John Lescroart - The 13th Juror

Witt begins to lunge. But something else, too, at the same instant, off to the side, in the bathroom door. In his peripheral vision there is another gun. God! Somebody else is here, a witness. More, a threat.

He doesn't have a second. No time for more than a glance at his side. It's a gun – but something's wrong, it's too low to the ground, someone crouching? It pops, the gun pops…

He has no choice, he spins, points, squeezes the trigger just as he sees…

… the boy in a crouch stepping out, holding a gun, pointing it? It pops again. It can't be. It can't be Matt, he's at school. It's a school day and the father is at home alone…

He has to stop! He must! But his hand has already squeezed too far. His gun kicks, exploding in the room with the sound of a bomb, and the bathroom mirror splinters in a haze of sickly bright red.

No stopping now. Only an instant to move while Witt is struck dumb, immobilized by the explosion, by what he's seen, his eyes on the splayed body of his son…

A beat while the horror sinks in, but it is enough. Lightner yanks the gun back on Witt, now coming with a choking scream, hands raised. The face, eyes, a wild man closing in.

Impossible not to fire. Impossible to miss…

The reporters were rushing to telephones and minicams as Hardy turned back away from the witness stand. In a daze, he was aware of Villars using her gavel and of Powell standing at his table, mute. Of Nancy standing in the gallery. Nancy had confirmed in the call last night that she had sent the toy gun to Matt.

Lightner slumped in the witness chair. Hardy sat down next to his client, who turned her face against him, crying out of control.

Powell had Terrell take lightner into custody on the perjury charge. Villars retired to her chambers alone.

A half hour later she returned to the bench. Hardy and Jennifer remained at the defense table, holding hands the whole time. Nancy and Tom were in the front row and Freeman had come inside the rail. Powell was across the room, slumped in his hard chair, pretending to study some papers. His face was set.

Villars face was flushed, her mouth a thin line. She looked below her, over her reading glasses, at Hardy and Jennifer, then to Powell.

She spoke clearly, formally. "This court grants defendant's motion for a new trial under Penal Code Section 1181."

Hardy finally let himself lean back in his chair. Granting the motion for a new trial was a legal formality – Villars was ruling on Hardy's first motion, and that was all she was doing. It was clear that there was not going to be any new trial for Jennifer Witt. As she had maintained all along, she had not killed either her husband or her son and, at last, everyone in the courtroom knew it.

"Further," the judge continued, "it is the decision of this court under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 657.6 that the verdict of the jury in The People vs. Jennifer Lee Witt be set aside – it is the judgment of this court that the evidence received is lacking in probative force to establish the proposition of fact to which it is addressed.

"Mr. Powell, I cannot imagine you would oppose a motion for release of the defendant on her own recognizance at this time." It was not a question. "Mr. Hardy, would you care to approach."

After the trial Hardy had built a new brick border to enclose Frannie's roses by the fence in his backyard. He had his foot on it now, looking back toward the house. Isaac Glitsky, Abe's oldest, was taking his job very seriously – he lifted the top of the barbecue, poked the turkey in the thigh with the long fork. "It's still a little pink," he said.

Abe, finally, on Thanksgiving, holding what Hardy thought was his first beer of the year, spoke patiently, gently, the voice nothing like the one he used in his police life. "Just close it up, Ike, it'll get done."

The boy did, then went to join his brothers playing with Hardy's kids up under the overhang by the house.

It was unseasonably warm, sunny, with a westerly breeze. Moses and his pregnant bride Susan were expected soon, and Frannie and Flo were inside cutting things up, setting up condiment trays, cooking side dishes.

Hardy was having what he called the traditional Thanksgiving Old Fashioned – bourbon and soda and sugar and bitters and oranges and cherries and God knew what else. He wanted to enjoy it before Moses, the purist, arrived and tried to ruin it for him. He sat on his new low wall, taking in his world.

"This works," he said. He smelled the turkey smoke, the newly mown grass. Then: "You'll never believe who called me yesterday."

Glitsky looked over at him. "Orlando Cepeda?"

Hardy shook his head.

"Michael Jordan?"

"Not a sports figure."

"I know it wasn't Clinton. I'm sure he would've mentioned it when I talked to him."

Hardy sipped his drink. "Jennifer Witt."

The warm breeze came up again for a moment. Isaac was back at the barbecue and Abe told him to leave it. "And turn that hat around, son. We've talked about that."

Isaac was wearing his Giants hat backward. His homicide-inspector father agreed that while it was probably a harmless fashion, he wasn't going to allow his son to affect even the smallest trademark of gang affiliation. No baggy clothes, Raiders jackets, turned-around baseball caps for Abe Glitsky's sons.

Isaac flipped the cap around and Abe shrugged at Hardy. "I'm turning into a conservative. It's kind of sad."

"Let's see," he said. "A conservative in San Francisco would still leave you just to the left of Lenin, right?"

The scar lightened slightly – Abe's not-quite-beaming smile. "So how's Mrs. Witt?"

"She's rich. Really rich."

"This soom. They paid?"

"They had to. She didn't do it."

The shade from the house had reached them and Glitsky moved down a bit on the brick. "I've been meaning to ask."

Hardy nodded. "There were no prints at all on the toy gun."

"And this means something?"

"To a trained investigator like yourself, I'd think so."

Glitsky gave it a minute. He actually took a sip of his beer. "It was wiped. If some kid had ever played with it, it would have had his prints on it."

"See? I knew you'd get it. Anyway, there was so much other stuff, I just missed it. Something, as they say, was nagging at me, but I couldn't get it into the picture until Lightner slipped up. It should have had some prints, some partial prints, some smudges at least."

"But why did Lightner frame Jennifer if he loved her?"

"He didn't start out to. He must have convinced himself she wouldn't get nailed for it. He was so confident he confided to me he was afraid she did it, but only to save herself from Larry."

"I hear even shrinks can get caught up in believing what they want to believe. Just like 'real' people."

"He should have stolen something," Abe said. "Made it look like a botched burglary."

"Of course, with your years of experience, that's easy for you to say. In any event, Jennifer getting arrested screwed up everything. He hoped with Larry gone, she'd eventually marry him, her rod and staff and her comforter. He said the obsession neurosis, whatever, was hers. It seems it was the other way around. He also didn't figure on Matt being home. Christmas vacation. He forgot about the boy."

"Why did he come just then?"

"I asked Jennifer the same thing. How did he know? She had called him when Larry started beating her up that morning. I suppose she blames herself for that, too. Anyway, obviously he'd been thinking about it. Jennifer at some point had told him about the gun, where it was. And now he thought with Larry gone… Anyway, Jennifer told me she called him when she ran upstairs in the middle of the fight. He told her to get out. He must have figured it was the right time, told his trusty secretary he was in conference, closed the door and walked out through the patio. It's not ten minutes to Jennifer's house from his office."