Talon Winter Legal Thrillers Box Set

by Stephen Penner

  “Court will be adjourned until tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.” Judge Kirchner banged her gavel. She stepped down and headed for her chambers as the bailiff crossed the courtroom to lead the jurors out. Talon checked in with Michael to make sure he would be there bright and early the next morning, and offered a reassuring pat to Alicia’s shoulder. Then she stepped up to Curt, who’d remained standing after the judge and jurors had left.

  He gestured at his clothes. “All dressed up for nothing. I guess.”

  But Talon took a moment to gaze at her investigator’s solid frame wrapped in something worthy of a night on the town—and what might come after.

  “No,” she disagreed with lowered lids. “Not for nothing.”

  CHAPTER 38

  'All dressed up and no place to go' might have been the better expression from Curt. No matter how good he looked in that outfit, there was no way Talon was going to spend the night before the State's key witness doing anything other than preparing her cross-examination. There was a lot more to that than just writing out questions. There was anticipating what Quinlan's (not McDaniels, she assumed) direct examination would be. There was reviewing the exhibits. And it was knowing that even when she thought she was done, she wasn't. There was always more

  After court, Talon went directly back to her office. Alone. She only left twice. Once around 6:30 to grab some takeout, and again a little after 9:00 to go home. She spent a couple more hours refining everything before finally going to bed shortly before 11:00. Getting enough sleep was part of good preparation too

  The next morning she arrived at the courtroom 20 minutes before 9:00, which was five minutes after her client.

  “Good morning, Michael,” she greeted him as she set her briefcase down on the table. She offered a nod to Alicia as well in the front row.

  “Morning, Talon,” Michael answered. “Are you ready?”

  Talon thought for a moment, recalling all the work she'd done the night before, and throughout the preceding weeks and months. “I hope so.”

  Michael seemed to accept that answer. Talon supposed he was hoping she was ready too.

  Then Talon checked in with the one other observer in the courtroom. The most important one, Alicia’s personal interest in the outcome notwithstanding. Alicia cared about the result, but Anastasia St. Julian could affect it. Hopefully.

  “Ann,” Talon greeted her expert as she walked up to her spot in the last row of the gallery. “Thanks for coming up early to sit through Langston’s testimony.”

  Arnold Langston, the ballistic expert from the Washington State Patrol crime Laboratory. The State’s expert. The one witness who could link Michael Jameson to the murder of Jordan McCabe.

  “Of course,” St. Julian replied. She stood to talk with Talon. “I always prefer to listen to the testimony of my opponent. Albert’s a good guy, but he’s not always as careful as he should be, in my opinion.”

  “Well, it’s your opinion that matters,” Talon said.

  “We’ll see,” St. Julian replied.

  Talon shrugged. “Either way, thanks for being here.”

  “I’m billing you for this time as well,” St. Julian responded. “You and your client understand that, right? I bill all my time, including travel and preparation.”

  Talon nodded. She was well aware. She realized she hadn’t heard back from Sullivan yet. But she didn’t have time for such thoughts. “We understand.”

  St. Julian smiled. “Good. Now, let’s get started. I can’t wait to hear what Arnold has to say.”

  Talon knew what he was going to say. She just needed St. Julian to say he was wrong. She thanked St. Julian one more time then returned to her seat next to Michael.

  There wasn't any small talk as Talon set up her materials on the table. Michael had his ever-present legal pad in front of him, pen in hand, fresh page waiting for the next—and last—State witness. McDaniels arrived next, but there was no greeting between the opponents. When Quinlan arrived a few minutes later, he and his co-counsel exchanged hushed hellos, but nothing more.

  There was an anticipation in the room that seemed to silence its occupants. Even when the bailiff and court reporter took their stations, their entrance was muted. The quiet was only shattered when the judge emerged from her chambers and took the bench, to ask, “Are the parties ready to proceed?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Quinlan answered.

  I hope so. “Yes, Your Honor,” Talon echoed.

  “Good,” Kirchner replied, then she called for the jury.

  Once the jurors were seated, McDaniels stood to announce their final witness. “The State calls Arnold Langston to the stand.”

  Talon wondered absently whether Langston was African-American, but when he walked in he was as White as the majority of jurors. She was surprised Quinlan let McDaniels handle this vital witness. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to be bothered with the science of it all. She decided that was it; something bad. She didn’t want to give Quinlan credit for anything. Another emotional side effect of trial. The enemy was evil, period. She could be dissuaded later, after the verdict. For now, every motivation of Quinlan’s had to be either evil or stupid.

  Langston entered the courtroom and took his place on the witness stand. McDaniels wasted no time. The sooner they got through this, the sooner Jameson was linked to the murder and the sooner they could rest their case, a huge accomplishment.

  “Could you state your name for the record?” The standard beginning.

  “Arnold Langston,” the expert replied. He was tall, thin, with graying hair struggling to cover the top of his increasingly bald head. He wore a blue shirt, navy blazer, and yellowish tie—none of which really looked that good together. It just added to the ‘scientist’ vibe he was throwing off.

  “How are you employed, sir?”

