Devil in the Dock (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery) (18 page)

“Your Honor, that testimony was stricken from the record.”

I smiled. “I don’t believe it was. The judge ruled that your photograph was irrelevant, but that inflammatory bit of testimony is still in the record.”

“I move that it be stricken,” Biggs said.

“And I oppose that motion, Your Honor. The jury heard the testimony, and once heard it can’t be unheard. I need to be allowed to cross-examine.”

“The court can admonish the jury,” Biggs said.

“An admonishment is not going to make the jury unhear the inflammatory but irrelevant testimony that you have just elicited.”

“If it’s irrelevant, it’s irrelevant. If the testimony isn’t probative of any issue in the case, there’s nothing to correct.”

“Testimony can be prejudicial without being probative,” I said. “That’s the very sort of testimony that requires correction.” I looked up the judge. “Further cross-examination is within the discretion of the court, Your Honor. I will abide by your ruling.” It was hardly a concession. I had no choice but to abide by the court’s ruling, but I was doing what I could to appear meek and reasonable.

The judge tapped his bench with his pen. I actually thought that this was an argument I ought to lose, but there’s an old story about an elderly trial lawyer at his retirement dinner. In his speech, he said, “When I was young and inexperienced, I lost many cases I should have won. When I was older and more experienced, I won many cases I should have lost. So on the whole, I’d have to say that justice was done.”

“I’m going to allow a few questions along this line,” the judge said. “Objection overruled.” If it were me, I would have cut me off and stricken the offending testimony from the record, but Judge Cooley’s ruling was an example of why lawyers tend to make every argument they can think of that is remotely plausible: judges don’t always rule the way you think they should.

“Your Honor,” Biggs objected.

“The questions may open the door for you to explore this encounter yourself on redirect,” Judge Cooley told him.

Biggs hesitated, then nodded.

“Could Mr. Yielding read back my last question?” I asked.

The judge nodded, and Mr. Yielding read, “Ms. Starling: I guess the last time I saw you was when I found you and your friends all over the hood of my car. You and Warren and who was your other buddy.”

To the witness I said, “Answer the question, please.”

“Nate. Nathan. Nathan Diaz. But we weren’t all over the hood of your car.”

“No? Perhaps I have something that will refresh your memory.” I went to my table and extracted three copies of the photograph that showed Warren and Nathan sitting on my car and Larkin leaning against it. The soles of Nathan’s feet were holding him in place high up on the hood, and doubtless it was he who had scratched my red paint.

I delivered copies of the photograph to Biggs and the judge and took the last one to the witness. “Care to tell us what you’re looking at, Larkin?”

His lip curled.

“It’s a photograph of Warren and Nathan Diaz sitting on the hood of my car, isn’t it? And you leaning against it.”

“Objection. Relevance,” Biggs said, standing.

“It goes to the credibility of the witness,” I said. “If he’s lying about this, he may be lying about everything he’s told us.”

“Where did you get this?” Larkin asked. “Did old lady Stimmler give it to you?”

We all turned to look at him. “How did you get the photograph of me with the ax handle, Larkin?” I asked. “Did you force your way into Melissa Stimmler’s house and take her phone from her by force and text the photo to yourself?”

He drew his chin in. “She give it to me.”

“Does this photograph, the one you’re holding now, show your friends sitting on the hood of my car and you leaning against it? Does it?”

He shrugged.

“Oral, Mr. Entwistle.”

His lip curled. “Oral,” he said.

Someone in the jury box laughed. I didn’t look away from the witness, but I’d have put money on it being Andrew Hartman. The judge cut it off with a bang of his gavel.

“This is no place for levity, Ms. Sterling,” he told me, though I thought I might have detected a hint of amusement in his gaze. You never know about judges.

“Sorry, Your Honor,” I said.

“Young man.”

Larkin looked at the judge.

“Does that photograph show your friends sitting on the hood of Ms. Starlet’s car, or does it not?”

“I guess.”

“Yes or no, Mr. Larkin.”

“Yes.”

“Does it show you leaning against the car?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Your Honor,” Larkin said.

“Do you know what perjury is?”

“Yes.”

“Has the prosecution shared with you the penalties for it?”

Larkin shrugged.

