Witness for the Defense (21 page)

There was a general stirring in the gallery which Priest put to an immediate halt with one smash of her gavel. The D.A. paced in front of his star witness until calm was restored. He then swiveled on one foot to look up at Priest. “Your Honor,” he said with a grin, “the people of the State of California have no further questions of this witness.”

“Mr. Dobbs?” Priest said.

I was puzzled by more than Danny’s identification of Jared’s car. What concerned me most was that the boy’s gloves were never mentioned. The crafty D.A. knew the boy’s mother said Danny had left the house wearing them. And I was sure he knew my main contention would be Danny’s fingerprints couldn’t be on the wrapper because he had been wearing gloves. What was Bragg up to?

Then it occurred to me. I was being ambushed. Bragg wanted me to ask the question. That way it would look like Danny hadn’t been spoon-fed the answer. That had to mean Bragg knew the boy would say he wasn’t wearing them the whole time. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to stay away from that area. Bragg had me boxed in.

“Mr. Dobbs,” Priest pushed, “are you ready?”

I slowly approached the witness stand, trying to take my mind off the gloves. “Hello, Danny,” I said in a lighthearted tone.

Danny was intelligent, forthright, and most of all likeable. I had to be careful. Attacking him would surely alienate the jury. But I had to at least prove that his identification of Jared’s car had always been shaky, at best.

“Hi,” he said with a quick, edgy smile. I was sure Bragg had warned him to be wary of me. Hopefully, though, the boy would remember our friendly talk back at his house.

“Regarding this car,” I said, pointing to the photos, “do you know what kind it is?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, enthusiastically. “It’s a 1956 Chevrolet coupe.”

I could tell by how quickly he answered that either McBean or Bragg had informed him. I had to find out what else they may have planted in his young fertile mind.

“That’s a pretty old car.”

“To me it is,” he joked, but didn’t smile until he heard laughter from the gallery.

“So you’ve seen one before?”

A warm smile covered his young face. “Sure have.”

“Where?”

His mother gave him a soft, reassuring smile while nodding that it was all right for him to answer. “A couple times my dad took me to Cruise Night at A&W Root Beer,” he said in a somber tone.

“Really.” I tried to mask my disappointment. “There were probably lots of old cars there?” I remarked while pondering how I was going to attack his identification now that everyone knew the prosecution hadn’t helped him.

“There sure was,” he said all lit up. “My favorite is a 1958 Corvette.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

Bragg grimaced and wrote something on his yellow pad. He was probably making a note to himself that all the time he’d spent trying to get the boy to be afraid of me had been wasted. But I realized something that had never occurred to Bragg. It wouldn’t be in Danny Barton’s nature to dislike anyone for too long.

I decided to take advantage of that trait and lead him into a corner that neither he nor Bragg could escape from.

“You indicated earlier that it was dark in the forest that night?”

The boy hesitated a moment. The change of direction momentarily caught him off balance. “Awfully dark. I could barely see a thing.”

“It was so dark you couldn’t get a good look at the man?”

“That’s right.”

“So dark you probably couldn’t get a very good look at his car either?”

“You’re right,” he said and bobbed his head to confirm it.

I walked away and exhaled the deep breath I’d been holding. I was sure everyone in the courtroom could see the smile I was desperately trying to hide.

“But, Mr. Dobbs,” Danny called out, “it wasn’t that dark back at the lot where he first grabbed me.”

I walked back to the witness stand, doing my best to appear unaffected by his shot to my gut. “But didn’t you say it was dark there, too?”

“Sort of,” he said. “But not as dark as it was out in those trees.”

“Now, Danny.” I said it a bit too tersely. I stopped to inwardly call a time-out. I had to make sure I didn’t lose my patience.

Jared and Sarah had a look of concern on their faces. Behind them, Avery, with a slight smile, slowly nodded his head. It was his way of telling me I was doing fine.

“Tell me,” I asked, walking closer, “were there any lights on in that lot?”

“I don’t remember seeing any”

“Yet you’re saying there was enough light to be able to see the car?”

“I’m saying,” he replied in an impatient tone, “that there was more light than in the forest.”