  “I am a forensic scientist at the Washington State Crime Laboratory.” He was addressing his answers to the jury. He must not have gotten the memo after her attack on Halcomb. Talon didn’t suppose the same tack would work on this very different witness, but she added it to her arsenal of possible weapons for cross-examination.

  “Do you have an area of specialization?”

  “Yes,” Langston nodded. “I work in the ballistics division. Most of my work relates to comparing ballistics from crime scenes with ballistics from known weapons.”

  McDaniels had a script in front of her, Talon could see, but she read from it naturally, as if she were thinking of each question on the fly. “Let’s break that down a bit,” McDaniels said. “When would you have a known weapon and why compare it to evidence from a crime scene?”

  Again, Langston turned to the jury. “That’s actually a very common scenario. A crime occurs and evidence is collected at the scene, like casings and projectile, but there’s no firearm because the shooter fled with it. Then later, we get a hold of the firearm somehow. So we compare the evidence from the scene to see if it matches the firearm that’s recovered later.”

  “And how do you make a match?”

  Langston became a bit more animated. Most people like to talk about their work. “Well, you see,” he told the jurors, “every firearm is unique and leaves unique markings on the bullets and casings that pass through it.”

  He then explained the basics of firearm operation and manufacture.

  “I avoid the term ‘bullet’ because different people mean different things at different times when they use that word. Instead, I refer to projectiles and casings. The projectile is housed in the casing until it’s fired from the firearm and the casing is discarded. When the projectile is still inside the casing, prior to being fired, we call that a cartridge.

  “When the firing pin hits the back of the casing, it punctures a small disc of gunpowder, causing it to explode. The projectile travels down the barrel and out of the firearm, and the casing remains behind. In a revolver, the casing stays in the rotating cylinder. In a semi-automatic, the casing is ejected with an ejecting pin. In both c
ases, the firearm loads the next cartridge into position to fire another shot.”

  “So if a person fires a semi-automatic, the casing might be left behind at the scene?” McDaniels asked from her script.

  “Exactly,” Langston agreed. “Casings from the same firearm will have matching scratches on them from the ejecting pin. It will strike every casing in the same place, so if we find casings at a scene, even if we don’t have the firearm, we can sometimes confirm they were all fired from the same firearm because the ejector pin markings match.”

  “What about markings on the projectile?”

  It was a Ballistics 101. Enough for the jury to understand, but not enough for them to question. That was what Prof. St. Julian’s Ballistics 201 class would be for.

  “Those are also unique to each firearm,” Langston confirmed. “When a projectile travels down the barrel, it’s actually touching the inside of the barrel, or at least part of it is. Bullet’s spin, just like a well-thrown football, which is why they cut through the air and can be so accurate. The way it’s accomplished is a process called ‘rifling,’ which is where the term rifle comes from. Think of those old-fashioned musket ball guns from Revolutionary times. Those balls were wildly inaccurate. They just flew out and could go in any number of directions. Like a knuckle-ball in baseball.”

  Talon wondered if all the jurors were getting the sports references. But she supposed enough of them were. Langston continued.

  “Well, the interior of a rifled barrel has ridges, usually four to six of them, with depressions in between. The ridges twist inside the barrel and the bullet, because it just barely fits and is right up against those ridges, it twists too as it goes down the barrel, so at the end, it comes out of the barrel spinning, ready to go perfectly straight.”

  “Why does that enable you to match bullets to a particular firearm?” McDaniels wasn’t even looking up from her script any more. Quinlan didn’t trust her; he trusted Langston.

  “Different manufacturers use different numbers of ridges and depressions—which are actually called lands and grooves—and different directions of the twist. So one manufacturer might use five lands and grooves and twist to the right, while another might have six lands and grooves and a twist to the left. A projectile with marking of five lands and grooves cannot have been fired down a barrel with six lands and grooves.”

  “Can you match a projectile to a specific firearm?”

  “Yes,” Langston answered. “When the barrel is bored out, there are small imperfections left behind, little tiny bits of metal that stick up and scratch the bullet as it travels down the barrel. These bits of metal are different for every individual firearm, The scratches left on a bullet are therefore unique to that firearm.”

  “Is the same true for casings ejected by the ejector pin?”

  Langston shrugged a bit as he answered, “It’s not as specific for ejector pins, but the location and length of the marks can vary widely from firearm to firearm, so if ejected casings from a crime scene match known casings ejected during a controlled test fire, we feel confident there’s a match.”

  So, no, Talon thought. But that didn’t help with the bullet extracted from Jordy McCabe’s body. The same bullet McDaniels then retrieved from the bailiff, along with the casings from the crime scene and Exhibit #37, the handgun stolen—maybe—from Michael’s home.

  “I’m now handing you several exhibits,” McDaniels announced for the record. “Did you examine these in relation to this case?”

  Langston took the combination of plastic evidence bags and the handgun from McDaniels. He took a moment to confirm the markings on the various evidence tags, then confirmed, “Yes.”

  “And what are these items?” McDaniels asked.

