Alex Cross’s Trial

All morning I had been noticing that Moody sounded more mature. She had managed to hide the edge of anger that so often came into her voice. She was speaking carefully, politely.

“I wouldn’t really call it a house, though,” she added. “It’s more like a shack. But we do all right.”

“Now, would you say your first notice of the alleged intruders on that night was when they rode up, supposedly shooting their weapons and yelling?”

“Oh, no, sir,” she said in a very clear voice. “I would say my first notice was when Mr. North there, and Mr. Stephens, knocked on the door and showed me their search warrant.”

Chapter 114

SWEET JESUS IN heaven! Jonah and I had never discussed this with her. We had certainly never planned for her to say such a thing. But say it she had:

“… and showed me their search warrant.”

With those words Moody changed the whole atmosphere of the courtroom and the direction of this entire murder trial.

Jonah looked at me wide-eyed. Together we stared at Moody on the witness stand.

I thought I detected a hint of amusement behind her serious expression. She watched Loophole Lewis swivel all the way around to shoot a goggle-eyed look at my father. She heard the defendants whispering frantically among themselves. She was aware that her words had set off a buzz of confusion in the gallery. Even the jurors had snapped to wakefulness.

And Moody was enjoying every minute of it. Maybe she knew our cause was lost, and she was out to confound everybody. To confuse us. To throw the whole trial up in the air and see where the pieces came down.

This was every lawyer’s nightmare: the rogue witness, off on her own.

My father banged his gavel several times. “Order!” The buzz subsided. “Mr. Lewis?”

Lewis turned back to the witness stand. “Now, Miss Cross,” he said, “every previous witness, including your grandfather, claimed that they never were presented with a search warrant that night.”

“I know that, sir,” she said. “Papaw’s getting pretty old now; he doesn’t always notice everything. And when those men came with the warrant, there wasn’t anybody out in front of the house except me. I was the only one.”

I’m sure that almost everyone else thought Maxwell Lewis looked as confident as ever, but I saw signs that he was flustered. He was forgetting to slouch casually against the railing of the jury box. He was standing at attention and speaking a little too quickly. His countrified Clarence Darrow lilt had all but vanished. Moody had rattled him.

“This is, to say the least, a most unusual bit of testimony, Miss Cross.”

“Why is that, sir? You-all said they came there with a search warrant. You said they showed it to us. All I’m saying is… well, that’s exactly what happened.”

She was lying. I knew it for sure. I was with Abraham in the parlor that night, and I knew nobody came to the door with any warrant. All had been quiet, there was a clatter of horses, then the Raiders started shooting at anything that moved.

Maxwell Lewis put on an uncomfortable smile. “All right, they showed you the warrant,” he said. “And then what happened next?”

Suddenly I knew where Moody was going with this, why she was lying. What she was hoping to demonstrate with her lie.

Damn! It was brilliant! Why hadn’t I thought of it?

But of course, if I had thought of it-if I’d even asked her to do such a thing-I could have been disbarred.

As it was, she was on her own.

“Well, sir,” she said to Lewis, “I was looking over the warrant, you know, and I said, ‘I still don’t think y’all have the right to do this. But if that’s what the paper says, I reckon we’ve got no choice but to let you come on in.’ ”

“You said that?” Lewis turned to the jury, hoping they would share his skepticism.

None of them even noticed. Their eyes were on Moody. She had them under her spell, and they were finally listening.

“Yes, sir, I did, and I no sooner got the words out of my mouth than a bunch of ’em rode up on their horses and started shootin’ and yellin’ and everything. Just like Papaw said.”

“If we can,” Lewis said, “let’s return to the issue of the search warrant.”

“Yes, sir,” said Moody, as proper and polite as I had ever heard her.

“Now, who showed it to you?”

“Mr. North was the one holding the paper,” she said. “And Mr. Stephens was with him.”

“You are absolutely certain they presented that warrant to you?”

“Well, yes, sir, I mean-that’s what happened. Just like y’all said. Don’t you believe me?”

She looked the very picture of confounded innocence.

Maxwell Lewis turned to my father and shrugged.

My father spoke from the bench in a dangerous growl: “Moody Cross. You have sworn to tell the truth in this court. Do you understand that?”

“Oh, I certainly do, Your Honor, that’s just what I’m doing,” she said. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why me telling the truth has got y’all so confused. It’s almost like you’re angry at me.”