Prehistoric Beasts And Where To Fight Them

by Hugo Navikov

  Slipjack looked honestly surprised. “No, I definitely did not know that.”

  “Oh, yes, there is a record stating that the defendant turned his key in at the end of the manufacturing process for the expedition.” Then he pulled a face. “But Kat Muir never turned hers in.”

  “Well, that sure isn’t—wasn’t—like her. She always liked to have her i’s dotted and her t’s crossed and such. She was always careful, no matter what she was doing.”

  “Yes, I would imagine that misplacing a key to a facility full of very specialized, very expensive equipment would be reckless, even for a comfortably tenured academic, wouldn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t seem like it would be real responsible, but that’s why you report it missing, so they can change the locks.”

  “Did you know that the defendant reported the key missing only after returning to San Diego following his wife’s death?”

  “Wha—? I mean to say, no, I was not aware of that factoid.”

  “Just two more questions. No, one more, sorry, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said with a nod and returned his attention to the witness. “Do you have any knowledge—knowledge, now—of how, if Kat Muir’s key was reported missing and Sean Muir’s key was turned in according to protocol, there could be a third key? One the security folks in charge of every key at the university didn’t know about?”

  “They could’ve gotten a copy made at Home Depot or like that, I guess.”

  “Aren’t these kinds of keys marked ‘DO NOT DUPLICATE’? Surely, you’ve seen those many times.”

  “Yeah. Yes, I mean, many times.”

  “So one couldn’t legally get a locksmith to do it, and certainly not Home Depot, where they probably don’t even carry this kind of key, and for that exact reason. “

  “Oh, yeah, I guess not.”

  “So there could have been a third key or not?”

  “What? I—I’m really confused right now. I guess there could’ve been a third one.”

  The prosecutor held off the defense lawyer and judge by immediately smiling and indicating the man on the bench, “Don’t speculate, Mister McCracken. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of this esteemed gentleman.”

  Again, a small laugh rose from a few in the gallery.

  “Okay, then, I just mean there could’ve been a third key.”

  “Even though, to your knowledge, it would be illegal to have such a key made?”

  Slipjack laughed, a bit uncomfortably. “I’m … I think I lost track of what you was asking me.”

  The prosecutor smiled sympathetically. “I was asking if there was, to your knowledge, any way a third key that could have been used by either the defendant or the victim. Was there? Did you have that knowledge?”

  “No, sir, I got no knowledge of how there could be a third key.”

  “So Kat Muir had just one key, the one to her office; and the defendant had just one key, the one to his office.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I seem to be saying.”

  “Thank you, Mister McCracken. No more questions, Your Honor.” Then, with a nod acknowledging the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecutor returned to his table and, giving off an air of dispassion, examined some documents shown to him as if on cue by the other prosecutor seated at their table.

  “Counsel, come visit the bench,” the judge said to the prosecutor, and when the lawyer got to the bench, he whispered in consternation: “What in the good graces of God was that?”

  “I don’t know what you could mean, Your Honor.” He kept his face as still as possible. No smirk would do anything good right now.

  “You know damn well what I mean—that whole business with the keys! You got the witness so turned around he didn’t know what you were even asking him.”

  “I was just trying to cover all the possible contingencies, Your Honor.”

  “You were trying to make it seem like Sean Muir did some subterfuge with his and his wife’s office keys to make it look like he was in the building alone with the cable.”

  “If this witness is confused, then the jury is certainly confused.”

  The prosecutor looked, like, totally shocked, and said, “I didn’t think of that, Your Honor. I hope they didn’t get the wrong idea.”

  The judge closed his eyes and breathed through his nose for a moment, then said calmly, “What is the right idea, counselor? Who had what keys? And when?”

  “Exactly the question I was trying to answer, Your Honor.”

  “Go, sit down. Get out of my face.” The judge shook his head with his eyes closed for a moment, then said, “Defense counsel, the witness is yours.”

