The Guilty

by Gabriel Boutros

  “Mr. Phillips, isn’t that how it was?”

  “I could see his face looking at me over the gun.”

  “Mr. Phillips, you were staring up right into the barrel of this cannon. You didn’t see anything else. Your mind could think of nothing except whether a bullet was about to be fired out of that gun and into your head.”

  Parent jumped up, with a bit more urgency than his prior objections, to cut Bratt off.

  “My Lord, defense counsel isn’t asking questions, he’s testifying for the witness.”

  “I certainly didn’t hear any questions, Mr. Bratt. Want to try again?”

  “Certainly, My Lord. Mr. Phillips, everything I just said: isn’t that the truth?”

  Parent harumphed loudly and sat down hard, clearly not satisfied with Bratt’s response to the judge’s direction.

  “I didn’t see only the gun. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Well how was it then? In your own words, ‘all I could see was the mouth of that barrel.’ You just finished telling us you were too scared to take your eyes away from it.”

  “A question please, Mr. Bratt,” Green intoned.

  “Isn’t that true, Mr. Phillips?” Bratt asked.

  Phillips paused again. He could barely disguise his rage at the lawyer, or his confusion at the questions that were being asked of him.

  He finally managed to squeeze a few words through his clenched jaw. “Could you repeat your question?”

  “Certainly. Isn’t that true, Mr. Phillips?”

  From the jury box there came a noise like a surprised laugh that was quickly muffled. Green, however, found nothing humorous in Bratt’s question.

  “I think he’ll need a bit more than that,” he grumbled. “Take it from the top.”

  Bratt turned, smiling, to the judge.

  “Never mind, My Lord,” he said, having decided to not give Phillips the chance to answer his question. “I’ll go on to something else.”

  “None too soon, I may add,” Green said under his breath.

  “Mr. Phillips, you mentioned yesterday that when the taller assailant approached you he pulled on the back of your belt.”

  “Yeah. He asked me if I had a gun.”

  “And you said you looked up and could see his face from real close. Had he bent far over you at that point?”

  “Like I said, his face was very close to mine, so I got a good look at him.”

  “Here’s something I’m curious about, Mr. Phillips. You said that you slid forward off the sofa to your knees, then lay straight out from the sofa on your stomach. Perpendicular to it, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the man with the gun was walking toward you from your left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could you look at pictures 17 and 19 in Exhibit P-3.”

  Phillips picked up one of the albums of crime-scene photos and flipped over to the pictures that Bratt had enumerated. Judge and jury did the same with their own copies. Bratt leaned over and pointed to the sofa on the right side of the first picture. Directly in front of the sofa and parallel to it was a rectangular coffee table at least four feet long. Then he showed the witness the second picture: a large pool of blood was clearly visible between the sofa and the coffee table, and about five feet to the right from where Phillips had said he was sitting.

  “Mr. Phillips, was that coffee table there when you were sitting on the sofa?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  That’s the first time he’s admitted to not remembering something, Bratt thought. But, this time, it’s to his advantage to remember as little as possible.

  “Well, could it have been somewhere else than there?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Could somebody have brought the table in and put it there after the shooting?” Bratt asked, raising his eyebrows incredulously to the jurors.

  “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

  “You really think that’s possible?” Bratt exclaimed. “You think maybe one of the police officers decided to put the table in front of the sofa, just to give us a pretty picture? Or is it more likely that the coffee table had always been in front of the sofa, as coffee tables so often are?”

  “I guess that’s likely,” Phillips conceded.

  “Much more likely?”

  “Pretty damn likely!”

  Green raised his eyes to the witness again, but said nothing this time. Bratt was glad the judge had stayed silent because it was obvious that Phillips had been provoked to the point that he was getting careless with his answers.

  “Well, if it was pretty damn likely that the coffee table was always there in front of the sofa, how could you have lain down the way you said you did? Straight out from the sofa, perpendicularly, as I said.”

  “I know what the word means,” Phillips snapped back. “I can’t explain how I did it, but I know that’s where I lay down.”

  “Did you lie down under the coffee table?”

  “I never said that.”

  “No, you didn’t. You also didn’t say you lay down on top of the coffee table, but that seems to have been the only other choice.”

  “A question, Mr. Bratt,” Green said.

  “Sorry, My Lord. Here’s a question, Mr. Phillips. See all that blood there in pictures 17 and 19? Whose blood is that next to the sofa?”

  “I guess it’s mine.”

  “You guess it’s yours. Well, are there any other pools of blood in the living room, which may indicate where you were shot?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Yes, that is it. And can you tell us why that pool of blood is inches from the sofa, a body length to the right of where you said you lay down?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You can’t? Could it be that when you slid off the sofa you didn’t go down forward, but you turned away from the gunman and, with your back to him, lay down along the length of the sofa, between the sofa and the coffee table?”

  Parent objected again: “My Lord, multiple questions.”

  “I’m sure your witness is smart enough to understand them,” Green answered. “Please sit down.”

