by J. M. Colail
Brad smiled, that disarming aw-shucks smile that said I’m just regular folks like you and I don’t get this fancy medical jargon either. “And what is that, exactly?”
“I specialize in facial reconstructive surgery, when there’s been trauma, and also in the correction of birth defects of the face, jaw, and skull.”
“What degrees have you earned?”
“I have a bachelor of science degree from Dartmouth University, a Doctor of Dental Surgery and a Doctor of Medicine degree, both from Ohio State University.”
“So you hold two separate professional degrees, one in dentistry and one in medicine.”
“Yes. A DDS degree is required to specialize in maxillofacial surgery.”
“You went to dental school and medical school?” Brad infused a touch of can-you-believe-how-amazing-this-guy-is? awe into his question, clearly for the jury’s benefit. They did seem pretty impressed.
“Yes, it was a lot of school,” Jack said, smiling a little in what he hoped was a self-deprecating manner. The last thing he wanted was to come off as an arrogant asshole with a God complex.
“And where did you work at the time of the crime, Dr. Francisco?”
“At Johns Hopkins Medical Center.”
“In what capacity?”
“I was an attending surgeon.”
“The victim, Maria Dominguez, also worked at Johns Hopkins, is that correct?”
“Yes. I’m told she worked in physical facilities as part of the cleaning staff.”
“Did you know her?”
“No. I had seen her around, but I didn’t know her by name. It’s a large hospital.”
“Were you aware that her husband, who she was in the process of divorcing, was second cousin to the defendant, Tommy Dominguez, and his brother Raoul?”
“Not at all.”
“The day of Maria’s death, what time did you leave work?”
“Around six-thirty.”
“And where did you go?”
“To the staff parking garage.”
“Why did you go there?”
“To get in my car and go home.”
“Dr. Francisco, please describe what you saw when you entered the parking garage.”
Jack resettled himself in his chair and took a breath. This was it. So far, it had been cake; Brad was easing him into the courtroom setting and establishing his bona fides for the jury. He’d done as instructed and not looked at the defendants or the jury, keeping his eyes on Brad, who stood in front of the prosecutor’s table near the jury box so they had a good look at him. Brad had pragmatically advised Jack to play his looks to the female jurors, if he could do so without seeming smarmy or conceited, but Jack didn’t really know how to do that except to sit up straight, so that’s what he did. “I was about halfway to my car. I had my keys in my hand. There was a van parked against the wall to my right. As I passed behind a retaining wall between me and the van, I heard a struggle. I stopped and looked. There were two men restraining a woman.”
“Did you recognize Maria Dominguez?”
“Not immediately.”
“Please continue.”
“Before I could even open my mouth to call out, one of the men stabbed her here,” he said, putting his hand on his upper chest. “Overhand, like this,” he said, demonstrating.
“Which of the men did the stabbing?”
“The taller one.”
“What did you do when you saw this man stab Maria?”
“I dropped down to a crouch behind the retaining wall, so the men couldn’t see me.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Yes. I was afraid if they knew I’d seen, they’d come and kill me too.”
“What did you do then?”
“I heard car doors open and close, and I heard the car pull out. I looked over the wall and tried to remember the license plate. I called nine-one-one. The woman was lying on the ground by the van. After the car had gone, I went to her to see if I could render aid.”
“And could you?”
“Her stab wound was very deep and bleeding profusely. I put pressure on it, but there was very little I could do. The police arrived very quickly, and they brought a gurney out of the hospital to take her inside. I told the police what I’d seen, and what I could remember of the license plate.”
“Dr. Francisco, do you see the men who stabbed Maria Dominguez in the courtroom today?”
“Yes, I do.” At this point, Jack swung over and looked at the defendants, seeing their faces for the first time since the day he’d seen them commit murder. It was chilling. They were both staring at him with flat, reptilian eyes, no affect visible on their faces, clean-shaven and wearing good-boy suits. “Those are the men, right there,” he said, pointing.
