Against the Law

by Jay Brandon

  Edward felt uncomfortable, barely balanced with most of his weight on his right foot, his torso twisted. He was facing away from the jury box now, toward his sister at their counsel table. Edward almost had his back completely turned away from the M.E. but not quite.

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘Yes. Approximately. Within a couple of inches, I’d say.’

  Edward looked back over his left shoulder at her and saw that Dr Skinner, consciously or otherwise, had fashioned her right hand into a gun in the classic childhood manner, her index finger pointing toward him.

  ‘And from your examination of the body, would the shooter have been firing the gun from about the position where your hand is now?’

  The doctor looked down, as if suddenly aware that she’d armed herself.

  ‘Um. No. The bullet entered the body at a less sharp angle than this would produce. She raised her hand about six inches, holding it awkwardly higher than a person naturally would. The natural inclination would be just to lift the forearm at the elbow, keeping the upper arm hanging straight down. The way Dr Skinner stood looked very awkward.

  ‘Is that about right, doctor?’

  She looked down at the angle of her finger and across to Edward. ‘Yes. About like this.’

  ‘This feels very uncomfortable,’ Edward said, his voice showing the strain of his unusual posture.

  ‘Object to counsel testifying,’ the young prosecutor said quickly, but Edward ignored her, not even hearing Cynthia’s ruling. He assumed she’d sustained the objection, but that was insignificant. He’d said what he had to say, and the jury could see it. Edward broke the pose and walked back toward his witness.

  ‘Just a minute, please, doctor. Hold that pose for a moment, would you. How does that feel? Natural?’

  ‘No. It feels awkward. I couldn’t hold this pose for very long. It’s straining my arm.’

  ‘All right. Drop it then, Dr Skinner. Thank you.’ He waved her back toward the witness stand. As Edward walked back toward his table he said, ‘How tall are you, Dr Skinner?’

  ‘Five four,’ she said as she settled in her seat.

  Edward nodded as he sat too. ‘And I’m five eleven, about the same—’

  ‘Objection,’ the prosecutor said, more quickly this time.

  ‘Sustained,’ the judge said forcefully.

  ‘About the same height as the deceased,’ Edward finished.

  Before he could ask another question, the judge said sharply, ‘Counsel approach the bench.’ Edward and both prosecutors went up to her, Edward strolling, the other two walking more quickly, their heads already bowed slightly in deference. When they all got close, Cynthia leaned across the bench and said, ‘Mr Hall, you will not ignore the court’s rulings and talk past them. If you do so again I will hold you in contempt and punish you with jail time. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do, Your Honor.’ He answered coolly, staring back at her. Then he remembered she still had a very significant ruling hanging over Amy’s head and he recovered himself. ‘I apologize to the court,’ he added, trying to sound both humble and remorseful. ‘I got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again, Your Honor.’

  She nodded, perhaps mollified. Cynthia’s glare was a powerful thing. He could see it retreat even while she continued to look at him. Then she nodded, dismissing them all.

  Edward resumed his seat, wondering what he was doing. He’d known a handful of lawyers who openly battled with judges when in trial. Edward had always thought such lawyers were idiots. Why antagonize the one person with the most power over what evidence the jury got to hear or not? But now he could understand. If Cynthia wasn’t going to do anything but damage his case anyway, why defer to her? Let the jury see how bad a judge he thought she was.

  But there was still her ruling on the late Paul’s DVD accusation to come. That was too crucial to get into these petty confrontations with the judge. He drew a deep breath and tried to settle down.

  In the meantime, the prosecutor was asking the witness, ‘Doctor, you said the way you were holding the gun felt awkward. But it only takes a moment to fire a gun, doesn’t it?’

  ‘So I understand. I’ve never fired one.’

  ‘And a person can fire a gun while raising it, correct?’

  ‘Objection, Your Honor. Calls for speculation. She just said she’s never fired a gun.’

  Edward had kept his voice quiet and respectful. Cynthia looked at him, nodded and said, ‘Sustained.’

