Flustered, Stauber went on to commit the cardinal sin of cross-examination by asking Fox a question to which he certainly did not know the answer.
“And how could you possibly know that, Mr. Fox? That you were hearing voices coming from the master bedroom? Had you ever been in the house prior to or after that night, or ever?”
McGraw had anticipated the question and had provided Fox with a blueprint of the house in preparation for cross-examination. Fox did not hesitate to inform Stauber and the jury of that fact.
“So, yes,” he added, “I knew exactly where I was standing. Under the master bedroom, where I heard the voices of both defendants.”
During this segment of the cross-examination, Jerry glanced over at McGraw. It was plain that he was restraining himself from smiling. At the defense table on the other side, Paul Blake kept looking up at Stauber with a sad expression.
Stauber swallowed, paused for a moment, mulling perhaps how much damage Fox’s testimony had just caused, and moved on.
But then he went on to ask, “So what you saw those two nights proved nothing to your superiors.” Ten feet away from him, Paul Blake let out a barely audible groan. “Isn’t that correct, Mr. Fox?”
Judge Pratt was scowling. “Is everything alright, Mr. Blake?”
“It was ten minutes ago,” he told the Judge, “before my colleague’s cross-examination began.”
The jurors chuckled and so did Jerry Shaw.
Stauber still didn’t appear to get it. When the chuckling subsided, he turned to Fox and repeated, “Isn’t that correct, Mr. Fox? What you saw proved nothing to Global Insurance.”
“It proved only that the insured’s wife and his best friend were screwing around. But at the time, not murder. The proof for that came later.”
Stauber had been had and he knew it. He turned to Judge Pratt, was about to ask him to strike Fox’s gratuitous testimony, then thought better of it.
“That is for the jury to decide,” he told Fox, turned and went back to his seat.
“Anything else, Mr. Stauber?” Judge Pratt asked.
“No, no your Honor.”
The judge looked tiredly at Paul Blake, who was leaning on his right elbow with his eyes closed. On the defense table in front of him was a long yellow legal pad full of doodles. “Anything, Mr. Blake?”
Blake seemed to have been roused from a nap. He sat upright and blinked at the judge.
“Just this,” he said as he rose from behind the defense tabled and ambled to the podium. “Do you have any idea who sent you those emails?”
Fox grimaced. “No,” he said. “No idea.”
“And you have no direct knowledge, out of your own mind, who prepared them, do you?”
“No, not out of my own mind.”
“You have no direct knowledge whether my client, Holly Shaw, prepared the one attributed to her, do you?”
“No. Except that –”
“Thank you, Mr. Fox. That answer is sufficient. I know you are trained to add things, etcetera, but I am not going to let you do that.”
“I only add the truth, counselor.”
“I’m sure you do, or what you think is the truth.”
“Is this debate finished?” asked Judge Pratt. “Move it along, Mr. Blake.”
“And as to what you saw the nights of your surveillance, or what is more properly referred to as a stake-out,” Blake asked, “you have no direct knowledge what it means.”
“No, no direct knowledge.”
“And would it surprise you if two good friends got together after the death of the spouse of one of them and commiserated?”
“That’s not my definition of commiseration, counselor,” Fox said.
“Because it was your job when you were conducting this surveillance for Global Insurance to find something incriminating so that Global wouldn’t have to pay out four million dollars.”
McGraw leaned forward and thought a moment, and Fox, seeing that, waited a moment to answer. When McGraw shrugged and lowered the inch or so back down to the seat, Fox answered, “Yes, that was my job.”
“And as my esteemed counsel pointed out,” Blake continued, “you didn’t find anything at least back at that time because Global paid the claim.”
“Yes, Global paid the claim.”
“And it was only later, when the emails mysteriously plopped out of the clear blue sky onto your lap that changed Global’s mind.”
“Yes.”
“Well, how convenient for Global.” Blake didn’t let Fox respond to that. He turned to Judge Pratt and asked for the emails to be published to the jury and the judge agreed.
Each member of the jury took some moments to review the emails, some of them taking more time than others in reading them.
Blake told the Judge he had no further questions and McGraw indicated he had no re-direct. And that was it. Fox was finished. On his way down the narrow aisle between the gallery pews of the courtroom, Fox slowed his gait ever so briefly as he glanced over at Jerry. Something stopped him cold, and that made Jerry freeze up as well. Fox visibly scowled before finally, after an interminable moment, he started walking again and departed the courtroom. It was as if Jerry had emitted some kind of vibe that had been detected by the sixth intuitive sense with which investigators like Fox are supposedly born.
Jerry didn’t emit even the slightest exhale for a time until he was certain that Fox had left the courtroom. Then he slowly turned his head to be sure, worried that he would find Fox standing there. There was no one.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The first witness of the afternoon was Inspector Vince Bancroft, the chief investigator from the county arson squad which had initially determined that arson was not the cause of the fire. In McGraw’s direct examination, Inspector Bancroft was first made to describe the scene of the fire as he found it—the charred out hollow of the interior of the garage, the blackened skeleton of a barely recognizable automobile, and, under the twisted, charred metal, the lump of damp, blackened ash, the remains of poor Jerry.