Brad nodded. “Let the record show that the witness had identified the defendants, Thomas Dominguez and Carlos Alvarez.”
“So noted,” said Judge Petersen.
“Dr. Francisco, just a few more questions. Do you stand to gain anything by testifying here today?”
“No.”
“In fact, your testimony has placed you in considerable danger.”
Carlisle rose. “Objection, Your Honor. The people have introduced no direct evidence that Dr. Francisco’s life has been threatened, by my clients or anyone else.”
“I’ll withdraw the question. Dr. Francisco, what has been your living situation since you witnessed this crime?”
“I’ve been under the protection of the U.S. Marshals’ office.”
“Witness protection, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“In fact you’ve had to give up your career, your home, your friends and family, all for the sake of this testimony.”
Jack sighed. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Thank you, Dr. Francisco. No further questions.” Brad sat down at the prosecutor’s table, giving Jack a small, tight nod of approval.
Rod Carlisle stood up and approached the podium. Jack mentally braced himself, because unlike the questions posed to him by Brad Salie, he didn’t know exactly what to expect.
Carlisle, unlike Brad, looked like a high-powered defense attorney. He was tall and leonine, with a mane of perfectly coiffed silver hair and a Caribbean tan. His clothes were perfect. He took his sweet time getting up and gathering his papers, as if Jack were not worth his haste and the testimony he’d just given was of no consequence. Jack waited patiently, watching him.
Finally, he stood before the witness stand and fixed Jack with a steady gaze. “Dr. Francisco, are you a homosexual?”
Brad shot to his feet as if he’d just been zapped with a cattle prod. “Objection, Your Honor! The witness’s sexual orientation is not relevant!”
Petersen gave Carlisle a withering look. “He has a point, Counselor.”
“Your Honor, we suspect that the witness was distracted in that parking garage, and the relevance of his sexual orientation will be clear in a moment.”
Petersen sighed. “It had better become clear damn quick. Overruled.”
Carlisle turned back to Jack. “Dr. Francisco?”
Jack didn’t allow himself a flinch or a fidget. “Yes, I am.”
“And are you currently in a relationship?”
Jack sighed. “If you’re asking me for a date, Mr. Carlisle, your timing sucks.” The courtroom erupted in laughter, and Carlisle flushed. He turned to the judge.
“Your Honor, I’d ask that you direct the witness to refrain from flippant remarks and answer the question.”
“Dr. Francisco, please answer Mr. Carlisle’s… question,” Petersen said, his distaste for this line of questioning evident.
The problem was that Jack didn’t really know the answer. He knew what he wanted the answer to be, so he went with that. “Yes, I am.”
“Were you at the time of the crime?”
“No, I was not.”
“So, you’ve met someone since you’ve been in… what was the term? Protective custody?”
; Brad jumped up again. “Your Honor, is there a relevant question anywhere in our future?”
“Get to the point, Mr. Carlisle.”
Carlisle whirled around in dramatic fashion and faced Jack. “Dr. Francisco, isn’t it true that you had arranged to meet up with a male prostitute in that parking garage?”
Jack was stunned by this blatant fabrication, but was spared answering by the seizure Brad Salie appeared to be having. “Objection!” he boomed, both hands going into the air. “Presumes facts not in evidence! Your Honor, defense counsel has no evidence that such a person ever existed or that such an encounter was ever planned!”
“Sustained.”
Carlisle wasn’t done. “And isn’t it true that you were, in fact, receiving oral sex at the time of the crime and were therefore too distracted to have seen anything at all, let alone my clients murdering anyone?”
“Now he’s just making stuff up!” Brad yelled. The courtroom was awash in shocked murmurings.
Petersen banged his gavel to quiet the hubbub. “Approach!” he barked. The two attorneys approached the bench, but Jack could hear every word.
“Mr. Carlisle, do you have any evidence that Dr. Francisco was thus engaged?” Petersen asked.
