And I had to pee. Again.
I had my chance when we arrived at the courthouse. We guards escorted the prisoners to the ladies’ room, where one at a time we all used the facilities. While Maddy’s guard took her turn, I whispered to Conrad the final details of our arrangement.
Then we all trooped back into the hallway and plunked down on the long wooden bench to await our hearings.
Willa hadn’t yet shown up with the contract amendment. We’d have to deal with that after court.
Everything hinged on that amendment.
What if Willa really had quit when Conrad was arrested? What if she called in sick this morning and hadn’t picked up her message? I bit Theresa’s lower lip until I tasted blood. I had no scythe now to pop over and check. Dante wasn’t in any shape to do so. Oh, wait. I borrowed a cell phone from Maddy’s guard, dialing Iver PR’s main number from memory. Impatiently, I clicked my way through the company directory, wishing we still had a receptionist. “Oh, hi. Willa? This is Officer Theresa Mudders calling from the courthouse. Your boss asked me to call you. Her hearing is this morning and she’s just wondering . . . You are? Great. See you soon.”
One detail taken care of.
Conrad’s lawyer, Gill Hammerhead, arrived just as Shannon was called in. We moved quietly into the courtroom, sitting where Gill indicated. It was much more crowded today, with members of the press as well as nosy people looking for free entertainment.
No sooner had we taken our seats than we were asked to rise again. The court clerk called the proceeding to order and read the charges.
Then the judge made her opening remarks.
“Allow me to remind everyone here today that this is a preliminary hearing only. The Crown prosecutor will present the witnesses he intends to call should this case go to trial. Ms. Iver, via her counsel, Gill Hammerhead, will be permitted to cross-examine these witnesses.” Judge Wilson drew off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked tired already and it was only ten. “Lastly, let me remind you that we are not here today to determine innocence or guilt, but rather to determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence to justify a trial. Are we quite clear?”
The Crown called his first witnesses, Francesca Tick, to the stand. To think I’d once considered Frannie a friend. She swore on the Bible to tell the truth and reiterated what she’d heard when she’d eavesdropped outside of Shannon’s office. The court clerk played the recording of Shannon wishing me dead over the room’s audio system. Couldn’t people hear that she was just being wistful? There was no actual intent to kill there.
But the Crown prosecutor was good. He managed to make Frannie out to be a loyal employee who had accidentally recorded her boss’s phone conversation. “After all,” he said, “If Ms. Tick had been intending to record this incriminating evidence, she would have recorded both sides of the conversation.”
It was hard to argue with his illogic.
Then it was Gill Hammerhead’s turn. The Crown might have been good, but Hammerhead was better. Appearing to be a nice, caring guy, he asked Frannie, “How, exactly, does one accidentally stand outside one’s boss’s office and hit record on their iPhone and then stand there for five minutes?”
Hammerhead revealed Frannie to be the conniving bitch she really was. I hoped that would undermine her testimony. Behind me someone whispered that Gill’s performance redefined bombastic. I wished I’d hung onto Theresa’s phone so I could have looked up the original definition.
After that, the Crown had no further questions. Frannie stepped down from the witness box, anger and frustration staining her cheeks bright red.
I studied the judge but she was a hard read, although I finally settled on bored. Maddy’s guard had told me Judge Wilson had been around awhile and all these attempts to skew the testimony were wasted on her.
In my borrowed heart, I found myself cheering for the Crown prosecutor. I wanted that bastard Conrad to pay for having stolen my life and then bashing my brains in. I had to remind myself that Conrad wasn’t the one on the stand here today, but Shannon. My best friend who’d had nothing to do with my death.
But it was hard.
I aimed an encouraging smile in what I hoped was Shannon’s direction, although of course I couldn’t see her. Dante gave me a thumbs-up from the back of the courtroom. He looked worried, though, and kept glancing at the empty space beside him. Had she faded further since I’d donned this mortal body?
Then Detective Leo took the stand. He’d been first on scene the day of my murder. “The chain of evidence” as he called it, remained unbroken. That meant the stapler had been in police possession since it had been secured by hospital security at the crime scene. Oh, look at moi. Have I watched too much CSI or what?
The Crown picked up a big baggie, dangling it in the witness’s face. “To the best of your knowledge, Detective Leo, is this stapler the murder weapon with which poor Kirsty d’Arc, having just awoken from a yearlong coma, was savagely beaten to death?”
Hammerhead leapt to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. My esteemed colleague is using pejorative descriptions and leading the witness.”
“Sustained. If there were a jury involved, I’d direct them to ignore the Crown’s offensive adjectives, but since this is only the preliminary hearing, I’ll just direct myself. Is that okay?” She glared at Hammerhead, absolutely not asking for his approval.
He blushed a nice dark red that matched my bruises, mumbling, “Thank you, Your Honor.”
“If you could just answer the question, Detective.”
“It is, but—”
“And on this stapler, laid down in layers, were found the fingerprints of a number of people, were there not?”
“Yes, but—”
“And whose were the final set of fingerprints on this vicious—I apologize, Your Honor. On this . . .” He paused to let everyone fill in the blank with their own pejorative adjective. “Stapler.”
Somebody snickered in the back of the room. I whipped my head around, but several of the observers appeared to be barely keeping it together. What was funny about a stapler being used to bash in my brains?
My head began to throb again.
I should have tossed that thing out the window the day it reared up and slashed my hand instead of kidding myself that it had been a hangover-induced hallucination. No doubt Conrad would just have grabbed a handy IV pole to use to club me to death instead. Or worse, a bedpan! Then everyone would be laughing.
“The final set of fingerprints on the stapler are those of Shannon Iver. But—No, don’t cut me off again. Something new was discovered this morning.”
Hammerhead leapt to his feet again. “Your Honor, we were not apprised of new evidence. We declare a mistrial.”
“Neither were we, Your Honor. For once, the Crown and defense agree. Mistrial.” The Crown had the very bad sense to actually return to his seat and begin gathering his papers like he was done for the day.
“Hold on there, Counsel. Nobody’s going anywhere. This is my courtroom and I’ll decide what’s permissible and what’s not. Since both sides were unprepared for this, I figure that makes you even, so we will proceed until such time as I declare mistrial. Which I won’t be doing, because this isn’t a trial. Do I need to remind you again that this is a preliminary hearing, which exists for the express purpose of addressing these kinds of events?” She aimed extremely punitive looks at both lawyers, then, with a kinder expression, turned back to the witness box. “Go ahead, Detective. I want to hear what you’ve got.”