“Yes, that is correct,” he said.
“I have nothing further.”
My plan was to re-call Officer Conrad to grill him about the procedures he used to collect the evidence. I knew that he planted the heroin in my mother’s pill bottle, and I knew why he did it. How I was going to prove it, I didn’t really know, but I was just going to have to break him down. It was shown in my cross examination that he was sloppy in his procedures, as he didn’t have a reason to ask for a UA from my mother, so hopefully the jury would conclude that he was the kind to cut corners all the way around.
The state called several more witnesses before the judge called it a day.
“Be back here tomorrow at 9,” he said, banging his gavel.
The jury left, and I hung back in the courtroom. I was going to have to answer my mom’s questions, because I knew that she had quite a few.
“Mom, what are you thinking?” I asked her. She was sitting in her chair, shaking her head.
“I’m thinking that I’m gonna puke,” she said. “And that’s no lie.”
“Then please, mom, go to the bathroom if you’re serious about that. I don’t really want you to puke in the trash can.”
“Harper, why didn’t you question nobody today?” she asked Harper. “You’ve been as quiet as a church mouse over there. What gives?”
“Olivia, I’ll be taking the lead during our part of the trial,” she said. “On certain witnesses, anyhow.”
“Damien, I don’t understand,” she said to me. “That pig Conrad was lying. He had that junk in his pocket and put it into my BP bottle. How are you gonna show that to those jurors?”
“I’m going to re-call Officer Conrad during my case in chief and ask him about that,” I said. “After I establish what happened with our other witnesses.”
“I’m really gonna puke,” she said. And then she got up and ran out of the courtroom, presumably to go to the ladies’ room to throw up.
I turned to Harper. “How do you think things went?” I asked her.
“Fine,” she said. “I think you did a good job establishing that Officer Conrad had no probable cause to get a UA, let alone probable cause to seize those BP meds. It’s just hard to show that there was tampering. He obviously did it in secret, without anybody seeing what he did.”
Mom came back in several minutes later, looking paler than she did before. “I had the dry heaves,” she said. “My head is pounding like a snare drum. Boom, boom, boom.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
The three of us left the courtroom. I knew that the state had several more witnesses that they were going to call the next day, and then I was going to put my evidence on.
And I was looking forward to bringing my witnesses on.
Very much.
Chapter 30
The next day, the prosecutors brought the primary care physician for Dr. Dunham, whose name was Dr. Littman, along with Sherry Dunham, Dr. Dunham’s wife. The two witnesses were important for establishing that Dr. Dunham did not have a known heroin problem. My closing argument was going to include the logic that Dr. Dunham could have very well brought his own stash of heroin over to my mother’s house or have gotten high before he got there. They were brought on to establish that this probably wasn’t the case.
Their testimonies did not add anything to anybody’s understanding, except that they both said that they did not notice that Dr. Dunham had any signs that he was addicted to drugs, let alone heroin. I cross-examined them gamely, but it was like trying to prove a negative, I thought. Yeah, his wife never knew him to take heroin, and his doctor didn’t suspect anything. So what? It’s not like drug addicts weren’t the masters of hiding their addictions. Dr. Dunham was apparently a drug addict, just not a heroin addict, and his wife and his doctor apparently had no idea. No clue.
That’s okay, I thought. I was going to have my own witness who would confirm that Dr. Dunham was, indeed, a drug addict. That witness was Sharita Vance, who was going to testify that she gave Dr. Dunham drugs every week, up until April of last year, and that he didn’t dispense them to patients, and she knew it. She knew that he was probably consuming them, in other words.
Her testimony would make it much more likely that he brought the heroin to my mother’s home, although that wasn’t necessarily what I was trying to prove, either. I just wanted to refute the “Dr. Dunham was pure as the driven snow and he was corrupted by that evil Olivia Ward” narrative.
Several more witnesses, including that of Dr. Warren, who performed the autopsy, and several of whom were essentially duplicative of the Dr. Littman and Sherry Dunham testimonies, and it was, once again, time to call it a day.
I felt, by the third day of the trial, that things weren’t going in the wrong direction. They weren’t necessarily going in the right direction, either, but at least things weren’t looking completely bleak.
I was looking forward to putting on my evidence, though.
Because then things were really going to get good.
Chapter 31
Several days later, it was time to put my witnesses on. I was going to grill some of the witnesses, but I was going to have Harper grill Robert Dunham, because I had worked out that Robert Dunham was the perpetrator of this entire conspiracy.
I, however, was going to be the person to grill Sharita Vance. She was the person who delivered the fatal heroin pill to Dr. Dunham, and I knew that she had her own reasons for this.
That morning, I announced that Sharita was going to be my first witness. She was not happy about being called to account for what she did. Nevertheless, I knew that she was under a subpoena, so she had no choice but to come up and testify on the stand.
Sharita was called to the stand, and she had a look on her face like she wanted to cut a bitch. Her hair was tightly wound in tiny braids that framed her beautiful face, and she was dressed to the nines – high-dollar suit, shoes buffed to a sheen, with a diamond necklace and matching earrings. She was carrying a high-dollar bag that was designer – Hermès.
