Without a Hitch (31 page)

Russell saw the
jury staring at him.  “It means he’s a rookie, that’s it.  It means he’s got a
lot of lessons to learn that come with experience.  That’s it, nothing bad or
nothing like that.”

“Lessons to
learn,” Beckett repeated.  “What was the lesson that caused Officer Webb to
take the unusual step of asking for another partner?”

“You’ll have to
ask him.”

“All right,
Sergeant, we’ll take this up with Officer Webb.”  Beckett let Russell stew for
a moment as he pretended to search his notes.  Sure enough, Russell began shifting
around uncomfortably.  “You look uncomfortable, Sergeant.  Is there something
you want to add?”

“No.”

Beckett now had
all the preliminary pieces he needed.  He’d gotten Russell to admit they found
no evidence of Beaumont having any money.  He’d gotten a physical description
of Beaumont that would come in handy later.  He’d also placed a suggestion into
minds of the jurors that Russell and Webb had a falling out over something
relevant to this case.  It was time to destroy Russell.  Beckett took a quick
sip of water.

“Describe for me
again what happened when Officer Webb knocked on the door.  Where were you?”

“I was standing
behind Webb.”

“Behind him on
one side or straight behind him?”

“Behind him
looking over his shoulder.  It’s standard procedure for a forced entry.  He’s
standing next to the door and I’m behind him looking over his left shoulder.”

“His left
shoulder?!” Beckett exclaimed.  This meant Webb needed to reach across the door
to turn the door knob.  Doing so would expose him to danger if Beaumont shot
through the door – the most likely area a suspect would target.  It also made
him vulnerable if Beaumont yanked the door open and attacked.

Beckett worked
through these details with Russell, who explained that because the door was at
the end of a hallway and the wall was immediately to the left of the door, they
had to take up positions to the right of the door, which meant Webb needed to reach
across the door to turn the knob.  However, Russell claimed, Webb never reached
across the door because Beaumont opened it.  When Beaumont then flashed his
gun, they made their forced entry.

“When Beaumont
opened the door, did he open it all the way?” Beckett asked.

“No, he opened
it about six inches, just enough to see his face and the gun.”

“Where was
Beaumont’s body when he opened the door?”

“He was up
against the door, blocking it with his shoulder.”  Russell moved his left
shoulder forward to demonstrate for the jury.

“How do you know
that?”

“Because he was
leaning against the door when we forced our way in.”

“You say his
left
shoulder leaned against the door?”

“Yeah, his
left.  He wedged his left shoulder against the door and then hung his face
around to look out through the crack.”  Russell held his arm up to mimic
bracing a door.  Then he moved his head slightly to the right without moving
his shoulder, as if he was trying to show his face in the crack between the
door and the door frame.

“Which hand did
he use to turn the doorknob?”

“His right.”

“How do you
know?”

“Because he
couldn’t have turned it with his left and still barred the door,” Russell
answered.

“You’re sure.”

“Absolutely. 
When we forced the door a millisecond after we saw the gun, his arm and
shoulder were already blocking the door.  If he’d been turning the doorknob, we
would’a pushed right through the door with no resistance.”

“And you’ve done
a lot of these, so you would know?”

“Absolutely,”
Russell said without hesitation.

“You’re sure the
gun was in his left hand?”

“Like I said.”

“In fact, it
couldn’t have been in his right hand, correct?”  Beckett picked up the gun from
the prosecution table.  “After all, this is a big gun.  It’s kind of
cumbersome.  He couldn’t have held it with his right hand and turned the
doorknob with that hand, could he?”

“No, not
likely.”

“At least not
without difficulty. . . and not without you noticing.”

“We would’a
noticed,” Russell agreed.

“So we’ve
established that he couldn’t have been holding the gun in his right hand
because he couldn’t have turned the doorknob, correct?”

“Right.”

“We’ve also
established he was barring the door with his left shoulder and looking through
the crack, correct?”

“Right.”

