Talon Winter Legal Thrillers Box Set

by Stephen Penner

  “Okay,” Cecilia exhaled after extracting the fact that a man had approached Henderschott’s window. A young man. A young man who looked like he might have been Hispanic, or Native American, or even Filipino. Just not Swedish or Irish. But he definitely did walk up to her window.

  “Can you describe his demeanor?” Cecilia asked.

  Henderschott just stared at her, shaking her head slightly.

  “How was he acting?” Cecilia tried.

  A shrug.

  “Was he nervous?” Cecilia tried.

  “Objection.” Talon stood up. “Leading question.”

  Cecilia sighed, but didn’t argue.

  “Objection sustained,” Judge Kirshner ruled. “Rephrase the question.”

  Instead, Cecilia pressed forward. “Did he say anything to you?”

  Henderschott nodded.

  “You need to answer out loud,” Cecilia reminded her.

  “Yes,” Henderschott managed to answer.

  “And what did he say?”

  Henderschott thought for a moment. “I don’t remember exactly.”

  Cecilia exhaled audibly, losing the battle to hide her exasperation. Talon, on the other hand, was trying to manage her growing excitement.

  “Did he say anything alarming?” Cecilia prompted.

  “Objection again, Your Honor.” Talon stood up again. “Leading.”

  Kirshner thought for a moment, then had to agree. “Sustained. Rephrase, Ms. Thompson.”

  Cecilia thought for a moment. “To the best of your recollection, please tell us what the young man said when he came to your window.”

  Henderschott took several moments to answer, her hands wringing and her eyes darting around the courtroom. “He said something about giving him the money in the cash drawer.”

  “Okay.” Cecilia visibly relaxed. “And did he say what would happen if you didn’t do as he asked?”

  Henderschott shook her head and shrugged. “I, I’m not sure. I think so.”

  “What did he say?” Cecilia prompted. “About what would happen if you didn’t give him the money?”

  Another shrug. “Something bad.”

  “Is that what he said?” Cecilia attempted to clarify. “Give me the money or something bad will happen?”

  Henderschott frowned. “I’m not sure exactly. It was kind of a long time ago. It was very scary. I just remember being scared, and thinking something bad would happen if I didn’t give him the money.”

  Cecilia’s shoulders dropped. “And that feeling, that something bad would happen, was that because of whatever he said?”

  “Objection,” Talon stood for a third time. “Still leading.”

  Talon was right, but Kirshner didn’t want to look like she was playing favorites, so she threw Cecilia a bone. “I’m going to overrule that objection. The witness may answer, if she’s able.”

  “Go ahead and answer the question,” Cecilia instructed.

  But Henderschott shook her head. “I don’t remember the question.”

  Cecilia blinked hard at her witness, but refrained from any other reaction. She simply repeated the question for her. “Your feeling that something bad would happen, was that because of whatever the man said to you?”

  Henderschott thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”

  Cecilia visibly relaxed. It wasn’t perfect—far from it—but it was at least some evidence that Miguel had tried to rob the place by demanding money and threatening the teller.

  But Talon was happy too. She loved the smell of blood in the water.

  “So, what did you do next?” Cecilia moved on.

  “I pressed the panic button under the counter,” Henderschott answered.

  “And then what?”

  “I ran out the back door,” Henderschott finally had some animation to her response. “I was so scared.”

  “I’m sure you were,” Cecilia empathized. But she was done trying to extract information from this witness. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Cecilia spun around and hurried back to her seat. Talon stood up slowly as the judge invited her, “Any cross examination, Ms. Winter?”

  Talon smiled. “Oh, yes, Your Honor.”

  The easy play was to rip Janice Henderschott to shreds. Go after her poor memory and confused demeanor. Leave her even more of a quivering pile of jelly than she already was.

  But that wasn’t the smart play.

