by James Glass
“Yes, Your Judgeship.”
He set the gavel on the bench. “Your objection is overruled because the evidence the medical examiner collected was not tainted. Now if there’s nothing else to discuss, I’d like to continue.”
Both lawyers remained silent.
Lucius turned and spoke to a woman behind him in the gallery. She brushed back her wavy brown hair and smiled. Her face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. She was older, but not his mother. I recalled she died of cancer six months after his conviction.
“Good.” Meeks turned to the bailiff. “Bring the jury in.”
Once the jurors were back, the judge had the court stenographer read the last question. I knew he did this to start right where we’d left off. When she finished, the judge said, “Overruled.”
“Okay,” Theriot began. “Where did the medical examiner find the sliver of metal in the victim?”
“In Teri Goodson’s spine.”
“And was this evidence sent to the crime lab?”
“Yes.”
“Did the lab provide an analysis on the origin of the evidence?”
“Yes.”
“And what did it state?”
I opened the murder book, flipped to a page tabbed ‘Crime Lab’ written in black ink and removed a page. “That the sliver of metal was the tip of a blade.”
“Does it provide specific details as to a brand or type of knife?”
“Yes. The piece we recovered is part of a set of kitchen knives.ˮ I named the brand.
Veronica scrunched her nose. “That’s a strange name brand. Is there anything unique about them?”
“Yes. They only make precision cutlery used by chefs.”
“Wow. Sounds expensive. How much do they cost?”
“This particular set is the classic twenty-two-piece mega knife set. They run about sixteen-hundred dollars.”
She turned to the jury box and whistled softly. “Sixteen-hundred dollars. Did I hear that clearly, Detective Watson?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, didn’t you mention these were used by chefs?”
“Yes.”
“And what was the defendant Leonard Lee Lucius’ employment at the time of his arrest?”
“He was the chef at Turtles.”
“Were there any knives discovered in the kitchen of the defendant’s home?”
“Yes.” My gaze moved toward the defense table. I expected Crane to object, but the lawyer jotted notes on a legal pad. Lucius sat rigid with his arms crossed. The smug look he wore like a badge of honor when I had entered the courtroom earlier was replaced with an upside-down grin, his face scrunched like a fist. Throw some makeup on him and you’d have one terrifying-looking clown. His eyes met mine and I felt a sudden, soul-shattering chill. The man didn’t look human. Could it be I was staring into the eyes of pure evil? Something seemed off, but my mind couldn’t grasp any connection. Maybe the defense wanted to scare me. If so, it worked. I blinked several times as if to sever our connection. I averted my attention to Veronica as she asked the next question.
“Were all the knives accounted for?”
“No,” I said with some hesitation. The brief encounter with Lucius left me…well, left me stunned. Get it together, Rebecca. “One was missing.”
Theriot tapped her index finger on her lower lip. “Hmm. Didn’t that seem a bit odd?”
“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly, feeling my confidence returning.
“Thank you, Detective.” Theriot turned to the judge. “That’s all we have for this witness.”
Meeks slid the robe back on his wrist and tapped his watch with an index finger. “This seems like a propitious time for our lunch break.”
Chapter 3
11:30 a.m.
The sun cast a yellow glow over our table as we sat next to a large plate-glass window. The aroma of grilled hamburgers and steaks filled my nostrils as I picked at my Caesar salad. Musso’s Steakhouse has the best salads in the city, but I’d left my hunger back at the courthouse. Veronica invited me to lunch so we could go over my testimony with the defense. I figured this couldn’t be good.
“Rebecca, is everything okay?”
“Yep.”
She waited for more, but I didn’t have much to say. My mind wasn’t focused on our little pow-wow. I knew when I got back to the witness stand I would have to deal with the defense and the barrage of questions Crane would surely fire at me. Another line of work sounded better than being beat up in court. Maybe a teacher or an accountant.
“I know that look,” Veronica said. “You may be a detective, but I make my living reading people too, you know. When your eye twitches, it’s the telltale sign Rebecca Watson is angry.” She sighed. “You’re mad at me for bringing up the knife.”
I shrugged. Now wasn’t the time to tell her how livid I was that she put me in the middle of all this. I didn’t need her to give the defense more ammo. The Florida Supreme Court did a great job of that when they decided to exclude the knife as evidence.
“I had to bring it up,” she said as if it made it okay to sucker punch me on the stand. Veronica is a great lawyer, but sometimes she can be a real pain in my ass—especially when she snookered me on the stand. Don’t get me wrong, we did discuss the knife before the trial and decided not to bring it up. Guess she changed her mind without informing me.
Veronica picked up her knife and fork and cut through her porterhouse steak. “The jury has a right to know about the murder weapon. We can’t use it to directly link it to Lucius. But we can connect it to him with the tip recovered from the victim’s spine.”
I shook my head. Veronica is a smart woman, but sometimes she can be insensitive.
“What?” She looked genuinely dumbfounded.
“Her name was Teri Goodson.”
