James Patterson - Cross Justice

“Objection,” Naomi said. “The witness is speculating.”

“Sustained.”

Brady said, “Were Mr. Tate’s fingerprints on that saw?”

“Five fingerprints.”

“Anyone else’s?”

“No.”

Brady’s questioning went on for another hour. Around ten thirty, the assistant district attorney said, “No further questions.”

Judge Varney said, “Ms. Cross, you can choose to proceed with cross-examination of Detective Frost now or finish with Sharon Lawrence.”

Sharon Lawrence’s mother stabbed at her daughter’s thigh with her index finger. Sharon Lawrence jerked, looked up from her cell phone in disgust.

Naomi looked back at me. I nodded.

She said, “The defense will start with Detective Frost.”

As Naomi came out from behind the defense table, she glanced at me again, and I shot her an encouraging smile.

“She got something?” Nana Mama whispered to me.

“Maybe,” I said, and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Detective Frost,” Naomi began. “At what time did you arrive at my client’s apartment the morning after the victim’s body was discovered?”

“Nine? Nine fifteen?”

“How was Mr. Tate dressed?”

“Gray sweatpants, blue hoodie.”

“His hair was wet?”

“Correct,” Frost said. “Mr. Tate stated that he’d just gotten out of the shower when we knocked.”

“Was the shower drain searched?” Naomi asked.

“It was.”

“Any of Rashawn Turnbull’s blood found in that drain?”

“No.”

“Any blood evidence found in that drain?”

“Mr. Tate’s.”

“Did Mr. Tate tell you that he has a history of nosebleeds? That they often occur when he’s exposed to hot water?”

Frost shifted, said, “He said that.”

Naomi returned to the defense table, picked up a document, said, “The defense would like to introduce our exhibit A: medical records dating back to Mr. Tate’s childhood that reflect this ongoing problem with nosebleeds.”

Judge Varney took the documents and nodded.

If the fact that my cousin suffered nosebleeds in any way contradicted the people’s case, neither Delilah Strong, Matt Brady, nor Detective Frost showed it.

“So you found Mr. Tate’s blood in the drain?” Naomi said.

“Correct.”

“But not Rashawn Turnbull’s?”

“Asked and answered, Counselor,” Judge Varney said.

“Don’t you find that odd?” my niece said to Frost. “I mean, the prosecution has spun this theory about my client entering a drunken, drug-fueled, berserk state to rape and kill Rashawn Turnbull, slashing at the boy’s neck with a pruning saw. And we’ve seen photos of the blood-spatter patterns at the crime scene. So why no blood in the drain? If your theory is to be believed, the boy’s blood should have been all over my client’s clothes and body.”

“We think Mr. Tate got rid of his clothes and washed off somewhere else.”

“But there’s no evidence to back that up.”

Frost said nothing.

“Do you have my client’s clothes with blood on them?”

“No.”

“Did you find the victim’s blood anywhere in that building other than on the pruning saw in the basement?”

Frost shifted uncomfortably, said, “No.”

“Did you find illegal drugs anywhere else in the house besides the vial of methamphetamine in the basement?”

“No.”

“In Mr. Tate’s office at the school?”

“No.”

“In his car?”

“No.”

“And yet you’d have us believe that Mr. Tate is not only a habitual user of meth but a dealer whose wares may have resulted in two overdoses at the high school.”

“Mr. Tate has a history of drug and alcohol abuse,” Frost said. “He got thrown out of—”

“Objection, Judge,” Naomi said.

“Sustained,” Varney said. “The jury will ignore that.”

But it had already been said. You couldn’t take something like that back and expect the jurors to actually eliminate the information from their brains. Stefan had past issues. That was all they would care about. Naomi looked frustrated but pushed on.

“Was there any sign of methamphetamine in my client’s blood the morning of his arrest?”

“Trace levels,” Detective Frost said.

“Trace levels? I thought he was in an alcohol-and-drug-fueled rage that night.”

“Large amounts of alcohol in the bloodstream can mask the presence of meth in certain tests.”

“Really?” Naomi said. “I hadn’t heard that. But again, you’re no expert.”

“Objection,” the district attorney said.

“Sustained,” Varney said before rapping his gavel. “We’ll take a lunch break and resume at one o’clock.”

Pinkie slid into the same booth we’d used before at the Bench, the restaurant by the courthouse. I sat opposite him while Nana Mama and my aunts took a table next to us. I’d tried to invite Patty Converse, but she’d left the courtroom before Varney ended the morning session.

“I thought things went better for Stefan today,” Pinkie said.

“I did too,” I said. “For the first time since the trial began, I saw some of the jurors really thinking about the evidence against him.”

My cell phone buzzed. An e-mail alert. The waitress came over to take our orders. I asked for the patty melt with a salad instead of fries and another cup of coffee. I’d been up for so many hours at that point that I was feeling woozy again.

“If Stefan did it, he would have been covered in Rashawn’s blood,” Pinkie said.

“Unless Frost is right and he washed off somewhere else and buried his clothes,” I said.

“But why not the saw?”

“I know. It’s not logical. But sometimes murder and its aftermath are not logical events. It twists people into something unrecognizable.”

“You’re kind of raining on Naomi’s parade.”

“Not at all,” I replied, happy to see the waitress bringing my coffee. “I think she’s going to mount a vigorous defense on Stefan’s behalf.”

“I can hear a but coming.”

“But I’ve worked on enough of these cases to know that when the evidence to convict a child killer is formidable, the defense had better be able to do more than just poke holes in the prosecution’s narrative.”

“Like what?” Pinkie asked.

“Like find the real killer,” I said. “We do that, Stefan walks. If not, even with some of the lab results we got back, he risks conviction.”

“I swear on my dead daddy’s grave that Finn and Marvin were in on it,” Pinkie said.

I glanced over at the booth where I’d spoken with Bell the week before, said, “Well, unless the police find some evidence that links Bell and Davis to the killing, you’re swearing in vain.”

“Finn tried to kill Pedelini, who all but admitted to you before he was shot that he was looking the other way for payoffs.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I’d have to see the test results on Davis’s rifle, but there is the possibility that Davis was shooting at me and hit Pedelini. We were fairly close and it was a long shot across that cove.”

The waitress returned with our orders, and we dug in. My head ached, and I had to force the food down.

After we’d finished, I was surprised that Nana Mama wanted to stay for the afternoon session. She’d been taking naps in the afternoon the past few months.

“I feel like something big is going to happen in that courtroom this afternoon,” she said, holding my elbow as we walked back to the courthouse. “And I don’t want to miss it.”

“You having premonitions now?” I asked, amused.

“I’m no swami or seer,” she snapped. “I just get feelings sometimes, and this is one of them.”