Guilt

by John Lescroart

  'No. There may have been cobwebs up in the light. Sometimes they gather there. I might have cleared them away, but I don't specifically remember doing anything.' A quick look towards the jury, explaining, 'I may have.'

  This, of course, had been rehearsed. Dooher wasn't denying anything that Frances Matsun had testified to. He was being reasonable, telling his own truth without attacking hers. It played, as they knew it would, very well.

  'Mark, your house has an alarm system, doesn't it?'

  A wry shake of the head. 'Yes, it does.'

  'Did you turn it on when you left the house on this day?'

  These carefully prepared questions would defuse Jenkins's contentions before she could even make them. 'No. I just walked out of the house.'

  'Didn't you lock the door behind you, either?'

  'No.'

  'Was this unusual? Why didn't you do either of these things?'

  Dooher sat back a minute, phrasing his response. 'I guess the real reason is that neither of them even occurred to me.'

  'Why not?'

  'Well, first, it was light out. I wasn't thinking about somebody breaking in. We'd never been broken into before.'

  'But you didn't lock the door?'

  'I go out to work every morning and don't lock the door behind me. It wasn't like I was leaving an empty house. Sheila was there. It never occurred to me she couldn't take care of herself. We live in a safe neighborhood, or I thought we did. When I do check the locks, it's usually before turning in at night, you know, like people do.'

  'What about the house alarm?'

  'Sheila doesn't – didn't – like the alarm.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because when we first got it installed, three or four times she opened a door to walk outside to take out the garbage or whatever, and it went off, and she had some trouble overriding the turn-off switch or something – anyway, it was a hassle for her. We didn't tend to use it unless we went on vacation, or away for the weekend, something like that. I wasn't about to turn it on when she was just taking a nap upstairs. If she woke up and went out for some reason and it went off, she'd have killed me.'

  Then to the driving range, where Dooher bought two buckets of balls. Yes, he remembered specifically which mat he'd hit from. He wore his most self-deprecating expression. 'I'm afraid that before all this' – an inclusive gesture indicating the world they were in – 'I used to be vain about my… about how I looked. I didn't like to appear to flounder. And this included my golf game. I didn't want people – anybody – to see me when I was working on my swing, maybe over-correcting to find out what I was doing wrong.'

  'Your honor.' Jenkins was showing her impatience. 'This is all very fascinating, but it doesn't answer the question of what mat he hit his golf balls from.'

  Thomasino leaned over the bench. 'Just answer the question, Mr Dooher.'

  'It was the last mat, at the very end, to the left as you go out the door of the clubhouse.'

  Farrell kept up the rhythm. 'And you stayed, hitting golf balls off that mat, until when?'

  'I think around nine-thirty, twenty to ten.'

  'Did you leave the mat at any time?'

  'I went to the bathroom after the first bucket, bought a Coke in the office. Then went back out and finished hitting.'

  'All right.' Farrell led them all, again, through the gruesome discovery, the emergency call, waiting for the police. It all came out, compelling and believable as he told it.

  Now Farrell shifted gears. 'Mark, Lieutenant Glitsky has testified that I was present at your house when he interrogated you on the night of the murder. Why was I there?'

  'I called you and you came.'

  'Did I come as your lawyer, because you wanted to protect yourself from police questions? Because you knew you'd be suspected of murdering your wife?'

  'No. None of that. I called you as a friend.'

  'Why did you call me, who happens to be your lawyer, out of all of your friends?'

  'I have known you for thirty-five years. You are my best friend. That's why I called you.'

  Farrell glanced at the jury, then back to his client. 'On another topic, during your last visit to Dr Peter Harris's office, did you remove a vial of blood and take it with you?'

  Dooher, still obviously amazed at the ridiculousness of the question, shook his head, looked directly at the jury for the last time. 'No. No, I did not.'

  'And finally, once and for all, and remembering that you are testifying under solemn oath, would you answer this question for the jury: did you kill your wife?'

