John Lescroart - The Hearing

This tactic didn't stand a chance and Hardy knew it. The prosecution could call their witnesses in any order and any coaching they were going to do was already done. But it might serve to disrupt the orchestration of the prosecution's case. At least making the motion would annoy Torrey and Pratt. And if the judge made them change the witness order, who knew? As a bonus, he might even win his bet with Freeman.

'Give me a break.' Pratt, all scorn, addressed Hardy but was looking at the judge. 'It was almost five o'clock in the morning, your honor. He was punch drunk, maybe, with fatigue.'

But David Freeman wasn't only there for his good looks. He took a half-step toward the bench. 'Your honor,' he said. 'Three hours?' He took in the whole circle of them. 'They come upon Mr Burgess on the scene, apprehend him there with the victim's jewelry and an apparent murder weapon, and three hours later they haven't even asked him a question? On the face of it, the confession is fatally flawed. The police overstepped.' He was raising his voice. 'They don't give him his phone call-'

'He called his mother,' Torrey interrupted. 'He waived an attorney. We've got that on the videotape.'

'Bullshit!'

Hill, shocked at the language, couldn't find any response other than to point his finger. 'Hey!'

'It's on the tape, David,' the prosecutor shot back. 'Deal with it.'

Freeman implored the judge. 'Where are we, your honor? In Turkey? In Iraq?'

'Jesus.' Pratt did a little pirouette of disgust. 'Your honor, no one has fought police misconduct more than I have. This was a murderer they needed to interrogate. He signed his Miranda notice. There was no overreaching here.'

Finally, Hill caught up with it all. He slammed his gavel for order, since by now the whole room behind him had degenerated into chaos. When things had settled, the Cadaver turned a terrible face to both Hardy and Freeman. 'I've said I will rule on these issues when the People seek to introduce the evidence. I've heard nothing to change my opinion,' he said in clipped tones. 'Mr Freeman,' he continued. 'I don't allow profanity in my courtroom. Now I'm calling a five-minute recess and I want everybody calmed down by the time we reconvene. This is a court of law and not a goddamned circus act.'

Pratt herself took over for the next witness. 'The People call Anthony Feeney.'

Hardy had known Feeney, a journeyman assistant district attorney, for over twenty years, and had always considered him a decent sort – honest, hard-working, cooperative. When Hardy had first interviewed him because he'd taken Cullen's information on behalf of the DA, he'd gone home particularly depressed. The details that had eluded both him and the public defender Saul Westbrook about the mechanism of Cullen's snitching were not a secret. No one appeared to be trying to conceal anything. Hardy had hoped this would turn out to be a break in the case – against Torrey if nothing else – but his hopes had been pretty much dashed. Feeney wasn't a liar. Hardy didn't think he'd be lying now, and this was not good news.

He was Hardy's age although sometime in the past decade he'd gone from looking younger than him to much older. His hair had turned snow white. He'd developed a middle and his clothes, once flashy, had become conservative, dated. The almost oddly-shaped, triangular face had crumbled on itself somehow – the once-distinctive beauty marks on either cheek now lost in liver spots and mild eczema. Feeney had turned into a bureaucrat, an office worker -flat effect, squashed personality, perfectly competent and non-confrontational. He aimed to please.

After establishing his credentials, Pratt got down to her business – demonstrating that Cole Burgess had the murder weapon at least a day in advance of the shooting, and therefore that premeditation was possible if not likely. 'Mr Feeney, do you know a young man named Cullen Leon Alsop?'

'I do, or did. He's dead now.'

The familiar hum in the courtroom began again, low and ominous. Pratt turned full around and waited until it had died out a bit, then continued. 'How did you know Mr Alsop?'

'I prosecuted him for several drug-related offenses. He was a dealer of crack cocaine, and had been convicted on that offense several times.'

'I see. When was the last time you saw him?'

'I had an interview with him in the afternoon of Tuesday, February ninth, at the jail.'

'Would you please explain to the court what this meeting was about?'

'Sure.' Feeney shifted in the witness chair. 'I got a call from one of the guards at the jail that morning, saying that Mr Alsop wanted to talk to me, that he had information that the District Attorney would like to have regarding the Elaine Wager case. He wanted to trade that information for a reduced sentence, or even to get out of jail.'

'So what did you do?'

'First, ma'am, per our guidelines, I brought the information to the Chief Assistant DA, Mr Torrey. He directed me to talk to the snitch – to Mr Alsop – get his demands, and we'd see where that led us. So I went down and talked to him. He hadn't yet been arraigned and didn't have a lawyer up to that point, so I was free to talk to him directly.'

Pratt looked good. There was no doubt about it. She held her head high, a tiny private smile playing with her features as she walked back to the prosecution table. There, she picked up a thin folder and turned gracefully, walking back up to the judge, handing it to him. The gallery, watching her, was silent. 'Was your entire conversation with Mr Alsop taped?'

'Yes.'

'If defense does not object,' here she turned again, charmingly, 'rather than put in the whole tape, perhaps we can hear the essence of the discussion from this witness.'

Hardy was halfway to his feet to object in a big way. This was the rankest kind of hearsay, pure and simple. The witness wasn't a police officer, so it couldn't even come in at prelim. And even if it could, Alsop was dead. He couldn't be cross-examined at trial, so his statement would never be admitted there. No jury would ever hear about this tape in a million years.

Pratt was just playing to the crowd, the judge, and not least the reporters – reminding them that, admissible or not, they had a statement tying Cole to the gun. There was no doubt, reasonable or otherwise, as to who had killed Elaine Wager. Pratt must have expected the objection to be made and sustained. She had all but invited Hardy to step up.

So he wouldn't do it.

If he did the expected and put up a good, even brilliant technical defense, Cole would go down. His client would die in prison, sooner in the death chamber or later of old age. Better to change the rules. Suspend the rules of evidence. Everything would come in. Maybe Pratt and Torrey, sloppy lawyers both, would do something so gross that it would actually damage the case, or maybe – this just a glimmer – they'd let slip something Hardy might have missed.

He stood. 'For the purposes of this prelim only, no objection, your honor.'

Clearly puzzled, the DA hesitated, then inclined her head graciously. 'Thank you. Mr Feeney?'

Hardy had heard the whole thing almost word for word a couple of days before, and there were no surprises. He'd read the transcript and listened to the tapes of Cullen's talks with both Feeney and Ridley Banks. The story was simple and consistent enough. At the heart of it, though, lay Cullen Alsop's credibility.

When Pratt gave him the witness, Hardy rose and approached the box. 'Mr Feeney, when you went over to the jail to meet Mr Alsop, was it the first time you'd seen him in connection with this information he was offering to trade?'

Feeney thought for a minute, then nodded. 'Yes.'

'And this was on Tuesday, February ninth, was it not?'