“And that means
he couldn’t have worked the doorknob with his left hand, correct?”

“Right.”

“Which again
means he had to be holding the gun in his left hand?”

Russell nodded. 
“Just like it says in my report.”

“And like you
said before when I asked you which hand he used to hold the gun?”

“Right.”

“Then I’m
confused, Sergeant.  You remember explaining to me how you saw him hold the gun
behind his back with his arm running the length of his body, correct?”

“Yeah,” Russell
said cautiously.

“And you said
Beaumont was standing behind the door like this, with the crack of the door
being here to his front right,” Beckett said, demonstrating how Beaumont
supposedly blocked the door while using his right hand to show where the door
opening would have been.  “Webb would have been standing over here to the left
behind the door, and you would have been standing behind Officer Webb,” Beckett
continued, pointing to where Webb and Russell would have stood.  “Do you see
the problem yet?”

Russell shrugged
his shoulders.

“Look where the
gun is, Sergeant.  It’s behind Beaumont. . .
behind the door
, completely
hidden from your view and you never could have seen him hold it behind his body. 
Can you explain that?”

Russell looked
at Beckett and then Pierce.

“The District Attorney
can’t help you, Sergeant,” Beckett said to emphasize Russell’s inability to
answer the question.  “We’re waiting, Sergeant.  How could you see the gun when
it was hidden by the door?”

“I could’a made
a mistake.  He might’a been holding it in his right hand.”  Russell’s eyes
darted back and forth between Beckett and Pierce.

“Sergeant, you
and I just established a moment ago that there was no way Beaumont could have
held the gun in his right hand and still turned the doorknob, didn’t we?”

“I could’a been
wrong about that.”

Beckett looked
at the jury.  “That’s interesting.”  He turned back to Russell.  “Sergeant, if
he was standing with his left shoulder barring the door, where would his
right shoulder be?”

“What do you
mean?”

“It’s a simple
question.  Wouldn’t his right shoulder be back behind the door as well?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That would have
been hidden from your view too, wouldn’t it?”

Russell’s mouth
went dry.  “I guess.”

“So whether he
held the gun behind him on his left side or his right side, you couldn’t have
seen it either way could you?  The door blocked your view.”

Russell looked
at Pierce again, but Pierce was looking at his notes.  “I might’a been
mistaken.  He might’a flashed the gun at us through the door crack.  These
things are really stressful and it’s been a long time, so I might’a misremembered.”

“You were very
certain a few minutes ago when you said, ‘He was holding it down behind him
with his arm running down the length of his body slightly behind him, with the
barrel of the firearm pointed down behind him,’” Beckett read from his notes. 
“I believe you added that the barrel was pointed behind his right leg.  You
were very sure of that point.”

“Yeah, but I
think I just misremembered that.  It’s been a long time and I’ve had a lot of
arrests since then.”

“Then why did
you specifically mention on the arrest report that Beaumont held the gun ‘in
his left hand, with his arm hanging down his side, slightly behind him’?”  This
time Beckett read from the police report.

Russell didn’t
answer.

“Sergeant, I
have here the police report.  You signed this, correct?”  Beckett handed a copy
of the report to Russell.

“Yeah.”

“Did you or did
you not state in your official report that Beaumont held the gun in his left
hand, behind him?” Beckett asked harshly.

“I was
mistaken.”

“You were
mistaken?!” Beckett mocked him.

“Yeah, it
happens.”

“A moment ago,
you blamed the passage of time for your supposed mistake from when you
testified earlier.  But now it turns out you made the same mistake on the
initial arrest report?  When did you write this report?”  Beckett held up the
report for the jury to see.

“The day of the
arrest.”

“
The same day
,
yet you completely mis-described how he was standing when you first saw him?!”

“Like I said, it
happens,” Russell said cynically.  “I’m not perfect.”

“Did Officer
Webb also sign this report?”

“Yeah.”

“In fact, he
made his own statement, right?”

Russell mumbled
an agreement.