  ‘And Mr Hall said the way he was standing felt uncomfortable. But it’s not your testimony that the deceased was standing that way, posed like a statue when he was shot, is it, doctor?’

  ‘Objection, Your Honor. This witness certainly wasn’t at the scene. She can’t possibly answer that question.’

  ‘Sustained,’ Cynthia said, this time still staring off over the lawyers’ heads. Apparently Edward had accomplished what he’d wanted with his fake apology.

  Both sides passed the witness and she was excused. As the doctor walked out she looked at Edward and gave him a little nod as she passed him.

  Amy leaned over to whisper, ‘Was the prosecution witness just flirting with you?’

  ‘You know how those pretty women doctors are,’ he whispered back. ‘They can’t help themselves.’ It was a relief to hear Amy regain her normal tone of voice. She couldn’t stay as clenched as she’d been right after lunch. Her personality was reasserting itself.

  When the judge told David Galindo to call his next witness he asked instead to approach the bench.

  There he said, ‘Judge, it’s after four thirty and we need to have a brief hearing outside the jury’s presence. We only have a handful of more witnesses to present. Could we excuse the jury now and do that hearing?’

  Cynthia turned toward the jurors and smiled.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll make this first day a short one for you. Please remember the court’s instructions. Don’t watch or listen to any media coverage, and don’t allow anyone to talk to you about this case. Have a good evening.’

  Amy stood and watched them, but the jurors left with their heads down, none of them looking at her.

  Then the lawyers turned back to the judge.

  ‘Your Honor,’ David began, ‘as I said, the State only has a few more witnesses. This is a very straightforward case. We wanted to alert the defense to that first of all, that we will probably be resting our case tomorrow. Maybe by lunch time. But in that regard, Your Honor, we need the court’s ruling on the admissibility of our crucial piece of evidence; the recording Dr Shilling made accusing the defendant of his murder.’

  ‘Before it happened or before anyone knew it might,’ Edward pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I’ve already heard the arguments from both sides, Mr Hall.’

  ‘Your Honor, they don’t even have a witness to authenticate that DVD, anyone to say it hasn’t been tampered with. I can bring the court a photograph with Paul Photoshopped into it to make it look like he’s sitting in the audience during this murder trial. That wouldn’t be evidence and neither is this. There are any number of ways—’

  David interrupted, ‘We can put on any of several witnesses to identify Dr Shilling on the DVD. We can—’

  ‘I said,’ Cynthia snapped, then recovered herself, ‘the court has already heard both sides’ arguments and reviewed your case law. I understand your need for a ruling at this point and I think both sides deserve one. Very well.’

  Edward felt a calm settle over him. Winning this issue would feel like a triumph, no matter how the rest of the trial went. At least he’d be assured that no other lawyer could have done a better job for Amy than he had. And in that moment he felt sure he had read Cynthia correctly. She’d been ruling against him on almost everything else so far, so she wouldn’t look biased in his favor when she awarded him this one. It would appear to be a just and impartial ruling.

  ‘None of the cases presented to the court address this issue precisely.’ She held up her han
d as both lawyers started trying to speak again. ‘But certain principles do emerge. Here is the court’s ruling: State, if you can produce an expert to say the recording hasn’t been altered in any way and another to identify the deceased on that recording, it will be admitted.’

  ‘What?!’ Edward almost screamed. ‘But that doesn’t address the content at all, Judge. It’s hearsay. There’s no way on earth it’s admissible. No appellate court—’

  But he was talking to himself. Cynthia had pulled a judge’s favorite trick, rising and turning in one motion as soon as she’d made her ruling, disappearing out her back door in a swirl of robe.

  Edward turned and stared at his sister, feeling his own face draining of blood just like Amy’s was.

  FIFTEEN

  When Edward arrived at Linda’s house it was dark and he felt like a creature of the night, a vampire or a ghost haunting this world. He couldn’t feel blood pumping through his body. He barely managed to trudge to the door.