She chewed on a piece of flesh. “I know that.” Blood dribbled from her lips. She used the napkin in her lap to wipe it away. “Anyway, I needed to establish, even without the knife, Lucius used the weapon to kill Goodson.” Veronica mopped red-stained juices from the plate with a roll then stuffed it in her mouth. The way she was eating her lunch made me nauseous, so I sipped some tea and looked at the table next to us. A boy of about twelve dive-bombed a chicken leg into his mashed potatoes. I averted my attention back to Veronica as she impaled another piece of steak with her fork and then pointed it at me. “The best way to put the knife back into Lucius’s hand is with the metallic tip the medical examiner recovered from the vic—I mean Goodson’s spine. We use it in conjunction with the block of knives from the scene as well as the bloody clothes recovered from the trash down the street and we connect the dots for the jury.” Her eyes rolled back as she chewed on the beef of the dead cow. “Wow this stuff is delicious. Almost as good as sex.” She sipped some tea. “Anyway, even without the murder weapon, I know we’ll still convict Lucius.”
“I’m glad you’re so sure.” Until she brought the knife back into play, I would have agreed. Now I felt like target practice for the defense as he shot questions at me. How many could I avert? How many would stick? This trial sucked and we hadn’t finished day one.
My knees started shaking. To stop the shaking, I rocked back in my chair. Didn’t work.
My anxiety had returned. Thanks a lot, Veronica. I bit several fingernails.
She speared another piece of flesh. “And you’re not?”
“I didn’t say that.” I wanted to leave. To be anywhere but here. The conversation was upsetting me on several fronts. Veronica referred to Goodson as the victim while we ate. I knew she meant well, but it’s unsettling when a person who’s murdered is reduced to the term ‘the victim.’ She didn’t see the harm in firing questions at me about the murder weapon though, but I knew the defense would use the knife to score points for his client. Then she justified her actions to me by buying me lunch, which would work better if I had any appetite. I thought about getting dessert, which I might be able to tolerate. If not, she’d be footing the bill, no
t me.
“Besides, the reason the evidence was thrown out, so to speak, is your partner’s fault.”
I removed my napkin from my lap and slammed it on the table—not that anyone noticed. Guess I should’ve used my silverware to illustrate the point. “You went too far, Veronica. He was my partner, and yes, he is the reason the knife got tossed from the case, but you have no right to bash Frank. His actions were sound in this case. Too bad he’s not here to defend them.”
Before she could respond, I shot from my chair and almost bumped into the woman who sat behind Lucius at the trial.
I met her eyes. Dark and unyielding, and somehow hauntingly familiar.
“Rebecca,” she said in a flat tone. “It’s been a long time.”
Fear turned and kicked my gut. I gasped, sucking in air, trying to control my panicked breathing.
The word Mom somehow managed to escape my lips. This was the first time I’d had any contact with her in twenty years. Time may heal all wounds, yada, yada, yada, but I still resented her. No, resentment wasn’t the right word. I hated her.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, sweetie?” Her words sliced through me like a surgeon’s scalpel. She went to hug me, but I stepped back, almost tripping over my chair, and stumbled back into the seat.
Veronica, who must’ve registered the shock in my voice reached across the table and touched my hand. “Are you okay?”
It took me a moment to realize she spoke to me. I sipped my tea. “Yeah,” I said in almost a whisper. “This is my moth—Ms. Watson.”
“Please call me Anna,” she said, holding out her hand. Veronica shook it.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, shaking the last of the shock from my system.
“I followed you here after the judge broke for lunch.”
I sighed. “Why are you here? And why were you sitting behind Lucius in the courtroom?”
She sat in a chair between Veronica and me. “Leon and I are engaged. We’re getting married after he’s found not guilty.”
Leon? Seriously? “Why on earth would you get involved with a monster like him?”
She batted her eyelashes. “Oh, he’s no monster. You and the prosecutor here have it all wrong. He’s innocent.”
Veronica chimed in. “He was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, and although the Florida Supreme Court may have given him a second trial—I hate to burst your bubble, honey—he’s going to be found guilty again. And this time I’ll convince the jury to send his sorry ass to death row where he really belongs.”
Anna picked up a fry from Veronica’s plate and dipped it in some catsup. A vein throbbed in the middle of Veronica’s forehead. I thought she might shoot from her seat and score a knockout punch. Some people might pay good money to see this, and I had a ringside seat. Instead, Veronica wiped her mouth with her napkin. Part of me was disappointed by her coolness.
“I wouldn’t count it a win yet, little Miss Prosecutor.” Anna swallowed the fry whole. “As I see it so far, the defense is shooting holes in your case and once he finds out what my daughter did when she was twelve, I think the jury will have a different perception of the case.”
Veronica looked at me. “What’s she talking about?”
No one in Eugene Falls knew about my past, except my aunts. It was something I’d left behind in Boston. Shit. Soon the judge, jurors, and anyone watching the trial on television would know the truth.
Chapter 4
1:00 p.m.
Ninety minutes after we were sent to lunch, all parties were back in the courtroom. The judge turned to the defense table. “Okay, Counselor, you’re up.”
