Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“Mr. Picton,” the judge warned, leveling his gavel.

“-and despite the fact, as well, that the British government in India has ordered its use throughout that colony by police and prosecutors-”

“Mr. Picton, enough!” the judge yelled, banging the gavel.

“Your Honor,” Mr. Picton said, putting his innocent look on again. “I beg the court’s pardon, yet I feel I am misunderstood. I only mention these rather interesting and, to some ways of thinking, important facts. I do not say that the jury should give any weight to them, simply because Argentines, Indians, and Englishmen do. After all, this is America, and things take time to be accepted, here. I do not offer these tests as evidence-I offer them simply as a rather remarkable coincidence that may interest the jury.” Sitting down very quickly, Mr. Picton added, “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

By now Judge Brown was rubbing hard at the leathery, wrinkled skin of his face with both hands. “Mr. Picton,” he said, trying to keep his voice under control, “if I have ever heard such bald sophistry in a courtroom before, I cannot recollect it. You know perfectly well that anything offered by a witness in testimony must be considered evidence, or it is improper! I ought to hold you in contempt, sir-and if you try that kind of semantic trickery again, I will hold you in contempt! You are here to present acceptable evidence, not remark on interesting, unproven theories!” Turning to the jury box, the judge bellowed, “The jury will disregard everything that was just said, and it will be stricken from the record!” Then it was Lucius’s turn: the judge spun on him and hollered, “And if you mention the subject of fingerprinting again, Detective Sergeant, I’ll hold you in contempt, too!”

Lucius’s forehead began to glow bright under the heat of those words. “Yes, sir,” he said sheepishly.

Hissing in exasperation, Judge Brown turned to the defense table. “All right, Mr. Darrow, the witness is yours! And since I’m in a warning mood, let me tell you , sir-I don’t want to see any hysterical theatrics of the variety that I witnessed yesterday! This trial is going to be run in an orthodox manner from here on out, and if either side crosses the line again I’m going to lock everybody up!” Mr. Darrow couldn’t hide a smile, at that; and the judge pointed straight at his head with the gavel when he saw it. “Don’t make the mistake of taking this lightly, Mr. Darrow, or you’ll find yourself on a train back to Chicago, smarting like a whipped cur!”

Mr. Darrow wiped the smile from his face as he came out from behind his table. “Yes, Your Honor. I do apologize-you’ve been extremely patient.”

“You’re damned right I have!” the judge said, causing the galleries to ripple with laughter. At the sound the judge got to his feet and banged his gavel like a madman. “And that goes for the rest of you, too!” As quiet returned, the judge began to calm down; but only when the room was absolutely still did he sit, mumbling something about “all my forty years on the bench.” Then he pointed at Mr. Darrow again with the gavel. “Well? Get a move on, Counselor, I don’t want to die before this trial is over!”

Nodding, Mr. Darrow approached Lucius. “Detective Sergeant, in how many legal cases, would you say, has ballistics played an important role?”

“In the United States?” Lucius asked.

“Ah, yes, Detective Sergeant,” Mr. Darrow answered, “for the sake of His Honor’s nervous health, I think we’d better confine our discussion to the United States.” There were a lot of people who wanted to laugh, just then, but nobody did.

Lucius shrugged. “There are some.”

“Can you give me a number?”

“No. I’m afraid I can’t.”

“But all this business about your being able to determine when a gun was fired by the mold and rust on the thing-that’s been used before?”

“Several times. It began with the Moughon case, in 1879. The defendant was exonerated when a gunsmith determined that, because of the mold and rust accumulations in his pistol, the weapon could not have been fired in at least a year and a half. The murder in question had taken place during that time period.”

Mr. Darrow shook his head, wandering over to the jury box. “I don’t know, Detective Sergeant-maybe it’s just me, but-I’ve seen a lot of mold and rust, in my life. Seems pretty amazing that you can date its growth as accurately as if it were a living creature.”

“Molds are living creatures,” Lucius answered, taking the chance to needle Mr. Darrow in spite of his nervousness. “And rust is simply the oxidization of metal, which conforms to known timetables. Once you have the training, it’s not terribly complex.”

“So you say, Detective, so you say. And I guess we have to accept your word on it-for the moment. So-the gun was fired about three years ago, give or take a few months. And one of the bullets was found embedded in the wagon.” Mr. Darrow’s face wrinkled up again. “I don’t mean to sound dense, Detective, but what about that? The matching of the bullet to the gun, I mean? How many cases have been solved using those techniques?”

“Well,” Lucius answered, a bit more uneasily, “gunsmiths having been matching bullets to gun barrels for decades-”

“So it’s an exact science, then?”

“That would depend on what you mean by exact.”

“I mean exact , Detective,” Mr. Darrow said, walking back over to Lucius. “Containing no margin for error.”

Lucius shifted in his seat, and then pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “There aren’t many sciences that contain no margin for error.”

“I see,” Mr. Darrow said. “So it isn’t exact. And what about that bullet? Any sign that it was actually involved in the murders?”

“There were traces of blood on it.”

“Any idea what kind of blood?”

Lucius started to sweat even more visibly and wiped his head again. “There-aren’t any tests, as yet, that can distinguish one type of blood from another.”

“Oh.” Doing his level best to look like he was honestly wrestling with the problem, Mr. Darrow moved back to the jury box. “So what you are, in sum, saying, is that we have a gun that was fired about three years ago-by whom we certainly cannot say-and that was found at the bottom of a well behind the Hatches’ house. It may or may not have been the gun that fired a bullet that was found in the Hatches’ wagon-a bullet that may or may not have been involved in the murders. Is that about it, Detective?”

“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” Lucius said. “The odds are-”

“The odds are high enough to leave room for reasonable doubt, Detective. At least in my mind. But let’s try a question that maybe you can answer a little more precisely: In how many trials have you offered expert ballistic testimony?”

Lucius was obviously taken completely off guard. “How many?”

“It’s a simple question, Detective.”

Glancing down and going at his forehead one more time with the handkerchief, Lucius quietly said, “This is the first.”

“The first?” Mr. Darrow answered, glancing quickly to the witness box, then back at the jury. “You’re jumping into some pretty deep water for your first time swimming, don’t you think?”

Trying to put up a fight, Lucius answered, “I’ve been studying ballistics for many years-”

“Oh, no doubt, no doubt. It’s just that nobody’s thought to ask you for your opinion yet. I wonder why.” Finally taking his eyes from the jurors, Mr. Darrow loped back over to his table. “That’s all, sir.”