Order in the Court (10 page)

The officer shook his head lamely. “No, ma’am. Nothing usable for a comparison, anyway. The places where the shooter might have touched are all high-traffic areas—doorknobs, mostly. We tried but got nothing but smudges from any surface he might have come into contact with.”

“What about DNA? Is there any DNA evidence linking the defendant to the crime scene—a drop of blood or a stray hair, perhaps?”

The officer shook his head again. “No, ma’am. Likewise, with public spaces like this, it’s hard to isolate individual contributions—”

“Really, not even a
hair
?”

“Not that we could find, and we went over the scene for hours with a fine-tooth comb.” The officer scratched the back of his neck nervously. “The shooter wasn’t there for very long. It was an in-and-out job, real quick and efficient, so he didn’t leave much trace evidence behind, except the footprints.”

“Yes, the footprints. What kind of shoe were they left by?”

“They were made by a men’s size eleven combat or steel-toed work boot,” the officer relayed, happy to have been given a question he could answer finally.

“Were such a pair of boots found in my client’s home after his arrest?” Kovač continued, her hands behind her back and folded neatly into each other.

“They were not. But he had plenty of time to dispose of them before he was arrested!”

“Was there any evidence collected from my client’s home that linked him to the crime?” Kovač pressed on, ignoring the officer’s last statement completely.

“No.”

“
No
?” Kovač cast a knowing look toward the jury. “Was there any evidence at
all
connecting him to the crime scene?”

The officer paused, clearly wracking his brain. Then he said, “The baseball cap?”

“Ah yes,” Kovač said, strolling casually around the floor and dropping her hand onto the hat in question, which was still on the desk. “This hat.” She picked it up. “This hat that was mass-produced, easily purchasable, and owned by one of the victims as well as any number of other Cincinnati Reds fans in town, correct?”

“I suppose,” the officer said, looking much like a deflated balloon. I felt sorry for the guy, knowing what it was like to be on the stand.

“Was there any evidence found on the hat confirming that it was indeed the same one seen by Ms. Nguyen on the morning in question?” Kovač asked sweetly. “Any blood spatter under the brim, perhaps?”

“No,” the officer said. “There wasn’t any blood evidence on the hat. DNA analysis of the sweat on the brim showed Adams as the sole wearer, though.” He looked proud of himself for his answer, and I immediately felt bad for him. He was going to get torn to shreds.

“It
was
his hat,” Kovač laughed. “That’s hardly cause for alarm.” She turned to the jury, and though I couldn’t see her face, I was sure it conveyed “can you get a load of this guy?” I knew that face well, the face of sarcasm.

Her questions became more pointed, her words like razor blades. Had he personally fingerprinted every surface of the diner? No. Which lab processed the DNA evidence? He didn’t know. How much lead shot was collected from the scene? He couldn’t be sure, having not counted it himself. How long had he been a police officer, exactly? Two years this fall.

The officer was sweating profusely, his hairline dripping and his neck red from agitation. I wondered if he had some kind of condition that caused such an extreme reaction, or if he were simply that rattled by Kovač’s tactics. She sounded perfectly pleasant, but I could see her endgame. Convince the jury that the guy who collected the evidence is incompetent, and the evidence becomes subject to doubt. Not that there was much physical evidence, but there was some.

“I don’t feel good about this,” I whispered to my mother, whose knee immediately stopped its rhythmic bouncing. She ducked her head to look me in the eyes.

“Harry will handle it,” she said as quietly as I’ve ever heard her say anything, her lips barely moving, not wanting to draw attention to herself. “Please don’t have a panic attack right now.”

I shook my head. “I’m not,” I answered, but she’d already returned her focus to the trial, her eyes boring into the back of Kovač’s head as if she could set her hair on fire by the intensity of her gaze alone.

“I THINK
my mom might be cheating on my dad,” I said, the words all jumbled together and all in one breath. I took myself by surprise. The secret sort of exploded out of me, completely by accident, when I’d just been about to ask for Sasha’s highlighter. Abby and Sasha looked up simultaneously, meeting each other’s eyes before turning on me in one synchronized movement, like they’d practiced it beforehand.

