Hardy: The Suspect Part 35

In the last couple of weeks, especially since those terrible first days before she had told her mother about the threat to her that Kymberly had delivered, she had come to some fundamental decisions about who was on her side and who wasn't. Before, she had always liked Mr. Gorman-enough to be comfortable calling him Stuart, for example-but she'd always known that when he lost his temper, he could be terrifying.

The time that stuck in her mind the most was once when they all were skiing and this s...o...b..arder came from out of nowhere from behind them and smashed into Kymberly, going pretty much full speed. After Stuart made sure that his daughter wasn't seriously injured, he skied down to where the boarder had fallen, moaning in the snow. Bethany would never forget not only the look in Stuart's eyes, but the true sense she had that he was going to stab the kid with his pole. As it was, he picked him up-an adult-size kid-and yelling and swearing at him the whole time that he ought to watch where the f.u.c.k he was going, he slammed him back down onto the hard-packed snow a couple of times before he got himself back under control.

He had talked about it half the way home, too, saying he wished he had hurt the kid more. He'd missed his chance. But at least he'd intimidated the s...o...b..arder enough to get his address and phone number, in case there were complications with Kymberly. He told the girls he was still considering looking the guy up and hunting him down. Bethany thought at the time he was mostly kidding, blowing off steam-but even so, it wasn't funny kidding. She believed he really might do it.

Now she dared a quick glance at this man who, she'd convinced herself, had absolutely clearly told her that if she went ahead and testified against him, something really bad was going to happen to her. That was all the proof she needed that he'd actually killed his wife.

Watching the young woman's hesitation as she a.s.sessed the danger Stuart posed to her, as she then turned and waited for the nods of a.s.surance from Gerry Abrams and from her father, Gina suddenly felt a stab of panic. She had studied and well knew the psychology of terror-from the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages came to admire and even love their captors, to a situation such as this one.

Gina's instinct now told her that Bethany had come to the unshakeable conclusion that Stuart was a dangerous man who needed to be put away, and that was all there was to it. In the past ten days, that nascent belief had grown to a dead certainty within her. The stress and responsibility placed on her, her willingness and even need to please her protectors, and the intense coaching she'd received from Gerry Abrams and her parents-there was much literature doc.u.menting that factors such as these could actually conspire to change Bethany's wiring, down to the level of her synapses, and this in turn might affect the actual details in her memory. Her certainty about what she must have seen in her mind might now be indistinguishable from what she actually had seen. And if that were the case, they were in big, big trouble.

Gina leaned over and whispered to Stuart. "Don't look back at her. And no matter what she says, stay cool."

And now, on the stand, Bethany brought her gaze back to the center of the courtroom. Getting a confident nod from her protector, Gerry Abrams, she began. "Well, I was doing homework in my room, but it was getting to be about eleven thirty, which is my bedtime. I closed my books and was going in to brush my teeth and get ready for bed when I looked out my bedroom window and saw a car pulling up to the house across the street. And then the garage door coming open."

"Did you recognize the car, Bethany?"

"Yes. I'd ridden in it many times. It belonged to my neighbor across the street."

"And do you see that neighbor in the courtroom today?"

Desperate to break up the rhythm of Bethany's testimony, Gina recognized an early opportunity and stood up. "Objection. I'm sorry, Your Honor. Vague. Does counsel mean the neighbor who owns the car? Because there's been no testimony that the witness saw the driver of the car that night."

"Obviously," Abrams responded, "the question calls for an identification of the neighbor who owned the car, and I'd ask that Ms. Roake be admonished not to interrupt the testimony of an already-uncomfortable witness with frivolous objections."

If nothing else, the objection had succeeded in slowing things down.

Toynbee, whose earlier sunnier disposition seemed in the light of his own current intensity as though it must have been an apparition, was not thrilled with the exchange. "All right, both of you," he said. "That's strike two. Ms. Roake, your objection is overruled. The question was obviously proper. Mr. Abrams, when I need your advice on how to run my courtroom, I'll ask for it. I swear to you, if the two of you don't settle down, somebody's going to walk out of here with a lighter pocketbook."

Abrams went apoplectic. "Your Honor, I haven't done-"

The judge glared, grabbed his gavel and slammed it down, shutting him up. "I've ruled on the objection, Counselor," he said in a firm tone. "You may continue questioning your witness."

Gina was going back to her table. Behind her, she heard Abrams ask the judge if the court recorder could read back Bethany's testimony so he could take up where she had left off. As she'd hoped, Gina's objection and the argument around it had made Abrams lose his place. After a minute, the recorder had found the spot. "Mr. Abrams: 'Did you recognize the car, Bethany?'" she intoned. Then, "The witness: 'Yes. I'd ridden in it many times. It belonged to my neighbor across the street.' "

Abrams, back in his place, said, "And do you see that neighbor in court today? The neighbor who owned the car?"