  The defense attorney, dressed in a gray suit as fine as the prosecutor’s was off-the-rack and navy blue, thanked the judge and approached Slipjack at the witness stand with a facsimile of a friendly smile on his face. “Mister McCracken, may I call you Phillip or Phil? Or by your sailor’s name—‘Slipjack,’ isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Slipjack said, his tone and mien already suspicious. “I mean, that’s my name and such, but I don’t know why you want to call me that. We aren’t friends, and you ain’t—aren’t—a seagoing man, I can see that. Unless it’s on a yacht.”

  The judge had to suppress a small smile as he said, “Just answer the questions asked of you, Mister McCracken.”

  “Yeah, that’s not important, Mister McCracken, although I do wonder what ‘Slipjack’ even means. I’ve heard ‘Skipjack,’ but never ‘Slipjack.’”

  “Counsel, don’t get cute. You don’t seem to be asking a question, which, I may remind you, is your job here.”

  “My apologies, Your Honor. Mister McCracken, did you know that ‘Slipjack’ means ‘A person so unattractive that he looks like he was working underneath a car when the jack slipped’?”

  Slipjack, who was no model but wasn’t that bad to look at—especially after being bought a couple of beers and shots at the Bayside Bar & Grill, which had for as long as anyone could remember sported a hand-lettered sign in its front window that said “GRILL BROKEN”—shook his head, looking surprised and embarrassed. “I did not know that. I didn’t think it meant … anything, really.”

  “Now, skipjack—that’s a kind of tuna, isn’t it?”

  It was the prosecution’s turn to make an objection: “I don’t see how this could possibly be relevant.”

  “Overruled, for the moment,” the judge answered, and fixed the defense attorney with a sour look. “Counsel, will there be a point here other than trying to insult the witness? That’s kind of, I don’t know, ‘contemptuous’ in a courtroom like this, don’t you think?”

  The defense attorney made reassuring motions and said, “There is, indeed, a point, Your Honor. Now, Slipjack—”

  “Counsel.”

  “Wha—Oh, excuse me, Your Honor. Now, Mister McCracken, that nickname isn’t exactly a compliment, is it?”

  “Don’t sound like it, no.”

  “A skipjack, on the other hand, is a kind of tuna, the kind that merchant fishermen love to haul into their boats. In fact, ‘skipjack’ also refers to a kind of fishing boat, did you know that?”

  “Yeah. Yes. I know boats and merchant fish and such.”

  “Is it possible that whoever gave you that nickname meant to say ‘Skipjack’? As a good seaman’s moniker, you know?”

  “It’s possible,” Slipjack said.

  “But it must’ve gotten around on the boats you’ve worked—nobody was saying, ‘Are you talking about Phil McCracken? Surely, you mean “Skipjack.” After all, “Slipjack” basically means “really ugly.”’ Right, ‘Slipjack’ must have been repeated about you and it stuck? Mister McCracken?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Counsel, did I just hear what I think I heard? Are you calling the witness ugly?”

  “No, Your Honor. I’m asking if those around him called him ugly.”

  “You’re right on the edge, counsel, and you know I will not hesitate to put you up at the
Hotel County Jail for contempt of court.”

  “Your Honor, there is a point I’m trying to get at, and I believe this line of questioning is the only way to find out if my surmises are accurate or not.”

  “Get at it very soon.”

  “Certainly, Your Honor. So, Mister McCracken, I will reformulate my question: Was it the case that the nickname ‘Slipjack,’ which we’ve established means ‘ugly,’ was given to you by your shipmates or others with whom you associated?”

  “I don’t think I’m ugly,” Slipjack said in a tone somewhere between sulky and pissed off. “There been a lot of women who don’t think that, either.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment, but please answer the question, Mister McCracken.”

  “Yeah, it’s possible. I mean, that’s the only people what would give me a nickname at all. But they were just kidding around.”

  “I believe that. I really do. It was kind of a way to bust your … well, y’know. Some harmless ribbing that almost every ship’s crew—or any group of men and women crammed together for a good period of time—takes part in. Takes everybody down a notch and makes them all the same kind of unlucky son of a gun who’s found himself in lousy surroundings. Just teasing. Could it have been that, maybe, Mister McCracken?”

