The Wrong Man

75

Friday, December third. I looked at my watch. We’d gotten a late start for court today, as Judge Nash had to handle a few matters-or, if you prefer, mercilessly berate some lawyers-before we reconvened the trial. I was hoping the delay would give Tori enough time to find Kathy Rubinkowski’s boss, Tom Rangle, and see what we could put together. For the time being, I had to be here at trial, because today was going to be the heart of the prosecution’s case and these were my witnesses.

Thus far, the prosecution had established the murder weapon, plus the victim’s possessions, were found with Tom within an hour after Kathy’s murder. They had proved the obvious, but necessary, fact that the bullet between the eyes was the cause of death. And they had published a number of grisly photos to the jury.

Today, they would present a ballistics expert to match the bullet found in Kathy Rubinkowski’s brain to the Glock 23 found in Tom’s hand. Then they would put on Detective Frank Danilo to testify that Tom Stoller confessed to murder in the interrogation room.

And that was going to be it. They had no eyewitnesses to the shooting. But they probably didn’t need any. Tom was caught with the gun and stolen items. And even if Tom took the stand, he wasn’t going to deny shooting her. He was going to say he didn’t remember.

I still had my ace in the hole, though. When the prosecution introduced evidence of Tom confessing to the murder, I would argue that he wasn’t confessing to Kathy’s murder but to the shooting in Iraq. I was going to back-door the post-traumatic stress disorder evidence. The judge had barred the defense, but I wouldn’t be raising it as a defense-I’d raise it simply as an explanation for the supposed confession.

Wendy, I thought, wouldn’t see that coming. With the PTSD defense knocked out by the judge, she probably assumed Dr. Sofian Baraniq had no basis for testifying. But the judge hadn’t specifically barred Dr. Baraniq as a witness.

It was a quarter after ten when the jury came in. Where the hell was Tori? I prayed that Tom Rangle wasn’t on vacation or something.

Wendy’s second chair, Maggie Silvers, put the ballistics expert on and got through his direct in about twenty minutes. I told Shauna to do what she could to draw this out. We had no basis for denting his testimony, but I needed time. I didn’t want the prosecution to rest today, and if they did, I didn’t want them to rest until the end of the day.

I needed the weekend. I needed at least a couple of days to put all of this together.

Shauna did what she could, but the examination was completed before eleven.

Normally we’d take a mid-morning break, but with the late start it made no sense. The judge told Wendy to call her next witness.

“The People call Detective Francis Danilo,” she said, just as Tori walked into the courtroom with another man.

Tom Rangle, I presumed.