Saul smiled. “Sorry. I guess my question was kind of a mosaic. Please let me break it down.” Pausing, he walked toward her and asked, “The spatter could have happened when Marcie’s head hit a rock, correct?”
“It’s theoretically possible—”
“Particularly because the spatter is concentrated on her right sleeve and not the front of her sweatshirt.”
Micelli paused. “True.”
“In theory, the fall could have left blood on the second or third rock she hit.”
“Theoretically.”
“And the force of a one-hundred-five-pound girl, falling down a steep cliff and hitting a rock with her head, could cause that rock to continue down the hill at a greater speed. Enough to travel another seven feet.”
“Possibly. But that’s a lot of coincidences.”
Saul folded his arms. “My only point,” he said mildly, “is that you can’t know what happened, can you? Just as you admitted earlier.”
“No. I can’t. All I can do is consider what the medical evidence, taken as a whole, tells me about the circumstances of Marcie Calder’s death.”
Saul nodded. “I understand. As I recall, another part of that evidence is the injuries to Marcie Calder’s skin—the ‘leathery’ nature of the skin and the absence of blood on the surface.”
Micelli gave him a guarded look. “Yes.”
“Wouldn’t rain have somewhat the same effect, causing the scraped areas of Marcie’s skin to pucker?”
Micelli paused, gazing down; watching, Tony knew that she was reminding herself that she was a scientist, not a partisan. “It could,” she allowed. “The exposed part of Marcie’s skin was somewhat like that of a person who’d been too long in the bathtub. Especially her hands and fingers.”
“All right. And rain would also tend to wash away blood, and alter the color of both wounds and normal skin. Particularly because Marcie Calder ended up lying on her back, with the surfaces of her skin exposed.”
Micelli considered this. “Yes,” she announced. “It obscured the nature of her injuries. But to me, they still appeared postmortem. Particularly the lacerations to her face.”
Glancing at Frank and Nancy Calder, Tony saw that they were mute, still; their numbness seemed permanent now.
“But don’t those very lacerations,” Saul pointed out to Micelli, “suggest that she slid down the hill on the right side of her face, and thus could have hit the right side of her head on a rock or rocks? Causing three indentations quite close together?”
Micelli considered him. In a grudging tone, she said, “It could, yes. But in my opinion, Marcie would then have had contre-coup brain injuries.”
Saul looked suddenly weary; the skin of his face looked dangerously pink, like that of a man who had overexerted, and he stopped to dab the sweat off his forehead with a white handkerchief. Let it go, Tony silently implored him. You’ve done all you can.
As if he had heard him, Saul said slowly, “Can we talk about the tuna sandwich?”
“Of course.”
“How big was it?”
Micelli hesitated. “I don’t know. An ordinary sandwich, I suppose.”
“Know how much tuna Mr. Nixon put on the sandwich?”
“No.”
Saul put away the handkerchief. “Wouldn’t those things affect how long it would take Marcie Calder’s stomach to completely absorb the sandwich?”
“They could. Not to any great degree, though.”
“But you’re not insisting that the tuna sandwich would empty from Marcie’s stomach in two hours flat, are you?”
“Of course not. That’s an approximate time.”
Saul inhaled, his large frame shuddering. “Could have taken longer?”
“Somewhat longer. Though, if you’ll remember, there was a residue of tuna in her stomach. Indicating that the digestive process was interrupted by death.”
“But she could have died at ten-oh-five. Or ten-ten. Or ten-fifteen.”
“Yes.”
“Or at eleven?”
It was a bad question, Tony knew. “I’d consider that unlikely,” Micelli said. “And the reverse of what you’re asking is that Marcie Calder could have died at nine-thirty. Or nine-forty. Or nine-fifty. During which time the defendant told the police she was with him.”
It stopped Saul for a moment. “But Mr. Robb also told the police that as he left, he saw someone in another car.”
“That was what he said, yes.”
“And it’s possible that this person could have killed Marcie Calder before ten-oh-five, or ten-ten, or ten-fifteen.”