  “Objection, Your Honor! He’s asking the witness to speculate—”

  “Naw, it’s okay,” Slipjack said. “That’s all it was. Everybody got nicknames that meant ‘stupid’ or ‘slow’ or ‘lazy’ and such. Nobody would stay on their high horse very long. It was good for working a boat like equals, yeah.”

  “Thank you for answering that, Mister McCracken. It shows you’re probably a good sport. Are you?”

  Slipjack shrugged and said with a smile, “Yeah, I guess.”

  “I thought so. I mean, going by a name for ‘ugly person,’ you have to be a fun guy, a sport.” The defense attorney’s smile and nod at Slipjack looked like he wanted to slap him on the back or bump fists like a fellow cool dude. “I do want to ask, though: When a shipmate gets nicknamed something like ‘Slowpoke,’ is that based on anything, any, I don’t know … maybe sluggishness on the part of the person receiving that handle?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t get what you’re saying.”

  “You know, ‘Slowpoke,’ wouldn’t that be funny and also make sense as a nickname for the slowest deckhand on the boat?”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  “Sure, it does. Somebody who, I don’t know, was the poor guy who started off on the ship cutting bait all day, he could be called ‘Stinky,’ right?”

  Slipjack laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, there was almost always a Stinky on every fisher boat, let me tell ya.”

  The defense attorney laughed with him a little bit, then said, still smiling, “So even though these aren’t compliments, certainly, they show a brotherly kind of joking around that actually means the other sailors accept you as one of them, would you agree?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And like all good jokes, these nicknames have at least a little bit of truth to them, right? I mean, you wouldn’t call a shipmate who would slip on his own mopped deck ‘Slowpoke,’ right? It wouldn’t make sense. ‘Slowpoke’ has got to be the name for a slow guy if it’s going to be funny or catch on with the crew—do you see what I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So when they nicknamed you ‘Slipjack,’ did you know what it meant? It’s sort of urban in origin, so a sailor could be excused for not being familiar with that as being something people were called.”

  Slipjack sensed something coming, he didn’t know what, and so he had stopped smiling. “Actually, I, uh, actually thought it was ‘Skipjack’ for a while.”

  “But you found out what it really was soon enough, is that right?”

  The seaman pulled an abashed face and looked at his hands in his lap. “I did, sir,” he said. “Soon enough. We got a computer hotspot on the fancier boats, so I looked it up.”

  “You did. Of course, you did—who wouldn’t, if they somehow had earned this name from people he thought were friends?” The defense attorney shared a sympathetic look with Slipjack, making sure the jury could see it. “What did it say, when you looked it up?”

  “It said just what you said. It’s for people so ugly that they look like a car mashed their face. But it was just a joke, like the ones we had for the other guys. I kept it even when I got out of fishing, so guys wouldn’t think I was all full of myself. I like it now.”

  “You don’t think it’s an accurate nickname, anyway, isn’t that right? So no hard feelings.”

  “Yeah, that’s just how it was.”

  “But you do admit that everybody else’s nickname was based at least a little on reality. ‘Stinky,’ ‘Porky,’ things like that.”

  “Um, yeah. That’s right.”

  “So they actually thought you really were kind of ugly, if they called you ‘Slipjack.’ That’s how I see it. Is that how you see it?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  The judge grumbled, “All right, that’s enough. Do you have any other lines of questioning, counselor, or is this just going to be you berating the witness about how unattractive you think he is?”

  “My next question, literally my next question, will bring it all together, Your Honor. If you don’t find it relevant, then I’ll stop the cross-examination there, no more questions at all.”

  The judge looked dubious, but he said, “Counsel for both parties, approach the bench, please.”

  The prosecutor, who looked more perplexed than upset at the lack of apparent point to the defense attorney’s questioning—the witness was not an attractive man, he agreed—tried not to show his confusion to the judge.

  The defense attorney did what he could not to show smugness or how in love with himself he was at that moment.

  First, the judge addressed the prosecutor: “Do you want me to let him ask this supposedly final question, or should I cut him off here?”

