“We are not, Your Honor,” Anita said hotly. “Dr. Cross is one of the sanest people I’ve ever known. I’m just setting the context for what Dr. Cross did or did not see that day.”
“Objection,” Wills said, standing beside his assistant. “Who’s testifying here, Ms. Marley or Ms. Binx?”
“Ms. Binx,” Anita said, and she returned to the witness box. “Can you look to page five of the report, the results of tests done on saliva samples taken from you several hours after the shootings? Lines three and four?”
Binx lowered her head and then shook it. “That’s not true.”
“The FBI says it is indeed true,” Anita said, and she looked to her own copy of the files. “Line four, quote, ‘Further tests indicate a dosage of a hundred and nineteen milligrams introduced to bloodstream four to six hours prior to the gathering of sample.’”
Binx said nothing.
“Did you ingest ecstasy earlier on the day of the shootings?” Anita asked.
Binx looked around warily. “That would be illegal, wouldn’t it?”
“Answer the question.”
Binx hesitated for several moments before straightening up in her chair and saying, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
That set off a hubbub in the courtroom. Larch gaveled for quiet.
Amused, Anita said, “You’re invoking the Fifth Amendment for taking ecstasy?”
“I didn’t say that,” Binx said.
“You kind of did.”
“Objection!” Carlisle cried.
“Sustained,” Larch said. “The jury will ignore that.”
Anita showed no reaction. “Ms. Binx, the morning of the shootings, after you came back from your run, do you remember tripping in your apartment and Dr. Cross catching you before you could fall?”
She hesitated, frowned. “No.”
“Yes, you tripped over an electrical cord. When Dr. Cross caught you, you put a piece of clear adhesive tape on the underside of his forearm, didn’t you?”
“Objection,” Wills said wearily. “Where is the foundation for this?”
Anita said, “Your Honor, Dr. Cross and his wife, DC chief of detectives Bree Stone, will testify that they found a piece of tape on the underside of Dr. Cross’s right forearm in the hours after the shootings. We believe that the ecstasy was on that tape in a gel or powdered form and that it was absorbed into Dr. Cross’s bloodstream transdermally, through the skin.”
“Where is this tainted tape?” the prosecutor said. “Render the body, Counselor.”
Anita ignored him, said to the judge, “Neither Dr. Cross nor Chief Stone thought much of it at the time, and they threw the tape out at GW Medical Center.”
Wills shook his head even more wearily. “Move to strike everything Ms. Marley has said about this phantom piece of tape, Your Honor.”
“So moved,” Larch said.
“Your Honor—” Anita started.
“No tape, no talk about tape,” the judge said sharply.
Anita sighed, said, “Ms. Binx, did you dose Dr. Cross with ecstasy?”
Binx blinked, chewed on her lip, glanced at Wills, and then said again, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”
CHAPTER
80
WHEN JUDGE LARCH called for lunch recess and left the courtroom slowly, the prosecutors weren’t looking quite as confident as they had earlier.
Anita had asked Binx several more questions about the ecstasy, including how it was that she had been given the perfect dose of MDMA for her weight and how it was that I was given the perfect dose for mine.
Binx had replied to every question about the drug by taking the Fifth.
“Tripping on ecstasy doesn’t get your client off,” Wills said to Anita as she packed away some files.
“No?” she said. “Fortunately, a jury gets to make that decision.”
“No tainted tape, no causality. Even you can see that.”
Anita gave him a blank expression. “Save it for your close.”
Athena Carlisle said, “Given the videos, are you open to talking plea bargain? Dr. Cross might get out in time to meet his great-grandkids.”
Anita glanced at me. I shook my head.
Carlisle puffed her cheeks, then blew out air. “We tried.”
“Suit yourself,” Wills said, and he chuckled as he left. “But I hear it’s hell for an ex-cop in prison.”
Naomi, Bree, my dad, and I ate takeout pulled-pork sandwiches in a conference room. Even though Anita had scored big points with her cross-examination, we were a somber, focused bunch.
For the first time in a week I felt jurors five and eleven leaning a bit my way, or at least developing some skepticism regarding the prosecution’s case. But Wills had been right. The ecstasy might be a mitigating factor, but it wouldn’t be enough to acquit me of two murders and an attempted murder.
We were back in court with two minutes to spare. Anita was already there.
“We good?” I asked.
She leaned over to me, murmured, “Pray for a knockout.”
“And David slew Goliath,” I said before the bailiff called, “All rise.”
Judge Larch looked considerably less agitated when she retook the bench and called the court to order.
“Ms. Marley,” Larch said, “do you wish to cross-examine Mr. Watkins now, or does the defense have its own witnesses in mind?”
“Defense witness, Your Honor,” Anita said. “We call Ali Cross to the stand.”
I twisted in my seat in time to see Ali enter the courtroom holding my dad’s hand with Jannie and Nana Mama behind them. My boy was in his Sunday best: gray pants, an ironed white shirt, and a paisley bow tie. Juror eleven smiled seeing him.
At the bar, Nana Mama whispered something in her great-grandson’s ear, and he nodded. Ali did not look at me or Anita before pushing open the gate and walking confidently to the witness stand.
Wills said, “Your Honor, the defense gave us no notice of this witness.”
“Ali is Dr. Cross’s son, Your Honor,” Anita said.
Judge Larch looked skeptical. “And he has business before this court?”
“Yes, Your Honor, he has a few things to say.”
The judge peered over at Ali, who was standing in the witness box now.
“How old are you, Ali?”
“Nine, but I’m in fifth grade already.”
“Where do you go to school?”
“Washington Latin.”
Larch smiled. “Good for you. Swear him in.”
Afterward, the bailiff had to get pads for the witness chair so Ali could sit higher and be seen easier by the jury.
Once he’d settled in, Anita said, “Ali, do you normally do what your father tells you to do? By that I mean, when he gives you a direct order, do you obey it?”
“Yes, ma’am. I try.”
“But you defied one of his direct orders recently, didn’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“Objection,” Wills said. “Your Honor, where is the relevance of this?”
Anita looked at him, said, “The Court is about to find out.”
“Get to it, Ms. Marley,” Larch said.
“What did you do that your father didn’t want you to do?” Anita said.
Ali said, “My dad told me not to look at the videos of the shootings in that factory, but I secretly looked at them on YouTube.”
“Once?”
“No, like a hundred and seventy times.”
That provoked some nervous laughter, and I could tell juror five, the retired engineer with the hunched back, did not like the idea of a nine-year-old boy looking at those videos even once, let alone one hundred and seventy times.
“Why did you watch it so many times?” Anita said.
“To figure out where the guns went so Dad wouldn’t go to prison.”
Anita glanced over at Wills and then at the jury. “Did you figure out where the guns went?”
“I think so.”
“Objection,” Athena Carlisle said. “Your Honor, we’ve been through this. Real experts have looked at the videos and found nothing wrong with them. We’re expected to believe a nine-year-old discovered something that they didn’t?”
“Ms. Marley?” Judge Larch said.
“Let the boy speak, Your Honor,” Anita said in a reasonable tone. “Echoing what you said when you allowed the videos to be introduced, the prosecution is free to rebut if Ali is wrong.”
The judge adjusted her glasses and then looked over at Ali. “Did you really figure it out?”
“I think so,” he said.