“Can you tell us the angles of penetration, Dr. Washburn?” Yuki asked.
“The shots were fired upwards, from a few inches above the ground.”
“Doctor, was Sara Cabot killed instantly?”
“Yes.”
“So, you could say Sara was too dead to shoot anyone after she’d been shot?”
“Too dead, Ms. Castellano? As far as I know, there’s only dead.”
Yuki blushed. “Let me rephrase that. Given that Lieutenant Boxer was shot twice by Sara Cabot’s gun, it stands to reason that Sara Cabot fired first—because she died instantly after Lieutenant Boxer shot her.”
“Yes. Ms. Cabot died instantly when she was shot.”
“One more question,” Yuki said, sounding as if it were an afterthought. “Did you do a tox screen on Ms. Cabot’s blood?”
“Yes. A few days after the autopsy.”
“And what were your findings?”
“Sara Cabot had methamphetamine in her system.”
“She was high?”
“We don’t use high as a medical term, but yes, she had .23 milligrams of methamphetamine per liter in her blood. And in that sense, it’s high.”
“And what are the effects of methamphetamine?” Yuki asked Claire.
“Methamphetamine is a powerful central nervous system stimulant that produces a wide range of effects. The upside is a pleasurable rush, but long-term users suffer many of the downside effects, including paranoia and suicidal and homicidal thoughts.”
“How about homicidal actions?”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you, Dr. Washburn. I’m finished with this witness, Your Honor.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 89
I WAS ELATED WHEN Claire stepped down, but not for long.
I heard Mason Broyles call Dr. Robert Goldman, and when the brown-haired, mustachioed man in a light blue suit had been sworn in, he began to testify about the terrible injuries Sam had received at the ugly end of my gun.
Using a chart similar to the one Claire had used, Dr. Goldman pointed out that my first bullet had gone through Sam’s abdominal cavity, lodging in his thoracic vertebra number eight, where it still remained.
“That bullet paralyzed Sam from the waist down,” said the doctor, patting his mustache. “The second bullet entered at the base of his neck, passing through cervical vertebra number three, paralyzing everything below his neck.”
“Doctor,” Broyles asked. “Will Sam Cabot ever walk again?”
“No.”
“Will he ever be able to have sex?”
“No.”
“Will he ever be able to breathe on his own or have the full enjoyment of his life?”
“No.”
“He’s in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, correct?”
“That is correct.”
“Your witness,” Broyles said to Yuki as he returned to his chair.
“No questions of this witness,” said Yuki.
“Plaintiff calls Sam Cabot,” said Broyles.
I sent an anxious look to Yuki before we both turned to face the rear of the courtroom. Doors swung open, and a young female attendant entered pushing a wheelchair, a shiny chrome Jenkinson Supreme, the Cadillac of its class.
Sam Cabot looked frail and shrunken in his little-boy’s sport coat and tie, nothing like the vicious freak who’d murdered a couple of people for kicks before gunning Jacobi down. Except for the venomous look in his eyes, I wouldn’t have recognized him.
Sam turned those brown eyes on me now, and my heart raced as I felt horror, guilt, and even pity.
I dropped my gaze to the humming respiratory ventilator just below the seat of Sam’s chair. It was a heavy metal box with dials and gauges and a thin plastic air hose snaking up from the machine to where it was clipped right beside Sam’s left cheek.
A small electronically assisted voice box was positioned in front of his lips.
Sam locked his lips around his air tube. A ghastly sucking sound came from his ventilator as compressed air was pumped into his lungs. It was a sound that was repeated every three or four seconds, every time Sam Cabot needed to draw breath.
I watched as the attendant wheeled Sam up to the witness stand.
“Your Honor,” Mason Broyles said, “since we don’t know how long Sam will be asked to testify, we’d like to plug his ventilator into an electric socket to preserve the battery.”
“Of course,” said the judge.
The technician snaked a long orange cord into a wall socket and then sat down behind Andrew and Eva Cabot.
There was no place for me to look but at Sam.
His neck was stiff, and his head was braced to the back of his chair with a halo traction device strapped across his forehead. It looked like some kind of medieval torture, and I’m sure it felt that way to Sam.
The bailiff, a tall young man in a green uniform, approached Sam.
“Please raise your right hand.”
Sam Cabot cast his eyes wildly from side to side. He sucked in some air and spoke into the small green voice box. The voice that came out was an eerie and unnerving mechanical sound.
“I can’t,” Sam said.
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 90
SAM’S VOICE NO LONGER sounded completely human, but his young face and his small frail body made him seem more fragile and vulnerable than any other person in the room. The people in the gallery murmured in sympathy as the bailiff turned to Judge Achacoso.
“Judge?”
“Administer the oath, bailiff.”
“Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” said Sam Cabot.
Broyles smiled at Sam, giving the jury enough time to really hear, see, and absorb the pitiful state of Sam Cabot’s body and imagine what a hell his life had become.
“Don’t be nervous,” Broyles said to Sam. “Just tell the truth. Tell us what happened that night, Sam.”
Broyles took Sam through a set of warm-up questions, waiting as the boy closed his mouth around the air tube. His answers came in broken sentences, the length of each phrase determined by the amount of air he could hold in his lungs before drawing on the mouthpiece again.
Broyles asked Sam how old he was, where he lived, what school he went to, before he got to the meat of his interrogation.
“Sam, do you remember what happened on the night of May tenth?”
“I’ll never forget it . . . as long as I live,” Sam said, sucking air from the tube, expelling his words in bursts through the voice box. “It’s all I think of . . . and no matter how hard I try . . . I can’t get it out of my mind. . . . That’s the night she killed my sister . . . and ruined my life, too.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Yuki rose and said.
“Young man,” said the judge, “I know this is difficult, but please try to confine your answers to the questions.”
“Sam, let’s back up,” said Mason Broyles kindly. “Can you tell us the events of that night, and please take it step-by-step.”
“A lot of stuff happened,” Sam said. He sucked at the tube and continued. “But I don’t remember . . . all of it. I know we took Dad’s car . . . and we got scared. . . . We heard the sirens coming. . . . Sara didn’t have her license. Then the air bag burst. . . . All I remember . . . is seeing that woman . . . shoot Sara. . . . I don’t know why she did it.”
“That’s okay, Sam. That’s fine.”
“I saw a flash,” the boy continued, his eyes fastened on me. “And then my sister . . . she was dead.”
“Yes. We all know. Now, Sam. Do you remember when Lieutenant Boxer shot you?”
Within the small arc permitted by his restraints, Sam rolled his head from side to side. And then he started to cry. His heart-wrenching sobs were interrupted by the sucking of air and enhanced by the mechanical translation of his wails through the voice box.