Justice Returns (Ben Kincaid series Book 19)

by William Bernhardt

  The judge pondered a moment. “The witness did mention the gun and the gunfire in his testimony. I’ll allow it.”

  “So what about it?” Thrillkill continued. “Do you have any reason to question the hard-and-fast scientific evidence that the murder bullet came from your friend’s gun?”

  “I have every reason to question it. I believe this state has some considerable history of falsifying evidence for criminal trials. And the federal government lied about this war before it even began.”

  “You’re accusing us of framing the defendant?”

  “I only say it is not impossible.” Abdullah seemed tenser with each sentence. Beads of sweat trickled down the side of his face. I could see he’d been pushed too far. “Historically, when America wants a conviction, it does what it needs to get one. Anytime you want some of our people where you can torture or humiliate them, you lie and lie and lie again!”

  Thrillkill just let it hang. Kept his mouth shut while the ensuing silence pierced the air like a knife to Abdullah’s heart.

  Finally, he said, “I think I see what this witness is all about now. No more questions, Your Honor.”

  59

  We took a short break after Abdullah stepped down. I asked the bailiff to take him out through a back exit. Even if the CIA were stalking him, he wouldn’t be arrested here. Then I grabbed Christina and started running through every idea I had. If we closed our case on that last note, I would not hold out much hope. I could see Omar felt much the same.

  Fortunately, thanks to last night’s confab, we had one more trick.

  Christina slid into the seat beside me.

  “Is he in the building?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Tracked him down to courtroom 214. Judge Farris.”

  “Good man. He’ll loan his expert out, I’ll wager.”

  She nodded. “Already asked.”

  Judge Santino returned to the bench and banged the gavel. “Mr. Kincaid, does this conclude the defense?”

  “No, Your Honor. One more witness.”

  He was surprised. “I didn’t know—”

  Thrillkill rose. “Neither did I.”

  “Well, I’m sure you won’t mind.” I gave him my best smile. “I’m just recalling one of your own witnesses.” I turned back to the judge. “The defense calls Clarence Cooper.”

  Thrillkill’s forehead knotted. “I don’t see the point of that. He’s already testified twice.”

  “For you. Not for me.”

  “And I don’t know where he is. I wasn’t prepared—”

  “He’s in courtroom 214, waiting to testify in another case. And Judge Farris has said he will allow him to leave to testify here. It won’t take long.”

  For perhaps the first time in the entire trial, I saw a tiny touch of concern creep across Thrillkill’s face.

  “Any objection, Mr. Prosecutor?”

  “I suppose not,” Thrillkill replied. Probably meaning he couldn’t think of one.

  The bailiff collected the witness, and ten minutes later I began. Cooper still wore his white coat. I was beginning to wonder if he slept in it. “Dr. Cooper, you’ve already testified, so I won’t waste time reestablishing your credentials in the field of ballistics, among others. You’ve testified that the bullet that killed Agent Nazir came from the gun owned by the defendant, correct?”

  “That is correct.” I could see Cooper didn’t know why he was here, either. And that would worry anyone.

  “Your conclusion was based on markings found on the bullet that killed Agent Nazir, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you determine what markings were made by the weapon in question?”

  “After the gun was seized by the police, we fired a test bullet, then compared it to the bullet that killed Agent Nazir.”

  I nodded. “Fascinating. How can you fire a bullet without damaging it?”

  “There are many different techniques. In my office, we fire the bullet into a block of gelatin. The gelatin slows the bullet without marking it.”

  “Could someone else do the same thing?”

  He blinked. “I’m . . . now . . . do what?”

  “Fire a bullet and stop it. So it isn’t damaged.”

  “I . . . suppose. I don’t know why anyone would want to.”

  “So then the bullet could be reused. Inserted into another weapon. And fired again.”

  “Yes, but the second weapon would also leave characteristic marks—”

  “What if it didn’t?”

  Cooper stopped short. “You lost me.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I didn’t understand this till my investigator filled me in last night. He’s been firing guns since his daddy took him quail hunting back—well, never mind. Point is, he knows guns. And he tells me that if someone fired the bullet from Omar’s gun, recaptured the bullet, and put it into another gun, it would look as if the murder bullet was fired from Omar’s gun, even though it wasn’t. Or, at least, wasn’t most recently.”

  Cooper shook his head furiously. “But the second weapon would leave marks, too.”

  “What if the second weapon had an extremely smooth barrel? Like, say, a shotgun. A brand new, extremely well-cleaned shotgun. Which, come to think of it, is what the last witness, the only eyewitness, thought he heard.”

  “Even then, the shotgun would leave some mark—”

  “But not much, right? So an examiner would predominantly see the markings of the first weapon.”

  “It wouldn’t be exactly the same—”

  “But it’s never exactly the same, is it? No two bullets are ever exactly alike, even when they came from the same gun, right?”

  He shrugged. “True.”

  “When you say there’s a match, you’re saying the two bullets are mostly the same, not exactly the same. And the procedure I described could conceivably produce two bullets that looked mostly, if not exactly, the same, even though one was shot a second time from a different weapon. Correct?”

