John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

She banged with her gavel, again and again, her voice strained as she tried to make herself heard. “The objection is sustained. That’s enough.” Bam! Bam! “Sustained.” Now standing, leaning out over the bench, at the top of her voice. “I want order in this courtroom! Order!” And the sound of gavel pounding rang out again and again.

At last, a semblance of silence. Braun, still on her feet, shaking with rage, now asserted her authority, order after order. “The jury is to retire to the deliberation room. Bailiffs, clear the courtroom. Clear the courtroom! Mr. Chiurco, you will remain on the witness stand. Counsel, stay at counsel table!”

The gallery’s removal took the better part of ten minutes, much of the crowd objecting and even refusing to move until Braun had more bailiffs called in to help from neighboring courtrooms.

When, finally, the last spectator had been cleared, Braun pointed down at Chiurco. “Sir, as a witness in this courtroom, you have asserted your Fifth Amendment rights. You need to talk with your attorney. You will consult with counsel and return to this courtroom with your attorney on this coming Monday at nine A.M.”

But Hardy, still standing in front of Chiurco, couldn’t let that go unchallenged. “Your Honor, with respect, that’s unacceptable. Mr. Chiurco should be taken into custody.”

Now she raised her gavel as though it were a weapon. “That’s all, Mr. Hardy. How dare you try to tell me what’s acceptable or not in my courtroom. That’s absolutely all from you.” And now unnecessarily banging her gavel on every note for emphasis, she added, “You… will… not… disrupt… this… courtroom… further!”

And again at last in total control, the master of her domain, Braun looked around in a kind of stunned disbelief at what her pronouncements had wrought. “Bailiffs,” she said evenly, “the defendant goes to the holding cell. Mr. Chiurco, you go find yourself a lawyer. Coun sel, in chambers. Right now. It’s quarter of.” Then, with another glance out at the empty gallery, “Bailiffs, you may readmit the spectators. This trial resumes again in precisely fifteen minutes.”

In Braun’s office Stier was near apoplectic. “Talk about no evidence! In spite of all of his self-serving rhetoric Mr. Hardy presented no evidence out there just now, Your Honor. All that was just a blatant attempt to find a handy scapegoat to distract the jury.”

“Ridiculous, Your Honor. Fingerprints at the crime scene are evidence, particularly when the person whose fingerprints they are says they couldn’t be there. What’s your theory, Mr. Stier? Did Chiurco loan somebody his fingerprints? Did his hands take a walk without him? The fact is,” Hardy said, “that I’ve presented more evidence this morning that my client is innocent than Mr. Stier has presented in his entire case against her.”

“She’s not innocent until the jury says so,” Stier said.

Hardy held out a hand in a behold-the-ass gesture: “Actually, Your Honor, Mr. Stier’s got it exactly backwards. Maya’s innocent until the jury finds her guilty. I think they still teach this in law school in this country.”

Braun had finally lost all pretense of a judicial demeanor. “God damn it! No more!”

But Stier kept on. “Mr. Hardy can split hairs, but I’m confident the court understood what I was saying, Your Honor. And this testimony from Ms. Foreman that Mr. Chiurco maybe used to be called Paco? On what planet does this rise to the level of evidence?”

“The same one,” Hardy shot across at him, “that you landed on when you had Cheryl Biehl testify. I’m just, frankly, stunned that you think you’ve still got a case.”

Stier harrumphed. “To the contrary, Your Honor, since Mr. Chiurco does investigative work for Mr. Hardy’s own law firm, I wouldn’t put it past them to have colluded to put on this entire elaborate charade just so the jury would have to consider an alternate suspect.” Then, directly to Hardy, “So, how do you do it? You give your guy a bonus when this is done for the inconvenience you put him through?”

“That’s the most ridiculous and insulting accusation I’ve heard in all the time I’ve been practicing law, Your Honor. It’s beneath contempt.” Hardy, finally reaching his limit, raised his own voice. “Here’s what I did, Paul. I paid your police department to plant his fingerprint inside the scene of a murder and maybe on the casing from a cartridge at the scene of another murder. What kind of a bonus would you recommend for someone who’s willing to put themselves in prison for life?”

Braun slapped a palm down on her desk. “That exchange, gentlemen, just cost you each a grand. Want to go for another one?”

Hardy, dizzy with adrenaline, fighting to reassert his rationality. “The plain fact, Your Honor, as I said out there, is that Chiurco ought to be under arrest right now. He’s a danger to himself and to the public. The police should be searching his stuff for spatter and Preslee’s place for his DNA. We need to continue this trial at least into next week, or even longer, to let the police finally conduct a real investigation.”

Braun hated this whole thing. She hated Hardy’s provocative and believable theory. She hated Stier’s entire presentation of the case, the sideways involvement of Jerry Glass, Schiff’s sloppy investigating, the political ramifications, the testimony about things that may or may not have happened as much as fifteen years before.

Above all, Braun hated the idea that she might have to tell the jury that this trial might be prolonged another week or even longer. There was no way she could accept a police investigation at this stage into another suspect without dismissing the charges against the current defendant.

“Well, gentlemen,” she began in a cold fury, “it seems we’ve gotten ourselves into-”

At that moment the first gunshot echoed from somewhere close by, inside the building. And they heard a woman scream.

Chiurco didn’t movefrom the witness stand for a short while after he’d been dismissed. Things had happened fast, but the judge had told him he could go, so long as he returned to court next Monday morning. He heard the back door of the courtroom open behind him, watched Hardy and Stier march solemnly past him on the way out. Still he didn’t move.

At last, though, since the audience had returned en masse to the gallery-in fact, if anything, with the news of the drama, the crowd had increased-the noise level was gearing up again. The mayor and Fisk and Maya’s husband came forward off their seats and Maya had turned around, the bailiff hovering in hesitation about obeying the judge and bringing her back to the holding cell. Everybody talking about his testimony, what had just come down.

Glitsky and DA Jackman were on their feet, stretching their backs, deep in discussion. Debra Schiff, over at the prosecution table, sat hunched over, head down, fingers at her temples. Chiurco’s boss, Wyatt Hunt, had disappeared behind some other standees, everybody up and talking talking talking.

It was now or never.

Chiurco got to his feet, his shoulders squared, face set. Completely within his rights, he got out of the witness chair and crossed the open courtroom. Opening the bullpen gate, he stepped into the center aisle of the gallery, now clogged up with the overflowing crowd. A reporter grabbed at his elbow and said something, but the world had turned into a blurry tunnel that ended in the doorway about thirty feet away in front of him, and he shook the reporter off, moving forward, moving.

Off to his side, in conversation with Jeff Elliot, his damn wheelchair in the aisle slowing everything down, Hunt and Gina Roake, at first barely noticing him except, now, for Hunt’s double take as he passed. And hearing, as though muffled through water, Wyatt’s cry-“Abe!” Then louder, “Abe!”