It appeared as if Danny was becoming tired and frustrated. It was my fault. I was so afraid of what he might say, I was pussyfooting around too much. I had to get to the point.

“When you ran into him, wasn’t he standing in front of the car?”

Danny thought for a moment. “Within a couple feet of it.”

“And you already testified that except for the baseball cap and beard, you didn’t get a good look at his face either before or after he grabbed you because of the darkness. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

I was finally there and the boy didn’t have a clue where I was headed. Bragg did, though; he continued to scribble on his pad, but now he was frowning. I could almost hear him gritting his teeth.

“If there wasn’t enough light for you to see the man’s face and he was standing right in front of you, how were you able to get a good look at his car?”

Danny began to shift nervously in his chair. With a furrowed brow he looked to Bragg for help. The D.A. started to rise, but reconsidered it. He knew any interruption now would look as if he was trying to hide something from the jury.

“Look,” Danny said, “I didn’t say there wasn’t enough light to see his face.”

“You didn’t?” I asked in a cynical tone.

“I just didn’t get a real good look at him.” Danny lowered his voice as if he didn’t want the whole courtroom to hear what he was about to admit. “Because I was scared when he grabbed me.”

The boy was on the verge of tears. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was recalling the attack or because he was forced to admit he was frightened at the time.

“When you ran into the man, he really startled you, didn’t he?”

“I guess.”

“Because you didn’t know what he wanted?”

“And he just seemed to come out of nowhere.”

“When he grabbed you, you were more concerned with what he wanted than with the kind of car he was driving?”

“I didn’t even know it was there until he threw me into it.”

“Everything was happening so fast. Wasn’t it, Danny? You never did get a good look at that car. Isn’t that correct?”

The boy took a deep breath. “You’re probably right,” he said, exhaling. “I just remember it was there.”

I took a position to the side of the boy, facing the same direction he was. I wanted to see McBean’s face when the boy answered my next line of questioning.

“Did you ever tell Lieutenant McBean that the man drove you away in a 1956 Chevrolet?”

“Not really.”

“As a matter of fact, you didn’t have to tell him because he told you.”

Danny looked at McBean and then at Bragg, who had finally stopped his scribbling and raised his head. He was watching the boy closely as he bit on the end of his pen.

“Danny?” I coaxed.

“He didn’t say that exactly.”

“Did he say anything like that?”

“It was like…” the boy said, and stopped to straighten himself in the chair as he looked at McBean.

“Do you understand my question?”

Danny nodded his head. “I knew it was a 1956 Chevy as soon as he showed me the pictures.”

I grabbed one of the photographs and waved it in the air. “You never did tell Lieutenant McBean that the man who attacked you was driving the car that is shown in these photographs.”

“No, sir.”

“And you never said the car was a 1956 Chevrolet?”

“I thought it had to be because he said the car in the photographs belonged to the guy who attacked me.”

“Now I understand.”

Every head in the room—including those of the jury—was turned toward the prosecution table. Bragg and McBean were doing their best to look unconcerned.

“Just so there isn’t any confusion,” I said. “Am I correct that you never described for either the lieutenant or Mr. Bragg the car that was used?”

“Except for it being big and black, I couldn’t describe anything else about it.”

I paused for the jury to digest the importance of what Danny said. It had gone better than I’d hoped.

As I walked back to my seat, ready to tell Priest I was finished, I saw a relaxed look on Jared’s face. It gave me an idea. What I was thinking was risky, but I’d been lucky so far and I wanted to end my cross on a dramatic note. One that the jurors wouldn’t forget and would haunt them during their deliberations.

“Danny,” I said, turning back to him, “what you remember most about the man is that he had a beard and a baseball cap, is that right?”

“Like I said, it was pretty dark.”

And you also said you were scared to death, I wanted to remind him. But the jury didn’t need to hear that again.

“Do you think if you saw that man again, you’d be able to recognize him?”

The boy tightened his lips and twisted his face. “Maybe.”

I slowly walked in front of Jared, who was sitting less than fifteen feet from the witness stand, and casually pointed to him. “You see this man sitting next to this nice lady?”

“Do you mean the man sitting next to Miss Harris?” Danny said and smiled at Sarah.