Micelli stared at Saul. “In my opinion,” she said coolly, “Marcie Calder was killed by another between nine-thirty at the earliest and ten-thirty at the very latest. I can also tell you that Mr. Robb was the father of Marcie Calder’s child and that it was Marcie Calder’s blood on the steering wheel of his car. But I have no personal knowledge of the events Mr. Robb described to the police or of the time he left the park.”
This, Tony knew at once, was a devastating answer. He could see it on the faces of the jury.
“Shit,” Sam murmured.
Saul drew himself up. “All that blood,” he mused aloud. “And the only blood on Sam Robb’s car on the steering wheel?”
“That’s all we found, yes.”
Saul slowly shook his head. “So how do you know the blood came from Marcie Calder’s fatal injuries? I mean, all you know from your medical procedures is it’s her blood, right?”
Micelli gave him a brief look of incredulity, then irritation, then tolerance. “As a matter of medical evidence, that’s all I know.”
Saul, Tony knew, was looking for a way to end this. “But that smear of blood,” Saul asked slowly, “is, to your knowledge, the only medical evidence that may link Sam Robb to Marcie Calder’s injuries? However she may have died.”
Micelli paused to consider her answer. “Your question is limited to medical evidence?” she inquired pointedly.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Then I would have to agree, with that qualification. The smear of blood is the only medical evidence which links Sam Robb to Marcie Calder’s injuries.”
Saul paused, lost in thought, letting his fleshy chin rest on his chest. “Thank you,” he said at last, and walked back to the defense table.
“Nice job,” Tony murmured, and meant it—there was nothing more to be done with Kate Micelli. But it was Sam who, when the jury was excused for the day, and Saul had slumped wearily in his chair, went to Saul and, with simple graciousness, thanked him.
With that, the case for the prosecution was over.
SEVENTEEN
That night, Tony took Saul to the steakhouse for dinner. Saul seemed so pleased that Tony did not mind the orange glob of dressing that sat there on his half head of iceberg lettuce, not moving, while he watched it with a kind of fascination.
“The record,” Saul told him, “is forty-four minutes, seven seconds.”
“Not anymore—that’s my lettuce from the last time, I’m sure of it.” Tony shook his head in wonder. “You’d think after a while the law of gravity would take over. Maybe you should give Kate Micelli a call—ask her what she thinks. ‘Tell me, Kate, if a head of iceberg lettuce were rolling down a hill…’ ”
Saul gave a short laugh, and then his face turned curious. “How’re you doing, Tony?”
Tony poured them both a glass of wine. “Oh, all right,” he began, and then realized that more should be said. “You were good, Saul. Except that the defendant would have been me, I’m sorry I missed watching you take on those two Lake City cops. Dana and McCain.”
Saul studied him, as if to ensure that this was not mere flattery. It must be hard, Tony thought, to wonder how far you’ve slipped, to question your ability to even know that much. “That was a long time ago,” Saul said simply. “Too many years, too much booze. I’m not what I was.”
“Then you must have been something, Saul. You must really
have been something.”
When Saul’s smile reached his eyes, Tony knew that his friend believed him. “I was you,” Saul answered. “Life is strange, isn’t it.”
“Very.”
Saul was quiet for a moment. “You still in love with the missus? Is that what this is all about?”
Tony gazed at the table, trying to answer the question for himself. “If Sam were married to someone else, I still would have come. I guess some experiences are so essential they’re always part of who you are. Sam’s friendship was one. Alison’s death was another. And so was Sue.” He looked up. “Yeah, Saul, I still love her. I can’t let that become a problem for Stacey and me, but in one way it’s even harder. Because I look at Sue’s life—what it’s been and where it’s going—and there’s not a damn thing I can do for her. Sam’s the only one I can help, and if we get him off, Sue will still have to figure out who he is.”
“And you keep wondering.”
“All the time.”
Saul nodded. “He’s a mixed bag, your friend. Sometimes when he acts decent, like he did today, it seems genuine and almost sweet-natured, if I can use that word about Sam Robb. At other times, it’s the decency that feels like an act—like he’s receiving instructions on an earphone, telling him how to behave, but something in his brain chemistry keeps him from getting it quite right.” He looked at Tony intently. “Understand what I’m saying?”
