‘Sure. Guys get hurt playing ball, Graham and I were the two medical people. It’s how we got to know each other.’

‘And to your personal knowledge, did he give his father morphine injections?’

‘Yes. The first time or two during visits. It makes a big difference with drugs whether you give them into the muscle, which is called IM, or the vein, which is IV. Initially, I recommended higher doses to be given IM. These could be lethal if injected IV. Later, Sal began to have breakthrough pain, so I instructed Graham on IV dosing guidelines. I wanted him to be especially clear on it.’

The jury had already heard this, but Hardy didn’t think it would hurt them to be reminded. Graham had known what they knew.

‘So Graham could have given these injections IV or IM without Sal’s knowledge that he was doing anything unusual or different?’

Hardy heard Drysdale’s voice. ‘Your Honor. Objection. Relevance?’

‘Mr Hardy?’ In spite of himself Salter seemed to have gotten interested and was giving him wide leeway with Dr Cutler, but he thought Drysdale might have a point here. Where was this going?

Hardy was delighted with the objection, since it gave him a chance to explain. ‘Your Honor, Mr Drysdale and Mr Soma have gone to some lengths to try to leave the impression that Graham hit his father behind the ear with the bottle of Old Crow so he could administer this shot without his father objecting. Though they haven’t proven it, my question to Dr Cutler clarifies whether Graham would have had to do that in any event.’

Salter considered and then overruled the objection. The question was relevant. Cutler had it read back to him, and then told the jury that an experienced person such as Graham could have injected Sal IV or IM with complete impunity.

Which made clear to the jury, Hardy hoped, that Sal would never have had to suspect a thing. There would have been no struggle or need of one, not if Graham had been there.

Which he hadn’t been, of course. But that was no longer the point.

Tactically, Hardy thought Soma and Drysdale made a mistake letting the younger man take Cutler’s cross-examination. The two men were polar opposites, and Graham’s friend the doctor was far more likable than the strident prosecutor.

Of course, both the men were fast-track urban professionals and almost by definition had to possess Type-A personalities to have gotten where they were. They probably were – deep down inside – more similar than not. It was a matter of style more than anything, but style counted here, and played into Graham’s hands. At least at first.

‘Dr Cutler, you’ve said that you consider yourself a friend of the defendant. Have you known him for a long time?’

Cutler shrugged. ‘About two years.’

‘And you play baseball with him, is that correct?’

‘Softball, but yes.’

‘Outside of softball, do you see each other socially?’

This struck Cutler as funny. ‘Outside of softball I don’t have a social life.’

Humorless, Soma clucked. ‘That would be no, Doctor, wouldn’t it? You didn’t see defendant socially?’

‘Right,’ Cutler agreed.

This answer, simple as it was, frustrated Soma. ‘Your Honor,’ he said to Salter, ‘the question calls for a negative and Dr Cutler has answered in the affirmative.’

Salter huffed, ‘So ask clearer questions, Mr Soma. Let’s move along.’

Obviously swallowing his bile, Soma turned back to the witness box. ‘Doctor, one more time, outside of softball, did you see defendant socially?’

Hardy wondered what Soma hoped to accomplish by this display. He was coming across as unusually petty and foolish, and to get what? That Cutler and Graham didn’t party together? Who cared?

But the doctor just smiled, unruffled, and answered as bidden.

‘No.’

Stiffly, Soma intoned, ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

A ripple of laughter in the gallery. Even Salter seemed to be suppressing some amusement. Soma finally seemed to get it. He forced a little smile of his own. ‘Did defendant share with you any of his motives for accompanying his father?’

‘Yes, of course. The obvious ones. I thought they were pretty obvious, anyway.’

‘You did?’ Soma raised his eyebrows and brought in the jury.

He’d started roughly, but had picked up a scent. He knew what trail he was going to follow now. ‘You thought it was obvious why Graham brought his father down?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Did you think it was obvious that he was being the dutiful son?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you know for how long he had been this loving son?’

Hardy stood up. ‘Objection, Your Honor.’

‘Sustained.’

‘We’ve heard testimony in this trial that the defendant hadn’t seen his father for the previous fifteen years. Is that what you’d call being a loving son, Doctor?’

Again, Hardy was on his feet, objecting.

Soma fought back. ‘Your Honor, the jury doesn’t have to buy the defendant’s late attack of altruism.’

The judge sustained Hardy, but Soma’s attack continued. ‘On any of these visits, was Sal Russo difficult to attend to?’

‘What do you mean, difficult?’

‘Well, doctor, here is a man with Alzheimer’s disease, sometimes he doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know who you are, he’s got a tremendously painful cancer in his brain. Surely he was a little cranky from time to time. Would you say that was the case?’

‘Yes, sometimes.’

‘And did the defendant ever mention to you that his father was being burdensome or difficult to take care of?’

‘Well, he was-’

‘Yes or no, Doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘And maybe he was getting a little tired of it?’

‘Objection! Hearsay. Speculation. Badgering the witness.’

But Soma whirled, flashed a malevolent glance at Hardy, spun back to Salter. ‘I’m asking the witness what he heard with his own ears, Your Honor. It’s neither hearsay nor speculation. And I’m not badgering. I’m trying to get straight exactly what he heard.’

Salter allowed the question, overruling Hardy, and was about to ask the recorder to read it out again, when Soma delivered it word for word. ‘And maybe he was getting a little tired of it? Did Graham Russo ever say that?’

‘All right, maybe he did.’

‘Maybe he did. Yes. Now, let’s move to these medical bills and doctor’s bills and so on that the defendant was paying. They must have been expensive. Were they expensive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very expensive? In the hundreds? Thousands? Ten thousands?’

‘Say the high thousands.’

‘All right, let’s say the high thousands. Did the defendant ever mention to you that this was becoming difficult? This was a financial burden he could do without?’

‘No.’

‘No? He was paying thousands of dollars to keep alive a man who was near death anyhow, and he never mentioned any frustration about that?’

‘No. That never came up.’

‘It never came up. Perhaps that’s because he wasn’t spending his own money.’

Hardy stood again. ‘Your Honor-’

But Soma stepped in again. ‘Your Honor, Dr Cutler has told us he received money from Graham for these bills after Softball games, and now we learn it was thousands of dollars.’

‘Proceed,’ Salter intoned.

‘Are we to believe, Doctor, that the defendant makes thousands of dollars playing softball and that every time he paid you for medical services you witnessed the source of the money?’

‘Not every time-’

‘Ah, so the defendant would sometimes bring money from, apparently, another source?’

Cutler threw an apologetic look across the courtroom to Graham and Hardy. What could he do? ‘Yes, sometimes,’ he said.

‘And that source was his father, isn’t that so?’

‘Objection! Speculation.’

But Soma kept right on, his voice rising in pitch and volume. ‘And maybe that source was drying up, wasn’t it, Doctor? And there wasn’t as much money anymore as defendant-’