Kymberly nodded and nodded, until the movement became so pronounced that it turned into rocking. A tiny, frail humming started deep within her and in a few seconds had turned to a full-throated keening that Trevor had to muffle by pulling her against him and holding her to his chest, rubbing her back, smoothing her hair, whispering soothingly to her. "It's okay, now, it's okay." And then, just as suddenly as the moaning had come on, it broke into a cathartic sobbing that wrenched at her chest and seemed to involve her whole body.
"Don't leave me," she cried. "Please please please don't leave me." Trevor continued to stroke her back. "I never would," he whispered close to her ear. "Never ever ever."
"Kym, this is Gina Roake again." "How did you get my number?"
"Your father tried to call you this morning on my cell phone, so the number's on it."
"Okay. What?"
"Are you all right?"
"You always ask that, you know that?"
"I'm sorry. Bad habit. It sounds like you've been crying."
"What if I was? My mother's just been killed. I guess I can cry if I feel like it. Is that okay with you?"
Gina thought that there was no winning with this young woman. Biting her tongue, repressing a sigh that she was certain would be misinterpreted, she summoned her most neutral voice and said, "I'm on my way back to your father's hearing, and I have a question for you."
"I might not know the answer." She said something else that Gina couldn't pick up.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. I was talking to somebody else. What's your question?" "When you talked to your mother on that last Sunday, did you tell her you weren't going to school?" "No. Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. I'm just asking. Your father wanted to know too."
"Why do you always say, 'your father,' like it was this big formal thing? Why don't you just call him my dad?"
"Okay, Kymberly, your dad wanted to know what you'd talked to your mother… to your mom about. If it wasn't about school."
"Money. To tell her I was going to need money."
"Wasn't she sending you money?"
"Yeah, but that was directly to the dorms. I told her I met some people and we'd decided to rent an apartment instead, so she should just send me the money directly."
"And what did she say to that?"
"What do you think? That she wasn't going to do that." "Did she say anything else?"
"The usual. Was I taking my pills? I shouldn't leave the dorms.
Blah blah blah."
"So that was the whole talk?"
"Pretty much. She had to go out as usual, so she cut it short." "Did she say where she was going?" "She said she had an appointment." "Did she say with who?"
"No. It was just the usual. 'I've got an appointment.' Covers for everything."
"Kymberly," Gina said. "Would you please try to remember if she said anything about who she was meeting. It might have been the last person to see her alive before she was killed. It might even have been her murderer."
Nothing again from the daughter. "She said she had an appointment, that's all. Hey, is my dad there? Can I talk to him?"
"He's in a cell behind the courtroom right now, Kymberly. He left you a message that maybe you can come see him this afternoon during visiting hours. He'd like that."
"Yeah, well," she said. "I don't know. You can tell him I took one of my pills. I'm getting a little tired. I'll see how I feel."
And without another word, Kymberly hung up.
Gina sat at the defense table, waiting for Stuart to be brought in. Judge Toynbee had declared the lunch recess a little early, and now a long afternoon loomed before her. Though it shouldn't have made any difference, she was acutely aware that the rooting section of her lunch mates had all gone back to their regular jobs. The fact that Dis-mas Hardy was going to try to get in touch with Wyatt Hunt and assign him to get some facts about PII and Bill Blair didn't quite make up for the irrational feeling Gina had that she'd been abandoned. Ridiculous, she knew. She was a big girl. But the show of support in the morning had been unexpected and very nice. She glanced back. Debra Dryden was still waiting in the hallway because Abrams had subpoenaed her and she had to stick around. In spite of Debra's strong and positive feelings for Stuart, to Gina she really didn't feel like much of an ally. And Jedd Conley's appearance this morning had evidently been token as well, since now there was no sign of him.
On the prosecution side, however, the only evacuees were the morning's two witnesses, Strout and Faro. At this very moment, Abrams was talking animatedly with Juhle, Clarence Jackman, and a couple of the uniformed cops who'd been out there all day. Suddenly, a general laugh broke out in the group, no doubt someone with a joke. Guys sure could find a way to laugh just about anytime, she noted. And, in fact, what wasn't for them to laugh at? They sure didn't have to prove much at this hearing; they were a united team; nothing was that serious anyway; it was a man's world.
Gina abruptly turned her back on the gallery, thinking fuck that noise. She wasn't going to let herself get sucked into that negative thinking. She might be alone here, all right, but she was a damned competent lawyer who'd beaten many a man before. And, she told herself, this time she had the truth on her side. Okay, guys, she thought, I'm ready. Bring it on.
Thirty-one
By its nature, a preliminary hearing tends to be short on narrative thread. There is no real opportunity for or tolerance of argument. In theory, the proceeding marshals and presents the evidence against a defendant in such a way that it speaks for itself. This structure, coupled with the probable-cause standard of proof, allows both sides to play a little fast and loose with witnesses and even, sometimes, with physical evidence, since no formal explanation of the relevance of the various elements of a case is required in advance.
This would probably be good for Gina when it came time to present her own alternative theories of her case-the connection of Caryn Dryden to Kelley Rusnak and to PII, the inadequate police interrogations of alternate suspects with strong motives and into Caryn's financial and personal lives, the rush to judgment on Stuart because he was the spouse-but it made it difficult to know how to deal with a prosecution witness such as Officer George Berriman of the Highway Patrol, a well-groomed, good-looking, friendly man on the sunny side of thirty.
Over Gina's continuing objections on relevance, Berriman's
testimony put into the record that Stuart had been upset when he'd been pulled over on the Friday night before Caryn's death and that he'd said he was going up to the mountains for the weekend, because otherwise he might kill his wife, with whom he just had a bad fight. There wasn't anything Gina could do. It was what it was. Not devastating, but very far from helpful. But she thought she could make a small point or at least put in a dig to Abrams.
"Officer Berriman"-she stood again in the center of the court-room-"in the course of your average working day, do you pull over many people and give them speeding tickets?"
"Sure. That's a big part of the job."
"And you've testified that Mr. Gorman was very upset when you pulled him over, is that right?" "Yes."
"Well, let me ask you this, officer. Do you run into a lot of people who are ecstatically happy that you've pulled them over to give them a speeding ticket?"
A ripple of low laughter ran through the gallery behind her as Berriman told her no.
But she barely waited to hear him say it before she all but waved him away with a curt, "No further questions." Without moving, she looked up at the bench.