“When you do an April Fool’s joke,” Sasha said, his face looking entirely serious, “it’s supposed to be about something we care about, not something that only affects you. Or else it has no impact, see? I don’t know your parents. I don’t care so much.”

He nodded once and then smiled, as though he’d taught me a valuable lesson, and turned back to the copy of
Elle
he had open on his lap. He was reading an article about Taylor Swift instead of finding sample test questions in his $400 psychology textbook. Abby poked at his arm without moving her gaze from my panic-stricken face.

“No, Sash, nuh-uh,” she said, “I think Corey’s being serious. I mean, her timing leaves something to be desired, but her face is all screwed up in that look of emotional constipation. Look at her face.”

Sasha looked up again, turning his head sideways like a puppy. “Oh yes, I see it now. The crinkle head.”

My hand went automatically to my forehead, as though I could manually smooth the wrinkles formed by my distress. I pressed down on the skin that was all bunched up and rubbed at it, trying to iron out the crinkles. I gave up and tried to explain.

“I just mean she talks about this other man all the time, and—”

“Cheating,” Sasha said, sounding bored but looking interested. He closed his magazine and stretched out on Abby’s bed, nearly pushing her off of it in the process.

“—she goes to see him at all hours of the day and night, and—”

“Definitely cheating,” Abby agreed, delivering a sharp kick to the inside of Sasha’s knee and resituating herself, propping her chin on both her fists.

“—she calls him by his first name a lot more often than she thinks she does. Sometimes she corrects herself, but usually she forgets.”

Sasha and Abby looked at each other and said with scary synchronicity, “
Totally
cheating.”

“But it’s just a hunch,” I finished, deflating like an old balloon. “Is it really that bad? I was hoping you guys would tell me I was overreacting.” I slumped in Abby’s desk chair, feeling terrible about the whole thing.

“You could be,” Abby said encouragingly. “I mean, it’s entirely possible that you’re reading into things and seeing clues that aren’t really there.”

“Or your mother really
is
stepping out,” Sasha said, “but it’s none of your business.”

“None of my business?” I asked incredulously, straightening my back. “If she’s cheating on my father, he has a right to know about it!”

“You don’t want to be the one to tell him,” Abby pointed out. “And besides, you don’t know for sure. If your mom is cheating, maybe their marriage is already on the rocks, and this is just going to tip it over. I can’t believe your parents are still married. My dad walked out when I was ten.”

“My parents are still married,” Sasha said wryly. “Of course, they’re both sleeping with other people, so I don’t know how much good it does them.”

I could feel the wrinkles in my forehead getting deeper the longer I thought about it. I tried to relax my face, but to no avail. I bunched when I was anxious. It couldn’t be avoided.

“My parents have always had a good marriage,” I told them earnestly. “They’ve been together for twenty years, got engaged straight out of college. They don’t even fight a lot.” I looked down at my notes and saw I’d managed to scrunch them up too without realizing it. Apparently I was an all-around scruncher. I began smoothing them out on one of my knees, trying not to rip anything.

“Everyone thinks their parents have a good marriage, but I’m not sure that’s even a thing that exists. Marriages all end in divorce or death. I don’t see why anybody does it,” Abby sighed, pushing at one of Sasha’s feet so that she could stretch out her legs. “I won’t. Not ever.”

“Don’t you want to have children? Make a family?” Sasha asked, aghast. “You have the right to marry anybody you want wherever you want, and you don’t even use it!” He huffed like he was truly offended by her refusal of marriage. “If I were straight, I would have married all the girls by now.”

“All of them, really?” Abby asked dubiously. “Even the ugly ones?” She winked at me conspiratorially. I tried to smile at her, but it felt like I might crack my face into a million pieces, my skin felt so taut with anxiety.

“Especially the ugly ones,” Sasha retorted. “They’re the ones who are freakiest in bed.”

“How would
you
know?” Abby demanded and then began to laugh loudly.

“Hold on, hold on,” Sasha said, his hands fluttering nervously around his face. “We aren’t talking about my love life. We were talking of Corey’s parents. How often do they have sex?”

