Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

Point, counterpoint-he’d turned her small joke around to sting her. She was now to read some part of the Neal interview into the court record, while simultaneously indelibly searing it in the judge’s mind. Mahoney thumbed a document with the dexterity of a chief librarian. Seppamosa handed Matthews a copy. She read the lines and had no idea where he was going with this: Seppamosa seemed to have missed the point of the expert testimony; reading this line would only support the strength of Mahoney’s case against Neal. Matthews cleared her throat away from the microphone and then read: NEAL: Maybe it was the phone ringing that woke me up in the first place. And I do remember what time it was. All twos flashing at me. Two twenty-two. The clock by the phone on her side of the bed. I remember that. Two, two, two. Flashing away.

“And to your recollection, Ms. Matthews, is that verbatim?”

“To my recollection, yes it is.”

“This then is the contradiction to which Ms. Mahoney referred in her questioning of the oceanography expert, a Dr.

Bryon Rutledge.”

“It would be inappropriate of me to answer for either Dr.

Rutledge or Ms. Mahoney.”

“This is your understanding of the conflict, is it not?”

“It is. The body had to have gone off the bridge before midnight. Therefore Mr. Neal could not have seen her on a fire escape two hours past midnight. That’s the kind of inconsistency that wins an investigator’s attention.”

“Indeed.”

Seppamosa returned to the defense table, foraged inside his salesman-sized briefcase, and came out with a bedside digital clock in hand. He then had Matthews read from a police inventory that accounted for all items in plain sight as documented.

This, based on a court-ordered search of Neal’s apartment. She read the make and model of Neal’s bedside clock, and the court confirmed that Seppamosa now showed Matthews the exact same model of clock.

Matthews did not see what was coming, but knew without a doubt that she’d been led into an ambush. She searched her thoughts in order to attempt to anticipate the attorney’s take on the bedside clock but still had no idea where it was leading. She glanced out into the gallery, only to see that both Mahoney and LaMoia looked equally puzzled and on guard. To anticipate the question was to be prepared for a clever response. Failing this, she felt set up and ready to play the scapegoat.

Seppamosa plugged the clock into a floor receptacle alongside the stenographer, and it occurred to Matthews that he’d practiced this at least once-he knew where the power was; he knew what he was doing. He fiddled with the clock and turned it to face her.

“For the benefit of the court,” he said, making sure both the judge and Mahoney were shown the face of the digital clock, “would you please read the time of day represented on the clock?”

“Two twenty-two,” Matthews said. “I can’t tell if it’s A.M. or P.M.”

Seppamosa said cheerfully, “It’s A.M. There’s a little light that glows indicating P.M. If the court wishes-”

The judge cut him off, insisting the court did not wish.

Seppamosa noted for the sake of the record that Matthews had correctly identified the time of day as represented on the clock. He then dropped the bomb that Matthews felt in the center of her chest as a current of electricity. “And is the number represented on the clock steady or flashing, Ms. Matthews?”

“It’s steady,” she reported, not only reading on the page in front of her but hearing aloud in her memory Neal’s statement of “all twos flashing at me … flashing away.”

“For the benefit of the court, I am now unplugging the clock.” Seppamosa quickly replugged the clock, then aimed its face at Matthews. “And now? The time and the quality of the numerals?”

“Twelve o’clock-one, two, zero, zero.”

“And are the numerals steady or flashing?”

LaMoia came out of his seat and headed for the courtroom’s back door, practically at a run.

“Flashing.” Her heart sank, for now she knew exactly where he was heading.

“Flashing, as in Mr. Neal’s statement to you and Sergeant LaMoia.”

“Flashing, yes.”

“What time does the clock say now?” He showed her the face again.

“Twelve-oh-one.”

“One minute past twelve, if it please the court.”

The judge bid him to continue, not quite following the line of presentation.

“Dr. Matthews, do you recall the window of time that Mary-Ann Walker’s body had to have gone off the bridge, this, according to testimony provided by the state’s expert witness, Dr.

Rutledge?”

Matthews hesitated. She’d just stated this herself.

Seppamosa said, “Your Honor, I’m happy to have the court stenographer reread the-”

“Between eleven-fifteen P.M. and twelve A.M.,” Matthews said, seeing no point to stretching this out even longer. Rule number one in court: Keep it quick when you’re losing.

“And to simplify that testimony, this was determined by the direction of tidal flow, was it not, and the distance the body had reached prior to retrieval?”

“Something like that.”

“Your Honor, if it please the court, I could reread-”

But the judge was not in a pleasing mood. “The significance of this presentation, Mr. Seppamosa?”

“Is in the nature of the numerals, Your Honor. Flashing.

Which is exactly as the defendant, Mr. Neal, reported initially to police. The numbers of such clocks flash only when there’s been a loss of power and the battery backup is insufficient. The clock resets to twelve midnight, and then begins to keep time again.”

Retrieving a sheet of paper from his table, Seppamosa crossed the room toward the witness chair. “Ms. Matthews, I’m going to ask you to read one more item for the benefit of the court.”

Mahoney stood up and properly objected this time, suggesting that Seppamosa was badgering the witness in asking her to read documents that did not pertain to her expertise in any regard.

Seppamosa defended his choice of Matthews because she was a respected member of the police community and could be trusted to tell the truth. He then offered to subpoena a variety of expert witnesses, if the court would prefer. “Clock manufac-turers, power utility representatives …”

The judge heatedly declined the offer, clearly rebuffing the man in the process, but Seppamosa was not to be deterred-he was a man with a mission, more alive and cheerful than any PD Matthews had seen stand before the court.

Matthews was directed by the judge to read the letterhead off the sheet of paper supplied to her. “The letterhead is for Puget Sound Energy. It appears to be a Web page printed or faxed to Mr. Seppamosa.”

“The highlighted text, please,” Seppamosa said, practically crowing by this point.

She read, “… an area that included all of Ballard, Wallingford, Greenlake, and Phinney Ridge experienced a power interruption at eight fifty-nine P.M. on March twenty-second. This interruption lasted an average of three minutes, with the maximum lost time in Phinney Ridge estimated at seven minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

Seppamosa spoke loudly, luxuriating in his Perry Mason moment. “I submit to the court, Your Honor, that this power outage switched off Mr. Neal’s bedside clock at exactly eight fifty-nine.

Subsequent to that, the power remained off an additional three to five minutes. Somewhere around nine-oh-four the power came back on-while Mr. Neal and Ms. Walker were still at Mr. Neal’s mother’s house having dinner-returning power to, and resetting the clock, which now began to track time as if nine-oh-four were actually midnight. Mr. Neal did hear Ms. Walker on the phone. He did witness Ms. Walker out on the balcony.