The Last Innocent Man

Monica sat down and leaned back in her chair. The outburst had taken a lot out of her.

“Apology accepted. The case is getting to me, too.”

“Will you at least talk to Johnson and read this police report?” Crosby asked, placing the report in front of her.

“Yeah. I didn’t really want to go home, anyway. But you two are going to stand me dinner. I’m starving.”

THE INTERVIEW WITHJohnson created more problems than it solved. The man was smooth, and she could not determine if he was telling the truth. True, the story he told her was the same story he had told the police two years ago, but he had reason to lie to the police then, and he was in trouble, and obviously anxious to deal now. Monica wanted to convict Stafford, but she would not put on testimony she believed might be perjured.

Even if the story was true, she did not know if she could get Johnson’s testimony into evidence. Johnson would be testifying that Stafford had committed a prior criminal act, and the rules of evidence forbade the introduction of that type of evidence, with only a few narrowly defined exceptions. Monica was not convinced that Johnson’s evidence fell under any of them. David was an expert on the rules of evidence, and she would have to research the question of admissibility thoroughly, because she knew how hard David would fight when he learned about Johnson.

Monica finished combing her hair and put on her coat. Her key witnesses, Grimes and Ortiz, were scheduled to testify today. If they survived David’s cross-examination, she might not have to put on Johnson.

“AND WHAT HAPPENEDthen, Mr. Grimes?” Monica asked. The motel clerk had just taken the stand and had been preceded by several laboratory technicians, a supervisor from the Motor Vehicles Division who established Stafford’s ownership of the Mercedes, and Detective Crosby, who testified about the search of Stafford’s house.

“I gave her the key and she left. I went back to readin’, and the next thing I know, I hear these screams.”

David leaned forward and began making notes about Grimes’s testimony on a yellow legal pad. Larry Stafford sat beside him at counsel table, looking businesslike in a conservative dark-blue three-piece suit. David had intentionally dressed more casually than his client to give the jury an initial visual impression that Stafford, not he, was the defense attorney.

“Where were the screams coming from?” Monica asked. David heard Stafford shift nervously in his seat. He glanced at his client and caught him looking over his shoulder at the crowded courtroom. Stafford was looking for his wife, and David felt a slight pang of conscience that momentarily dampened his otherwise expansive mood. David knew where Jenny was and why she was late for court this morning. They had spent the night together, and she had returned home to change while he dressed for court.

“Did you notice Jenny this morning?” Stafford whispered, as if reading David’s thoughts. There was an edge to Larry’s voice, and an air of tension around him that David had noticed since the start of the trial. David expected a person on trial for murder to be nervous, but he sensed that there was something else eating at his client and that it concerned Jenny.

“She’ll be along,” David whispered back. “And don’t look so down in the mouth. Take notes and concentrate on the witnesses, like I told you. I don’t want the jury to see your interest lag for one second.”

“I couldn’t tell who was screamin’ at first,” Grimes continued, “so I went outside in the lot. The motel rooms are behind the office, and I had to go around the corner of the building. That’s when I seen this guy come bustin’ out of twenty-two.”

“Did you get a good look at the person you saw running away?”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t. He was runnin’ too fast and there’s a lot of shadow up there.”

“Go on.”

“Well, by now the screamin’ had stopped, and I looked up at twenty-two to see if anyone’d come after the one that run out. I seen the door was wide-open, but no one was comin’, so I started across the lot to see what’s what. Just then this car came from the rear parking lot. It was the same one the girl’d come in, but she wasn’t in it.”

“Who did you see in that car?”

“It was a man drivin’, but I didn’t get a clear look at him.”

Monica stood up and walked across to the witness box. “Mr. Grimes, I hand you what has been marked as State’s exhibit number five, and I ask you if you recognize the car in that picture.”

Grimes took the color photograph of Stafford’s Mercedes and studied it carefully.

“I can’t say for sure, but it’s like the car that girl came in.”

“Thank you,” Monica said, returning the exhibit to the bailiff. “After the car left the lot, what did you do?”

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t too anxious to find out why there’d been all that screamin’, but I got to thinkin’ that someone might be hurt up there, so I went up to the room. That’s when I seen ’em.”

“Who was that?”