“Your Honor, I am entitled to present reasonable theories as to witness reliability.”
“Reasonable theories,” Brad hissed. “No such encounter was planned or executed, Your Honor, and any attempt to insinuate otherwise is an outright lie, and I will have him censured and disbarred for making false and prejudicial accusations! He is not allowed to just invent people and events that never existed!”
“If I am not allowed to question the witness’s reliability then I have grounds for appeal right there,” Carlisle said.
“Don’t you threaten me in my courtroom,” Petersen said. “You will cease this line of questioning immediately and your questions about the witness’s sexuality will be stricken.” He looked at Brad. “This may be grounds for a mistrial, Mr. Salie.”
Jack’s heart sank. Please, don’t ask for a mistrial. I can’t go through this again.
“I know it is, Your Honor, but my witnesses are in enough danger as it is. In fact, I might suspect Mr. Carlisle of intentionally introducing prejudicial lines of questioning hoping to get a mistrial to give his clients more time to bump off the people brave enough to testify against them!”
“Your Honor, this is an outrage—” Carlisle began, but was quickly shushed.
“You’ve said quite enough, Mr. Carlisle. You don’t intend to move for a mistrial, Brad?”
“No, Your Honor, but it still remains that the defense has introduced this idea into the jury’s minds and—”
“I know, Counselor. I’ll deal with it. Dismissed.” Brad and Carlisle returned to their tables and Judge Petersen faced the jury. “Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Carlisle’s questions regarding Dr. Francisco’s sexual orientation will be stricken from the record and I instruct you to disregard them. Further, there has been no evidence submitted to this court that the encounter Mr. Carlisle described ever took place, nor does this court have any reason to think it did. On a personal note I’d like to apologize to Dr. Francisco for having allowed this line of questioning and subjected him to this accusation.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jack said. He glanced at Brad, who nodded, looking grim but determined.
“Mr. Carlisle, if you have any relevant questions for Dr. Francisco, you may continue.”
Carlisle appeared to be totally unruffled by his defeat and went on as if everything was going just how he’d planned. “Dr. Francisco, what is your race, for the record?”
Jack glanced at Brad, who gave him a slight here-we-go eye-roll. “Genetically, there’s no such thing as race,” he said.
“I’ll rephrase. What is your race in the common, non-genetic use of the term?”
“I’m Caucasian.”
“And the defendants are Latino, are they not?”
“They are.”
“Dr. Francisco, earlier today we heard testimony from an expert in eyewitness identification who informed us that witnesses often have difficulty accurately identifying people of a different race from their own. Are you familiar with this phenomenon?”
“I am, yes.”
“Do you still maintain that the men you saw murder Maria Dominguez were the defendants?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“How can you be so positive?”
“Mr. Carlisle, I’m a doctor who specializes in faces, and I have a very good eye for detail. Their ethnicity did not affect my ability to clearly identify them. I am positive that the men I saw are your clients.” That had been a tip from Brad, to refer to the defendants as “your clients” during cross-examination, to subtly reinforce the attorney’s connection to the criminals on trial and his desire to get them off.
“You have a good eye for detail?” Carlisle said.
“I think so, yes.”
Carlisle abruptly turned his back to Jack. “What color are my eyes, then?”
Brad jumped up. “Your Honor, the witness has answered defense counsel’s questions; this demonstration is argumentative and unnecessary.”
Carlisle answered while keeping his back turned. “Witness has touted his eye for detail, I am entitled to test this assertion if we are to accept his identification of the defendants.”
Petersen sighed. “Overruled.”
“Dr. Francisco? We’re waiting.”
