by Jay Brandon
Jordan hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but the problem enmeshed him, too. “I’ve got something that might help. But I still don’t—” He mused. “Maybe I need to switch to proving who really killed Kevin.”
Laura gave him a curious look. “But everybody knows Wayne did that.”
“Everybody might be wrong. No, it could have been somebody in the hospital.” But why? Maybe Kevin knew something someone didn’t want him to tell. “I wish he’d said something before he died.” But Kevin hadn’t. He hadn’t made a statement to the cops or to the representative of the court. Something nagged at Jordan, but he didn’t need this shit any more. He needed to go to the beach with Laura for a month.
“What are you going to do?” she asked again.
“There’s only one thing to do.” He set his napkin on the table and leaned close enough to reach for her in a moment. “When the jury comes back with their guilty verdict, you write ‘not guilty’ in the record. Would you do that for me?”
Her eyes moved around his face. “Of course.”
12
The next morning in court Jordan waited anxiously for trial to start, anxious not because his case was ruined and he was about to put on his most crucial testimony, but because he hadn’t seen Laura in an hour. What if something had happened to her on her separate way to the courthouse? He didn’t relax until Laura came out of her office and took her place at her small desk. She gave Jordan no look at all as she crossed in front of him, which was a look in itself. The way she held her shoulders communicated to him.
“Am I going to be first?” Wayne asked.
“No, Wayne, last. The defendant always goes last. That way you can hear everyone else’s testimony before you have to give yours. I don’t mean you should change your story to fit theirs, but at least you’ll know.” Jordan had explained this the night before when Wayne had finally told him all the circumstances of Jenny Fecklewhite’s last day. All the circumstances Wayne knew, anyway.
After Laura had taken her place, all the other court staff appeared as well: bailiff, clerk, prosecutor, the judge. There seemed to be electric communication among them. Jordan felt it but couldn’t hear the message. With elaborate courtesy, Mike Arriendez presented Jordan with the box of Kevin Wainwright’s belongings. “I’m sure you’ll need this for your presentation of evidence,” he whispered.
“Call your next witness,” Judge Waverly said in a voice that conveyed nothing but authority.
“Thomas Delmore, Your Honor.”
Deputy Delmore didn’t like being there; he particularly didn’t like being there at the behest of the defense. He didn’t like sitting there exposed, missing his sunglasses and hat. More than anything, he didn’t like Jordan. Delmore tried to make every question and answer mortal combat.
“When?”
“I told you the date, Deputy. Let me make it clearer for you: Did you visit Kevin Wainwright in Mercy Hospital while Mr. Wainwright was a patient there because of injuries he sustained in a fight with Wayne Orkney?”
“It wasn’t a fight, it was a beating.”
“Did you see it?”
“I know all about the bea—”
“Did you see it?”
“You don’t have to see something to know what—”
“Did—you—see—it?”
“No,” the deputy said sullenly.
“Then why don’t you confine your answers to the questions I ask you, which I hope will pertain to events you do know something about. Do I need to ask the judge to instruct you to do that?”
Delmore just glared. You won’t always be behind a table in a courtroom full of people, his face said. You’ve got to get in your car some time.
“Did you visit Kevin Wainwright in the hospital?”
“When?”
“Your Honor?” Jordan said helplessly, but the judge was already speaking, leaning over. Delmore leaned away from him as if he could feel the heat of the judge’s breath.
“Deputy Delmore, this court has business to conduct, and you are hindering it. You are wasting the court’s time. Cease.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor.”
Jordan tried to keep smugness out of his voice but not very hard. “Do you remember the question?”
“Yes, I visited Kevin Wainwright in the hospital after his vicious beating by your client.”
“Why?” Jordan asked.
“To see if he could make a statement, of course. About his attacker.”
“But as you said, everyone knew that.”
“Well—I also wanted to ask him about what had happened in Pleasant Grove Park the same day.”
