Beach Road

“Is this the weapon that you found that morning?”

“Yes, it is.”

When Howard informs Rothstein he has no further questions, Kate stands to face off with our old buddy Lindgren one more time.

“According to the defendant and receipts, what time was Dante Halleyville at the diner that morning?” she asks.

“Between two thirty and two thirty-seven a.m.”

“And what time did you get to the police station?”

“A little after five.”

“So the caller, whoever it was, sat on the information for three hours.”

Lindgren shrugs and frowns. “People are resistant to get involved.”

“Or maybe the caller just waited for you to get to the station, Officer Lindgren. Now why in the world would that be? Hmmmm?”

And Dante whispers to me, “She’s damn good.”

Yes, she is.

Chapter 95. Kate

THE NEXT MORNING, Melvin Howard, who is patiently and pretty skillfully building the state’s case block by block, puts Dr. Ewald Olson on the stand.

Olson, an itinerant forensic scientist, travels the land from courtroom to courtroom offering his expert testimony to whoever is willing to pick up the tab. He arrives with his own video setup and an assistant, who controls it from a laptop. Only after Olson has spent nearly an hour going through every last published article and citation does the assistant DA turn his attention to the images on the monitor.

“Dr. Olson, could you tell us about the photograph on the left?”

“It’s an enlargement of the recovered forty-five-caliber shell that entered and exited the skull of Patrick Roche,” says Olson, a tall, stooped man with a crawling monotone.

When he says all there is to say about the bullet, he talks about the Beretta and all the tests performed on the inside of its barrel.

“The photographs on the right,” says Olson, wielding a red laser light, “are impressions taken from the Beretta’s barrel. As you can see, the markings on the barrel conform exactly to the markings on the bullet.”

“And what does that indicate?”

“That the bullet that killed Patrick Roche was fired from the recovered weapon.”

“Based on twenty-eight years as a forensic scientist, Dr. Olson, how certain are you that this is the murder weapon?”

“Entirely certain,” says Olson. “Barrel and bullets are a perfect match.”

At noon, Rothstein mercifully recesses for lunch, but an hour later, Olson picks up where he left off, this time going through a similarly exhaustive drill with the fingerprints found on the handgun.

“As you can see,” says Olson, “the set of prints taken from the handle is an exact match to the prints later taken from Walker ’s right hand.”

“Dr. Olson, is there any doubt that the prints on the recovered weapon belong to Michael Walker?”

“Every print is unique, Mr. Howard. These could belong to no one other than Michael Walker.”

Then Howard holds up Exhibit B, the red Miami Heat cap found in the Brooklyn apartment where Walker was killed. He asks Olson to compare two more sets of fingerprints displayed on the monitor.

“The prints on the left, Dr. Olson,” asks Howard, “whom do they belong to?”

“They were taken from the defendant, Dante Halleyville.”

“And the prints on the right?”

“An identical set of prints lifted from the bill of the basketball cap found in the apartment where Michael Walker was murdered.”

“Again, Dr. Olson, could you give us the odds of these prints belonging to anyone but the defendant?”

“These prints could belong to no one other than Dante Halleyville.”

When the prosecution is through, Olson has been plodding along like the tortoise that always catches the hare-for six hours.

So long that there are groans of disappointment when Tom pushes out of his chair.

My own feelings are even stronger. We hadn’t pla

“Dr. Olson, no one questions that the handgun recovered behind the Princess Diner was the murder weapon. The question is, who fired it? Is there any physical evidence, anything at all, linking the defendant to that weapon?”

“No. The only fingerprints left on that gun belong to Michael Walker.”

“As for the prints found on the gun, the ones belonging to Michael Walker, what kind of quality are we talking about?”

“Very good. The highest quality.”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Nine, maybe even a ten,” Olson says with pride in his voice. Maybe he’s been watching a little too much CSI.

“Doesn’t it strike you as suspicious, Dr. Olson, that on a gun that has been carefully cleaned there would be one complete set of prints and every fingertip would be perfect?”

Now, for the first time in hours, the crowd is actually awake and paying attention.

“Not in this case,” says Olson.

“But you have, in the past, on at least two occasions that I’m aware of, concluded that prints found on murder weapons were, in your words, ‘too good to be credible.’ That was your conclusion in the State of Rhode Island versus John Paul Newport. Is that not true?”

“Yes, but that’s not my conclusion about these prints.”

“Defense has no further questions.”

The crowd is still buzzing when Judge Rothstein calls an adjournment for the day, but whether or not Tom’s high-risk two-minute gambit succeeded in undermining six hours of testimony, we don’t have long to dwell on it.

After Dante gives us both hugs and the sheriffs escort him back to his holding cell, the paralegal for the prosecution delivers a note.

They’ve just added Dante’s eighteen-year-old cousin, Nikki Robinson, to their list of witnesses.

Nikki was among the group of spectators who saw Walker pull the gun on Feifer, but the prosecution has already established what happened after the game. So the decision to put Nikki on the stand now doesn’t make sense.

And when the prosecution makes a move I don’t understand, I get scared.

Chapter 96. Tom

WHEN NIKKI ROBINSON, eyes averted, walks past our table and takes the witness stand, the morning crowd ripples with anticipation. To be honest, Kate and I are a lot more on edge than the spectators. Nikki works as a maid for a local house-cleaning service. She hung around at Smitty Wilson’s-but what else? Why is she being called now?

“Ms. Robinson,” says Melvin Howard, “could you please tell us your relationship with the defendant?”

“Dante is my cousin,” says Robinson, her girlish voice faint.

“And were you at the game at Smitty Wilson’s that afternoon?”

“I got there just before the fight broke out, and Michael Walker got that gun.”

“Did you leave right after?”

“No, sir.”

“What were you doing?”

“Talking to Eric Feifer,” says Robinson, her voice getting even fainter.

“Was that the first time you met?”

“I had seen him around.”

“Did you talk long that afternoon?”

“No. I clean for Maidstone Interiors and had to go do a house. Eric asked if he could go with me. Swim in the pool while I worked. I said okay.”

“So the two of you left together?”

“He put his bicycle in my trunk.”

“What happened when you got to the house you had to clean?”

“Eric hung by the pool. I got to work. House wasn’t much of a mess. The owner’s gay, and gay people are usually neat.”

“Then what happened?”

“I was vacuuming the master bedroom,” says Nikki, her voice reduced to a whisper, “and something made me turn around. Eric was standing right behind me. Naked. At first, I was so shocked-I didn’t notice the knife in his hand.”

The entire courtroom stares at Robinson now, and Rothstein gently taps his gavel. I resist looking over at Kate, or especially Dante. What is this all about?