting to find out what I was doing wrong.'
'Your honor.' Jenkins was showing her impatience. 'This is all very fascinating, but it doesn't answer the question of what mat he hit his golf balls from.'
Thomasino leaned over the bench. 'Just answer the question, Mr Dooher.'
'It was the last mat, at the very end, to the left as you go out the door of the clubhouse.'
Farrell kept up the rhythm. 'And you stayed, hitting golf balls off that mat, until when?'
'I think around nine-thirty, twenty to ten.'
'Did you leave the mat at any time?'
'I went to the bathroom after the first bucket, bought a Coke in the office. Then went back out and finished hitting.'
'All right.' Farrell led them all, again, through the gruesome discovery, the emergency call, waiting for the police. It all came out, compelling and believable as he told it.
Now Farrell shifted gears. 'Mark, Lieutenant Glitsky has testified that I was present at your house when he interrogated you on the night of the murder. Why was I there?'
'I called you and you came.'
'Did I come as your lawyer, because you wanted to protect yourself from police questions? Because you knew you'd be suspected of murdering your wife?'
'No. None of that. I called you as a friend.'
'Why did you call me, who happens to be your lawyer, out of all of your friends?'
'I have known you for thirty-five years. You are my best friend. That's why I called you.'
Farrell glanced at the jury, then back to his client. 'On another topic, during your last visit to Dr Peter Harris's office, did you remove a vial of blood and take it with you?'
Dooher, still obviously amazed at the ridiculousness of the question, shook his head, looked directly at the jury for the last time. 'No. No, I did not.'
'And finally, once and for all, and remembering that you are testifying under solemn oath, would you answer this question for the jury: did you kill your wife?'
This time there were no histrionics. He sat forward, took a breath, let it out, and answered in an even, clear voice that rang through the courtroom. 'As God is my judge, I did not.'
Farrell nodded, said, 'Thank you,' and turned on his heel.
'Your witness.'
Before Jenkins got to the blow-by-blow cross-examination of Dooher's movements throughout the afternoon and evening of June 7th, she wanted to clear up one specific point.
She moved to the exhibit table and pulled two poster-size exhibits that she'd introduced as evidence during the questioning of the driving range's maintenance man. The first was a blow-up photograph of the hitting area taken from out in the middle of the range, and the other was a schematic rendering of the placement of the mats. She put both of these next to one another on an easel next to the witness chair.
'As you can see,' she said, 'these exhibits represent the layout of the driving range. Just so we're clear on where you hit your balls from, would you please point out to the jury the mat that you stood on?'
Cooperative and relaxed, Dooher did so.
'The very last mat, you're sure of that?'
'I am, yes.'
'This is the mat nearest the hole in the fence leading to the parking lot, is it not?'
'I don't know about that. I'd never noticed the hole in the fence. Although if your witness says so, I guess it's there.'
Jenkins stood unmoving in the center of the courtroom. After twenty or thirty seconds, the Judge spoke to her. 'Ms Jenkins?'
She blinked and brought her attention back from where it had been.
Her cross-examination lasted three and a half hours.
She got nothing.
'What was that all about?' Christina sat at the table in their ante-room eating from a pile of carrot and celery sticks on a paper plate while the men busied themselves with salami on sourdough rolls. 'The exact mat you hit the balls from?'
Dooher shook his head. 'I don't have any idea.'
Farrell was chewing, staring out the window. 'I don't like it. She's got something else she's not showing us.'
'You mean new evidence?' Christina couldn't envision it. 'How could that be, Wes? We've seen her discovery. We know all her witnesses. She'd have had to tell us before this.'
'Well, that would be in the rules, that's true.'
But Dooher was looking carefully at his friend. 'Anyway, Wes, what could she have?'
'I don't know. But it worries me. It's my job to worry.'
'Don't worry,' Dooher said. 'I was there at the last mat hitting golf balls and that's all there is to it.'
Farrell nodded again. 'Let's hope so.'
Glitsky thought that Richie Browne believed Dooher's story in all its detail. He was the golf pro at the range and could have been sent from Central Casting – a well-formed man, mid-thirties, in slacks and a polo shirt. He had gotten to know Dooher in the three or four months prior to the murder when the defendant started frequenting his range instead of the Olympic's.
'Sure, he was there the whole time.'
'You're sure?'
'I'm positive.'
Farrell turned and faced the jury, including them in his certainty, asking back over his shoulder, 'Were you aware of him the whole night?'
Browne took his time. 'I remember him coming in. We talked about some new clubs he was considering – he'd been working with some new graphite shafts on his woods and thought he was going to go with them, buy a whole set, so you know I was interested. We're talking a thousand bucks here, so I was paying attention.'
'And was that when he came in?'
'Yeah.'
'And did he seem anxious, nervous, keyed-up?'
'Objection! Calls for a conclusion.'
Glitsky noticed that Jenkins was forward on the last three inches of her chair, elbows on the table, fingers templed at her lips. He didn't know what had galvanized her at this late date, when to him the conclusion was all but fore-ordained, but something clearly had.
Thomasino overruled her, though.
Farrell repeated the question, and Brown told him that Dooher had been relaxed and genial. 'He talked about golf clubs. He didn't act any way.'
'And then when he went out to hit some balls. When did you see him next?'
'I don't know exactly. Fifteen, twenty minutes later. I walked out to the door with a lady customer and saw him down at the end, head down, lost in it. Whack whack whack.'
'Now, Mr Browne, Mr Dooher has testified that he came in and got a Coke about halfway through-'
'Your honor, please!' Jenkins shot up from her seat. 'Leading the witness.'
Thomasino was paying close attention. To Glitsky's surprise, he didn't rule right away, spending a moment mulling. Then, simply: 'Overruled.'
Farrell couldn't lose. He kept right at it. 'When did you see Mr Dooher next?'
'Again, I didn't notice the exact time. He came in for a Coke.' Jenkins slapped her hand on her table in frustration. 'Maybe after his first bucket.'
'Your honor, my God!' Jenkins – up again.
Farrell spread his palms. 'I didn't ask anything, your honor. The witness has volunteered this information.'
'It's speculation – move to strike.'
