Move to Strike (48 page)

‘Your witness, Mr Cavanaugh,' said Kessler at last. And David could almost read the relief on his detective friend's face. It was time to turn this court upside down and give them another theory to play. And so it began.

‘Lieutenant,' said David, advancing on his witness quickly and getting straight to the point. ‘Miss Carmichael asked you to describe J.T. Logan's physical presentation on the night of his mother's death, but was there any other physical evidence, besides the blood spatter and so forth, that may have altered your initial opinion that J.T. Logan was the only person involved in this shooting.'

This opening question alone was enough to cause an intake of breath around the room. David's line of enquiry was obviously not what they had expected. The press had been practically guaranteeing that he and his team would be going with self-defence – and so the sorts of queries he was now making were enough to stun the entire gallery into silence.

‘Yes,' said Joe, his simple answer triggering a second round of gasps, this time loud enough for Kessler to lift her gavel in warning. ‘But it wasn't an existing piece of evidence that worried me – more a detail that was missing.'

‘Tell us what you mean, Lieutenant?' asked David, sure the tiny screech he heard behind him was Amanda Carmichael pushing her seat back ever so slightly so that she was on the ready to object.

‘The Weatherby .460 Magnum used to kill the victim is one of the most powerful calibres in the world and as such, when fired, delivers an
almighty recoil – enough to dislocate shoulders, to burn through material and into the skin.'

‘But you said J.T.'s T-shirt
was
burned.'

‘Yes. But his shoulder was fine – no burning, no bruising. The doctor at Plymouth Juvenile Detention Unit confirmed as much.'

‘Objection,' said Carmichael. ‘Once again, Your Honour . . . ?'

‘Yes, I know, Miss Carmichael,' returned Kessler. ‘Hearsay.' And the judge shifted in her seat so that she might look directly at Joe.

‘Lieutenant, it is not your role to report on the findings of the medical profession, and I would ask you to restrict your evidence to investigations made by the police and . . .'

But David was already upon her, a white bound report held high in his now sweating right hand. ‘Your Honour, this is an examination report on J.T. Logan made by Doctor Mitchell McManus at Plymouth Juvenile Detention Unit just two days after Stephanie Tyler's death. It confirms the lieutenant's testimony that there was indeed no sign of trauma of any type to J.T. Logan's shoulder.'

Kessler furrowed her brow as she took the report from her clerk. ‘All right,' she said, after a pause. ‘You may table this report, Mr Cavanaugh, and I'll allow the question. You may continue, Lieutenant.'

Joe took a breath as Carmichael re-took her seat. ‘Well, like I said,' he continued. ‘The lack of shoulder injury was an inconsistency, and in my profession inconsistencies don't sit easy. It led me to suspect that the rifle was not fired while sitting on J.T. Logan's shoulder – and that perhaps . . .'

‘
Objection!
'

‘No, I want to hear what the lieutenant has to say, Miss Carmichael,' said Kessler, her arms now perching over her partition in an effort to lean that much closer to the witness. ‘You may continue, Lieutenant.'

‘The thing is,' Joe continued, obviously knowing that his choice of words was now crucial to David's setting up his unpredictable defence, ‘I began to believe that the execution of the crime was not as straightforward as we first might have thought. We knew it was highly unlikely that a boy of J.T.'s small stature could have avoided being wounded in some way by the recoil – unless, perhaps, someone stronger had helped him negotiate the weapon.'

And that had done it. The entire courtroom shrieked, at least two members of the jury began shaking their heads in disbelief, and the press began scribbling urgently in their notebooks as Arthur grabbed J.T. Logan's hand under the modesty panel while Sara did the same with Chelsea. In fact, the only person who did not react was a stony-faced Jeffrey Logan.

‘Order!' yelled Kessler, her entire body now bunched up in a force that brought her gavel down with determination.

David's next reaction was to turn to Amanda Carmichael, who was half standing, as if ready to protest, until Logan leant forward to whisper something in her ear. Her brow tightened, before she nodded, and resumed her seat.

