Let Darkness Come (24 page)

She gathers her notes and steps out from behind the defense table. “Mr. Tomassi, you've testified that you and your brother were close. How often did you see each other after he married Erin?”

Jason shrugs. “Several times a week. If Jeff didn't have an event to attend, we ate dinner with our father every Friday night. And we played racquetball together every Wednesday morning if Jeff was in town.”

“That sounds like fun. Did you, by chance, make time for lunch together, as well? Or did Jeffrey play a quick game, shower, and run off to work?”

Jason's eyes spark with indignation. “He took time. He'd shower at the gym and then we'd spend the rest of the morning together.”

“That's nice. So you loved your brother, correct?”

Jason may have adored his brother, but the look he gives Briley is far from loving. “Yes.”

“Mr. Tomassi, are you a licensed psychologist?”

“No.”

“Are you a therapist? A psychiatrist? Did you, perhaps, take more than a basic psychology course in college?”

The witness shakes his head.

“We need a verbal answer, sir.”

“No.”

“Do you ever talk to yourself?”

Jason looks out at someone in the gallery, then turns his head. “Well…sure.”

“Really? Don't you think that's a little
crazy?
”

He forces a laugh. “I don't do it all the time.”

“Speaking in a special twin language—isn't that just a little
odd?
A few bricks short of a load, to use your own metaphor?”

“Objection.” Bystrowski stands, his eyes hot. “Counsel is badgering the witness.”

“I'll withdraw the question, Your Honor.” Briley glances over her shoulder and searches for Antonio Tomassi. There he is, red-faced and determined, right behind the prosecutor's table. She smoothes her face into pleasant lines and walks closer to the witness stand. “Mr. Tomassi, on the occasions when you saw Erin and Jeffrey argue—or, as you testified, you saw Erin go into a
rage
—what did she say? And may I remind you that you are under oath?”

Jason blinks. “I can't remember every word.”

“Surely you can give us the gist of the conversation.”

He shakes his head. “I don't recall.”

“Perhaps your memory is more attuned to the visual. When you saw Erin raging, did she storm about? Did she get physical with your brother? Or did she threaten him?”

Jason shifts in the hard oak chair. “She got angry, that's all.”

“Did she pace back and forth? Throw things? Curse?”

Jason gives Briley a blank look, but his eye twitches. The man must suspect that he's crossed the line into perjury…or he's thinking about the last time he stood this close to her.

A sudden chill climbs the ladder of her spine as she peers into his eyes. “Not remembering much about your sister-in-law, are you? Then let's talk about your late brother. What did Jeffrey do when
he
became angry? Did he hit Erin?”

Jason manages a theatrical grimace. “I've never seen him hit her.”

“No? Then surely you've seen the bruises. Mrs. Walker testified that she occasionally saw bruises on Erin's body. Did you ever see bruises on your sister-in-law?”

“I did not.”

“That's right, she took pains to keep them covered. Did Jeffrey do the same thing?”

“What?”

“Did your brother ever experience bruises from these alleged
rages
of Erin's?”

He shakes his head. “How should I know?”

“Indeed, how could you? You played racquetball with him every Wednesday morning. You both showered at the gym. And you two were close, so close you even spoke in your own special language, right?” Briley pauses to let the obvious inconsistencies sink into the jurors' minds. “Let's be honest, Mr. Tomassi. Erin never hit Jeffrey, did she? She knew better. She was afraid to argue with him. She never resisted your brother, because she was terrified that resistance would only increase his brutality.”

“Objection!” Bystrowski stands, one corner of his mouth twisting in a derisive expression. “Counsel is testifying, not asking questions.”

Trask nods. “Sustained.”

The thin line of Jason's mouth clamps tight and his throat bobs as he swallows. “My brother never brutalized his wife.”

“How do you know? Did he confess this in your secret language?”

“Your Honor!” The scrape of Bystrowski's chair cuts into the dialogue. “She's badgering the witness and opening the door to hearsay.”