Thomasino raised a calming hand. 'Yes, it is, yes, it is.' He told the jury to disregard this last information, and Glitsky thought they could collectively do that about as easily as they could levitate on cue.
But the moment passed, and Farrell was finishing up. 'And did you see Mr Dooher at any other time during the course of this evening?'
'Sure. When he left.'
'When he'd finished hitting two buckets of golf balls?'
'Objection! Speculation.'
Thomasino sustained her again, but Farrell didn't care. He had gotten in nearly everything he wanted, and was finishing up. 'Did you see Mr Dooher when he left?'
'Yes.'
'And how was he acting then?'
'Like he usually did. Normal. He came in, we talked a couple of minutes about his game. He told me a joke.'
'He told you a joke?'
'Yeah, we talked a couple of minutes and then he asked me how you get a dog to stop humping your leg. That's how I remember I saw him when he was leaving. I was laughing.'
'You were laughing together?'
'It was a good joke.' Browne paused, looked over to the jury, gave them the punch-line. 'You give him a blow job.'
The courtroom went silent for a second, then erupted into nervous laughter. Thomasino hit his gavel a few times, order was restored, and Farrell gave Richie Browne to Amanda Jenkins for cross-examination.
'Mr Browne, I'm particularly interested in this Coke you saw Mr Dooher get in the middle of his round of hitting golf balls. In your interview with Lieutenant Glitsky regarding this night, did you mention this trip to the Coke machine?'
'I guess not. I didn't remember at the time. It came back to me later, that it was that night.'
'And do you remember it now?'
'Yes.'
'So – to be absolutely clear, Mr Browne – is it your testimony now, under oath, that Mr Dooher bought a Coke in the middle of hitting his round of golf balls that night?'
Browne squirmed. 'I think he came and got a Coke.'
'You think Mr Dooher came and got a Coke? You're not sure.'
'I'm pretty sure.'
'But not certain?'
Browne was physically reacting to the questioning, sitting back in the witness chair, arms crossed over his chest. 'No, not certain. But I think it was that night.'
'Mr Browne, you're not certain you saw the defendant come in midway through the evening and get a Coke, is that your testimony?'
Farrell took the opening. 'Asked and answered, your honor.'
Thomasino agreed with him.
It was beginning to move quickly with Farrell's defense witnesses. No sooner had Richie Browne passed out into the gallery area than Farrell called Marcela Mendoza, a forty-two-year-old former supervisor of medical technicians at St Mary's Hospital. After establishing her credentials and job duties during the twelve years she'd worked at the hospital, Farrell asked: 'Ms Mendoza, working in the blood unit of the laboratory at the hospital, did you ever experience a situation where blood that had been taken from a patient for tests got lost somehow?'
'Yes.'
'Commonly? Wait, please. Before you answer that, how many blood tests did you do?'
'Well, we did I guess six or seven hundred blood tests every week or so.'
'A hundred a day?'
'Roughly. That's about right.'
'And how often did a sample of blood get mislabeled, or misplaced, or lost, on average, in the twelve years you worked at the hospital?'
'Objection, your honor. The defendant's doctor didn't work at this hospital.'
Glitsky had the impression that Farrell had been hoping that Jenkins would say this very thing. 'Well, your honor, that's exactly the point. We intend to show that the blood could have come from any one of a number of places.'
Thomasino's brows went up and down. 'Overruled. Proceed.'
The question clearly made Ms Mendoza uncomfortable. It wasn't a piece of information the public would feel very good about. In fact, while she'd been working at the hospital, she would not have answered any questions about lost blood – both because she would not have wanted to, and because she would have been ordered not to.
But Farrell's investigator had found her in August and convinced her that her expertise in this area could save the life of an innocent man. 'I'd say we'd lose one or two a week.'
'A week!' Farrell, who of course already knew the answer, feigned shock. 'One or two a week?'
'Sometimes more, sometimes less.'
'And this lost blood, where does it go?'
Mendoza allowed herself a small smile. 'If we knew that, Mr Farrell, it wouldn't be lost now, would it?'
All agreement, Farrell stepped closer to her. 'Now in your own personal experience, Ms Mendoza, did you ever have a lab technician drop a vial of blood and not report it?'
'Yes.'
'And why was that?'
'They didn't want to get in trouble, so they said they just never got the blood to do the tests on in the first place.'
'And are you personally familiar with a case like this?'
'Yes.'
'Could you explain it a little more fully?'
'One of my people did exactly what I just described, and I didn't report it, which was why I was let go.'
This wasn't a point to press, and Farrell moved along. 'Ms Mendoza, about how many blood labs are there in the city?'
'Big labs, there's about eight or nine. Smaller labs, doctors' offices, mobile units, blood banks… there are probably hundreds, I don't know exactly.'
'Certainly more than fifty?'
'Yes.'
'And in your experience, was there ever a problem with lost blood at any of these facilities? In transit, to and from doctors' offices, something like that?'
Ms Mendoza didn't like it, but she knew what she knew.'Most of the blood, there's never a problem,' she said.
'I realize that. But sometimes…?'
'Of course. Sure.'
The blood testimony continued to build relentlessly, doubly damning, Glitsky thought, because there really wasn't much Amanda Jenkins could do on cross-examination. Doctors and technicians from County General, St Luke's, the Masonic Blood Bank and several other locations all came to the stand and testified for ten minutes each, all essentially saying the same thing: blood got lost all the time. It was possible – maybe not probable, and perhaps difficult, but certainly possible – for a person to pick up a vial of blood and walk out of a facility with it.
The worst moment from Glitsky's perspective came at the very end of the day when Farrell called a Sergeant Eames from Park station. It was always unnerving when the defense called a law-enforcement person to testify. For the past six years, Eames had worked on cases involving voodoo, santeria, and Satanic worship, all of which used blood from a variety of sources in their rituals. Eames was of the opinion that any cop in the city who wanted to get his hands on samples of human blood would have to look no further than the evidence locker of any district station on a typical Saturday night.
Jim Flaherty was alone in his Spartan bedroom. He sat at his desk, intending to put the finishing touches on his yearly Christmas sermon and then – on this blessedly unbooked Thursday evening – he was going to get to sleep before midnight.
