“Earlier you testified you were closing up the house for the night, pulling curtains, that sort of thing; tell me, Mr. Carr, was the light in the study on or off at the time you saw the commotion outside the window?”
Mr. Carr squirms a little in his chair. “I can’t say I rightly remember.”
“You agree that it would make a difference, though, in terms of what you would have been able to see outside, on a dark night, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, the light would have created a reflection on the window.”
“And you wouldn’t have been able to see clearly outside?”
“But I did see it, so, yes, the light was off.”
Jay, not gaining much traction, tries a different tack. “How long would you say you stood at the window, Mr. Carr: a few seconds, less than a minute?”
“No, it was a little longer than that.”
“But you weren’t standing there recording ‘evidence,’ were you, sir? I mean, you didn’t really know what it was you were looking at, did you, sir?”
“Objection, compound question.”
“Sustained.”
“You didn’t call the police after you witnessed this ‘struggle,’ did you?”
Magnus Carr looks down, fiddling with the tail of his tie. “I should have.”
“You glanced at something out the window, as you were closing your curtains for the night, glasses on or off, the lights on or off, but you can’t be–”
“The light was off.”
“In passing, sir, you can’t for certain say what it is you saw, can you?”
“Wasn’t in passing. Naw, I stood and looked,” Carr says. “We’ve had some problems out there, you know, so I looked, I watched for a little bit. Some of the old-timers out there, we’ve kind of put it on ourselves to do what we can to keep the place safe, calling in things here and there. But we’ve been wrong before, not seeing what we thought we were seeing, so I guess I kind of hesitated.” He pauses here, clearing his throat a little and straightening his spine, a corrective posture against the shame written all over his face. “As to not calling the police, well, I’m gon’ have to live with that one. I think about that girl, I do,” he says, and this time he looks out, searching the courtroom for the face of Maxine Robicheaux. Given that she and her husband are the closest kin to the victim, they have been afforded seats in the front of the gallery, just behind the state’s table. Pastor Keith Morehead sits beside them in a black suit and paisley tie. Jay, because of what Mr. Carr has just said, turns to look in Keith Morehead’s direction.
And that’s when he sees T. J. Cobb in the courtroom.
In a black T-shirt and a faded denim jacket, a toothpick sticking out of the side of his mouth, he has been watching Jay’s back for who knows how long, and now, given the chance to regard the man face-to-face, he gives him that same overbroad smile, the one that so disturbed Jay the first night he came across it. What in the world is this piece of shit doing in here? The courtroom has fallen silent, and the witness is fidgeting on the stand. “Mr. Porter,” the judge says.
“A moment, Your Honor.”
He turns to the defense table, but doesn’t have to say a word. Rolly is already on his feet, buttoning his suit jacket. As the two men pass each other, Jay whispers two words in his ear. “Crush him.” Rolly nods, jaw tight, as he starts out of the courtroom, just a few strides behind T. J. Cobb.
Jay finally returns to his witness.
“I should have called the cops,” Carr says, shaking his head, reaching into the side pocket of his sports coat for a handkerchief, dabbing his forehead. “But I just didn’t put it together, what was happening. I didn’t see a van. When the other girls, Tina and Deanne, were taken, there was talk about a white van–”
Nichols is fast on his feet.
“Objection,” he says. “May we approach?”
Jay follows Nichols to the bench. The D.A.’s cheeks are red. “Stuff about the other girls is inadmissible, and he knows it,” the D.A. says to Keppler, who is twisting the turquoise and coral ring on her right ring finger, which is long and thin as a blade of grass. Up close, Jay can smell the stale coffee on her breath.
“That came out of Mr. Carr’s mouth, not mine,” he says, making clear that he is honoring the judge’s single pretrial ruling, that the murders of Tina Wells and Deanne Duchon would not be a part of these proceedings. “The state should have coached its own witness not to touch on the other murders,” he says.
Judge Keppler agrees.
Still, she is bound to instruct the court reporter that the last piece of Mr. Carr’s testimony should be disregarded and will be stricken from the record. On his walk back from the bench, Jay steals a glance at the jury box. The jurors are as alert as he’s seen them since Mr. Carr took the stand. One of the white men in the back has his arms folded tightly, his brow deeply wrinkled. The judge’s direction to ignore the mention of the two other dead girls has only drawn more attention to it, a lucky break for Jay, and the last he will receive for the rest of this first day of testimony. On redirect, Nichols presents Mr. Carr with a copy of his affidavit, reminding him of his words at his second police interview, when he was shown a picture of Neal in a photo lineup. “I said, ‘Well, hell if the man didn’t look like Neal Hathorne.’” To Judge Keppler, he adds, “Excuse my language, ma’am.”
They are, by then, nearing the hour of five o’clock.
Judge Keppler adjourns for the day, asking for the principal players to return at eight thirty the following morning. It takes a long time for Neal to stand as the courtroom starts to clear. And when he finally does, he takes one look at Jay and says matter-of-factly, as if he were getting used to the idea, “We’re going to lose.” He turns and joins the Hathorne family in the gallery. Sam puts a hand on his grandson’s shoulder, guiding him out of the courtroom.
CHAPTER 24
Jay’s phone rings before he’s out of the courthouse.
“Rolly,” he says.
But it’s Lonnie, calling with news. “I got it,” she says. “I got the flyer.”
“You found the printer?”