Tell No Lies (47 page)

"Yes, Your Honor."

"The jury will disregard defense counsel's last question," the judge called out. Jeff took his seat and Sanders, looking appropriately admonished, returned to his previous position in front of Jack. "Okay, you said you slept in very short intervals. What time was it when you woke up after the first interval?"

Jack closed his eyes for a split second, saw the clock on her nightstand, the big red digital numbers. "One fifty," he said without hesitation, without thinking about it. He didn't need to; his thoughts had left the courtroom completely. The clock acted as a Play button on an imaginary tape machine, and the night played again. His mind fast-forwarded the tape, and there was his head between her legs, his tongue inside her, his eyes open and watching her from below. She let out a cry—a howl, really, like an animal in pain—and it scared him, so he backed out, but she grabbed his head and pressed him back down to her. The stereo played the music, and he had trouble distinguishing her cries from the sounds of a saxophone.

A shiver traveled the length of his body. It reminded him of how cold he'd been afterward.

He imagined sleeping in his own bed then, but someone kept trying to wake him up, repeating his name the way Claire used to sometimes, except they were saying "Mr. Hilliard" instead of "Jack." Finally, one voice alone, softer now: "Jack?"

He opened his eyes. Judge Lehman leaned over his bench in Jack's direction. "Jack, are you okay? Do you need a break?"

But the words wouldn't form, his mouth wouldn't open. He shook his head, no.

"Do you want Mr. Sanders to repeat the question?"

He nodded and gazed at Sanders vacantly.

"How did you know it was exactly one fifty?"

The question wouldn't register. He wanted to say,
What?
but he still couldn't speak. The muscles in his throat wouldn't push the word up and out. He reached for the water.
 

"Mr. Hilliard," Sanders said insistently, "you said it was one fifty the first time you woke. How did you know the exact time?"

"I looked at the clock when I woke up." The words croaked out.

Sanders turned around slightly so that the judge couldn't see and made a face for the audience. "You take note of the time quite often, don't you?"

Jack didn't respond, thinking the judge would hammer Sanders. But Judge Lehman was leaning over to the other side as he whispered something to his clerk. He hadn't heard the question.

"I suppose."

"So you were asleep almost three hours. Did you fall asleep again that night?"

"Yes."

"Did you happen to notice the time you fell asleep the second time?" His voice oozed sarcasm.

"That was one time I didn't notice the clock."

Sanders laughed. Jack knew that he should have simply answered no. He was letting Sanders get to him. But reliving the night exhausted him. And he was beginning not to care.

"Can you make an estimate?"

Jack thought about it. Their first round on the bed had been urgent, and fast, but then how long had they been in the kitchen? And then upstairs again, before they dozed off? They'd spent more time in exploration the second time, once she'd unburdened herself to him and they'd worked through their little spat. He struggled to calculate the hours, but his mind kept trying to play the tape again; computing time seemed out of the question. "Probably close to four, but I'm not certain."

"And what time did you wake up?"

"I don't know, but it was light out."

Sanders walked back to the defense table and picked up another document, but this time he approached Jeff first. Jeff nodded his assent after glancing at it. When Sanders handed the paper to Jack, it fluttered in his grasp. He quickly read it and set it on the wall of the witness box. "Mr. Hilliard, do you know what this document is?"

"It's a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

"Did you see the portion of the document I have highlighted?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us what it indicates?"

"It indicates that on November seventeenth of last year, the sun rose at six fifty-four a.m."

Sanders grabbed the document from the wall. "Your Honor, I'll get this into evidence later, during our case." Judge Lehman nodded. Sanders turned back to Jack. "So do you think it was six fifty-four or after when you woke the second time?"

"It appears that way."

"So you were asleep for almost three hours the second time, too, correct?"

"Approximately."

"So, for a total of almost six hours, you really can't say where Ms. Dodson was, can you?"

"I told you, she slept at the same time I did."

"Both times?"

"Yes."

"That's just an assumption, isn't it, Mr. Hilliard?"

"No."

"You can't really testify honestly, can you, that she was there next to you every minute of the time you were asleep?"

"I think I can."

"You think?"

"I would have noticed if she got up. She would have stirred me."

"How are you so sure?"