But first he'd tune into the ten o'clock news, where he was heartened by the analysis of the events of the trial. Wes Farrell's parade of defense witnesses had demolished any lingering doubt about its outcome. Mark wasn't going to get convicted – the prosecution's case was in rags.
Flaherty told himself that he'd never really entertained the notion that Mark had killed Sheila, but the blood had come close to shaking his faith. Now, though, it looked as though Farrell had put his finger into that potential hole in the dike, and what Mark had contended all along was true. The blood could have come from anywhere and the missing blood from his own doctor's office had been a terrible coincidence.
It was critical that Flaherty be clear on this score. Farrell had asked him to be ready to testify about Mark's character beginning as early as tomorrow.
He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the sheaf of looseleaf papers.
And there was a knock on his door.
He loathed interruptions in his bedroom – it was the only truly private place he had, the only personal time he ever got. But everyone on the staff here at the rectory knew that and protected his privacy, so this must be important.
Father Herman, his major domo, stood in the hallway in the at-ease position, and behind him, hands clasped in front of him, was Eugene Gorman, pastor of St Emydius. Seeing him, Flaherty's stomach tightened, and he put his hand over it.
Herman was trying to explain that he had asked Father Gorman to wait downstairs and he'd send the Archbishop down to see him in the study, but…
'That's all right, Father. This is an old friend. You want to come in here, Gene? I don't have anything but hard chairs to sit on.'
When the door closed behind them, Flaherty walked across the room and sat on his desk. Gorman stood awkwardly and finally, looking behind him, sat down on the Archbishop's bed. 'I'm sorry to bother you. I wouldn't have if this weren't an emergency.'
'It's all right,' Flaherty began, 'we're-'
But Gorman cut him off. 'I have been examining my conscience now for months, and I don't know what else to do. I need for you to hear my Confession.'
Flaherty cocked his head at the man across from him. He seemed to have aged five years since they'd last spoken in May or June.
The light was dim. A crucifix, the only ornament in the room, hung over Flaherty's bed.
Gorman's eyes were tortured, pleading.
The Archbishop nodded once, boosted himself off the desk, and crossed to the bed. He put his hand behind Gorman's head and stood like that for a moment.
Then he went over to his dresser and picked up his stole – the sacramental cloth. Draping it over his shoulders, he returned to the bed, and sat down next to Gorman, making the sign of the cross.
Gorman began. 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am living in a state of mortal sin, in despair.'
'God will give you grace, Gene. He won't abandon you.'
But Gorman didn't seem to hear. He continued. 'I am tormented by guilty knowledge and bound by the seal of the confessional. It's destroying me, Jim… I can't function.'
Flaherty began to offer his counsel to Gorman. This was one of the heaviest burdens of the priesthood – penitents had terrible secrets they needed to confess…
Gorman couldn't hold it in any longer. 'This was murder, Jim. Literal murder.'
Entering his apartment after another night on the town, Wes Farrell was confronting another of the deadly sins, pride. The headiness of his success had not obliterated his doubts about his friend nor any moral qualms concerning his strategies at the trial, but he would be damned if he would let any of that nonsense stand in his way now.
Winning was what mattered. Winners had to learn to ignore those small voices of discontent, the traces of timidity, that hampered lesser souls – that were, indeed, the hallmark of lesser souls.
Wasn't it De Gaulle who had said that to govern was to choose? Well, Wes thought that the sentiment translated well into his own situation. He would no longer consider other paths he might have taken, could have taken, that were perhaps more righteous and less ambiguous. No, he had chosen to believe Mark Dooher, chosen to defend him. And those decisions had elevated him in his community. And that was what mattered.
After a certain point, you just didn't have to think about certain things anymore.
He had been reading about his exploits every day, hearing himself described in the various media as brilliant, dogged, ruthless, even charismatic. He wasn't about to give any of this up by worrying too much about the vehicle that had propelled him to here. It was Faustian, perhaps, but he'd often said he'd sell his soul for this chance.
It might have disappointed him when he'd been younger and more idealistic, but right now all he could think was: I'll take it, I'll take it, I'll take it – and while we're at it, give me more.
The time was 11:15. He was entering his apartment, filled with these thoughts. A dinner at John's Grill had turned into a testimonial from some of the other diners who had recognized him. He was resolving to change his residence in the next couple of months, get himself another house and a house cleaner to go with it, a new car, fix up the office as befitted his station.
The telephone was ringing and he crossed the room, petting an ecstatic Bart, and picked it up.
'Wes. This is Jim Flaherty.'
The usually husky, confident tone was missing. 'Your Excellency, how are you?'
'Well, I'm not too good, to tell you the truth.' A long breath. 'I might as well come right out with it, Wes. I'm afraid I've decided I'm not going to be able to testify for you, for Mark, about his character.'
Farrell pulled out a kitchen chair and sat heavily upon it. He had been expecting to call the Archbishop tomorrow and wrap up his defense.
'But just two nights ago…'
'I realize that. I know. But something has come up…'
'What?'
Another pause. 'I'm not at liberty to say.'
'Archbishop, Father, wait a minute. You can't just-'
'Excuse me, Wes. This is a very difficult decision, one of the hardest of my life, but I've made it, and that's all there is to say about it. I'm sorry.'
The line went dead. Farrell lifted the receiver away from his ear and looked at it as though it were alive. 'You're sorry?'
He put the phone down and stared at his wavy image, reflected in the kitchen window.
Flaherty sat, alone again, on the side of his hard bed. He'd wrestled with it for an hour or more, trying to find some other interpretation for Father Gorman's words. He grudgingly admired Gorman's decision the way he'd come to him for Confession. The strategy was, Flaherty thought, positively Jesuitical. Gorman never said Dooher's name, never even implied whether it was a male or a female who had committed the murder or, for that matter, whether it was one of his parishioners. He didn't, technically, break the seal of the Confession.
But there was small doubt about what he was saying, and none at all about whether it was true.
A war had broken out in Thomasino's chambers.
The lead attorneys, the Judge, and Glitsky had originally gathered to discuss logistics. Farrell had decided that, after all, he wasn't going to call character witnesses – he didn't need them. The defense was going to rest.
And then Jenkins had dropped her bomb, saying she would like to call a rebuttal witness then, someone who wasn't on her original witness list, a man who had been at the driving range during the time Dooher claimed he was, and who hadn't seen him.