“I'll withdraw the question.” Breathing hard, Briley moves toward the defense table and struggles to maintain her momentum. This man is a pitiless liar, maybe a brute, and she needs to thoroughly discredit him. The jury shouldn't—can't—be allowed to believe a word of his testimony.

“Mr. Tomassi—” she turns toward the witness box “—are you married?”

Apparently relieved by the change in topic, Jason tosses a grin at the jury. “Not yet.”

Briley refuses to smile. “Do you believe marriage is
the
most important human relationship between two people?”

He hesitates. “Yeah. Yes.”

“Do you believe a husband and wife ought to be loyal to each other above all other relationships?”

“Sure.”

“Should a husband and wife defend each other, cling only to each other, and honor each other in all things?”

Tomassi's forehead crinkles. “I feel like I'm in church.”

“That's not an answer, sir.”

“Yeah, okay. I do.”

“Then does a man who insists on valuing his political career above his relationship with his wife violate a sacred trust valued by millions of people?”

For an instant, she almost feels sorry for Jason Tomassi. Apparently he has never given marriage a great deal of thought, but the jurors certainly have. Voir dire revealed that eight of the twelve are married, and three of them have been married more than fifty years.

When an audible murmur of disapproval rises from the jury box, Jason hears it. “My brother,” he says, glaring at Briley from beneath lowered brows, “didn't deserve to die without even a chance to fight back. He would never have taken the cowardly way out, and only a coward would kill him while he was asleep—”

“The defense has no further questions for this witness,” Briley says, turning back to the defense table. “Thank you, Mr. Tomassi.”

D
uring the lunch recess, Briley, Kate, and William huddle in the courtroom to compare notes. Erin sits at the end of the counsel table while a deputy stands at the door. The scent of coffee hangs in the air, mingling with the peppery scents of Chinese food. Briley watches William, noticing that he has no trouble managing his chopsticks with one hand while he holds a folded newspaper in the other.

“Nothing in the news about your assault.” He tosses the paper aside. “That's good, at least.”

“You're pretty good with those chopsticks,” she quips, slipping her feet out of the pumps that have begun to restrict the circulation to her toes. “You must eat a lot of Chinese.”

He shrugs. “Born just outside San Francisco's Chinatown. I learned how to eat with sticks at an early age.”

“Well?” Kate shoots Briley a questioning look over the top of her latte. “Are you going to put our client on the stand?”

Briley glances at Erin, who hasn't said more than five or six words since Judge Trask dismissed the court. She might be in pain from the beating she took last night, or perhaps Jason Tomassi's testimony upset her. Briley would like to know what she's feeling, but right now she needs to focus on the trial.

“What do you think, Coach?” William lowers his voice. “Before we dismiss today, you're going to have to switch to offense. So what's our game plan?”

Briley screws up her face. “I hate sports analogies.”

“Sorry.” William lifts both hands in an apologetic gesture. “But we need to pin this down. Bystrowski's winding up.”

“I know.” Briley pulls out her trial notebook, in which she has outlined three possible approaches. “The problem isn't that I don't have a plan—the problem is that I have too many. And Erin isn't happy about any of them.”

William and Kate both turn to look at the client, who is munching on an egg roll and staring at nothing.

Briley sighs. A more experienced attorney might know exactly what to do in this situation, but despite hours of preparation, she isn't sure her client can handle the pressure of a hostile cross-examination. The woman is fragile, especially now, and tears on the stand might lead the jury to think she's putting on a show for their benefit. On the other hand, if she cries in the right way and at the right moment, a few tears might convince them she is a grieving widow who has no idea how her husband died.

Only one thing is certain: if Briley puts Erin on the stand, she will not ask about Lisa Marie. If the jury thinks she's unbalanced enough to believe in an invisible friend, they'll have no trouble believing she's unstable enough to kill an abusive husband.

“Some of the firm's attorneys,” William offers, “believe the defendant should testify no matter what, because no juror is going to acquit unless they hear the defendant say ‘I didn't do it.' Others aren't willing to take the chance. I mean, what if the client gets up there and loses his cool?” A blush colors his cheeks as he looks over at Erin. “Not that
you
would do that.”