‘Please clarify, Lieutenant,' said Kessler then. ‘Are you saying that it is your opinion that someone assisted J.T. Logan in the murder of his mother?'

‘I am saying that every piece of literature and information on that particular calibre suggests the recoil is a bastard,' said Joe, perhaps knowing there was no better way to express it. ‘These Big Berthas are like cannons, Judge. Even the most experienced of shooters wear padding to combat the power of their hundred-plus foot-pounds of force.'

Kessler nodded, before turning to David and gesturing for him to continue.

‘So just to clarify,' said David. ‘In your opinion, J.T. Logan had “help” when it came to the shooting of his mother?'

‘Help or instruction,' Joe replied, and in that moment David could have hugged his loyal detective friend. ‘It was either one or the other.'

It was late. He was rubbing her back, slowly, gently – the only light coming from the moon which slipped like a ghost through their open bedroom window, the only sound coming from the wind which licked at their curtains like a choreographer guiding them into a dance.

‘You can stop massaging if you want,' she said, turning to face him, their arms around each other with their unborn child cradled between them. ‘It's late and I know you are tired.'

It was true, the day had been long, and while Joe's powerful testimony had certainly laid the foundations for them to take the route they
intended, David knew that the afternoon session had been nothing short of catastrophic.

Amanda Carmichael had called Boston PD's Crime Lab Unit chief, Dan Martinelli, who spent the entire second half of the day explaining how the forensic evidence pointed solely and irrefutably towards J.T. Logan as the killer.

‘We knew Martinelli's testimony would be tough,' said Sara, lifting her hand to move a stray sandy-coloured hair from his brow. ‘And you made a bit of ground when you questioned him about the lack of fingerprints on the rifle.'

This was also true, David had thoroughly questioned Martinelli about the absence of any prints on the Mark V's stock or barrel – and Martinelli confirmed that the only print he lifted was the one left by J.T. on the trigger.

Martinelli went on to speculate that the boy could have wiped the gun clean following the shooting, but upon further probing David got him to agree that this was unlikely given the blood on the barrel was not significantly smudged and, that if the boy had the presence of mind to wipe the gun clean, then it would also be unlikely that he would have forgotten to wipe the trigger as well. (David also got Martinelli to concede that no cloth or towel, which might have been used to wipe the weapon clean, had been found at the crime scene.)

Finally, David had proceeded to ‘grow' on the theory launched by Joe Mannix in his testimony earlier that morning, eventually getting Martinelli to admit that – at least from a forensics point of view – another person could have assisted J.T. in the handling of the rifle.

They were tiny, baby steps, which paled in comparison with Amanda Carmichael's solid, show-stopping first day of evidence. But it was a start – at the very least, it was a start.

‘What do you think he said to her?' asked Sara, her pale eyes meeting his. David knew she was referring to Logan – and his subtle instruction to Carmichael amidst the commotion in the court. ‘I mean, by the looks of things he told her not to object to Joe's “two people in the room” theory, but what specifically do you think he . . . ?'

But David suspected Sara had guessed exactly what Logan had proposed to Carmichael – for he had guessed it too.

‘He was telling her to let it go,' he said. ‘Mostly likely he reasoned that if it comes down to it – if we manage to prove that J.T. had help with the shooting of his mother – that Carmichael could agree with us and say that it was . . .'

‘. . . Chelsea,' she finished.

He nodded.

‘So you think that if we fail to prove it was Logan, Carmichael will use our theory to bury Chelsea Logan by proxy.'

‘Yes.'

‘And Logan knows it too.'

‘Yes.'

‘In fact, he could well continue to foster it.'

‘Yes.'

‘And secretly he is probably celebrating the fact that we are doing his work for him – assuring his daughter's guilt which, in theory, is far more difficult to prove than his son's.'

‘Yes,' he said again, and Sara pulled him closer as they lay in silence for a while.

‘You are going to go looking for them, aren't you?' she said after a time. ‘The guns, I mean.'

David said nothing for a long time. Finally, he responded. ‘Yes.'