  They were screwed. His sister was headed for death row. That recording of Paul looking into the camera and saying if anyone killed him it would be Amy, no matter how much Edward could discredit it, no matter how much doubt he could cast on it, was devastating. Who wouldn’t believe a man saying he knew who was going to kill him? Tomorrow the jurors were going to look into Paul’s eyes, hear him telling them the answers to any questions they might have and they were going to believe. There was no possibility they wouldn’t.

  He knocked. Seconds went by. Half a minute. His hand was raised to knock again when the door opened. Linda looked out, appearing startled.

  ‘Jesus. Edward. I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Really? You didn’t think I’d come home?’

  Linda looked at him, a long steady stare.

  ‘Come on in,’ she said finally.

  When she opened the door fully, he saw she had damp hair and was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

  ‘I’m surprised to see you,’ she repeated. ‘I thought you’d be with Mike and Amy, or with all your family.’

  ‘I was. We had a lot to talk about.’

  Linda made no response, not by word or posture or gesture. He reached for her, hugged her, laid his head on her shoulder. God, he was glad to see her. Linda meant so much to him, to be able to see her, to come home to her like this, to always have her waiting.

  ‘It’s so great to see you.’

  She cocked one eyebrow. ‘Thank you.’ She sounded a little surprised.

  ‘Yeah, of course. I thought you’d come to lunch with us today. I wanted to ask you what you thought about that one witness. Valerie Linnett. The next-door neighbor. She—’

  ‘Edward. I don’t have any advice.’

  ‘Oh. OK, well, I didn’t think you’d have any specific advice, but if we talked about it like we do—’

  ‘Edward.’

  He didn’t like the way she kept stopping him with his own name, seemed a bad sign. Linda looked down, shook her head as if sighing, then raised her eyes and crossed her arms.

  Oh, shit, he thought. Crossed arms.

  ‘Edward, if you had asked me to take the day off to watch your first day of trial I would have. I would have taken a leave of absence from my job for the last month, for two months, so I could have helped you prepare and be there every day making notes. But I just dropped by for a few minutes on the short lunch break I had. I don’t have any insight to give you. I watched that woman, but just like anybody else in the audience. I don’t know what to tell you. Seemed to me to be telling the truth but who knows? If I had more to go on maybe I’d have a suggestion, but what I’ve heard about her has just been hit or miss.’

  ‘Linda,’ he began, and then she did something very hard. She just stood there silently, looking right at him, listening to how he’d finish that aborted sentence.

  And he had nothing. Nothing to say. He knew what she was about to say and he had no answer for it.

  After a few seconds, she took pity on him and started talking again. Her voice was odd, quiet but strong, forceful without being shrill. It seemed like Linda, her strong, solid, practical essence simmered down into that soft, authoritative voice.

  ‘If you had ever, at any point in this case, asked for my help I would have dropped everything else to do whatever little pitiful thing I could have done for you and Amy. I hoped you knew that, but I’ve never been able to tell. You just come and go, and when there’s a really important war council it’s you going over to meet with Mike, or Mike and Amy, or Amy and all your family.’

  ‘I brought you into my family, I thought.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, please.’ She dropped her folded arms and stared at him as if he’d said something completely off the point. ‘You’re not serious, are you? You brought me into your family? I wormed my way in; I practically had to blackmail you. You didn’t ever want me to meet them.’

  ‘I’ve told you why—’

  She held up a hand and he stopped talking. Linda was in complete charge.

  ‘You didn’t bring me into your family. You didn’t let me into your life. That was all me, Edward. I’m sorry. I’m afraid maybe I … took advantage of you.’ She shook her head. ‘But whatever. I’m not your assistant; I’m not even your girlfriend. I’m just some girl you used to know slightly who threw herself at you at a low point in your life.’

  He had no answer to that, because it was the simple truth. There had been times he’d had dark thoughts exactly like what she’d just said. He could say he was glad to have her in his life now, but he hadn’t demonstrated that lately. Linda, hearing his silence, gave him a wry smile.

