Part 45 (2/2)
”You could have been blindfolded, going backward in crab walk, and it would take you five minutes, at the most.”
”Objection,” Matt sighed. ”He's badgering my witness.”
”Have a care, Mr. McAfee,” said the judge.
”My apologies,” Jordan told the girl, but anyone could see he wasn't all that sorry.
”Maybe it didn't take fifteen minutes, exactly,” Whitney whispered.
”Are you telling me that you lied a minute ago? Under oath?” Whitney blanched. ”No. I mean, it just felt like forever. Or about fifteen minutes.”
Jordan shrugged. ”You know what? Let's compromise. Let's say it took ten. Does that seem fair?”
The girl nodded vigorously.
”While it was taking you ten minutes to walk the fifty-two yards, your friend was supposedly within fifty-two yards of you, being a.s.saulted. Given that extremely brief distance, don't you think you might have heard something going on?”
Whitney swallowed. ”I didn't. It was too far away.”
”You didn't hear your friend calling out?”
”No.”
”You didn't hear branches breaking? Or a scuffle?”
”No.”
Jordan stared at her for a moment. Then he asked for permission to approach the bench. ”Judge, I'd like a little leeway for a physical demonstration.”
Judge Justice narrowed her eyes. ”Mental browbeating isn't enough?”
”I'd like to make this particular point a little more realistic for the jury.”
”Your Honor,” Matt said, ”it's completely inappropriate for Mr. McAfee to re-create the scenario that night.”
The judge looked from one man to the other, then to the witness cowering on the stand. ”You know, Mr. Houlihan, I'm gonna allow this. Go ahead, Mr. McAfee.”
Jordan took a yardstick from Selena in the gallery. ”I'm just going to measure off fifty-two yards,” he explained. He paced his way down the aisle of the courtroom, through the double doors, and into the lobby. Conversation stopped as he continued past the banks of blue chairs and the office of the clerk of the court and a few vending machines. Finally, he rapped the yardstick on the floor and peered down the straight course, to where the witness sat. ”Ms. O'Neill,” he called, ”can you hear me?”
He saw her nod her head, saw her lips form the word yes.
Jordan strode back to the courtroom. ”Thank you,” he said. ”That's all.”
Whitney started to rise, intent on getting off the witness stand as quickly as possible. But before she could, Matt rose, furious. ”Redirect, Your Honor,” he barked. ”Ms. O'Neill, did you just hear Mr. McAfee call out to you from fifty-two yards away?”
”Um, yes.”
Matt pointed to the rear of the courtroom. ”If Mr. McAfee had been fifty-two yards away but pinned to the ground with someone else's hand over his mouth and fighting for his life against a rapist, do you think you would have been able to hear him call out?”
”N-no,” Whitney said.
Matt turned on his heel. ”Nothing further.”
At the breakfast table that morning, Thomas had asked if Jordan was going to cross-examine Chelsea Abrams. ”Don't know for sure,” he'd answered. ”It depends on what she says on direct.”
Thomas's shoulders had rounded so much his face had nearly dipped into his cereal bowl. ”Just do me one favor,” Thomas had said. ”Try not to be a d.i.c.k.”
That, in a nutsh.e.l.l, was why Jordan was going to blast Chelsea Abrams's testimony to pieces. Because the pretty girl looking up at him with a tiny smile was seeing him as Thomas's dad when she should have been considering him an adversary.
”Ms. Abrams,” Jordan said, standing up to do his cross, ”tell me again who was there that night in the woods.”
Confusion clouded Chelsea's eyes as she realized Jordan meant business. ”Meg, Whitney, Gilly, and me.”
”And Jack, my client?”
”Yeah.”
”And Jack left first.”
”Yes.”
”The rest of you, though, were standing together for a minute before you went home?”
”Yes.”
”So if anyone said something before you left, the four of you would have heard it?”
”Sure.”
”You testified that before you left, you asked Gillian whether she wanted you to walk her home.”
”Yes.”
”Where was Whitney standing when you asked this?”
”Right next to me.”
”After you and Whitney and Meg left, did anyone say anything?”
”No,” Chelsea said. ”We just walked down the path single file.”
He looked at the jurors, hoping to h.e.l.l that every single one of them remembered that Whitney had said something different. ”Isn't it true that April thirtieth, the night you all met in the woods, was Beltane?”
He had to give her credit: Chelsea looked blankly at him. ”What?”
”Isn't Beltane a sabbat, according to the earth-based Wiccan religion?”
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