Washburn stood with his hands in his pockets, relaxed and genial. He'd actually won a round or two with Tollson in chambers, though it really didn't feel like it. But the whole question of Iraq, he'd argued, had to be part of the trial. It was relevant on its face, and essential if the jurors were even going to begin to grasp any of the complexities surrounding both the defendant and the victim. And Tollson had agreed with him. To a point.
He intended to find out where that point exactly was.
"This case and the issues surrounding it began in Iraq," he intoned. "It's important to understand the significance that Iraq plays in the affair, because so much of the evidence presented by the People that appears to cast Mr. Scholler in a negative light in fact paints a very different picture when viewed in its true context, the context of what happened in Iraq.
"You will hear testimony that the deceased was a highly trained mercenary with a long history of both overt and covert operations in some of the most violent places in the world-Afghanistan, Kuwait, El Salvador, and Iraq. At the time of his death, he was working as a government contractor for Allstrong Security, which has offices both here in California and in Iraq. All of his adult life, the man was surrounded by death and violence. This was his livelihood and he was good at it.
"Evan Scholler, on the other hand, worked as a Redwood City police patrolman until he was called up for deployment to Iraq in the first months after the invasion. He served over there for about three months before he was involved in a firefight against Islamic insurgents in Baghdad in which he suffered a head wound and traumatic brain injury. In a coma that lasted eleven days, he was airlifted first to a field hospital in Iraq, then taken to Germany, and finally brought to Walter Reed Hospital. In March of two thousand four, he came back to work for the police department here in this city."
He paused to meet a few more eyes in the jury box. There it was, he thought with some satisfaction and relief. Short and sweet, and he'd gotten it in. He'd hoped that bringing in this information first thing and right up front might catch Mills in a first-inning lull, and sure enough he'd pulled it off.
Dang! He loved the drama of a trial.
Taking a breath, his heart palpitations forgotten, he moved on to the more pressing evidentiary issues. "Ms. Miille has described at some length the evidence that she says will compel you to convict Evan of first-degree murder. That evidence is neither as clear nor as uncontradicted as she might have led you to believe. She talked a lot about the day of the killing. Just for openers, we don't know the day of the killing. Mr. Nolan was last seen on Wednesday, June third. He was found dead on Saturday, June sixth.
"Now, the prosecutor says he was killed on Wednesday, the third. If so, that would be convenient for the prosecution because that is a date when my client spoke harsh words about Mr. Nolan. The evidence will show, and it is in fact undisputed, that Evan had too many drinks that night, at a bar a few blocks from here called the Old Town Traven. There he learned that the deceased had tried to implicate him in the murders of two Iraqi citizens. Tara Wheatley, Evan's girlfriend, will tell you that, drunk and in a rage, he told her that he was going to go to Mr. Nolan's house and kill him. And in fact, Evan has never denied that he went to Mr. Nolan's house that night, and that the two men fought.
"So the prosecution says, and wishes you to conclude, that that's the night the deceased was killed. But as the saying goes, wishing don't make it so. There is no evidence that Mr. Nolan was killed on Wednesday, as opposed to Thursday, as opposed to Friday.
"And let's take the two motives that, according to the prosecution, caused Evan Scholler to commit murder. First, jealousy. Ms. Wheatley will testify that on the evening of June third, she came to find Evan at the Old Town Traven. She invited him to come back to her apartment for the night. She told him that she had stopped seeing Mr. Nolan, and that she was in love with him."
As though taken by an apparition, Washburn stopped in his tracks, spread his palms to the jurors. "Now, it's been a few years since I've experienced some of the finer emotions such as young love, but if my memory serves, when a woman tells you she's dropped another boyfriend in your favor, that's when jealousy's much more likely to go away than to make you want to go and duke it out with your rival."
This last witticism produced a gratifying hum from the gallery. Several of the jurors broke smiles as well. Feeding off those vibes, Washburn went on. "Now, anger. The evidence will indeed show that Evan was angry-angry enough to drive to Mr. Nolan's house and engage him in a fistfight. He was angry, the evidence will show, because he believed he was being framed for a murder he didn't commit. That's a good reason to be angry," Washburn added. "It might make any of you angry."
"Your Honor! Objection."
Washburn turned and took the opportunity to glance out at the gallery, always a reasonable litmus for how he was doing. Nobody snoring yet, anyway. He produced his patented half-bow, acknowledging the objection, and turned back to the jury box, without even waiting for the judge to rule. "I'll withdraw that last comment, Your Honor," he said.
And continued. "Why, you may ask, did my client illegally let himself into his rival's house? He had come to believe that Mr. Nolan was in fact the killer of Ibrahim and Shatha Khalil. He will testify that he accompanied Mr. Nolan on a kill-and-destroy mission in Iraq that featured the same type of fragmentation grenades as were used in the Khalil murders. This might have been an error in judgment, but it was not a prelude to murder. Had he intended to kill Mr. Nolan, he could have simply waited in his home and done it instead of gathering evidence against him to send to the authorities.
"These are all points that the prosecution has presented to you as facts, and they simply are not.
"Did my client hate Ron Nolan? Yes, he did.
"Was Evan Scholler struggling to recover from the physical injury and mental anguish he sustained as a result of fighting for his country in Iraq? Yes, he was.
"As a result of the pain, both physical and mental, did he sometimes drink too much during the months of his recovery? Yes, he did.
"And as a result of the combination of these things, did he display bad judgment? Without a doubt.
"He did misuse his authority as a policeman to keep track of Ron Nolan's whereabouts. He did break into Ron Nolan's house in the belief that Ron Nolan had a hand in the deaths of the Khalils. He did give way to despair and alcohol and anger, and threaten Ron Nolan. He did go to Ron Nolan's house and fight with him on the night of June third. He did all of these things and has freely admitted doing all of these things.
"But these are not the things for which he is on trial.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, at the close of all of the evidence, you will find that what Evan Scholler did not do was kill Ron Nolan. That is something the evidence does not show. And when, at the close of the evidence, you can see that this has not been proved against my client, you will be obliged by your conscience and by the laws of this state to find him not guilty."
23
After the opening statements, they got right down to it as Mills called her first witness.
The medical examiner, Dr. Lloyd Barnsdale, had been in his position for fifteen years. Dry as dust, pale as the corpses in his lab, the bespeckled and weak-chinned coroner wore what was left of his graying, dirty blond hair in a combover. Today, though the warm Indian summer days of September continued outside, he wore a cardigan sweater over a plain white shirt and a snap-on bow-tie.