More Twisted

driving up to the house I panicked and drove over the curb. I was worried about my wife.”
    “But you couldn’t see your wife, could you?”
    A pause. “Well, no. But I could see the hammer, the blood.”
    “Fifty feet away’s a pretty good distance. You could actually see the hammer in Jerry’s hand?”
    Calling him “Jerry,” never “the defendant” or “Pilsett.” Make him human. Make him a buddy of every member of the jury. Make him the victim here.
    “Sure, I could.”
    “And the blood on it?”
    “I’m sure I could. I—”
    Lescroix pounced. “You’re sure you could.” Just the faintest glissando of sarcasm. He scanned another page, shaking his head. “Your vision’s not very good, is it?” The lawyer looked up. “In fact, isn’t it illegal for you to drive without your glasses or contacts?”
    “I . . .” Taken aback by the amount of research Lescroixhad done. Then he smiled. “That’s right. And I had my glasses on when I drove up to the house. So I could see the bloody hammer in his hand.”
    “Well, sir, if that’s the case, then why did an officer bring them to you in the house later that evening? When he needed you to look over some items in the house. He found them in your car.”
    It was in the police report.
    “I don’t . . . Wait, I must’ve . . . I probably took them off to dial the cell phone in the car—to call the police. They’re distance glasses. I must’ve forgotten to put them back on.”
    “I see. So you claim you saw a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer, you took off your driving glasses and you called nine-one-one.”
    “Yes, I guess that’s about right.”
    He didn’t notice the “you claim” part of the comment; the jury always does.
    “So that means you called nine-one-one from inside the car?”
    “I called right away, of course.”
    “But from inside the car? You claim you see a man in your doorway with a bloody hammer and yet you park fifty feet away from the house, you stay in the safety of the car to call for help? Why didn’t you jump out of the car and go see what was going on? See about your wife?”
    “Well, I did.”
    “But after you called nine-one-one.”
    “I don’t know. I . . . Maybe I called later.”
    “But then your glasses wouldn’t have been in the car.”
    Cabot was now as disoriented as a hooked pike. “I don’t know. I panicked. I don’t remember what happened.”
    Which was, of course, the complete truth.
    And, accordingly, of no interest to Lescroix.
    He walked ten feet away from the witness stand, stopped and turned toward Cabot. The jury seemed to be leaning forward, awaiting the next movement.
    “At what time did you leave the office on Saturday, June third?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, you arrived home at about five, you claimed. It’s a ten-minute drive from your office. So you must have left about four-thirty. Did you go straight home?”
    “I . . . I think I had some errands to run.”
    “What errands? Where?”
    “I don’t recall. How do you expect me to recall?”
    “But you’d think it’d be easy to remember at least one or two places you stopped during the course of two hours.”
    “Two hours?” Cabot frowned.
    “You left the office at three p.m.”
    The witness stared at his inquisitor.
    “According to the video security tape in your building’s lobby.”
    “Okay, maybe I did leave then. It was a while ago. And this’s all so hard for me. It’s not easy to remember . . .”
    His voice faded as Lescroix opened the private eye’s report and found photocopies of Cabot’s banking statements and canceled checks.
    “Who,” the lawyer asked pointedly, “is Mary Henstroth?”
    Cabot’s eyes slipped away from the lawyer’s. “How did you know about . . . ?”
    I do my goddamn homework, Lescroix might have explained. “Who is she?”
    “A friend. She—”
    “A friend. I see. How long have you known her?”
    “I don’t know. A few years.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “In Gilroy.”
    “Gilroy’s a fifteen-minute drive from Hamilton, is that right?”
    “It depends.”
    “Depends? On how eager you are to get to Gilroy?”
    “Objection.”
    “Sustained. Please, Mr. Lescroix.”
    “Sorry, Your Honor. Now, Mr. Cabot, on June third of this year, did you write a check to Ms. Henstroth in the amount of five hundred dollars?”
    Cabot closed his eyes. His jaw clenched. He nodded.
    “Answer for the court reporter,