Karp, on a roll, thinking, no, he’s not going to let me get away with this, but giving it a shot:
“Detective Featherstone, do you recognize this object?”
Karp held high a crocheted doily.
“Yes, I do. It was found in the suitcase.”
“And did you determine who the original owner of this object was?”
“Objection!” Waley was on his feet. “Irrelevant and immaterial, and tending to the inflammatory, Your Honor.”
Peoples frowned and motioned the two counsels to approach the bench.
“Where are we going with this, Mr. Karp?” asked the judge.
“Your Honor, we feel the jury should know that the defendant had in his possession four physical objects belonging to four other elderly black women found dead under unusual circumstances,” said Karp.
“The circumstances were hardly unusual, Judge,” said Waley. “The four women to which counsel adverts were ruled by the medical examiner to have died of natural causes. This is a purely inflammatory move with no relevance to the case at hand.”
“Your honor, you admitted the entire contents of the suitcase as evidence,” replied Karp. “That the defendant was carrying the possessions of four other recently dead black women speaks to the character and habits of the defendant.”
“Very well,” said Peoples. “Mr. Karp, you may present your evidence. Mr. Waley may bring its relevance into question on cross if he desires. Proceed, Mr. Karp.”
A nice little win, thought Karp as he went back to his place. He took Featherstone through the souvenirs Rohbling had taken from his victims, each time asking the detective to describe the woman and her current status, and receiving the answer, elderly, living alone, in Harlem, and dead. He did not pursue the issue of how they had died. Unless the judge instructed them otherwise, the jury would, without further prompting, easily deduce that Rohbling had a habit of visiting elderly black ladies, none of whom had survived his visits.
On cross-examination, Waley showed for the first time in this trial why he was considered one of the half dozen greatest masters of that art. To Karp’s surprise, he ignored the four other dead women. Instead, he was doing an impression of an attorney who, confronted by an overwhelming case, was simply going through the motions of a defense. His demeanor subdued, his voice just loud enough for the jury to catch, Waley took Featherstone almost apologetically through some minor clarifications of his direct testimony. What time of day was it when you first saw the defendant? How far away? What was the weather like? How many people were at the bus stop? What was it about the defendant that caught your attention? Something not right about him? Pray elaborate. The detective elaborated. Waley was fascinated. With care and respect, he helped Featherstone elucidate what had enabled him, passing in a car by a crowded bus stop, to pick Rohbling out as the man they wanted. Unlike the average counsel on cross, Waley was building up rather than tearing down the credibility of the opposing side’s witness. Karp understood what he was doing but still could not see the payoff, nor was there a legitimate way for him to object; the material was legitimate, and he was not harassing the witness. And Peoples was hell on frivolous objections.
“Now, Detective Featherstone,” said Waley, “you’ve told us in impressive detail how you intuited that the defendant was not what he appeared to be. At that moment, how long had it been since you had learned from forensic evidence that the man you sought was a white man disguised as a black man?”
Featherstone paused judiciously. He was relaxed now, not on guard at all, and he answered, “Ten days.”
“Very good. Tell me, Detective, had you ever had a case like this before, this sort of disguise on the part of a homicide suspect?”
“No, this was a first.” A faint smile.
“Unique, in other words.” Returning the smile. “Was it hard to believe at first, from your detective experience, I mean?”
“Oh, sure. But the evidence was pretty conclusive.”
“Right. And what did you think of the man you were pursuing? What sort of person did you think you were after?”
Blithely, Featherstone swung at the breaking curve, the fabulous knuckleball that Waley had been winding up for since the trial had started. He said, “Oh, we thought he was a total nut case, crazy as a b-”
“Objection!” cried Karp, but he also had waited too late to swing. “Calls for a conclusion.”
“Your Honor,” said Waley, “the witness is a senior police officer of vast experience. His opinion as to the mental state of the defendant was germane to the conduct of his investigation.”
“The witness is not a forensic psychiatrist-” Karp put in heatedly, but Peoples forestalled him, saying, “I’ll allow the testimony. Please go ahead, Mr. Waley.”
Waley nodded, paused for three beats, turned to Featherstone. “You were saying, sir, crazy as a-?”
“Bedbug,” said Featherstone, grimacing now.
“Crazy as a bedbug,” repeated Waley slowly, with relish, now using the full power of his remarkable voice. “Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.” He walked back to his seat, seeming four inches taller than when he had started. The jury, Karp saw with a sour feeling in his stomach, was entranced, enchanted, by the transformation. And Karp was stymied; his big witness, whose expertise had been elaborately complimented by even the defense, had declared that the cops thought the defendant was crazy. And Karp could not clarify on redirect either-far from considering it, he wished that the bulk of Featherstone would resolve itself into a dew and vanish right now, taking with it from the jury’s mind these last disastrous minutes.
Feeling lame, he dismissed the witness and said, “Your Honor, that concludes the prosecution’s case.” It then being close to four-thirty, the judge declared the court in recess until the following day, at which time they would resume with the case for the defense.
“That was worth a year of law school, my son,” said Karp around a corned beef sandwich to Terrell Collins. They were in Karp’s office, assessing the damage.
“You mean his cross?”
“I do. The way he softened Featherstone up? Jesus, Gordon’s been a cop for eighteen years, he knows not to say stuff like that on the stand. Hell, he softened me up. He fed us that little win over the suitcase evidence, we get to show Jonathan’s a serial killer, we’re feeling good, here’s our witness, our last witness, the case is on a clear arc, he’s lying completely low, and so we forget. He wanted us to forget, the bastard.”
“Forget what?”
“That he doesn’t care how bad we make Rohbling look, or how guilty. He’s going to walk him on insanity. And so instead of focusing our whole attention on that, we let him allow our major witness to say that he thought the defendant was nuts, just at the end of our case in chief. And of course, Peoples, the prince of fairness, allowed it when he really shouldn’t have, because just a few minutes before, on direct, he gave us a big one, which was just how Waley played it to happen.” Karp crushed his sandwich paper into a ball and flung it at the wastepaper basket he kept perched on a bookcase. It brushed the front rim and spun out, falling to the floor. They looked at each other. No one in the office had ever seen Karp miss a shot to his wastebasket; Karp himself could not remember ever having missed. He stood and retrieved the paper and dropped it in.