“What had happened?”
Delmore shifted. “Jenny Fecklewhite was murdered.”
“And you were the first officer on the scene of that murder, weren’t you, Deputy?”
“Yes.”
“Were you assigned to investigate the murder?”
The deputy shifted again uncomfortably. “I was pursuing investigation on my own.”
“You mean without the knowledge of your superiors?”
“I was on my own time,” Delmore insisted.
Jordan paused. He was leaning back now, apparently relaxed. “Were you one of the people Jenny interviewed for her speech on law enforcement?” he asked knowingly. Delmore heard the tone. “Yes,” he said simply.
“Were you upset about her death?”
Delmore wanted to challenge the question or the word, but it took him too long to think how. When he heard the silence, he said angrily, “Of course.”
“And who did you think had killed her?”
“Objection,” the district attorney rose to say. It was the first time he had done so during Delmore’s testimony. Arriendez seemed to be giving Jordan his head, or enough rope. “Calls for speculation.”
“Sustained.”
Speculation was exactly what Jordan was hoping for, but not by the witness, by the jury. Delmore had looked suspicious, he hoped. With his next witness, Jordan tried to offer more suspects.
“Evelyn Riegert,” he announced.
Laura turned and gave her old friend a quick look as the nurse came up the aisle of the courtroom. Laura’s look took in Jordan, too, but when he tried to make eye contact, Laura was already back in her court reporter pose, sitting at attention. Jordan admired her profile, the line of her neck.
“Did you bring the list I asked you to prepare?” Jordan asked after establishing Ms. Riegert’s profession and that she had been the head nurse at the time of Kevin Wainwright’s short stay in her hospital.
“Yes, sir,” Evelyn said quickly. She was a good witness, very serious. She held up a typed list of names.
“Please tell the court what this list is.”
“This is the names of people who came to visit Kevin.”
“Was it usual for you to keep such a list?”
“Oh, no, I never did before. But a police officer, Officer Wilcox, came when Kevin was admitted and said someone had tried to kill the boy and that Kevin might also be a witness or a suspect in another case, and he asked me to keep a special eye on him. So I made notes of who came to see him in case he came to and said something to one of them.”
“So this isn’t a list you made from memory, this is a list you kept at the time.”
“Yes, sir. Well, a copy of my list.”
“I understand. But couldn’t Kevin have had other visitors when you weren’t there?”
“I was the day nurse. He shouldn’t have had visitors after I left for the day. But I asked the other nurses to let me know if he did, and I added the names they told me.”
As he approached the witness, Jordan asked, “Do you know if Kevin said anything to any of his visitors?”
“Object to any hearsay,” the prosecutor interjected.
Evelyn understood. “I was in the room with two or three of them,” she said to Arriendez. “Kevin never came to enough to say anything. Not when I was there, and everyone seemed to go awa
y disappointed.”
“May I see the list, please?”
“Certainly.”
Jordan skimmed the list of Kevin Wainwright’s visitors quickly. There were eight or nine names: cops, family members, friends, even Wayne’s parents. Jordan blinked. He stood at his chair and went through the names again carefully.
He looked at Evelyn Riegert. “Is this list complete?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jordan stared at the piece of paper, not wanting to lift his eyes from it. He was so obviously shaken by what he saw that Wayne leaned close to him to whisper, “What is it? Which name?”
Jordan didn’t answer. He was vaguely aware of the stares on him but was recalled to his duties only by the judge’s voice. “Mr. Marshall? Will you continue?”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor.” He looked at Evelyn Riegert and couldn’t think of anything he dared to ask her. The nurse stared back at him as if concerned for his health. Jordan walked stiffly to Laura’s desk. “Mark this, please,” he said.
Laura had a sheet of stickers close at hand. As she wrote “Defense Exhibit #1” on one, she scanned the page before her. She affixed the sticker and looked up at Jordan as she handed the list back to him, their fingers brushing.