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry, Edward. I wanted to save this until after the trial, but I’ve been rehearsing that speech and you set it off.’

  He reached for her. Linda let him touch her arms, but she didn’t lean forward for a hug. Edward dropped his hands back to his sides.

  ‘I’ve tried to be supportive,’ she continued, looking down. ‘I know what you’re going through. You and Amy. But you don’t need my support. You don’t need me. Just go do what you have to do.’

  He reached for her again and this time Linda turned away, back toward the open door of the house. Edward followed and stepped outside. ‘Please go away now. I’m not going to change my mind.’

  ‘Linda—’

  She turned back and looked at him. An ironic smile didn’t hide the tears in her eyes. She stood there waiting, letting him say whatever he wanted.

  And again he had nothing. Linda had latched onto him so quickly, as soon as he’d walked out the prison doors, there hadn’t been time for him to examine how he felt about her. Just being with her had felt so comfortable. Comforting. When that door closed with Linda on the other side, it was going to feel like he’d just been kicked out of his home.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry I didn’t make you feel wanted. Sorry I got so distracted with this case I forgot to tell you how grateful I am for everything you’ve done.’

  She started crying, with one sharp sob that sounded jerked out of her, then with a steady flow of tears and her shoulders gently shaking. Edward reached to comfort her and she shrugged off his hand. ‘“Grateful,”’ she said.

  ‘I mean—’

  ‘You mean what you said. Thank you for your expression of gratitude,’ she added, trying to sound ironic, but Linda had too much sincerity for that. He heard exactly what she meant and how deeply he had hurt her.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said in a low voice, then raised her head. ‘I mean that. Good luck to you and Amy in this trial. You’ll win it. You know that. You’re the best.’

  She turned quickly and closed the door. Edward stood staring at it for long seconds, hoping for a change of heart on the other side, but it didn’t come. Linda had spoken with the slow, resigned voice of a woman who had spent a long time thinking about what she was saying. He wouldn’t be able to change her mind.

  Edward turned away, took a few steps along the porch, then turned and looked ba
ck at the closed door.

  Yes, it felt exactly as if he’d just been kicked out of his home.

  He sat there for a few minutes on the porch, hoping she’d regret her decision and come out. He looked at his car in the driveway, the lights in the houses across the way. If he lived here, there might be a fight going on inside, or at least entreaty. But, instead, he was here on the porch because he’d arrived from somewhere else. If he’d run over there’d be no sign he was even here, except for him sitting on the porch.

  The problem was that she wasn’t wrong about anything. Linda was very perceptive. Smart emotionally rather than intellectually. She read people very well. Edward just hadn’t realized she’d been reading him all this time. He’d been so distracted by other events – finding a job, readjusting to being outside the walls, then Amy’s arrest – that he’d taken Linda and his relationship with her for granted. She was his girlfriend because she was the only woman he was dating. Edward had taken that part of his life at what he thought was face value. Now he realized Linda hadn’t been distracted, not like he thought. She’d been paying attention to him; he’d been taking her for granted. That must have hurt her like hell, for her to break up with him now, during the biggest crisis of his life. He wanted to go back and replay every scene with her. But it was too late for that because, unfortunately, she understood everything, with her emotional brilliance.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No, Amy, I am not OK. I’m extremely pissed off at this judge for letting in this piece of evidence, I’m pissed off at the prosecutor for even offering it and I’m trying to think damage control and coming up with nothing. So no, not OK.’

  They were sitting at their table in court – that had started to feel like home – waiting for the jurors to come in. Edward hadn’t told Amy about Linda. He didn’t want his sister to think he was distracted.

  He sat up straight, looked down at his notes and tried actually not to be distracted. OK. The devastating DVD was going to come into evidence. What do you do about that? Think about how to counter it. Even use it to advantage, if there was any possible way. No possible way to do that in this case. What was the other thing, then? He tried to remember his training.