She didn’t look at me as she walked to the front of the courtroom and was sworn in. Then she sat down, in a petulant manner, crossed her legs, glared at me and dared me, with her eyes, to come forth and question her.
Bring it on, I thought she was thinking. Bring it on.
Okay, I will.
I approached her. “Please state your name for the record.”
“Sharita Vance,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She looked directly at the judge. “I have no idea why I’m here.”
“Just answer the questions, Ms. Vance,” Judge Watkins said. “Without commentary, please.”
She crossed her arms in front of her and smirked. Her eyes said that she was not going to make things easy for me.
Challenge accepted.
“Ms. Vance, did you know the deceased in this case, Dr. Tracy Dunham?”
“Yes, I did.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“And what was the nature of your relationship with Dr. Dunham?”
“I pitched him pharmaceuticals. I’m a pharmaceutical rep. That’s what I do. I go to doctor’s offices and pay them visits and introduce to them to the latest and greatest in our repertoire.”
“And you work for Osiris Pharmaceuticals, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And you gave Dr. Dunham pharmaceutical samples, is that your testimony?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s what I said. I give samples to doctors in hopes that they prescribe them to their patients. That’s what I do.”
“Yet, Dr. Dunham didn’t actually prescribe pharmaceuticals,” I said.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Listen, I just introduce the drugs to the doctors. If those doctors prescribe them to their patients, it’s none of my concern.”
“Permission to treat this witness as hostile,” I said.
“Permission granted,” Judge Watkins said. “Please proceed.”
“Isn’t it true that you didn’t actually sell Dr. Dunham on any drugs at all?” I asked her.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I told you, I pitched him on our drugs, the same as any other doctor.”
“You didn’t. Dr. Dunham didn’t prescribe drugs, so he had no use for your visits to him. Yet, you visited him every single week, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I visited him every week, and I sold him on drugs.” She narrowed her eyes and looked like she wanted to cut me. “Dr. Dunham was a medical doctor and he prescribed medicine to his patients. It was my job to inform him on all the different cutting-edge medicines our company was producing and give him samples of these meds so that he could prescribe them. And that’s that.”
“No, that isn’t that. I’m going to bring in a witness who can testify that Dr. Dunham did not prescribe medicine to his patients. No kind of medicine. He preferred to treat them naturally. Yet you visited him every single week.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Isn’t it true that the real reason why you were visiting Dr. Dunham was because you were delivering him Oxycontin?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean that you have Dr. Dunham had an agreement wherein he wrote prescriptions to you for Oxycontin, you got the prescription filled, and then you sold those drugs back to him for $500?” I asked her.
She glared at me. “Why would I do something like that?”
I walked over to the defense table and then whirled back to face her. “Ms. Vance, do you have a gambling issue?”
She looked over at the judge and then over to Kevin, looking for either man to save her.
Kevin, who was distracted at his table briefly, was on his feet with an objection.
“Objection, relevance,” he barked.
“She’s a piece of my puzzle,” I said to Judge Watkins.
“Meaning?” Judge Watkins asked me.
“Could I please approach?” I asked him.
Judge Watkins nodded his head and motioned us up to the bench.
In a low voice, I explained why I needed to go into Sharita’s background and, in particular, why I needed to inquire on her financial situation.
“My theory of the case is that Sharita Vance was working with Robert Dunham in this case, and the reason why she was working with him was because she was hard-up financially.”
Judge Watkins looked at me quizzically and then nodded his head. “I would like to call a short recess,” he said. “So that I can confer with counsel in my chambers. Ms. Vance, I apologize for this, but I need you to just sit tight. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I also need you to sit tight. We will be back on the bench within ten minutes.”
At that, me, Harper, Kevin and his second-chair, Tim Byrd, followed Judge Watkins into his chambers.
“Have a seat,” Judge Watkins said, motioning to the four chairs that were right in front of his enormous desk. “Now, counselor, could you please expound on your theory about Ms. Vance further? I need to hear what you plan on proving with her before I can make a decision on whether or not I’m going to allow you to inquire about her financial issues.”
I cleared my throat. “Your honor, here is what I plan on proving to the jury. Robert Dunham is the deceased’s estranged brother. He’s also the main shareholder for Osiris Pharmaceuticals, the drug company that employs Ms. Vance. Specifically, he owns 75% of that company’s stock.”
Kevin started to get impatient. “Where is this going?” he asked me.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m getting there. Anyhow, your honor, Mr. Robert Dunham and Dr. Dunham were estranged for several reasons. Specifically, Dr. Dunham had an affair with Robert Dunham’s wife, and she actually left Robert for that reason. Which caused Robert Dunham to go to the Dunham patriarch, Earl Dunham, who died last year, and influence him to cut Dr. Dunham out of his will. Earl Dunham was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease at the time that Robert Dunham convinced him to cut Dr. Dunham out of the will. Well, of course Dr. Dunham decided that he was going to sue about this. Suffice to say that the two brothers were not close and, in fact, they hated one another.”
