Officer Abrams was red-faced and steaming. “You’re saying I forged Melissa’s handwriting and made that last entry? That’s crazy! Why on earth would I do such a thing?”
“I ask the questions, Officer Abrams,” O’Bryan boomed. “You give the answers. So please explain to us why you never told the prosecution about your relationship to Melissa’s family.”
The only hope we had was for the officer to keep her cool and show the attack wasn’t worth taking seriously. One look at her told me that hope was about to be obliterated. Officer Abrams had pulled herself up in her seat, and now she leaned forward, her face an angry fist.
“You’re out of your mind! How dare you.”
O’Bryan, loving every devastating second of it, turned to the judge with an air of indignation. “Your Honor, I object!” With a sweeping gesture toward the jury, he pronounced, “We’re entitled to an answer! Please order the witness!”
“Sustained,” the judge said quietly. “Answer the question, Officer.”
O’Bryan turned back and faced Abrams with a stern expression. “I’ll repeat it in case you don’t remember: you didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
The officer glared at O’Bryan, nostrils flaring. “No, Counsel. That’s right. I didn’t.”
A fast glance at the jury showed many of them had stricken looks. Juror Number Nine, who’d teared up when Officer Abrams read the diary, was looking from O’Bryan to the officer as if she weren’t sure who to believe. Worse still, Juror Number Four was studying Officer Abrams skeptically, one eyebrow raised. A lump formed in the pit of my stomach.
Meanwhile, Saul Hildegarde was nodding sanctimoniously—an “I told you so” expression on his face. I wanted to put my fist into it so badly I could feel my knuckles turn white.
We were screwed, and it was only going to get worse. I’d intended to close the case with the handwriting expert who’d say that the handwriting in the diary was consistent with Melissa’s. Since the last line of the diary helped the defense, I’d figured that was the one area O’Bryan wouldn’t want to mess with. But now I knew Ronnie O’Bryan would pull out all the stops to go after the handwriting expert to prove the diary entry could be a forgery. And that meant I’d be forced to end on the weakest note of all, because Morris Ivins wouldn’t be able to rule out the possibility that someone else had deliberately forged the last entry. I tried to salvage what I could from the wreckage of my case.
“Mr. Ivins, did Melissa Gibbons make this last entry in the diary?” I asked.
“Most likely, yes. Not only does the handwriting in this entry match the handwriting in the rest of the diary, but it also matches other known exemplars written by Melissa Gibbons.”
I sat down and slid another glance at the jury. Some looked disturbed, others confused, but there were at least two, one of them Juror Number Four, whose expressions were closed. A very bad sign. I sighed privately. There was nothing more I could do.
O’Bryan swaggered up to the podium. He took Ivins through all the weaknesses in handwriting identification for what felt like hours and then ended on a note that was predictable yet powerfuclass="underline"
“The truth is, Mr. Ivins, you can’t rule out the possibility that someone deliberately imitated Melissa’s handwriting, can you?”
“No, sir. I can’t.”
“And so you really can’t say for sure that the writing was done by Melissa, can you?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Nothing further, Your Honor.” O’Bryan obnoxiously turned to me with a flourish. “Your witness, Madame Prosecutor.”
I nodded and smiled serenely as I silently wished for him to perform an anatomically impossible act. Saul Hildegarde tilted his chin up and faced the jury with a self-righteous look. Before standing, I quickly leaned over to Bailey. “We could ask Officer Abrams to try and imitate the handwriting and then let Ivins show how hers is different from Melissa’s. But—”
“The defense will just say Abrams wasn’t really trying,” Bailey whispered back. “No, cut the cord. If the jury’s buying the defense bullshit, there’s nothing more we can do.”
It rankled to let go, and I badly wanted to wipe the supercilious smile off O’Bryan’s face, but I knew Bailey was right. If we started scrambling and making desperate moves now, it would only taint all the good evidence we’d presented.
“Ms. Knight, any redirect for Mr. Ivins?” the judge asked. I thought I heard a note of sympathy in his voice, but I could have been wrong.
“No, thank you, Your Honor. No redirect.” I stood, put on my game face, and said in as strong a voice as possible, “The prosecution rests.”
“Defense?” the judge said to O’Bryan.
“Your Honor, the defense chooses to rest on the state of the evidence. We believe the People have failed to make their case—”
“You can tell the jury what you believe in closing argument, Counsel,” the judge said, deliberately cutting off the grandstanding. “For now, I take it you don’t intend to present any additional evidence?”
“That is correct, Your Honor.”
“Then, seeing as it’s the noon hour, we’ll take our lunch break and commence with closing arguments at one thirty.”
After the jury filed out, the defendant gave O’Bryan a victory clap on the back. Feeling my eyes on him, Hildegarde shot me a sneering, triumphant grin. I wanted to yank Bailey’s gun out of her shoulder holster and blast the grin off his face.
Bailey saw my expression. “The only thing that’d make his getting off worse is for you to wind up in custody. Let it go, Rachel.”
Having no other choice, I did. Bailey and I picked up what was left of the sandwiches at the snack bar. She scored a ham and cheese; I wound up with some rolled-and-pressed mystery meat. We took our “lunch” up to my office and ate in silence. Neither of us was in the mood to chat. As I stuffed the remainder of my sandwich into its wrapper and pitched it into the wastebasket, I heard the ki-koo of Toni’s heels clicking down the hall toward my office.
She stopped in my doorway. “Hey, where’s the funeral?”
“Right here, soon as I finish closing arguments and get a five-minute ‘not guilty.’ ”
“That bad?”
Bailey gave her a dark look. “Yeah.”
“Man, that’s a bitch. You guys put together a hell of a case. What happened?”
We told her. Then I noticed the clock on the Times Building. “We’ve gotta jump. Meet us for sympathy drinks?”
Toni nodded. “Your place?”
My place being the Biltmore Hotel, where I got to live full-time thanks to a case I’d won involving the murder of the CEO’s wife. I stood up and started to gather my legal pads and exhibit sheets.
“Hold on,” Toni said. “I’ll be right back.” She hurried out.
Twenty seconds later, Toni was back. She pressed a small plastic object into my hand. I looked down at it, puzzled.
“It’s my juju,” Toni said.
“It’s a friggin’ troll doll, Tone.”
“Just keep it close—”
I started to argue, but she grabbed my chin and got nose-to-nose.
“Do not argue with me about this, Knight. What can it hurt?”
I sighed and dropped the little thing into the pocket of my blazer. What the heck—who was I to argue at a time like this? I needed all the help I could get.
I tried to put a spring in my step as I entered the courtroom. Never let ’em see you sweat.
“Ready, Counsel?” the judge asked.
We both said yes.
“Let’s have the jury.”
The jury took their seats, and I stood up. For the next hour, I did my best to sound persuasive, convincing, and confident. But when O’Bryan stood up, the jury leaned forward, all ears. Short of their handing in the “not guilty” verdict right then and there, it couldn’t get much worse. He made the predictable argument that we’d utterly failed to prove Melissa was dead, that she had every reason to want to frame Saul Hildegarde for murder, that the jury had no choice but to return a verdict of “not guilty.” And then he made his grandstand move.