Glitsky was sitting in his chair off to the side, and Farrell, looking again more as he'd appeared earlier in the trial – the King of Insomnia – was screaming.
'She's known about this witness all along, your honor! If I'd known about this witness or his testimony, I never would have asked Mr Dooher to take the stand. And this witness is nowhere on any of her lists. This is an incredible, unbelievable, egregious breach of professional ethics.'
'Oh, get a grip, Wes,' Jenkins retorted, 'it's nothing of the sort. It's Prop One Fifteen.' She was referring to California Proposition 115, which eased the prosecution's obligations regarding discovery to the defense. The law changes every once in a while, Wes, you'll be surprised to hear. Maybe you ought to try to keep up on it.'
'I keep up on the Goddamn law as well as a Goddamn rookie homicide prosecutor on her first case that she's blown all to hell because she doesn't know…'
Thomasino, atypically wearing his robes in chambers, had heard all he would tolerate – Glitsky was surprised he'd let it go as far as it had – and now he was slapping his hand down on his desk, hard. 'All right, all right, enough! I said enough!'
Both attorneys sat, breathing hard, in front of the Judge's desk. Thomasino, not jolly on his best day, was a study in controlled rage, his eyebrows pulled together until they met, a muscle in his jaw vibrating under the pressure of holding it so tight.
Gradually, he gathered himself. The face relaxed by small degrees. 'This is a matter of law,' he said, almost whispering, 'not a matter of personality. Although, Ms Jenkins, I must admit to some discomfort about it. Surely you knew about this witness before this, and if that were the case, the name should have appeared in discovery.'
The name they were discussing was Michael Ross. In the early days of the investigation, Glitsky had gone out to the San Francisco Golf Club and reviewed the credit-card receipts for the night of June 7th. Michael Ross had paid for a bucket of golf balls by VISA card, and the transaction had been run up at 8:17 p.m. Glitsky had brought the receipt in to Jenkins and they'd had a discussion about it in her cramped and airless office.
The moment was etched clearly in Glitsky's memory. Jenkins's eyes took on a faraway look as she'd sat at her desk, fingering the receipt. He had figuratively seen the light bulb go on over her head.
'Why don't you go out and interview this fellow Ross by yourself, Abe? You don't even need to bring your tape recorder. It's probably nothing anyway. And don't write it up until we've had a chance to talk about what he's told you.'
Glitsky had been a cop long enough, he didn't need a road map. Jenkins wasn't suggesting anything illegal – it could be said that she was trying to save Abe the trouble of writing up lots of meaningless paperwork. It wasn't even procedurally suspect. He interviewed lots of people in the course of any investigation, and often these interviews were casual, limited, irrelevant to the case. There was no need to tape anything.
Of course, in this case Glitsky knew what Jenkins was really telling him – she wanted to limit what she had to give to Farrell as discovery. She knew early on that their evidence case was weak, and she was going to sandbag the defense if she got the chance, which was what she was doing in Thomasino's chambers early on this Friday morning.
Perry Mason notwithstanding, real trials were not supposed to deal in surprises. The discovery process – where the prosecution must turn over to the defense all evidence it possesses relating to the case – is supposed to guarantee that the defense sees all the cards before the game. It's how those cards are played that determines the winner.
Jenkins was supposed to provide Farrell with a list of the prospective witnesses she might call during the course of the trial. She didn't have to call every witness on the list, or any of them, but in theory she couldn't call anyone who wasn't on the list.
And Michael Ross hadn't been.
Back in the war zone, the soldiers continued to scuffle. Jenkins was holding up the faded yellow tissue with Michael Ross's name and VISA number on it. and pointing out that she had Xeroxed it, both sides, and it had been turned over to Wes Farrell when he'd requested discovery documents. 'Is that true, Mr Farrell? Do you have a copy of this document?'
'So what, your honor? What's the document mean? I even ask her back last June, July sometime, and she says it means what it means. So I look on her witness list – there's no Michael Ross. She's not allowed to call him, am I right?'
'I'm calling him in rebuttal.'
Farrell brought his own hand down on the edge of the armchair. 'You knew all along you were going to call him. Don't give me that crap.'
'Mr Farrell.' Thomasino, too, was heating up. 'If I hear any more profanity out of you in this chambers, or out of your witnesses or defendants in the courtroom, I'm going to hold you in contempt. We're not street-fighting here, and we're not gangsta rappers, and if you say so much as "darn" in my presence, you'd better have an unassailable reason for doing so.'
Farrell sat back in his chair. 'Sorry, your honor. I mean no disrespect.'
'Well, intention or no, it is disrespectful and I'm not going to have it.' Thomasino's eyes strafed the room, came to rest on Jenkins. No one, it seemed, was going to get off easy here. 'Now, as to this witness, Ms Jenkins, do you care to explain to me how you saw fit to include this credit-card slip in your discovery documents and yet at the same time omit the man's name from your witness list?'
'Your honor, he's a rebuttal witness. I didn't know I was going to call him until Mr Dooher testified.'
Glitsky was kind of enjoying seeing Farrell sputter, sitting forward now, seeking non-profanities. 'I believe that is not the truth, your honor,' he finally said. 'When did she interview this witness?'
'Lieutenant Glitsky interviewed him.'
Finally in on the action, Glitsky took the chance to goad Farrell further. 'About two weeks after your client killed his wife, give or take.'
But the attorney ignored the challenge. 'Two weeks?' He turned to the Judge. 'Your honor, two weeks. She knew she was going to call him. Where were Glitsky's notes on the interview, the transcription, anything?'
Abe was glad to see Jenkins cover for him for a change. 'I didn't ask for a tape. It was a preliminary interview.'
'Ms Jenkins,' Thomasino said, 'I'm not liking what I'm hearing here. It sound to me like you deliberately tried to circumvent the discovery process.'
'Damn… darn straight she did!'
The Judge pointed a finger across the room. 'And you, Lieutenant, I find this hard to believe of you.'
Glitsky shrugged. 'I just build 'em, your honor. I don't fly 'em.'