  I could see the jurors stirring. This definitely had their attention.

  Cooper worked through the possibilities. “The killer would need access to the defendant’s gun.”

  “True.”

  “He’d have to fire a bullet in advance, recover it, then put it into his shotgun.”

  “True.”

  “Most people don’t have blocks of gelatin lying around.”

  “What if he fired into a swimming pool? Would that work?”

  “Well .

  “If he fired into the deep end, the water would stop the bullet without damaging it, and the bullet could be recovered later.”

  “I suppose. But there’s no evidence—”

  “Sir, I have not asked you if there’s any evidence, or what you think happened. But I will ask you this question. Is the procedure I just described possible?”

  He twisted his neck. “I suppose in theory.”

  “So, in theory, it is possible that the bullet was fired from Omar’s gun, then fired again from a different weapon on the day Agent Nazir was murdered. Correct?”

  Thrillkill sat up straight and was no doubt threatening his witness with daggers from his eyes. I moved between them.

  Cooper hesitated before answering. But in the end, his scientific objectivity won out. “I think it all sounds terribly contrived,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this being done before. But I suppose it is possible.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I had what I wanted and knew when to get out. “No more questions.”

  Thrillkill rose awkwardly. “Do you think it’s likely—”

  “Objection.” I’d won a little doubt here. I wasn’t going to let him take it away without a fight. “The witness already said he’d never heard of anything like this before. So how could he possibly assess its likelihood?”

  The judge tilted his head. “I will have to award that point to Mr. Kincaid. Sustained.”

  Thrillkill tried again. “Did you, during your investigation, see an
y indication that anything like this contrived twice-fired bullet business was done?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. No more questions.”

  I sprang back up without being invited. “But, sir, the whole point of this procedure would be to prevent someone from realizing it had been done, right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So you wouldn’t be likely to detect any indication that the bullet had been fired twice.”

  “Also true, I guess.”

  “And you did say that it was theoretically possible, correct?”

  “I did say that.”

  “Thank you. Nothing more.”

  I sat down. Thrillkill waved his hand in the air, his nonverbal way of saying he’d had enough.

  “The defense rests.”

  “Very good.” The judge shuffled some papers. “Let’s take ten, then counsel can proceed with closing arguments.”

  The court adjourned. The gallery was talking, and the jurors bore somewhat perplexed expressions. I’d given them all something to think about, which was the most I could do. Take what looked like certain guilt and make it a tiny bit less certain.

  Christina squeezed my hand. “You did good, Ben.”

  “I agree,” Oz said.

  He actually smiled, and I hadn’t seen that in a while. “That doesn’t mean I changed the jury’s mind.”

  “You don’t have to change their minds,” Christina said. “You just have to plant seeds of doubt.”

  “Did I?”

  She glanced at Omar, then at me. “You did the absolute best you could with the case you had.”

  “Will that be good enough?”

  “That’s up to the jury. Now let’s see you argue that stupid politician into the mud.”

  60

  Whether I liked it or not, the prosecutor got first whack at closing argument. Lawyers spent many an hour, usually in a bar over a glass of scotch, arguing about the relative merits of recency and primacy—or to put it the way normal people talk, whether it’s better to go first or last. Some jurisdictions allowed the prosecutor to do both by giving them a rebuttal. More often than not, though, the rebuttal was used not to refute but to give soul-stirring, teary-eyed jeremiads about the “thin blue line” and other routines designed to make the jury forget about the evidence and convict to protect society from evil. I knew this judge disfavored rebuttals and wouldn’t give Thrillkill one unless I said something of heart attack–inducing surprise. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Thrillkill was an excellent orator, something I knew I would never be. He showed no sense of nervousness, even though he had a lot riding on this speech. He strolled slowly from his table, watching the jurors, looking some of them in the eye, smiling confidently. At last, he settled in a central location. Then he took a few more moments of silence. I was expecting a dramatic flourish or gesture.

  Instead, he shrugged.

  “You’d think convicting a guy found at the scene of the crime with the murder gun in his hand wouldn’t be that complicated.”

  And he let that sit with the jury for at least two or three ticks of the clock.

  “I don’t fault defense counsel for doing his best to muddy the water. That’s his job, and he’s done it admirably. Even at the point where some lesser men might’ve given up, he’s still in there swinging, trying to make everything look so much less obvious than it is.”

  I tried not to bristle or to take the slam personally.

  “What have we established in this case?” Thrillkill asked, pacing slowly before the jury box. “Let’s review. Motive. The defendant bore a strong grudge against the victim, Agent Nazir. He admitted that. For that matter, he had a bad-on against the entire CIA. His gang of friends encouraged him to ‘take out’ Nazir, including one extremely attractive foreign activist with whom he had sexual relations.”

  Thrillkill was entitled to his interpretation of the evidence, however skewed it might be. I knew objections would not be welcome unless Thrillkill did something egregious.

  “Opportunity. The defendant was, in fact, at the scene of the crime, and he was in possession of a gun. He has admitted both. In fact, he recently applied for an open-carry permit so he could wear the gun in public. Spectators at the scene of the crime were so certain he was the shooter they tackled him and prevented his escape.”

