John Lescroart - The 13th Juror

No one in the courtroom – not Hardy, not Powell, not the jury or Villars – knew where he was going, and he took the opportunity he had created to push forward uninterrupted. "We've got a gun in a dumpster, just like we had a hypodermic needle in a leg years earlier." Freeman turned directly to the jury, suddenly raising his voice, suddenly furious. "You see what he's doing, don't you? Mr. Powell keeps leaving out any agent who delivers these objects to their destinations. He wants you to assume that it's Jennifer Witt and he can't do that."

Bam bam bam.

Villars sounded angry: "Mr. Freeman, get hold of yourself. You don't address the jury like that. The reporter will strike those last remarks."

But Freeman kept his voice up, indignant, outraged. "Your Honor, my client's life is at stake here, and there's no evidence whatsoever that Jennifer Witt even held this gun that somehow got into the dumpster."

"Your Honor!" Powell had come around his table into the forum of the courtroom. "Her fingerprints were on the weapon."

Villars used her gavel again. "Sit down, Mr. Powell, we're not arguing this right now." She pointed a finger. "You, Mr. Freeman, are out of order. Are you finished with this witness or not?"

"I am outraged-"

Now Villars slammed the gavel, the sound echoing in the wide, high room. Next to Hardy, Jennifer jumped.

"Anything but a yes or no and you'll go to jail, Mr. Freeman."

Suddenly Freeman got himself back under control. He nodded, swallowed hard. "Yes, Your Honor."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, I'm through with this witness."

The judge was still holding her gavel, ready to crack it down again. But the moment had passed, Powell was back in his seat, Freeman was returning to his.

Villars perused the room from her bench. With no one else to talk to, she looked down on Mr. Parmentier. "The witness may be excused," she said. "We're going to take a short recess."

"They're hating you," Jennifer said.

Freeman was walking around by the window, looking out, then back, pleased with himself. He, Hardy and Jennifer had retired for the recess to their semi-private conference room behind the bailiff's area.

"I don't think the jury is hating him," Hardy said.

"They love me," Freeman declared.

"But Mr. Powell was right." Jennifer was sitting on the desk, hands and feet crossed. "There was something connecting me and that gun – it was mine and Larry's – even if I didn’t put it in that dumpster. It wasn't the same as the needle."

"It doesn't matter," Freeman said. "After what the judge did with Ned, every person on that jury is going to have it in their minds. They're going to think it's another Powell railroad because that's what they're going to be looking for. I think we just put 'em away-"

Hardy was standing by the door, hands in his pockets, taking it in. "It's a different set of facts, David. I think the jury's going to go with the facts."

Freeman stalked back to the window, looking out and down. "Bunch of spoilsports."

There was a knock and the door opened. One of the courtroom bailiffs stuck his head in, gave Hardy a look and told Freeman that the judge would like a word with him in her chambers.

Hardy decided that he should probably swing by Olympia Way and spend an early morning hour going over notes and hoping his phantom jogger would reappear. If she ran by that way even semiregularly there was some chance that she might be useful. The defense would open its case in the next week and he wanted as many "other dudes" as he could for David to pull out of his hat.

Not that, strictly speaking, Hardy's jogger was another dude. Or even a dudette. He had different plans for her – Freeman wouldn't attempt to implicate her in the killings as a possible suspect. But he might be able to use her to discredit the damaging testimony of Anthony Alvarez, the neighbor from across the street. What if he had seen this phantom jogger that morning – and not Jennifer – at the gate? And therefore not in the house. If a question about Alvarez's identification of Jennifer could get planted in the jury's mind, the jogger would be worth putting on the stand.

Sipping some coffee out of a traveling mug, cramped behind the wheel of his Honda just after sunrise, he realized that during the past week, while the focus of the trial had been on the Ned Hollis murder, he should have been preparing overviews on Tom DiStephano and the Romans if Freeman was going to use them as defense witnesses.

But in fact he hadn't spoken to Tom DiStephano since he'd gotten threatened by him and his father a couple of months ago, and Glitsky hadn't seemed particularly inclined to move on finding an alibi for the Romans on December 28. Glitsky might be his friend, but he was first a cop, and a busy cop with other priorities. When the directed verdict of acquittal came in so early on Ned, he realized that time was getting short and he had to have significantly more if Freeman was going to be able to use any of the information he'd gathered on these people.

He'd have to put the needle in Abe – see if he could get him to move on the Romans, and he knew the answer might well be that he couldn’t. He also came across the name Jody Bachman and realized that the Los Angeles attorney had never gotten back to him on Crane amp; Crane and YBMG. These were all areas that would have to be shored up before the defense began its case in earnest.

Yesterday, Monday, they had never gone back in to trial. Villars had evidently gotten herself good and fed up with David Freeman's grandstanding and after repeated warnings on the record had fined him five hundred dollars – privately – for contempt of court. He knew the rules as well as anyone and if he wasn't going to play by them, it was going to get expensive for him in a hurry.

By then it had been late in the afternoon and Villars had sent word out via the bailiff to excuse the jury for the day. On his way to do that he had stopped by the room where Hardy and Jennifer had been talking, told them what had happened, and Hardy had taken the cue and cut out.

He was parked at the corner so that he could see where the jogger had appeared out of the woods the last time. Looking down, going over one of Florence Barbieto's interviews with Walter Terrell, he almost missed her when she emerged again.

Throwing his notes onto the passenger seat, he started the engine in time. Sure enough, she ran down the same route, turning the corner onto Jennifer's street, just flying. Hardy pulled across the street, into the driveway just as she arrived at, cutting her off.

He opened the door and got out, facing her across the roof, smiling. "Hi again."

Today she was wearing maroon shorts and a Boston Marathon T-shirt, a maroon headband, and the can of Mace. Panting, seeing Hardy, she closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. "What's your problem?" she asked, sucking air. "Why don't you leave me alone?"

He really wasn't into ruining this woman's day but he also didn't want to let her get away again. He had a card out, ready, and held it up over the hood of the car. "Just grab this as you run by – would you? – and call me. It might be important. It might even save a woman's life."

She stood there a minute, staring, as though she hadn't heard him. "You're a lawyer? Really?"

"That's right."

"Last time you didn't look much like a lawyer."

He grinned. Clothes make the man. Now he was in one of his suits, on his way to court, a real-life lawyer. "I was in disguise."

She was still breathing hard but more controlled than when she first stopped. Hardy figured that even if he could run as fast as she was going, which he couldn't, if he had come from the Sutro Woods down to here it would take him ten minutes to get his breath back. She was already back to being able to talk without gasping. It was impressive.