Saul’s perception made Tony smile in recognition, though the point was very serious. “Oh, yeah,” Tony answered. “I understand.”
Saul took a deep swallow of wine; he was drinking more than he had in a while, perhaps out of relief from the burden of self-doubt, and it seemed to have loosened his tongue. “If I were you,” Saul said at length, “I wouldn’t dwell on your feelings for Sue. Her life might be a lot simpler if you lost, and pretty snarled if Sam’s still free. She’ll have to make a choice then. Just like you, she’ll always wonder if he’s a murderer. But you can at least go back to your wife and son, knowing you’ve done your job. She’ll have to decide whether to go or stay, and Sam won’t make that easy, especially for a woman like I think Sue is. No matter what, he’ll always be the father of her kids.”
It was true, Tony knew. “She did ask me to defend him, Saul. To give her an innocent man.”
Saul emptied his glass. “That was before the trial, Tony. I wonder how she feels now.”
* * *
The next day, the courtroom was dark. That afternoon, Sam challenged Tony to resume their game of basketball.
Grinning, Sam stood at half-court, the ball tucked beneath one arm. “Fifteen-fifteen, right?”
“Right.”
Tony felt surprise that, despite the trial and all that was at stake, both of them recalled the score. There was the first touch of fall in the air; twenty-eight years had passed since this same crispness heralded the last season that had led Sam and Tony, friends and rivals, to the night of the Riverwood game. Yet the instinctive rhythms of that friendship, that rivalry, still seemed like second nature. It was just that Tony had been missing.
“Let’s make a rule,” Sam said. “One of us has to win by two buckets.” He smiled again. “I want to be fair to you.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “We could be here forever.”
“Suits me. The trial’s not that much fun.” Sam tossed the ball to Tony. “Your turn, pal. I’d just tied the score by turning your behind-the-back trick around on you.”
“Absolutely pathological,” Tony said, and took the ball out of bounds. When Tony drove toward the basket, suddenly dribbling behind his back and leaving Sam frozen like a statue while he scored his sixteenth point, Sam whooped from the sheer joy of it.
“Too good,” he said. But when Sam tried the same drive and Tony stole the ball, Sam stopped laughing. He tied the score after throwing a sharp elbow and knocking Tony aside. After that, they barely spoke.
Now time was marked by the sounds of panting and quick footsteps, the feel of sweat and two bodies shoving, the taut split seconds before Sam and Tony shot or drove the basket, when they simply watched each other. At twenty-three all, Tony shot and missed; when the ball fell toward an empty space beneath the basket, neither man gave way. Their bodies cracked into each other; Tony reeled to the side, crashing into the concrete post of the backboard; Sam fell to the asphalt.
There was a sickening pain in Tony’s head and elbow, a momentary whiteness of vision. Then he saw Sam, rising from the asphalt to retrieve the ball. “Enough,” Tony said.
Sam frowned. “How much time you need?”
“Five minutes,” Tony answered, and realized that these were their first words in what seemed a very long time.
They sat in the middle of the asphalt, a few feet apart.
“You all right?” Sam finally asked.
“I’ll live.” Tony realized that he did not want to talk. He flexed his elbow, wincing at the way his temple throbbed.
Sam gazed out at Taylor Park and the lake beyond. “So how was Sue the other night?”
His voice was so emotionless, so studiedly devoid of feeling, that Tony turned to him. “I hope that question doesn’t mean what it did two days ago.”
Sam shrugged. “I was only asking how she was.”
“Then maybe we should get something straight, once and for all—I don’t know how Sue is, or what she’ll do. My charm for Sue is that I’m not you or the kids, and that I don’t live at your house. We’re hardly ‘fucking,’ as you so elegantly phrased it.”
Sam’s gaze was probing, silent. “Not even before?”
Quite deliberately, Tony met his eyes. The best lies, as Sam had remarked, are based on truth; failing that, Tony told himself, they are accompanied by an unwavering stare. “Back in 1968,” Tony said evenly, “I was too much of a mess to care for anyone. But you might not know that—seeing as how we stopped talking for a while. As I recall, it was something about whether I’d strangled Alison.”