“I’ll offer this list as defense exhibit number one, Your Honor.”
Jordan handed the list to Mike Arriendez, who scanned it curiously. Nothing seemed to catch his eye. “Relevance?” he asked.
“Since we’ve already offered evidence of the possibility that Kevin Wainwright suffered his fatal injury in the hospital,” Jordan said slowly, “the list offers other—”
“I understand, Mr. Marshall. The objection is overruled. Defense exhibit one is admitted.” Even Judge Waverly was looking at Jordan concernedly.
“I have no more questions,” Jordan said.
Arriendez questioned Evelyn briefly as to whether she’d seen any indication that Kevin had died as a result of something that had happened to him in the hospital. The nurse answered in the adamant negative. Then the prosecutor asked, “What was Kevin Wainwright’s time of death?”
“I only found out afterward,” Evelyn said—Jordan didn’t object to the hearsay—“but our records listed the time of death as six-twelve p.m., July twentieth.”
The day after his first appearance in this case, Jordan thought, remembering standing in this courtroom in his shorts. So much time seemed to have passed since then.
“Was anyone on this list in the room with Kevin shortly before that time?” Arriendez continued.
“That would have been after my shift ended,” the nurse said, sorry not to be helpful. “I wouldn’t know.”
When she was returned to him, Jordan still had no questions. He managed something like a smile at his witness as she departed.
“Your Honor, may I check the hallway to see if my next witness has arrived?”
Permission was a nod. As he left, Jordan looked back over his shoulder to see his list, his exhibit, being circulated among the jurors. They were looking it over curiously, obviously recognizing the names. “Everybody knew” was the phrase that kept beating in Jordan’s head, excluding other thoughts. It was a phrase he’d heard so many times since his arrival in Green Hills. “Everybody knows ...” “Everybody knew.” The common knowledge.
He was in the hallway longer than a minute, prompting one or two people in the courtroom to wonder if he’d fled. But when Jordan returned, it was with his steadiness regained, at least in his voice.
“The defense recalls Dr. Bob Wyntlowski.”
The medical examiner came down the aisle only a few steps behind Jordan. Both drew curious stares.
After Wyntlowski took the witness stand, Jordan asked briskly, rising to his feet, “Doctor, do you remember testifying that you thought the person who struck Jenny Fecklewhite was wearing a ring?”
“Yes.”
Jordan was at the witness stand. “Is that the ring?” he asked, dropping Wayne’s gold ring on the railing. Hideous thing, with its jagged edges.
Wyntlowski didn’t take long to look it over. He had already done so in the hallway. “Yes, sir. I’d say that’s the one.”
Murmurings broke out in the crowd, but fewer of them and quieter than Jordan might have expected. He wondered how many people in the courtroom had already known about the ring before trial had started this morning.
“Can you be positive?”
“No, I can’t. It’s not like fingerprints. But this is a very unusual ring, and its sharp edges align with the torn skin in the victim’s wound. And I believe this is dried blood in the crevices of the ring’s crown.”
The murmurings crested. Jordan was looking at the judge, leaning toward the witness, and at Laura, whose head was also turned toward the doctor as if to read his lips. Dr. Wyntlowski scraped a fingernail inside the ring’s moon- cratered face and sniffed at what he dislodged. He nodded at Jordan.
“Thank you, Doctor. Oh—You remember the autopsy summary of Kevin Wainwright that you examined?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have the file with you?”
“Yes.” The doctor displayed it.
“Is there a preautopsy photo of Kevin? That’s it. Does it show a wound similar to the one you found on Jenny Fecklewhite?”
Dr. Wyntlowski examined the photo anew. “No,” he concluded.
“But there is a cut on the face?”
“Yes, a bruise, but nothing like the deep gouge on the other victim.”
“Thank you, Doctor. We’ll offer the ring as defense exhibit number two and this photo as defense exhibit three. And pass the witness.”