  For one thing, the jury wouldn’t like it. Jurors would give a defense attorney some slack in being aggressive, even obnoxious, with a cop or a victim, depending on the crime, but Janice Henderschott was just pathetic. Talon didn’t need to turn that into sympathetic.

  More importantly, though, Talon didn’t want to give her a chance to improve her answers. She had already testified, a couple of times, that she didn’t remember exactly what Miguel said. If Talon asked her a third time, well, she might just remember, and chances were, it wasn’t going to help Luke any. Talon understood the value of the testimony Henderschott had given her, and knew not to get greedy.

  No, the smart play was to ask Janice Henderschott the questions Talon was also going to ask Officer Todd Dickerson.

  “So, Ms. Henderschott,” Talon started, almost casually as she approached the witness stand—slowly, like one might approach a small animal about to run away. “The person who approached your window, he was a man, correct?”

  Henderschott cocked her head at the obvious question. “Uh, yes.”

  “A young man?” Talon followed up.

  Henderschott nodded cautiously. “Yes.”

  “A young man with darker skin?” Talon expounded.

  “Yes,” Henderschott confirmed.

  “And you already testified,” Talon reminded her, “that was pretty scary, wasn’t it?”

  Henderschott nodded. “Yes. I was scared.”

  Talon smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Henderschott. No further questions.”

  Cecilia shot to her feet. She knew what Talon was trying to imply. But she hesitated when Judge Kirshner asked her, “Any re-direct examination, based on those answers?”

  Cecilia looked at her witness for a long moment and thought better of it. “No, Your Honor.”

  She knew she should get the civilian off the stand. It was time for the cops anyway.

  CHAPTER 42

  The next slew of witnesses were all cops. There were a lot of them, but most of them had little of value to say. It was almost as if Cecilia was trying to bury Dickerson right in the middle of her case. Maybe the jury would even be bored of cops by the time Dickerson took the stand. Especially if Talon went after every one of them for being a gun-toting, badge-wearing proto-fascist bent on caging and killing anyone with darker skin tone than Crayola’s ‘peach’. Talon’s schtick would be worn out before she got a chance to use it against the one cop she really needed to wound on the stand.

  That was Cecilia’s plan. It wasn’t Talon’s.

  Talon didn’t need to cross examine the cop who set up the perimeter crime scene tape any more than she needed to cross examine the widow. Effective cross examination was not death by a thousand cuts. It was a few, well-placed, fatally deep slashes.

  But you couldn’t just stand up and say, ‘No questions,’ again and again, cop after cop. Declining to cross examine the widow looked classy. Declining to cross examine the cops looked cowardly. Which made Luke look guilty. So instead of no questions, Talon asked the same question to every single cop Cecilia padded her case with: “You didn’t see my client do anything, did you?”

  She would have liked to have added, ‘And you never heard him confess to anything, did you?’ but even if the regular line cops who didn’t interact with Luke at all would have answered, ‘No,’ it only would have lent additional importance to the confession when the jury finally heard it. And Talon knew the jury was going to hear it.

  Talon didn’t know the exact order of Cecilia’s witnesses. The prosecutor didn’t have to tell her. But Talon could see what Cecili
a was trying to do. She wanted to bury Dickerson in the middle of her case-in-chief, after the beat cops, but before the experts. His testimony would still be important, but Talon’s cross would start to be forgotten as Cecilia propelled the case forward to autopsy and the confession. It was smart. It was exactly what Talon would have done.

  So, the first cop was the officer who maintained the crime scene log. He literally stood at the edge of the taped-off crime scene, holding a clipboard for all the other officers to sign in and out of the scene. Next was one of the perimeter security guys. Then the ‘stayed outside waiting for back up’ guy. Then the ‘first guy inside after the gunshots’ guy. And so on. And Talon asked every one of them the same question.

  “You never saw my client commit any crime, did you?”

  And they all gave slightly different versions of the same answer: “No, ma’am.”

