Jeffery Deaver - Twisted - The Collected Stories of Jeffery Deaver

“Your Honor,” Tribow said. “I’m just trying to establish a relationship between the defendant and the victim.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Tribow, but I don’t think we need to know what kind of box this toy came in.”

“Actually, sir, I was going to ask that.”

“Well, don’t.”

“I won’t. Now, Mr. Hartman, what did this game do?”

“I don’t know — you shot spaceships or something.”

“Did you play with it before giving it to Mr. Valdez?”

From the corner of his eye he saw Viamonte and Wu exchange troubled glances, wondering what on earth their boss was up to.

“No,” Hartman answered. For the first time on the stand he seemed testy. “I don’t like games. Anyway, it was a present. I wasn’t gonna open it up before I gave it to the boy.”

Tribow nodded, raising an eyebrow, and continued his questioning. “Now the morning of the day Jose Valdez was shot did you have this game with you when you left your house?”

“Yessir.”

“Was it in a bag?”

He thought for a moment. “It was, yeah, but I put it in my pocket. It wasn’t that big.”

“So your hands would be free?”

“I guess. Probably.”

“And you left your house when?”

“Ten-forty or so. Mass was at eleven.”

Tribow then asked, “Which church?”

“St. Anthony’s.”

“And you went straight there? With the game in your pocket?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And the game was with you in the church?”

“Correct.”

“But no one would have seen it because it was in your pocket.”

“I guess that’d be right.” Still polite, still unflustered.

“And when you left the church you walked along Maple Street to the Starbucks in the company of the earlier witness, Mr. Cristos Abrego?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And the game was still in your pocket?”

“No.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. At that point I took it out and was carrying it in the bag.”

Tribow whirled to face him and asked in a piercing voice, “Isn’t it true that you didn’t have the game with you in church?”

“No,” Hartman said, blinking in surprise but keeping his voice even and low, “that’s not true at all. I had the game with me all day. Until I was attacked by Valdez.”

“Isn’t it true that you left church, returned home, got the game and then drove to Starbucks?”

“No, I wouldn’t’ve had time to go home after church and get the game. Mass was over at noon. I got to Starbucks about ten minutes later. I told you, my house is a good twenty minutes away from the church. You can check a map. I went straight from St. Anthony’s to Starbucks.”

Tribow looked away from Hartman to the faces of the jury. He then glanced at the widow in the front row of the gallery, crying softly. He saw the perplexed faces of his prosecution team. He saw spectators glancing at one another. Everyone was waiting for him to drop some brilliant bombshell that would pull the rug out from underneath Hartman’s testimony and expose him as the liar and killer that he was.

Tribow took a deep breath. He said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

There was a moment of silence. Even the judge frowned and seemed to want to ask if the prosecutor was sure he wanted to do this. But he settled for asking the defense lawyer, “Any more witnesses?”

“No, sir. The defense rests.”

The sole reason for a jury’s existence is that people lie.

If everyone told the truth a judge could simply ask Raymond C. Hartman if he planned and carried out the murder of Jose Valdez and the man would say yes or no and that would be that.

But people don’t tell the truth, of course, and so the judicial system relies on a jury to look at the eyes and mouths and hands and postures of witnesses and listen to their words and decide what’s the truth and what isn’t.

The jury in the case of the State v. Hartman had been out for two hours. Tribow and his assistants were holed up in the cafeteria in the building across from the courthouse. Nobody was saying a word. Some of this silence had to be attributed to their uneasiness — if not outright embarrassment — at Tribow’s unfathomable line of questioning about the game Hartman had allegedly bought for the victim’s son. They would probably be thinking that even experienced prosecutors get flustered and fumble the ball from time to time and it was just as well it happened during a case like this, which was, apparently, unwinnable.

Danny Tribow’s eyes were closed as he lounged back in an ugly orange fiberglass chair. He was replaying Hartman’s cool demeanor and the witnesses’ claims that they hadn’t been threatened or bribed by Hartman. They’d all been paid off or threatened, he knew, but he had to admit they looked and sounded fairly credible to him; presumably they’d seemed that way to the jury as well. But Tribow had great respect for the jury system and for jurors on the whole and, as they sat in the small deliberation room behind the courthouse, they might easily be concluding at this moment that Hartman had lied and coerced the witnesses into lying as well.

And that he was guilty of murder one.

But when he opened his eyes and glanced over at Adele Viamonte and Chuck Wu, their discouraged faces told him that there was also a pretty good chance that justice might not get done at this trial.

“Okay,” Viamonte said, “so we don’t win on premeditated murder. We’ve still got the two lesser-includeds. And they’ll have to convict on manslaughter.”

Have to? thought Tribow. He didn’t think that was a word that ever applied to a jury’s decision. The defense had pitched a great case for a purely accidental death.

“Miracles happen,” said Wu with youthful enthusiasm.

And that was when Tribow’s cell phone rang. It was the clerk with the news that the jury was returning.

“Them coming back this fast — is that good or bad?” Wu asked.

Tribow finished his coffee. “Let’s go find out.”

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

The foreman, a middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and dark slacks, handed a piece of paper to the bailiff, who carried it to the judge.

Tribow kept his eyes on Hartman’s but the killer was sitting back in the swivel chair with a placid expression. He cleaned a fingernail with a paper clip. If he was worried about the outcome of the trial he didn’t show it.

The judge read the slip of paper silently and glanced over at the jury.

Tribow tried to read the jurist’s expression but couldn’t.

“The defendant will rise.”

Hartman and his lawyer stood.

The judge handed the paper to the clerk, who read, “In the case of the People versus Raymond C. Hartman, on the first count, murder in the first degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the second count, murder in the second degree, the jury finds the defendant not guilty. On the third count, manslaughter, the jury finds the defendant not guilty.”

Complete silence in the courtroom for a moment, broken by Hartman’s whispered, “Yes!” as he raised a fist of victory in the air.

The judge, clearly disgusted at the verdict, banged his gavel down and said, “No more of that, Mr. Hartman.” He added gruffly, “See the clerk for the return of your passport and bail deposit. I only hope that if you’re brought up on charges again, you appear in my courtroom.” Another angry slap of the gavel. “This court stands adjourned.”

The courtroom broke into a hundred simultaneous conversations, all laced with disapproval and anger.

Hartman ignored all the comments and glares. He shook his lawyers’ hands. Several of his confederates came up to him and gave him hugs. Tribow saw a smile pass between Hartman and his choirboy buddy, Abrego.