by Beth Manz
Jim monitored his partner as they climbed the wide staircase to the second floor. Blair seemed fine--relaxed and confident. Jim couldn't help but smile as he thought about how long it had taken his guide to get ready this morning. He'd changed his tie twice, then had ended up borrowing one of Jim's. And at the very last minute he'd decided it would look better--more professional--if he wore his hair tied back. Each change, each decision had been determined only after an incredible amount of worry and uncertainty.
But now, as Jim took in his partner's apparent ease, he relaxed as well. Just before the two men reached the courtroom, the worry the detective had been feeling since the previous evening dropped away. Ahead, Jim spotted Captain Banks leaning against the wall, his arms folded casually over his chest.
"Gentlemen," Simon greeted as the two men drew closer. He pushed away from the wall and stepped up to meet them. Taking in Blair's khaki gabardine pants, dress shirt, blue pinstriped tie and navy jacket, the captain's dark eyes widened. "Sandburg, you actually look...nice."
Blair frowned up at the taller man. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?" he challenged crankily.
Unruffled by Sandburg's attitude, Simon grinned widely. "It's just that most times when you get dressed up.... Well, frankly, you usually end up looking like a pimp."
Blair spun toward Jim, his expression incredulous. "You told him to say that!"
Jim held up his hands, laughing. "I swear, Chief, I didn't say a word."
Blair shifted his gaze from Simon to Jim and back again. "You guys think you're funny, don't you?"
"What is he talking about?" Simon asked Ellison, clearly confused.
"Let's just say I made a similar comment last night regarding Sandburg's taste in clothing."
Simon nodded in understanding but before he could add insult to injury, a feminine voice called out in greeting and the three men turned to see Angela Mason approaching them.
"I'm glad to see you all made it on time," she acknowledged pleasantly. As always, the district attorney was the picture of professionalism with her short, simple haircut and unassuming navy blue suit. Her gaze came to rest on Blair and she smiled. "Thank you for wearing the tie, Blair. You look very nice."
"Yeah, I decided to leave my pimp clothes at home," the still-perturbed Sandburg muttered.
She blinked several times. "Excuse me?"
Blair waved a hand. "Nothing. Sorry." He shot a glare at Simon and Jim. "Inside joke," he concluded, increasing the intensity of the glare he was aiming at Jim when the detective smiled openly at his peevishness.
"So, any new developments or are we ready to go in?" Jim asked, pulling his gaze away from his partner and focusing his attention on Angela.
"Actually, there is one change," she answered with obvious reluctance. "Ms. Merrick's lawyer submitted a motion to have the witnesses sequestered. Judge Harris approved it earlier this morning."
"Sequestered witnesses? What does that mean?" Blair asked.
"It means we can't sit in the courtroom until after we've given our testimonies, Chief."
"What about the opening statements?" Simon asked. "We'll be able to hear those--"
Angela shook her head. "You're out. Completely out. You'll know nothing until you're called to testify."
"So, what are we supposed to do until then?" Blair asked.
"You wait right out here until you're called." She indicated the long wooden benches that lined the corridor. "After you're finished testifying, you'll be allowed to remain in the gallery, but until then...."
"Is that bad?" Sandburg asked, his gaze shifting to the three people around him. "What does all of this mean?"
"It means," Angela began, her voice firm, "that Ms. Merrick's attorney has a strategy that he doesn't want any of us to be aware of until he actually has you on the stand."
Jim glanced at Blair, detecting a slight elevation in his partner's heart rate. "You okay, buddy?"
"How can he have a strategy?" Blair asked, ignoring Jim's concern. "The case is black and white. Hannah killed Philip Kaage, we found the evidence linking her to him in her closet, and she tried to kill me--twice!"
"And that's exactly what we're going to present," Angela said softly, reassuringly.
"What about her attorney?" Blair asked, his voice still edged with worry. "Jim's told me a little bit about him...."