'Judge.' Jenkins wasn't having it. 'How could I have put this man on my witness list? He was no part of my case in chief. What was he going to say? That he didn't see Mark Dooher at the driving range? What am I supposed to do, provide a list of everybody who didn't see Mark Dooher at the driving range? That's pretty much the whole city, isn't it? And, in fact, the prosecution rested its case against Mr Dooher without using Mr Ross. If Mr Farrell here hadn't opened this whole can of worms by having his client testify, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. It would never have come up.'
'All right, all right.' Again, the warning hand, palm up. 'I'm going to let him testify.'
Farrell went ballistic. 'Your honor, please…!'
But finally, Thomasino's fuse flared. 'Mr Farrell, if you please. We're going outside now into the courtroom and Mr Ross is going to testify. That's my ruling and I don't want to hear another word about it.'
Michael Ross was a twenty-one-year-old student at San Francisco State University – clean cut, well spoken, well dressed. From Glitsky's perspective, he was the last hope, if in fact it wasn't already way too late. But Jenkins, no denying it, had played this card masterfully.
'Mr Ross,' she began, 'on the evening of June 7th of this year, would you tell us what you did between the hours of seven and ten p.m.?'
Ross had a fresh and open face and he sat forward in his chair, enthusiastic yet serious. 'Well, my wife and I put our daughter to bed' – he looked over at the jury – 'she was just a year old and we put her down to bed at seven o'clock. Then we had dinner together. We barbecued hamburgers. It was a really nice night, and after dinner, about eight, I asked my wife if she'd mind if I went and drove a few golf balls.'
He seemed to think this might need some more explanation, but hesitated, then continued. 'Anyway, I went to the San Francisco Golf Club's range and hit a large bucket of balls, and then came back home.'
'And what time did you leave the range?'
Ross thought a moment. 'I was home by nine-thirty, so I must have left at about ten after nine, quarter after, something like that.'
Jenkins produced the credit-card slip, showing that Ross had picked up his bucket of balls at 8:17, and entered it into evidence as People's Exhibit Number Fourteen. 'So, Mr Ross, while you were out in the driving-range area, did you go to a particular station to hit your bucket of balls?'
'I did.'
'And where was that?'
'I turned left out of the clubhouse and walked down to the third mat from the end.'
The third from the end on the left side as you left the clubhouse?'
'Yes.'
Again, show and tell, and Jenkins produced the posters she'd first used with the maintenance man and then during her cross-examination of Mark Dooher. She mounted them on to the easel next to the witness box, side by side. 'Could you point out to the jury, Mr Ross, just where you stood, according to both of these visual aids?'
He did.
'And how far, then, were you from the first mat, the one Mr Dooher has testified he used on this night?'
Ross stole a neutral glance at Dooher. 'I don't know exactly. Twenty or thirty feet, I'd guess.'
'So Mr Ross, to reiterate: you went out with your bucket of golf balls at around eight twenty-five and you stood hitting shots from a mat and a tee three spots from the end on the left side, finishing up at around nine-fifteen. Is this an accurate rendition of the facts you've presented?'
'Yes.'
'All right, then. During this period of time, nearly an hour, while you stood two mats away from the last mat on the left, did you at any time see the defendant, Mark Dooher, at the last tee?'
'No. I didn't see anybody. There was nobody at the last tee.'
A buzz coursed through the room. Glitsky noticed Dooher leaning over, whispering to Christina. Farrell was sitting, face set, eyes forward, his hands crossed on the desk in front of him.
Jenkins pressed on. 'Did you see Mr Dooher anywhere there at the range, at any time that night?'
Ross again spent a minute studying the defendant, then said he'd never seen him before in his life.
'Mr Ross, was there anybody on the second tee? In other words, on the tee next to you, between you and the last tee?'
'No. I was the last one down that way.'
'There was no one either at the first or second tee the whole time you were there hitting golf balls, between eight-twenty-five and nine-fifteen p.m. on June 7th of this year?'
'That's right. Nobody.'
Farrell tried to smile, to convey the impression that this wasn't a problem. Glitsky didn't think he succeeded – he looked a couple of days older than God.
'Mr Ross,' he began. 'You've testified that you hit a large bucket of golf balls on the night in question, is that correct?'
'Yes.'
'And how many balls are in a large bucket?'
The witness seemed to be trying to visualize a bucket. He smiled, helpful. 'I'd say eighty or a hundred.'
'A hundred golf balls. And is it true that you were at your mat, hitting these hundred golf balls for fifty minutes – eight twenty-five until about nine-fifteen?'
Ross did the math and nodded. 'That's about right.'
'Would that be about one ball every thirty seconds?'
'About, yes.'
Farrell glanced over at the jury, including them. 'Perhaps some members of the jury aren't familiar with how things work at a driving range. Would you please describe in detail your actions to hit each golf ball?'
This seemed to strike Ross as mildly amusing, but he remained cooperative and friendly. 'I lean over, pick a ball out of the bucket, then either put it on a tee – they have a built-up rubber tee you can use – or lay it on the mat. Then I line up my shot, check my position, take a breath, relax, swing.'
Farrell seemed happy with this. 'And then you do this again, is that right? Do you do this every time you hit a ball?'
'Pretty close, I'd say. Yeah.'
'And would you say hitting a golf ball is a fairly intense activity? Does it take a lot of concentration?'
Ross laughed. 'It's like nothing else.'
'You're saying it is intense, then, aren't you?'
'Yes.'
'Would you say you get yourself into almost a trance-like state?'
'Objection. The witness is not an expert in trances, your honor.'
Jenkins was sustained, but Farrell was doing a good job drawing the picture. If Ross had hit a ball every thirty seconds, going through his routine on each ball, and he was concentrating deeply on every swing… 'Is it possible, Mr Ross, that someone could have been hitting balls a couple of mats away and, concentrating as you were, you might not have noticed?'
'No. It's not like you're not aware of what's around you.'
'It's not? Then you recall how many other people were at the driving range that night, don't you?'
Ross shrugged, discomfort beginning to show. 'It was a quiet night. Tuesday. Fewer than average.'
'Were there twenty people there?
'I don't know exactly. Something like that.'
'Were they all men?'
'I don't know.'
'Could you give us a rough breakdown as to the races of the people hitting golf balls? Blacks, whites, Hispanics?'
'No.'
