by John Foxjohn
She pulled his hand to her cheek. “It sure doesn’t seem all that easy. Things keep getting in the way. Am I the right woman?”
He chuckled. “Everything in me keeps telling me you are.”
“I hate to tell you what part keeps talking to you, but I don’t think it sits on your shoulders.”
Before he could reply, the doctor entered and sent her to X-ray. When she returned, the police and all their questions waited, then the doctor again.
When they agreed she had bruises, put her arm in a sling, and released her, the clock showed 3:30, and she had to be in court at nine.
* * * *
Before heading to the courthouse, Marvin dropped by Kayla’s office with several newspapers under his arm. He settled in the seat across from Kayla, laid the papers on the desk, and averted his gaze from her bruise and sling. “I didn’t think you would look at these,” he said.
Kayla forced a smile. As usual, he had sized the situation up. She’d stopped reading the papers, or watching the news. She didn’t care how the experts thought she did, or how the trial went. It didn’t do her any good. Besides, when did she have time to look at them?
The bold headlines on the front page did catch her attention: “Miss Congeniality turns into Jack the Ripper.” They must have had this one set up to go and not enough time to change it after the latest incident. Kayla pushed the papers back across the desk, not reading the story. “You’re right. I haven’t read or listened to anything and I’m not going to start now.” She tapped on the desk a moment before speaking. When she did, she told Marvin what Darren had found and her plans.
He pushed his glasses up. “You’re the lead on this. You have to make these decisions, not me. You’re the one who’ll have to answer for it.”
Kayla pushed up from her chair and paced for a few moments before speaking. “Marvin, I value your opinion. What would you do in my place?”
“That’s difficult to answer. I’m not in your place. I’ll tell you this, if you go through with it, Proctor will hit the ceiling. He’ll have company there because Ballard will also go ballistic.”
He hesitated for a long moment, and Kayla waited him out. He had more to say.
He took his glasses off and wiped them before putting them back on. “What you’re proposing, if it isn’t unethical, it has one foot over the line. We’re lucky to have Ballard because he hates Proctor’s guts. At this point, we have the advantage with him. If you go through with this, we may lose that advantage.”
When Marvin left, she laid her forehead on her desk, eyes closed. Her father’s words echoed in her head. Too many attorneys get so caught up in winning or losing and forget the ethics they swore to uphold.
Since her parents died, she’d done little with her life. She’d graduated from high school and law school, defended some clients in court and won all but one case. However, she made no real difference in the world around her, or the people around her. For the most part, she’d failed. She hadn’t followed her dream to have her own office, and she failed as a woman and a wife.
Her failures had caused her to lose her best friend and the death of the man she’d married.
The only thing she’d ever succeeded in doing—she hadn’t let any situation deter her from what she considered her ethical and moral obligations.
If she went through with her plan, it would slap all her father had taught her in the face. Not only would it damage her career and reputation, it would demean her father’s life.
She could handle what it would do to her, but never what it would do to the man who raised her.
* * * *
Anticipation buzzed in the courtroom before Judge Ballard and the jury entered. Kayla’s cross of Detective Satterwhite the day before, and the finish of that cross-examination today, left the media swarming the courtroom like hungry locusts.
After Ballard and the jury entered, tomb-like silence engulfed the room when the bailiff escorted Satterwhite to the stand.
Detective Satterwhite, with a confident air, competence, and professionalism, had answered Proctor’s questions the day before. After Kayla ripped him apart on the stand, he became timid and fidgety. Today, he didn’t enter with his confident swagger—more like a trip to the gallows.
“Are you ready to continue your cross examination of the witness, Ms. Nugent?”
When Kayla responded, the judged turned to Detective Satterwhite and reminded him he remained under oath.
Kayla looked up from her folder, paused a moment, and said, “Detective Satterwhite, when court ended yesterday, you told us that the search team on Loren Estes’ house went into her car and it was unlocked. You also said the car console where you found the gun was unlocked. Is that correct?”
Satterwhite, who had swayed back in his seat, leaned toward the microphone, “Yes, ma’am it is. Both the car and console were unlocked at the time.”
Kayla flipped a page over in her legal pad. “How does Loren Estes park her car in the garage?”
Before answering, Satterwhite removed his notes from his pocket, flipped through them, then responded. “She has an automatic garage door that opens and closes with a remote in the car.”
“Is there any means of entering the garage without using the automatic garage door opener?”
He hesitated again, glancing at his notes, and flipped several pages, reading. Kayla noticed Proctor’s assistant scribbling notes as the trial proceeded. Proctor made his own notes, also. Evidently, he’d figured where Kayla headed with these questions. But he had no way to derail her. She didn’t know if Loren Estes had murdered Michelle McCrery or not, but the police department had botched this investigation. For whatever reason, political or otherwise, Proctor had taken a case to court with many holes in it.
“The garage had another doorway that allowed entrance besides the garage door. The garage had a side door that opened and closed with a normal doorknob lock.”
Kayla leaned over Loren and whispered to Marvin. She didn’t have anything to say, and while she talked, he nodded several times. She did this for the jury’s benefit to make them believe there was more to her questions than they heard.
