“What did you find when you got home?”
“Brian was in his room, crying. He has some verbal ability, even though he’s deaf, but he was way too shaken to come up with words. In sign he told me to check in the master bedroom. So I went.”
“What did you find?”
“Oscar. He was in the bed, and there was a lot of blood on the sheets and pillow. I ran to him, knelt at his side. I could see that he’d been shot in the head. It was…” Her eyes closed, then opened. “It was an awful-looking wound. He had no pulse, wasn’t breathing. I knew he was dead.”
“What did you do?”
“I called the police.”
“Anything else?”
“It was all such a blur. But I remember…I remember seeing his gun on the floor next to the bed.”
“Did you touch it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She looked at the jury and said, “I put the safety on the gun.”
A low murmur swept across the courtroom. The prosecutor looked puzzled, and several jurors straightened in their seats. The significance of the safety being on or off-homicide versus suicide-seemed to have been lost on no one.
Jack waited for silence, then asked, “Why did you put the safety on?”
“When I saw his body lying there, dead, my first thought was that Oscar had killed himself. He was alive when I had left for work. As far as I knew, no one had come by the house. His own gun was on the floor next to the bed. And that whole thing with Lieutenant Johnson had me convinced that he was disturbed or depressed.”
“Let me ask you again: Why did you put the safety on the gun?”
She swallowed hard. “That’s what I was explaining. I married a Marine. Brian’s father was a captain, a leader. In a Marine’s world, courage is everything. I knew that someday Brian would probably have to know the truth about his father. But at that moment, all I could think of was that I didn’t want my ten-year-old boy to have to deal with the fact that his father was a coward who killed himself.”
“So you put the safety on the gun?”
“Yes. I knew the police wouldn’t think it was suicide if the safety was on.”
“But, by doing that, you made yourself into a murder suspect.”
“The thought of becoming a suspect didn’t cross my mind at that particular moment. If anything, I didn’t see how I could be a suspect. I was at work when Oscar was shot.”
“Not according to the time of death established by the medical examiner. He placed the time of death sometime before you left for work.”
“Well, all I can say is that the medical examiner is wrong.”
Jack backed away from the lectern, taking a few casual steps closer to the jury. Lindsey looked drained. He knew it was time to wrap it up, lest she have nothing left to stave off the prosecutor’s attack on cross-examination.
“Ms. Hart,” he said in a firm, direct tone. “Did you kill your husband?”
“No. I did not.”
Jack shot a quick glance at the jury, a gut check to see if any of them looked persuaded. At best, they looked confused, not sure what to believe anymore. But for a criminal defense lawyer, that was sometimes enough.
“Thank you, Ms. Hart. I have no further questions, Your Honor.”
45
Judge Garcia insisted on squeezing in Lindsey’s cross-examination before the lunch break. The prosecutor pecked away at her testimony, trying to highlight inconsistencies for the jury. He finished exactly the way Jack had expected. He painted her as a liar from day one.
Torres stepped toward the witness, his questions like lances. “You never told the police that you were having sex with Lieutenant Johnson, did you?”
“No.”
“You never told them that your husband had drugged you and forced you to have sex with another man.”
“No.”
“You never went to a battered women’s shelter.”
“No.”
“You never sought any rape counseling.”
“No.”
“You never told the police that it was you who had put the safety on your husband’s gun.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“In fact, when the police asked you point-blank, you denied ever having touched the gun.”
“That’s true.”
“When Captain Pintado’s father asked you point-blank, you again denied that you had ever touched the gun.”
“That’s true, too.”
“You lied to the police.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to your dead husband’s father.”
“I regret that.”
“You probably even lied to your son.”
“Objection,” said Jack.
“Overruled.”
Lindsey straightened in her seat, as if to strengthen her resolve. “No. I would never lie to Brian.”
“You would never lie to your son?” the prosecutor asked, incredulous.
“No.”
He scoffed, seemingly disgusted. “Ms. Hart, even now, when you finally admit that you put the safety on the gun, you tell us that you did it because you wanted to be able to lie to your own son about the cause of his father’s death. Isn’t that right, ma’am?”
She turned slightly pale, as if not sure how to handle that one. “I thought it was best that way.”
“Lies, all lies,” he said, voice booming. “Is that what you think is best?”
“Objection.”
“Overruled.”
She brought her hand to her brow, pained. “I don’t know anymore.”
The prosecutor stepped closer. Then he glanced back at Jack, shooting him an accusatory glare, before asking the final question. “Ms. Hart. Is there anyone you haven’t lied to?”
Jack was about to object, but there were times when a lawyer could do his client more harm in the jury’s eyes by running to her defense. Lindsey was shaky, but she needed to handle this one on her own.
“I’m not a liar,” she said. “And I’ve never lied to this jury.”
Good answer, thought Jack.
But at this point, he wondered if even he believed it.
Trial broke for lunch, and Jack had time only for a quick bite and for a few phone calls. He made just one, in particular, about Brian.
It hadn’t been a major part of her direct testimony, but Lindsey’s mention of the fact that Brian possessed some verbal skills, even though he was deaf, had stuck in the back of Jack’s mind. He recalled his conversation with Alejandro Pintado, who’d mentioned that Brian was going to camp for hearing-impaired children after the trial was over. The two statements weren’t inconsistent, but they did have him thinking back to one of the first things Lindsey had told him about Brian’s condition. He was born deaf, which was why Lindsey had insisted that Jack and Jessie had known about his deafness before giving him up for adoption. Jessie probably would have had no way of knowing, as Jack had discovered, but his present curiosity had a different bent, one that was completely unrelated to what Jessie might have known or not known.
It had more to do with just how many lies Lindsey had told him.
Jack didn’t have unfettered access to Brian’s medical records, but he was usually able to get what he needed when he put his mind to it. From a quiet spot in the attorneys’ lounge in the courthouse, he checked with directory assistance and dialed the phone number for Florida ’s only camp for hearing-impaired children.
“Hello,” said Jack. “I’m calling for some general information.”
“What kind of information would you like, sir?” the woman asked.
Jack didn’t want to lie outright to her, but he also didn’t want her to know that he was fishing for information about a child already enrolled. He said, “I have a friend with a ten-year-old boy who I think would benefit from your camp.”
“Most children benefit tremendously. What kind of hearing impairment does the boy have?”
Jack knew some specifics from his discussions with Lindsey, but he had to think for a moment to answer to the question correctly. “He has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss.”
“To what degree?”
“I’m not an expert on the terminology, but I believe it’s in the profound category.”