Next, McGraw handed the Inspector’s final report and asked him to examine it.
“Inspector Bancroft,” the prosecutor finally asked, “you filed this report, did you not, which concluded that the fire in the garage at 320 Northview Lane had not been intentionally set, but was accidental?”
“I did.”
“Well,” continued McGraw, “could you inform the jury how the fire started.”
As instructed by McGraw in their pre-trial meeting just two days ago, he turned to the jury with a serious expression. Frown, was what McGraw had told him to do.
“It is probable that a spark of some kind, arced from its source and ignited the pool of gasoline which had formed on the garage floor from the leaky tank under the car. At the time this report was written, we surmised that the source of the spark was the thermo-coupler of the water heater unit in the garage.”
“A spark of some kind, from some source, ignited the gas under the car,” said McGraw, not really a question, but a statement as he turned slowly and faced the jury panel. “Correct?”
Inspector Bancroft nodded. “Yes.”
McGraw thought a moment, the fingers of his right hand tickling his chin, apparently deep in thought. After several moments, he turned abruptly to Bancroft.
“A spark from some source,” he said, “which you concluded was the water heater, but which, is it not true, could have come from anywhere—”
“Objection, your Honor.” It was Stauber who came to his feet, glaring.
“—from one of those hand held gas grill starters perhaps?” “Objection, your Honor! Leading! Speculative!”
From way back in the gallery, Jerry Shaw was impressed.
McGraw had figured it out exactly.
“I’ll give him some latitude with this, Mister Stauber,” ruled the judge. “Over-ruled. He’s an expert witness.”
“Could a grill starter have been the cause of the spark that ignited that gasoline sp
ill, Inspector Bancroft?”
He nodded. “It certainly could have.”
“Your Honor,” interrupted Stauber as he rose to his feet again, “so could lightning have been the cause.”
“Had there been a thunderstorm in the area the morning of the fire, Inspector Bancroft?” McGraw had seized on the opening.
“Of course not,” Bancroft said and grinned. “Your Honor!”
“Alright, Mr. McGraw– “the Judge started to say, his voice rising with concern that he was losing control of this examination, but McGraw wouldn’t let him finish.
“Would someone who lit a hand-held starter to spark-ignite the gasoline pool have had time to back out of there before an explosion?” he asked Bancroft.
“It's possible,” Bancroft answered, just as Stauber stood and angrily shouted, “Objection!” which, of course, merely highlighted the import of the answer in the minds of the jurors.
“Sustained,” stated Judge Pratt. “That answer will be stricken.”
“Thank you, your Honor,” said McGraw, as if the judge’s decision had gone in his favor. “No further questions.”
As McGraw returned to his seat, Judge Pratt called to him, “Mister McGraw!”
McGraw turned with the most innocent expression he could muster. He knew a scolding was coming.
“You do that again in my court,” admonished the judge. “And you will find yourself in a prison cell.”
“Yes, your Honor,” said McGraw. “I humbly apologize.”
“Or better yet, young man,” the Judge continued, seeing that McGraw was not taking him seriously, “I’ll declare a mistrial. Understood?”
Now, McGraw did look concerned. That was the last thing he wanted.
“Yes, your Honor,” McGraw said and even bowed. “My humble apologies. Got carried away.”
Stauber stood and asked for one anyway, a mistrial for gross prosecutorial misconduct whose sole purpose was to prejudice the jury.
“Overruled, Mister Stauber,” said the Judge. “Unless you want another curative instruction that will only serve to highlight the point Mister McGraw was trying to make.”
“Of course not, your Honor,” said Stauber.
“Well, then, your witness.”
Not surprisingly, during his cross-examination of Inspector Bancroft, Stauber painstakingly highlighted the initial findings of the arson unit that the fire had been accidentally started by the spark of the water heater. He even got Bancroft to admit that garage fires often start that way. But Bancroft was allowed to blurt out, as instructed by McGraw that he do so at some point during his cross-examination, that he was no longer totally convinced of his initial assessment that the source of the fire was the garage water heater. At very least, it had been pure speculation and he had no idea how the fire had started. In looking back at it, Bancroft lamented, while Stauber protested to Judge Pratt that he was being unresponsive and cleverly coached, the conclusion may have been a rush to judgment in the crush of work which the arson unit had faced at the time.
Bravo! Jerry thought. McGraw may just have successfully neutralized the adverse arson report and had, perhaps, even turned it on its head in favor of the prosecution’s position.
After Stauber sat down red-faced, seething, Holly’s attorney, Paul Blake, was called upon by Judge Pratt for his cross. Blake stood and wobbled over to the podium which he held with two out-stretched arms, using it to prop himself. After a time, he peeked at the jury over his wire rim bifocals, glanced across at McGraw, then looked up at Inspector Bancroft.
“Fact of the matter is, Inspector,” he said, his voice gravelly and somewhat difficult to follow, “you rendered a professional, expert opinion at some point, that the fire was accidentally started, correct?”
Bancroft could not deny that and shrugged. “Correct, sir. But, as I said—”
“And you put that opinion in writing,” continued Blake, and waved a piece of paper in the air. “In an official police department report.”