Kayla straightened and refocused on the witness. “Detective Satterwhite, did you or any of the search team enter or exit that other door in the garage during the course of your search?”
He must have figured out where she headed with the questions also because he hesitated, looking at his notes, but everyone could see he stalled. “Yes, ma’am. I exited through the door myself and reentered it after the search on the outside of the property.”
“Had anyone on the search team gone out that door before you?”
“Ma’am, to the best of my knowledge, no one on the Houston police department used that door before me. It was unlocked when I went out.”
He had anticipated her next question and cut her off, but she didn’t mind. She intended these questions to set up answers for several witnesses down the line.
She asked several more set-up questions that had no effect on the investigation or on placing doubt in the jury’s minds. She intended them to foreshadow questions to other witnesses that Proctor planned to put on. At ten-fifteen Ballard recessed the court for fifteen minutes.
Kayla and Marvin met in the conference room to go over their strategy and legal points. Loren followed, but when Darren knocked and entered, she flounced out without a word. When Marvin left them alone for a few minutes, she told Darren they needed to rethink her plan with the person he’d found. They talked about it for a couple of minutes and Marvin stuck his head in to inform her that court was about to reconvene.
* * * *
“Detective Satterwhite, when you or the search team found the gun in the car’s console, what did you do with it?”
“Ma’am, we followed routine procedures on handling evidence. We picked the gun up so we wouldn’t leave any fingerprints on it or damage any that were on it. We placed it in an evidence bag, tagged it with the time, place, and loca
tion we found it, and transported it with all the evidence we collected to the lab at the Houston police department.”
Kayla glanced at her notes. He’d answered that one well. She would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall during the break. She had no doubt Proctor had a conversation with Satterwhite about his testimony and the way he delivered it on the stand.
“Detective Satterwhite, are you aware of the fingerprint analysis that came back on the gun?”
He nodded. “The report stated that the fingerprint lab recovered four prints from the gun. Three of those prints came back a positive match for the defendant, Loren Estes. The fourth print was unidentifiable.”
“What do you mean by unidentifiable?”
Proctor rose. “Your honor, I object to this line of questioning on the fingerprints of the gun in question. The witness is a homicide detective, but he isn’t an expert in fingerprint identification.”
Ballard turned from Proctor to Kayla. She rose, too. “Your honor, the defense asked him about the contents of the report, not how the lab identified the prints. Detectives don’t need to be experts in fingerprint analysis to read a report. They receive these reports and act on them accordingly. Besides, the witness opened up this line of questioning when he mentioned the fingerprints.”
“Okay, Ms. Nugent, I’ll give you a little latitude on the topic.”
Kayla sat and again whispered to Marvin, who acted as if he took notes on what she said, before she turned back to the witness. She repeated the question.
“Prints are run through a computerized system called AFIS. If the prints we run are in the AFIS computer system, the report comes back with a positive identification of the prints we ran. In this case, the suspect’s prints were not in the system until we put them there, but three of them were a positive match to her.”
He’d answered more than she’d asked, but Kayla decided against calling him on it. She had plans for that answer anyway.
“One of those prints found on the gun came back in the report as unidentifiable, is that correct?”
Proctor started to rise, but must have thought better of it, and let it go. Kayla had defused the objection with the mention of the report.
He leaned forward. “Yes, ma’am, one of the prints on the gun did not belong to the suspect and AFIS could not identify that print from its database.”
When Proctor’s face burned bright red, Marvin leaned over and told Kayla the prosecutor would need to have another talk with his witness. Kayla nodded and busied herself with taking false notes. This time, the witness had answered too much, but unlike the last time, this one helped the defense.
“Detective Satterwhite, you obviously own at least one gun. Do you own more than the one that you carry on duty?”
His brows crinkled in a frown. “Ma’am, I own five weapons. Two hunting rifles and three revolvers.”
“Then here is a hypothetical situation. While you’re here in this court testifying, say that a police search team enters your home with a valid search warrant, finds your guns, takes them to the lab for fingerprint analysis—what’s the likelihood that they will find your prints on your guns?”
He leaned back, crossed his arms, and expelled an exasperated sigh. “More than likely they would find my prints on the guns because I handle them and they belong to me.”
His answer and the way he reacted to the question told Kayla more than anything that her barrage had taken a toll on the detective’s demeanor and if she kept up the pressure, he might make a mistake.
“Detective Satterwhite, what’s the difference from finding your prints on the guns you own and Loren Estes’ prints on the gun she owns?”
Proctor rose and put his hands on hips. “Your honor, the witness can’t testify to something that hasn’t happened.”
Before Kayla could speak, Judge Ballard sustained the objection and asked Kayla if she could reword the question. She didn’t need to, though. She’d made her point and didn’t want to confuse the jurors by rewording. “Your Honor, the defense will move on.”
Kayla glanced at some questions she had ready about the paraffin tests, but drew a line through them. She’d made the point earlier and didn’t think she should bring it up again. Besides, she had no doubt Proctor would hit on it in redirect.