"Reed Reynolds is...well...." Angela glanced up and down the hall, then leaned in toward the three men and lowered her voice. "Let's just say he's the legal world's equivalent of a slimy used car salesman."
"Not to mention pompous, arrogant...." Simon's voice trailed off as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
Jim looked down at his partner again. "I told you he's a slick one, Chief."
"And he likes to win," Angela added with a sigh. "He must have thought he could come up with a solid case or he wouldn't have taken it in the first place. The man's no fool." She checked her watch. "Listen, I have to get inside. You stay out here and wait until you're called. We're going to offer opening arguments and then we're on."
"Angela," Jim intercepted before she could slip inside. "Who are you planning to call first?"
She looked at Sandburg, gave him an encouraging smile. "Blair is first," she answered Jim's question, then disappeared into the courtroom.
Jim turned toward his guide. Blair had one hand on his hip, the other rubbing thoughtfully across his lower lip. His eyes held a distant quality, as if his thoughts were a million miles away.
"What's going on, Chief?"
He dropped the hand from his face and looked up at Jim, concern creasing his forehead.
"The more I think about this, the more I get a bad feeling about the whole thing."
"You'll do fine, Chief." Jim reached out and squeezed at his friend's shoulders. "Just tell the truth and remember I'll be right out here the whole time."
Blair looked unconvinced. "I just wish we knew what Reynolds' strategy was going to be."
A smile pulled up one corner of Jim's mouth. "Now, that I can fix."
Blair's eyes widened as understanding flooded him. "You can listen in on what's going on!" He nodded toward the closed courtroom doors. "You can hear their opening arguments. Oh, man, that's perfect! Perfect!"
Simon, who had stepped away for a moment to get a drink from a nearby water fountain, walked up and stood behind Blair. He gave Jim a mock scowl. "All right. What are you two conspiring about over here?"
Blair looked up and back at Simon. "Jim can hear what's going on in the courtroom," he explained, bouncing up on his tiptoes a few times.
Simon glowered down at him. "That's illegal, Sandburg."
"It's just eavesdropping," Jim amended, cocking his head to the side. And despite the captain's slight protest, Simon made no move away from his position behind Blair. Jim knew the captain couldn't actually encourage what he was about to do, yet he also knew that Simon would be just as curious as he and Blair.... "Angela's just starting," Ellison announced softly as the DA's confident voice reached him.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Over the next few days we're going to paint a portrait for you. A portrait of a woman obsessed with a man. So obsessed, in fact, that she was willing to do anything to get that man to love her...even commit murder.
"Hannah Merrick set out with a plan--a plan to woo and possess Detective James Ellison at any cost. She executed that plan with patience and precision. She obtained a job at the police precinct where Detective Ellison worked. She set up an elaborate ruse in order to convince the Cascade Police that she was being stalked, a ruse that had one goal and one goal only--to bring herself under the protection of Detective Ellison. Ms. Merrick then set out to eliminate the one person she felt stood in the way of her obtaining Detective Ellison--namely, the detective's friend and partner, Dr. Blair Sandburg.
"During the course of this trial, we will prove to the court that Hannah Merrick hired Philip Kaage to pose as her stalker, that she conspired with Mr. Kaage to murder Blair Sandburg
, and that during the execution of this plan she murdered Philip Kaage and then tried on two separate occasions to murder Dr. Sandburg.
"By the end of this trial, the innocent-looking woman seated at the defense table will come to be seen in your eyes as the person I already know her to be--a calculating, manipulative, cold-blooded killer. Thank you."
Jim shifted his attention back to his partner as the DA concluded her comments to the panel of jurors. "Angela did a good job," he told his guide. "She was clear, concise. It was a strong opening, Chief."
Blair nodded. "That's good. She-"
Jim held up a hand. "Hold on.... Reynolds is up."
"This innocent looking woman appears innocent because that's what she is. Hannah Merrick fell in love with Detective Jim Ellison. She believed he was a good man, an honorable man. And she trusted him.
