A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

“How about him?” he asked, handing her a second photo.

“Yes, he’s the one,” Mary said immediately.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Look again,” Joe insisted.  “I need you to be sure.”

“I’m sure,” the nurse said.  “The times when I was on duty and she came in, that’s the man who brought her.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.  “Thank you very much.  And this time, you have my word, I won’t be coming back.”

“Have I really helped Jason?” she asked.

He smiled.  “More than you know,” he said.

. . .

“Defense recalls Ben Dawson to the stand.”

Like just about everyone else in the police department, the senior crime scene investigator had been following the progress of the trial, and was therefore not surprised when he was notified that he would be required to give further testimony.

“Officer Dawson,” Lily began, “when did you first hear about the death of Detective Scott?”

“I heard about it on the morning after it happened,” Dawson replied.

“The morning of February 10th?”

“Yes.”

“Can you recall what time it was?”

“I believe it was around six-fifteen.”

“And where were you when you heard about it?”

“I was at home.”

“And how did you hear about it?”

“I had a call from Detective Hitchens.  He told me that someone had been killed, and requested that my partner and I get over to the alley as soon as possible.”

“Defense 29, Your Honor,” Lily said.  She took a sheet of paper up to the clerk to be entered as evidence, waited while the judge perused it and accepted it.  Then she showed it to John Henry, and finally handed it to the witness.  “Will you tell the jury what it is that you’re holding?” she requested.

Dawson looked at the sheet.  “It’s a copy of the police call log for February 10th.”

“Will you read for the jury what the highlighted line says?”

The crime scene investigator looked at the paper, and then looked up at Lily.  “It says the 911 call from the garbage truck guy who found Dale’s body came in at six-fifteen.”

“Defense 30,” Lily said, going through the same routine with another sheet of paper.  “Officer Dawson, will you tell the jury what you are now holding?”

Dawson glanced at it.  “It’s a copy of my cell phone record for February 10th.”

“And will you read the highlighted part?”

“It says the call made to me by Detective Hitchens came in at six-sixteen.”

“It shows that Detective Hitchens called you exactly one minute after the 911 call was made by Martin Grigsby, is that correct?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Will you tell the jury again what time it was that you and your partner arrived at the scene?” the defense attorney pressed.

“We got there a little before seven o’clock.”

“And who was there when you arrived?”

“Officer Stiversen and Officer Cady were there, with the defendant, and Detective Hitchens pulled in just a few minutes behind us.”

“And who was in charge?”

“Detective Hitchens was.  The chief had put him in charge.”

“And did Detective Hitchens tell you and your partner what he wanted you to look at?”

“No.  He just told us to do a thorough job with the scene.”

“Did the scene he told you to do a thorough job with include the box in the alley that Jason Lightfoot lived in?”

“As I remember,” Dawson said, “he told us not to worry about the box, because it wasn’t part of the actual crime scene, and just to do the GSR test on the Indian’s hands and his clothes, and take his DNA.”

“Thank you,” Lily said.  “I have no further questions.”

. . .

John Henry and Tom Lickliter looked at each other.  Neither had the faintest idea what this was about.  They knew Lily was going somewhere, they just didn’t know where, and they realized there was no point in cross-examining the witness on an issue they didn’t yet understand.

“We have no questions at this time,” John Henry told the judge.

. . .

“Defense recalls Martin Grigsby to the stand,” Lily said.

The garbage man strode down the aisle, looking far more comfortable this second time than he had the first.

“I’m sorry to have to drag you all the way back in here, Mr. Grigsby,” Lily said.  “But I find I do have a question for you, after all.”

“That’s okay, Ma’am,” Grigsby said.  “It’s real hot out there, so I don’t mind takin’ a break.”

Members of the jury smiled.  So did Lily.  “In that case,” she said, getting right to the point, “when you placed the 911 call on February 10th, after finding the body in the alley, did you tell the operator anything about how that person had died?”

“No, Ma’am,” Grigsby replied, looking startled.  “I couldn’t have.  I could see there was blood, but I’m no doctor -- I didn’t have any idea how he died.  I just told 911 there was a dead guy.”

Lily beamed at him.  “Thank you,” she said.

. . .

This time, John Henry had a pretty good idea where the defense was trying to go, but he was at a loss to understand why.

“No questions, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said casually, but he was beginning to worry.

. . .

“How did I know you’d be back,” Arnie Stiversen said with a sigh, as he saw Joe Gideon coming around to the deck at the back of his house on Saturday morning.

“She’s got almost all of it now,” Joe told him.  “She’s running me all over the place, tying up loose ends.”

“Am I a loose end?”

Joe shrugged.  “I don’t know -- you tell me,” he said.  “I think you’ve been wanting to tell me for quite a while now, haven’t you?”

The police officer stared at the private investigator for a full minute before he replied.

“Yeah,” he said finally.   “I guess I have.  And it looks like I’m going to get the chance, doesn’t it?”  The subpoena had already come.  “It’s not that I was trying to hide anything,” he wanted his former mentor to understand.  “I really thought the Indian did it.”

“I know you did,” Joe assured him.  “To be honest, we all did.”

“He was there, he was drunk, he had motive, and