John Lescroart - The Suspect

"You're already rich, Stuart. And we've got to talk about money, by the way. I'm going to need a check from you soon. My partners are getting a little antsy."

He cracked a small grin. "Maybe we ought to wait and see how things go out there in the courtroom today."

"That," she said, "is a really bad idea."

"Hear ye, hear ye! The Superior Court, State of California, in and for the County of San Francisco, is now in session, Judge Cecil Toynbee presiding. All rise."

Toynbee was relatively new to the Superior Court bench, and completely unknown to Gina. When he came through the door at the back of the courtroom, she thought there must have been a mistake and some law student had run off with the real judge's robes. But no, the fresh-faced, clean-shaven young man ascended to his chair, peered out over the courtroom, and smiled at one and all with an unfeigned enthusiasm. Gina felt as though she could almost hear him thinking, This is so cool. He leaned over and greeted his court reporter, a decades-long veteran named Pat Crohn, and then sat down.

And clearly he wanted this prelim.

Instead of doing the expected, sending out this long prelim to another courtroom set aside for the purpose, he did the opposite. He quickly reassigned the other fifteen matters on his calendar, dividing them up among the other half-dozen prelim courtrooms. He was going to keep this one for himself.

And Gina thought she knew why. This wasn't going to be a typical hearsay prelim with police officers reading the statements of witnesses into the record. True to his word, Jackman was giving her a real shot, a real look at the evidence in the case. The prosecution was going to call the actual witnesses to these events, and even more extraordinarily, Abrams had told her that she could call any defense witness that she wanted. This was going to be the real deal, and Toynbee wanted to watch it come down.

Now Gina, sitting down at the judge's cue, put a hand on Stuart's arm and gave it a little squeeze, trying to impart to him a confidence she didn't quite feel.

A preliminary hearing was different from a trial in many ways, not simply because of the standard of proof required. From a strategic standpoint, neither side gave an opening statement. The prosecution would simply begin by calling witnesses, whom the defense could cross-examine. Motions were rarely filed in advance. Judges would rule on the fly. Gina had no fewer than half a dozen objections to what she expected the prosecution to present, and a good ruling on any of them could help out considerably, even if it would not likely affect the outcome.

The judge, comfortably seated now, looked again with satisfaction at the gallery for a moment. Casting his eyes down in front of him, he appeared to be scanning over some pages. The hum in the gallery picked up for a minute and then gradually subsided on its own. When it was perfectly quiet, Toynbee raised his eyes and nodded to Ms. Crohn. "Let's call the case, Pat," he said with great amiability.

Amiable or not, though, Toynbee wasn't proving to be much of a friend to Gina and Stuart. In the next ten minutes, she asked formally to allow her client to dress out, at least from now on. She asked to have him unshackled. If he couldn't be unshackled, she asked at least that he shouldn't be chained to his chair. She asked that photographers, and particularly TV cameras, be barred from the courtroom. Since witnesses were not allowed in court except while testifying, but Juhle, as the investigating officer, would be permitted to remain throughout the prelim, she asked that he be required to testify first.

And so it went: "Denied."

"Denied."

"Denied."

By the fourth or fifth denial, Toynbee actually seemed to be straining to put a more-or-less friendly spin on the things: "I'm afraid that's another denial, Ms. Roake. Sorry."

The gallery behind her tittered with either sympathy or humor, or both. Gina leaned over and whispered to Stuart, "For the record, I didn't think we were going to get many of these, but I had to try." Stuart's response, as he stared straight ahead with his hands folded in front of him on the defense table, was a continual, tiny nod, as though he were humming a tune in his head.

At last that part of it was over. Gina closed her eyes and released a silent sigh of relief, trying to remind herself that she really hadn't expected any different result, although she'd harbored small hopes on a couple of the motions. But she consoled herself with the fact that at least Abrams hadn't simply brought his case before the grand jury, when no defense attorneys, and no judges even, were allowed to be present. It was a truism that by using the grand jury, a district attorney could "indict a ham sandwich."

Nor had Abrams simply called Juhle to recite the statements of the witnesses. At least at this preliminary hearing, Stuart wasn't automatically going to a murder trial. Gina would have a chance to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses, raise doubt, even call witnesses of her own. Beyond that, she'd get a chance to see the kind of case that Abrams was going to present, as well as a preview of the witnesses and evidence he would use at trial, if it came to that.

Not that she had much doubt of the eventual result-given the probable-cause standard, a trial was virtually inevitable. But that was, as David Freeman used to say, one of the many beautiful things about the law: You just never knew exactly what was going to happen. You kept firing your best guns and-who knew?-you might hit something and do some real damage.

But now Gerry Abrams was on his feet, rearranging yet another folder, calling his first witness, Dr. John Strout. As her partner Dis-mas Hardy had reminded her just the night before, the prosecution only had to prove two things to succeed at this hearing: that a murder had been committed, and that the probable person who had committed that murder, at least enough to bring a "strong suspicion to a reasonable mind," was the accused. So Abrams' decision to call Strout was both expected and expedient. With one witness, the prosecution would get half of its job done-prove that there had been a murder. Except this case wasn't so cut and dried.

The cause of death had always been drowning, and the DA only could get to murder by comparing the wine bottle they'd taken from the garbage can in Stuart's kitchen to the fracture in Caryn's skull. She thought calling Strout was going to give her an early opening.

She came forward in her seat, her nerves and the failure of her motions forgotten.

Strout had been the medical examiner in San Francisco for so long that his very presence on the witness stand-especially for the professionals in the courtroom, the lawyers and the judge-met the gold standard of instant credibility. Tall, ascetic-looking, his white hair thinning but still slightly longer than conventional, Strout was every inch the picture of the country doctor in whom families would unhesitatingly place their trust. (In reality, of course, he was an urbane forensics wizard whose collection of torture instruments argued for a less benign characterization.) Over the course of his forty-year career he'd probably spent a total of a full year actually testifying while sitting on the hard wooden chair in the witness box.

The inherent drama of the situation-pronouncing upon the exact cause of a violent death-had long since clearly lost its power over him to enthrall. Looking at him now as he took the oath, Gina thought that if he were any more relaxed, they'd have to wake him up.

Gerry Abrams wore a pale green suit, yellow shirt, brown tie, dumb clothes if there'd been a jury, Gina knew-way too flamboyant-but probably not an issue here. He came a few steps out in front of his desk to her left, greeted the good doctor, and started right in.