'Was there someone on the other side of you? Behind you, back toward the office?'
'A couple of mats over, yes.'
'Was this person a man or a woman.'
'A man, I think.'
'You think. How tall was he?'
Ross was shaking his head. 'Come on, give me a break, I don't know.'
Farrell came closer to him. 'I can't give you a break, Mr Ross. Hitting one golf ball every thirty seconds, is it your testimony that you are positive, without a doubt, that for the entire time you hit your large bucket of golf balls there was no one on the last mat at the end?'
Ross didn't crack. He knew what he knew. 'That's right.'
Farrell went and got a drink of water, giving himself time to think of his next line of questioning. By the time he was back at the witness box, he had it. With the bonus of a chance to put in a dig at Jenkins.
'Mr Ross, since we have just this morning learned that you would be a witness in this trial, you have not spoken to anyone from the defense before, have you?'
'No.'
'Have you spoken before to anyone from the prosecution or the police?'
'Yes.'
'Did you give a sworn statement to them about the testimony you're giving today that they asked you to sign?'
'No.'
This was about as far as Farrell could go in attacking Ross's credibility. He had to go fishing again. 'What do you study at college, Mr Ross?'
A welcome change for Ross. He brightened right up. 'I'm a Criminal Justice major.'
This surprised Farrell, but it didn't make him unhappy. Glitsky could almost see the bells ringing inside his head. 'Indeed. By any chance do you plan to pursue a career in law enforcement?'
'Yes, I do. I'd like to go to the San Francisco Police Academy.'
A pause, Farrell formulating it. 'Have you been following this case in the newspapers, Mr Ross? On television?'
'Sure.'
'You know, then, don't you, that your testimony is helpful to the prosecution here?'
'Yes.'
This was the best Farrell was going to do. He decided to quit while he was ahead. 'Thank you. No further questions.'
Diane Price was less nervous than Sam Duncan, which was why she was driving. In the six months since she'd first come to Sam with her story, her life had changed.
At first, Diane had been opposed to any public admission of what had happened between her and Mark Dooher – it had been her own personal tragedy, tawdry and shameful. She'd testify at the trial if she got the chance, but until then she'd keep a low profile, live her normal life with her husband and kids.
She did not factor in the insatiable maw of the media, the hot-button buzz of her story, the fact that she was attractive, articulate and intelligent. Sam Duncan asked her permission to go to then-Sergeant Abe Glitsky and tell him about the rape – surely it was relevant to the murder charge Dooher was facing? He'd agreed and called in Amanda Jenkins, and within two weeks Diane had been identified and the notoriety had begun.
The story in the Chronicle had been followed by an interview in People. Mother Jones put her on the cover and devoted half of their September issue to 'Life After Rape'. Diane had been contacted by a movie producer and signed an option agreement on her life story. She'd been invited to speak at least a dozen times, at first to small groups around San Francisco, but later to larger gatherings – a NOW convention in Atlanta, a Gender Issues Conference in Chicago, a Sexual Harassment seminar in Phoenix.
And it was ironic, she thought, that all of this public discourse had been what had finally healed her private heart. Her husband, Don, stood by her through the fifteen minutes of her fame, and when the first flush had died down, they were left with their home and their family. And the bitterness that she'd carried all the years, that had finally prodded her to go to Sam Duncan's Rape Crisis Center in the first place, had been replaced by a calm sense of empowerment.
She didn't need to talk about it anymore. She'd learned from the experience, albeit the hard, slow way, but she'd come to the belief that this was the only way people really benefited from pain or loss or hardship anyway – first by acknowledging it and then, over time, to see how it had changed you and fit those changes into how you lived.
She became a regular volunteer at the Rape Crisis Counselling Center, working alongside Sam Duncan, helping other women, perhaps keeping them from going where she'd been. It was fulfilling, immediate, therapeutic.
So today, what she thought would be her one last public appearance didn't worry her. Amanda Jenkins had called her early in the week and said she expected that Wes Farrell would begin calling his own character witnesses on Thursday or Friday and she would then be free to call Diane. Was she ready?
And then, last night – Thursday – Amanda had said she ought to come down to the Hall of Justice by noon. The prosecution would probably be calling her to testify about Mark Dooher's character in the early afternoon.
As it transpired, of course, Farrell had decided not to use his character witnesses, but there was no way for Amanda Jenkins to have gotten that word out to Diane Price before she left to come down. By the time the attorneys had come back to the courtroom from their extended meeting about Michael Ross in Thomasino's chambers, Sam and Diane were on their way.
So she pulled into the All-Day Lot – $5.00/No In & Out – and the two women sat for a moment in the car. A fierce, cold and blustery wind whipped trash up the lane of the parking lot – a milk carton bounced along and out of their sight like a tumbleweed.
'You ready to go out into this?' Sam asked her. She had her hand on the doorhandle, but didn't look as though she was prepared just yet. Huddled into an oversized down jacket, Sam looked tiny and vulnerable.
'I think the real storm's going to be inside,' Diane said. 'Are you all right?'
'Sure,' Sam said, too quickly.
'You're nervous.'
A nod.
'Don't worry. I won't blow this. I say what happened and they try to shake my story, which they won't be able to do, and then we leave and this whole thing is behind us, and they put that bastard in jail where he belongs.' She looked over at Sam, still inside herself. 'That's not it, is it?'
Sam shook her head.
'Wes Farrell?' Diane had learned all about Sam and Wes.
Another nod. 'I'm going to hate him after he questions you. I know I am. That's all. And I don't want to.' She blew out a quick breath. 'It's just the end of something. The final end.'
'I'll be gentle with him,' Diane said, then patted the other woman's leg. 'Let's go, okay?'
They crossed Bryant, leaning into the wind, and came to the steps of the Hall, where Sam held open one of the huge glass double doors and they entered into the cavernous, open lobby.
Or not directly. First, a makeshift plywood wall funnelled visitors toward a doorframe, to the side of which sat a desk manned by two uniformed policemen. A couple of reporters had stationed themselves outside the courtrooms to be ready for just such arrivals, and they attached themselves to the two women, asking the usual inane questions as they fell into the desultory queue for the security check.