"I'm a light sleeper." Not that night. He'd slept like a baby.

"Mr. Hilliard, tell me something." Sanders held one hand to his chin and rubbed it. "In the morning, did Ms. Dodson look any different to you? You know, did she exhibit any signs of having struggled with someone during the night?"

Jack stared hard at Sanders and remained silent.

"You're under oath," Sanders reminded him.

He remembered her coldness, her muscles tensing when he brushed the hair from her back and saw the marks he'd made. He continued to stare at Sanders. He couldn't look at the jury; he couldn't even make himself look at Jeff to plead for help. A simple
yes
implicated Jenny. A
yes
with explanation implicated Jack. A
no
constituted perjury. But only if it could be proved. Did Sanders somehow already know the answer to the question? Had they examined Jenny for telltale marks when she was first arrested?
 

"Mr. Hilliard?"

"Yes, but it was—"

"Thank you, Mr. Hilliard. You've answered my question."

"It was my fault." Was it, though? "The struggle was with me."

Sanders smirked, but didn't ask for further clarification. Jack had just tainted himself and they both knew it.

"Mr. Hilliard," Sanders continued, before Jack could try to rehabilitate himself, "was that the only time you ever spent the night at Ms. Dodson's home?"

"Yes."

"Really?" Sanders raised his eyebrows; apparently he had expected a negative response.

"Yes," Jack insisted.

"Had you ever spent the night with her anywhere else?"

"No."

"Had you ever had any type of intimate relations with her before, at all?"

Jeff stood, accidentally knocking a file to the floor. It hit the ground with a thud. "Your Honor, I object. First of all, I don't believe Mr. Hilliard ever testified that he was intimate with Ms. Dodson-in fact, this is the same type of testimony Mr. Sanders was trying to get earlier, and you disallowed it. Second of all, what's the relevance of this question?"
 

Judge Lehman sighed and waved them up. "Sanders?" He'd dispensed with the "Mister."

"Judge, I should be able to show the extent of their relationship, to show motivation for being her alibi, and—"

Jeff interrupted. "She's not on trial, remember? We dropped those charges."

Sanders threw him a mean glance. "No, but my client is, and she was never acquitted. I'm not convinced she didn't do it. Mr. Turner should be entitled to use all available evidence that supports his innocence. And if Jack's relationship with Ms. Dodson might affect his testimony, I should be able to point that out."

"Judge, you disallowed this earlier as too inflammatory," Jeff said, his voice rising.

"Well, Mr. McCarthy, I'm entitled to change my mind," the judge said. "I think I now agree with Mr. Sanders." His tight-lipped grimace suggested that he didn't want to, though. Jeff rolled his eyes at Jack and shook his head in apology. Jack shrugged. He had nothing left to lose.

The judge continued, this time directing his comments to Sanders. "But Mr. McCarthy is right about your question, in terms of putting words in the witness's mouth. I think you first need to establish intimate relations, if there were any, which you haven't done." He paused. "Just keep it limited, Sanders. Don't try to get this courtroom all worked up, or I'll cut you off."

Sanders nodded and looked almost gleeful. "I'll withdraw the previous question, for the time being," he said when he returned to his spot near Jack. "Were you intimate with Ms. Dodson on the night you described, the night you spent at her home?"

"Yes."

"Were you ever intimate with her before that night?"

Jack stared at Sanders; he refused to look away, to betray his thoughts. It seemed almost worse to have to testify about the first time in the garage, in April. It was bad enough to admit to Claire what had happened in November, but he'd told her it had been only one night, and it had been, really. But he knew the knowledge that something had happened more than seven months earlier, even if it had been only a kiss, would add insult to injury. "You'll have to define intimate."

"You didn't need a definition for my previous question."

"I was certain that whatever the definition, what happened on that particular night would qualify."

Sanders smirked. "Well, I'll ask
you
the question. How did you define it, in order to answer the previous question?"
 

"I assumed you meant sexual intercourse."

"Are you testifying that you and Ms. Dodson engaged in sexual intercourse on the night you described at her home?"

"Yes."

"Had you ever had sexual intercourse with her at any other time?"

"No."

"But you were intimate with her on other occasions?"

"As I said, you'll have to define intimate."

Sanders walked over to the defense table, turned around, and leaned against it nonchalantly with his arms crossed.

