Solomon versus Lord

Forty-six
LEGAL FICTION

Dr. Wu-Chi Yang's monotone could put the jurors to sleep, Steve thought.

No problem. He'd awaken them later on cross-examination.

Steve was sitting at the defense table, half listening to the ME describe in bloody detail his autopsy of Charles Barksdale. At the same time, Steve was thinking about Bobby's case. Last night, Victoria had been brilliant, melting down Kranchick. But already this morning Zinkavich had launched a counterattack.

On his way into court, Steve had been served with new papers. No longer was the state attempting to place Bobby at Rockland. Now Zinkavich argued that Bobby should be placed in a foster home. The state's written motion listed three foster families with “proven track records in caring for autistic children.” Alternatively-lawyers just love alternatives-there was a residential program at Jackson Memorial Hospital that specialized in behavioral therapy. Zinkavich's motion stopped just short of arguing that Bobby would be better off with a roving band of gypsies than living in the bachelor bungalow on Kumquat Avenue.

The son-of-a-bitch wasn't going to roll over and play dead.

When they resumed the guardianship trial tonight, Steve figured he absolutely, positively needed three things to happen.

He had to impress Judge Rolle with his parenting abilities.

Bobby had to stay calm. No freaking out.

Janice had to help him, not Zinkavich.

Steve trusted himself and trusted Bobby. But his sister? He'd paid her the money but still didn't know what she'd do. Not only that, the guilt was getting to him. He tried to rationalize it.

Hey, I'm just paying her to tell the truth.

But that's not the way a Grand Jury would look at it. Or Victoria. He could never tell her.

On the witness stand, Dr. Yang was turning a horrific postmortem procedure into a vanilla milk shake of a lecture. “I made the usual incisions, removed the usual organs,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Ray Pincher was taking the ME through the basics, establishing cause of death. In the gallery, a dozen reporters jotted notes. Front row center, Marvin the Maven worked a crossword puzzle, Teresa Torano surreptitiously fondling his leg beneath the newspaper. Next to them, Cadillac Johnson dozed, sucking at his dentures. At her stenograph machine, Sofia Hernandez clicked away with her aquamarine-lacquered nails.

“I eviscerated and removed the brain, then performed neck dissection.” Dr. Yang wore a snazzy blue blazer, a white shirt, and a lemon-yellow paisley bow tie. An old hand on the hot seat, he maintained eye contact with the jury, but there wasn't much he could do about his flat, droning voice.

Victoria, wearing her poker face, took notes. Next to her, Katrina looked pained as the medical examiner described slicing through various organs of her late husband's body. She was following instructions. Steve had told her to sniffle when testimony turned to viscous fluids and gooey tissues. Today she wore basic black. Well, maybe not that basic, a matching flannel jacket and skirt with leather trim and oversize black metal zippers.

On the bench was Judge Hiram Thornberry, a pale, quiet, studious man nearing sixty, with graying hair and a trim mustache. He leaned forward his chair, and appeared to be reading a court file. Steve knew better.

He had appeared before Thornberry a few times but could never quite figure him out. The judge was bright enough but never seemed to be paying complete attention. About a year earlier, Steve solved the puzzle by turning to Sofia, who ratted out her boss. Judge Thornberry was appointed to the Circuit bench while still in his thirties, and now, twenty-five years later, was in the deep doldrums. Ennui to the nth degree. He'd find any excuse to adjourn early and go play golf. Or he'd just retire to chambers with a book and a bottle of brandy. Thoroughly bored with real trials, the judge began to care more about fictional ones. Each day, his judicial assistant would tuck into the court file His Honor's preferred reading. Not the slip opinions of the Third District Court of Appeal. More like Erle Stanley Gardner, John Grisham, or Scott Turow. Or Mystery Scene Magazine. Anything to alleviate the tedium of State of Florida versus X, Y, or Z. Once he learned this, Steve always brushed up on courtroom fiction before trying a case in front of Thornberry.

