Illegal Alien

Still, there weren’t many times when it was an actual advantage to be African-American. He was used to the screwups in restaurants. Waitresses bringing him the wrong meal — mixing up his order with that of the only other black person in the entire place. White people constantly confused him with other black men, men who, except for their skin color, looked nothing like him, and were often decades younger.

But the one time it perhaps was to his advantage to be big and black was when he wanted to go for late-night walks. Even here in Brentwood, most people were afraid to be out on the streets after midnight, but Dale knew that no one would try to mug him, and since he rarely got home from the office before nine p.m., he was grateful that at least the streets weren’t denied to him after dark, as they were to so many others. Of course, there was always the problem of police cars pulling up to him and asking to see his ID — for no good reason other than it was night, and he was black, and this was a rich white neighborhood.

Tonight, as he walked along, he thought about the case. The evidence against Hask seemed compelling. His lack of an alibi; his having shed his skin the night of the murder; the fact that he was experienced at dissection, having recently carved up the body of the dead Tosok, Seltar; the video showing him wielding precisely the sort of cutting device used to commit the crime — and his musings on that video about his people having given up too much by no longer hunting their own food.

Dale continued along the sidewalk. Up ahead, coming toward him, a white man was walking a small dog. The man caught sight of Dale, and crossed over to the other side of the road. Dale shook his head. It never ended — and it never ceased to hurt.

Judge Pringle should never have allowed the jury to watch Stant shed his skin. Perhaps that alone would be grounds for an appeal, should the likely happen and the jury find Hask guilty. And even if Ziegler hadn’t been able to raise the point in the courtroom at that moment, she’d doubtless make it in her closing argument: Hask and Stant were half brothers, and their regular shedding should have been closely synchronized. That it wasn’t was apparent proof that Hask’s shedding had been induced — and why else induce it on the day of the murder, except that he himself had committed the crime?

Dale’s footsteps echoed in the night. A few dogs, behind high stone fences, barked at him, but he didn’t mind that; dogs barked equally at everyone. If Dale’s life hadn’t been so busy, he’d have liked to have had a dog of his own.

Or a wife, for that matter.

He’d been engaged during law school, but he and Kelly had broken up before he’d graduated. She’d seen then what the work was like, the commitment, the fact that there really was room for nothing else in his life beside his career. Dale thought of her often. He had no idea what had become of her, but he hoped, wherever she was, that she was happy.

He was approaching a corner, a pool of light shining on the concrete sidewalk from the street lamp overhead. He stepped into the light and began walking now down the perpendicular street.

And then it hit him — how all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit together.

Christ, if he was right—

If he was right, then Hask was innocent.

And he could prove it.

Of course, Hask would not cooperate. But it wouldn’t be the first time Dale had saved a client despite the client’s wishes. As he headed down that dark street Dale felt sure he knew who Hask was protecting.

He’d already arranged to examine Smathers tomorrow, but after that he would call Dr. Hernandez. And then—

Dale turned around and headed back home, moving as fast as his ancient form would allow.

*31*

"State and spell your name, please," said the clerk.

The square-headed man with white hair and a white beard leaned into the microphone on the witness stand. "Smathers, Packwood. S-M-A-T-H-E-R-S."

Dale could have called someone else at this point, but by using Smathers as an expert witness for the defense, he hoped to communicate to any jurors who had gotten wind of Smathers’s attempts to devise a method to execute a Tosok that Smathers did not, in fact, necessarily believe Hask was guilty; it would, after all, be particularly damning if the jury believed that a member of the Tosok entourage thought Hask had indeed killed Calhoun.

Dale moved over to the lectern. "What is your profession, sir?"

"I’m a professor of exobiology and evolutionary biology at the University of Toronto."

Dale introduced Smathers’s massive CV into evidence, then: "Dr. Smathers, you heard Reverend Brisbee’s discourse on the human eye. Do you agree with it?"

"No, sir, I don’t."

"You don’t believe that the complexity of the human eye represents clear proof of divine creation?"

"No, sir."

"Your Honor," said Ziegler, rising. "We object to this. What has the nature of the eye got to do with this case?"