"But what did she get for all her trust, all her devotion? She was nearly raped and now stands accused of crimes she did not commit--accused by men who hold respected and powerful positions within the Cascade Police Department. Truly, my client is a victim of a conspiracy that extends deep into the hierarchy of our city's law enforcement agency.
"If Hannah Merrick is guilty, ladies and gentlemen, she is guilty of only one thing--of falling in love with the wrong man."
"He's saying we framed her," Jim spat out, shifting his attention away from the courtroom and back to Blair.
"What!"
"That's going to be his defense--that we framed her in order to get the rape charge dropped."
"That makes no sense! How can he claim that, Jim?"
Ellison exhaled a long sigh as he looked down at his partner. "I think we're about to find out, Chief." He placed his hands on Blair's shoulders and squeezed tightly. "They just called you as the first witness."
/
/
/
As Blair made his way from the back of the courtroom to the witness box, he was aware that the eyes of every person in the room were focused exclusively on him. Taking a seat in the elevated box, his gaze was automatically drawn toward Hannah Merrick. The former Records clerk was dressed in a simple white dress, her hair pulled back into a loose French braid. But what struck Blair most was her demeanor. She sat with her back pressed against her chair, a fearful, victimized look in her wide eyes.
As she returned Blair's gaze, he realized that she looked much younger to him than she actually was--extremely young. If he didn't know her, he'd think Hannah wasn't much older than most of his freshman anthropology students. Gone was the thirty-something woman he'd known at the station, and in her place was a frightened, naïve young girl.
The fear he had experienced when he'd first seen Hannah in the hospital at Berne resurfaced in his mind. She'd appeared so young, so frail. I think we could be in trouble here, Jim, he'd thought at the time. And now, as he continued to study the transformation that had come over Hannah Merrick, he knew he'd been right to harbor those fears. He could only imagine how Hannah appeared in the minds of the jury....
And how do I look in contrast? He was glad now that he had decided to pull his hair back. He just wished that he'd remembered to remove his earrings as well.
His gaze shifted to Hannah's attorney, Reed Reynolds. The man was older than Blair had imagined he'd be--easily in his mid forties. He had thick dark hair with just the barest traces of gray at both temples, giving him an intelligent and polished look. The suit he was wearing could only be Armani, the perfectly polished shoes Italian. As Blair studied him, Reynolds looked up from the papers he'd been studying and offered the young man a predatory smile, his perfect teeth gleaming against the lightly tanned face.
Sandburg glanced briefly at Judge Harris. He'd been in her courtroom before--only as part of the gallery--but she'd seemed fair to him, objective and even-tempered.
He made a concentrated effort to relax as the bailiff approached to swear him in. "Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" the man droned out in a bored tone of voice.
"I do," Blair answered.
Angela Mason stood and moved toward the witness box, an air of quiet confidence radiating from her posture and the serene expression on her face. "For the record, would you please state your name and occupation."
Blair leaned toward the microphone attached to the small counter in front of him. "Dr. Blair Sandburg. I'm a professor in the Anthropology Department at Rainier University and a part-time consultant with the Cascade Police Department's Major Crime Division."
"Please tell us how you know the defendant." She gestured to indicate Hannah.
"Up until a few months ago she worked in the Records department at the Cascade Police Department," he answered simply.
"Dr. Sandburg, it's already been established for the court that you work as Detective Jim Ellison's partner at the Cascade Police Department. Tell us--were you and Detective Ellison recently assigned a case involving Ms. Merrick?"
"Yes. A stalking case."
"How did you and Detective Ellison come to be assigned this particular case?"
Briefly, Blair recounted the incident in the station's garage that had led to Hannah admitting she was being stalked. "She told us she'd met her stalker in the park and that he'd been following her since their initial meeting. Simon...that is, Captain Banks, assigned the case to us. We were instructed to identify and find the man who was terrorizing Ms. Merrick."
"And were you able to identify and find Ms. Merrick's stalker?"
"We quickly identified him as Philip Kaage. But before we could arrest him or even question him, he was shot and killed."