“I removed and weighed the lungs, then dissected the esophagus off the tracheal bifurcation,” Dr. Yang said.

Easy for him to say, Steve thought.

Dr. Yang recounted removing the thyroid gland and the parathyroids, which he said had an attractive cafe au lait color, reminding Steve that he had missed his second cup of coffee this morning. The ME went on a while about the bruises on the skin of the neck and the rupture of blood vessels on the face, just as he had at the bail hearing. Then there were the bruises on the dissected muscles over the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone, and small hemorrhages near the cricoid cartilage. He described the leather strap wrapped around Barksdale's neck and other “sexual paraphernalia” in the bedroom. Then he concluded that the cause of death was strangulation by ligature.

Ray Pincher gushed his thank-yous, as if testifying were equivalent to donating a kidney, instead of part of the ME's job. Then Pincher sat down, and Dr. Yang turned his placid face toward Steve Solomon, who got to his feet, buttoned his suit coat, and said, “Let's head a little south of the neck, Doctor.”

“South?”

“The stomach.”

Dr. Yang didn't flinch, and his hands didn't flutter. Well, what could you expect? The guy had spent fifteen years fending off cagey practitioners of the art of obfuscation.

“Did you examine the stomach?” Steve asked, moving closer to the witness.

“Yes, of course, it's all in here.” Dr. Yang gestured with a copy of his report. “Fluids extracted and tested.”

“So you must have opened the stomach?”

Dr. Yang fiddled with his bow tie. It wasn't a large gesture. He wasn't sweating or fidgeting or rolling lacrosse balls in his hand. Still, it meant something to Steve, who had questioned the man a dozen times over the years. This was the first nervous tic he'd ever seen from him.

I'm going to nail you.

“Opened the stomach, sure,” Dr. Yang said.

“Tell us about it.”

Pincher got to his feet. “Objection. Irrelevant.”

“How's that?” Appearing irritated, Judge Thornberry tossed down his file. A book flew out, slid across his desk, and was headed for the floor when Steve speared it with one hand like a first baseman grabbing a sinking line drive. He handed the book back to the judge before the jurors could see the title, The Case of the Sulky Girl.

“One of my favorite Perry Masons,” Steve whispered to the judge.

The judge nodded in agreement but seemed a bit flustered. “State your grounds, Mr. Burger.”

“Mr. Burger?” Pincher said.

“Excuse me. Mr. Pincher.”

“Charles Barksdale wasn't shot in the stomach,” Pincher said. “Charles Barksdale wasn't knifed in the stomach. Charles Barksdale didn't ingest poison. Mr. Solomon is off on a fishing expedition.”

“Overruled. I'll allow it.”

“I followed the usual routine,” Dr. Yang said. “After removing the greater omentum, I cut along the greater curvature of the stomach.”

“Take a peek inside?”

“Of course.”

“What'd you find?”

“Sushi.”

Fishing expedition, indeed, Steve thought. “Sushi?”

“Baby tuna. Crab roll. Ponzu sauce. Last meal about three hours before death, based on decomposition.”

“See anything unusual? And I'm not talking about sea urchin.”

Dr. Yang's eyes flicked toward Pincher. Help! Pincher stayed in his chair, his jaw muscles clenching.

“Everything's in my report,” Dr. Yang said.

“Oh, come now, Doctor. Everything's not in your report.” Taking a stab at it, just like the ME with his scalpel.

“Objection!” Pincher yelped.

“Again?” The judge sighed and put down his book.

“The question's repetitive,” Pincher said. “Asked and answered. Argumentative. And improper predicate.”

“That all?” Judge Thornberry said.

Judges were like basketball referees, Steve thought. Some were whistle-blowers, in-your-face activists who jumped on every infraction, no matter how minor. Others just let you play, establish your own limits, create your own rhythms of the game. Judge Thornberry let you play, especially if he was otherwise engaged.

“Improper form, too,” Pincher said.

“Overruled,” the judge said.

“Everything's in the report,” Dr. Yang repeated.