Erin manages a weak smile, then stabs a plastic fork into a carton of kung pao. “I've never had any cool to lose.”

“Erin's done real well in rehearsal.” Briley sends her client a reassuring smile, then picks up a spare quarter and rubs her thumbnail over the serrated edge. “I could almost flip for it,” she says. “Heads, she testifies. Tails, she doesn't.”

“I vote for putting her on the stand.” Kate crosses her arms. “First of all, you'll be able to address the injuries to
her face. No one's explained them, and the jurors want to know what happened. I can see questions in their eyes.”

Briley makes a note on her legal pad. “That's a good point.”

“Second,” Kate continues, “Erin's a calm and reasonable person. When the jury sees how soft-spoken she is, they're bound to realize the brother-in-law was lying through his teeth when he said she picked fights with Jeffrey.”

“Jason's testimony is forcing our hand,” Briley admits. “But I don't think any of the jurors believed him.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that.” William waves a chunk of fortune cookie for emphasis. “Think about it—having a twin testify is almost like having the victim call for justice from the grave. I think the jury is going to give Jason's testimony a great deal of weight.”

“But Jason is nothing like Jeffrey,” Briley protests. “Jason may look like his brother, but he doesn't have the same appeal. He doesn't have Jeffrey's charisma.”

Kate nods. “I have to agree with William. Jason may have fabricated his story, but he held those jurors in the palm of his hand. And in case you haven't noticed, the Tomassi men draw a lot of favorable attention just by breathing. Jason may be a liar, but he's also an Adonis.”

“Even the old man is good-looking,” William admits. “They've all got that Italian-machismo thing going for them.”

The trio falls silent and eats, the silence broken only by the tick and buzz of fluorescent bulbs. Briley is wondering if any of the others have considered the possibility that Jason might be the man who assaulted her, when William unfolds the fortune from his cookie and peers at the tiny type: “The soul that gives is the soul that lives.”

Kate makes a face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Fortunes aren't supposed to be interpreted. You're supposed to accept them in all their profundity.” William shifts his gaze to Briley. “It's almost time. So…are you still going with parasomnia? Or are we going to try to pin this one on whoever killed JonBenet?”

Not wanting to unnerve her client, Briley gives William a warning glance, but Erin is focused on eating, her fork dipping into the cardboard carton as if she hasn't had a decent meal in weeks.

Briley props her chin on her hand. If only the stakes weren't so high. In her previous cases, a mistake in judgment might result in a sentence of a few extra months or years. In this case, Erin could pay for Briley's mistakes with her life.

“I'm considering,” she says, keeping her voice low, “the cockroach defense.”

Kate gives her a skeptical look. “What's that?”

“It's used when you have no clear option, so you settle for crawling all over the other side.”

William snorts. Briley glances at her client, afraid she'll see a stricken look on Erin's face, but apparently the woman isn't following the conversation.

“Are you serious?” Kate asks.

Briley shrugs. “Halfway. If I throw up every defense I can think of, something might stick.”

“Or it'll all land at your feet with a big splat,” William says. “Since that's the most likely scenario, I think you should stick with diminished capacity.”

“Based on…?”

“The sleeping pills,” he answers. “That's a viable defense. Precedents have been set, defendants have been acquitted.”

“Maybe.” Briley taps the end of her pen against the table. “I just keep thinking about Lisa Marie and wondering whether Erin would be better off spending a few years in prison or an indefinite period in a mental hospital. But some of those places can be worse than jail.”

“Do you think—” Kate glances at Erin “—the Tomassis know about the invisible friend?”

Briley shakes her head. “Jason would have mentioned Lisa Marie if he knew. That testimony would have bought our client a one-way ticket to a hospital for the criminally insane.”

“Unless the family doesn't
want
her to be mentally ill.”
William cracks open another fortune cookie. “After all, the mentally ill can be cured, and cured patients are eventually released from the hospital. Something tells me the Tomassis want Erin to suffer for more than a few years.”

Briley closes her eyes, not wanting to admit that William is most likely right. “Mental illness,” she says, “is not an acceptable defense. Except for Erin's attachment to an invisible friend, she is as sane as we are.”