She pointed to Stuart without looking at him. Abrams, back in his place, said, "So you recognized the car, did you not, Bethany?"

"Yes, I did."

"Could you describe it, please?"

"Yes, it's a black Lexus SUV."

"Is there anything else distinguis.h.i.+ng about this car?"

"Yes, there is."

"And what's that?"

"The license plate."

Next to her, Stuart s.h.i.+fted in his chair and started to say something. Gina quickly put a hand over his forearm, leaned into him, "Not now," she whispered harshly. But in fact Gina, too, had a very bad feeling. In all the transcripts that Gina had seen of Bethany's testimony in her discovery, she'd never once mentioned the license plate, or the fact that she'd seen it.

Abrams was going on. "What about the license plate, Bethany?"

"It's a personalized plate. It says G-H-O-T-I."

Next to her, Stuart said, "That's bulls.h.i.+t! She couldn't have seen that."

Gina squeezed her fingernails into his forearm. "Shut up. Suck it up."

Toynbee was glaring at the small disturbance they made, his gavel poised to fall. But Stuart managed to calm himself. Gina eased the pressure on his arm. Toynbee lowered the gavel and again turned his attention to Abrams, who smiled at Bethany and said, "Are you absolutely sure, Bethany, that these were the letters you saw on the license plate as it turned into the driveway across the street and into the garage?"

With a last defiant glare at Stuart, Bethany nodded to Abrams and said, "Yes, sir, I am."

In spite of Gina's many objections, some of them merely for the sake of disturbance, Abrams and Bethany went on to establish that the same car had pulled out of Stuart's garage at a quarter to one, but the real damage had already been done. The prosecution had presented firsthand eyewitness testimony from a credible person who was giving false witness although, Gina believed, she might truly believe that she was telling the whole truth and nothing but.

Before Abrams was finished with her, Bethany also delivered an emotional recasting of the so-called threat from Stuart that Kymberly had conveyed. Gina's strenuous objection that there was no evidence tying whatever Kym might or might not have done to Stuart was for naught. At trial, she knew, the prosecution would just drag in Kym and impeach her if she had claimed it was her own idea. But for now, the evidence was coming in even without that necessary foundation, and there didn't seem to be a d.a.m.n thing she could do about it. In the telling, Bethany came all the way to tears, and Toynbee had to call a short recess to let her regain her composure. After that, she testified that the message from Kymberly contained an explicit warning from Stuart that if Bethany went on the stand to testify against him, something very bad was going to happen to her. She'd had to miss two days of school, pretending to be sick because she was so afraid of going out of her house.

And then, luckily, the police had arrested Stuart.

Gina had her work cut out for her. She came to her position before Bethany in the middle of the courtroom and gave her a warm smile, which the witness did not return. "Bethany," she began, "when did you first give your account of the night of September eleventh to Inspector Juhle?"

Now Gina's mission was precisely the opposite of her strategy during Abrams' direct. This time she wanted to get Bethany talking freely so that something unguarded and unrehea.r.s.ed might slip out. "I don't know exactly. I think it was the next day. The day after Caryn died."

"And you told the inspector the whole truth, didn't you? You didn't hold anything back?"

"Yes, I told him the whole truth."

"And you knew that Caryn Dryden was dead, and how important this was, so you tried to be as helpful and complete as you could, isn't that right?" Yes.

"Now, during that conversation, were you aware that Inspector Juhle had a tape recorder going?"

"Yes. He asked my permission before he began."

"So the entire conversation, as far as you know, is on tape, right?"

"Right."

"Did he ask you any questions before he turned the tape recorder on or after he turned it off?"

"Just whether I agreed to have the tape on, but nothing else."

Gina continued. "Now, that conversation was just a short while after Caryn's death, and a lot has happened since then, hasn't it? Scary things, like your talk with Kym and having to testify here today. Do you think your memory might have been a little better back then than it is today?"

"Well, my memory is pretty good today."

"But if you said something on the tape, and you say something different now, don't you think it would be more likely that what you said on the tape was right, just because of the amount of time that has pa.s.sed and the things that have happened?"

"Probably so."

"And in that first discussion, did you tell Inspector Juhle that you recognized Mr. Gorman's car?"

"Yes. That's what he was asking about."

"And you identified it as you have today, as a black Lexus SUV. Kind of a smaller sport utility vehicle?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell him what the license plate was during that conversation?"

"Yes."

"Bethany. Has anyone given you a copy of the tape to listen to, to prepare for your testimony?"

Yes.

