Joseph Teller - Overkill

KAPLAN: I’m able to say it was quite close.

DARCY: What evidence did you see that supports that conclusion?

KAPLAN: The scalp was lifted off the skull enough so as to cause radial tearing around the edge of the wound.

DARCY: You used the words “quite close.” Are you able to give us a medical opinion as to just how close that shot was fired from the front of Victor Quinones’s head?

KAPLAN: Yes. What I found was consistent with a distance of anywhere from maybe a quarter of an inch to four or five inches.

Jaywalker had known for months that that detail was coming, not only from his own reading of the autopsy report, but from picking the brain of a friend who happened to be a pathologist. Still, as prepared as he was for it, and as ready as he ever would be to cross-examine on it, he knew he wouldn’t be able to seriously challenge Dr. Kaplan’s conclusion. Sometimes the truth is just that, and when delivered from the mouth of a bright, articulate witness with no interest in the outcome of the case, it tends to sparkle. Which on most days Jaywalker would agree was a wonderful thing.

Just not right now.

Because this particular bit of truth, that Jeremy Estrada had delivered the coup de grace at point-blank range, was every bit as devastating in its way as the fact that Victor Quinones had run forty-five feet before stumbling, looking up and seeing the gun pointed squarely between his eyes. It took only a furtive glance in the direction of the jurors to tell Jaywalker that their rapt attention and grim faces added up to no good for the defense.

And Darcy still wasn’t finished with Dr. Kaplan. She got him to agree that the nonfatal wound could have been sustained while the victim was in a crouched position, bent forward, with the shooter firing at him from directly in front of him. Finally Darcy asked her witness if, following the fatal shot-the one to the head-Victor Quinones would have been able to run or walk a distance of forty-five feet.

KAPLAN: In my opinion, that would have been virtually impossible. In all likelihood, the victim would have lost consciousness immediately or almost immediately.

DARCY: Would he have been able to talk? Specifically, to beg for his life?

KAPLAN: In my opinion, no and no. Given the damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls speech, the shot would have made it all but impossible for him to speak. And I would go so far as say that given the extent of the injuries, it would have been equally impossible for him to have formed the thought of begging, convert that thought into words, and utter those words. It’s my opinion that once the victim sustained that wound, he wouldn’t have been able to do much of anything other than to collapse and die shortly afterward.

Or, as Bill Russell might have put it, the chances that Victor had sustained the fatal wound where he and Jeremy had struggled over the gun, and then had either walked or run forty-five feet before collapsing-as Jeremy seemed to be telling Jaywalker-were slim and none.

From there Darcy drew Dr. Kaplan’s attention to a minor injury he’d noted in the autopsy report, a fresh cut Victor Quinones had sustained to the inside of his mouth.

DARCY: In your opinion, was that cut consistent with the victim’s having bitten his lip when his head was dropped to pavement?

KAPLAN: Yes, it was.

And with that last little tidbit, Katherine Darcy thanked her witness and sat down.

If the cross-examiner is smart enough to ask no questions of the witness who hasn’t hurt his client, what does he do with the witness who’s absolutely demolished him? That was the question on Jaywalker’s mind as he stood up now. Complicating his problem was the nature of Dr. Kaplan himself: not only had his testimony been devastating and his credentials impeccable, but his manner had been absolutely engaging. He’d instructed the jury without speaking down to them, had demonstrated an expertise uninfected by ego, and had restricted his opinions to those areas where he felt qualified to draw conclusions. As a result, he’d not only come off as objective and informative; he’d also ended up being thoroughly likeable.

So Jaywalker knew there was no way he could go after Dr. Kaplan the way, say, that he’d laid into Detective Fortune. At the same time, he knew he had to question the man. To leave him alone would have been tantamount to an admission of defeat, given how devastating the doctor’s testimony had been. But understanding that the most he could hope to accomplish was to score a point here or establish a fact there, Jaywalker knew he needed to lower his sights. In other words, rather than attacking Kaplan, he needed to adopt him as his own witness. Sometimes cross-examination can be a little bit like playground politics: if another kid looks too big to beat up, try getting him to join your side.

He began with the issue of the position of Victor Quinones’s body at the moment he’d sustained the first, nonlethal wound. Jaywalker felt it was the weakest part of Dr. Kaplan’s testimony, not because Kaplan himself had overreached, but because Katherine Darcy had tried to get too much out of him by asking him if Victor “could have sustained” the wound while bent forward in a crouched position.

JAYWALKER: Would you agree that it’s every bit as likely that this wound was sustained while Mr. Quinones was standing up straight and struggling over the gun, which was chest high and pointed straight downward?

KAPLAN: Yes, I would.

JAYWALKER: That could just as easily explain the entrance wound just below the chest, the shallow trajectory, the exit wound on the abdominal wall, and even the hip wound?

KAPLAN: Yes, sir. That is correct.

JAYWALKER: And the gun could have been quite close to the entrance wound?

KAPLAN: It could have been. Yes, sir.

JAYWALKER: Nothing in your findings rules that out. Correct?

KAPLAN: That is correct.

From there Jaywalker moved on to the victim’s physical appearance. He wanted the jury to hear that Victor had been physically fit and presumably an equal match with Jeremy in a fistfight. Also that he’d been menacing-looking, and as ugly as Jeremy was handsome. While that fact might have lacked relevance in a technical sense, Jaywalker was nevertheless banking on it to affect the jurors. When you were fighting to keep someone out of prison for the rest of his life or pretty close to it, you looked for every advantage you could find, and you didn’t let the technical stuff get in your way.

JAYWALKER: I see from the autopsy report that you described Mr. Quinones as about five-nine, well developed and fairly muscular? Is that your recollection?

KAPLAN: Yes, it is.

JAYWALKER: Any facial hair?

KAPLAN: A thin, wispy mustache and chin whiskers.

Jaywalker walked over to the prosecution table and asked Katherine Darcy for the autopsy photos. From the half dozen she handed him, he picked out one taken of the victim’s face in which the entrance wound showed the least. Victor had had rather heavy eyebrows, and the wound was right between them, where they met just above his nose. His eyes were closed in the photo, and if you didn’t know better, you might have thought he was sleeping. But his mouth was open, and the “windowpanes” were visible on his teeth, and his cheeks were pockmarked from what looked like old acne scars.

Jaywalker had the photo marked for identification, then handed it to the witness.

JAYWALKER: Is that a fair representation of what Mr. Quinones looked like?

KAPLAN: Yes, it is.

JAYWALKER: I offer the photo into evidence as Defendant’s Exhibit A.

DARCY: No objection.

THE COURT: Received.

Which meant that the jurors would be able to look at the exhibit themselves. Whiskers, windowpanes, pockmarks and all.