John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’

‘Nothing, doesn’t matter,’ she mimicked.

He set his teeth. ‘Maybe it does, then. I’ll tell you something, Sarah. You’re the first woman we got here in homicide, and if you weren’t one you’d be out of it. So don’t tell me Glitsky’s your pal now. You showed him up, and he’s covering his ass.’

‘I didn’t make it here on some kind of gender quota, Marcel, if that’s what you’re saying.’ He was silent and she raised her voice. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m saying a man pulling that shit on the stand would be directing traffic out in the Taraval.’

‘I was right.’

‘Yeah, well, join the crowd. Pratt thinks she’s right too. Always.’

Sarah had an arm resting on the open windowsill and stared out at the grimy Tenderloin streets. ‘Look, Marcel, what if we go out now with Glitsky’s blessing and find a killer here? What if the wrong guy’s in jail and we put him there? That bother you at all?’

‘I’ll tell you what bothers me, Sarah. What bothers me is you’re my backup, and suddenly I’m seeing you’re not there for me. That’s what bothers me.’

‘How am I not there? One word yesterday?’

They were at a red light and it afforded him the opportunity to turn and face her. ‘It’s a team game. Yeah, one word puts you on the other side.’

Her lip quivered, but she was damned if she was going to break. ‘I’m not on any other side. I’ve always said Graham Russo didn’t kill his dad. I’ve always told you that.’

‘That’s me, here, privately. That’s in the family. A witness stand’s a whole different thing.’

‘What about you looking at Tosca? What was that all about? You’re telling me that’s different?’

‘That was on my personal time, doing a favor for the AG. Yeah, it’s different.’

‘So we don’t care about getting the right suspect?’

‘Yep. We do.’

‘All right, so?’

‘So. We got him.’

‘My name is Blue. I work as a model.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Soma said. ‘Your full name, please.’

‘Blue is my full name.’

Sal Russo’s downstairs neighbor stared at the young prosecutor as though daring him to ask her again. She was dressed in a black leotard and a black sweater. She was leaning forward, resting her hands on the rail at the front of the witness box, tapping her metallic blue, inch-long fingernails.

In the morning’s session, at the hands of Art Drysdale, Marcel Lanier had run through the kind of grilling that Sarah had gone through yesterday. He’d recounted Graham’s lies again for the jury, definitely leaving the strong impression that at least one of the investigating officers – the man, the guy who identified with the jury as a working-stiff cop – did not find the handsome young defendant trustworthy at all. Hardy and Freeman had let his testimony go without cross-examination.

But Blue was going to be different. Blue’s testimony was about the struggle that had undoubtedly occurred, which Hardy had to keep her away from connecting to Graham.

‘Now, Ms…?’

Soma had talked to Blue a minimum of half a dozen times in preparation for her testimony today, but apparently he was having a hard time with the concept of formally addressing a one-named witness on the stand, and this worked to Hardy’s advantage. Blue was Soma’s baby and he was making her impatient and cross with him from the outset.

‘Just Blue,’ she snapped. ‘Blue is my legal name. I had it changed like five years ago.’

‘All right, Blue, I apologize.’ Soma gathered himself, tugged at an ear, cleared his throat. ‘Can you tell us your address, please?’ She did. ‘And where is this apartment in relation to the deceased’s apartment? Sal Russo’s apartment?’

Soma’s tongue was tripping him up. Hardy thought he must have done far better in moot court appearances during law school or he never would have gotten selected for his clerkship. This was not his finest hour and Hardy thought it couldn’t have come at a better time.

‘Right underneath it.’

‘One floor below?’

Another exasperated expression from Blue. What the hell else did right underneath mean if not one floor below? But she answered him. ‘Yeah, my ceiling was his floor.’

‘Good. Now on May ninth, the day Sal Russo died, were you in your apartment during the afternoon?’

‘Yeah. I had a session. Modeling.’

‘One session? All afternoon?’

Again, Soma – trying to make it crystal clear to the jury – was stomping on her toes. Blue stiffly pulled herself up straight. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And did you hear any unusual noises from Sal Russo’s apartment?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Can you tell the jury what they were?’

With obvious relief Blue turned in her seat and faced the panel. ‘I heard some stomping around, then Sal yelled out, “No, no, no,” like that’ – she did a good impersonation of it herself, waking up anybody who’d been dozing – ‘and then there was this bumping, which I guess I heard was like a chair getting knocked over-’

Hardy stood. ‘Objection, Your Honor. Speculation.’

Salter overruled the objection, and Soma nodded, then continued. ‘You heard a loud thump?’

‘Yes.’

‘And voices?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you hear other voices besides Sal’s?’

Again, Hardy stood. ‘Objection. Speculation.’ He knew this would be overruled, but he thought it would be important to focus the jury right away on his position that there was no way Blue could be sure that voices came from Sal’s apartment.

Salter knew what Hardy was doing: making unfounded objections to argue his case to the jury. He didn’t like it, and as expected, he overruled him.

Blue got the question again, and nodded. ‘Yeah, there was somebody else there.’

‘And this other voice, was it a male or female voice?’

‘Objection.’ Hardy might be alienating her and the judge, but so be it – he had to try again. ‘Your Honor, the witness could not possibly know for a fact that these voices came from Sal Russo’s apartment, much less that it was Mr Russo’s voice . Similarly, she couldn’t know for a fact if the voice belonged to a male or female.’

Salter’s tone was brusque. ‘Mr Hardy, that’s why we have cross-examinations – you know, the part where you ask questions. I’m sorry, Mr Soma, proceed.’

Soma asked about the upstairs speaker’s gender again.

‘It was a man.’

Hardy was up again. ‘Objection. The witness couldn’t possibly be sure it was a man, Your Honor.’

Blue’s insistence upon her career as a model got shaky. She shot back at Hardy, across the courtroom. ‘I know men’s voices, sugar.’

This brought a little titter to the gallery, quickly squelched by a look from Salter, who then took off his glasses and tapped them on his podium. ‘Blue,’ he said, ‘please don’t talk to the attorneys out there on your own. Let’s have counsel approach the bench.’ He waved them forward.

Hardy got up with Freeman. Drysdale walked forward with them and met Soma at the podium.

Salter leaned down. ‘Mr Hardy, I’ve already ruled on your repeated objections. Let’s move along.’

‘I guess I’m asking you to reconsider, Your Honor. Blue may well have heard voices and they may just as well have come from Sal’s apartment, but she can’t state that as fact.’

Freeman, true to form, stuck in his two cents. ‘As a matter of law, judge, he’s right. Ask Art, he’ll tell you.’

The judge glared down at him. ‘I don’t need him to tell me, David, or you either.’

In a murder case the specter of a verdict being overturned on appeal due to judicial error hangs like a scimitar over the neck of every trial judge. Salter put the ear ends of his eyeglasses into his mouth and considered carefully.