Kate nods, then speaks in a barely audible whisper. “But if that attachment led to murder, shouldn't she be convicted and sent away for treatment? Have you ever thought about what might happen if next year Lisa Marie kills a neighbor? Or a child?”

Panic wells in Briley's throat as she stares at Kate. “Not until now.”

“Relax, you're forgetting about the shrink.” William offers Briley a bit of the broken cookie. “She tested your client and found her completely harmless, remember? You can have her counter Jason's testimony about Erin being unstable. The doc will say she's merely imaginative.”

Relief washes over Briley as she waves the cookie away. William is right; there's no cause for worry. Her client is neither insane nor guilty, and Briley needs to be steadier in her resolve. If she wants the jury to believe in Erin's innocence, she must believe in it, too.

“I plan to use Dr. Lu,” she says, “and I'm going to let her address all the issues we've discussed, including Erin's so-called delusion. The only thing that concerns me is the possibility that Bystrowski will go on a fishing expedition during cross-examination. I don't want the jury to hear that Erin thinks her invisible friend committed the murder.”

She looks up, seeking William's and Kate's approval, and finds it in their eyes.

Kate points to the quarter in Briley's hand. “You gonna flip that thing or not?”

Briley tosses the coin into the air, catches it, and turns it
between her palms. Then she lifts her right hand, but doesn't look at the quarter. “It's heads.” She meets Kate's wry gaze. “We're putting Erin on the stand.”

William strokes his mustache. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“You bet. In fact, I'm going to call her first. Might as well lay our cards on the table and go for broke.”

William's uncertain look morphs into a horrified expression of disapproval. “But what if you lose?”

Briley leans closer. “Then I hope Erin gets a far better lawyer to handle her appeal.”

 

After the lunch recess, the prosecution officially rests its case.

When the judge looks toward the defense table, Briley stands. “Your Honor,” she says, bracing herself on the desk, “the defense would like to request a directed verdict for acquittal. We contend that the prosecution has failed to present sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the crime with which she has been charged.”

The request is routine, and she doesn't expect a favorable answer. So she's not surprised when Judge Trask leans forward and gives her a smile that is ten percent politeness and ninety percent challenge. “The defense's motion for a directed verdict is denied. Counselor, call your first witness.”

Briley swallows hard. “The defense calls Erin Tomassi to the stand.”

Bystrowski and his team sit motionless, frozen in a tableau of astonishment, as the court clerk repeats the name and stands to administer the oath. Erin walks forward with stiff dignity and shivers as she maneuvers around Briley. Her heels clunk against the wooden platform beneath the witness chair. But when the clerk asks if she swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, her response is loud and clear: “I do.”

Briley glances at her notes. If all goes well, she will help Erin present her story without tears or histrionics or any mention of Lisa Marie.

When Erin appears comfortable in the simple oak chair, Briley steps behind the lectern and looks directly at her client. “Mrs. Tomassi, do you understand the nature of the charges you are facing here today?”

Erin nods, her face somber. “I do. I've been accused of killing my husband, Jeffrey.”

“Did you? Did you take a syringe and inject your husband with an overdose of insulin?”

“No.” Erin's voice wavers as she looks at the jury. “As God is my witness, I didn't. I would never hurt anyone if I could help it.”

Briley steps to the side of the lectern, relaxing her posture and her approach. “Thank you, Erin. Let's go back and review some of your personal history. Have you ever been in trouble with the law?”

Erin blushes. “Not until this.”

“Not even a parking ticket?”

“No.”

“No period of teenage rebellion?”

She lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I had no one to rebel against. My father died when I was young, and my mother didn't seem to care what I did.”

“Why didn't your mother care?”

Erin lowers her gaze. “She drank a lot.”

“Growing up, did you have siblings? Someone to keep you company?”

“I have a brother, Roger. But social services took him away before I started school.”

“Why did they take him?”

“He has Down syndrome. Apparently my mother wasn't able to properly care for him.”

“Does he live with your mother now?”