James Sheehan - The Law of Second Chances

That last opinion did in all of Dr. Wong’s wonderful graphs and charts. Jack had considered Leland Pendergast’s explanation as a possibility; he had just hoped that the state had been overconfident and not done its homework. Now he was out on a limb with no place to go, and Leland Pendergast was all puffed up and confident again.

Jack decided he had no choice but to try the new theory that had just come to him. “Doctor, is it accurate that a bullet loses its velocity the more distance it travels?”

“That’s hard to say with any definiteness. Velocity depends on a lot of things-the type of gun and the type of ammunition being the two most important factors. I don’t know as I sit here what the speed per foot was of the ammunition fired from the Glock that was used. That’s not my area of expertise. However, the longer the distance, the more resistance the bullet encounters in the atmosphere, and eventually it starts to lose a little steam-so I would agree with your proposition in general, but I don’t think you can gauge the loss of velocity with any accuracy. If the target is in the range of the gun as it obviously was in this case, the job gets done, no matter what the distance.”

It was a confusing answer, and Leland probably meant it to be so. Jack ignored the explanation completely.

“Is that a yes, Doctor?”

“Yes, I’d agree with your proposition in general.”

“Would a gun fired, say, at point-blank range or very close be more likely to pass through the skull?”

“Not really. The skull is very durable. That’s where we get the term ‘hardheaded.’” There was a laugh from a few members of the gallery. Some of the jurors smiled as well. The judge wisely let it go. “I don’t believe that a Luger Parabellum, the bullet that was used, fired from a Glock nine-millimeter would penetrate the skull no matter what distance it was fired from. Just look at how beat up this bullet was.”

Jack had what he wanted. It was time to bring Leland down a few pegs again before he let him go.

“When was the last time you actually performed an autopsy rather than simply supervising your staff?”

Leland didn’t answer right away. “Maybe five years ago.”

“How long has it been since you did autopsies on a regular basis as part of your job duties?”

“Ten years, I’d say.”

“No further questions, your honor.”

It was almost five o’clock when Leland Pendergast sashayed off the witness stand. The judge dismissed the jury and cleared the courtroom. He wanted to talk to the lawyers alone and get a sense of where they were and when they expected to be done with their cases.

“I may have one or two witnesses, I may not,” Spencer told the judge. Jack took that statement to mean that Spencer would be resting his case first thing in the morning.

To his credit, Judge Middleton didn’t buy off on Spencer’s dodge. “Come on, Mr. Taylor, you know if you’re going to rest tomorrow or not.”

“I really don’t, Judge. There’s a possibility I might rest first thing in the morning. If I do call more witnesses, they’ll be brief. I’m not going to go back over ground we’ve already covered.”

“Good,” the judge replied. “Because I’m not going to let you.” Jack liked the judge’s attitude. In spite of everything he had heard, up to now Langford Middleton had run this trial as well as anybody could have. Jack hoped he would continue in that vein.

“Mr. Tobin?”

“Yes, your honor?

“Be prepared to start your case tomorrow.”

“Yes, your honor. I also have a motion I would like to argue after the prosecution rests.”

“I figured you would. Okay, gents, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jack caught the court reporter on the way out and requested the transcript of his cross of Tony Severino. He then called Dorothy and gave her another witness to call-assistant coroner Dan Jenkins.

Henry and his new cohort, Valentine Busby, had driven to Tampa early Thursday morning and boarded a plane to Chicago, from where they would head to Madison, Wisconsin. It was a bumpy flight, and Henry had been so nervous he was sweating.

“This is nothing,” Valentine told him. “When I was in the Army we used to fly overseas in those big transports. They never flew around storms back then. I thought I was going to die at least a dozen times, and I’m still here.”

Valentine’s pep talk didn’t do much for Henry, who hadn’t felt better until the plane touched down in Chicago. They rented a car and arrived in Madison three hours later, finding Milton Jeffries’s house with little difficulty. Things seemed to be going well-until a woman in her mid-fifties answered the door and told them that Milton Jeffries didn’t live there anymore.

“My husband and I bought the place last year. We’re both professors at the university, and so was Milton. He retired just before he sold the house. He didn’t tell us where he was going. To be honest, he was a little weird about it. If you go to the administration building on campus, they may have a forwarding address.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Henry said graciously. “We’ll do that.”

Milton Jeffries hadn’t left a forwarding address with the school, so Henry went to the biology department and started knocking on the doors of faculty members and asking if they had any idea where their former colleague could be. At the fourth door they met Harvey Nelson.

“I don’t have any idea,” Harvey told them after Henry explained who he and Valentine were and that it was quite literally a matter of life and death. Harvey was an affable fellow in his mid-forties, with curly brown hair that stopped just a few inches short of his shoulders. Henry could tell he was trying to be helpful. “To tell you the truth, Milton’s retirement was a shock to everybody. He really loved his work. Then all of a sudden he was gone-no forwarding address, no nothing. They had to scramble to get somebody to take his classes.”

“Is there anybody who might know where he went?”

“Unfortunately, no. He was pretty much of a loner. I was probably his closest friend in the department, but we weren’t really that tight. We went fishing together a few times. Hey, wait a minute-fishing. Milton loved to fish. He had a cabin out in the middle of nowhere at a place called Castle Hill Lake. He invited me up a couple of times. He had to give me directions to the cabin or I never would have found it. I think I still have them in my computer, if only I can remember what I saved them under. It’s a long shot, but he might be living there.”

“That would be great if you could do that,” Henry replied.

“No problem,” he told them. “Come on in and sit down. It may take me a few minutes.” Harvey went to his desk and started searching on his computer. “Let me see, maybe it’s under Milton or Milton’s cabin ,” he muttered to himself as he stared at the screen. “Nope. Let’s try cabin . Nope. I need to get these files organized better,” he said apologetically over his shoulder before turning back to the screen. “Let’s go over to fishing . Nope. How about directions , Harvey?” Henry gave Valentine a sidelong look. “Aha! Here it is: Directions to Milton’s house” He opened the file and scanned the lines of type. “Yup, this is it,” he said, turning to Henry and Valentine with a look of satisfaction on his face. “I’ll just print it out for you. Let me see, where is that print command. .”

A couple of minutes later the directions were printing out. “It takes about an hour and a half to get there,” he told Henry as he handed him the paper. “If you left now, it would be dark by the time you got there. You don’t want to be driving up to somebody’s house after dark in that neck of the woods, especially if you’re not expected. Besides, I can almost guarantee you’ll get lost. I got lost in the daylight.”