Every one of the jurors was sitting forward, watching intently. Juror five rested his chin on his hands, which were folded on the curve of his cane handle.
Rawlins said, “The coding on the medium, that snapshot of light waves crashing, is done with lasers, tiny intense light beams that are of a specific high-wave frequency.”
He came over in front of the jury, brushed back his strip of lank black hair, and said, “The interesting thing about this three-dimensional coding is that we can see the snapshot of the waves crashing around the rock only if it’s lit by lasers tuned to the same exact wave frequency as the ones used to encode the image in the first place.”
“That went right over my head,” Judge Larch said.
“It’s one of those things better seen anyway,” Anita said.
She moved in front of the bench and faced Ali’s left side. Rawlins stood over by the bailiff’s desk facing Ali’s left side at a forty-five-degree angle.
Naomi killed the spotlight. We were all cast back into that dim, grainy vision of the courtroom. Three hair-thin, gray-blue laser beams flipped on, one held by Anita, one by Rawlins, and the last by Naomi. The beams were easy to see at their sources, but the farther the streams got from the lasers, the harder it was to make out the beam as it passed through the gloom.
But not so the dull blue dots at the end of each laser beam. The three dots danced over Ali’s side and arm before finding his outstretched palm.
“Get it bull’s-eye, now,” Rawlins said. “Exact spot.”
The blue dots quivered and squiggled to a meeting dead center of the encoded medium affixed to Ali’s empty hand.
Gasps went up in the courtroom.
“Son of a bitch!” Wills said, standing in disbelief.
Even I couldn’t believe it. But there it was.
My nine-year-old son’s hand looked like it was wrapped around the pale blue holographic image of a nickel-plated .357 Colt Python revolver.
CHAPTER
83
NAOMI SWITCHED ON the spotlight. The gun vanished from Ali’s hand. He was grinning wildly.
Rawlins said, “The gun disappeared because the waves of the spotlight came crashing down and drowned the waves of the laser beam so they could no longer reach the code in Ali’s hand.”
Naomi killed the spotlight. The hologram of the gun reappeared in Ali’s hand, provoking another round of murmurs, and many in the jury box shook their heads in wonder. Even juror five seemed impressed.
Rawlins then showed the court what the hologram looked like through a video camera set to black-and-white and adjusted to take in a specific amount of light. In the dimmed courtroom, you could see the hologram of the pistol clearly, but through the camera lens and on the screen, there was only a gray wash in Ali’s palm. The spotlight beam came on, and even the gray wash was gone from the image on the courtroom screen.
“Your Honor,” Anita said.
“One second, Counselor,” Judge Larch said. She stood up behind the bench and gazed down at Ali. “How did you figure this out, young man?”
Ali took off the sunglasses and said, “Um, when I couldn’t see anything from just looking at the videos, I figured I had to think about it in another way.”
Ali explained that he’d stopped watching the videos and started thinking how a gun could be there and yet not be there. He thought for almost a day before he remembered the holograms he’d seen on some of the rides in Disney World, and he started reading about holograms on the Internet.
“There was stuff about the photographic medium being clear and silicone-based, and the wave frequency of the lasers being the key. And I remembered the glue and silicone on the victims’ hands from the autopsy report and thought maybe the glue could have been to hold the film in place. But Dr. Rawlins figured it all out for real.”
“Just the details, no more,” Rawlins said with a bow toward Ali. “The kid had it nailed before he rang my bell.”
“Where did the film go?” Larch said.
Ali said, “I think after the shootings, after my dad went out to call for backup, someone stripped the holographic film from the victims’ hands and left with the cameraman who shot the video.”
“Objection,” Wills said. “This entire exercise is a clever and, I must admit, very creative stunt, but there’s nothing here that’s concrete. No holographic film has been introduced into evidence, so no testimony about holographic film should be allowed. Move to strike this entire line of questioning.”
“There’s evidence,” Ali said hotly. “That tiny blue light I showed you. Someone had the laser on by mistake for four point seven seconds. And the silicone? And the glue? Were you even listening?”
Wills shot my son a contemptuous glance but didn’t answer.
Anita said, “Your Honor, the defense has given a plausible explanation for the apparent absence of the guns in the videos and for the glue residue and silicone found on the victims’ palms. Let the jury decide.”
For several long moments, the judge showed no reaction and made no response. She studied the top of the bench so long, I figured she was having some kind of fit. At last she said, “Overruled, Mr. Wills.”
“Judge Larch—”
“I said overruled, Mr. Wills. We’ll let the ladies and gentlemen of the jury decide which explanation they believe. Ms. Marley?”
“Move to dismiss.”
“Denied.”
“Move to suppress the testimony of Kimiko Binx and Claude Watkins.”
“Denied.”
Anita called Watkins back to the stand for his cross-examination, and he steadfastly maintained he’d had no holographic film on his hands at any time in his entire life.
“And yet glue and silicone were found on your hands after you were shot.”
Watkins snorted. “I’m a sculptor, and who knows what was on that factory floor to begin with.”
“But you wanted your encounter with Dr. Cross to be recorded. Were you trying to provoke him into shooting with the holograms?”
“I repeat, no holograms,” Watkins said firmly. “And, sure, I wanted to film him. I wanted to see how he’d handle himself, whether he’d revert to the mean of police behavior and go violent. But no one expected to get shot. Least of all me.”
“Do you hate Dr. Cross?”
“I hate the violence he stands for.”
“Enough to frame him?”
“Not enough to take a bullet in the guts and through the spine,” Watkins said. “That’s a fact. No one would wish this on themselves no matter how much they hated someone.”
“No further questions,” Anita said.
When Watkins had wheeled through the gate, Judge Larch said, “Ms. Marley?”
Anita glanced at me. I nodded.
She said, “The defense rests, Your Honor.”
CHAPTER
84
ANY COURT BUFF will tell you that a quick verdict favors the prosecution. So after the jury heard closing arguments, received instructions, and were sequestered for deliberations, we treated every minute without word as a minor miracle. Hours passed. Then a day.
I tried not to think about the verdict but found that impossible. My case had dominated local news and was featured on national and cable news coverage. The talking heads babbled about Ali’s holographic demonstration, the presence of ecstasy in my blood the day of the shootings, and whether together they were enough to create reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds.