Guilt

Jenkins stood up, objecting, but Thomasino let the question stand, and Crandall had to answer it.

'Yes, sometimes.'

'Just like this one?'

'Sometimes, yes.'

'Sometimes, hmmm. So you, personally, have access to gloves just like this one?'

'Objection! Your honor, Sergeant Crandall isn't on trial here.'

But Farrell spoke right up. 'Your honor, I'm trying to establish that the glove could just as easily have come from the police presence at the scene. Absolutely nothing has been offered to co

Thomasino nodded and sighed. 'It seems to me you've done that already, Mr Farrell. Let's move on to the next point.'

Farrell bowed, acquiescent. 'Sergeant, you've told us that your initial impression upstairs – before you knew about the lividity in Mrs Dooher's shoulder – was that a burglary had occurred and she'd woken up and the burglar had stabbed her after a struggle. Do I have that right?'

'Yes.' Crandall shifted in his seat. Farrell, keeping him to short answers on simple factual questions, had succeeded in making him appear restless, edgy. And he wasn't finished yet.

'In other words, the room looked, to your practiced eye, as though a burglary had been in progress, isn't that correct?'

'That's the way it looked to me. Until I looked more carefully at the body.'

'It was made to look like a burglary?'

'Your honor.' Jenkins stood at her table. 'How many times do we have to hear the same question?'

Thomasino nodded. 'Let's move it along, Mr Farrell. You've established that the scene looked to Sergeant Crandall like a burglary had been interrupted.'

'I'm sorry, your honor. I just wanted it to be clear.'

Farrell turned to the jury and bowed slightly, an apology. Turning back, facing the Judge and the witness box, his voice was mild. 'So, Sergeant, based on your training and experience, you reached the conclusion that Mr Dooher had been the person in the room who had faked this burglary?'

Crandall did not respond quickly. 'Yes, I'd say that's right.'

'He wanted it to look like a burglary, and so he left the side door open so there'd be no sign of a burglar's forced entrance? Is that your contention?'

'I don't know why he left the door open. Or even if he did. He might have let himself in with a key.'

'Indeed he might have, sergeant. So, what evidence did you uncover that shows that Mr Dooher, as opposed to someone else, did any of this?'

'Objection. Argumentative.'

This had been Farrell's intention, so it didn't surprise him when Thomasino sustained her. Moving a step or two closer to the witness box he had his hands in his jacket pockets. 'Just to recount for the jury, Sergeant, so far we've established that none of the evidence found at the scene in any way places Mr Dooher there at the time of the stabbing of his wife, isn't that the case?'

'Not directly, but-'

Farrell held up a finger, stopping him. 'Not only not directly, Sergeant. You've testified that there was nothing at all. These were your own words: nothing at all. Then you concluded that Mr Dooher attempted to make it look as though a burglary had taken place when in fact he returned to his home to kill his wife, and yet he apparently took no great pains to create a false impression of illegal entry, which surely would have aided his deception. Then he left no evidence behind, none at all, that would implicate another person?'

'No, that's not true. There was the blood.'

Farrell gave every impression of relief that Crandall had reminded him of that thorny problem. 'Ah yes, the blood, the blood. The tainted blood. But, of course, that's not your area, is it?'

'No, it's not.'

Farrell had wounded Crandall and had him in his sights again. He was going to bring him down.

'Sergeant, in your thorough investigation of the crime scene, you must have found a great deal of evidence that Mark Dooher, in fact, lived in this house, isn't that right?'

'Yes. Of course.'

'Did you find his fingerprints, fibers from his clothing, hairs and so forth?'

'Yes, we did.'

'And would you have expected to find those things?'

'Of course.'

Farrell gave him another smile. 'A simple "yes" is fine, Sergeant, thank you. Now, did you find anything you would not have expected to find relating to Mark Dooher?'

'Like what?'

'I don't know, sir. I'm asking you, but I'll rephrase it for you. Did you find anything specific – either at the crime scene itself, or in Mr Dooher's car, or his office, or in your subsequent analysis of lab results and blood tests and so forth that, based on your training and experience, led you to suspect that Mark Dooher had killed his wife?'

Crandall didn't reply. Farrell pressed his advantage.

'And isn't it true that you found no physical evidence, either in the bedroom itself or on the person of Mrs Dooher that linked Mark Dooher with this crime?'

Crandall hated it. His face had flushed with suppressed anger. 'I suppose if you-'

'Sergeant! Isn't it true that you found no evidence linking Mark Dooher with this crime? Isn't that true?'

He spit it out. 'Yes.'

Another smile. 'Thank you.' Wes beamed up at Thomasino. 'That's all for this witness, your honor.'

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Had Glitsky not encountered similar situations dozens of times before, he wouldn't have believed it. It still amazed him. Amanda's next witness, who'd been sitting out here in the hallway forty-five minutes ago, had disappeared.

So Glitsky was out in the echoing, linoleum corridor, chatting with a severely displeased George Crandall. Crandall had vented his pique about Farrell's cross-examination for a couple of minutes, and now was telling Glitsky about a book he was going to write, based on his true-life experiences as a big-city cop.

'Really, though, I don't have much more than a title at this stage. I got friends who say that's the important part, anyway. You get a good title, you sell a lot of books.'

'What's the title?' Glitsky asked him.

'Wait. First, here's the idea. You know all these celebrities who grow up and remember that somebody abused them when they were seven and that's why they've been married eight times and they've got substance-abuse problems and if all of us normal people just tried to understand them they'd be happier?'

'Sure. I worry about them all the time.'

'Exactly. So I'll call it Who Gives a Shit? What do you think?'

Glitsky liked it a lot, but didn't think it would sell very many books. He was starting to tell that to Crandall, but had to cut the discussion short. Amanda Jenkins was ascending the stairs holding the arm of a tall, disheveled young man with horn-rimmed glasses – the crime-lab specialist, the 'blood guy', Ray Drumm.

Mr Drumm, exquisite boredom oozing from every pore, endured a two-minute lecture from Judge Thomasino on the relative merits of wandering off, leaving the Hall of Justice to smoke a cigarette outside when you were due to testify in a murder trial. Contempt of court was mentioned, but didn't seem to make much of an impact. Finally, Drumm was sworn in and took his seat in the witness chair.

Like most of the professional lawpersons in the building, Glitsky had no use for Drumm. A career bureaucrat who wasn't yet thirty-five years old, Drumm was taciturn when he wasn't being simply obstinate. Perhaps he was truly brain dead, but Glitsky didn't think it was that. He had the attitude -I got my job, I can't get fired, bite me.

But Jenkins couldn't let her feelings show, though Abe knew she shared his own. Getting information from Drumm was pulling teeth under the best of circumstances. God forbid you did something to put his back up – and Jenkins had already interrupted his precious cigarette.