  This time there were no histrionics. He sat forward, took a breath, let it out, and answered in an even, clear voice that rang through the courtroom. 'As God is my judge, I did not.'

  Farrell nodded, said, 'Thank you,' and turned on his heel.

  'Your witness.'

  Before Jenkins got to the blow-by-blow cross-examination of Dooher's movements throughout the afternoon and evening of June 7th, she wanted to clear up one specific point.

  She moved to the exhibit table and pulled two poster-size exhibits that she'd introduced as evidence during the questioning of the driving range's maintenance man. The first was a blow-up photograph of the hitting area taken from out in the middle of the range, and the other was a schematic rendering of the placement of the mats. She put both of these next to one another on an easel next to the witness chair.

  'As you can see,' she said, 'these exhibits represent the layout of the driving range. Just so we're clear on where you hit your balls from, would you please point out to the jury the mat that you stood on?'

  Cooperative and relaxed, Dooher did so.

  'The very last mat, you're sure of that?'

  'I am, yes.'

  'This is the mat nearest the hole in the fence leading to the parking lot, is it not?'

  'I don't know about that. I'd never noticed the hole in the fence. Although if your witness says so, I guess it's there.'

  Jenkins stood unmoving in the center of the courtroom. After twenty or thirty seconds, the Judge spoke to her. 'Ms Jenkins?'

  She blinked and brought her attention back from where it had been.

  Her cross-examination lasted three and a half hours.

  She got nothing.

  'What was that all about?' Christina sat at the table in their ante-room eating from a pile of carrot and celery sticks on a paper plate while the men busied themselves with salami on sourdough rolls. 'The exact mat you hit the balls from?'

  Dooher shook his head. 'I don't have any idea.'

  Farrell was chewing, staring out the window. 'I don't like it. She's got something else she's not showing us.'

  'You mean new evidence?' Christina couldn't envision it. 'How could that be, Wes? We've seen her discovery. We know all her witnesses. She'd have had to tell us before this.'

  'Well, that would be in the rules, that's true.'

  But Dooher was looking carefully at his friend. 'Anyway, Wes, what could she have?'

  'I don't know. But it worries me. It's my job to worry.'

  'Don't worry,' Dooher said. 'I was there at the last mat hitting golf balls and that's all there is to it.'

  Farrell nodded again. 'Let's hope so.'

  Glitsky thought that Richie Browne believed Dooher's story in all its detail. He was the golf pro at the range and could have been sent from Central Casting – a well-formed man, mid-thirties, in slacks and a polo shirt. He had gotten to know Dooher in the three or four months prior to the murder when the defendant started frequenting his range instead of the Olympic's.

  'Sure, he was there the whole time.'

  'You're sure?'

  'I'm positive.'

  Farrell turned and faced the jury, including them in his certainty, asking back over his shoulder, 'Were you aware of him the whole night?'

  Browne took his time. 'I remember him coming in. We talked about some new clubs he was considering – he'd been working with some new graphite shafts on his woods and thought he was going to g
o with them, buy a whole set, so you know I was interested. We're talking a thousand bucks here, so I was paying attention.'

  'And was that when he came in?'

  'Yeah.'

  'And did he seem anxious, nervous, keyed-up?'

  'Objection! Calls for a conclusion.'

  Glitsky noticed that Jenkins was forward on the last three inches of her chair, elbows on the table, fingers templed at her lips. He didn't know what had galvanized her at this late date, when to him the conclusion was all but fore-ordained, but something clearly had.

  Thomasino overruled her, though.

  Farrell repeated the question, and Brown told him that Dooher had been relaxed and genial. 'He talked about golf clubs. He didn't act any way.'

  'And then when he went out to hit some balls. When did you see him next?'

  'I don't know exactly. Fifteen, twenty minutes later. I walked out to the door with a lady customer and saw him down at the end, head down, lost in it. Whack whack whack.'

  'Now, Mr Browne, Mr Dooher has testified that he came in and got a Coke about halfway through-'

  'Your honor, please!' Jenkins shot up from her seat. 'Leading the witness.'