  Phillips’s voice had gotten huskier with his anger, even as he tried to keep it low and under control.

  “All I know is I slid down straight in front of me and I never took my eyes off him the whole way down.”

  “So the pool of blood just magically appeared several feet away, did it?”

  “I can’t explain why it’s there.”

  “Don’t you think a perfectly good explanation is that you lay down facing away from him? That you had your back turned to the taller assailant when he advanced to the sofa?”

  “No.”

  “If you turned away from him you wouldn’t have gotten as good a look at him as you’ve been telling us, isn’t that right?”

  “I didn’t turn away from him. I kept my eyes on his face the whole time.”

  “The whole time? Isn’t it true that when the taller assailant advanced-”

  Phillips suddenly interrupted Bratt, “Why do you keep calling him that: the ‘taller assailant?’ His name’s Marlon Small and you know he shot me!”

  Green banged his hand hard on his desk to get the witness’s attention.

  “Mr. Phillips, you stop right there.”

  “Why? He keeps saying ‘assailant’ and shit when he knows Small’s the guy in the apartment.”

  “That’s enough out of you. That’s an issue for the jury to decide.”

  Phillips turned toward the jury and raised his hands, palms upward, in supplication.

  “I’m the one that was there. You all know I saw him.”

  Green’s face was beet-red with anger as he jumped to his feet and leaned on his desk, yelling down at Phillips.

  “I said that’s enough! Mr. Parent if your witness says one more word I’m going to order a mistrial, so you better get him under control. Ladies and gentlemen,” he turned to the jury, “you
will disregard the outburst by the witness. Those remarks do not constitute any sort of evidence and you will not take them into consideration. It is up to you and you alone to determine who the author of the shootings was.”

  Green paused to catch his breath and control his anger.

  “I think that’s enough for all of us today. We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow morning.”

  The jurors reluctantly got up and began filing out, keeping their eyes on the witness to see if he had anything more to say. But Phillips stayed quiet, his eyes locked on his hands folded in front of him. Once the jurors were out of earshot an angry Green turned back to the equally-seething young man.

  “I don’t know where you think you are, so let me make it very clear to you. You are in a court of law. More than that, you are in my courtroom, and I will not allow anybody, witnesses or lawyers, to fly off the handle and spout whatever they please in front of the jury.

  “Whether you like it or not, that man,” and he pointed at Small, while never taking his eyes off Phillips, “has the right to a fair trial and you can be certain I will make sure he gets it. If this is too hard for you to understand I suggest you have a long talk with Mr. Parent in the corridor. Next time you step into my courtroom you will not open your mouth except when you’re answering a question. I’m not even going to ask you if I’ve made myself clear.”

  With that Green spun around and stomped down the stairs from his dais, showing more energy than anyone might have thought he had.

  All this time Bratt stood, leaning motionless on the front of the prisoner’s box, his eyes fixed on the witness. Seeing him get yelled at by the judge didn’t cheer him in the least. He knew that this would be irrelevant to the jury. They had heard Phillips loud and clear: he was present at the shooting, they weren’t. He had the best seat in the house, and he alone knew the identity of the shooters. Green could admonish them all day about ignoring his outburst, but Bratt knew it was something that would stick in their minds.

  His chin resting in the palm of his hand, he watched as Phillips slowly headed out of the courtroom. Parent quickly caught up to him and put his arm around his star witness’s shoulders. Bratt couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant to console Phillips, or to congratulate him on a job well-done.

  I wouldn’t put it past him, Bratt thought.

  “Monsieur Bratt! Monsieur Bratt”

  Bratt and Kouri turned on their heels at the same time and saw a well-dressed, slightly chubby woman wearing dangerously high-heeled pumps chasing after them across the courthouse lobby. Bratt waited impatiently for her to catch up to them, in a hurry to get back to his office to work on the next day’s cross-examination.

  “Can I help you?” he asked as she stopped in front of them and put her hand on his arm as if to prevent him from escaping.

  “I’m sorry to go yelling out your name like that. I’m Carmen Champagne. I don’t know if Senator Madsen told you about me.”

  “Senator Madsen?”

  “I’m on the Cabinet’s Judicial Selection Committee. I came in from Ottawa last night. Have to show my face to the constituents now and then you know, and when I read about the trial I thought I’d also come and see you in action.”

  Bratt’s mind was still on Phillips and he only half-understood what she was saying. He blinked at her several times, as if to see her more clearly.

  “I’m sorry, you read about the trial?”

  “Of course, in the newspaper,” she laughed loudly. “What did you think? If I know old Roger Madsen you probably know you’re on our shortlist. Oh, don’t worry,” she held her hand up at his expression of surprise. “I know it’s all confidential, but that’s the way things are done in Ottawa, aren’t they? I just thought I’d enjoy a first-hand view of your work, so here I am. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Shortlist? Of course,” Bratt almost shouted, suddenly seeing the light. “I’m sorry, I must seem so dense. I’ve been so preoccupied with this trial I really wasn’t sure what you meant.”

