“You ever hold this gun?” Armitage asked.
“Probably.” Booth was as surly as ever.
“Here, take this,” Armitage said. His voice softened. And despite what he’d said, he still held the gun close to his chest.
Booth looked confused. “The gun?”
“No, Mr. Booth, the words. ‘Here, take this.’ Did you hear your best friend Larkin St. Clair say those words?”
Parish felt a chill crease her whole body. This type of moment happened in every trial, when some small fact that everyone had overlooked now, in a different context, took on a whole new meaning. Oh no, she thought.
“Why would he say that?” Booth asked, sounding confused.
“I get to ask the questions,” Armitage said. Still spooky calm. “On the night of November fourteenth, at just after five in the afternoon, in the Tim Hortons parking lot on Elm Street, did Larkin St. Clair say to Jet, also known as Mr. James Trapper, ‘Here, take this’?” As he spoke, Armitage lifted the gun above Booth’s head.
Parish could see by his eyes that Booth now understood the import of the words. “No,” he said, defiant.
“You told us Larkin shot this gun.”
“Okay.”
“I’m asking you again, did St. Clair say, ‘Here, take this,’ to Jet before he pulled the trigger?”
Now Parish could object. Armitage had gone over the line into cross-examination. But she was afraid to. Didn’t want to draw even more attention to this, the worst piece of evidence in the whole trial.
Booth jutted out his jaw. “No. It was Jet. He said it just before he shot at me.”
Armitage turned his back on Booth and looked right at the jury. “You didn’t mention that before.”
“I forgot.”
“You didn’t forget.” Armitage whirled around at Booth with lightning speed. He was shouting. His voice was louder than anything Parish had ever heard in a courtroom. “That’s impossible. Adela Dobos, the witness who heard these words, was just outside the door. Steps from where you and Larkin St. Clair were standing. Jet was way over at the other side of the lot. No way she would have heard anything he said.”
Parish was so taken aback that it took her a moment to stand up.
“It was your best friend, Larkin, wasn’t it?” Armitage cast his free hand back at the defense table, pointing right at St. Clair. His voice at full volume. “‘Here, take this.’ That’s what Larkin St. Clair said. Then he fired at Jet, didn’t he?” He pointed the gun right at Booth’s head.
“Your Honor,” Parish said.
“But he slipped, just like the defense is saying,” Armitage said. “That’s why St. Clair fired all over the lot.”
“This is cross-examination!” she yelled.
Rothbart was taken off guard too. “Yes, please, Mr. Armitage,” he said at last.
“And he kept firing,” Armitage spit out the words at Booth. “And killed Kyle Wilkinson.”
“Mr. Armitage.” Rothbart’s baritone kicked into gear.
Armitage stomped back to the registrar’s desk and slammed the gun down with a jolt. The sound bounced around the courtroom like a bullet pinging off steel. He pounded back to the edge of the witness stand and ripped the affidavit out of Booth’s hands, half shredding it in the process.
“Those”—he huffed—“are”—he huffed again—“my”—an even bigger huff, like an angry black bear, Parish thought—“questions.” He spat out the last word, stalked back to his chair, and sat down.
The courtroom was stunned into silence. No one seemed to know what to do.
Parish was the only one standing.
Judge Rothbart, speechless for a moment, found his voice. “Ms. Parish? Any questions?”
The jurors swung their eyes to her. She had to make a split-second decision.
She felt like a character in an animated movie. A red devil was whispering into one ear, saying, Cross-examine him. He’ll never admit he was the shooter, but he’ll say anything to make it sound good for the defense. If you ask him, “Mr. Booth, you told Larkin to use the gun only in self-defense, didn’t you?” he’ll say, “Yes I did.” Or if you say, “Jet was yelling and you thought he wanted to kill you, didn’t you?” Booth will say, “He said, ‘Here, take this,’ and then he fired.” And if you ask, “Larkin hid the gun afterward because you told him to, right?” he’ll give you the answer that he thinks will help Larkin the most: “It was all my idea.”