"You were present when Mr. Kaage was killed, were you not?"
"Yes," Blair acknowledged. "Mr. Kaage broke into the motel rooms we were using as a safe house and threatened Ms. Merrick. When I tried to stop him from hurting her, he attacked me with a knife. Hannah shot him."
"Shot him? With who's gun?"
"Her own. We...that is, Detective Ellison and I...didn't realize she was armed with a handgun at the time."
"During the time you were assigned to protect Ms. Merrick did you know she had, in fact, hired Philip Kaage to pose as her stalker?"
"Objection," Reynolds called out. "There is no evidence that Ms. Merrick hired Philip Kaage."
"Sustained," the judge agreed.
"Can you tell me what happened a day later when you confronted Ms. Merrick with Philip Kaage's case file?" Angela asked, routing the questioning in another direction.
"Objection." Reynolds pushed to his feet and held his hands out imploringly. "Side bar, Your Honor."
The judge motioned both attorneys forward.
Blair stared ahead as the lawyers approached the judge. But as they began to speak, he realized he could hear every word they were saying.
"Your Honor," Reynolds began in hushed tones, "Dr. Sandburg is about to offer testimony regarding an event that was found inadmissible in a pretrial motion."
"Yes, yes. I remember my own ruling, Mr. Reynolds." She turned her attention to Angela. "Ms. Mason, there is no evidence to support the claim Dr. Sandburg made regarding the attempt on his life in his home. I cannot allow it into testimony."
"Judge, I'm simply trying to establish the facts that led up to the incident in Berne," Angela argued.
"Fine. But lead up to it without this particular evidence," Judge Harris instructed. "Now, step back." As the two attorneys moved away, the judge called out, "Defense counsel's objection is sustained."
Angela paced before the prosecution table for a moment, her gaze searching. As Blair watched her, he tensed. He knew she was rethinking her line of inquiry, trying to find an acceptable detour around the sustained objection.
He frowned. How could the jury get an accurate picture of what had transpired with Hannah if he couldn't even talk about what she'd tried to do to him at the loft? It was her attempt on his life that had shown him exactly how far Hannah was willing to go to acquire Jim. It was that attempt that drove him
and Simon to Berne, that made them so desperate to prove his innocence. Without that crucial piece of evidence, his actions, Jim's actions, even Simon's actions would seem unclear and unnecessary.
"Dr. Sandburg," Angela began again, drawing him away from his doubts. "Following Mr. Kaage's death and your release from the hospital for injuries you sustained at Mr. Kaage's hands, your partner went away with Ms. Merrick to spend a weekend in Berne, Washington. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And the same day he left, you and your captain drove to Berne in order to discuss the Philip Kaage case file with your partner, did you not?"
Blair glanced briefly at Reynolds, anger stiffening his back as he took in the defense attorney's haughty, self-satisfied expression. If Angela couldn't bring out what really happened that day, maybe he could. "I'd discovered evidence that made me believe Hannah had prior knowledge of Philip Kaage. Captain Banks and I subsequently made a trip to Berne because Hannah tried to kill me when I presented her with my suspicions, and I thought she might try to kill Jim as well."
"Objection, Your Honor!" Reynolds' outburst cut into the last few words of Blair's testimony but failed to keep Blair from concluding his statement. The defense attorney was on his feet again, clearly outraged at Blair's unexpected testimony. "There is no foundation for this witness's statement!"
"Sustained. The jury will disregard."
"What happened when you arrived in Berne?" Angela asked next, quickly moving on, but Blair didn't miss the small expression of pleased satisfaction that brightened her features. Reynolds may have been able to get testimony regarding what had occurred at the loft thrown out, but Blair had managed to slip it back in. And the wide-eyed jury had heard every word....
"We went to the cabin where Jim and Hannah were staying for the weekend," Blair answered. "We found Hannah unconscious and Jim bleeding from a cut she'd inflicted."
"What did your partner tell you happened between himself and Ms. Merrick?"