  Thomasino was paying close attention. To Glitsky's surprise, he didn't rule right away, spending a moment mulling. Then, simply: 'Overruled.'

  Farrell couldn't lose. He kept right at it. 'When did you see Mr Dooher next?'

  'Again, I didn't notice the exact time. He came in for a Coke.' Jenkins slapped her hand on her table in frustration. 'Maybe after his first bucket.'

  'Your honor, my God!' Jenkins – up again.

  Farrell spread his palms. 'I didn't ask anything, your honor. The witness has volunteered this information.'

  'It's speculation – move to strike.'

  Thomasino raised a calming hand. 'Yes, it is, yes, it is.' He told the jury to disregard this last information, and Glitsky thought they could collectively do that about as easily as they could levitate on cue.

  But the moment passed, and Farrell was finishing up. 'And did you see Mr Dooher at any other time during the course of this evening?'

  'Sure. When he left.'

  'When he'd finished hitting two buckets of golf balls?'

  'Objection! Speculation.'

  Thomasino sustained her again, but Farrell didn't care. He had gotten in nearly everything he wanted, and was finishing up. 'Did you see Mr Dooher when he left?'

  'Yes.'

  'And how was he acting then?'

  'Like he usually did. Normal. He came in, we talked a couple of minutes about his game. He told me a joke.'

  'He told you a joke?'

  'Yeah, we talked a couple of minutes and then he asked me how you get a dog to stop humping your leg. That's how I remember I saw him when he was leaving. I was laughing.'

  'You were laughing together?'

  'It was a good joke.' Browne paused, looked over to the jury, gave them the punch-line. 'You give him a blow job.'

  The courtroom went silent for a second, then erupted into nervous laughter. Thomasino hit his gavel a few times, order was restored, and Farrell gave Richie Browne to Amanda Jenkins for cross-examination.

  'Mr Browne, I'm particularly interested in this Coke you saw Mr Dooher get in the middle of his round of hitting golf balls. In your interview with Lieutenant Glitsky regarding this night, did you mention this trip to the Coke machine?'

  'I guess not. I didn't remember at the time. It came back to me later, that it was that night.'

  'And do you remember it now?'

  'Yes.'

  'So – to be absolutely clear, Mr Browne – is it your testimony now, under oath, that Mr Dooher bought a Coke in the middle of hitting his round of golf balls that night?'

  Browne squirmed. 'I think he came and got a Coke.'

  'You think Mr Dooher came and got a Coke? You're not sure.'

  'I'm pretty sure.'

  'But not certain?'

  Browne was physically reacting to the questioning, sitting back in the witness chair, arms crossed over his chest. 'No, not certain. But I think it was that night.'

  'Mr Browne, you're not certain you saw the defendant come in midway through the evening and get a Coke, is that your testimony?'

  Farrell took the opening. 'Asked and answered, your honor.'

  Thomasino agreed with him.

  It was beginning to move quickly with Farrell's defense witnesses. No sooner had Richie Browne passed out into the gallery area than Farrell called Marcela Mendoza, a forty-two-year-old former supervisor of medical technicians at St Mary's Hospital. After establishing her credentials and job duties during the twelve years she'd worked at the hospital, Farrell asked: 'Ms Mendoza, working in the blood unit of the laboratory at the hospital, did you ever experience a situation where blood that had been taken from a patient for tests got lost somehow?'

  'Yes.'

  'Commonly? Wait, please. Before you answer that, how many blood tests did you do?'

  'Well, we did I guess six or seven hundred blood tests every week or so.'

  'A hundred a day?'

  'Roughly. That's about right.'

  'And how often did a sample of blood get mislabeled, or misplaced, or lost, on average, in the twelve years you worked at the hospital?'

  'Objection, your honor. The defendant's doctor didn't work at this hospital.'

  Glitsky had the impression that Farrell had been hoping that Jenkins would say this very thing. 'Well, your honor, that's exactly the point. We intend to show that the blood could have come from any one of a number of places.'