"Well, I suppose the best way to ask it is this: Did you ever, before that night, engage in any activity with Ms. Dodson that you didn't want your wife—Claire, was it?—to know about?"
 

Jack's heart pounded, pumping the blood hard through his veins and causing him to grow warm. He knew the color in his face betrayed his anger. How low could this asshole go?

"Mr. Hilliard?" Sanders persisted.

"Yes. Once only. We exchanged a kiss."

"And when was that?"

"Last spring, April."

"Was that the only other time you had any kind of intimate relations with Ms. Dodson?"

"Yes."

"A kiss in April, and then nothing until sexual intercourse in November, seven months later?"

"That's right."

Sanders smirked again, and Jack braced himself for another rude comment, but Sanders must have thought better of it. "Mr. Hilliard, let me ask you this. Don't you think it's a little odd that Maxine Shepard would be murdered on the same night you claim to have spent the entire evening engaging in sexual intercourse with Ms. Dodson? Especially given that you testified you'd never done that before?" He paused. "Isn't that just a little too convenient?"

A spark ran up Jack's spine; he sat up straighter. This was it, this was his chance. He hoped his instinct was right, that Alex hadn't told Sanders about stopping by Jenny's that night.

"Well, Mr. Sanders, you're right. At first I thought it was really odd. And, in fact, after Jenny was first charged with the crime, I couldn't believe it." Maybe he should just own up, too, while he was at it. "But my disbelief at that time stemmed more from my fear of being found out, since I knew I was her ticket to freedom, than from the coincidental nature of the two events." He paused, finally, to add his own effect. He spoke more slowly. "But then later, when the other evidence pointing to Alex was presented to me, I thought about how he'd stopped by that night" —Jack watched as Sanders turned to Alex in surprise— "how he sneaked into her bedroom, where she kept her gun, like some cat burglar." He couldn't believe Sanders hadn't objected yet. He was probably still processing the fact that Alex had been at Jenny's. "And how he spoke to her that night, asking her if Maxine Shepard was still bothering her, and accusing her of having someone at her house. She told me afterward that he was 'insanely' jealous of me. She used that word,
insanely
. And then it all started to make sense."
 

Jack vaguely heard Judge Lehman say something like, "That's enough, Mr. Hilliard," but it sounded far off and he ignored it. He noticed Sanders approaching the judge and then Jeff jumping up to join him. Out of habit, Jack glanced at the jury to gauge whether they understood the relevancy of what he'd said. That's when she smiled at him. The woman in the rear, far left seat, a middle-aged redhead with freckles on every inch of the exposed part of her skin. It was a warm smile, a sympathetic smile, the kind he remembered getting whenever he was the interrogator, so long ago, it seemed. It came more from her eyes than her mouth. It enveloped him, gently washed over him like a cleansing bath. He found himself smiling back.

Jack turned back to Sanders and realized that Sanders, even as he listened to Judge Lehman's whispers, had seen the contact Jack and the red-haired woman had made. The wild look in his eyes told Jack that Sanders knew he was losing control over his examination, that Jack was on the offensive. The realization spurred Jack on.

"So to answer your question, no, it's not odd. I know you want the jury to think I'm here testifying because of some vendetta I have against your client but—"
 

"I said enough, Mr. Hilliard," Judge Lehman ordered.

"I'm testifying against Mr. Turner to make sure a murderer goes to jail. You really think I'd get up here and put myself through this for any other reason?"

"Mr. Hilliard!" The judge was yelling now. But Jack didn't care. He wasn't going to shut up, now that he'd finally let loose.

"Do you really think I'd get up here and testify in front of the world that I betrayed my wife's trust, that I would actually make that up to somehow get back at your client for the simple reason you think I don't like him? My
wife
, Sanders!" Sanders backed away from the bench. "You know, the one whose name you have trouble remembering. You think I'd intentionally destroy her, the woman who matters the most to me, merely because I don't like your client?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw the guard approaching the witness box. Sanders turned his back to Jack and waved one hand in the air to indicate his belief that Jack spewed gibberish. "Or even to somehow protect the reputation of a woman who's already been to hell and back? When she was a child she watched her family be executed. Has anyone told the jury that yet?"