  He answered, “I’m curious myself to see where the heck he’s going with this. Your Honor. I think one more question would be all right, but I believe that should be his last question, period. I don’t presume to tell the court what to do, but in my opinion that would be a fair deal.”

  “I’ll take that under consideration.” He then turned to the defense attorney and said, “Can you live with that? Is your next question important enough to be your last? If I cut you off after the witness’s answer and don’t let you make one more peep to this witness than “Thank you” or to me than “No more questions, Your Honor” before he leaves the stand, are you going to try any shenanigans? I have exactly one last good nerve before I send you to county for the next thirty days, so you’d better be meaning whatever you say to me.”

  He nodded soberly. “I accept the terms, Your Honor.”

  “All right, then. Thank you, gentlemen,” the weary judge said. “Let’s get back to work.”

  The defense lawyer stepped back into position. “Thank you for your patience, Mister McCracken, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I have one last question and that’s it. The nickname ‘Slipjack,’ whether meant in a friendly way or as an outright insult, is based on what many may see as a certain, let’s say, appearance that improves in opposite proportion with the brightness of a room’s lighting—”

  “Your Honor!” the prosecution yelped.

  “—so real quick, here’s my final question: How did an ugly mug like you get Doctor Katherine Muir—the beautiful, well-paid, respected, and, by all accounts, loving wife of Doctor Sean Muir—to carry on a sexual relationship, a full-blown extramarital affair, with you for the last three months of her life?”

  Phillip ‘Slipjack’ McCracken practically jumped to his feet and tried to lunge at Sean Muir’s defense attorney but was held back by a quick-moving bailiff. The prosecutors almost knocked their chairs over as they shouted “Objection! Your Honor! OBJECTION!” again and again. However
, that was largely drowned out by the eruption of shouts and shrieked obscenities from both sides of the courtroom gallery: Sean’s family screaming bloody murder at the accusation, no matter that it completely destroyed the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness; and Katherine’s family roaring in fury at the blackening of their dearly departed’s good name.

  “ORDER IN THE COURT!” The judge banged his gavel again and again and again, yelling, “CLEAR THIS COURTROOM! CLEAR THIS COURTROOM NOW!” also again and again and again, and to just as little effect. However, he did get the two uniformed officers who came running at the riot of noise to get both sides of counsel into his office NOW and to get more courthouse police to clear the room NOW. He also yelled to his bailiff to escort the witness out the back to a secure space and keep him from getting killed for as long as possible.

  Sean Muir, for his part, had been coached to be inexpressive during the trial, even to seem to zone out. Except when witnesses testified how wonderful Kat had been, sharing stories of this kindness or that generosity—that was the time, they said, to cry or let his anger out (silently). The jury would be watching, and taking notes subconsciously, notes that would come to the forefront of their minds during deliberation over his guilt and then, possibly, in the worst-case scenario, his sentence.

  Sean wasn’t an actor, however, although he did get teary during the opening statements, when both parties extolled some of his late wife’s many virtues. The State lamented that such a wonderful woman could be betrayed and murdered by her husband; and the defense insisted that no one who knew her, least of all her devoted husband, could harm a hair on her head, and this was a tragic accident that an overzealous district attorney had blown up into a headline-grabbing travesty of justice.

  Otherwise, he just listened quietly, zoning out being something he did not want to do and probably, given his restless mind, couldn’t do. It wasn’t difficult to keep calm after the opening statements, since everything thus far had been technical details, expert opinions on the materials used in the winch, cables, and submersible. Sean could see that the prosecutors were trying to find if there were any flaws in the design, perhaps intentional flaws introduced by the defendant to make his wife’s death look like an accident; and his defense was looking to show that not only was all equipment ideally designed and built, but also that Kat had taken part in every step, making it unlikely any flaw could have been intentionally incorporated into the works that she wouldn’t have noticed and pointed out. Slipjack was the final witness in the part of the trial dealing with what was damaged, possibly even sabotaged, and who would have had the opportunity, motive, and ability to perform the sabotage, if sabotage it was.