“In fact, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor, that nothing in your findings would contradict the possibility that the shooter was ten feet away from the victim?”
Dr. Agarwal paused. She wasn’t typically argumentative, but she didn’t completely agree with Shauna. We all knew that the spent shell casing from the murder weapon landed in the soil of a planted tree on the sidewalk and that the strong likelihood was that the weapon was fired from ten feet away. But it was possible that the casing rolled on the sidewalk, so there was a little bit of leeway in the estimate on either side of ten feet.
Shauna was baiting the witness.
“If common sense and experience are included in my findings,” the doctor answered, “then I would say that I am not totally convinced that the gun was fired from ten feet away.”
“Why would you say that, Doctor?” Shauna said. You never ask open-ended questions on cross-examination unless you’re sure that any answer will suit your purpose. Shauna had a pretty good idea of how the doctor would answer, but she wasn’t sure.
“In my experience autopsying homicides,” Dr. Agarwal replied, “most gunshots from the Glock handgun used here are not so precise that one could hit someone between the eyes from a distance of ten feet. It’s obviously possible, but it’s difficult.”
“The shooter would have to be very good at what he did,” said Shauna. “He’d have to be an experienced shooter of that weapon?”
“Objection,” said the prosecutor, Maggie Silvers, but she was a little late objecting to this line of questioning and the judge told her so.
“I would think so, yes,” said the doctor, after Shauna repeated the question.
We wanted the shooter to be as far away as possible, to show both the bizarre nature of the prosecution’s theory and that it would take a very good shot to hit a victim between the eyes from that distance. The prosecution had an answer for that, of course-First Lieutenant Tom Stoller was a trained shooter in the Army Rangers-but to bring in that evidence, they had to bring in Tom’s military background. And they didn’t want to do that, especially since we landed a retired colonel on the jury.
Shauna killed another twenty minutes with the doctor and the prosecution redirected with just a few questions. We had scored one simple point, but the jury had seen several close-up, gruesome photos of the murder and heard graphic descriptions of the violent end to Kathy Rubinkowski’s life. When it was all said and done, it was another good witness for the state.
Prosecution 2, Defense 0.
73
Tori was in the courtroom at the close of the day and caught my eye as I packed up. She was telling me she had something significant.
First, I had to do the customary wrap-up at the end of the court day with Aunt Deidre and Tom. Tom had actually been pretty composed in court today, to my chagrin, as I wanted the jury to see a guy who was clearly suffering from some mental problems. Instead, for some reason, Tom had remained relatively calm and still.
We conferred in the holding room they gave us for post-court discussions. I told them about what we’d found so far with Global Harvest and my talk with the FBI earlier today. “We’re pursuing this with everything we’ve got,” I said. “If there’s something there, hopefully we can come up with it over the next few days.”
Tom seemed like he was listening to me, but he didn’t say anything. For all I knew, he was contemplating his dinner in county lockup tonight. Deidre’s expression could best be described as downcast.
“Remember,” I told them, “this is a circumstantial case. They can’t put Tom at the scene, and they don’t have him firing the weapon.”
“Right,” said Deidre. She’d heard this before but, I’d come to learn, the repetition comforted her. We said our good-byes in the lobby, where Tori awaited me. As always, she wore that long white coat, only this time I didn’t have to fantasize about what it would be like to undress her.
Now was not the time to be thinking with that part of my anatomy. I needed my brain more. “Whaddaya got for me, kid?” I asked her, trying to give it a platonic feel. It sounded forced. It sounded ridiculous.
“Kid? Now I’m ‘Kid’?”
“Your new nickname.”
“Well, okay, Daddy-O.”
“Nice.”
We made it out of the doors and into the cool air. It felt good.
“So do you want to know what I came up with?” she asked.
“I do.”
She looked at me.
“I found Kathy’s e-mail address,” she said. “And I hacked into it.”
74
Tori and I went into my office, where she opened her laptop. I thought, under the circumstances, this was a discussion best held in private.
“So this is what you lawyers would call unethical,” said Tori.
“Not to mention inadmissible,” I added. Even if we discovered gold in Kathy Rubinkowski’s e-mail inbox, I wouldn’t be able to use it. On the other hand, if I found something really useful, I could subpoena her e-mails and pretend to discover the e-mail for the first time.
I really should record these thoughts and play them back to myself during a moment of reflection. The rules of ethics in my profession, last I checked, weren’t optional. When did I start treating them that way?
Oh, that’s right-when an innocent man was on the verge of going down for murder.
“So here it is.” Tori showed me the computer screen. “This is Kathy’s personal e-mail, not work.”
“This is her inbox?” I asked.
“Right. As you can see, she’s still getting a few e-mails, a year later. Mostly ads. But the real traffic ends on January thirteenth, when she died.”
We sat next to each other on my couch. She handed me the laptop. I scrolled through the messages she received. Most of them appeared to be sent to friends. Many of them at the top of the screen-the most recent chronologically-revolved around plans to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday, which would have been the next day after her death. It hit me at that moment, something palpable in my gut, the sense of loss. This woman didn’t make it to twenty-four. What I was doing, trying to solve this puzzle, wasn’t solely for my client. I owed it to her, too.
“Check out January eighth,” Tori said.
I had to move to the second screen to do so. I pulled up an e-mail dated Friday, January 8, 1:31 P.M.:
I Need Some Advice
From: “Katherine Rubinkowski” ‹ KRubinkowski@DLMlaw. net›
To: “Thomas J. Rangle” ‹ TRangle@DLMlaw. net›
BCC: “Me” ‹ Rubes@Intercast. com›
Tom, something is bothering me and I wanted to lay it out for you. I think we should keep this between us for now.
Remember I told you about the LabelTek / GHI lawsuit, and how I listed Summerset Farms as a buyer of the GHI fertilizer and someone removed them from the interrogatory answer? Recall I complained to Bruce but he brushed me off? Well, apparently LabelTek found out about Summerset on its own, probably from the Dept. of Ag database. The thing is, the moment they issued a subpoena to Summerset, GHI suddenly settled the case.
Okay, so that’s strange, but it gets weirder. I handled the Summerset acquisition when we first got GHI for a client. Summerset’s a small operation, and GHI is selling them way more fertilizer than they could use. I know this sounds paranoid-but it’s like Summerset is stockpiling this fertilizer.
So far, this was tracking with what I knew. It actually laid out what we’d discovered in a concise fashion. She sent this e-mail from work-the “DLMlaw” e-mail address surely meant Dembrow, Lane, and McCabe-but blind copied her personal e-mail. She was keeping a record of this e-mail for herself.
And the e-mail continued:
And remember that other acquisition we did-SK Tool and Supply? Right at the same time GHI acquired Summerset? Well, SK just sold basic industrial equipment, but now, all of a sudden, they sell nitromethane, which has a lot of uses, but one of which is explosives. And when I was over at SK the other day on the Secada lawsuit-ok, I know I shouldn’t have done this-but I looked at their sales invoices and it turns out, SK sells nitromethane to one and only one customer. Guess who? Summerset.