There is no mention of those murders in the media, and Petrone may have chosen to keep them secret. It’s okay with me.
Things leading up to this crucial court day have progressed as well as I could have hoped. Pollard is in an anteroom with Kevin, ostensibly to discuss his testimony, but really to keep him from hearing anything about the witnesses before him. Laurie is with Teri at a TV studio that we have rented, though she is not likely to want to do any interviews after she discovers what happened to her husband. Laurie feels as guilty about this part of it as I do, but there was no other way to handle it. We simply could not have her drive Bobby to the hearing.
I will need to get the witnesses that precede Pollard on and off in a hurry, to reduce any chance that he will get wind of what is going on. My first witness is George Karas, whom I need to set the scene. I have him testify as to the facts surrounding the high school all-American weekend. I submit the subsequent death certificates of the various athletes as evidence, so as to support him.
Dylan has little to do with him on cross-examination, since the facts testified to are indisputable. Additionally, Dylan has no idea where I’m going with this, so he doesn’t want to inadvertently help me. The safest and correct thing for him to do is say very little for now, which is what he does.
Next up is Simon Barkley, a retired vice president at Hamilton Life Insurance, who ran that company’s actuarial department for seventeen years. He is also a part-time mathematics professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, where he teaches a course in mathematical probabilities.
Once I quickly have his credentials established, I go right to the heart of his testimony. “Professor Barkley, did we meet at my home yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Did I give you the information that Mr. Karas just gave this jury concerning the deaths of these eight young football players?”
“Yes, you did.”
“What did I ask you to do?” I ask.
“To calculate the probability that these deaths could have been coincidental; that is to say, they could have happened by chance, without some common factor or cause among them.”
“And did you do so?”
“Yes. Would you like to hear my conclusions?”
I smile and spread my arms to include the judge, jury, and gallery. “I think we all would.”
“Well, let me say that the key assumption under which I was operating is that these young men had little or no connection to each other in the years after this weekend. For instance, had all eight been riding in the same car and that car plunged off a mountain, clearly the fact that they all died would not be a surprise to anyone. Or if they all belonged to the same army unit and went into battle together, these multiple deaths could be explainable as well. A third such example would be if they were together when exposed to a deadly bacterium.”
“I understand,” I say.
“Obviously, none of those things, or any circumstances like them, are applicable here.”
“So what are the chances that eight out of eleven men of this young age, athletes, would die in the past seven years, without there being a single factor causing all of the deaths?” I press the point. “What are the chances it is just a terrible coincidence?”
“Approximately one in seventy-eight billion.”
I hear a gasp from the gallery, and I pause to let the answer sink in. We’re talking DNA-like numbers here. “Just so I understand this, are you saying that the chance of these deaths being unrelated, that the members of this all-American team were just the victims of horrible coincidence, is one in seventy-eight billion? Billion with a ‘b’?”
He confirms that, and I turn him over to Dylan, who once again has no idea which way he should go. So far I’ve been setting up evidence of serial killings, and the only suspect in those killings until now is Kenny Schilling. Dylan has no reason or inclination to screw that up.
Once Barkley is off the stand, I ask for a sidebar conference with Judge Harrison and Dylan. As soon as we’re out of earshot of everyone, I inform the judge that Bobby Pollard will be called next and that I would like to have him declared as a “hostile” witness. As such I would be able to ask tough, leading questions, as if it were a cross-examination.
“On what grounds?” Harrison asks. “What would prompt his hostility?”
“I’m going to expose him as a fake and possible murderer.”
Dylan almost leaps in the air. “Your Honor, I really have to object to this. There has been absolutely no showing made to link Mr. Pollard to these crimes.”
Harrison looks at me, and I say, “There’s going to be plenty of showing once I get him on the stand, Your Honor.”
Harrison has little choice but to grant my request, though he will certainly come down on me if I don’t deliver. He allows me to treat Pollard as a hostile witness, though Dylan reiterates his futile objection.
“The defense calls Bobby Pollard,” I say, and within moments the door to the courtroom opens. Kevin pushes Pollard’s wheelchair to the stand, and Pollard pulls himself up out of the chair and into the witness chair with his powerful arms.
He looks confident and unworried, which means he has no idea what has preceded his testimony this morning. I start off with gentle questions about the background of his relationship with Kenny, including a brief mention of the all-star weekend. I then have him describe the nature of his injury and the circumstances in which it took place.
“So you have no use of your legs at all?” I ask.
He nods sadly. “That’s correct.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “Yet you hold a job… live a full life. How do you get around?”
He credits his wife, Teri, with being a big help in that regard, and under prodding describes some of his daily routine, including his ability to drive a specially equipped car with hand gas and brake controls.
Since he believes he is here to say good things about Kenny, I ask questions that let him do so. Once he finishes, I hand him the list of the offensive players on the high school all-American team. “Do you recognize these names?”
He looks at them. I’m surprised that he’s as cool as he is; I would have expected the list to make him look worried. “I know a few of the names. Obviously Kenny and Troy and myself.”
“Are you aware that eight of the people on that list are dead?”
His head snaps up from the list. “Dead?”
“Dead.”
He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I have no inclination to tell him what I’m talking about, so instead, I give him a group of copied pages that Sam has gotten from hacking into computers. “Please look through these pages and tell me if they are copies of your credit card bills.”
He looks, though not too carefully. His mind must be racing, trying to figure out a way out of the trap that he’s just “wheeled” himself into. “Yes… they look like mine. Sure.”
“You can take some time to confirm this, but I will now tell you that based on your credit card receipts, you were within two hours’ drive of every one of those deaths at the time they happened. Yet you lived in New Jersey, and these deaths occurred in all different parts of the country.”
“You’re not saying I killed these people. Is that what you’re saying?” He’s showing a proper measure of confusion and outrage, an amazing job under the circumstances. But for someone who can fake paralysis for years, this bullshit must be a piece of cake.