“It’s a class-five felony,” Judge Cooley said. “Punishable by a prison sentence of one to ten years or, alternatively, up to twelve months in jail and a fine of not more than two thousand five hundred dollars.”

Biggs stood. “Your Honor . . .”

Judge Cooley turned an unfriendly gaze on him. “Yes, Mr. Biggers?”

Biggs winced. “Your Honor, with all due respect, a required element of perjury is that the false testimony be material to the issue being tried. The question of whether Mr. Entwistle was sitting on Ms. Starling’s car does not meet that standard.”

“Perhaps you can make that point in his trial, Mr. Biggerstaff. Right now I want it understood that I will not tolerate false statements made under oath in my courtroom.” He turned back to Larkin, looming over him from the bench. “Is that understood, young man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” the judge corrected. He was an old man, but he could still speak with thunder in his tone.

Larkin swallowed. “Yes, Your Honor.”

The judge said, “You claim to have seen Mr. Shorter leaving the decedent’s house on March 9. That statement
is
material to the issue being tried. Do you wish to retract that statement?”

Larkin’s tongue ran along his upper lip, and his gaze went out to the courtroom, where Jenn, his mother, was sitting. “No,” he said in a rough voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. “No.”

“Very well. Counselor.” The judge nodded sharply to me.

I said, “Based on this incident that began with you and your buddies sitting on my car, you filed a complaint against me with the Virginia State Bar. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Your Honor,” Biggs objected. “This is hardly the forum for addressing disciplinary charges against counsel for the defense.”

“Then you shouldn’t have introduced the matter. Proceed, Ms. Starbuck.”

That was really too much. He might as well call me Ms. Startlepuss and be done with it, but I let it go. To Larkin, I said, “Did you file your complaint after talking to Aubrey Biggs, the commonwealth’s attorney?”

“Yeah.”

“Did Mr. Biggs encourage you to file the complaint?”

Larkin looked at Biggs. “He mentioned it.”

“Did he help you draft it?”

“He helped me with some of the words.”

Judge Cooley cleared his throat. He’d given me some leeway, but it was time to move on.

“Back to March 9, the day you say you saw Bob Shorter leaving the house of Bill Hill. Are you going to stick with that testimony?”

His tongue brushed his upper lip again. “Yeah, I saw him,” he said finally.

“I believe you told Mr. Biggs he was covered in blood?”

“Not covered. He had it on his pants and shirt.”

“I think you said the sleeve of his shirt.”

“Yeah, on the sleeve.”

“Have you seen pictures of the bloody clothes that were found in the residence of Mr. Shorter?”

His eyes again cut to Biggs.

“Mr. Biggs showed you those pictures, didn’t he?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I didn’t see no pictures.”

“You didn’t see no pictures,” I repeated.

“Nah.”

“You didn’t see the pictures. You saw the clothes themselves—didn’t you? Mr. Biggs showed you the bloody clothes.”

He shrugged.

“Out loud, Larkin. He showed you the clothes—isn’t that right?”

“He gimme a peek at them.”

“And you saw the blood on the pants and the sleeve of the shirt.”

“I guess.”

I turned and looked at Aubrey Biggs, my elbow on the lectern. His face had reddened.

“Well, Larkin,” I said, my eyes still on Biggs. “It’s easy to see how you managed to describe the condition of the clothes so precisely.”

“That’s not a question,” Biggs said.

“No, it isn’t, is it?” I turned back to Larkin. “You say you’d just gotten back from school when you saw Mr. Shorter. Do you mean you were on the way home from school?”

“Yeah, home from the bus stop.”

“Your friend Nate walks home with you, doesn’t he? Warren’s house is in another direction, but Nate and you walk together.”

“Nate wasn’t with me.”

“He didn’t go to school that day? He does get off at your bus stop, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, he . . . I think maybe he went home with Warren. I don’t remember. He wasn’t with me.”

“And if I call him to the stand, and he swears to tell the truth under penalty of perjury, he’ll tell us the same thing,” I said.

“I don’t know. How am I supposed to know what he’ll say?”

“He might tell us the truth.”

Larkin didn’t say anything.

“You pass by Melissa Stimmler’s house on the way home, don’t you? Mr. Hill’s next-door neighbor? Do you think she saw you and Nate together that afternoon?”