Crane stood and wobbled to the lectern, his feet shuffling across the floor as if gliding, but not as graceful. He reminded me of a penguin waddling on ice. Butterflies floated in my stomach as I feared the questions this man would be asking about my past. I knew my mother had an ulterior motive to getting Lucius out of prison. She had never been generous during the twelve years I knew her as my mother. Why start now? My head swam with questions. He turned a page in his yellow notepad then cleared his throat. The sound was deep, like that of a frog croaking. “Detective Watson, you stated the medical examiner indicated a knife killed the victim.”
He used victim instead of her name. He also said medical examiner instead of autopsy. Both were tricks to undermine the seriousness of the crime to the jury. Sometimes it worked. Hopefully not today.
I sipped some water to gather my thoughts to counteract this approach. I also wanted to put out the fire that remained in the pit of my stomach after the brief encounter with my mother. An idea came to me, whether it worked or not remained to be seen. I set the glass on the podium. “The autopsy report revealed a knife slashed Teri Gordon’s throat.”
His eyes flashed with anger, but I don’t think the jury noticed. He pointed a finger at me. “Your Judgeship. I asked a yes or no question. I request her response be stricken from the record.”
Veronica stood. “Attorney Crane stated the medical examiner reported the findings when in fact, a moment ago, Detective Watson told the jury she read this information from the autopsy report.”
Meeks turned to the prosecutor. “Asked and answered. You may be wise to be more specific in your questions, Counselor.”
Crane nodded, then scribbled several notes on his yellow pad. “And was a knife recovered from the crime scene?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it was recovered from the scene?”
“What are you getting at?”
“It’s a simple question, Detective. Did you recover the knife at the crime scene or was it discovered outside the home?”
“The knife was recovered in a trash can three houses down from the defendant’s home.”
“And was the knife discovered at the same time as the rest of the evidence was collected?”
“No. My partner, Sergeant Frank Hayes, is the one who found it.”
“How much time had passed between finding the knife and the rest of the evidence collected from my client’s residence?”
I flipped through the murder book. “Almost two hours.”
He scratched his scalp. “Hmm, doesn’t that sound suspicious?” He turned his attention to the jury. “Didn’t you have a lot of people searching the area for evidence?”
My stomach knotted. Veronica had opened the door to this with her presenting the metal tip recovered by the medical examiner. Not having any food in my gut would keep me from spewing salad across the floor. I was thankful for that for the moment. “Yes. We had techs from CSU, that’s the crime scene unit, as well as several other police officers canvassing the area.”
He puffed his bottom lip out. “And it took two extra hours after all the other evidence was collected before your partner found the knife?”
“When the trash can had been searched the first time, the person who looked inside didn’t notice the knife because it had wedged itself at the bottom.” The answer sounded ludicrous as the words left my lips, but I didn’t have any reason to discount my partner.
“Was the knife entered into evidence?”
“Yes.”
“And who took custody of the knife?”
“Sergeant Hayes.”
“So what you’re telling us is the person who found the knife several hours after the area had been searched by crime scene techs, you, and a number of police officers, and nary a knife was discovered, but somehow, two hours later it was miraculously discovered by your partner. Can you explain how Hayes pulled a rabbit out of a hat?”
Veronica stood. “Your Honor, the defense is merely stating an opinion.”
Crane waived a hand. “My apologies, Your Judgeship. I got carried away.”
Meeks squinted. “You need to stay on point, Counselor. Now ask your next question.”
Crane nodded, then turned to me. “How was this evidence transported back to the police station?”
“Sergeant Hayes placed it in the trunk of his car.”<
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“And is this normal protocol?”
“No. Usually it goes back with CSU, but they’d already left.”
“Did your partner go straight from the crime scene to the station?”
“No.”
Crane flipped a page. “And why not?”
“He was involved in an automobile accident.”
“Did Hayes sustain any injuries from the accident?”
“Yes. A drunk driver—”
“That’s not what I asked, Detective,” his voice boomed in the courtroom.
“Your Honor,” Veronica said, still seated. “The defense is badgering the witness. He didn’t even let Sergeant Watson finish her answer.”
The judge pressed his lips. “Sustained. Rephrase the question.”
“Yes, Your Judgeship. Did Hayes sustain any immediate injuries from the head-on collision?”
I stared at my hands on my lap. They were digging into my pants. A cold chill ran down my spine. I had been so focused on my anger I had walked right into his trap.
Veronica stood. “Objection. Calls for speculation.”
Crane shook his head. “Detective Watson arrived at the scene twenty-two minutes later. I want to know what she witnessed.”
“It’s based on hearsay,” Veronica stated. “She didn’t witness anything firsthand. The accident had already occurred.”
“That’s not true. Detective Watson viewed her partner’s injuries in the ambulance as well as the statements she received from the paramedics from the scene.”
The judge tapped a finger on the bench. “Overruled, but your questions can only relate to what Detective Watson observed.” Meeks turned to me. “Do you need the question read back to you?”
I could have said yes to stall things while I formulated a response, but it wouldn’t matter. Jurors like the police to be neighborly and good-humored, but I had failed up to this point.
No more letting this schmuck get the better of me.
“He had a gash along his forehead.”
“Did you see the gash yourself or did someone tell you?”
“The paramedics told me at first, but then I identified his body in the back of the ambulance.”