  Thomasino's brows went up and down. 'Overruled. Proceed.'

  The question clearly made Ms Mendoza uncomfortable. It wasn't a piece of information the public would feel very good about. In fact, while she'd been working at the hospital, she would not have answered any questions about lost blood – both because she would not have wanted to, and because she would have been ordered not to.

  But Farrell's investigator had found her in August and convinced her that her expertise in this area could save the life of an innocent man. 'I'd say we'd lose one or two a week.'

  'A week!' Farrell, who of course already knew the answer, feigned shock. 'One or two a week?'

  'Sometimes more, sometimes less.'

  'And this lost blood, where does it go?'

  Mendoza allowed herself a small smile. 'If we knew that, Mr Farrell, it wouldn't be lost now, would it?'

  All agreement, Farrell stepped closer to her. 'Now in your own personal experience, Ms Mendoza, did you ever have a lab technician drop a vial of blood and not report it?'

  'Yes.'

  'And why was that?'

  'They didn't want to get in trouble, so they said they just never got the blood to do the tests on in the first place.'

  'And are you personally familiar with a case like this?'

  'Yes.'

  'Could you explain it a little more fully?'

  'One of my people did exactly what I just described, and I didn't report it, which was why I was let go.'

  This wasn't a point to press, and Farrell moved along. 'Ms Mendoza, about how many blood labs are there in the city?'

  'Big labs, there's about eight or nine. Smaller labs, doctors' offices, mobile units, blood banks… there are probably hundreds, I don't know exactly.'

  'Certainly more than fifty?'

  'Yes.'

  'And in your experience, was there ever a problem with lost blood at any of these facilities? In transit, to and from doctors' offices, something like that?'

  Ms Mendoza didn't like it, but she knew what she knew.'Most of the blood, there's never a problem,' she said.

  'I realize that. But sometimes…?'

  'Of course. Sure.'

  The blood testimony continued to build relentlessly, doubly damning, Glitsky thought, because there really wasn't much Amanda Jenkins could do on cross-examination. Doctors and technicians from County General, St Luke's, the Masonic Blood Bank and several other locations
all came to the stand and testified for ten minutes each, all essentially saying the same thing: blood got lost all the time. It was possible – maybe not probable, and perhaps difficult, but certainly possible – for a person to pick up a vial of blood and walk out of a facility with it.

  The worst moment from Glitsky's perspective came at the very end of the day when Farrell called a Sergeant Eames from Park station. It was always unnerving when the defense called a law-enforcement person to testify. For the past six years, Eames had worked on cases involving voodoo, santeria, and Satanic worship, all of which used blood from a variety of sources in their rituals. Eames was of the opinion that any cop in the city who wanted to get his hands on samples of human blood would have to look no further than the evidence locker of any district station on a typical Saturday night.

  CHAPTER FOURTY ONE

  Jim Flaherty was alone in his Spartan bedroom. He sat at his desk, intending to put the finishing touches on his yearly Christmas sermon and then – on this blessedly unbooked Thursday evening – he was going to get to sleep before midnight.

  But first he'd tune into the ten o'clock news, where he was heartened by the analysis of the events of the trial. Wes Farrell's parade of defense witnesses had demolished any lingering doubt about its outcome. Mark wasn't going to get convicted – the prosecution's case was in rags.

  Flaherty told himself that he'd never really entertained the notion that Mark had killed Sheila, but the blood had come close to shaking his faith. Now, though, it looked as though Farrell had put his finger into that potential hole in the dike, and what Mark had contended all along was true. The blood could have come from anywhere and the missing blood from his own doctor's office had been a terrible coincidence.

  It was critical that Flaherty be clear on this score. Farrell had asked him to be ready to testify about Mark's character beginning as early as tomorrow.

  He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the sheaf of looseleaf papers.

  And there was a knock on his door.

  He loathed interruptions in his bedroom – it was the only truly private place he had, the only personal time he ever got. But everyone on the staff here at the rectory knew that and protected his privacy, so this must be important.