Nodding, Gina walked swiftly over to her table and pulled some pages from the open folder she'd left there. "Bethany, I've got here a transcript of that original talk, and I'd like you to take a look at it for a minute-it's not long-and point out for the court where you told Inspector Juhle about the personalized license plate."

"Sure." Happy to cooperate, Bethany took the papers in her hands and began looking through them.

Gina turned and stole a glance at Gerry Abrams, who was busily arranging his own materials and didn't meet her eyes.

For all of her inexperience with murder proceedings, Gina was very familiar with most of the games attendant in criminal proceedings in general. She was certain that she was dealing with one of the most common of these now. Since all transcriptions of testimony had to be included in discovery, which the prosecution then had to give to defense counsel, sometimes discussions with crucial witnesses happened, as though by inadvertence, "off tape." This meant that critical testimony, such as the kind Bethany had presented here, could be shaped and even created out of whole cloth and remain outside of the record until it could be dropped as a surprise to maximum effect at a trial or hearing.

Now Gina turned again to face the witness. Bethany's brow had clouded and she was turning pages, trying to find what wasn't there. Finally, she looked up. "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm afraid I don't see it here."

"That's correct," Gina said encouragingly. "You don't." Gina read from her own copy of the transcript. "And Inspector Juhle asked you specifically how sure you were, didn't he?" Yes.

"So, from the transcript now, Inspector Juhle says: 'I guess I'm just asking how sure you are.' Then you say, and here again I'm quoting from the transcript: 'What? That it was Stuart? I don't know. I told you I didn't see him. But if he was driving his car, it was him. Because that was his car.' "

Bethany gave a small nod.

"And Inspector Juhle asks, 'How did you know that?' To which you answered, 'I don't know. I just knew.' " Gina lowered her pages. "Bethany, wouldn't this have been a good time to mention the license plate?"

"Objection, speculation."

"Sustained."

Gina thought she'd try again. "Bethany, when you gave this first interview, did you remember that you'd seen the license plate at that time?"

Now Bethany threw a quick worried glance at Abrams. "Well, yes. Of course. You mean, did I remember at the time Inspector Juhle asked me that first day if I'd recognized the license plate the night before?"

"That's right, Bethany, that's what I'm asking." Yes.

"And yet when Inspector Juhle asked how you knew this was Mr. Gorman's car, you answered that you didn't know how, you just knew, is that right?" Bethany's eyes were glued on Abrams behind her and so, without pause, without turning around, Gina looked up at the judge. "Your Honor," she said sharply, "would the court please instruct Mr. Abrams not to give nonverbal cues to the witness during my cross-examination?"

Abrams nearly screamed. "Your Honor, it is unprofessional and highly unethical for Ms. Roake to make an accusation like that when she knows there is no basis for it."

"Your Honor," Gina shot back, "I object to Mr. Abrams telling me what I know or don't know."

Toynbee pointed, his glare now a constant feature. "And I object to the two of you treating my courtroom like a nursery school. That's a hundred bucks each, and it gets much worse very fast."

Gina gladly accepted the fine. It was worth it because it gave her just what she wanted. The acrimony and confusion of these battling adults had dissolved any sense of security that Bethany might have built up over the lunch hour. Now Gina went back to her desk, took a drink of water to calm herself down, then came back at the witness. "You didn't know how you knew about the car, Bethany, you just knew. Wouldn't you have known it was Mr. Gorman's car because you recognized the license plate?"

"I guess so. Yes.

"And yet you didn't mention that to Inspector Juhle?"

"Objection. Asked and answered."

"Sustained."

She pressed on. "Bethany. Do you remember the first time you mentioned the license plate to Inspector Juhle, specifically?"

"Not exactly. I'm not sure."

"Because I've looked through all the transcriptions of your interviews with both him and Mr. Abrams, and you've had five of them. Did you realize that?"

"I didn't know it was that many."

"And I bet you've talked to your mom about this a lot, too, haven't you?" Yes.

"And you never mentioned the license plate in any of those conversations, did you?"

Silence.

"When was the first time you mentioned the license plate to anyone, Bethany. Do you remember?"

"I said I didn't exactly."

"Your Honor!" Abrams again. "Counsel is badgering the witness."

"I don't think so," Toynbee said. "Overruled."

"So do you remember, Bethany, the exact time? Was it, for example, after you came to believe that Stuart had threatened you?"

"No! I knew it before then. I knew it right away."

"Then why didn't you say anything about it?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't know how important it would be."

Gina paused to compose herself. Despite her best efforts, she found herself enraged. "Bethany," she asked, forcing a pleasant expression, "I read in the newspaper this morning that you've got a grade point average of four point two, one of the highest in your cla.s.s, don't you?"

"Yes." Perking up a bit.