  “I understand completely, and I don’t want to keep you from your work. I’m sure you have a lot on your mind. I just didn’t want you to find out later that I had been here and think I was spying on you.”

  “Well, as long as you only send back glowing reports to your committee.”

  She laughed again, squeezing his arm as she did so.

  “You can be sure that I’ll only have positive things to say. I find your work so fascinating, and I must say you do it so well.”

  “You caught me on a good day.”

  “Now that’s just false modesty, and there’s no need for it. I’m sure the way things are going you’re going to win this trial. I just regret I have to leave town tomorrow and can’t watch more of it. Good luck. We’ll be in touch. Not that anything’s been decided, you understand.”

  She reached to shake his hand, then noticed that both his hands were full with his briefcase and courtroom apparel, so she squeezed his arm again instead. She laughed breathlessly as she did so, gave Kouri a short wave and rushed out into the winter afternoon.

  “What the heck was that?” Kouri asked.

  “The face of the future,” Bratt said tonelessly. “Pretty scary, eh kid?”

  They continued on their way back to the office but Bratt said nothing more about the surprise visitor.

  It was midway through Friday morning’s court session that Bratt decided he didn’t really dislike Dorrell Phillips. As a matter of fact, he felt quite sorry for the young man. Not for the terrible trauma he had undergone, although that was bad enough, but because the focus of his testimony had been turned away from that trauma and was now aimed squarely at his inability to recount what had happened in a believable manner.

  The lawyer wondered what it must be like to get two bullets in the base of your skull and then be treated like a liar. No wonder Phillips’s anger and resentment colored every answer he gave.

  “You were in the hospital for six days before you picked Marlon Small’s picture out of that high school yearbook.”

  “Yeah, I said that before.”

  “And in your statement of June 23, three days after you selected that picture, you gave a physical description of your two assailants, although you had already given some descriptions to the police on two prior occasions.”

  “Mr. Bratt, do you have a question?” Green muttered, looking bored.

  “Mr. Phillips, why didn’t you mention that the person who shot you had a gap between his teeth until after you saw that gap in the high school picture?”

  “I don’t get your meaning.”

  “You don’t get it? Let me make it clear, then. Between the shooting on June 14 and the statement you made on June 23 you met several times with homicide detectives, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “On none of those occasions, either by word or in writing, did you mention the very distinctive gap between your assailant’s teeth. It was only after you saw the high school picture of Mr. Small, where he’s got a big, gap-toothed grin, that you suddenly added that to your description. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess that’s when I remembered it.”

  “Didn’t you testify earlier this week that he brought his face close to yours and that’s when you saw the gap in his teeth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were facing certain death at the time and yet that gap was so obvious that it struck you and stuck in your memory. How could you just forget it in the following days, when the police were desperately trying to come up with something to identify your attackers?”

  “I can’t explain that.”

  “Isn’t it true that the man who shot you had no gap at all between his teeth? Didn’t you just add that particular little feature to your description when you saw it in the picture of Marlon Small?”

  “No, I always knew the guy who shot me had those funny teeth.”

  “And when were you planning to tell the police about it?”

  Phillip
s shook his head silently, but didn’t answer Bratt’s question. Green looked at him for a few seconds before turning to the lawyer.

  “Do you want an answer to that question, Mr. Bratt?”

  “No, My Lord, I don’t expect an answer at all.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Green said, burying his head in his notebook again.

  Bratt looked over at Parent’s unhappy face. It was one more little mystery that Phillips had been unable to clarify for the jury and the prosecutor could see that now even the judge had gotten into the act. Some witnesses could get away with saying the dumbest things at times, but responding to a question with silence was a near-fatal path for anyone to take. Unfortunately for Dorrell Phillips, stubborn silence was where he constantly retreated when faced with hard questions.

  Bratt glanced up at the clock and saw that it was just past noon. Less than half an hour until Green adjourned for lunch. Just enough time to finish with the last few questions he had for Phillips.

  “Mr. Phillips, did you ever have any doubt about what your assailant looked like?”

  “Never. I always knew it was him.”

  “You didn’t hesitate at all when the police showed you his picture?”

  “Not even a second.”

  “You didn’t see any other pictures that might have been your assailant.”

  “No, I didn’t. Well…”

  “Well?”

  “There was a mug shot of a guy that I thought might have been him, but I wasn’t sure. I think I said that the other day.”

  “Yes, you certainly did.”

  Bratt rifled through some papers and pulled out a color copy of the pictures in the mug book that Phillips had been shown at the hospital.

  “Mr. Phillips, these are the mug shots shown to you by the police last June 17, are they not?”

  Phillips flipped through a few of the pages that had been placed in front of him.

  “They look like it.”

  “Do you remember writing any comments on any of those pages, anything about people you thought you recognized?”

  “Like I said, I thought one of them was maybe the guy who shot me, and I wrote that.”