I was surprised he remembered her name. “Yes, Danny,” I said and took a deep breath. “Would you please tell us if you have ever seen that man before?”

Danny looked at Jared long and hard. And then, just like before, he seemed to lose focus. I thought about withdrawing the question, but it was too late.

“You mean, do I think the man sitting next to Miss Harris looks like the man who attacked me?”

I cringed. “That’s right.”

“Nope,” Danny replied. “Not really.”

There was a loud stirring throughout the courtroom. A few reporters ran out to call in the news, their cell phones in hand. I finally exhaled on the way back to my seat. Priest was standing, slamming her gavel onto the old hardwood bench. I was about to announce I had no further questions when I noticed Danny’s eyes still hadn’t budged off Jared.

The courtroom silenced when the boy slowly rose from his chair and pointed at Jared. “Mr. Dobbs?” Danny said. “He sure looks like the man.”

I spun around. “But I thought you just said—” I blurted.

Danny gave me a withering look. “Not your client,” he said. “But the man sitting behind him sure looks like the guy.”

There was a collective gasp as every eye in the courtroom suddenly shifted and settled on Sarah’s father, Judge Avery Harris.

Chapter 23

A severe storm out of the Gulf of Alaska centered directly over the northern coast. Ukiah was just beginning to feel the brunt of its high winds and heavy rain. The handle of the heavy metal door ripped from my hand as a strong gust blew it open. With my hair whipping my eyes, I peeked around the open doorway to make sure I’d escaped the horde of reporters who’d been waiting for me outside the courtroom. Seeing no one, I made a dash for my car.

As soon as Danny pointed to him, Avery walked out of the courtroom with most of the reporters in hot pursuit. After several minutes of sitting through Bragg’s attempt at rehabilitating the boy, Sarah excused herself to check on her father.

On redirect Bragg had Danny explain what there was about Avery Harris that caused him to say he resembled the attacker. The door finally opened for Bragg when he got the boy to admit it was mostly Avery’s beard. The persistent D.A. then showed Danny the mug shot of Jared taken the day he was arrested. After studying it carefully, the boy admitted that with a beard, Jared would also look similar.

Thinking he’d managed to focus the suspicion back on Jared, Bragg was all smiles when he finished. But the damage was done. It was obvious to all that Danny not only couldn’t identify Jared’s car, but even the most prosecution-minded juror would have to agree that the attacker fit the general description of half the male population in the county.

As far as Jared’s case was concerned, Danny’s testimony couldn’t have gone much better. I should have been ecstatic, but I wasn’t. While Bragg and McBean seemed to be suffering from a severe case of tunnel vision, I wasn’t. I could no longer ignore the possibility that Avery could just as easily be the attacker as Jared. He not only matched the same general description, but he also had access to Jared’s car. Plus, the thought that the Boonville boy had been abducted in a Blazer similar to Avery’s kept eating at me. I hoped for Sarah’s sake that my suspicions were wrong, but I couldn’t bury my head any longer. I had to confront her father.

By the time I reached the farm, the rain was pelting my windshield with such force I almost missed the turnoff. Normally, I would have been able to see the lights in the main house as I approached. But except for a faint glow in the window of the guest house, everything appeared dark. There was no sign of either Sarah or her father—both the Lexus and Blazer were gone.

When I parked at the side of the guest house, I was startled by the howling wind as it pushed its way through the many pine trees. Trying to avoid as much of the rain as I could, I sprinted to the front door. I couldn’t wait to get out of my wet suit and take a long hot bath. After that, Sarah and Avery would likely be back and the confrontation would begin.

As I opened the front door, I was surprised to see someone had turned the Lava lamp on. Knowing I hadn’t, I cautiously pushed the door wider. The room appeared empty, the only movement the red globules in the lamp, undulating slowly to the top and then down again. As I stepped in, a figure jumped out of the shadowed darkness from the other side of the bed and ran directly at me.

“Mr. Dobbs!” the figure cried and stopped just short of me. It was the voice of a young man. He grabbed my arms, which I’d reflexively raised to protect myself. I could feel his hands trembling. “It’s me, Bobby Miles.”