Diane was wearing designer jeans, a couple of layers of sweaters and a heavy raincoat, a large leather carry-bag slung over her shoulder. Moving forward with the line of people entering the Hall, trying to respond politely to the reporters and stay close to Sam, it didn't register to Diane that the doorframe was the building's metal detector until she was walking through it, setting off the beeper.
'Oh shit,' she said, as the policemen stopped them, took the carry-all from her and put it on the desk and told her to step back through the entrance again. 'No, wait.' Reaching for the carry-all, trying to take it back from him. 'We'll just go back and put this in the car. I'll just-'
But it was too late. The policeman, alerted by the weight of it, had already pulled it open and was reaching inside. 'Everybody else! Hold it! Step back!'
'What?' Sam asked.
'You!' The cop had Diane by the arm and was moving her away to the side. 'Get over there, put your hands against that wall. Do it! Now!' Then, to his partner, gesturing to the line forming behind the doorframe. 'Keep them back. Get on the phone and get a female officer down here.'
'What is this?' Sam demanded. 'What's going on?'
Diane started to turn around. 'I know-'
But the officer yelled at her again. 'Against that wall! Don't you move!' Then he lifted his hand out of the oversized purse.
He was holding a small, chrome-plated handgun.
At about the same moment, back in their office across the street, the mood had shifted from relief at getting a piece of Michael Ross to fury at Wes Farrell's decision to abandon his character witnesses.
Dooher was fuming. 'What do you mean, you're resting? We've got to call Jim Flaherty.'
Farrell was calmly shaking his head. 'We're not calling Flaherty. We're not doing character.'
'We have to do character, Wes. Character wins it for us.'
'We've already won it. We don't need it.' Farrell was giving it a more confident spin than he felt after the nearly disastrous testimony of Michael Ross, which in spite of his cross remained a serious evidentiary chip for the prosecution.
Wes wasn't going to tell Mark that the Archbishop had withdrawn as a witness unless he absolutely had to. The momentum had shifted, and Farrell's last and best hope was that he could save what he'd already accomplished. He still had a good chance to get Mark an acquittal. But he was holding all this close.
Christina was standing by the doorway. 'I thought you could never get enough. You've said that a hundred times. And now we've just had a hit from this Ross character -I think we do need more, Wes.'
'Well, I want to thank you both for your input, but unless you're going to fire me, Mark, this is my trial, and I'm done. We've won it. I've got a closing argument that's irrefutable. Christina, I'm sorry you don't get to cross-examine Diane Price. I'm sorry we didn't use you, and I believe you would take her apart, but I don't want any hint of bad character about Mark, not now. Even if we can refute. It's not worth the risk when we're so far up. You both have got to trust me here. I've done a pretty fair job so far. I promise you it's going to work.'
But Dooher wasn't ready to give it up. 'How long have you known this, that you weren't going to call Flaherty?'
'Frankly, Mark, I don't know. There was always that possibility, right from the beginning. I wanted to keep the door open as long as I could in case I needed him, but now it's my judgment that I don't. We don't.'
Christina spoke up again. 'I'd like to know where they got Michael Ross. What was that about? How could he have been where he said he was?'
'He wasn't,' Dooher said flatly. 'They made him up. Glitsky and Jenkins invented him.'
Christina believed it, Farrell could tell. But it was more than any one witness or decision at this point – Wes knew that Christina had bought the package with Mark.
If the facts didn't fit, then the facts must be wrong.
As a defense lawyer, she was inexperienced; as a person, she was naive. And she made the novice's mistake. She confused Not Guilty – a legal concept that meant the prosecution had failed to establish guilt, with Innocent, a fact of behavior.
But this was not the moment for these niceties. Farrell forced a relaxed tone. 'How Ross got to testify is a long and tedious story about attorney duplicity that I'd be happy to recount for you at our victory celebration. But meanwhile, I'd like to put this thing to bed before Jenkins pulls any more quasi-legal shenanigans out of her bag of tricks – ones that might hurt us.'
One last shot from the defendant. 'You're sure we got it, Wes? This is my life here.'
He forced himself to meet Dooher's eyes. 'I have no doubts.'
By the lunch recess, news of the arrest of Diane Price for carrying a concealed weapon had spread through the Hall, along with the myriad theories attendant upon any event of this nature: she had been planning to assassinate Dooher; she was going to kill herself as a last, desperate cry for help; or maim herself as a publicity stunt.
Diane's plea was that the whole thing was simply a mistake. She'd carried a gun for protection for years and years, since a few months after the rape. It was registered, even, though she had no license to carry it concealed on her person. She'd had no violent agenda. She simply hadn't realized that there was a metal detector at the entrance to the Hall of Justice.
This explanation was, of course, dismissed by every law-enforcement professional in the building, and Diane was taken upstairs – Sam Duncan abandoned, scuffling to locate the Crisis Center's attorney. Diane spent three hours in custody before being cited and released on the misdemeanor.
Every person in the courtroom – the gallery as well as the principals – was aware of the drama that had occurred outside during the lunch recess.
With this as a backdrop, Amanda Jenkins stepped up and presented her closing argument. The facts, she said, spoke for themselves, and allowed for no other interpretation than that Mark Dooher had murdered his wife on the evening of June 7th. The defendant had not been at the driving range when he said he was. They had a witness who'd positively identified his car near his house when the murder had been committed, another witness who'd been twenty feet from where Dooher was supposed to have been, and had never seen him.
Why hadn't he seen him? Because Dooher hadn't been there, ladies and gentlemen. He'd been home stabbing his wife, faking a burglary. The prosecution had shown the linear connection between the blood taken from Dr Harris's office on the same day that Dooher had been there – indeed, within minutes of when the defendant had been in the same examining room. And then later this same blood, not even close to the most common type of blood, and tainted with EDTA, had been splashed on Sheila Dooher's bed and body. No one else but Mark Dooher could have done this. The jury must return, Jenkins concluded, with a verdict of murder in the first degree.
Farrell stood as though lost in thought, scanning the yellow pages of his legal pad, on the table in front of him, for a last second before pushing back his chair and finally positioning himself in front of the jury box.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he began, then took another step forward and lowered his voice. This was now simply a talk with these jurors, whom he'd come to know. Intimate and familiar. 'I remember that back in school, when I was first being taught how to write an essay, I had a teacher – Mrs Wilkins – and she said if we only remembered three things about essays, we'd get an A in her class.
