“The witness is fully prepped.” Then I tell Susan who the witness will be and why I need her to be the questioning attorney. When I’m done, she stares at me, her jaw hanging. “Jesus Christ.”
Half an hour later, just before 9:30, Susan and I enter the courtroom. Susan heads for counsel table while I have the guard let me through the side door leading to David’s holding cell. I walk down the narrow hallway, the guard in front of me. He goes to open the door, and I say, “Don’t bother. Just give us some room.” The guard walks away, and I look through the bars at David, who stands up, wondering how this is going to play out. He knows with my first words.
“Piper told me everything,” I say. “You piece of shit.”
“Mick, I’m sorry. We never—”
“There will be an accounting, David. As soon as this is over, there will be an accounting.” With that, I turn and leave.
Minutes later, the jury is in the box, the judge on the bench, the spectators in their seats, everyone waiting for the show to begin. Judge Henry nods toward me and asks if the defense is ready to present our case.
When Susan rises instead of me, expressions of surprise echo from behind us, everyone wondering what she’s doing there. Her voice strong and clear, Susan declares, “The defense calls Piper McFarland.”
And the courtroom is instantly abuzz. I look across to the prosecution table, where Devlin is already on his feet.
“Objection,” Devlin says. “This witness wasn’t named on the defendant’s witness list.”
He’s sticking to the script. Good. He has to fight it on the record, at least at first.
“Sidebar,” says the judge, and Susan and I, Devlin and Christina, make our way toward the bench. “What’s going on here, Mr. McFarland?” the judge asks me. “Is this witness related to you? What are you offering her for?”
“The witness is my co-counsel’s wife, Your Honor,” Susan interjects.
Judge Henry looks at me. “Your wife?”
“Yes,” Susan answers. “The defense is presenting her as our alibi witness. She was with the defendant at the time of the murder.”
The court reporter raises her eyebrows.
“I object,” Devlin repeats. “The time has long past for the defense to identify alibi witnesses.”
“Your Honor,” Susan chimes in, “Mr. McFarland only learned last night that the witness was an alibi witness, and—”
Devlin interrupts and speaks over Susan. “The rules require the defendant to disclose any alibi witnesses at the time they file their omnibus motion.”
“Your Honor,” Susan cuts in, “the defendant was prepared to go to prison for a crime he did not commit to protect the reputation of his alibi witness. But she decided she could not let that happen. Exceptional circumstances are present here.”
“I demand an offer of proof,” Devlin says, following my script. “I want to hear what this witness is going to say before she’s allowed to go anywhere near the jury.”
Bill Henry leans back in his chair. He gets it now. And despite his decades as a trial attorney and judge, seeing and hearing it all, he can’t quite keep the Holy shit from his face. “Very well, Mr. Walker, you’ll get your offer of proof. I want counsel, the defendant, and the witness in my chambers in ten minutes. You, too,” he says to the court reporter, whose vigorous nodding makes clear that wild horses couldn’t keep her away.
Ten minutes later, we are all assembled in chambers. The judge is behind his desk, the court reporter sits next to the desk, to the judge’s right. Four chairs sit in front of the desk, and seated in them, left to right, are Piper, Susan, Devlin, and Christina. Behind the four chairs is a long sofa. I am on the far left side of the sofa; David is on the right. David’s face, like mine, is set in stone.
Susan begins. “Your Honor, the witness is prepared to testify that on the day of the murder—”
“No,” says the judge. “You’re not going to summarize her testimony. She’s going to testify here, under oath, before me. I’m going to hear what she has to say and how she says it before I decide whether to let her take the stand.”
This is what I expected—and hoped for. I told Susan not to protest this if the judge required it. If he did not, Devlin was to demand it and Susan was to agree.
The court reporter administers the oath to Piper, who says “I do” in a barely audible voice. The judge tells her to keep her voice up, and Piper says, “Yes, Your Honor. I’m sorry.” Susan questions Piper briefly about her background, establishing that she is, indeed, my wife. Then Susan gets down to business.
“Please tell the court where you were on Thursday, May thirty-first, of this year, from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.”
Piper glances from Susan to the judge. “I was in room 703 of the Rittenhouse Hotel.”
“Were you alone?”
“No.”
“Who was with you?”
I watch Piper lower her head and hear her say . . . nothing.
Jesus Christ—she’s changed her mind.
I stop breathing. But then Piper lifts her head, looks at the judge, and says, “David Hanson was with me.”
“The whole time?” asks Susan.
“He arrived right at noon. But after that, yes, he was with me the whole time.”
“When he arrived, did he have any blood on him? Did he appear disheveled in any way?”
“Blood? No. He was dressed in his suit. He looked normal. Buttoned and tucked.”
“When did you first tell defense counsel about all this?”
“I told my husband last night.”
“Why didn’t you come forward sooner?”
Piper looks away from Susan, fixes her gaze on some invisible spot on the wall behind the judge. Of course, everyone in the room knows why she didn’t fess up earlier. Tell her husband that she was sleeping with his old friend.
“I just couldn’t face . . .” Piper’s voice trails off.
“Then why are you coming forward now?”
Piper looks squarely at the judge. “Because David Hanson didn’t kill that woman. I can’t let an innocent man go to jail. No matter what, I just couldn’t.”
Susan waits for the words to sink in, then says, “Thank you. Your Honor, nothing further.”
Devlin jumps right in with his cross. “Mrs. McFarland, what were you and Mr. Hanson doing all this time, in room 703 of the Rittenhouse Hotel?”
Piper stiffens. “We were . . . we were having relations.”
“You mean you were having sex.”
Susan is about to answer when Bill Henry interjects, “The court already understands what the witness meant. The follow-up remark is stricken.”
Devlin pauses, then asks a question I prepped him for. “Do you have any proof you were at the Rittenhouse Hotel that day?”