In her other ear the white angel was warning her to be careful. The jurors are going to think this whole thing was staged by the two best friends, Larkin and Dewey. Booth’s pat answers will make this story too unbelievably perfect. Remember, Booth already said the key point when Armitage questioned him: that Jet had a gun and he fired first. That’s the main course. The rest is dessert, dangerous dessert. You got a solid double here. Don’t try to stretch it to a triple.
She glanced over at the witness box. Booth gave her a boastful, full-of-himself grin. Christ. If she asked Booth, “You and Larkin plan to join the Boy Scouts, become Big Brothers, and do charity work for old people after this trial?” he’d say yes to that too.
That was all she needed. Have Booth give a bunch of conveniently perfect answers. The jury wouldn’t believe any of it. Instead, they’d be convinced he was the one pulling all the strings in this case and that he’d somehow intimidated Suzanne into changing her story so it fit. And since he wasn’t on trial, they’d blame his best buddy. Larkin.
People called lawyers their mouthpieces, but sometimes the very best thing you could do as an advocate was keep your trap shut. And she wanted Booth off the stand. Now.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” she said. “No questions.”
Booth looked at her, disappointed.
Good, she thought. Now sit down nice and slowly, she told herself, confident that she’d made the right decision.
56
During the trial, lawyers were given small offices in the courthouse where they could keep their files, meet with witnesses, retreat from the melee in the hallways, and, when the time came, wait for the jury to return. Unlike Ralph Armitage’s big, cozy digs in the Crown’s office, the room Ari Greene shared with him now was small and cramped. And as the trial progressed and Armitage faltered in court, Greene began to feel as if the two of them were stuck together in a leaky lifeboat.
“I got you a grande caramel latte,” he said, unpacking a Starbucks paper bag. He’d also got himself the same size cup of tea with two bags in it, “Awake” and “Calm.” Seemed appropriate. It was Wednesday. Half an hour ago, court had finished for the day and they had work to do.
“Thanks,” Armitage said, his voice flat and lifeless. He was looking out the only window in the room, which faced onto the wall of the adjoining building. Since Monday, the low point of the trial when he lost his cool with Dewey Booth on the witness stand, he’d been staring out the window whenever they were in the room.
To regain their footing in court, once Booth was off the stand, Greene had suggested they call the police witnesses, and for the last two days Armitage had paraded them before the jury.
He started with Daniel Kennicott, the first officer on the scene. He’d been an impressive witness. Nancy Parish cross-examined him on how slippery the sidewalks were that night and he described falling on the ice as he rushed to the scene.
Next came the officers who did the GSR tests on Larkin St. Clair. They described finding gunshot residue on his hands, the outside of his pants, and the inside front as well. Parish established that the GSR on his hands could have come from being near the shooter when the gun was fired or holding it afterward. Making the point that the results didn’t prove St. Clair fired the gun.
Forensic Officer Harry Ho pointed out all the bullet holes at the scene, and Parish had him come to her diagram and mark on a separate one of her acrylic sheets the spot where the flatted shell casing had been found. Right where Jet’s Cadillac had been. Then she got him to draw a straight line from that point to
the bullet holes in the walkway beside the Tim Hortons and the wall behind it. Lined up perfectly.
A junior officer then played the video from the parking lot, and Armitage had him stop it at the point where St. Clair was stuffing something down the front of his pants. When combined with the GSR results, it was clear that he was stuffing a gun down there. Parish didn’t ask any questions.
The two cops Greene had sent to get the gun from St. Clair’s aunt’s backyard testified that it was exactly where Dewey Booth said it would be. Parish remained silent again.
The scientist who’d compared the markings on the outside of the bullet in young Kyle Wilkinson’s head with the inside of the gun did a demonstration for the jury. Perfect match.