  Thrillkill paused. “And then there is the matter of evidence. Cold, hard scientific evidence. The stuff that no defense attorney can argue his way around. All the courtroom shenanigans and trickery will not change facts. And what are those facts? The bullet came from the defendant’s gun. That gun had been fired recently. Paraffin tests showed that the defendant himself had fired a gun recently.”

  He spread his hands wide. “What more do you need?”

  He pivoted. “Yes, I heard the defense attorney try to sell you some convoluted science-fiction explanation about bullets being used twice or coming from an alternate dimension or something. All I can say is—come on. Which seems more likely to you? That there was an elaborate frame that only a PhD in ballistics could understand, or that the man who repeatedly told people he hated Nazir and wanted to take him out actually did? The top ballistics expert in the state told you that bullet came out of the defendant’s gun. End of story.”

  He paused reflectively. “And, yes, we had one alleged eyewitness say he watched the defendant at the time of the murder and that he did not fire the gun. This was, of course, a friend, a coworker, and a sympathizer with their political cause. Should we put any faith in that testimony? Think about it. Why would he be watching the defendant at the time the gun was fired? Why would anyone be looking that way while Agent Nazir delivered an important address? One he’d presumably gone to the state capitol for the purpose of hearing? Does this make any sense? I’m not even going to touch the nonsense about the mysterious shotgun at the oil rig. There were several hundred people at that press conference. But only one guy heard a shotgun fire from the oil rig?” He allowed himself a small grin. “This is a state where most people know what a shotgun sounds like.”

  He pivoted slightly, paused, then turned back to the jury.

  Christina scratched a note on my legal pad: HE’S PUTTING HIS MEAN FACE ON.

  “There is one other . . . strain of testimony we’ve heard, ladies and gentlemen. And much as I’d rather ignore it, I’m forced to address it square on. As I said, I don’t fault the defense attorney for doing his job, trying to confuse you and gum up the wheels of justice.”

  Not exactly how I’d describe my role .

  “But I will fault . . . anyone . . . who attacks this great nation we live in. The United States of America.”

  Here we go. I knew it was coming. How could a politician resist? Behind her hand, Christina made a “barfing” face.

  “Granted, we have freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean I have to like everything people say. And I do not like it, not one bit, when people abuse that freedom to attack this nation. We may not be perfect, but we are the finest nation in this world, the finest nation there has ever been in this world, and we should not be subjected to criticism from . . . well, darn it, from those who are jealous or bitter or for whatever misguided religious or terroristic reasons want to tear this great nation down.”

  Chris and I exchanged a look. He treaded close to the mark here. I thought even this judge might not look too harshly on an objection to this rhetoric. But I kept my mouth shut.

  “We all know that America has enemies. We have to do whatever it takes to protect the American way of life. Sometimes we may even have to do things we’d rather not. The only people who never get their hands dirty are the people who never accomplish anything. But the idea that all these people are actively working to bring down this nation, targeting the CIA, targeting its agents, and then trying to turn their evil into an excuse—that’s just disgusting. There is no excuse for murder. They don’t get a free lunch because their politics is different from ours.”

  He c
entered himself and leaned against the guardrail, getting as close to the jury as it was permissible to get. “And let me make one more thing clear. This case is not about war crimes. It’s not a referendum on foreign wars or US foreign policy. It’s about murder. One murder. One murdered CIA agent. And that’s all it’s about. No matter what your politics may be, no matter what you believe about the United States or Iraq or anything else, you will agree that murder is wrong. And here we had a cold, cold-blooded murder committed by that man.” He whirled around and pointed dramatically at Oz.

  “Do we want this to happen again? Do we want this scene repeated every time someone has an ax to grind? Or do we want to draw a line in the sand, right here and right now, and say no, sir. Here in the United States of America, we do not condone murder. Here in the United States of America, murderers will be punished.”

  He pushed himself back from the rail. “Ladies and gentlemen. This man was arrested at the scene of the crime with the gun in his hand and gunpowder on his palm. Let common sense prevail. Do what you know is right. For all of us. For the nation. For the safety of your children.”

  He made eye contact with each juror, then resumed his seat at the prosecution table. Hickman gave him a firm smile and a slap on the back.

  The judge cleared his throat. “Mr. Kincaid?”

  Christina passed me another note. GIVE ’EM HELL, SLUGGER.

  Well, I’d do my best.

  61

  “You probably think I’m going to stand up here and disagree with everything the prosecutor said. But I’m not.”

  I know my limitations as a speaker. I’m never going to master the suspenseful pause or the dramatic gesture. I didn’t have Thrillkill’s flourish. But over the years, I’ve learned how to get someone’s attention.

  “Truth is I agree with much of what he had to say. It doesn’t look good, does it? Arrested at the scene of the crime with a gun. Bullet came from the gun, gunpowder on the palms. And I’m not even going to suggest that my client didn’t dislike Agent Nazir. He did. Big time. Why else would he file that civil suit? He thought Nazir wronged him, and he wanted the man punished.”