14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 73

THE FIRST RULE of cross-examination was never to ask a witness a question if you didn’t know the answer.

Sometimes, though, you had to gamble.

“Inspector Brand, you just stated that Aaron-Rey Kordell, a ‘dummy,’ was the only person who could have gotten close enough to the drug dealers to shoot them at close range, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you didn’t know that the shots that killed those three men were fired at close range, did you?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“I’ll rephrase it. Mr. Kordell was arrested for carrying a gun at around noon on February sixteenth. He was brought to your station, and almost immediately thereafter, you interrogated him until the morning of the seventeenth. When did you see the bodies of the dead drug dealers?”

“Couple days after,” said Brand.

“Couple of days after you interrogated Mr. Kordell?”

“That’s right.”

“So, just to make sure I understand: When you saw their bodies, they were in the morgue, isn’t that right?”

Brand looked confused. Like he was double-thinking what he’d said, trying to follow her, maybe realizing his mistake. “Right.”

“And so, to be clear, your testimony a few moments ago was untrue, wasn’t it? You only saw the bodies several days after you’d extracted a confession from Mr. Kordell, correct?”

“I got mixed up about the times, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t know how close or how far away the shooter was to the victims when you interrogated Mr. Kordell, right?”

“I said, I got my timeline wrong.”

Yuki pushed on.

“And so, as I understand it, you were interrogating a ‘dummy’ without representation and you decided to make a case against him without a witness, without forensic evidence, without even a theory—you came up with that later. But first, you sweated this poor kid until you finally got a confession, which is all you wanted, isn’t that right, Inspector Brand?”

“That’s your way of putting it,” said Brand.

“Yes, it is,” said Yuki. “I have no other questions, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Parisi?” the judge asked. “Do you want to cross-examine this witness?”

Parisi spoke from his seat behind the defense table. He looked unfazed, like a man with all the right answers.

“Inspector Brand, did you have friendships with or loyalty to the drug dealers who were killed?”

“What? No.”

“Did you have anything against Mr. Kordell?”

“No. Not at all.”

“So, regarding your vigorous interrogation of Mr. Kordell: That’s what you do when you have a primary suspect, isn’t that right?”

“Correct.”

“Do you stand by the confession you obtained from this suspect?”

“Absolutely,” said Brand. “He said he did it. We saw him say it. We believed him.”

Parisi said, “Thank you, Inspector Brand. I have nothing else for this witness.”

“If Ms. Castellano has no further questions,” said the judge, “the witness may stand down.”