William Bernhardt - Murder One

“In my opinion—”

“I didn’t ask you for a self-serving opinion, Doctor. You’re not my expert.” Out of the corner of her eye, Christina could see LaBelle start to rise, but he ultimately decided to let it go. Better to let the good doctor take care of himself. “I asked if it was possible he went into shock or unconsciousness with the first blow.”

“I suppose it’s conceivable—”

“Or to put it in Mr. LaBelle’s terms—would that be consistent with the evidence?”

“Well, I suppose it’s an outside possibility, but—”

“So your answer is yes. Why didn’t you inform the jury of this possibility?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve admitted that there were two possible results. At least. And yet you chose to tell the jury about one possibility, and to ignore the other. Why did you mislead the jury? Is that because dying in pain is so much more dramatic than instant unconsciousness?”

Barkley sat up straight. “Mr. LaBelle asked me what I thought happened. I told him.”

“And I never once heard you admit the possibility of other results. You just told the jury what you wanted them to know.”

“That’s absurd. I—”

“What I wonder is, how many other alternate possibilities did you fail to tell the jury about?”

“Objection,” LaBelle said. It seemed restraint was at an end.

“Sustained,” the judge said sharply. “Counsel, move on to something else.”

Which she was happy to do, since she was finished anyway. The jury heard what she wanted them to hear. Hot dog, Christina thought, barely suppressing a smile. This cross-ex stuff wasn’t as bad as she thought. In fact, she kinda got a charge out of it.

“On the subject of other possibilities you didn’t mention to the jury, Doctor, let’s talk about that knife. You claim that Exhibit Fourteen is the murder weapon, right?”

“That was my testimony, yes.”

“But didn’t you also say that the shape of the knife was a common configuration?”

“Yes …”

“Which, translated to English, means a lot of people probably have this very same knife.”

“Not covered with blood.”

“C’mon, Doctor, there are a lot of ways a knife could get covered with blood, aren’t there? I mean, it is a knife, after all.”

“I suppose. But this blood was of McNaughton’s type—”

“Which is O, correct?”

“I believe that’s—”

“Which is the most common blood type in the world, right?”

He tilted his head to one side. “That is correct.”

“So contrary to what you told the jury—you don’t know if this is the knife that killed Joe McNaughton. All you can say for sure is that it’s the kind of knife that killed Joe McNaughton.”

“I hardly think it likely—”

“That it could be another knife?” Christina didn’t give him a moment to come up for air. “Is that based on your medical examination? Or what the police told you about where the knife was found?”

“Well … I suppose …”

“Doctor, are you testifying based on your medical expertise, or are you just regurgitating what the police told you?”

“Objection,” LaBelle said. “This is inappropriate.”

To Christina’s amazement, the judge did not immediately agree. “I don’t know, counsel. I think she is making a point.”

“She’s impugning the character and professionalism of the state medical examiner!”

“Well, that’s more or less her job here, isn’t it? Overruled.”

Christina wanted to jump into the air and give the judge a high five, but she managed to restrain herself. “Once again, Doctor, you failed to apprise the jury of all the possibilities. The murder could’ve been committed with a different knife, right?” This was a point of keen importance, because if it was another knife, there was no link to Keri.

“But this knife had finger—”

“Excuse me, Doctor, are you testifying outside the scope of your examination again?” Christina was well aware there was bad news to come about the knife with the next witness, but he was Ben’s problem, not hers.

Barkley drew in his breath. “It is remotely possible that another knife was involved.”

“Thank you very much, Doctor.” Yes! Could she cook, or could she? “Speaking of the knife, Doctor, we’re not even certain that the knife—any knife—was the cause of death, are we?”

“The body had between twenty and thirty wounds—”

“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was the cause of death, does it?”

“No one could sustain—”

“Did the body also suffer a severe blow to the head?”

“Yes …”

Christina checked her notes. “A contusion sufficient to dislodge the skull, correct?”

“Yes …”

“That’s a rather serious blow. Couldn’t that be fatal?”

“Given the evidence of bleeding—”

“You’re not answering my question, Doctor. Could that have been fatal?”

“I suppose it’s possible. But I don’t think—”

“And if that was the cause of death, then the knife had nothing to do with it.”

“The knife wounds were there!”

“Yes, but if they didn’t kill the man—if the blow to the head already did it—then the person who wielded the knife may have mutilated the body, but was not necessarily the killer.” There you go, Ben, she thought. Something for the next witness. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

“Based on the blood flow, I believe—”

“For that matter, the victim also suffered at least one severely broken limb, correct?”

“That’s true.” Barkley was looking less boyish and exuberant by the minute.

“Couldn’t that cause internal bleeding? Couldn’t that be fatal, too?”

“It could. But the external bleeding would’ve killed him first.”

“You’re assuming that all the injuries happened at about the same time. But we don’t know that, do we?”

He squirmed a bit. “Well … it seems logical.”

“Doctor, are you up there to testify as a logician?”

“Obviously not.”

“Then please don’t. The truth is, any of these things I’ve mentioned could have been the cause of death, right?”

“It’s … possible. But what difference—”

“Doctor, do you have any way of knowing whether the person who stabbed Sergeant McNaughton was also the same person who broke his arm or bashed him on the head?”

“Well, I assume—”

“But you don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

“So there could’ve been a second person. Someone who didn’t touch the knife.” Someone other than Keri, in other words.

Barkley was starting to cave. Evidently, he’d had enough. “I suppose it’s possible.”

“Thank you. As long as there’s room for doubt, it’s important for the jury to know it.” The operative word, of course, being doubt. As in reasonable. “Doctor, you said the skin sample found under the victim’s nails matched a sample taken from Keri Dalcanton. Some people might think that means they were exactly alike. But that isn’t so, is it?”

“It means the similarities between the two were sufficient to establish to a medical certainty—”

“Doctor, I’ve seen the analysis,” Christina said, holding a long strip of scrolled paper above her head. “They are not exactly alike, are they?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“So once again, what you’re actually saying, is not that you’re certain the skin came from Keri, but that it might have come from Keri.”

“The odds against it being anyone else—”

“This isn’t Vegas, Doctor. I’m not interested in the odds. I’m interested in telling the jury the truth. And the truth is, the skin might’ve come from Keri—but it could’ve come from someone else. It isn’t like fingerprints. You can’t say where it came from with absolute certainty.”