“Why don’t you
read his statement to the jury?  Start with ‘suspect was standing.’”

Russell scanned
the report before reading it aloud.  “‘Suspect was standing with a firearm in
his left hand, with his hand down behind his rear, with the barrel pointed away
from his body behind him.’”

“Somehow Webb
made the same mistake you did, didn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“Neither of you
was able to recall accurately what happened when you wrote your
separate
statements
on the same day you arrested him?”

Russell didn’t
answer.

“Do you know
that you and Officer Webb both misspelled the same words in your statements?”

Russell looked
away from the jury and didn’t speak.

“Did Officer
Webb write this report or did you, sir?”

“He wrote it.”

“Is Officer Webb
going to agree with that?”

“Objection, he
can’t testify to what Officer Webb will say,” Pierce interjected.

“It’s funny, Your
Honor,” Beckett said, turning his back on Pierce and speaking directly to the
jury, “I wouldn’t have thought there would be an issue. . . maybe Officer
Webb’s testimony will be more revealing than we expected.”

Several members
of the jury smirked at this.

“Counsel,
approach the bench,” ordered a very-annoyed Judge Sutherlin.  “I warned both of
you that I will not tolerate talking objections.  There will be no
grandstanding in my courtroom,” he growled.

Both attorneys
acknowledged their reprimands and returned to their places.

“Sergeant, it
seems the gun couldn’t have been in either his left hand or his right hand?”

Russell remained
silent, but the jury took his silence as an admission.  Normally, Beckett would
have forced answers to preserve the testimony for appeal, but since an appeal
was out of the question, he instead went for the dramatic attack which would
stick in the jurors’ minds.

“And you
certainly couldn’t have seen it hanging down behind him as you describe in the
police report, could you?”

Russell still
didn’t answer.

“Do you agree
with me that you couldn’t have seen the gun, Sergeant?”

Russell again didn’t
answer.

“I can wait all
day, Officer.”

By this time,
several members of the jury were visibly hostile toward Sgt. Russell, frowning
at him and shaking their heads.  The longer he took to answer the questions,
the more their stares became glares and the greater the angry curl in their
lips.

“Yeah, I guess
so,” Russell finally agreed.

“So you lied on
the report?” Beckett pressed him.

“Objection,”
Pierce barked.

“I withdraw the
question, Your Honor,” Beckett said, cutting off any need for a ruling from
Sutherlin on the objection.  “Let me rephrase that, Sergeant.  Your report is
wrong when it says you saw Mr. Beaumont holding a gun, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were
wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his left hand?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were
wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his right hand?”

“Yeah.”

“So this
statement in the report, ‘forced entry when saw suspect hold firearm’ was
incorrect?”

“Yeah.”

Beckett didn’t
let up.  “You actually had no reason to force entry, did you?”  This would mean
they had no right to search Beaumont’s apartment and the documents would be
legally inadmissible.

Russell didn’t
answer.

“Answer the
question, Officer?”

Russell remained
silent.

“You lied when
you said you forced entry because you saw a gun, didn’t you?”

“It was a
mistake, that’s all, no lie.”

“Let’s cut to
the chase, Sergeant.  Beaumont never opened the door, did he?!”

“Yes, he did,”
Russell responded immediately.

“You forced entry
on a closed door, didn’t you?” Beckett continued in rapid fire succession.

“No, sir.”

“Beaumont never
had a gun, did he?”

“Yes, he did.”

Beckett paused
for effect.  “One last question, Sergeant:  will Officer Webb back up your
version, whatever that may be?”

“Objection,”
Pierce yelled.

“Withdrawn,”
Beckett said, turning his back on Russell and returning to his seat.

Several members
of the jury shook their heads.  Most glared at either Russell or Pierce. 
Pierce stormed over to the podium.

“Sergeant, you
saw the gun, correct?”

“Yes, sir,”
Russell said, staring hatefully at Beckett.

“You removed the
gun from Mr. Beaumont personally, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nothing
further,” Pierce growled as he returned to his seat.