“Your honor, so far, I’m not hearing one thing that would warrant Mr. Harrington asking Ms. Vance about her financial situation,” Kevin said to Judge Watkins.
Judge Watkins looked at me. “I suppose that this long and winding story will eventually get to where we are going, but I would ask you, counselor, to get to the point.”
“Well, here’s the thing. Dr. Dunham was on the verge of getting a patent on a technique that would revolutionize the treatment of pain management. His technique would have made pain-killers eventually obsolete. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but this technique definitely would have decimated the opioid industry. Osiris Inc. does $500 million in annual sales, and 80% of that is in opioids. Robert Dunham decided to kill two birds with one stone, and murder his own brother. That accomplished two things for him – one, his company, the company for which he owned 75% of the stock, would not have to deal with a revolutionary technique that was going to kill their opioid sales. And, two, he could get rid of the brother that he hated.”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “And Ms. Vance fits into this wild scenario how?”
“She delivered the lethal dose of heroin. She did it knowingly, and for money. A lot of money. Specifically, she received a payment of $50,000 right before Dr. Dunham died.”
Judge Watkins appeared to consider my scenario. “I’ll allow your line of questioning about her financial issues,” he said. “Within reason. If you get too far afield, though, I will shut you down. Sua sponte.” Sua sponte meant that the judge would go ahead and shut me down, even if there wasn’t an objection from Kevin.
I took a deep breath and looked over at Harper. She nodded her head. We knew how vital Sharita was going to be in this whole scenario. I figured that I could break her down easier than I would be able to break down Robert. I was counting on her rolling on Robert if the chips were down, and they would be if I did my job. If I got my mother off, which I knew that I would be able to, Sharita was going be vital in making sure that Robert got his.
We all went back into the courtroom, where Sharita was sitting at the witness stand, still looking like she wanted to cut a bitch. I walked over to her, and got right to work.
“Ms. Vance, isn’t it true that you have significant gambling debts?” I asked her.
She looked over at Kevin, as if to say you’re really going to allow this tool to throw me under the bus? She crossed her arms in front of her, glared at me, and said nothing. She apparently was waiting for another objection.
“Please answer the question,” Judge Watkins admonished her.
“Yes,” she finally said, hatred burning in her eyes.
“And your gambling debts totaled $50,000, isn’t that true?” I asked her.
“Yes.” She looked away. She didn’t have the option of declaring bankruptcy on her gambling debt, because she had too many assets. She also was facing the real prospect that she was going to be banned from that casino if she didn’t pay her debts. Not only that, but, because her particular gambling debts were from a casino in Las Vegas, she faced the prospect of being charged criminally. Nevada law considered stiffing a gambling mark to be a Class D felony.
I personally thought that the prospect of her not being able to gamble in that casino was personally more of a deterrent than the fact that she could have been prosecuted in criminal court for what she did.
“And your gambling debt was in the form of a marker that was owed to the Las Vegas Hilton, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And if you didn’t pay that marker, then you were going to be banned from gambling in that casino, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“And bankruptcy wasn’t an option, was it?”
“No. I own my downtown condo. I would have lost it in a bankruptcy.”
“And if you didn’t pay the marker
, you could have been charged with a Class D felony in Nevada?”
“Yes.”
I paced around. “So, you owed $50,000 to the Las Vegas Hilton, and you had no way of paying it. Is that your testimony?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what that has to do with the price of tea in China,” she said.
I ignored her interjecting. “Now, isn’t it true that you entered into an agreement with Robert Dunham to supply Dr. Dunham with drugs?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
I decided to try a different tact with her - circle back to her agreement with Dr. Dunham.
“I want to get back to why you visited Dr. Dunham in the first place. You knew that he didn’t prescribe drugs, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I hoped to change his mind.”
“So, you saw him every week for two years, and you never actually gave him samples of drugs, did you?”
“No.”
“You’re a tenacious one, aren’t you? You go to the man’s office every week for two years, and you don’t sell him on any kind of drug. Didn’t you think that you were wasting your time?”
“Hope springs eternal,” she said.
I went over to the pill bottle that I had found in Dr. Dunham’s office. “Ms. Vance, I would like you to identify that I’ve marked as Exhibit A. Could you please tell the jury what this is?”
She looked at it. “Looks like it’s one of my bottles of Oxycontin. So what?”
“This bottle was found in Dr. Dunham’s medical office after he died. What was it doing there?”
She examined it closely, as if she was seeing it for the first time. More likely, she was trying to come up with a story on why her pill bottle was found in Dr. Dunham’s office. “I don’t know, I guess he stole it from me when I was in his office last.”
“Oh? Did you report this theft to the DEA?”
“No.”
“As a pharmaceutical rep, you do know the rules for a theft of a Schedule II drug, don’t you?”
Until Proven Guilty Page 19