She would in his place. This next area bothered her more than anything in this trial. Loren had told the police and Kayla something that Kayla didn’t believe she’d do. She’d known Loren for many years and of all the explanations she’d told Kayla, this didn’t make sense.
She also believed she’d set up Satterwhite and lulled him away from the attack. Now the time had come to get him.
When she turned to say something to Marvin, she froze. McMasters had entered the courtroom and sat in the back. Why in the world would he come to the courtroom? The partners watched the trial on TV in the sixth floor conference room. Was this his attempt to show his support for her?
“Detective Satterwhite, what took you and your investigation to Loren Estes?”
“The emergency call from Michelle McCrery’s editor who stated she believed Loren Estes had shot the victim. When we responded, we did in fact find the victim shot to death. This gave her theory some credibility.”
Kayla checked this off and looked at her next question, but paused for effect. “Detective, did Stephanie Pate say why she thought Loren Estes had shot Michelle McCrery?”
“Yes, ma’am. The publishing company filed a lawsuit against Estes for plagiarism.”
Kayla flipped a page in her notes, her spirit soaring. He had answered it perfectly, just the way she wanted him to. It was one of the major areas Proctor should have diffused.
She took a deep breath to calm herself, leaned forward, and rested her chin on thumb and index finger. “Is this what you call a motive, Detective?”
“Ma’am, homicide detectives don’t pay much attention in our investigations to what you and the TV call motive.”
She chuckled. He was right in what he said, but the jury didn’t know it, and it contradicted every one of those CSI shows. “Your condemnations to those in my profession are noted, but did this and this alone take you to investigate Loren Estes?”
When he confirmed this, Kayla led off to where she had wanted to go with this witness since the beginning of the examination. “What other people, in this city, state, country, or world had motive to kill Michelle McCrery, besides my client, Loren Estes?”
He paused a long moment, staring at Kayla. “Ma’am, if there’s anyone who had a motive to kill the victim, I’m not aware of them.”
Kayla ducked her head and pretended to write. He’d just set up everything to perfection, but not only that, she’d made him angry.
“Detective—did you look for someone who had motive, financial gain, or any other reason to want the victim dead besides the defendant in this case?”
“I did not. There was no reason to look at anyone else.”
“Detective Satterwhite, are you familiar with the term investigative tunnel vision?”
Before the question, Satterwhite had focused his gaze away from Kayla and the jury as any smart witness would do when the gist of his testimony didn’t go his way. Now, his head and gaze snapped toward Kayla and she almost smiled, but kept her composure.
“I’m familiar with the term. I’m not some rookie cop up on this stand.”
“I’m aware of that, Detective. Why don’t you tell the court what this term means?”
“An investigator focuses his or her entire effort on one suspect. I did not do this in this investigation.”
“What’s the difference in what you did in this investigation and the term investigative tunnel vision?”
Proctor exploded from his seat as if shot from a rocket. “Your Honor, this isn’t a proper question. I’d like to remind the court and Ms. Nugent that the witness isn’t the one on trial here.”
Kayla twitched her mouth, her only expression as she readied to rebuke the objection and Pro
ctor’s huge mistake. She had gone up against him, had seen him in action in the courtroom on several occasions, and talked to other attorneys who’d gone against him, but never seen him make the kind of mistakes he made in this trial, and she wondered why.
Ballard rubbed his nonexistent hair for a moment as Kayla stood. “Your Honor, no one has said that the witness is on trial, but the witness’s investigation of my client is and has to be on trial. We believe that there are fallacies in this investigation and it is only fair that the jury hears these mistakes by the Houston police department in this investigation.”
Moments passed as Ballard considered the attorney’s plea. No sound preempted the court, as if everyone hung suspended in time, waiting on this important decision. Kayla had one decided advantage in this argument over Proctor. The prosecution could not ask for or get a re-trial on appeal, but she could. If Ballard did not grant her leeway in this situation, an overturn on appeal could happen. No judge liked his trials overturned.
“Ms. Nugent. I’m going to give you a little latitude here. Mr. Proctor, I’m overruling your objection.” He turned to Kayla, “I’m warning you, be careful how you proceed with this line of questioning.”
Proctor stormed back to his seat and sat at attention.
Kayla repeated the question to Satterwhite. Before now, Detective Satterwhite had done a good job on the stand. He’d made little mistakes, but nothing that damaged the prosecution’s case much. Few people could withstand the barrage and hours of questions that Kayla had put him through with total perfection. Now, he made a gigantic mistake—the one Kayla had tried to lead him into all along.
“Ms. Nugent, you seem quite informed on techniques of police investigations.”
“Well, Detective Satterwhite, I make a point of learning these things. That way when I come into a courtroom, and I’m in front of a jury, I know what questions to ask to show the jury when an incompetent investigation has taken place.”
“Your Honor. Your Honor, I object. I object, Your Honor.”
Ballard didn’t bother to tell the attorneys to approach. He jerked his hand at them. Proctor stormed toward the judge’s bench, too mad to realize that the jury watched his every move.
