Part 49 (2/2)

Romaine Jackson's eyes break from the prosecutor for half a second, just long enough to follow her right hand in the direction of Robert Frazier.

”Him,” she says quietly, her eyes once again riveted on Doan.

The prosecutor moves forward slowly. ”Would you describe what the defendant looked like on that evening?”

”Tall, dark and slim,” she says.

”What was he wearing that evening?”

”A black coat. A black jacket like this one.”

”Was he wearing anything on his head?”

”A hat.”

”What color was it?”

”A white hat,” she says, a hand to her forehead, ”with a snap on it.”

She is crying now, just enough for it to show, not enough for Doan to think of stopping. Following the prosecutor's lead, she tells the court about how Lena and the tall man walked toward Lena's rowhouse next door and then disappeared from her view, how she fell asleep to the sound of an argument coming from a lower floor of the adjacent house, how she later heard about the murder.

”Miss Jackson,” asks Doan, ”after you discovered or learned that Charlene Lucas had been murdered, did you go to the police with the information you had?”

”No,” she says, crying again.

”Why was that, ma'am?”

Polansky objects.

”Overruled,” says Gordy.

”Scared,” the girl says. ”I didn't want to get involved.”

”Are you still scared?”

”Yes,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper.

Frightened but firm, Romaine Jackson holds to her testimony throughout Polansky's cross. The defense attorney works the edges of her story: the lighting on the street that night; the time that she was looking out the window; her reasons for looking out the window; her ability to hear the argument in the house next door. Polansky can't run roughshod over this young girl; even if harsh tactics could rattle her story, the jury would resent such treatment. Instead, he can only suggest that she is mistaken, that perhaps she cannot be sure she saw Robert Frazier when she says she saw him. Polansky works the corners of the girl's testimony for half an hour, prolonging her agony but doing little to change the essentials of her story. By the time she leaves the stand in the late afternoon, Romaine Jackson's quiet embrace of the truth is a powerful force.

”Whoa ... Romaine, honey,” says Garvey, catching her as she races out the rear doors of the courtroom. ”Hey, now, tell the truth. That wasn't all that bad now, was it?”

”Yes,” she says, now crying and laughing in the same breath. ”It was.”

”Oh, come on,” says the detective, wrapping an arm around her. ”I'll bet you got to like it a little at the end, didn't you?”

”No,” she says, laughing. ”No, I did not.”

Half an hour later, when Doan emerges from the courtroom, Garvey b.u.t.tonholes him in the third-floor corridor: ”How'd my girl do in there?”

”She was great,” says Doan without exaggeration. ”Scared, but great.”

But it is far from over. The next day's testimony brings the end of the state's case, with both attorneys skirmis.h.i.+ng over the ballistic evidence and the .38 ammunition recovered in the case. With Dave Brown on the witness stand, Doan tries to limit the testimony to the .38 bullets recovered from Frazier's car after his arrest; Polansky, laboring hard not to violate the pretrial motions prohibiting any mention of the Purnell Booker slaying, probes Brown on cross about the issue of the earlier search warrant, when the detectives recovered the .38 wadcutter ammo and knives from beneath Vincent Booker's bed. It is a sensitive issue-neither attorney wants to cross the line that brings the Booker murder into testimony-and it requires four bench conferences with Gordy before Brown's testimony is successfully negotiated. On redirect, Doan makes sure to have Brown testify that the knives recovered from Vincent Booker were tested and found to be free of blood, but still Polansky has managed once again, with a few questions, to raise the specter of an alternate suspect.

He does so yet again when Joe Kopera, from the firearms unit, follows Brown to the stand. Doan leads Kopera through the examination of bullets used to kill the victim, as well as the .38 cartridges found in Frazier's car after his arrest. The bullets are all of the same caliber, Kopera agrees. But that testimony, although limited, opens the door to Polansky, who follows up by noting that the bullets that killed Lena Lucas are .38 wadcutters, and the bullets recovered from his client's car are .38 round-noses.

”So what you are saying,” says Polansky, ”is that while the bullets that came from Robert Frazier's car are indeed thirty-eights, they weren't the same kind of thirty-eights that were recovered from the crime scene.”

”Yes, sir, that is correct.”

”And some of the bullets-twelve of the bullets recovered from Vincent Booker's residence-were not only thirty-eight caliber but were also wadcutter. Is that correct?”

”Yes,” says Kopera.

If Rich Garvey could hear this, if he could hear Polansky propping up the shadowy figure of Vincent Booker in front of the jury, he might be inclined to wring Doan's neck. The only way to counter Polansky is to make the link between the bullets taken from Vincent Booker and Robert Frazier, and the only way to do that is to put Vincent Booker on the stand. Booker himself could testify that he gave the wadcutters to Frazier on the night of the murder; that Frazier had told him they were going to get the drugs back from his father and had asked him for ammunition. But that kind of testimony might raise more questions than it would answer; in Doan's mind, the only reasoned alternative is to cut bait.

As the state nears the end of its presentation, the courtroom observers are divided in their opinion about which side is winning. Doan has laid his foundation and guided Romaine Jackson successfully through her precious testimony. But Polansky has done well at points, too, and his deft use of Vincent Booker may be enough to sway the jury. But Doan isn't quite finished. He surprises Polansky with one last witness, a witness the defense attorney did not expect to see used against his client.

”Your honor,” says Doan, after the jurors have been dismissed for the day's lunch hour, ”I would request that Sharon Denise Henson, once she is called, be called as a court's witness.”

”Objection!” says Polansky, almost shouting.

”Your reasons for saying, Mr. Doan,” asks Gordy, ”in light of the objection?”

The prosecutor recounts Robert Frazier's attempt to use his second girlfriend as an alibi in the murder of his first, as well as the detectives' subsequent interrogation of Nee-Cee Henson, in which she admitted that Frazier had left her dinner party early and then failed to return until morning. Henson signed a written statement to that effect and then gave similar testimony to the grand jury; now, with Frazier looking at the possibility of life without parole, she is backing up, telling Doan that she remembers the dinner party more clearly now. Frazier, she says, left for only a few moments early in the evening and then stayed with her until morning.

The woman began backing away from her testimony weeks ago, when she first signed a written statement for a private investigator employed by Polansky. Her behavior does not surprise Doan, who has learned that she has repeatedly visited Frazier at the city jail. Now he asks Gordy to call her to the stand as a hostile witness. To the prosecutor, Sharon Henson is valuable precisely because her testimony will not be credible.

”It would be an injustice for this jury to be deprived of seeing her and hearing from her,” says Doan, ”and it would put the state in an impossible position to actually call her as its own witness.”

”Mr. Polansky?” asks Gordy.

”Your honor, would it be possible to respond ... to respond to Mr. Doan's argument after the break so I can have an opportunity to absorb this?”

”Denied.”

”Can I have a minute to look at this?” he says, scanning a copy of the state's motion.

”You may,” says Gordy, the very picture of bored irritation. ”While Mr. Polansky is looking at that, I will note for the record this issue has been antic.i.p.ated in this trial, according to conversations between counsel and the court, since the beginning of this trial.”

Polansky takes a few more minutes, then attempts a response, arguing that Miss Henson's current version of events doesn't differ dramatically from her earlier testimony. It doesn't seem, Polansky argues, that the statements are so inconsistent as to justify calling her as a court's witness.

”Do you intend to call her as a witness in the defense case?”

”Well, I don't know,” says Polansky. ”I can't make that commitment at this point, your honor.”

”Because if you were, these questions would be moot.”

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