Part 54 (1/2)
”I'm going to allow it,” the judge said.
Chu grinned. ”Think of all those guys who scratched their skin off after tripping on angel dust, convinced they had bugs crawling all over. If you're using a psychedelic drug, what you believe to be true becomes true.”
”One final question,” Jordan said. ”Is atropine derived from any particular substance?”
”It comes from the liquid extract of a plant, which has a long and varied history of being used as a poison, an anesthetic, and to induce a trancelike state. Remember that sleeping draft Juliet drinks in the Shakespeare play? Same stuff.”
”What's the name of this plant, Dr. Chu?”
”Oh,” he said. ”That would be Atropa belladonna.” Atropa belladonna.”
Matt called for a fifteen-minute recess and left the courtroom fuming. He stalked upstairs, to the small conference room he'd secured to sequester the victim, on the chance that he needed to recall her after the defense finished its witness list. When he burst through the door, Gillian was bent over a table, doing a crossword puzzle.
”Don't you ever ever lie to me again.” lie to me again.”
She dropped her pencil. ”W-what?”
He braced an arm on either side of her puzzle. ”You heard me,” Matt said angrily. ”You 'had nothing to drink that night.' ”
”I don't know what you're talking about.”
”The atropine, Gillian. It was found in your blood.”
She looked positively stunned. ”But ... but the test at the ER-”
”Wasn't conclusive,” Matt finished. ”A more refined test was done on your blood by the defense's toxicologist. And right now, that jury knows you lied about taking drugs-and is wondering what else you might have been lying about.”
Tears welled in her eyes. ”I didn't lie about being raped. I didn't. It was just that everyone already thinks I'm some kind of a s.l.u.t, because this happened to me. I didn't want them thinking I was a drug addict, too. It was only that once. I swear.” Raising a ravaged face to Matt, she asked, ”Is he going to get off now? Because I was so stupid?”
Matt felt the fight draining out of him, but he wasn't going to give her false hope. ”I don't know, Gillian.”
”He won't be acquitted.”
At the sound of a third voice, both Matt and Gillian turned. Amos Duncan stood in the doorway, stiff and uncomfortable. ”Mr. Houlihan wouldn't let that happen.” Gillian's father walked closer, until he stood with his hand on his daughter's shoulder. ”This may be a setback, but it's not a devastation. Isn't that right, Mr. Houlihan?”
Matt thought of the twelve jurors and what they'd just heard. ”You're preaching to the choir,” he said, and stormed out of the room.
”Isn't it true, Doctor, that hallucinogens produce a wide range of effects?” Matt asked.
Chu laughed. ”That's what I hear, but I may have to plead the fifth if you want me to get more specific.”
”It's possible that one person might have a great trip on a drug and another person could ... as you said ... scratch his skin off?”
”Yes. It depends on dosage, potency, personality of the user, and the environment in which the drug is taken.”
”So if you take this drug, you're not even guaranteed to have hallucinations?”
”Not necessarily.”
”Did you see Gillian Duncan in the early hours of May first?”
”No,” Chu said. ”I've never met her.”
”Then you don't know what her personality is like.”
”No.”
”You don't know the environment she was in at the time.”
”No.”
”You don't even know the potency of this particular drug, do you?”
”No.”
”Did you see her after she was brought to the ER to be examined because of a s.e.xual a.s.sault?”
”No.”
”So you don't know if she was having hallucinations, do you?”
”No.”
Matt advanced on the witness. ”You said that the drug stays in the bloodstream only a few hours, is that correct?”
Chu nodded. ”Yes.”
”And when was the sample you examined drawn?”
”At approximately two A.M. A.M.,” the toxicologist said.
”Ms. Duncan arrived at the woods with her friends at approximately eleven P.M. P.M. that night. Do you have any way of knowing whether Ms. Duncan took the drug before she went to the woods that night?” that night. Do you have any way of knowing whether Ms. Duncan took the drug before she went to the woods that night?”
”No ... but based on the levels in her blood at one-thirty A.M. A.M., if that was the case, she'd be dead now.”
”Still, given that two- to six-hour time frame, the drug could have been taken after the rape, isn't that right?”
”I guess so.”
”And that would affect your calculation of the dosage amount, right?”
”Yes.”
Matt nodded. ”You don't know who provided the atropine that evening, do you?”
”No.”
”Isn't it possible that Mr. St. Bride arrived in the woods and suggested they take it?”
”It's possible.”