"Did you stake out his apartment?"
"No. We had no reason to suspect that he was avoiding us. We thought it likely that he would either call us or we would otherwise locate him in a day or so."
"Did you attempt to locate Mr. Nolan during this time?"
"No. He said he would call us if he got any more information. Beyond that, we had no reason to try and contact him during this period."
"So what did you do next?"
"We ran the fingerprints we'd picked up in Mr. Nolan's townhouse and determined that he had been correct. The Defendant had been in his house. Further, the defendant's prints were on the Beretta that was in Mr. Nolan's backpack."
"Did you find his prints on the fragmentation grenades?"
"No. They have a rough surface and did not contain usable fingerprints."
"But the Beretta with Defendant's prints was in the backpack with the fragmentation grenades, was it not?"
"Yes."
"And could you tell if that gun had been fired recently?"
"We could only say that it had not been fired after its last cleaning. But we have no way to tell when it had last been cleaned."
Mills, in a rhythm, kept it going. "Was the gun loaded?"
"Yes. There was a full magazine and a round in the chamber."
Mills knew she had covered a lot of ground with Riggio, who was in many ways the ideal witness, an uninflected, just-the-facts-ma'am kind of presence. But she still had a ways to go. "Special Agent Riggio, how did you discover that Mr. Nolan had been killed?"
Spinoza and Riggio ate up the whole morning, and court didn't resume until nearly two o'clock in the afternoon.
Washburn, who'd remained silent throughout the lengthy direct, showed little of the enthusiasm he'd displayed the day before as he slowly rose from his chair and advanced to make his cross. "Special Agent Riggio," he began sonorously, "you've testified that in the immediate aftermath of the Khalils' shootings, you interviewed several family members. What did you talk to them about?"
"We had the usual preliminary interviews following this kind of event."
"And what are these interviews comprised of?"
"Developing knowledge of the relationships between the family members and the deceased, as well as business, personal, political, or any other issues that might throw light on the investigation of the crime."
"How many of these interviews did you have?"
Mills spoke from behind him. "Objection. Relevance."
"Sustained."
Washburn couldn't entirely camouflage a disappointed grimace. "The Khalils have widespread business interests, do they not?"
Again: "Objection. Irrelevant."
This time Washburn replied. "Not at all, Your Honor. The People, while never charging Mr. Scholler with the murder of the Khalils, are attempting to insinuate without proof that he was somehow involved in their deaths. I'm wondering if Special Agent Riggio had interviewed anyone among Mr. Khalil's vast business interests who had any connection to Mr. Scholler."
"All right. Overruled. You may answer that question."
To Riggio, it was all the same. Unruffled, she nodded. "Yes, the Khalils had widespread business interests."
"Just here in this country?"
"No. Overseas as well."
"In Iraq?"
"According to the children, yes."
"But you didn't check that information yourself?"
"We were beginning to verify all the information we'd gathered when Mr. Nolan was murdered."
"So," Washburn said, "the answer is no, you didn't check the information about the Khalils' business interests in Iraq, isn't that so?"
"Your Honor!" Mills tried again. "Relevance?"
Washburn said, "It'll be clear in a second, Your Honor."
"All right, but it had better be. Overruled."
"Special Agent Riggio, Mr. Nolan worked for an American security contractor firm in Iraq, did he not? Allstrong Security."
Now Mills was on her feet. "Your Honor, please! We've discussed this before. This fishing expedition is going nowhere and the only purpose to eliciting this hearsay is to suggest a connection between Mr. Nolan and the Khalils, which is unsupported by any evidence."
Washburn knew he could probably get away with at least one outburst per trial. He figured this was as good a time as any, and whirled around on Mills. "There's a whole lot more evidence of Nolan's involvement with the Khalils' murders than of my client's. You just don't want the jury to hear anything that doesn't fit your theory."
Bam! Bam! Bam!
"Mr. Washburn!" Tollson exploded. "Both of you. Enough. Any more of this and somebody's going to get a contempt charge. You're to address your remarks to the bench and not to one another." Tollson stared them down, giving equal time to both. Then, glancing at the wall clock, he said, "I'm calling a ten-minute recess so everyone can cool off."
When Washburn resumed, his was once again the voice of sweet reason. He produced a stack of documents received from the FBI and gave them to Riggio on the stand. "Special Agent Riggio. Using these business records, did you have an opportunity to investigate the fragmentation grenades that you discovered in Mr. Nolan's apartment?"
"Yes."
"And what did you discover?"
"These particular grenades were produced in late two thousand two-if you want the stocking and serial numbers, I've got them, but-"
"That won't be necessary. Go ahead."
"And they were shipped to Iraq in the early weeks after the invasion."
"Do you know if they were delivered to Mr. Scholler's patrol?"
"No."
"No, you don't know, or no, they weren't?"
"They were delivered as part of a consignment to Allstrong Security in Iraq."
"Is there any evidence that Mr. Scholler at any time had possession of these grenades, or shipped them back, by whatever means, to the United States?"
"No."
"Special Agent Riggio, have you any witnesses that reported seeing these grenades in Mr. Scholler's possession at any time?"
"No."
Even though he'd gotten the right answer on the last several questions, Washburn knew it wasn't much. But it was probably all he was going to get. He smiled at the witness. "Thank you," he said. "No further questions."
26
By the following tuesday afternoon, the weather had turned. A violent early-season storm toppled trees and flooded many of the low-lying streets around the courthouse, playing enough havoc with the morning's traffic patterns that court couldn't be called into session until nearly eleven o'clock, and then only to adjourn almost immediately for an early lunch.
In the previous two trial days, Washburn hadn't had much to say to the witnesses Mills called. The other FBI agent, Jacob Freed, provided pretty much the same testimony as his partner, Marcia Riggio. Washburn hammered a bit at the provenance of the frag grenades again, at the lack of real investigation into the lives and motives of possible other suspects in both the Khalil and Nolan murders after they'd identified Evan as their main person of interest. But he knew that he'd inflicted little if any damage to the prosecution's case-the fact, and Washburn hated to admit it, was that the FBI and Spinoza had coordinated very well, and had fashioned an evidentiary chain that was pretty damn compelling. In the end, Washburn just wanted to get Freed off the stand as quickly as possible, although he still took the better part of half a day.
Likewise, David Saldar, the locksmith, came to the stand and, by far the most nervous and uncomfortable witness to date, gave his testimony without any surprises. He was talking about an unarguable point in any event-Evan Scholler had done exactly what Saldar was saying he'd done. He'd lied to a friend, he'd used the police uniform to buttress his credibility, he'd let himself into a home that was not his. It wasn't exactly a high-water mark for the defense, but Washburn couldn't do anything about that either.