Guilt

'Now, Mr Browne, Mr Dooher has testified that he came in and got a Coke about halfway through-'

'Your honor, please!' Jenkins shot up from her seat. 'Leading the witness.'

Thomasino was paying close attention. To Glitsky's surprise, he didn't rule right away, spending a moment mulling. Then, simply: 'Overruled.'

Farrell couldn't lose. He kept right at it. 'When did you see Mr Dooher next?'

'Again, I didn't notice the exact time. He came in for a Coke.' Jenkins slapped her hand on her table in frustration. 'Maybe after his first bucket.'

'Your honor, my God!' Jenkins – up again.

Farrell spread his palms. 'I didn't ask anything, your honor. The witness has volunteered this information.'

'It's speculation – move to strike.'

Thomasino raised a calming hand. 'Yes, it is, yes, it is.' He told the jury to disregard this last information, and Glitsky thought they could collectively do that about as easily as they could levitate on cue.

But the moment passed, and Farrell was finishing up. 'And did you see Mr Dooher at any other time during the course of this evening?'

'Sure. When he left.'

'When he'd finished hitting two buckets of golf balls?'

'Objection! Speculation.'

Thomasino sustained her again, but Farrell didn't care. He had gotten in nearly everything he wanted, and was finishing up. 'Did you see Mr Dooher when he left?'

'Yes.'

'And how was he acting then?'

'Like he usually did. Normal. He came in, we talked a couple of minutes about his game. He told me a joke.'

'He told you a joke?'

'Yeah, we talked a couple of minutes and then he asked me how you get a dog to stop humping your leg. That's how I remember I saw him when he was leaving. I was laughing.'

'You were laughing together?'

'It was a good joke.' Browne paused, looked over to the jury, gave them the punch-line. 'You give him a blow job.'

The courtroom went silent for a second, then erupted into nervous laughter. Thomasino hit his gavel a few times, order was restored, and Farrell gave Richie Browne to Amanda Jenkins for cross-examination.

'Mr Browne, I'm particularly interested in this Coke you saw Mr Dooher get in the middle of his round of hitting golf balls. In your interview with Lieutenant Glitsky regarding this night, did you mention this trip to the Coke machine?'

'I guess not. I didn't remember at the time. It came back to me later, that it was that night.'

'And do you remember it now?'

'Yes.'

'So – to be absolutely clear, Mr Browne – is it your testimony now, under oath, that Mr Dooher bought a Coke in the middle of hitting his round of golf balls that night?'

Browne squirmed. 'I think he came and got a Coke.'

'You think Mr Dooher came and got a Coke? You're not sure.'

'I'm pretty sure.'

'But not certain?'

Browne was physically reacting to the questioning, sitting back in the witness chair, arms crossed over his chest. 'No, not certain. But I think it was that night.'

'Mr Browne, you're not certain you saw the defendant come in midway through the evening and get a Coke, is that your testimony?'

Farrell took the opening. 'Asked and answered, your honor.'

Thomasino agreed with him.

It was beginning to move quickly with Farrell's defense witnesses. No sooner had Richie Browne passed out into the gallery area than Farrell called Marcela Mendoza, a forty-two-year-old former supervisor of medical technicians at St Mary's Hospital. After establishing her credentials and job duties during the twelve years she'd worked at the hospital, Farrell asked: 'Ms Mendoza, working in the blood unit of the laboratory at the hospital, did you ever experience a situation where blood that had been taken from a patient for tests got lost somehow?'

'Yes.'

'Commonly? Wait, please. Before you answer that, how many blood tests did you do?'

'Well, we did I guess six or seven hundred blood tests every week or so.'

'A hundred a day?'

'Roughly. That's about right.'

'And how often did a sample of blood get mislabeled, or misplaced, or lost, on average, in the twelve years you worked at the hospital?'

'Objection, your honor. The defendant's doctor didn't work at this hospital.'

Glitsky had the impression that Farrell had been hoping that Jenkins would say this very thing. 'Well, your honor, that's exactly the point. We intend to show that the blood could have come from any one of a number of places.'

Thomasino's brows went up and down. 'Overruled. Proceed.'

The question clearly made Ms Mendoza uncomfortable. It wasn't a piece of information the public would feel very good about. In fact, while she'd been working at the hospital, she would not have answered any questions about lost blood – both because she would not have wanted to, and because she would have been ordered not to.

But Farrell's investigator had found her in August and convinced her that her expertise in this area could save the life of an innocent man. 'I'd say we'd lose one or two a week.'

'A week!' Farrell, who of course already knew the answer, feigned shock. 'One or two a week?'

'Sometimes more, sometimes less.'

'And this lost blood, where does it go?'

Mendoza allowed herself a small smile. 'If we knew that, Mr Farrell, it wouldn't be lost now, would it?'

All agreement, Farrell stepped closer to her. 'Now in your own personal experience, Ms Mendoza, did you ever have a lab technician drop a vial of blood and not report it?'

'Yes.'

'And why was that?'

'They didn't want to get in trouble, so they said they just never got the blood to do the tests on in the first place.'

'And are you personally familiar with a case like this?'

'Yes.'

'Could you explain it a little more fully?'

'One of my people did exactly what I just described, and I didn't report it, which was why I was let go.'

This wasn't a point to press, and Farrell moved along. 'Ms Mendoza, about how many blood labs are there in the city?'

'Big labs, there's about eight or nine. Smaller labs, doctors' offices, mobile units, blood banks… there are probably hundreds, I don't know exactly.'

'Certainly more than fifty?'

'Yes.'

'And in your experience, was there ever a problem with lost blood at any of these facilities? In transit, to and from doctors' offices, something like that?'

Ms Mendoza didn't like it, but she knew what she knew.'Most of the blood, there's never a problem,' she said.

'I realize that. But sometimes…?'

'Of course. Sure.'

The blood testimony continued to build relentlessly, doubly damning, Glitsky thought, because there really wasn't much Amanda Jenkins could do on cross-examination. Doctors and technicians from County General, St Luke's, the Masonic Blood Bank and several other locations all came to the stand and testified for ten minutes each, all essentially saying the same thing: blood got lost all the time. It was possible – maybe not probable, and perhaps difficult, but certainly possible – for a person to pick up a vial of blood and walk out of a facility with it.

The worst moment from Glitsky's perspective came at the very end of the day when Farrell called a Sergeant Eames from Park station. It was always unnerving when the defense called a law-enforcement person to testify. For the past six years, Eames had worked on cases involving voodoo, santeria, and Satanic worship, all of which used blood from a variety of sources in their rituals. Eames was of the opinion that any cop in the city who wanted to get his hands on samples of human blood would have to look no further than the evidence locker of any district station on a typical Saturday night.

CHAPTER FOURTY ONE