He turned to me completely seriously, as if I knew the answer to that question.

“I haven’t asked,” I told him, “and I don’t plan to. It’s not something I think about.” I paused, feeling like I should be grossed out but surprisingly neutral on the whole subject. “I think my dad would pass out if I did.”

“Who’s the other man?” Abby asked eagerly, ready for a scoop. “The mailman? A coworker? Oh, oh, please tell me it’s one of our professors and she’s diddling him to get your grades up!” She seemed far too excited at the prospect.

“He’s a lawyer,” I said, looking at her meaningfully. “A lawyer who’s been doing some work for the family.”

“A divorce lawyer? That would be ironic,” Sasha jumped in, clearly not aware of the situation. Abby understood, though, and her eyes widened comically, her mouth forming a little “o” of surprise.

“Sash, will you run and get us some sodas from the vending machine?” she asked sweetly after a moment, grabbing a couple of crumpled dollar bills from her night table and passing them to him. “I think we need a caffeine boost.”

Sasha grumbled about it but clambered off Abby’s bed and out of her dorm room, leaving the two of us alone. “Please tell me it’s the prosecution and not the defense,” she said the moment the door was closed behind him. “I mean, either way it’s sketchy as hell, but at least she wouldn’t be sleeping with the enemy.”

“It’s the prosecuting attorney,” I said, and Abby let out a little breath of relief. “His name is Haywood. He’s been prepping me for trial and helping me with my testimony. At first I thought my mom wanted to see him all the time because she was worried I’d mess it up, but now she goes to see him to ‘discuss the case’”—I used finger quotes for emphasis—“all the time, and she looks happy when she comes home. Too happy to have talked about my friends’ murder all day, y’know?”

“I know I say it often, but that
really
sucks, Corey,” Abby said just as Sasha returned with three Cokes in hand.

“What does?” he asked, and Abby told him it was “girl stuff,” and he dropped the subject immediately. I asked for his highlighter after he’d gotten comfortable with his
Elle
in his lap again. Taylor Swift smiled brightly up at him from a field of daisies or something. All I could see was a lot of yellow.

“What did you get for question seven?” Abby asked, chewing on the end of her pen, and it was like nothing had happened, nothing had changed.

I SET
the table neatly, making sure the forks and knives were on the right sides of the plates and that we put out the nice ones with the floral pattern around the edge that my mother liked. I put out the matching place mats and the nice salt and pepper shakers, threw out the wilted peonies that had been on the table all month, and even swept the dining room while I waited for the oven timer to go off.

Dad came around the corner to survey the spread, nodding approvingly. “Thanks for your help, Corey,” he said, leaving the room and returning with the single pink orchid he’d picked up that afternoon and setting it down in the middle of the table.

“She’s going to love that,” I told him encouragingly, though I knew she wouldn’t make a fuss over the flower at all. It was pretty, in full bloom and potted in a square ceramic planter of neatly packed soil. She would point out how much care they needed, or complain about having to water it, but Dad always hated to buy cut flowers. Why would you kill the thing you found beautiful?

“I spent an hour choosing the right one,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead onto his sleeve, and I felt even worse. “It had to be the right shade to go with the place mats or she’d never let it live on the table.” He laughed like he’d made a joke, but I knew he was entirely serious. She could get really picky about the littlest things.

The oven timer went off, and I said, “I got it. You go change your shirt.” I hurried back into the kitchen to take the lasagna out. It smelled wonderful, but I wasn’t going to get it hot; I’d get leftovers when I got home. Dad promised he’d save me some when he put it in.

I added the finishing touches to dinner while Dad got ready, putting on that shirt Mom liked, the gray one with the subtle pinstripe that made him look sophisticated. He came back downstairs as I was stowing the oven mitts back where they came from, the bottom drawer.

“How do I look?” he asked, doing a little spin for me and smiling anxiously.

I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, though he wasn’t so much taller than me to require it, and said, “Very, very handsome.” He smiled gratefully. “Have a good anniversary dinner. If I’m going to be out later than nine, I’ll text you.”

“Have fun with Brandon,” he said. “Tell him I say hi.”