Mike Arriendez had been sitting placidly through the medical examiner’s testimony until the last few questions. Now he was frowning, but he still asked no questions. The ring didn’t bother Mike Arriendez. Emilio had said everybody knew the ring was Wayne’s. Jordan wondered how many people in the courtroom—how many on the jury— were equipped with that piece of information. It didn’t matter, the district attorney would certainly call a witness in rebuttal to let them know.
“Call your next witness.”
“The defense calls Dale Hines, Your Honor.”
The manager of the Pizza Hut had gotten dressed up for his appearance in a blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. He’d gotten a haircut, too; his pale scalp gleamed through his brush cut Jordan liked to see witnesses who took their testimony seriously. Unfortunately, with the increased formality of his appearance, Hines had suffered memory problems. Jordan had seen that happen before, too. What people would tell him freely and easily in the great outside world, they suddenly became not so sure of once they were impressed with the importance of the information.
“Mr. Hines, did you see my client, Wayne Orkney, in your restaurant around noon on July fifteenth, the date Jenny Fecklewhite was killed and Kevin Wainwright got beaten up?”
“Yes, sir. I guess it was around noon. I’m not sure of the time.”
“Who was with him?”
“Kevin Wainwright”
No stirring among the spectators this time. Dale Hines must have spread his story around already.
“Was that unusual to see the two of them together?”
“No, sir. They were friends, I’d seen them in the restaurant before, lots of times.”
“What were they doing on the day I’m asking about?”
“Talking, I guess. I can’t remember what they ordered.”
Jordan was coming forward briskly. “Do you recognize this?”
Hines examined the ring closely. “It looks like a ring that Wayne used to wear.”
“Looks exactly like it doesn’t it?”
Hines shook his head determinedly. “I couldn’t say exactly. I never studied Wayne’s ring before.”
“All right But did you see this ring or one very similar to it that day in the Pizza Hut?”
“Yes, sir. Similar.”
“Where was it?”
“Wel
l, Wayne had it at first And it was on the table.”
“Then what happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Dale Hines said, looking down so he wouldn’t have to confront Jordan’s disappointment. “I was busy, taking orders and clearing other tables. I wasn’t just staring at Wayne and Kevin.”
Jordan’s exasperation flared quickly. “Mr. Hines,” he said, “is it commonplace to see men giving rings to other men in your restaurant?”
Dale Hines’s head came up quickly, glaring at the lawyer. “Not only is my place not that kind of place,” he said sternly, “but we don’t have that kind of place in Green Hills”
“Then this was an unusual event, you did take notice of it.”
“Well—yes.”
“And what was the unusual event? What did you see?”
Hines said slowly, “I saw Wayne give Kevin his ring.”
“When Kevin left, was he wearing the ring?”
“I didn’t notice,” Hines said staunchly.
“When you went to the table to give Wayne the check or ask if he wanted anything, did you see whether he still had the ring?”
Hines frowned. “No, I didn’t see it there.”
Jordan let his breath out silently. That had been an unexpected ordeal. He suddenly became aware again of Wayne beside him. Wayne was sitting as stiffly as a prisoner in the electric chair and in the same position, his arms on the arms of his chair, staring straight ahead. Jordan touched his arm calmingly.
Turning to see his client had also given him a view of the audience. His quick scan caught on Swin Wainwright, who was stiff as Wayne, his mouth a tight lipless line. Mr. Wainwright was staring not at the witness but at Jordan. Jordan felt the stare even after he turned back.
“I have one other thing to ask you about, Mr. Hines. Is your Pizza Hut a popular gathering spot for teenaged couples?”
“Oh, yes. The most popular.” Hines wasn’t embarrassed to give himself a plug.
“You must see all the teenaged couples in town.”
“Well, I don’t pay much attention. They’re just kids, you know. But yes, I guess I see them all.”
“Had you ever seen Kevin in there with girls?”