T
he following morning Sara lied. She told David she was feeling unwell, tired – and thought it best she not attend the second day of trial.

‘You'll do great with the FBI guy,' she had said, referring to Carmichael's next witness – the FBI analyst who would take the court through his findings regarding Chelsea Logan's home computer and the change of will message left on Harry Harrison's machine.

‘If I do, it will be thanks to you,' he had answered.

Sara hoped he was right. Yesterday she had come up with a rather ‘left of centre' and somewhat legally risky idea as to how they might counter what they knew would be the analyst's damning evidence regarding the upgrade of life insurance emails sourced to Chelsea's computer. It was a long shot, based largely on what their friend, FBI Agent Susan Leigh, had alluded to regarding the personality of her laboratory colleague. While Susan would never speak badly of one of her fellow agents, she had said enough for them to garner that the analyst in question, a technician who had never seen any action in his twenty-year career, never missed an opportunity to play himself up as a ‘super sleuth crime fighter'.

‘Put it this way,' Susan had explained, ‘the guy is not unhappy that his
last name happens to be Bond. He even has a private email address where he uses the numbers 007.'

And Sara had got the idea from there. Even so, she felt as guilty as hell as David hugged her at their door and told her that she should rest. But she also knew that she had no choice, for she did not know what else to do, and enough was finally enough.

The thought of David trying to track down Jeffrey Logan's store of what they estimated could be hundreds of deadly weapons scared the hell out of her. And she knew, deep down inside, that unless she did something to turn this case around, the man she loved – the father of her unborn child – could end up facing off against an expert marksman and psychopathic monster, and there would be nothing she could do to stop him.

And so, as she stood on Katherine de Castro's front stoop, the wind now blowing a gale and sending her long brown hair thrashing about her face, she said a silent prayer that she would be able to talk the woman inside into risking her safety to save their case – and perhaps even their lives, in one way or another.

‘Ms de Castro,' she said, sensing movement on the other side of the red door. ‘It's Sara Davis – the Logan children's counsellor,' she added, knowing that, given there was a peephole in the thick wooden door, de Castro knew exactly who it was. ‘I am sorry to call so early, but I wanted to catch you before you went to work and . . .'

‘I'm not going to work,' said de Castro, and Sara noted the hesitancy in her voice, the edge of anxiety, the trace of fear. ‘I am not well, Miss Davis. I have a stomach virus, and I would hate for you to catch anything, especially at this time when you are about to . . .'

‘You know you can call me Sara, Katherine,' interrupted Sara. ‘And you need to let me in.'

After seconds of holding her breath, Sara finally exhaled as she heard Katherine de Castro release the lock from the other side of the door. Katherine pulled on the door carefully, slowly, as if fearful the powers that be would rush into her Back Bay ‘safe house' and steal her away from the world. And when she finally revealed herself, her face thin, her hair unstyled, Sara realised that Logan had already started his ‘campaign' of possession. This once powerful, independent woman – who just months
ago Sara would have described as vibrant, sharp, fearless – had begun to slip into the shadow of the beast.

Just like Stephanie Tyler
, thought Sara, before extending her hand towards the obviously anxious woman. ‘It's all right, Katherine. You and me – we are going to put an end to all of this – once and for all.'

S
pecial Agent Curtis Bond was a trim forty-something with short black hair and piercing blue eyes; his charcoal suit, shiny black shoes and dark sunglasses – now perched in his top right-hand jacket pocket – screamed FBI. Bond stated his job as Special Agent in Charge of several of the Quantico-based FBI laboratory's examination units, including the elite Computer Analysis and Response Unit and the unit responsible for Forensic Audio, Video and Image Analysis.

But it wasn't so much Bond's experience that concerned David this morning, as his smug self-assuredness – an arrogance that told David this computer geek with a badge was more than just a little happy to be the centre of attention at this morning's standing room only proceedings – that and the fact that every time Bond opened his mouth he dissected each word syllable by syllable, as if determined to stretch his ‘fifteen minutes of fame' to a good two hours or more.