Jack smiled. Oral sex in the garage. You asked for this, asshole. “Mr. Carlisle, your eyes appear to be blue. However, the presence of a thin circle of brown around the pupils makes me think they’re probably colored contact lenses. Your eyelashes are unusually short, your lower lip is slightly fuller than your upper, and I suspect you are of Mediterranean descent based on your prominent brow shelf, cleft chin and squared-off jawline. Your earlobes are small and attached and you nicked yourself shaving this morning under the left side of your jaw. You have a small mole on your upper right cheek, a chicken pox scar in almost the same spot on your left, your teeth are veneers, you’ve had a nose job, and I think you’ve had cheek implants too.” He was sorely tempted to add a smart-ass Anything else? but he thought he’d made his point, and rubbing it in would just make him look like a smug jerk.
The jury was smiling and tossing nyah, nyah glances at Carlisle, who had clearly not endeared himself to them with his grandstanding. The gallery was tittering. Brad Salie was turning purple with suppressed glee. Carlisle turned to face him, the only sign of distress a slight blush around his ears. “No further questions,” he said, and went back to his table.
Brad stood. “No redirect, Your Honor.”
Petersen nodded. “The witness is excused.”
JACK HAD to wait until court was adjourned in case he was recalled, but just after four o’clock Brad came hurtling into the witness’s room and made a beeline right for him. He grasped Jack’s shoulders, beaming. “You. If it weren’t really inappropriate I could tongue-kiss you right now.”
“Uh, that’s okay.”
“That was brilliant.”
“I can’t believe he made that shit up about a male prostitute and a blow job!”
“Oh, and I intend to follow up on that, believe me. I want that jackass at least censured for making shit up. But it might actually have worked in our favor.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. The fact that the jury found out he was inventing all that just made it very clear to them that he is absolutely terrified of your testimony, or else he wouldn’t go to such lengths to discredit you. So what you said must be pretty important.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Well, Jack, you’re done! How does it feel?”
Kinda shitty, actually. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about giving this testimony for so long, now that it’s over… I’m a bit lost.”
“When are you going into Witsec?”
“I don’t know.”
“As soon as possible,” said Churchill, who had just entered the room. He came up to Jack and shook his hand. “You were really great up there,” he said. “Told you. Prosecutor’s wet dream.”
“Well, he’s at least got time to come out for a drink,” Brad said.
Churchill looked at Jack. “I don’t know. I need to keep him secure.”
“There’s a bar on the next block that we can get to with the tunnels; we go there all the time. Come on, Churchill! The brothers aren’t going to waltz up and pop him in a bar full of witnesses!”
Suddenly, Jack wanted to go out for a drink with the boys. Badly. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he said.
“Jack—”
“I’ve been stuck in that hotel room for almost a week, and I’m going to be there all weekend, right?”
“Yeah,” Churchill said, looking glum.
“It’ll be fine. One night. Let me celebrate getting all that shit into the court records.”
Churchill thought for a moment, and then gave a reluctant nod. “All right. But I’m coming too, with a couple armed marshals.”
Jack grinned. “Great!”
Brad clapped Jack on the shoulder. “I’ve got to file some paperwork and meet with Linda just for a moment. Wait here? I’ll come get you within the hour.”
“We’ll be here.” Brad left and Jack settled back into his chair, feeling like he might be rejoining the human race, if only for a few brief hours. Normal people didn’t live in hotel rooms and hide in other people’s brothers’ houses for months on end; they rode the subway and ate lunch in restaurants and went out for drinks with friends.
And their boyfriends.
Jack shut his eyes and pictured himself in a bar. Churchill and Brad were there, and the marshals who’d been guarding him… and he turned his head and there was D, smiling and drinking beer and plugging quarters into the jukebox, even laughing at the off-color jokes and fending off advances from women.
He rubbed his eyes and banished the vision. D was far away, and thinking of him now could only hurt.
“Jack, I’ll be back in a minute,” Churchill said. “Got to make a phone call.”
“Okay,” Jack said, barely noticing. He put his head down on his arms, folded on the tabletop, and let his eyes fall shut again, the background noise of conversation and people coming and going fading away. Just a few quick winks….