Sweat on Jimmy’s head. Looking at me, then to Cassidy.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘They’re the ones.’ He leans as if he’d like to say it — ‘I’m pretty sure’ — but I’m waiting to kick his ass and he knows it.
The sigh from Cassidy at her table is nearly palpable.
‘That’s all for this witness,’ I say.
‘Anything on cross?’ says the judge.
Cassidy begs off.
Lama starts to leave with the folder of pictures.
‘I’d like to keep those for the moment.’
He starts to pick through, to hand me the five he identified.
‘All of them,’ I say.
A look that could kill, then he hands me the folder.
I ask the court if another attorney can join Harry and me at the table.
Cassidy is all eyes.
‘Any objection?’ The judge looks to her.
She steps into it with trepidation, the two women locking eyes.
‘I know Ms. Colby well,’ she says. Some light banter — what Dana’s doing slumming in the state courts. The two women exchange stiff smiles. ‘Though I would like to know what a Deputy U.S. Attorney is doing in these proceedings.’
‘Here in an unofficial capacity,’ I tell the court.
‘What’s the purpose?’ says Cassidy.
‘Professional courtesy,’ I tell her.
The court allows her to come inside the railing and sit in the chairs behind us but not at counsel table.
Close enough for my purposes, I think.
Miller has been outside, sequestered in the hallway. We had a cordial conversation by phone a week ago, a follow-up to our earlier meeting. We talked about the lineup and the photo ID, a conversation that proceeded with regularity until near the end, when she asked a question.
Lama takes his seat next to Cassidy. He’s whispering in her ear.
‘I hope this won’t take long,’ says Woodruff.
‘A couple of minutes,’ I tell him.
Margaret Miller is on the stand and sworn, the picture of fairness, what you would think of as womanhood if someone said ‘apple pie.’ She wears a print dress and an attitude like portraits on a candy box, hair like spun silk, all smiles and maternal warmth. Sitting next to Woodruff, the two look like the ‘before’ ad for some aging-hair elixir.
I ask the court for a moment in private, and I spend my time turned away from the witness, talking in Dana’s ear, idle chatter, but obvious so that Mrs. Miller cannot miss this. Then I turn my attention to the witness.
She identifies herself for the record, and we take up the details of the photo ID. I ask her if she remembers meeting with Lama on the day in question.
‘Very clearly,’ she says.
‘And did he show you some pictures?’
‘He showed me one picture first, by itself, the night that Melanie — Mrs. Vega — died, and then later several others.’
‘That one picture, do you remember it?’
‘Oh sure. Your client,’ she says. ‘I’ve seen plenty of pictures of her in the paper since.’
I have wondered what Jack was doing with a picture of Laurel, the ex-wife he loathed, unless there was some design in this. It appears that he and Lama found a purpose for this photo in poisoning the wellspring of Mrs. Miller’s recollections, planting the seed that it was Laurel that Miller saw that night — an onslaught of suggestion.
We talk about Lama’s photo lineup. I’m shuffling some of the prints in my hands, images down so she cannot see them.
‘Do you think you would remember those pictures if I showed them to you again?’
‘I think so. I could try,’ she says.
I show her the first in the series, one of the shots offered up by Lama moments before.
‘Emm.’ She asks if she can hold it in her hand, so I give it to her. She’s shaking her head. ‘Maybe I don’t remember as well as I thought,’ she says.
I try the next. No luck.
It’s not until the third picture, Laurel’s, that she finally smiles. ‘That’s the one I identified,’ she says. She looks at me. ‘Your client, I believe,’ she says.
I nod.
She’s squinting at Dana in the distance.
Finally Cassidy gets it.
‘Your honor, I’m going to object to the process being used with this witness.’ Cassidy’s out of her chair. ‘This is deceptive,’ she says.
‘A fair test of the witness’s memory,’ I say. I ask the court if I can approach for a sidebar, a conference at the bench.
‘What’s the problem?’ whispers Woodruff.
Cassidy wants Dana outside the railing. She’s leveling assertions that I’m intentionally confusing the witness.
‘Lawyers are routinely allowed inside the bar,’ I tell him.
He makes a face. ‘Fine,’ he says, ‘but no more private conversations with the lady.’ He gives me a look.
‘Fine, your honor.’
We’re back out.
‘Mrs. Miller, can I ask you to look at a few more pictures?’
‘Certainly.’
I give her the last two that Lama culled from the file. No cigar. She has no recollection of these. ‘But then I only saw them once,’ she says.
‘How many times did you see the picture of my client?’ I keep it face down so she can’t get another look.
‘Oh. At least twice, maybe three times,’ she says. ‘The officers showed it to me the first time they came to the house. They asked me if I ever saw the woman before.’
‘This was in connection with the death of Melanie Vega?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Did you assume from this that the woman in the picture might be a suspect in the crime?’
‘Objection,’ says Cassidy. ‘Calls for speculation on the part of the witness.’
‘I’m asking about her state of mind at the time,’ I say, ‘not what she thinks now.’
‘I’ll allow it,’ says Woodruff.
‘And they kept showing you this picture, the one of my client?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Fair game,’ says Cassidy. ‘That’s a permissible process during the course of investigation.’
‘And a very good way to alter the memory of a witness,’ I tell the court.
Woodruff wags his head from side to side. Maybe, but not sufficient to exclude the identification.
I’m wandering in the courtroom. I end up leaning against the railing, a few feet from Dana, where we look at each other but say nothing.
Lama’s talking to Cassidy, but she sees what’s going on and tears herself away.
‘Your honor, I’m going to object. This is a clear deception. Counsel would have this witness believe that Ms. Colby, the lawyer sitting there, is the defendant.’ She points toward Dana. ‘It’s a clear effort to confuse the witness, and I think it should be put on the record.’
‘What are you objecting to?’ says Woodruff. ‘I didn’t hear a question,’ he says.
‘I’m objecting to where counsel is standing.’
‘Give me a break,’ says the judge.
‘Fine,’ says Cassidy. ‘Withdrawn.’ She smiles, damage done.
Lama has the back of one hand halfway down his throat, suppressing a high-strung cackle.
Mrs. Miller gives me a look like ‘you nasty man.’ Still, she reserves a goodhearted smile. A woman who enjoys a contest of wits.
So we’ll do it the hard way.
‘Mrs. Miller — did you think that the woman sitting here looked like the defendant? Like the woman in the photograph?’ I ask. It’s a fair question.
Cassidy’s expression is little simpers, like good luck.
‘I thought maybe she changed her hair color,’ says Miller. ‘It’s different,’ she says. ‘But I think there is a little resemblance.’
Apart from the fact that they share a gender, there is virtually no likeness between Laurel and Dana. What mischief suggestion can play with the human mind.
‘Now, you’ve looked at five photographs of different women, Mrs. Miller. Apart from the picture of my client, do you recognize any of the other pictures in the group?’
‘I can’t say that I do,’ she says.