Sam’s gaze broke, and then he looked down, leaving Tony with the sour aftertaste of his own manipulation. But he would not, could not, betray Sue Robb, any more than he could betray a client. “So let’s play basketball,” Tony said.
Silent, they got up and commenced the game again.
It was tense, as before. The only difference was a certain courtesy—tense and silent, punctuated by a nod or glance—and the careful way they held their shoulders and elbows in, as if the next blow would start something they could not stop. Tony felt this difference in the effort to make Sam what he tried to make any other opponent—a cipher for whom he felt neither love nor hate nor fear. For his strength in sport or as a lawyer, Tony had always known, was not to feel too much; in this he was the opposite of Sam, who, in his visceral immediacy, was like a copper wire exposed to heat. But with Sam, Tony felt the heat as well.
When he drove the basket, scoring his thirtieth point, Tony’s head was pounding.
One point ahead. One to go.
Sam faced him now. The ragged sound of their breathing was like that of a single organism, united by sweat and desire and the fierce compulsive passion they could only create together. Tony watched Sam’s eyes.
“Fuck you,” Sam said softly, and drove toward the basket with a sudden propulsion, startling in its fury.
Desperately, Tony scrambled sideways, trying to block Sam as if this were all that had ever mattered to him. Sam stopped, face contorted with rage and need, then drove past, hip thrusting sideways to knock Tony from his path. Tony held his ground; they collided, Tony reeling backward, but not before he jolted the ball from Sam’s hand. Desperate, Sam dived for it, landing chest-first on the asphalt as the ball dribbled out of bounds. When he looked up at Tony, his face was an opaque, unfeeling mask.
Silent, Tony reached out his hand.
“Break?” he asked.
Sam’s eyes became veiled, thoughtful. “Break,” he said.
Together, they walked to the side of the court. The breeze from the lake had picked u
p, cooling their skin; silent, they looked once more at Taylor Park in the distance, with its hedgerows, its oak trees, its profound and terrible memories.
“Have you seen Ernie Nixon?” Tony asked.
Sam shook his head. “The Weekly says he took a leave. No explanation.”
Tony was quiet for a moment. “None needed,” he said at last.
Sam turned to him. With a deliberate, accusatory calm, he asked, “So when do I say I didn’t kill her?”
“Maybe you don’t.”
Sam folded his arms. “Maybe I hide behind you, you mean?”
“No.” Tony’s voice was cool, succinct. “Maybe we decide, like the rational adults that we are, that you don’t need to ‘win’ this one. That I’ve established reasonable doubt by putting on our criminalist. That you don’t need to run the risk of rationalizing infidelity, sodomy, and pregnancy to twelve solid citizens who may start to wonder where it is you drew the line.” Pausing, Tony spoke more softly. “We’ll do a practice run tomorrow, try it out.”
Sam turned away, staring at the ground. In a flat voice, he said, “Let’s finish this.”
“The game? No, I think we should finish when the trial’s over. I don’t feel like winning today.”
Sam looked at him askance, eyes narrowing. Tony hoped that Sam understood his silent message; that today, finishing would not be good for either one of them.
Quietly, Sam repeated, “I’d like to finish this.”
Tony smiled, walking away. “That’s the thing,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s like a trial. You can’t play without me.”
EIGHTEEN
On Monday morning, two weeks after the commencement of the trial, Tony at last made his opening statement.
The jury was still and attentive. Tony felt the weight of their expectations, the burden of Sam’s tense watchfulness and Sue’s unfathomable gaze.
“This is not a time for argument,” Tony began. “It is a time for fact.
“The ‘facts’ offered by the prosecution are entirely circumstantial.
“There are no witnesses to Marcie Calder’s death. Indeed, the only person who ever placed Sam Robb in Taylor Park that night was Sam Robb himself, and no one has offered a reason for that other than the one Sam gave when Marcie turned up missing—that he was concerned for her.”
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