Light gleamed from a line of sweat that broke free of his hairline to run down his forehead.

“Do we really need to continue with this, Larkin?”

He shook his head.

“Nathan was with you that day, wasn’t he?”

Larkin didn’t answer, just sat with his head cocked back, and we could hear him breathing.

“I have no further questions of this witness, your honor. But Larkin . . .” I turned back toward him, and he froze, already halfway out of his seat. “If I learn you’ve bothered Melissa Stimmler for giving me that photograph, harassed her in any way . . .”

“This is outrageous,” came a voice from the gallery, interrupting me. Jenn Entwistle was on her feet.

“Your Honor,” Biggs objected. “Counsel is threatening the witness right here in open court.”

Judge Cooley stood. I’d never seen a judge stand to address counsel before.

“Mr. Biggs.” He got the name right, even overarticulated it. He waited.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“If you don’t want to spend the night in jail for contempt of court, you will leave my courtroom now.”

“But—”

The judge raised a hand to silence him. “Bailiff!” There was not the hint of a quaver in the word.

Biggs hesitated, then turned abruptly, pushing through the rail and walking down the aisle through the gallery of spectators. He pushed at the big double doors, and when he passed through, they swung shut behind him.

Larkin, who’d been frozen in an awkward crouch half-in and half-out of the witness chair, got his feet under him and began moving toward the rail.

“Bailiff, stop that young man.”

Larkin stopped, and the bailiff moved to stand beside him.

“Mr. Max . . . whatever your name is. Mr. Prosecutor. Do you plan to file charges against this miscreant, or do I need to jail him for contempt?”

“I . . . I plan to prosecute,” Maxwell said.

The judge took a deep breath and let it out. “Very well.” He jerked his head at the bailiff. “Take him away.”

The bailiff exited with Larkin through a side door, and the judge fixed his gaze on the jury, moving his gaze from face to face. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Do you need me to tell you what the testimony we’ve just heard is worth?”

“No,” said a voice. It was Andrew Hartman’s. “No, you don’t.”

The judge nodded. He took his seat and picked up his gavel. “Court is in recess until tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.” He let his gavel fall, then got up again and left the courtroom through the door behind his bench. After that, it seemed that everyone was talking at once.

I blew out a lungful of air through puffed cheeks and picked my legal pad up off the lectern. Shorter stood as I approached the table and extended a hand. I glanced at the jury, then took it. If Bob Shorter could act a part, then so could I.

I walked over to Dr. McDermott’s house that evening to pick up Deeks as usual. Both dog and old man seemed glad to see me, though Dr. McDermott didn’t appear about to wriggle out of his skin. I squatted to rub Deeks’s ears, holding his head to avoid a tongue bath. I lost my grip, though, when he surged toward me and fell back on my keister, and Deeks got past my defenses with a cold nose and a warm wet tongue that left a trail of slobber from chin to eyebrows.

“Deeks!” I said in exasperation.

He surged forward again and knocked me onto my back. My dress seemed both tighter and shorter now that I had to wrestle a forty- to fifty-pound puppy just to roll to my hands and knees. Next time I’d change my clothes before walking over.

“How’d you do in court today?” Dr. McDermott asked me as I got to my feet.

“Better than I’m doing picking up my dog, fortunately.” I smoothed my skirt.

He smiled. “All I needed was a bag of popcorn.”

I gave him a look. Surely he was too old for that to be a lecherous remark.

He cleared his throat. “So, the trial’s going better?”

“It went well enough, but the day ended in another explosion. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t me who got blown up.”

It piqued his interest enough for him to urge me toward the kitchen, where Deeks was audibly slurping water. “I’ve got a bottle of Riesling in the fridge and a pitcher of tea.”

“Riesling.”

We sat at the table for me to recount the day in court, and Deeks settled on the floor by my chair with his head resting on my foot. When I got to Judge Cooley’s ejection of the commonwealth’s attorney from the courtroom, I said, “You should have seen him, standing in his black robes, his voice as hard and sharp as anything I’ve ever heard. Up to that point in the trial, he was an old man who couldn’t get anybody’s name right. Then he rose up, a veritable icon of justice. I got goose bumps.”