'First,' he held up a finger, 'first you write what you are going to say. Next you say it. Then, number three, you summarize what you just said.' He broke a smile, homespun and sincere. 'I'm a bit of a slow learner, but I got an A in that course. And ever since, I've been comfortable with that essay formula. Which is why it's lucky I'm a lawyer, I suppose, because that's a little bit what a trial is supposed to be like.
'We've been here over the last couple of weeks listening to the evidence in this case, trying to see if we can resolve one question, and resolve it beyond a reasonable doubt: Does the evidence show that Mark Dooher, the defendant over there' – he turned and pointed – 'that Mark Dooher killed his wife?'
Back to the jury, his voice now harsher in tone, though still at only the volume of whisper. 'I'm going to let you in on something, ladies and gentlemen. It does not. Not even close. Let's look for a last time at what the prosecution has given you to consider, what they say they have proven.' He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Glitsky and Jenkins.
'A motive? Certainly, a man who apparently has been happily married for over twenty-five years to the same woman would need some overwhelming and immediate reason to decide to kill his wife in cold blood. The prosecution's theory is that Mark Dooher did it for the insurance money. Now, forget for the moment the fact that Mr Dooher is a well-paid attorney, that he owns a house worth a million dollars, and that his retirement is secure. Forget all that and focus on this question: Where's the proof of this motive theory? Did the prosecution present any witnesses supporting any part of it? They did not. No proof. No witnesses. A bald assertion with no basis in fact.'
Farrell glanced at the clock – 3:15. He had a lot to say, but suddenly he knew with relief that he was going to finish today. It was nearly over. He went to the table and drank some water, then returned to the panel.
'Now let's talk for a minute about the evidence of the crime itself, evidence found at the scene which they contend proves beyond a reasonable doubt an inextricable link between Mark Dooher and this murder.'
He stood mute before the jury box, making eye contact with each juror, one by one. The process took nearly fifteen seconds – an eternity in the courtroom. The silence hung heavily.
Farrell nodded, including them all. That's right. There is none. None. The kitchen knife with fingerprints on it? Those fingerprints were left by normal use around the house.
The surgical glove? Where's the proof that it was Mark Dooher's glove, that he brought it to the scene? There is none because that didn't happen. No, this glove was brought to the scene by the burglar – by the murderer -and left there. That's all we know about it, and it says nothing whatever about Mr Dooher.
' So we have no proof that Mark Dooher was at the scene of the crime, no direct or circumstantial evidence tying him to it. Next we must turn our attention to whether Mark' – Farrell began purposefully using Dooher's first name – 'was even in the neighborhood. Mr Balian says he saw his car parked a couple of blocks away when it should have been in the San Francisco Golf Club parking lot. But Mr Balian also says he recognized a brown Lexus from diagonally across a wide street, in the dark.' Farrell shook his head. 'I don't think so.
'And Mr Ross didn't see what he said he didn't see at the driving range that night, either.' He put his hand on the bar rail in front of the jury. 'You know, it's funny about people. You and me, all of us. You ever notice how sometimes we say something, and we're not too sure of it, but we say it anyway? Maybe something we've seen, or a story from a long time ago where we don't remember all the details so we kind of fill in what's missing with something plausible? I think we've all had the experience – after we've done this, especially if we've told the story more than once – of not being able to remember what parts exactly we filled in.
That's what happened to Mr Ross. I don't think he purposely perjured himself under oath here. No, he was at the driving range that night, or perhaps on some other night he was three mats from the end, and he remembered not seeing anyone at the last mat. But he told Lieutenant Glitsky it was this night, and he was stuck with that story.
'For those of you who might be familiar with Sherlock Holmes, Mr Ross was the dog who did not bark in the night. He saw no one. This testimony, even if it were true in all its details, does not possess the same authority as if he said he saw Mark picking his way through the hole in the fence. Perhaps Mark wasn't there one time when Mr Ross looked up. Mark has admitted going to the bathroom and getting a Coke. That testimony was corroborated by the golf pro, Richie Browne. He says Mark Dooher was there the whole time. So let's leave Mr Balian and Mr Ross. The purported proof they offer is fatally flawed.'
Farrell let out a long sigh and gave another weary smile to the jurors. 'You've heard that Mr Dooher carefully sedated his wife. Then, after killing her, he made the scene appear as though a burglar had done it.'
'Now, I ask you, if you were going to plan this kind of elaborate charade, if it were your intention to make it look like a burglar had been in your home, don't you think you'd leave some sign of a forced entry? A broken window? A kicked-in door? Anything? Ladies and gentlemen, this theory defies belief.'
'I don't know about you, but I kept waiting for some witnesses to appear and say they'd seen Mark drive up, enter the house, drive away, anything. But I never heard that. Not one witness came forward to say that. All I heard was Ms Jenkins tell us she was going to prove it, and I kept waiting, and the proof never came. And you know why? Because it didn't happen.'
'Now Judge Thomasino will be giving you jury instructions, but I want to say a word about the defense's burden of proof. We don't have to prove anything.'
'And yet Mark Dooher chose to testify – to go through three or four hours of Ms Jenkins's questions – so that he could tell you what he did do on the night of June seventh.'
'So what do we have? We have no proof of motive, we have no proof that Mark was at the scene of the crime when it occurred, we have no proof that he was even in the neighborhood at the time. In short, there is no proof at all, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that Mark Dooher is guilty of this crime. There are no facts that convict him.'
Farrell was almost done. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said. 'I'm a defense attorney. It's what I do for a living. I defend people and try to convince a jury that the evidence in a case doesn't support a Guilty verdict.'
He drew a breath. A trial was a war. You had to do whatever it took to win it. Now he'd gone this far and there was no turning back. He had worked tirelessly to convince the good people of this jury that he was a man of honor, worthy of their trust. And now he was going to lie to them.
God help him, he had to do it.
This case is different,' he said. 'Once in a career, a guy like me gets a chance to tell a jury that his client isn't just Not Guilty, but that he's innocent.
'And that's what I'm telling you now – Mark Dooher is innocent. He didn't do it. I know you know this, too. I know it.'