Next to him, he heard Andrew- his neck brace gone now- whisper to Wu, "Is that true?" Even within the bullpen, he saw the bailiffs exchange glances with each other and then the court recorder. Johnson picked up his gavel, then put it back down. It was the first time that he was hearing all of this in detail, and Hardy hoped that the recitation would make an impression.
"Upon receiving this information, I immediately called San Francisco's deputy chief of inspectors, Abe Glitsky, and subsequently met him at the Hall of Justice, where he discovered that Lucas Welding, who had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, had recently won a reversal of his conviction based upon DNA evidence that had not been presented at the original trial. He had been ordered released from prison, but during the course of his appeal, he had developed cancer and ultimately died at the infirmary at the Corcoran Penitentiary before he could be released."
Hardy stopped, wondering if that was enough. It certainly had been plenty for him and Glitsky. He threw a look over to Brandt, but the prosecutor was sitting slumped in his chair, his head down, his hands clasped on his lap. Johnson himself appeared to be waiting for more, and if that door was open, Hardy thought he should walk through it.
"Deputy Chief Glitsky has assigned several inspectors first to find and protect the other jurors from the Welding case, and second to identify and locate anyone who might have had a relationship with Welding, and whose rage over Welding's seventeen years of incarceration for a crime he did not commit might have become a motive for the murders of Allan Boscacci and several members of the convicting jury." He paused to let his words reverberate for a moment, then added. "Including," he said, "the murder of Michael Mooney."
Brandt was sitting up straight now. Johnson was taking some notes at the podium. When he was finished, he looked up. His eyes went first to Brandt, then to the gallery, where Hal and Linda were whispering, then finally back to the defense table. "Thank you, Mr. Hardy. Your representation is noted for the record. Is that the substance of it?"
"Yes, your honor."
"All right, then, let's move on. Do you have another witness for this seven-oh-seven proceeding?"
"Wait a minute." Andrew's voice was still fairly hoarse, but carried in the courtroom. "If you know that somebody else killed Mooney…"
Behind him, Hardy heard the Norths and he turned. Hal was on his feet. "That ought to be the end of this," he was saying. Both bailiffs- Nelson and Cottrell- stood quickly and moved out from their positions on either wall.
"But this is nuts," Andrew was saying to Wu. "It proves what I've been saying from the beginning." He got to his feet and spoke up to the court in general, back to his mother. "It's what I've been telling you guys all along…"
Johnson gaveled him quiet. A sharp, loud crack. "I'll have order in this courtroom. Mr. North, sit down. Mr. Hardy, Ms. Wu, I'm warning you, get your client under control." Both bailiffs stopped in their tracks for a moment, then Cottrell, with a warning glare at Wu and Hardy, walked out through the bullpen gate and into the gallery.
Hardy turned and watched Cottrell as he continued back past the Norths and positioned himself by the back door.
Wu stood up. "But, your honor, surely the import of Mr. Hardy's-"
Johnson brought down his gavel again. "Ms. Wu. I said that's enough."
Shaking her head in frustation and anger, Wu shared a look with Hardy, put her hand on Andrew's arm to calm him, and sat back down. Hardy was still on his feet. "Your honor," he said, "it's obvious to everyone in this courtroom that Andrew Bartlett did not kill Mike Mooney."
Brandt was up across the room. "Your honor, if it please the court. It's not obvious to me. I've got an eyewitness and a great deal of evidence that says he did. And what about the other victim in this case, Laura Wright? Andrew Bartlett's girlfriend? Does defense counsel contend that she was on this Mr. Welding's bad luck jury, too?"
Hardy spoke to the judge. "Your honor, she was killed because she happened to be there and Mooney's killer did not want to leave a witness."
Johnson used his gavel again, then waited while the courtroom went to complete silence. Finally, he drew a long breath. "Mr. Hardy, I reject your conclusion that your representation rises to the level of proof in the matter before this court. I'll admit that it does rise to the level of coincidence, and the court does not find that compelling. Also, it doesn't change the essential fact of the gravity of the offense- Mr. Mooney and Ms. Wright were murdered. The district attorney has not withdrawn the charges against Mr. Bartlett, nor has he conveyed the gravemen of your most recent information to the court or to Mr. Brandt. As I've already mentioned several times, this seven-oh-seven is about whether Mr. Bartlett is a juvenile or an adult and that's all it's about."
"But, your honor-"
Crack! "Mr. Hardy, your representation is noted for the record. What do you expect me to do, drop the charges?"
"I don't think that would be unreasonable, your honor, given the enormity of what you're calling the coincidence. Mr. Mooney and Ms. Wright were both killed by someone connected to Lucas Welding, and there's no such connection with Andrew Bartlett."
"I understand that that's your theory, Mr. Hardy. Now do you have another witness, or is it time that I make a ruling?"
Hardy bit the inside of his mouth hard. Looking down to his right at Andrew, he whispered, "Hang in there," then came back to the judge and said, "We'd like to call Anna Salarco, your honor."
"All right." Johnson looked to his left- Cottrell's standard position in the courtroom- and frowned. He turned in the other direction. "Officer Nelson, would you please go out to the hallway and call the witness? Anna Salarco. And while you're out there, if you see Officer Cottrell, would you ask him if he'd care to join us again in the courtroom?"
There followed some minutes of confusion. Hardy had told Anna Salarco that they'd call her as a witness as soon as the court was called to session, but then they'd all had the meeting in chambers and Hardy's representation to the court. In the interim, evidently, both of the Salarcos had left the hallway to go to the bathroom. Maybe Bailiff Cottrell had gone looking for them. In any event, Cottrell was still missing from the courtroom when Anna Salarco finally, and nervously, took the witness stand.
Hardy walked her through the by-now familiar recital, making sure to memorialize for the record the understanding that the Salarcos thought they had with the police regarding their immigration status, which Hardy believed served as a strong incentive for Juan to refuse to change his story. When they'd finished, Anna's testimony was all Hardy could have wished for. Just before her husband had gone downstairs and discovered the bodies, she had clearly seen the man leaving the house after the door had slammed, and could not identify him as Andrew. Hardy thanked her and turned her over to Brandt for cross-examination.
Much to Hardy's displeasure, Brandt and Anna weren't complete strangers anymore. Wu told him that when the prosecutor had seen her name on the list, he, too, had called the Salarcos, then gone out to visit with them last night himself. This was why Juan was out in the hallway now, waiting for his chance to talk to the court and possibly refute whatever his wife had said first.
So Brandt advanced to the witness box with a relaxed demeanor. "Mrs. Salarco," he began, "how far is it from your window to the sidewalk in front of your house?"
"I don't know exactly."
"Approximately, then."
She shot a glance at Hardy and he nodded with some confidence. This question was not unexpected. "Thirty feet, maybe forty."