The judge took the cue. "I think I hear a relevance objection from Ms. Roake. I'll let it in for whatever it's worth, which I have to say isn't much."
Buoyed by Toynbee's rebuke to Abrams, Gina went back to her table fighting to hold back any sign of smugness or confidence, but when she sat next to Stuart, she leaned over and whispered. "We're now three for three, which makes them oh for three."
"Okay, at last you've convinced me," Stuart said. "I'll cut you your check. You're hired."
Before calling his next witness, Abrams introduced as evidence the tape of the 911 call Stuart had placed after discovering Caryn in the hot tub.
Gina of course had obtained a transcript of this with her discovery documents and was familiar with the actual words, but hearing it played back in the courtroom underscored even more dramatically the absence of any sense of grief. Stuart's voice-calm, rational, detailed, matter-of-fact to a chilling degree-couldn't have sounded less like a panicked husband who'd just come home to discover his wife dead.
Abrams didn't dwell on the tape, but called his next witness, Captain Allen Marsten from the Central Police Station, the first police officer on the scene, who did his own damage dealing as he did with Stuart's attempted CPR on Caryn while she was in a state of full rigor mortis. His testimony was certainly relevant and gruesomely powerful, with him entering through the open door (in other words, Stuart hadn't started trying to resuscitate his wife until after he had called 911 and then opened the front door), easily persuading Stuart to give up on the artificial respiration, describing the contorted position into which Caryn's body had stiffened.
Particularly effective was the wrap-up, which Gina knew was a preemptive assault on what would be her only argument-that Stuart had been so overcome with emotion after he'd discovered his wife in the hot tub that he had tried to breathe life into her even though it might have been apparently hopeless.
"So, Captain Marsten," Abrams said. "After the defendant stopped with his attempt at artificial respiration, what did he do next?"
"Well, he stood up, pulled a towel over the body, and asked us if we'd like some coffee."
"Coffee?"
"Yes. He said there was a fresh pot he'd made before he discovered his wife. Sergeant Jarrett and I both told him no thanks." "Was the defendant crying or otherwise visibly upset." "No, sir."
"All right. What did he do then?"
"He told us he could use another cup, and walked into the kitchen."
"Did he look back at his wife's body at all?"
"No, sir. He just went inside and poured himself a cup of joe."
Gina stole a glance up at Toynbee just as he allowed himself a piercing gaze at Stuart. Obviously, Marsten's testimony, unadorned as it was, had made an impression on the judge. He was looking at Stuart as though he'd never seen him before.
After this strangely powerful lead-in, Abrams called Devin Juhle to the witness stand. His testimony, based to a large extent on her client's own conversation with him on that first morning, was relevant and potentially damning.
Over an hour and a half, it all came out. It began with Stuart's direct testimony-captured on tape and transcribed-starting with the divorce ultimatum, Stuart's various admissions about the troubles in the relationship, the financial ramifications of Caryn's death, and the couple's marital history, including his interviews with the neighbors who'd told him about the two domestic disturbance calls to the home. It went on with Stuart's suggestion to Juhle about about the Vicodin upstairs and the 105-degree hot tub. Then Bethany Robley and her unwavering identification of Stuart's car on the night of the event, plus the threats to her delivered on Stuart's behalf by his own daughter.
Gina objected that they couldn't tie the alleged threat to Stuart, but…
After that, Abrams backtracked to the warrant Juhle had pulled on the cabin and the havoc wreaked therein, talked about the discrepancies in the timing of the drive from Echo Lake, offered his own scenario of a more plausible late night/early morning drive from San Francisco to Rancho Cordova and back. Then Abrams fast-forwarded Juhle through to some of the details of the arrest, Stuart's apparent armed flight down to a motel in San Mateo, the loaded gun in Stuart's possession when Juhle broke in the door to make the arrest.
In all, it was exactly the kind of narrative, from a highly skilled and experienced witness, that Abrams was prohibited from delivering himself. The prosecutor didn't have to say "consciousness of guilt," a formal legal construct that sometimes could possess the power to convict. His witness's testimony eloquently delivered the message. This was the way it was supposed to work.
But remembering David's rallying cry that defense work wasn't for wimps, when Abrams turned to her after he'd finished and said, "Your witness," Gina gave Stuart, next to her, a couple of confident pats on his forearm, then briskly rose from her chair and strode to her place in the middle of the courtroom.
After a respectful nod at Toynbee, Gina then directed her attention over to Juhle, who sat relaxed in the witness box. "Inspector Juhle," she began, "your testimony about Stuart's timetable on the morning after the event was based on the discussions you taped that morning with him, isn't that correct?"
In an effort to humanize her client to the court, Gina would always try to refer to Stuart by his name, whereas the prosecution would always call him the defendant, or even simply "defendant," without the "the." These little honorific games might be silly and may or may not have ever made an actual difference in a verdict, but attorneys for both sides tended to feel that they could only ignore them at their own peril.
"… was based on the discussions you taped that morning with him, isn't that correct?"
"Yes, it is."
"He told you he left his cabin at Echo Lake at around two a.m., isn't that right?"
"He actually said it was a little before two."
"Ah, a little before two, thank you. Now would you please tell the court how you came into possession of the receipt from the gas station in Rancho Cordova indicating that Stuart pumped gas there at four fifteen a.m.?"
"You gave it to me."
"So I did," Gina said. She thought the point would be clear enough to the judge. As Stuart's lawyer, she wasn't about to hand any evidence over to the police if she thought it pointed to his guilt. "And did you have occasion to discuss with Stuart the discrepancy in time that you brought up in your answer to Mr. Abrams?"
"Yes, I did. I asked him if anything had held him up on the drive down from his cabin that could account for the extra time. And he said no."
"Did he elaborate beyond that?"
"Yes. In a later statement, after he was in jail, he said he must have been wrong with his initial guess of when he left."
"In other words, his earlier statement about his timing was an estimate. Not, as you testified earlier, definite?"
"Objection, Your Honor. Calls for conclusion."
It did, and Gina knew it, but she didn't care. Toynbee sustained the objection, but she went right on. She knew that there was precious little she could do about Stuart's admissions that he and Caryn weren't getting along, or about the kind of money he stood to come into upon her death. And she'd deal with the neighbors and Bethany Robley's testimonies when they were on the stand. But she knew that the entire consciousness of guilt edifice that Abrams and Juhle had so carefully constructed, and that had made Juhle's testimony appear so formidable, was largely built on sand. And she intended to kick the foundations out from under it.
"Inspector Juhle, on the morning of Stuart's eventual arrest, did you have occasion to see him at all?"
"I did. At his house."