  Then Cecilia called a SWAT sergeant who wasn’t actually at the crime scene. Ever. Although that wasn’t obvious at first.

  “Could you please state your name for the record?” Cecilia began her direct examination.

  “Bobby Jones,” he answered. He was a strong looking man, with thick forearms and a military style haircut.

  “What’s your current rank and assignment?” Cecilia asked next. There was no need to ask where he worked; he was decked out in full SWAT combat gear.

  “I’m a sergeant with our Special Weapons and Tactics team,” Sgt. Jones answered. “SWAT.”

  Cecilia nodded. “Do you have any experience with active shooter situations like the one involved in this case?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sgt. Jones said. “That is one of the main reasons for a SWAT callout.”

  “Can you explain, what are some of the general steps police would take in a situation like the one in this case?”

  “Certainly,” Sergeant Jones said. He turned then to the jury to explain the history and role of SWAT teams. It was a bit rambling of an answer, but it was interesting, and the jury seemed engaged. They also seemed to appreciate that he was talking directly to them, instead of them eavesdropping on a conversation between the witness and the lawyer. That was no accident; they trained the cops at the police academy to testify that way.

  “Is there a difference in the response,” Cecilia asked, “if you know the suspect is armed as opposed to only thinking he might be armed?”

  “You have to assume the suspect is armed, ma’am,” Sgt. Jones explained. “Officer safety always comes first.”

  “Of course,” Cecilia agreed. Then a sort of strange question, “Are you familiar with the incident in this case?”

  Talon looked up from her notetaking. That’s a strange way to ask what he did at the scene, she thought.

  “I wasn’t there, ma’am,” the sergeant answered, “but I read the reports.”

  Wait. What? Oh, hell, no. Talon jumped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor. I need to be heard outside the presence of the jury.”

  Kirshner frowned, but Cecilia didn’t protest, so the judge acquiesced. The bailiff escorted the jurors into the jury room.

  “Do you want the witness excused as well?” Kirshner asked. The question itself showed Kirshner knew what Talon’s answer would be and she was prepared to grant the request.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Talon said, and Judge Kirshner instructed Sgt. Jones to wait in the hallway.

  Once the officer was out of the courtroom, Talon addressed the judge. “I’m confused, Your Honor. If this witness wasn’t there that day, why is he testifying? Is the prosecutor trying to use him as some sort of expert on tactics or something? If so, I wasn’t given any notice they intended to call him as an expert, and I’m entitled to that under the court rules.”

  Judge Kirshner looked over to Cecilia. “Ms. Thompson, do you intend to endorse this witness as an expert on police tactics?”

  Cecilia shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back. “Not exactly, Your Honor. He happens to have experience in these sorts of situations, and I thought it would be helpful to the jury if they could see how these sorts of situations play out.”

  “So, an expert,” Kirshner translated. “And you’re objecting, Ms. Winter?”

  “Absolutely I’m objecting,” Talon confirmed. “He’s not an expert. He’s just a cop who’s going to say another cop was justified in killing an unarmed man.”

  “That’s not what he was going to say,” Cecilia claimed, but not very convincingly.

  “Did you give notice to Ms. Winter of this expert?” Kirshner cut to the chase.

  Cecilia shook her head. “No, Your Honor. I guess I didn’t really think of him as an expert in the classic sense.”

  Talon looked sideways at Cecilia. That was even less convincing.

  “But that’s fine, Your Honor,” Cecilia offered. “I don’t need to ask him any more questions.”

  “Of course not,” Talon complained. “He already said it was okay to assume every suspect is armed. What more did you really need him to say? The damage is done.”

  Talon had the option of moving for a mistrial, but there were two problems with that. First, mistrials were rarely granted in murder trials, except for the most egregious errors. Second, a mistrial meant a new trial, and a new trial meant Eleanor Henderschott would get another chance to remember what Miguel actually said to her.

  “I’m not going to ask for a mistrial,” Talon let everyone know. “But I would ask the Court to strike the officer’s testimony in total and instruct the jury to disregard it completely.”

