But for Hardy, it accomplished his ultimate goal. He did not want to call Celine Nash before lunch. Suddenly, after the recess in Chomorro’s office, the course of the trial lay clearly charted before him. He would take Celine, the witness, baiting the trap, after lunch. Afterward, Fowler would testify on his own behalf, then perhaps Hardy would get to his closing argument.
Tomorrow, Chomorro would give the jury their instructions and leave it in their hands.
But today, after she testified, Celine would remain in the courtroom, as she had every day, until that day’s business was done. He was counting on the fact that she would not risk altering her routine, not when she was so close to winning.
‘Celine Nash.’
She reacted almost as though she’d been hit, turning in her seat abruptly to look around her. Recovering her composure, she stood in the gallery and walked up through the railing, looking questioningly at Hardy.
She settled herself into the witness box. She wore charcoal pinstripes over a magenta silk blouse, the effect of which was, somehow, both severe and demure. Her hair was pulled back, accenting the chiseled face, the aristocratic lines. Hardy steeled himself and moved to his spot as she was being sworn in.
‘Ms Nash, I’ve just a few questions, if you feel up to them.’
She nodded, wary, looking to the jury, then to Pullios. When she came back to Hardy she seemed to relax, getting into the role. ‘Go ahead, Mr Hardy, I’m fine.’
‘Thank you. You and your father, Owen Nash, were very close, were you not?’
‘Yes, we were.’
‘And you spoke often, saw each other often?’
‘Yes. At least once a week, often more.’
‘Going sailing, having dinner, that type of thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now in the last few weeks of your father’s life, did this pattern continue?’
‘Well, yes. I know I talked to him the week -’ she lowered her eyes – ‘the week he died, for example. It had been normal.’
‘And did you talk about any particular subject most of the time?’
‘No, not really. We talked about a lot of things. We were very close, like old friends.’
‘I see. You talked about a lot of things – business associates, sports, gossip, personal matters?’
‘Pretty much, yes…’
‘Now, during these last weeks, did he ever mention the name of Andy Fowler, either to you or in your presence?’
She considered. ‘No, not that I remember.’
Hardy walked back to the defense table and picked up some papers. ‘I have here,’ he said, ‘a copy of the transcript of your testimony before the grand jury in which you said that your father had told you he was planning on going out on the Eloise with May Shinn on the day he was killed. Do you remember that testimony?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And yet we know that May Shinn did not go out with your father that day.’
It wasn’t a question, and Chomorro took the opportunity to lean down from the bench. ‘I trust you’re going somewhere here, Mr Hardy.’
He really wasn’t. He was telling Celine he hadn’t forgotten about that testimony. He apologized to the judge and went back to his table, replacing the transcript.
Turning, he started over in a mellower tone. ‘Ms Nash, your father took a great deal of pride in his boat, did he not?’
Easier ground. ‘He loved it,’ she said, sitting back. ‘It was like a home to him. His real home.’
‘You were familiar with it, then? You spent a lot of time on board?’ Casual.
‘Well, yes. But not so much recently… He was taking May out on it a good deal.’
‘Do you know, did you father tell you, if May Shinn had a key to the Eloise?’
Pullios stood up. ‘Your Honor, I know we’re on boats here, but this is a little too much fishing for my taste.’
‘Mr Hardy, do you have a point?’
‘Your Honor, sometime between Wednesday night, June twenty-fourth, and the next afternoon the person who killed Owen Nash brought the murder weapon back onto the Eloise. That person would need a key.’
‘Your Honor! This is outrageous. How does this unsubstantiated claim relate to this proceeding, to Mr Fowler, to anything? No evidence has been entered, even hinted at, on this point.’
Hardy knew this would be the response, but he had to get the message to Celine that he knew. He kept calm.
Her face, he noticed, had gone pale, although at the moment no one else was looking at her. He was at the center of the storm.
‘Mr Hardy,’ Chomorro said, ‘we’ve heard Sergeant Glitsky testify that he found the gun on Thursday aboard the Eloise. Do you have a witness with a different version of events?’
‘No, Your Honor, not yet.’
‘Well, this is neither the time nor the place to find it. Is there anything relevant you’d like to ask Ms Nash? Otherwise…’
He leaned over toward Celine as Hardy said no. ‘The court apologizes, Ms Nash. If Ms Pullios has no objection…?’
‘No, pass the witness,’ Pullios said.
When Hardy sat down, Fowler whispered to him. ‘What the hell was all that about? If that’s the best we got, then let me up there.’
Celine was cool, but he’d always known that. She walked by his table without a glance at him. He turned to watch her go back to her seat on the aisle. Thank God, he thought. As he’d assumed, she wasn’t leaving.
Finally Andy Fowler took the stand, and Hardy led him through the testimony they had rehearsed fifty times. He did look good up there, Hardy thought. Self-assured, confident, speaking clearly, giving the jury his attention and respect.
They went through it all from the beginning, taking the good with the bad. There were a few rough moments, such as when Hardy asked him, as they had decided he would, just why it was he had hired Emmet Turkel.
‘I didn’t hire him to find out about Owen Nash,’ Fowler said. ‘I don’t deny that was what he found, but I just wanted to know why May would not see me anymore. I thought she might even be in some trouble. I just wanted to know, and she had made it clear she didn’t want to talk to me about it.’
They went over how the fingerprints came to be on the clip of the gun, the tortuous and unlikely route that May’s proceeding had traveled to wind up in Andy’s courtroom.
‘And once it was there,’ Fowler said, ‘I felt it was too late. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake, but it wasn’t something I had contrived. It just happened – it fell in my lap.’
He admitted the lies to his colleagues, portraying himself – accurately, Hardy thought – as a man torn between his private needs and his professional position. ‘I should have asked her to marry me months before and taken whatever came from that,’ he said. ‘But I never thought about losing her until she was gone. And then, again, it was too late.’ Flat out.
As to his weekend in the Sierras, what could he say? He had gone up to clear his head, with the express purpose of seeing no one. He had succeeded only too well. He wished he hadn’t. ‘It would have saved the state’ – he took in the jurors – ‘and the jury much time, trouble and expense.’
In all, it took less than two hours of relaxed if meticulous testimony. Fowler remained composed, saying what needed to be said.
Pullios was obliged to charge not like a bull but like a terrier, holding onto his trouser leg, hoping to pull him off balance. Watching her work, Hardy was struck once again by her passion. Here was no act – every ounce of her dripped with the conviction that Andy Fowler lied with every breath he drew and had cold-bloodedly murdered Owen Nash.
‘Would you say, Mr Fowler, that you are an avid camper?’
The judge smiled. ‘No, not particularly.’