  “These,” Langston held up a small plastic bag with both red and blue evidence tape and numbers and letters marked in various places in Sharpie, “are two spent casings, reportedly recovered—”

  “Don’t tell me where they might be from,” McDaniels interrupted, to avoid the objection. The collecting evidence officers had testified days ago about collecting and packaging the casings, just like Brennan had testified about recovering the handgun, Exhibit #37. “Just what they are. Other witnesses have already identified where each item came from.”

  “Oh, okay,” Langston replied. He seemed a little surprised. Talon supposed not all defense attorneys held the State to the strict letter of the hearsay rules. And there were allowances for experts, but McDaniels wasn’t taking any chances after the mistrial threat.

  “What about the next bag?” McDaniels prodded.

  “Ah, this.” Langston held it up for the jury to see. It had the same blue evidence tape on one edge, and black identifying marks, but no red tape. “This is a spent projectile, recovered— Oh, well, it’s just a spent projectile.”

  McDaniels nodded. The Medical Examiner had already testified that it had been removed from Jordan McCabe at autopsy. The cause of death was never in question, just the causer.

  “It’s partially deformed from impact,” Langston added.

  McDaniels nodded. Everyone knew that already too. Its tip was pancaked from lodging in McCabe’s spine. The second gunshot had been a through-and-through, its bullet never recovered, flying off into that long ago night.

  “And Exhibit Thirty-Seven?” she prompted.

  Langston held up the handgun. “This is a nine millimeter semi-automatic handgun which I examined in relation to this case.”

  “Did you attempt to determine whether the projectile and casings from the other exhibits had been fired from this handgun?” McDaniels asked from her script.

  “Yes,” Langston nodded.

  “How did you do that, exactly?”

  “I fired the same type of ammunition through the firearm and then compared the test-fires with the recovered evidence to see whether the markings matched.”

  “Did the markings appear to match?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Says you, thought Talon. Not that she could phrase her cross-examination quite so juvenilely.

  In contrast, McDaniels dropped into the formalistic questions-and-answers used to elicit the final expert opinion without, she undoubtedly hoped, objection.

  “Do you have an opinion as to whether the projectile in Exhibit Number Thirteen was fired from the handgun that is Exhibit Thirty-Seven?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And do you have an opinion as to whether the casings in Exhibit Number Five were ejected from the handgun that is Exhibit Thirty-Seven?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What are those opinions based on?”

  “My opinions are based on my examination of the unique markings on these exhibits when compared microscopically to the markings on the test-fired projectiles and casings from Exhibit Thirty-Seven.”

  “And what is your expert opinion, Mr. Langston?”

  “It is my expert opinion,” he turned again to the jury, holding up the exhibits for emphasis, “that this bullet and these casings were in fact fired from this handgun.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Langston,” McDaniels said. “No further questions.”

  She returned to her seat next to Quinlan and waited for Talon to start her cross-examination. Talon didn’t hurry. She had a script, too, one prepared the night before with input from St. Julian. It wasn’t as long as McDaniels’s script, but then again, the better cross-examination was often the shorter. Focused on the weaknesses of the State’s evidence, rather than going over it all again. So if she wasn’t going to talk as long, she could let Langston sweat a little as she got herself up to the bar and into position. There were three things she needed the jury to understand.

  First, “The markings on Exhibit Number Thirteen are not as complete as those on your test-fired projectiles, are they, Mr. Langston? Because the exhibit is deformed from impact, right?”

  Langston could hardly argue with that. “That is correct,” he admitted. “But they were still sufficient to
form a match.”

  “In your opinion?” Talon clarified.

  “Yes, in my opinion.”

  “It’s easier to make a match between two non-deformed bullets, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And the more deformed a projectile is, the harder it can be to make a match, correct?”

  Langston thought for a moment. “I think that’s a fair statement, yes.”

  “In fact,” Talon pressed, “some projectiles can be so deformed as to make it impossible to match it to a specific firearm, isn’t that true?”

  Langston nodded. “That can happen, yes.”

  “So whether a deformed projectile is too deformed to be of value, that’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it?”

  “A matter of expert opinion,” Langston half-joked. “Yes.”

  Talon smiled weakly at the joke. “And experts can disagree, isn’t that right, Mr. Langston?”

  Langston shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  Second, “Ejector pin markings are not anywhere near as unique as the markings left on a projectile from the inside of a barrel, correct?”

  “Yes, I believe I already testified to that,” Langston answered.

  “And so again, using ejector-pin markings to determine whether a particular casing was ejected from a particular semi-automatic is difficult to impossible, correct?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Langston defended. “You can determine whether it’s consistent with other evidence.”

  “Like the fired projectile?” Talon asked.

  “Exactly,” Langston confirmed.

  “So your opinion that those casings were ejected from that handgun was based at least in part on your independent opinion that the deformed projectile was fired from that handgun?”

  Langston thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I’d say that exactly. I try to look at all the evidence—”

  “Evidence you didn’t collect?” Talon interjected.

  “Uh, correct,” Langston admitted.

  “I mean, you weren’t there when these casings were allegedly collected, right?”