“Amazing,” I said, but my mind was elsewhere.
“You don’t sound very amazed,” Nana Mama said.
I set my fork down. “It’s delicious, Nana, really, but I think we all need to talk about what life will look like if I’m sent to prison.”
Nana Mama’s face fell. Bree grew distant. Jannie’s eyes welled with tears, and she said, “I don’t want to think about that, Dad. I—”
Ali came running into the kitchen. “Dad, you won’t believe it!”
My grandmother said, “Now is not a good time, Ali.”
My son stopped short. “But I—”
“Not now, Ali!” Jannie shouted, and she broke down in tears.
My father came in behind Ali and said to me, “You better listen to him, son.”
CHAPTER
77
LOOKING WEAK BUT determined, Judge Larch rapped her gavel and called the court to order at nine the next morning. Bree and my dad sat behind me. I’d been up until three a.m., had slept fitfully, and was feeling fuzzy and on edge from two cups of high-test Brazilian coffee.
Larch stared down through her thick lenses and said in a restrained voice, “Ms. Marley, have your analysts examined the videos?”
Looking chagrined, Anita said, “They agreed that they have not been tampered with digitally. The defense has no further objection to the videos.”
The judge seemed disappointed. Assistant U.S. attorney Nathan Wills was stone-faced but nodding his head and jiggling his knee, probably already working on his closing arguments in his mind.
“Mr. Wills?” Larch said.
“A moment, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, then he leaned over to his assistant, Athena Carlisle, and whispered something in her ear.
Carlisle drew back with a startled expression and shook her head emphatically. Their conversation got heated, and then Wills stood up.
He glanced at his scowling assistant and threw back his shoulders, which thrust his belly forward against his starched white shirt.
“The People rest, Your Honor.”
That surprised me and it didn’t. According to the witness list Wills and Carlisle had provided, there were six or seven more people slated to appear, mostly to testify about ballistics and other basic crime scene evidence. But why bother when the videos were legitimate?
“Ms. Marley,” the judge said. “You’re up.”
Anita had evidently been half expecting the prosecution to rest as well, because without hesitation, she said, “Defense calls Kimiko Binx for cross.”
Binx came forward wearing black slacks, black pumps, a black blouse with a high collar, and costume pearls. I got the distinct feeling she was more concerned about her appearance than about facing the formidable Anita Marley.
“You’re still under oath, Ms. Binx,” Judge Larch said.
The web designer nodded and sat down with composure and poise.
Anita said, “Ms. Binx, did you alert Claude Watkins that you were on your way the day of the shootings? Call to tell him you were coming to the factory with my client?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
Naomi handed Anita a plastic evidence bag. Anita took it over to Binx.
“Recognize this?” Anita said.
Binx frowned and took the bag, saw what it was. “It’s a SPOT.”
Anita looked to the jury. “A SPOT is a satellite personal tracker, a GPS device that tracks the wearer. Runners like Ms. Binx use them to plot their workout routes, isn’t that correct?”
Binx nodded. “And in cases of emergency, you can send an SOS signal.”
“There’s also a button that allows you to send a prepared text to people you list on the SPOT website, correct?”
“Um, I guess.”
“Actually, we looked at your account with SPOT, Ms. Binx,” Anita said. “On the day of the shootings, from your apartment and twenty minutes before you arrived at the factory, you pressed that button and sent a text to Claude Watkins that read ‘Game on.’”
“I don’t remember that,” Binx said, pushing back her hair. “And what does it matter?”
Anita smiled and said, “It shows premeditation, Ms. Binx.”
CHAPTER
78
BINX’S FACE FELL, but she said, “Premeditation of what? Performance art?”
Anita did not answer. Instead, she said, “As I understand it, you were taken into custody after the shootings. Is that correct?”
“They let me go after they figured out the truth.”
“But you were booked, yes? Fingerprints. Cheek swabs. Photographed for your mug shot.”
“It was humiliating,” the witness said coldly. “I’d done nothing wrong.”
Anita returned to the defense table. Naomi handed her several thin files and a large sealed plastic bag. Anita handed one of the files to Wills and then went to the bench.
“The defense would like to introduce exhibits A, B, C, and D,” she said, handing Judge Larch a file. “Exhibit A includes chain-of-evidence documentation for cheek swabs taken from Ms. Binx by DC Metro Police shortly after the shootings. Exhibit B documents the FBI’s chain of evidence following cheek swabs taken two days later from my client upon his arrest. Exhibits C and D include the results of tests of those swab samples that the defense requested from the FBI lab.”
“Genetic analysis?” Judge Larch said.
“Your Honor,” Wills said, rising. “This is the first we’ve heard of any swabs or lab analysis.”
“Not true,” Anita said. “My assistant found reference to the swabs in the materials you sent us during discovery, Mr. Wills. And no, Your Honor, we did not do genetic analysis. We had tests done on the saliva, not the cheek cells used for DNA testing.”
“I’ll admit the files,” Larch said.
“Your Honor,” Wills said.
The judge fixed the prosecutor with a withering stare, and I realized it was well past her usual time to recess for a puff or two. Wills was swimming in very dangerous waters.
“The reports are in, Mr. Wills,” Larch said. “Ms. Marley?”
Anita brought a copy over to Binx, handed it to the witness. “Can you look at page four of Dr. Cross’s saliva-test results, third line of the summary?”
Carlisle and Wills were frantically turning the pages of the report. Judge Larch was already studying her copy. Binx glanced up sharply at Anita.
“Can you read it out loud, please?” my attorney said.
Binx twisted uncomfortably, looking as if a lasso had been looped over her head and cinched snug beneath her rib cage.
In a dull monotone, she read, “‘Saliva tests detected the presence of methylenedioxymethamphetamine, MDMA, a hallucinatory drug also known as molly or ecstasy.’”
CHAPTER
79
ECSTASY. MOLLY.
I flashed back to that weird giddy state I was in when I entered the factory and how I’d screamed in an uncontrollable rage that I was going to kill every Soneji in sight. No wonder my emotions had been on a roller-coaster ride that entire day. No wonder I’d felt like hell for days afterward.
Anita pivoted from Binx to the jury and said, “MDMA. A euphoric, mind-altering drug. A drug that doctors say leaves the body at a fairly predictable rate based on dosage. Ms. Binx, what does line four of the summary say?”
Binx was clearly uncomfortable now but read, “‘Further tests indicate dosage of one hundred and forty milligrams or more of MDMA introduced to subject forty-two to forty-eight hours prior to the gathering of samples.’”
Anita said, “One hundred and forty milligrams of ecstasy taken forty-two to forty-eight hours before the saliva samples were taken. That is a six-hour time span that, if I’m not mistaken, includes the two hours prior to the shootings when you were with Dr. Cross, Ms. Binx.”
I expected Wills to object. His assistant, Athena Carlisle, obviously expected the same thing because she glanced at her boss. When she saw he wasn’t moving, she stood up.
Carlisle said, “Your Honor, is Ms. Marley honestly laying the foundation for an insanity plea? Saying Dr. Cross was out of his mind at the time of the shooting because of ecstasy?”