  The jurors couldn’t actually do that. They heard what he said; they couldn’t just un-remember it. But it would be embarrassing for Cecilia and would telegraph to the jury that the judge didn’t like at least part of the prosecution’s case.

  Which is why Cecilia objected to the proposal. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Your Honor. We barely got past name, rank, and serial number. I won’t ask any more questions, Ms. Winter can cross examine or not based on what he’s already said, and then we can move on to the next witness.”

  “So, I can cross examine him,” Talon mocked, “and give him a chance to say everything all over again? Maybe open up new avenues to showcase his expertise in murdering civilians?”

  “Ok, that’s enough, Ms. Winter.” Judge Kirshner took back control. “That sort of language is unnecessary.” She paused to collect her thoughts, then gave her ruling. “I’m not going to strike the officer’s testimony. It’s too much to strike. One question-and-answer is strikable, maybe two, but not that much testimony. Ms. Thompson, you may not ask any more questions of this witness. Ms. Winter, you can cross examine, if you wish. When you’re finished, we will move on to the next witness.”

  So, the judge was splitting the baby. That heralded tradition of judges refusing to make hard decisions. The wisest judges were even referred to as ‘Solomonic’. Talon thought that was a load of crap. A judge’s only job is to make decisions. Solomon avoided that and took a cheap cop out. And judges had been doing it ever since.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Cecilia said.

  Talon didn’t say anything.

  Judge Kirshner ordered the witness and the jury back into the courtroom.

  Once everyone was assembled, Cecilia stood up and announced, “No further questions.”

  That was a nice telegraph to the jury that whatever Cecilia had been trying to do, whatever Talon had objected to when they were out of the room. Talon had won. But that wasn’t enough for Talon.

  “Any cross examination, Ms. Winter?” the judge asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Talon answered as she stood up.

  She walked up to the witness stand, one step too close, just inside the sergeant’s personal space. “So,” she asked, “you’re okay with a police officer killing unarmed civilians?”

  Sgt. Jones was taken aback. “What? Uh, well, I mean… You see, every situation is different, and—”

  “It’s a yes or no question,” Talon interrupted. “Are you okay with police office
rs killing unarmed civilians? Yes or no?”

  Jones hesitated, but then answered, “Under certain circumstances, the shooting of an unarmed suspect can be justified.”

  “Is that a ‘Yes’?” Talon pressed.

  Jones nodded. “That’s a ‘Yes’.”

  “Wow,” Talon said back to him. “No further questions.”

  Judge Kirshner didn’t give Cecilia an opportunity to do any re-direct examination. Instead, she excused Jones and asked Cecilia if she was ready to call her next witness. Talon knew the answer. Jones was meant to set the table. But the next witness was the main course.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Cecilia rose to answer the judge. “The State calls Officer Todd Dickerson.”

  CHAPTER 43

  All eyes went to the courtroom door as in walked the State’s star witness—and double murderer—Officer Todd Dickerson.

  He was shorter than Talon expected, even after seeing his Facebook pictures. His racist girlfriend must have been short too. He seemed to be trying to make up for his stature through bodybuilding, but his thick arms and neck just made him look even shorter. His walk to the front of the courtroom was more of a strut. He knew everyone was looking at him and he seemed to like it. There was no hint of any humility at having taken two lives, no matter the circumstances.

  The judge swore him in, his posture impossibly rigid, and he took a seat on the witness stand. Cecilia came out from behind her table, but conducted her examination standing directly in front of it. About as far away from Dickerson as possible. Talon wondered whether it was intentional or subconscious.

  “Please state your name for the record,” Cecilia began.

  “Officer Todd Dickerson,” he replied. Talon noted that ‘officer’ wasn’t actually part of his name, but found it interesting he thought his job was such an integral part of his identity. Again, Talon wondered if it was intentional or subconscious.