Guilt

'I'm not worried about whether she thinks he did it. I'm worried about if he did it.'

'I think we have to trust her judgment on this.'

'Like with Brian? With Joe Avery?'

'Come on, Bill, don't start that. They were different.'

'But not so very different, were they? I wonder if we've failed her somehow, that she can't-' He stopped.

'It's not her. She hasn't met the right man.'

'And Mark Dooher's the right man? God help us.'

'Bill! We haven't even met him…'

'But he's on trial for killing his wife, hon! I'm sorry, they don't usually get to there unless…'

'Usually.'

He took a breath and let it out. 'Jesus. So what are we supposed to do?'

Irene draped her arm over his head. 'Stand by her, I think, don't you? Hope she finally gets happy. Hope he's found Not Guilty.'

'But that's just the law. How do you ever really believe it after all this?'

'I don't know if you do. But if he's found Not Guilty, we've got to support them. Don't you think that?'

'I don't know. I don't understand why her life changed, how it got so complicated and sad. It just breaks my heart.'

'Mine, too.' She sighed. 'Which is why we've got to be with her, Bill. If it's right, if finally this Mark Dooher can make her happy.'

But he was shaking his head. 'People don't make other people happy. People make themselves happy. That's what I'm worried about.'

She tugged at his hair gently. 'You make me happy.'

'No, you were happy when I met you, and we get along. We're lucky. Christina's got to decide that it's up to her. She's still thinking it's all centered, one way or another, around some man. And it's not.'

'It is for me,' Irene said. 'It really is. Maybe I'm not a highly evolved life form, but I believe choice of mate is relatively important in the scheme of things. And that's why I'm going to embrace them if it all works out, and do everything I can to see that it does. And you should, too.'

CHAPTER FOURTY

On Wednesday afternoon, Amanda Jenkins rested for the prosecution, having never really recovered – or established – her momentum. She had called all of her witnesses.

The maintenance man at the San Francisco Golf Club had shown the jury the cyclone fence by the end of the parking lot. It had a large hole in it.

Jenkins had trotted out Paul Thieu and the Taraval cops and the next-door neighbor, Frances Matsun, who (it turned out) had never gotten along with Mark Dooher very well, and who hadn't actually seen him screw the lightbulb from on to off at all.

On cross-examination, Farrell clarified it – Dooher had reached up, fooled with it, done something. It looked like he might have unscrewed it.

Jenkins tried not to show it, but it was clear to Glitsky that she'd been beaten down by the relentless barrages that Farrell had launched against her witnesses. She was still trying to believe that the blood alone would be enough to convict and, further, that Emil Balian had convincingly put Dooher near the scene. It was a brave front: Jenkins pretending that the jury would come back with a Guilty verdict, especially if they got to call Diane Price on rebuttal, if they could get her to paint the picture of a very different Mark Dooher. Glitsky admired her for not crumbling in public, but she was getting killed and everybody knew it.

Certainly, the newspapers and television had reached their verdict. This morning, driving to work, Glitsky had heard his name on the radio while he'd been channel-surfing, and had forced himself to listen to his friendly local conservative radio talk jock who opined that the decision to bring Mark Dooher to trial at all on such shoddy evidence was an example of affirmative action's failure in the halls of the city. Glitsky, a black, and Jenkins, a woman, had been promoted beyond their levels of competency, and let's hear from you callers out there who think we ought to put an end to this nonsense and get back to hiring and promoting on merit alone.

The current had shifted.

Nevertheless, the morning began with a set-back for the defense. As soon as Jenkins had finished her case-in-chief, Wes Farrell had filed a motion for directed verdict of acquittal, which asked the Judge to find that no reasonable juror could convict on the evidence presented by the prosecution.

This motion was routinely filed by the defense when the prosecution rested, and was almost never granted. If the Judge did rule favorably on this motion, he would dismiss the case, and Mark Dooher would be free. Thomasino opened by denying the motion, and Jenkins whispered to Glitsky, 'The blood.' He nodded, non-committal.

Farrell, having elected to give an opening statement in rebuttal to Jenkins's at the outset of the trial, stood and told Thomasino that the defense was ready to present its case and would like to start by calling the defendant, Mark Dooher.

This was a calculated gamble, but it showed the level of Farrell's confidence. The defendant had the absolute right not to testify, but a sympathetic demeanor and good story could go a long way toward humanizing a defendant, and this was to the good.

Also, after Dooher's outburst on the first day, he'd worn a mask, careful to show no emotion. Quietly paying attention to every word and nuance, he would occasionally confer with his two attorneys when some point struck him. He was interested and unbowed, though not yet a person to the jurors.

Dooher leaned over to Christina and whispered, 'Wish me luck,' then placed a fraternal hand on Farrell's shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and walked around his attorney. He approached the witness box in long strides. To all appearances, he was confident, even eager – finally – to tell his story.

Farrell came forward to the center of the courtroom and walked him through the familiar territory of the early afternoon, the hors d'oeuvre, the champagne, and so on.

'And after Sheila said she was going upstairs for a nap, what did you do then?'

Dooher looked toward the jury for a minute. He didn't want to include them too often – it would appear insincere, as though he was playing for them. But he knew it wouldn't hurt – for it was only natural to acknowledge their presence. 'I moped around the house for a while, then I decided to go to the driving range. So I went out to my car…'

'Just a minute, Mark. You went out to your car. But before that, at the back door, do you remember what you did?'

'I don't remember anything specific, no.'

'And yet we've heard Mrs Matsun testify that you stopped and did something with the electric light above the door. Do you remember doing that?'

'No. There may have been cobwebs up in the light. Sometimes they gather there. I might have cleared them away, but I don't specifically remember doing anything.' A quick look towards the jury, explaining, 'I may have.'

This, of course, had been rehearsed. Dooher wasn't denying anything that Frances Matsun had testified to. He was being reasonable, telling his own truth without attacking hers. It played, as they knew it would, very well.

'Mark, your house has an alarm system, doesn't it?'

A wry shake of the head. 'Yes, it does.'

'Did you turn it on when you left the house on this day?'

These carefully prepared questions would defuse Jenkins's contentions before she could even make them. 'No. I just walked out of the house.'

'Didn't you lock the door behind you, either?'

'No.'

'Was this unusual? Why didn't you do either of these things?'

Dooher sat back a minute, phrasing his response. 'I guess the real reason is that neither of them even occurred to me.'

'Why not?'

'Well, first, it was light out. I wasn't thinking about somebody breaking in. We'd never been broken into before.'