Steve walked to the clerk's table. He picked up the document labeled State Exhibit 3. “This is your report, correct, Dr. Wang?” He waved it like a checkered flag at a NASCAR race.

“My final report, correct.”

“Psst.” Victoria was trying to get his attention. Steve walked back to the defense table. Victoria's face was flushed, a lioness capturing the scent of the kill. He leaned close enough to feel her breath as she whispered: “Ask him if there's a first draft.”

“I'm going to,” he whispered back.

“Ask him what was changed between the first and final drafts.”

“Gonna do that, too.”

“So go. Do it.”

“Your Honor, I must protest this starting and stopping of the inquiry,” Pincher said. “If the defense has no further questions, the witness should be excused.”

“Not so fast,” Steve said, turning back to Dr. Yang.

Flipping a page of his novel, the judge grunted at them without looking up. Steve interpreted the sound as: Keep going, Counselor. So he moved closer to the witness.

“Dr. Yang, would you reach into your briefcase and give us the first draft of your autopsy report?” Steve said.

“No can do.”

“No?”

“We destroy the first drafts when the final drafts are printed out. That way we don't mix them up.”

“But surely you have a copy stored in your computer's memory?”

Dr. Yang shook his head. “We overwrite first drafts to keep lawyers like you from picking them apart.”

“Why do a second draft at all?”

“Mostly to correct typos. The transcribers misspell medical names, get numbers wrong.”

“Who reviewed the first draft of Dr. Barksdale's autopsy?”

“I did.”

“Did you show the draft to Mr. Pincher?”

Again, a hand flew to the bow tie, fiddled with the knot. “I think I may have shown the State Attorney. Yes, I believe I did.”

“Did Mr. Pincher ask you to change anything?”

“Objection!” Pincher sang out.

“Now what?” Judge Thornberry looked up this time.

“I resent the implication of Mr. Solomon's question,” Pincher said.

“This is cross-examination,” Steve said. “If the State Attorney didn't resent the implication, I'd be guilty of malpractice.”

“Overruled,” the judge said.

“I can't recall,” Dr. Yang said.

“You can't recall if the State Attorney asked you to change anything in your report?”

“I perform many autopsies,” Dr. Yang said. “I talked to Mr. Pincher many times. It's hard to remember everything.”

“Of course, there's one way to find out,” Steve said with a slight smile. He waited a moment, letting the silence fill the courtroom. “You mentioned a transcriber. You dictated your autopsy report into a tape recorder, didn't you, Dr. Yang?”

The ME's eyes shot to Pincher, then back to Steve. The doc hadn't looked at the jury since Steve stood up. After a long moment, his head bobbed up and down.

“You have to speak audibly so Ms. Hernandez here can take it all down,” Steve said, and Sofia gave him a seductive little smile. At the defense table, Victoria rolled her eyes.

“Yes. We make tape recordings.”

“And you keep those tapes in a safe in the Records Division of the morgue, don't you?”

“Yes.”

Steve turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I request a recess.”

The judge seemed startled. “Didn't we already have lunch?”

“Yes, sir, but the state should be made to produce the original tape recording of the autopsy so we can check it against the so-called final report.”

“We object,” Pincher said. “That tape's confidential.”

Victoria, legal eagle, was on her feet. “To the contrary, Your Honor. The tape's covered by Public Records Law.”

“This is an untimely request,” Pincher said. “Discovery deadlines have passed.”

“It's the state's duty to provide all exculpatory evidence, under Brady v. Maryland, up to and through the trial,” Victoria shot back.

“You're suggesting the tape has exculpatory evidence?” the judge asked. Paying attention now.

“I'm suggesting the State Attorney is guilty of obstruction of justice,” Victoria said, and a ripple of murmurs went through the gallery.

“That's outrageous!” Pincher thundered. “I ask that Counsel be admonished.”

Holy shit, Steve thought. Wasn't she the one who said to attack with a rapier, not a sledgehammer?

With a stern look, the judge rapped his gavel and said: “Counsel, in my chambers, now!”