“Yes.”
“And when you signed off on that report,” said Blake, “you believed that it was correct, isn’t that right?”
“But—”
Blake waved a hand at him.
“No, buts, sir, please.” Blake sighed. “Just answer the question. It’s a simple question. When you signed off on the official report of your department, you believed the fire had been accidentally started?”
“Why, yes.”
“And now you question that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Fair enough.” Blake frowned. “But there have been no new physical details come to light about the fire, has there, from the date you filed the report to now?”
“No,” Inspector Bancroft stated.
Blake looked at Judge Pratt and nodded. “I have nothing further, your Honor.”
McGraw immediately stood. He did not return to the podium but asked the question from the prosecution table.
“What additional facts do you know today that you did not know when you wrote the report?” he asked.
Stauber rose slightly off his seat.
“Why, the emails,” he said. “The incriminating emails.” Now Stauber stood.
“Objection, your Honor,” Stauber barked, “and I urge you to have that remark, ‘incriminating,’ stricken from the record. The emails if they are anything at all, are at most ambiguous. They are anything but incriminating.”
Jerry frowned. The tables had suddenly turned on how the case was going. It seemed to him that McGraw had perhaps asked one question too many.
“Sustained, Mr. Stauber,” Judge Pratt said. He looked to the jury and told them to ignore the remark about emails, and certainly that they were incriminating. However, the point had been made. The arson report concluding that the fire was accidental had been reached without the benefit of the emails, incriminating or not. Jerry nodded, finally getting that.
“Anything further gentlemen?” He looked first to the prosecution, then to the defense.
With that, Judge Pratt checked the large round clock above the long doorway. It was already three thirty and Judge Pratt told them he had a sentencing hearing that would take the rest of the afternoon.
He dismissed the jury, counsel, and the defendants, and Jerry quickly and inconspicuously as possible, exited the courtroom ahead of Holly and Jeff, and his sister, Joan.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jerry found an entrance foyer to another courtroom in the spacious hallway diagonal from Courtroom 10-B. He stood in the shadows waiting for Holly and Jeff and their lawyers to exit. When they finally did, Jerry had to smile. Holly and Jeff appeared shaken by the day’s testimony, although Jeff tried to smile and act unconcerned as if everything had gone just fine.
They stood in the hallway just outside the courtroom, back to back, waiting for their lawyers, Stauber and Blake, to fend off the television, radio, and newspaper reporters. If only they knew, Jerry thought, and felt a thrill course through him, that the victim was standing there, in the shadows, mere yards away, watching it all. Blake said something funny and the reporters laughed while Stauber scowled with professional aplomb. During the interview, he had tried to remain supremely confident as he demeaned the prosecution’s case while on the other side of the hallway McGraw crooned and said he felt pretty good about the day’s testimony.
The reporters eventually scattered, leaving Jeff and Holly alone to chat with their respective lawyers, cradled in separate corners whispering their respective concerns and strategies. Finally, Stauber and Blake let go of their clients, and Holly and Jeff, after stealing quick, desirous glances at each other, walked their separate ways out of the courthouse.
Jerry held back a few moments in the deep shadows of the foyer before he broke off in the direction Holly had gone, down the winding marble stairs to the main floor. He spotted her sauntering out the front door to Franklin Street. Jeff had gone the opposite way, down a staircase to the Delaware Avenue entrance. Now was the opportune time to
catch up with her, Jerry thought, confront Holly alone, perhaps the only chance he would ever get. He had fantasized doing this almost every single day the last few weeks. Of course, that was something he had never told Jade.
There was parking garage across the street from the courthouse and Jerry followed Holly into it. The sky was steely gray, with low, ominous clouds moving quickly across the sky. And dark was coming on fast.
Jerry rushed into the garage just a few feet behind Holly and ran to the elevator she had entered just as the door was closing. He stuck an arm out to stop it and stepped inside. Holly stared forward, her mind on something else as Jerry bowed his head and settled with his back against the wall. Holly had already pressed the button for the third floor. After a moment, as the elevator started to rise, she glanced at him and frowned. Then, she looked at him again, and a moment after the elevator beeped as it passed the second floor, her eyes widened and she gasped.
“Jerry?”
He looked at her and she went totally pale.
“It is you,” she said. She leaned back against the side wall as the elevator came to a stop on the third floor and the door opened.
Jerry stepped out with her into the garage. He took her right arm and led her aimlessly out among the cars lined up on a slight angle in crammed parking spaces.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
She kept turning and looking at Jerry with a dumbstruck expression as they walked on. To Jerry, it made her look vulnerable and innocent, beautiful too. He was struck by how odd it was that after all she had done to him, he still could have feelings for her. That he did still, well, love her. And now that he was within a couple of feet of her, and could smell her perfume, he could no longer deny it.
“Your car,” Jerry repeated.
Holly finally seemed to have regained a measure of composure and nodded in the direction of her brand new black Mustang. Jerry looked around as they approached, worried that someone like that Investigator Fox might still be lurking about, following her.
The Anonymous Man Page 18