“And the only thing the physical evidence tells us about the killer,” I say, ignoring his answer, “is that, if your theory is right, the person had to be strong enough to carry or drag the victim from the basement floor back to the stairs.”
“I would agree that the perpetrator was strong enough to do that.”
“But that could be virtually any man in the city, couldn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Virtually all of the men and at least some of the women, right?”
“Well . . .”
“Mr. Hanson would certainly be strong enough, right?”
“I’d expect.”
“But so would a former high school basketball star, like Mr. Walker.”
“Objection!” Devlin’s on his feet. “Again, Your Honor, this is beyond inappropriate. It’s offensive to the dignity of the court.”
The judge calls counsel to the bench for a sidebar and launches into me as soon as we get there.
“Mr. McFarland, this really is quite enough,” the judge says.
“This is a murder trial,” I answer. “I’m entitled to some leeway.”
“Leeway?” Devlin spits the word.
“Go down this road one more time,” Bill Henry says, “and I’ll sanction you in the presence of the jury. Do you understand me?”
I say I do, and Devlin and I move back to our places.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I say, the old trial lawyer’s trick to make the jury think the judge came out on my side.
“What are you thanking me for?” the judge says, not letting me get away with my ruse. “Your behavior was out of line, and I told you so.”
Now would be a perfect time to stop, sit, and bury my head in my legal pad. But I have to press on. There’s one final point that Devlin snuck in on direct that I must address, a point I anticipated from my reading of the autopsy findings. Devlin didn’t ask it directly, and I suspect it’s because he left it for my cross—a little bomb to go off all over me. A bomb that I, too, want to detonate. “Dr. Weintraub, you were asked a question about whether the victim could have been pleading as she crawled along the basement floor. You didn’t find any physical evidence as to that. And, in fact, the head wounds and blood loss would have left the victim in an impaired state of consciousness. So impaired that she really didn’t understand what was happening to her, isn’t that right?”
“No, I think that’s wrong,” the medical examiner says, pulling up a close-up photograph of Jennifer’s face. “These dried salt deposits track down from the victim’s eye ducts.”
I stare at Ari as though I don’t understand.
“She was crying, Mr. McFarland. The victim was crying.”
32
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, CONTINUED
Jennifer Yamura’s mother’s quiet sobs intensify into all-out weeping. Her husband and son lean in from both sides to comfort her, but it does no good. There is no other sound in the courtroom until the judge directs me to continue.
I run through a few more questions, vanilla stuff, then pass the witness. Turning to take my seat next to David, I catch Marcie glaring at me. The other person whose face I’m drawn to is Piper. She has the dazed look of someone who’s just been kicked by a horse.
As was the case with Matthew Stone, Devlin doesn’t bother to redirect. I expect, at this point, that Devlin will rest. I would were I in his place.
Instead, he stands and announces, “As our last witness, the Commonwealth will present Brian Yamura.” And just that fast, the courtroom is electrified.
The victim’s twin brother.
I feel David stiffen next to me as he picks up a pen and draws a big question mark on the legal pad between us. I quietly tell him I don’t know what Brian Yamura is going to say. He’s on the prosecution’s witness list, but there was never a chance we were going to get a statement from him.
Everyone in the courtroom follows Jennifer’s brother in his slow procession through the gate, past the jury box, and onto the stand. He’s a good-looking young man, thirty-one, like his sister. Thin and athletic and insanely wealthy, he walks poised, shoulders back and head up.
Devlin asks a few background questions, then gets right down to why Brian has been called as a witness.
“Were you close with your sister?”
“We were twins,” Brian says. “We knew each other before we were born.”
“Of course,” Devlin nods. “And you remained close throughout your lives?”
“We were best friends. Jen was more of a people person than I am. I was the tech nerd, so I turned to her for advice about how to handle personal situations. She was always helping me out with my girlfriends. Lord knows,” he adds, shaking his head, “I needed it.”
“And on the other side of the coin,” Devlin asks, “did you help your sister with her relationships?”
“Like I said, Jen was good with people. And she had a good head on her shoulders. She never needed my help with men, as a rule.”
“Were there any exceptions to that rule?”
Brian Yamura inhales. “Just one. Her relationship with . . . him.” Brian turns toward David, and the jurors’ eyes follow him. “She’d told me that she’d met someone very special. An important man. Someone powerful and rich. But there was a problem. The man was married.” Here, Brian closes his eyes, lowers his head. “I told her she was crazy to get involved with a married man, especially some rich, older guy,” he says, opening his eyes and looking at the jury. “I told her guys like that only want to use younger women like toys. She told me not to worry, she could take care of herself. She said that this guy wasn’t like those others. He really cared about her.”
Devlin pauses to let the first chapter of the story sink in. “So what happened as time went on?”
“For a long time, nothing. I mean, nothing bad. Jen and I would call each other, and she always sounded happy, told me it was going great with him.”
“And then?”
Jennifer’s brother pauses again, looks at Devlin, then past him to the seats in the back of the courtroom. This puzzles me, so I turn to see who Brian is looking for. I spot him instantly: John Tredesco. And now I know what’s going on—and what’s coming. Brian is acting out a story fed to him by Tredesco. I can easily envision how it unfolded. Tredesco probably approached the young man in the hallway, expressed his condolences, told Jennifer’s brother how badly Tredesco and the whole prosecution team wants to see David Hanson convicted. Unfortunately, though, the prosecution has no evidence of a motive. “Like if Hanson had wanted to break up with your sister, but she loved him and didn’t want to.” In my mind, I can hear Tredesco spoon-feeding the story to the angry, devastated brother. Peppering it with the threat that, absent a motive, the jury will be forced to find David Hanson not guilty, even if they believe he did it.
Tredesco catches me staring at him and nods.
I turn back toward the front of the courtroom, where Devlin is asking Brian Yamura to tell the jury what his sister told him toward the end.