“No questions of this witness,” Parish said. She was smart enough to not contest the obvious: that her client had taken off with the gun that fired the fatal shot and hidden it. But throughout all of this evidence her body language had been relaxed, even bored. The message she was broadcasting to the jury, loud and clear, was that after Dewey Booth’s testimony the case was over.
At the end of court today, Judge Rothbart had sent the jury out.
“Counsel,” he said, “I’m concerned about timing. Mr. Armitage, do you have any more witnesses to call?”
“Detective Greene and I need to discuss that,” he said, getting to his feet. “But if we do, it will only be one witness.”
“Excellent,” Rothbart said. “Ms. Parish, you have no obligation to tell us, but do you think you’ll be calling a defense?”
This of course was the elephant in the room at every criminal trial. Was the defendant going to testify, or call other evidence?
Parish took her time standing up and gave Rothbart a sly grin. “Let’s see what happens tomorrow,” she said. “But if I had to guess, I’d put my money on us starting our jury addresses on Friday.”
Rothbart beamed down at her. Looking as happy as an actor taking a curtain call. “That’s very, very helpful,” he said. “I’ll see you all at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Greene sat with his still-hot tea in the only other chair in the little room he shared with Armitage and took a sip.
Armitage turned from the window. He hadn’t touched his latte. He reached for a file folder with the label JAMES ERIC TRAPPER on the front. “What do you think? Should we call him?”
Greene knew this case desperately needed a reliable eyewitness who’d seen it all. And since they couldn’t find Ozera, the baker from Tim Hortons, all they had was James Eric Trapper, aka Jet. “I subpoenaed him yesterday from jail. He’ll be here in the morning.”
“Without the damn prelim, I have no idea what he’ll say,” Armitage said.
“Probably just ‘fuck you.’”
“But he’ll be under oath. If I ask him if he had a gun, he’s got to answer the question.”
“What if he says, ‘Yes, I had a gun’?” Greene asked. “‘I fired the first shot.’”
Armitage sighed. “Look,” he said, “if we don’t call him, Parish will stand up in front of the jury and say, ‘They had Jet as a witness, why didn’t he testify? What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?’”
He was right.
Greene stood up with his cup in hand. “I’ll go double-check with the prison transport. Make sure they get him here good and early.”
Armitage nodded at Greene. “I know you think I messed up, making the deal with Cutter,” he said.
Greene shrugged. “What’s done is done. We have to move forward.”
“I appreciate how hard you’ve worked on this.”
“Thanks,” Greene said as he opened the door. “It’s a tough case.”
Armitage turned back to the window and stared at the brick wall, cradling his warm drink in his hands. Still making no move to drink it.
57
Ted DiPaulo often told Nancy Parish about how, in the “bad old days,” there used to be all sorts of surprises during trials. But in the new, “modern era,” with full disclosure by the Crown, pretrial motions about most contentious issues, and extensive preliminary inquiries, the lawyers knew almost all the evidence that was going to come out during a trial—with the big exception of the testimony of the accused, if they testified—and what to expect from each witness.
But not this morning.
Parish watched James Trapper, aka Jet, shuffle into the courtroom, resplendent in his orange prison jumpsuit, and, like Ralph Armitage, she didn’t know what he was going to say. Two guards, tightly at his sides, escorted him to the witness box. One stationed himself right beside it, the other backed off and sat beside the jury.
“What’s your full name, sir?” Armitage asked once the new witness was sworn. He had moved out from behind the counsel table and for the first time in the trial was using the stand-up lectern. Almost as if he were hiding behind it.
“James Eric Trapper, but everyone calls me Jet.” He gave his shoulders an exaggerated shrug.
“Thank you. To state the obvious, you are presently in prison, is that correct?” Armitage’s whole demeanor had changed. No more being on a first-name basis with the witness. No more sucking up to the jury. Only cold clinical questions.
Trapper looked around the courtroom. “Possession of stolen property times ten. Proceeds of crime. Possession of an unregistered gun. Second time for that. Cops found it under my bed. Doing eighteen months. Four in already.” He shrugged again as if to say, “Big deal.”
Parish had warned St. Clair, especially with this witness, to never make eye contact. If the jury got even a whiff that Larkin or Dewey had intimidated him, they’d be furious.
Armitage had his notes in front of him and looked through them. “Where were you born, sir?”
“Pelee Island.”
“Did you know Dewey Booth?”
Trapper snorted. “We were in a one-room class together from grade four when he showed up until he quit high school.”
“How about Suzanne Howett?”
“Known Suzie since nursery school.”
Parish could see that Armitage’s body was unusually stiff. He gripped the podium. “Are you married, sir?”
“I am.”
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Charlene. We’re separated right now.”
“Last November, what was your relationship with Ms. Howett?”
“We were friends. I drove her around. She didn’t have a car.”
Here we go, Parish thought. Armitage was heading into dangerous waters. If Jet said he was afraid of Dewey because he was seeing Suzanne, Dewey’s old girlfriend, then it made sense that he brought a gun to defend himself. And if the jury believed that Jet fired the first shot then the defense was in great shape.
She worked hard to keep her face neutral. But as a small self-indulgence, she cracked a tiny smile at the left corner of her mouth. The side the jury couldn’t see.
Armitage paused and looked down at the podium again. He’s using the notes as a prop, she thought. Buying himself time to decide which way to go. The reality was that he’d been forced to call Jet as a witness. Which meant that, since he didn’t have the right to cross-examine, he’d be stuck with the answers he got.
“Do you know the accused, Larkin St. Clair?” He pointed at the defense table.
Smart, Parish thought. He’s staying away from the question of Jet’s relationship with Dewey. How Dewey must have hated him.
“I know Larkin,” Jet said. He didn’t bother to look over.
Armitage fiddled with his notes again. He was being painfully slow. Deliberate. “I’d like you to direct your mind to the afternoon of November fourteenth. Can you please tell the jury—”
“I don’t remember much about it.” For the first time since he’d been on the stand, Trapper’s voice changed. Instead of sounding bored, it was firm, forceful. He flicked a look at St. Clair.
Bad move, Parish thought. Thankfully St. Clair kept following her instructions and looked straight ahead.
“Must have. I did it every day.”
“Do you remember seeing her run toward you to get in the car?”
It was close to a leading question but Parish let it go. She didn’t want to appear to be protecting this witness.
“Not really. November, it’s dark already.”
“Did you hear any gunshots?”
Trapper splayed out his hands in front of him and gave another exaggerated shrug. “It was a long time ago. I keep the car radio on real loud.”
Armitage was getting stonewalled. Parish wondered how much longer he’d beat his head against this wall.
“Did you know Dewey was out of jail when you picked up Suzanne on November fourteenth?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Did you expect he was going to be at the Tim Hortons?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Did you bring your gun with you?”
“Can’t remember.”
Armitage walked back over to his table and picked up a set of papers. He was calm. Without all his big theatrics, Parish thought, he was a better lawyer.
“Do you recall that the police found an unregistered handgun in your apartment?”
“Right. Sure do. It’s why I’m in jail.”
“There was a forensic report done on it. Have you seen it?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“It was dusty. There were cobwebs in the barrel.”
Trapper crossed his arms. “My place is real dirty. Drove my wife crazy that I was such a slob.”
He yawned and put his hands up to his mouth. As if he were bored with this, just a first-degree murder trial about the killing of an innocent four-year-old boy. The jury is going to hate him, Parish thought.
“Okay,” Armitage said. He was back behind the podium. “Let’s get right to the heart of the matter. On the night of November fourteenth, did you see Larkin St. Clair in the parking lot of the Tim Hortons, just across the street here on Elm?”
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